Excerpt from the Dayton Daily News
Contributed by Wright State University President, Sue Edwards, Ph.D.
Even before COVID-19 was a national crisis, higher education in the United States found itself at a crossroads: The looming challenges associated with declining enrollment, the rising cost of attendance, the growing lack of confidence in higher education and the increasing call for institutions to be relevant to the communities that they serve.
As a biologist, my research has focused on how biological organisms that are capable of adapting to stressors in their changing environment continue to thrive and be successful.
In many ways, organizations and industries behave in the same way as organisms. They often exist in one form, but inevitably they experience disruptions that force them to change, or face the threat of becoming obsolete. Some leaders see the challenges on the horizon and move to alter operations before their hands are forced. That’s not to say that such change is easy. Significant change is usually hard, and in some cases painful, but it also holds the promise that organizations can come through difficult times and thrive. Change sets the stage for success and can lead to new periods of improved services and innovation — a reality that Dayton knows well from its storied and proud history of innovating and changing the world.
Wright State University sits at the crossroads of such change today. As a mid-sized, regional public university that was founded to serve the educational needs of a 17-county area we affectionately call Raider Country, Wright State is choosing to meet the challenges of current market forces that are disrupting higher education and face them head on. As president of this great university, I can assure you that Wright State is committed to adapting and continuing to proudly serve the Dayton region as it has done for more than 50 years.
At Wright State, our promise is to provide students access to a very affordable high-quality four-year education. We often say we measure ourselves not by who we exclude but by who we include. Among dozens of four-year universities and colleges in Ohio, Wright State’s in-state undergraduate tuition remains among the most affordable in the state.
Wright State’s regional economic impact is more than $1.5 billion; but more importantly, it is a major factor in the affordable public education and training of our short-term and long-term workforce and community leadership. Our students and alumni overwhelmingly come from the Dayton region but, more importantly, STAY in the region after graduation. In fact, statistics show more than 72% of Wright State’s approximately 116,000 alumni live, serve and work right here in Ohio.
