Following the excitement of AU’s 2024 commencement ceremonies, the Board of Trustees met on May 16–17. We focused on three key strategic areas during the meeting—the Change Can’t Wait fundraising campaign, undergraduate and graduate enrollment, and proposed updates to several university policies in support of our campus climate and the community’s sense of belonging. These critical workstreams will help shape both our next academic year and connect to our long-term direction as a community.

Change Can’t Wait—Vice President Courtney Surls reported that we are less than $9 million from completing the $500 million Change Can’t Wait campaign. This year has seen incredible support from the AU community, including the most gifts from students in a single year. With the finish line in sight, we are focused on successfully closing the campaign, thanking all who have supported AU, and developing the strategy for building on the campaign’s strong results in the years to come.

Enrollment—2024 is one of the most challenging undergraduate enrollment years in history, with  numerous changes among graduating high school students and an acceleration of the “demographic cliff” in the post-pandemic era. Vice President Evelyn Thimba reported on the significant technical difficulties with the federal Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) that delayed many students receiving financial aid information. AU provided financial aid packages with admission decisions in March, but more than 25 percent of institutions had not sent financial aid packages to students as of early May, and a significant number of colleges and universities pushed their deposit deadlines to June. While AU deposits are down approximately 11 percent from last year, many universities are down more than 20 percent, including a number of AU’s peer institutions.

AU is taking numerous steps to meet our enrollment targets, including providing extensions to admitted students, admitting additional students on the waitlist, and conducting extensive communications and engagements to answer questions. As enrollment challenges affect the university budget, all AU faculty and staff can help support this critical work. We must maintain high levels of engagement with our currently deposited students to minimize summer melt and look at how all our work intersects with the student experience. We have the same focus on retaining our current students and supporting their AU journeys from enrollment to graduation. Every team member can connect with our students and offer support to help make their time at AU as successful and enjoyable as possible.

Supported by ongoing work to align our graduate enrollment efforts and academic offerings, graduate deposits are tracking 15 percent above last year’s numbers. We have enhanced our engagement with prospective graduate students and continuing this work is critical to helping address any budget implications from the uncertain undergraduate enrollment space.

Campus Climate and Policy Discussion—We reviewed the work that occurred throughout the year to support community safety, preserve the ability of students to pursue education and learning, and further our values including free expression, inclusion, and belonging. This included successful commencement ceremonies, which proceeded without interruption and provided our graduates and their families with a celebration of their achievements. Vice President Traevena Byrd and Vice President Raymond Ou discussed the ongoing efforts to update key university policies and incorporate important learnings from this year. The intent is for these updated policies to succeed the interim actions taken during the spring semester.

Policy areas under development including chalking, tabling, posting, the student conduct code, facilities use, and the recognized student organizations manual. The policy review included understanding best practices across higher education, engaging campus stakeholders for input, identifying areas in current policies for modernization and clarification, and ensuring consistency with the free xxpression policy and other relevant university policies. The work will continue through the summer, including further community engagement that builds on numerous discussions that took place this semester, in preparation for implementing the new policies in the fall semester.

We began Friday morning with a breakfast discussion featuring 26 team members from Staff Council and nominees for this year’s Staff Awards. The robust engagement explored how every type of job at AU is critical to the student experience and reviewed opportunities for aligning our work and priorities in a time of resource challenges to both further the student experience and support our staff.

During our business meeting, we approved three new academic programs (bachelor of arts degrees in computer science, computation sciences and Applied perception, and early childhood education) and approved the sunsetting two programs (master of science degrees in mathematics of information security and organization development). With a number of service terms concluding, we honored the following trustees and university leaders with resolutions of appreciation for their dedication and contributions to American University—trustees Michael Balmuth, Greg Berquist, Maria Otero, Lilian Baeza-Mendoza, and Jehane Djedro; and cabinet members Seth Grossman, Courtney Surls, and Billy Walker. We also celebrated some of the recent achievements of our community, including two Truman Scholars and two Gates Cambridge Scholars.

Finally, on behalf of the trustees and the entire American University community, we thanked and applauded President Sylvia Burwell for seven changemaking years. With the incredible achievements of the Change Can’t Wait campaign, ongoing accomplishments in sustainability (including our status as the first carbon neutral university), a university-wide commitment to inclusive excellence, an endowment that grew by more than 60 percent during her presidency, and the launch of the $109 million Student Thriving Complex, President Burwell’s lasting impact on American University will benefit students, faculty, and staff for generations.

I hope you have a restful summer and look forward to seeing you in the fall semester. The Board of Trustees will next meet on September 4–5, 2024 for its annual retreat.