A Spring 2022 Semester Wrap-Up from the Provost

The 2021-2022 academic year is almost “in the can,” to use an old-fashioned term for a class that is almost ready to be archived. What an eventful year it was! Spring 2022 began with the COVID-19 Omicron surge that pressed our response teams, faculty, staff, and students for several weeks, then subsided just as rapidly as it appeared. Kudos to our faculty, staff, and students who helped USU weather that storm. The spring semester then ended with our first in-person commencements throughout the Statewide Campus System and the Logan Campus in three years. This spring, we conferred a total of 7,047 degrees to 6,588 students. Of those students, 1,136 were graduate degrees and 5,837 were for undergraduate degrees. Congratulations to all for turning the corner and making such success from a rough beginning!

This year, USU was also granted a huge success during the legislative session. The legislature funded the establishment of a four-year College of Veterinary Medicine, expanding from our 2+2 veterinary school program with Washington State University to a full college. When fully operational, this program will graduate 80 new Doctors of Veterinary Medicine each year. Utah State University was also funded to support a new Alzheimer’s and Dementia Research Center, as well as to expand a number of our engineering programs. The state also established support to help us raise funds to build a new educational center in Monument Valley as part of our operations on the Blanding campus.

Among the many other accomplishments for the year:

• USU was designated as a Carnegie R1 University (very high research activity), reflecting the many activities of our faculty, graduate students, and colleagues at the Space Dynamics Laboratory.
• We celebrated the opening of a new campus facility in Moab, Utah on April 1 with a ribbon-cutting.
• Linda Nagel agreed to become the next dean of the S.J. and Jesse E. Quinney College of Natural Resources. Dean Nagel will begin her leadership and service on August 1, 2022.
• A Faculty Awards Ceremony was held this spring as the Provost and Research Offices recognized faculty members for their outstanding careers and work.

Finally, the Provost’s Office initiated publication of the Provost News, a newsletter intended to share information that may be of interest to faculty, graduate students, administration, and other stakeholders of our academic mission. Development of this communication is a big part of my set of goals for this office as we work to improve communication with those interested in USU’s incredible academic mission. Please click the link to check out the many, varied activities from all of us in the office as we work to support all of you.  

This edition of the newsletter will be the last for the spring 2022 semester. We hope it has been useful and appreciate any feedback you may have. As many of you know, my wife Donna and I have decided to retire from USU for many personal reasons. As I indicated in a letter to you announcing my retirement, it has been a privilege to work with all of you as well as President Cockett and her executive team in helping lead USU over the past four years. I have been both awed and humbled by all of you in the USU faculty and graduate student community as you have overcome many obstacles to further this amazing land-grant university’s mission to teach and learn; research, discover, and create; and extend and reach out across the entire state. Best wishes to all of you!