Dear Colleagues:

     We have made productive steps towards the goal of revitalizing The Village, a commercial district located immediately adjacent to Ball State University’s beautiful campus. At its June 16 meeting, the University’s Board of Trustees authorized me to execute a development agreement between Ball State and Fairmount Properties to execute our revitalization plan.

     The plan calls for creation of a best-in-class, multigenerational district driven by arts and culture, entertainment, and innovation, with a select service hotel and new options in dining, retail, living, and gathering. Ball State is proud to be a catalyst of such significant changes that will benefit the entire community.

     The development agreement outlines the material terms of the partnership between Ball State and Fairmount. These terms include an approximate $80 million investment by Fairmount and our other partners—which include a hotel operator and a for-sale housing developer for the Village project—leveraging our University’s commitment to finance the design, construction, and operation of a new Performing Arts Center. We believe that the Performing Arts Center will be a catalytic anchor for this transformational project.

     Below are a few other stories I hope you enjoy and then share. Let your friends and colleagues know how “We Fly” at Ball State.

Sincerely,

Geoffrey S. Mearns
President
Ball State University

Ball State University film production students will get a rare opportunity to learn from Indianapolis-based Heartland Film—well-known for hosting the Heartland International Film Festival—thanks to a creative partnership between Heartland and the University’s new Radiance Cinema.

Radiance Cinema, a year-long Ball State Immersive Learning project formed jointly by the University’s College of Communication, Information, and Media (CCIM) and the College of Fine Arts (CFA), gives students the chance to participate in a film festival. In Summer 2024, Ball State students will showcase the films they’ve created during the Indy Shorts Festival—hosted by Heartland Film. Additionally, Heartland Film staff will visit campus to teach about film festivals.

Read more in this Ball State press release.

Dwight Smith—co-president and executive producer at Mission Control Media—is the guest on the June 2023 episode of the monthly podcast Our Call to Beneficence, hosted by Ball State University President Geoffrey S. Mearns.

Mr. Smith, ’87, graduated from the College of Communication, Information, and Media with a degree in Telecommunications. He formed Mission Control Media—a Los Angeles-based production company—in 2008 with producing partner Michael Agbabian. Mr. Smith is an award-winning television producer whose success includes being co-creator and executive producer of multiple television projects such as “Face Off,” which ran on the Syfy channel; and the multiple award-winning NBC show “Hollywood Game Night” featuring Jane Lynch. Other projects produced and/or written by Mr. Smith include “Project Runway,” “Last Comic Standing,” “The Soup,” “Weakest Link,” and daytime soap operas, “General Hospital” and “Days of Our Lives.”

All episodes of the Our Call to Beneficence podcast are available on multiple platforms, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts. Subscriptions and reviews are also encouraged to help grow the audience for this podcast.

One Ball State Day (OBSD), Ball State University’s 24-hour online fundraising event, was recently recognized again for fostering unity and engagement across the Ball State community through collaboration and dedication to a common cause.

OBSD, held annually by the Ball State University Foundation, earned the University three Council for Advancement and Support for Excellence (CASE) 2023 Circle of Excellence Awards—each at the gold level. Circle of Excellence awards acknowledge superior achievement in advancement services, alumni relations, communications, fundraising, and marketing.

Out of more than 4,000 global entries across 100 award categories this year, OBSD was recognized as follows:

CASE is a global, not-for-profit membership association with a vision to advance education to transform lives and society. Read what the CASE judges said about OBSD and Ball State on CASE’s award recipients webpage.

OBSD 2023 raised $1.2 million. Visit OBSD’s webpage to learn more about this year’s successful fundraising effort.

Ball State University hosted 15 Uzbek college students, ages 18-24, and one Uzbek faculty member, June 15-July 6 as part of a new exchange program this Summer.

For those 21 days, the visiting college students and faculty member learned and worked alongside Ball State students and faculty in interdisciplinary, cross-cultural student teams. The teams explored careers in government, education, community organization and development, and socially responsible business. Then, they applied classroom knowledge to develop and execute collaborative projects that are impactful.

The exchange program—U.S./Uzbekistan Network and International Exchange for Development (UNITED)—also involved Ball State faculty traveling to Uzbekistan last Fall to deliver seminars about the project and building relationships between the U.S. and Uzbekistan.

UNITED was developed by Ball State’s Teachers College faculty Dr. David Roof, associate professor of Educational Studies; and Dr. Rachel Geesa, associate clinical professor of Educational Leadership. This program was supported by campus and community members involved in the project—including Dr. Susan Luo, International Program Coordinator at Rinker Center for Global Affairs and associate ESL teaching professor at the Intensive English Institute; and Kate Elliott, a lecturer of Journalism at Ball State.

UNITED was funded through a grant from the U.S. Department of State. Read more about the exchange program in this Ball State press release.

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