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Dear Faculty and Staff,

Welcome back to campus for the 2016-2017 academic year! As you know, we continue to celebrate our 130th anniversary. I hope you enjoyed a summer filled with fun, family, and relaxation. It was a pleasure meeting and speaking with many of you this past Monday at the Fall Faculty and Staff Institute. I am truly honored to serve as Interim President of Kentucky State University.

Over the last three months as your Interim President and in my prior position as the Executive Vice President of the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education, I had and continue to have a close-up and personal view of the KSU community. I am excited about this academic year as it will be a year of launching new foundations, new directions, and new possibilities. All of these are designed around and upon 130 years of a solid history, a solid mission, and a solid foundation. You are a crucial part of this history and our future. Please join me in this wonderful year of celebration by building new friendships, strengthening our community of scholars, and assisting each other and our students toward a lifelong path to success.

Those of you who are returning to campus may have noticed a few changes as well as many new faces, none more important than our new and returning students. Be sure to extend a friendly smile and helping hand to our freshmen, returning, and transfer students.

I want to thank our governing body, the Kentucky State University Board of Regents. It is through the tireless efforts of this volunteer board that we receive the strategic direction which charts us on a path to success. It is through their leadership and all of our hard work that Kentucky State University is on a path to become a premier institute of higher learning in the country. The summer saw changes to the membership of the Board of Regents. In the coming weeks, we will share more information about our Regents and introduce you to new faces on the Board.

Let me now introduce the members of the President’s Cabinet. This is the leadership team who will work with me to assist you in creating an outstanding learning community for our students.

 

Ms. Wendy Dixie Chief Information Officer	Mr. Gordon Rowe General Counsel
Ms. Francene Gilmer Interim Vice President for Student Affairs	Mr. Gregory Rush Vice President for Business Affairs
Dr. Candice Jackson     Interim Provost/Vice President for Academic Affairs	Mr. Rick Smith, Sr. Interim Vice President for External Relations and Development
Mr. Ingram Quick Internal Auditor

We have many exciting things happening on campus. As most of you are aware, Kentucky State University is currently implementing Oracle Cloud ERP to serve as our finance and HR systems and PeopleSoft Campus Solutions 9.2 to serve as our student information system. I am thrilled to report the implementation is on track and going smoothly.

We will launch the ERP and Campus systems in the spring of 2017. While most schools across the Commonwealth and around the country are raising the cost of tuition, Kentucky State University was able to balance our budget with only a slight tuition increase, 0.57% in-state and 3.7% out-of-state. To offset the slight tuition increase, we made college more affordable for our students by offering free e-textbooks to all undergraduate and graduate students. We were able to do this as a result of a partnership entered into with Pearson, a global learning company.

It is an amazing time to be a Thorobred, and I am thrilled to be here with you. I hope you feel comfortable approaching me or any member of the Cabinet with questions, thoughts, or concerns. You are invited to “Tuesdays with Thompson” in my office in Hume Hall or contact my office for an appointment.

Once again, welcome back to campus. I’m excited to see what we will accomplish together this year.

In all things excellence,