Dear Central Family,
Welcome to a new academic year! We have new faculty and students joining us; upgraded facilities, special events, and much more to anticipate and enjoy.
When classes begin on Tuesday, the combined student body of undergraduates and graduates will number 11,321. This is a slight increase (.3%) over last year at this time. The number won’t be final for several weeks and, during that time, it is possible to enroll additional students. I ask you to look for every opportunity to encourage admitted students who have not yet enrolled in classes to join us.
We also are aware that there are students in need of additional credits to reach full-time status. Please do what you can to help our students fulfill their needs, whether it’s offering a new section of a course, increasing class capacity, or suggesting another class that would fulfill the needed credit requirement.
I am happy to report that we will have more students living on campus this year. As the count stands now, we have 54 additional resident students (2.4 percent increase) bringing that total to 2338.
To add to this positive news, CCSU recently was ranked by Money magazine as the top best value among the four CSCU state universities. The rankings analyzed more than 10 factors including: tuition, family borrowing, support of low-income students, and alumni earnings. If you’d like to learn more about these rankings, I point you to this article.
So many of you have spent a great deal of time and energy assisting our recruitment efforts during the past year. I truly appreciate your efforts. I especially want to thank Larry Hall and the Admissions staff, Glynis Fitzgerald and the School of Graduate Studies staff, Peter Troiano and the Division of Student Affairs staff, and Chris Galligan and the Office of Marketing & Communications for their hard work.
If you haven’t had a chance to notice, there have been quite a number of changes on campus this summer. The Willard – DiLoreto project is nearing completion, the Huang Recreation Center has made great progress, new facilities for the Doctor of Nurse Anesthesia program and the Athletic Training program were constructed this summer, WiFi connectivity has been boosted, and a myriad of improvements have been made to residence halls, Memorial Hall, and campus landscaping. I thank Sal Cintorino and his Facilities staff for their efforts in making this campus a functional and enjoyable place for us all.
One final note, please keep in mind we all should be preparing for the NEASC reaccreditation site visit. The review team will be here September 23 to 25. Please make an extra effort to be aware of the University’s mission and our interim strategic plan and, I encourage you to read the NEASC self-study document available on our NEASC website.
I look forward to our Opening Meeting on Thursday, September 13 where I will address many of these topics and more. If I don’t see you before then, have a great start to the semester!
Sincerely,
Zulma R. Toro
President