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POCATELLO — At his annual address Wednesday, Idaho State University President Robert Wagner applauded the Idaho State community for its successes, and expressed confidence in the future.
“As a public institution, we are facing unrelenting scrutiny that is calling into question some of the very core ideals of higher education and even doubting our relevance - yet, despite the difficulties, we remain rooted in our institutional values of integrity, community, inclusivity, teamwork, shared responsibility, and learning,” Wagner told employees and students at his address Wednesday afternoon on Davis Field.
During his first year, Wagner focused on learning the needs of the ISU community through listening tours, dialogue and feedback. Five areas of emphasis emerged, Wagner said — enrollment growth and student success, academics and research, advancing and enhancing physical infrastructure, external relationships and partnerships, and employee engagement, empowerment and connection.
In the area of enrollment growth and student success, Wagner thanked faculty and staff for engaging together in recruitment and retention efforts. Preliminary numbers show the highest first-time undergraduate enrollment since Fall 2011, and the highest retention rate in history. Wagner told the story of a faculty member who recently saw a student struggling and reached out personally to invite him to take a class he knew the student would be excited about.
“This seemingly small act of engagement gave the student the confidence to stay enrolled, register in the class, and persevere with their education,” Wagner said.
Wagner also congratulated faculty for their focus on research, and said the University’s research award dollars have increased by $11 million.
“The total number of awards remains fairly constant, but the award size continues to increase which demonstrates a continued commitment to more complex awards focusing on partnership and collaboration across ISU and with university and industry researchers across the world,” Wagner said. “This, in a time of uncertainty at the federal level, is an amazing accomplishment.”
In the area of physical infrastructure, Wagner invited the crowd to attend the ribbon-cutting for the Leonard Hall renovation Friday, a celebration several years in the making, and announced that the University will break ground on a new Life Science building in 2026.
Idaho State University has also made great strides in expanding and cultivating community and agency partnerships, Wagner said. This year alone, Idaho State signed more than eight Memorandums of Understanding with other institutions and agencies.
“ISU is ready to take a leadership role in Idaho’s system of public higher education institutions - we will be a positive, cooperative, and engaged force for good,” Wagner said. “We will be leaders in partnerships and collaborations and set the example for how things should get done in Idaho - while at the same time we will not give up our unique statewide mandates. We will continue to remind our state leaders they have invested in ISU for decades and their continued investment, like with our health sciences mandate, is the most efficient and effective way to meet the state’s critical needs.”
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