MESSAGE FROM THE VICE PRESIDENT & CFO
Message from the Vice President & CFO
In early January, President Nelsen appointed Vice President and CFO Mike Lee as interim provost and vice president for Academic Affairs, naming Ali Izadian as interim vice president for Administration and Stacy Hayano as interim chief financial officer (CFO).
This is a change for all of us, and we understand that adaptation to change is often difficult. With change, come new challenges, but we are moving forward, focusing on the goals of the university and ABA. The plans are to return all appointees to their posts once a search for the provost position is filled.
New challenges are not only internal to ABA. President Nelsen made clear his renewed focus on graduation rates when he announced his graduation initiative – “finish in four” during his spring 2016 Presidential Address. As of May 2015, only eight percent of incoming freshman graduate in four years. By 2025, the CSU has set a standard for all CSU campuses to reach 24 percent. To accomplish this, President Nelsen has tasked all faculty and staff to evaluate their work and department budgets, and reassess them to ensure the most number of students benefit. His graduation initiative supports delivery of a great education, more quickly, and with less debt.
We welcome these challenges in ABA, as we have a fully competent group of staff professionals, committed to our students. That is why, in this edition of The FOCUS, we take a look Behind the Scenes, and see the efforts our Financial Services department has made to increase student retention, and expedite graduation.
Representatives from Financial Services, collaborating with other departments on campus, have introduced new tools and applications intended to help guide students through their academic career, including the Path2Degree program, Financial Aid Progress Meter, and the SmartPlanner tool. These applications will help students meet their registration and financial deadlines, and track the courses they need to graduate. These are necessary steps to keep students on track to graduate in four years and accumulate less debt.
Other ABA departments sponsor initiatives that directly or indirectly impact students on campus. In this issue, the Staff Spotlight focuses in on Freddy Orozco, who shares how UTAPS is working to support student success.
Answering the president's call will not be easy. It will require us to re-examine how we do things in ABA. More than ever, we will need to be flexible, innovative, and focused on the tasks that lie before us. To support student success, we must continue to find cost-savings through process improvements, and strategies that serve student success. Future issues of The FOCUS will inform readers of our progress, and we look forward to updating you in the near future.
