Dear Colleagues,

The most common thing I hear from faculty and staff in mid- to late-August is that this is their favorite time of the year. I couldn’t agree more! This year, in particular, there is much to celebrate as we start the new academic year.  

Let’s start with enrollment. Bucking national demographic trends, we are delighted to welcome far more new students to campus this year than last year. More than 3,000 new first-time full-time students are attending ODU, which is a 16% increase over last year. We also have increases in new transfer and graduate students – both on-campus and online. This growth can be directly attributed to the tenets of Forward-Focused Digital Transformation (FFDT). Please join me in thanking President Hemphill for his vision in shaping FFDT and providing the direction and resources needed to spur this enrollment growth and begin the digital transformation of Old Dominion University. I also want to extend my appreciation to Executive Vice President Nina Rodriguez Gonser for her leadership and her team’s significant contributions to the institution. Dean Marisol Perez, graduate program directors, and many others also warrant our appreciation for the increase we are seeing in graduate enrollments. And let’s thank Executive Vice President and Chief of Staff Ashley Schumaker and her team, who worked tirelessly to ensure the readiness of our facilities and University operations for the more than 24,000 students attending ODU this fall. 

In addition to having more students attending ODU, we will also see increases in the number of faculty on campus. In fact, this fall we are welcoming 145 new faculty to our community. This is the highest number of new faculty we have ever had at ODU! I’d like to thank Chief of Staff and Associate Vice President Luanne Bowman, , deans, department chairs, and search committees for all they did to recruit this new group of colleagues. Details about our new faculty are available here.

I am excited to share that we now have one faculty handbook, thanks to the work of many faculty, Austin Agho (former Special Advisor to the President), his integration management team, and countless others.  I encourage our teaching and research faculty to review the new handbook when they have a chance. The following changes warrant special attention.

  • We changed the titles of teaching-track faculty ranks to more accurately capture and honor the work they do. Rather than categorizing teaching-track faculty members according to their status as non-tenure track faculty members, it made more sense to use titles that clearly acknowledge the important work they do with titles such as “teaching assistant professor,” “teaching associate professor,” and “teaching professor.” 
  • The revised Academic Rank and Criteria for Ranks policy includes three adjunct faculty ranks rather than five. Starting with the January 2027 cycle, the Adjunct Instructor and Adjunct Assistant Instructor ranks will no longer be used. Incidentally, the recent 3.5% state raise was applied to adjunct pay rates for all ranks and is reflected here. Thanks to an adjustment in the system by Academic Affairs Administration, adjunct faculty who were entered in the system as adjunct instructor or adjunct assistant instructor will be paid at the Adjunct Assistant Professor rate. 
  • We developed a policy for creating University-wide research centers and institutes to align internal processes with our status as an R-1 institution. Vice President for Research and Economic Development Ken Fridley was instrumental in creating this new policy. 

Speaking of research, VPR Fridley recently unveiled ODU’s newest research brochure. Besides highlighting the groundbreaking research our faculty are conducting, the promotional materials emphasize our core areas of research strength (viz., national security, maritime systems, health innovation, and coastal resilience) and our areas of research that cut across those core areas (viz., artificial intelligence, modeling and simulation, computational and data science, cybersecurity and networking security, and autonomous and networked systems). It is important to acknowledge that research in these core areas involves interdisciplinary collaboration across an even broader array of disciplines that I have identified here. These core areas, however, coalesce around institutional strengths, align with regional opportunities, and help to distinguish our institution from others, which is critical given the competitive nature of research funding. In this vein, you’ll definitely be hearing more about our recently created ODU National Security Institute (ODU – NSI).

Shifting gears, I want to address the hiring freeze that has been implemented at ODU.  Some have asked why this step would be taken in the midst of enrollment growth. A few points provide context around this decision.  First, while enrollment at ODU is up, and we are celebrating that increase, it is not up across all programs.  Select programs such as counseling, nursing, health sciences, cybersecurity, data science, and library studies have demonstrated significant growth over the past few semesters while other programs have not. Programs that are growing will receive the resources they need to support their growth.

Second, as was noted in the email announcing the freeze, positions related to accreditation, safety, student success, and other areas will not be impacted. It is important to note, for instance, that neither the clinical care positions in Virginia Health Sciences nor the vacancies in Research and Economic Development were frozen.  In addition, teaching and research vacancies for senior level positions that are intended to drive scholarship were not impacted by the hiring freeze. Since 2024, we have filled 27 of the approved 35 centennial cluster positions. These positions allow departments across colleges to hire researchers who will work together in core research areas enumerated above. We will continue our efforts to fill vacant cluster positions as we grow our ever important research portfolio.

Third, when visiting the colleges last week, President Hemphill pointed to the external “headwinds” that warrant caution in institutional budget allocations.  Demographic trends, policy changes impacting higher education, and an anticipated economic downturn have the potential to create shortages equivalent to the 2008 recession.  Few saw, let alone prepared for, the coming of the Great Recession and the consequences were devastating.  Per student appropriations dropped more than 25% in Virginia between 2008 and 2013, many lost their jobs, countless employees across the country were furloughed, and pensions were  strained. Imagine if we could have seen the recession coming in 2007.  Would we have budgeted differently?  I hope so! Seeing what’s on the horizon requires prudent planning and budgeting across our institution.

We are fortunate that ODU now has a front row seat in higher education and finance discussions in the Commonwealth. In addition to being elected chair of the Virginia Council of Presidents, Governor Abigail D. Spanberger appointed President Hemphill to the Governor’s Council on Revenue Estimates (GACRE), a council established in Virginia code and charged with “review[ing] estimates with respect to economic assumptions and the general climate of the Commonwealth.”  Appointed to GACRE in his role as a citizen, President Hemphill is the first university president in the history of the Commonwealth to serve on the committee. I can say with confidence that ODU’s future will be grounded in a robust and accurate understanding of Virginia’s budget landscape and higher education’s realities.

Old Dominion University is stronger than it has ever been. We have the largest increase in new students in our history, the largest incoming class of honors students since Perry Honors College was created, the highest amount of research expenditures we have ever had, the largest number of new faculty ever, and a tenacious commitment to success. 

Most importantly, we have the best employees of any higher education institution.

Please know I am grateful for all you do and I wish each of you a great semester!