The Southern Arkansas University System Board of Trustees met in a regularly scheduled session on Thursday, September 5, on the SAU-Magnolia campus.
Board chair, Laura Winning, opened the meeting with greetings and the approval of the minutes from the last meeting.
Excitement over the start of the academic year, significant campus improvements to numerous areas, and impressive highlights from each college were shared by Dr. Bruno Hicks, Southern Arkansas University president, in his update to the trustees.
Hicks shared that SAU received its largest donation ever with a $3.9 million gift from an anonymous donor. This unprecedented contribution will lead to recently announced improvements in the SAU baseball and softball complexes. Additional improvements will be announced at a later date and will span over the next three years. Hicks noted, “This is an extremely impressive gift which allows us to provide much improved facilities for athletic experiences at SAU.”
As the fall census date also coincided with the Board meeting, Hicks gave an enrollment update. SAU has shown a consistently stable and robust enrollment over the past several years and this year is no different. Fall enrollment reflects that SAU has attracted students from 29 states and 27 countries. Enrollment shows student representation from all 75 counties in Arkansas. Continued strong partnerships with area high schools has resulted in a 4% increase in concurrent enrollment. As expected, due to national trends, SAU saw reduced enrollment in international graduate students and a slight drop in overall undergraduate. In the returning student categories, sophomores and juniors saw increased overall numbers. The senior class was slightly down due to a record-breaking number of graduates during the last academic year. With the national data predictions of an overall enrollment cliff, SAU planned carefully for this anticipated shift with a conservative and balanced budget for the 24-25 academic year.
Hicks highlighted outstanding accomplishments and activities of students and faculty from all four of the academic colleges and the School of Graduate Studies. These exceptional accomplishments not only reflect the high caliber of SAU’s educational experiences and student body but also underscore the University’s dedication to fostering a supportive and dynamic learning environment. SAU is dedicated to providing students with experiential learning opportunities that equip them for successful careers.
Dr. Jerry Thomas, SAU Tech chancellor, updated the Board on recent happenings at SAU Tech. He emphasized the unity between the SAU and SAU Tech campuses. Planning for additional strategies to further unify the campuses is underway. Thomas provided updates on the ongoing implementation of Jenzabar One, the new student information system that replaced their existing SIS system. From student services, Thomas introduced a new initiative, Upswing. This program will provide access to virtual one-on-one teletherapy to assist students with stress, anxiety, and other personal needs that impact their daily lives and can often interrupt learning.
As SAU is dedicated to engaging students in hands-on experiences that will help them emerge into their career fields, the Board and guests were eager to hear a presentation from Kenley Spruill and Breanna Warrick on a recent student project. These two outstanding students from the Rankin College of Business took on the development of a business proposal whose aim is to create an app that will assist the college student population with tackling the problem of financial illiteracy. Spruill and Warrick shared their in-depth business plan and experiences throughout the phases of this project. This project afforded them the opportunity to present their plan through multiple events such as the SAU Entrepreneurship Pitch Idea Competition (EPIC), the Arkansas State FBLA-Collegiate competition, the Arkansas Governor’s Cup Collegiate Business Plan competition, and the National FBLA-Collegiate competition. They won several awards for the project, the most impressive was being named as the national winners in the Entrepreneurship Pitch Competition at the National FBLA-Collegiate Leadership Conference in Orlando, FL.
In other business, Dr. Brian Logan, assistant professor of economics, and Dr. Valerie Wilson, SAU’s vice chancellor for Academics and Planning, shared the 2023-24 Minority Recruitment and Retention reports for both institutions. After a brief executive session, the Board approved personnel changes.
The meeting was then adjourned.
