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Dear Raider Family,
As Board Chair Clough and I shared with you in a message earlier this week, our future is now up to us – the campus community – we must now chart the path forward. Tonight, from 5- 7PM, our Board of Trustees will consider a resolution which now tasks us with creating the financial sustainability plan and corresponding implementation plan that will preserve our institution not only for the coming year, but for the FY 27-29 biennium and beyond. The Board will not be making a thumbs up-or-down decision on adoption of the recommendations from Deloitte. And there is no pre-determined transformation plan. Instead, they will ask us to consider Deloitte’s recommendations in the development of our own plan. For details about tonight’s board meeting, you can access the materials and meeting details here.
Once the board members make their determination tonight, the real effort begins. We must think boldly about not only what makes fiscal sense – our future most certainly depends on that – but what will attract people to us in the future. We must embrace the reality of the future landscape of higher education, particularly here in Oregon, but also be willing to build toward something that makes us a vital resource for the Rogue Valley, the region and the state.
We will likely be given the task to create our transformation plan by mid-June of this year. That means, in the next five weeks, we will have to come together and create space for students, faculty and staff. What we heard in Tuesday’s Board listening session is that we have to do more than simply listen to each other; we’ll need to come together to roll up our sleeves and give everyone the agency to create new ideas and new ways of approaching how we serve Our approach, unfortunately, cannot be just a defense of one particular thing; it has to be a broad institutional approach to solving our structural challenge. Likely, that plan will be due to the Board by their meeting on Thursday, June 18, at which time they will also be considering the Fiscal Year 2027 budget.
We have to come out of this transformation not just fiscally balanced, but better. We need to build a focused, regionally responsive, vibrant and resilient university that is centered on key cornerstones of academic excellence, but not simply a smaller version of who we are ow. While we adapt to meet the dynamic needs of a new economy, we also need to remain anchored in foundational elements that have defined SOU for over 150 years: deep mentorship, transformational relationships and a culture of universal belonging. We have to stay committed to providing unparalleled student service and an educational experience that is inseparable from the magnificent landscapes we call home. This means that all of our activities need to be truly place-based: mindful of the unique nature of the spectacular area in which we have the opportunity to serve. Through this transformation, SOU will emerge as a trailblazer – an innovative university of choice that provides an invaluable service to our region and the state of
Oregon.
As we said earlier this week, we owe it to our current students, faculty and staff, but also to the tens of thousands of outstanding humans who have come before us. We owe it to our community and our state. And we owe it to the countless generations of students, faculty, staff and community members who will come after us. We CAN do this, everyone. Thanks for all you do, and I wish you all a wonderful weekend.
With love and respect,
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Rick Bailey
President, Southern Oregon University
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