One College, Many Disciplines: A Message from the Dean

Dr. Mandy Munro-Stasiuk

Greetings everyone, and welcome to the start of Academic Year 2026–2027!

I hope you had a chance over the summer to rest, recharge, spend time with family and friends, travel, or simply do something that wasn't related to your email inbox!

There is truly something about the beginning of a new academic year that feels like a reset; a chance to take stock of where we are, think about where we want to go, and begin again with a new group of students and new possibilities.

This year feels particularly significant for us. We are beginning the year as the College of Sciences and Humanities. With the addition of the School of Communication Studies, the School of Information, and the Park Management Program, we are a different college than we were a year ago. We are larger, broader, and bring together an extraordinary range of disciplines, perspectives, and expertise. I think that gives us something really important: opportunity.

Our new structure creates opportunities to connect fields that might not traditionally have worked together, develop innovative academic programs, expand research collaborations, and create new experiences for our students at the intersection of science, health, technology, communication, and the humanities.

Last year, I also heard clearly from many of you that you wanted, and needed, more communication from the college. You asked us to do a better job of keeping you informed about what is happening across the college, sharing accomplishments, explaining our priorities, and creating more opportunities to hear from one another. We listened, and we are acting on that feedback.

This newsletter is one of the first steps. It is intended to become a regular way for us to share what is happening across the College of Sciences and Humanities, celebrate the work of our faculty, staff, and students, and keep you connected to the larger college community. Most importantly, we want this to be a conversation, not simply another communication coming from the dean's office. We want to hear from you, too, and we welcome your ideas about what you would like to see and learn about in future issues.

And as we begin this new chapter, we also have a great deal to celebrate. At university convocation and the Dean's Welcome, our college welcomed 900+ new golden flashes to the college. The class of 2030 lit up the MACC blue and gold at their first official academic ceremony.

This fall, we are welcoming four new faculty colleagues, including three new tenure-track faculty in Psychology, Computer Science, and Anthropology and a new non-tenure-track faculty member in Multidisciplinary Social Sciences and Humanities in the Paralegal Studies program. In January, we will welcome another tenure-track colleague in Chemistry, and we are also hiring a new non-tenure-track faculty member in the School of Information. New colleagues bring new expertise, new ideas, and new energy to our college, and I am delighted to welcome them.

We also have much to celebrate from the year just completed. Our students earned more than 1,750 degrees across our campuses and online, including 1,300 bachelor's, 254 master's, and 84 doctoral degrees on the Kent Campus; 49 bachelor's degrees on our regional campuses; and an additional 7 bachelor's and 60 master's degrees through our online programs.

Our faculty and staff also continued to make important contributions to discovery, scholarship, creativity, and public engagement. Over the past year, the college secured approximately $15 million in extramural funding, a modest increase over the previous year. In today’s increasingly competitive funding environment, this achievement is a particularly meaningful testament to the strength, ambition, and impact of the work our faculty are pursuing across the college.

We are also proud to celebrate the accomplishments of our colleagues. Six tenure-track faculty were awarded tenure and promoted to Associate Professor, and 11 faculty were promoted to Professor. Among our non-tenure-track faculty, two were promoted to Senior Lecturer and three to Professor. These milestones represent years of hard work, dedication, scholarship, teaching, and service, and they deserve to be recognized.

At the same time, it is hard to ignore that we are beginning this year in a complicated environment. Higher education is changing quickly. Demographics are changing. Student expectations are changing. Federal and state policy and law are changing. And the financial realities facing universities are changing.

Our response must be to remain focused on what we do best: educating students, advancing knowledge, supporting discovery and creativity, and preparing our graduates to make meaningful contributions to their communities and the world.

As we begin this new chapter, I am excited to use this newsletter to celebrate that work and to tell the stories of the people who make this college special. Each issue will give us an opportunity to highlight faculty accomplishments, student successes, new programs, research and creative activity, community partnerships, and the many ways our college is evolving.

Have a great year everyone. I am excited about where we are headed, and, most importantly, about what we can accomplish together.

All the best,

Mandy Munro-Stasiuk, Ph.D.
Dean, College of Sciences and Humanities

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