The newsletter for the WKU community |
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President's Message: Retention Success |
Dear Colleagues,
I recently received our preliminary fall-to-spring retention data, and we have much to celebrate as an institution. Overall, 90.9% of our fall first-year class returned this semester - a full two percentage point increase since last year and a 4.6 percentage point increase since the fall 2017/spring 2018 academic year. Better yet, this represents the highest fall-to-spring retention of our students since the university began tracking this data over a decade ago, a substantial gain pointing to the effectiveness of our student success initiatives.
We experienced improvements across the board, including among those first-year students traditionally underserved by higher education. Our low-income students returned to campus this spring at a rate of 88.6%, compared to 86% last year and 82.2% in 2017/2018. Among our first-generation students, 87.1% returned this spring, compared to 85.5% last year and 80.9% in 2017/2018. Perhaps most impressively, our underrepresented minority (URM) students returned at a rate of 90.3% this spring, compared to 85.7% last year and 80.4% in 2017/2018. In just four short years, we moved the needle nearly 10 percentage points for one of our most vulnerable student populations. We have dedicated significant resources to closing the achievement gap among our students, and these numbers confirm that we are increasingly providing students with the resources they need for success. Helping students, who for so long have been underserved by higher education, perform as well as their peers is something of which we should all be proud. (More: Read the WKU News release on the significant gains in retention)
Finally, this year we opened our First Year Village, which serves as the home for many of our Living Learning Communities (LLCs). While not new to WKU, our LLCs, offered in all five academic colleges and also as interest-based options, welcomed a considerable expansion last fall with almost 650 students, or approximately a quarter of our first-year class, participating.
The retention data for students who participated in LLCs during the fall semester is impressive, with 95.2% returning this spring - 5.9 percentage points higher than those students not involved in an LLC.
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Dr. Alex Poole has been selected as the Chair of the WKU Department of Modern Languages. Learn More
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WKU Forensics Team wins KFA State Tournament title |
The WKU Forensics Team won the 2022 Kentucky Forensics Association State Tournament hosted virtually by WKU February 12-13. |
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Gerald Printing awards scholarships to 2 students |
Xander Bowen and Madison Whittle, two Potter College of Arts and Letters students majoring in Graphic Design, were both chosen to receive a $1,000 scholarship from Gerald Printing. |
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Spotlight: Dr. Jean-Luc Houle |
Dr. Jean-Luc Houle, associate professor of anthropology in the WKU Department of Folk Studies and Anthropology, is partnering with scholars of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Germany to study the initial dispersals of domesticated livestock across Central and Inner Asia beginning about 5,000 years ago. |
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Coming Home King candidates |
Twenty-one WKU students are candidates for the 2022 Coming Home King. The king will be crowned Saturday night during WKU Basketball's game vs. Old Dominion. |
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Black-Owned Business Panel |
As part of Black History Month, the Gordon Ford College of Business Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee will host a Black-Owned Business Panel: Investing in Community from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday at Grise Hall 235. Panelists include Gemonee Brown, Chase Carpenter, Phillip Coleman Jr., and Chris Stafford.
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Gender Images Film Series |
The Gender Images Film Series will feature a screening of Never Rarely Sometimes Always at 5 p.m. Wednesday at Grise Hall 235. Dr. Kelsey Truxal and the students of PS 374 (Women & Politics) class will lead a discussion of the film. (More: Gender & Women's Studies Spring 2022 events)
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Black History Month Panel |
WKU’s Department of Social Work & the Association of Black Social Workers – SCKY will host a panel discussion with Rep. Attica Scott and Bowling Green City Commissioner Carlos Bailey from 11 a.m. to noon Thursday via Zoom. To register for the Zoom link, contact Monica Hines at monica.hines@wku.edu or Lynn Hazlett at lynn.hazlett@wku.edu. More: WKU Black History Month calendar
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Diversity in Graduate Education |
In celebration of Black History Month, the Graduate School will host a Diversity in Graduate Education Conference to be held virtually from 3:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday. The conference will highlight the Distinguished Minority Fellows (DMF) program. The DMF program is designed to help minority students attain graduate degrees by providing tuition as well as employment opportunities. (More: Virtual Info Fair at 1 p.m. Wednesday)
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Chinese New Year activities |
Students in Chinese language and calligraphy classes at WKU took active part in several fun activities to celebrate the Chinese New Year of Tiger. Some learned Chinese New Year songs “Gongxi Gongxi ni” or “Congratulations and Blessings for You,” some did paper cutting, while others made couplets. |
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Spring 2022 Kentucky Folklife digital magazine available |
The Kentucky Folklife Program, a part of the Department of Folk Studies and Anthropology at WKU, announced that the Spring 2022 issue of Kentucky Folklife, a multimedia digital publication dedicated to exploring expressive cultures throughout the Commonwealth, is now available.
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Check out this week’s installment of WKU Week in Photos by Clinton Lewis, Cristina Betz, and Mary Bidwell of WKU's Division of Communications and Marketing.
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Attention WKU students, the Spring 2022 tuition and fees payment deadline is today. Log in to your account on TopNet to remit payment. For questions, contact the Billings and Receivables Office at (270) 745-6381. |
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Exhibit Opening
The WKU School of Media will host a reception for the Women Photojournalists of Washington exhibition at 5 p.m. today in the Jody Richards Hall Gallery followed by a lecture by Stefani Reynolds at 6 p.m. in the JRH Auditorium. Learn More
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IdeaFestival Bowling Green
The ninth annual IdeaFestival Bowling Green will be held from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Wednesday in Van Meter Auditorium and Downing Student Union. Learn More
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Faculty Senate
The Faculty Senate's February meeting will begin at 3:45 p.m. Thursday via Zoom. Learn More
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Western Kentucky University
1906 College Heights Blvd.
Bowling Green, KY 42101
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