August 2014

Once again, our campuses are buzzing with excitement and activities with the return of our students!

This year, the University has admitted the most academically prepared class in BGSU’s history. More than 3,000 new freshmen joined us, with an average ACT score of 22.7 and a 3.32 grade point average. Our retention rate this year is one of the highest we’ve seen in quite some time, with more then 75 percent of last year’s freshman class returning to complete their education at BGSU.

Speaking of returning students, I hope you’ll take just a few minutes to read the “My Summer Experience” stories on our website. These first person accounts of internships, co-ops and summer jobs include Jessica Miles, who spent her summer as a construction management student working on renovations to a Detroit hospital, and film production major Gary Noecker, who spent his summer interning with World Wrestling Entertainment.

Homecoming is just around the corner, and when you come to campus I think you will be pleasantly surprised at all of the changes. Our campus improvement plan, New Places, New Spaces, is moving right along with the opening of our renovated Student Recreation Center and the start of renovations on South Hall, which will become the new home of the School of Media and Communication.

Although summer is over, it’s never too late to pick up a good book. Consider “Invisible Beasts: Tales of the Animals That Go Unseen Among Us,” by BGSU creative writing professor Sharona Muir. It has been garnering a lot of attention from popular magazines as well as literary journals, including O, the Oprah magazine, as one of the “10 Books You Must Pick Up This August;” “Top Indie Fiction,” by Library Journal; and a “First Fiction” selection by Publisher’s Weekly.

BGSU continues its commitment to our student veterans by working with the Veterans Health Administration on a new mental health program aimed at easing the transition from the military to college. This is another great addition to the services we offer through our soon to be completed Veterans Center.

The University will honor the tens of thousands of military personnel who are or were prisoners or war, or have been declared missing in action on Sept. 6 with the dedication of a Rolling Thunder collegiate POW/MIA Chair of Honor in Doyt Perry Stadium. This permanently unoccupied seat will be one of five eventually on campus. The dedication is made possible through a donation by retired Marine Corps Col. Ted Jenkins, a BGSU alumnus and former member of the Alumni and BGSU Foundation boards.

Falcon Fast football kicks off tonight with our first game against Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, Ky. I hope you’ll tune in to the CBS College Sports channel and watch the MAC champions start the season!

I’d like to welcome our new tennis coach, Olga Elkin, to BGSU. A former Ohio Valley Conference Coach of the Year, Olga has the energy and record to continue the proud tradition that our program built under legendary coach Penny Dean, who recently retired.

A new issue of BGSU Magazine is out, and many of those articles will be featured on our website in the coming months. If you haven’t had a chance to see it yet, be sure to download the free BGSU Magazine app from the iTunes store to read about some of our extraordinary faculty, alumni and students.

I hope to see many of you back on campus this fall for Homecoming and our home football games!

Go Falcons!

Mary Ellen Mazey, Ph.D.
President