Faculty & Staff - May 21, 2019

 

Dear Colleagues:

Now that we have celebrated nearly 1,000 of our newest graduates during our recent Commencement ceremonies, it’s time to turn our attention to the numerous university activities that happen over the summer months. There is no doubt that a lot will be happening over and above summer session classes and facilities maintenance. I want to thank you for all that you will do over the next few months to help us welcome students in August.  

Below are a few items that I wanted to bring to your attention: 

Budget Process
We are approaching the home stretch of Winthrop’s 2019-20 budget process. The Board of Trustees will vote on the budget at the trustees’ meeting in June. I want to thank Justin Oates, Amanda Maghsoud and their teams for the hard work that was required to get the Winthrop campus to convert to the new budget model, and I want to further acknowledge the contributions of all of you who participated in the budgeting process at the divisional, college, and departmental levels. This was a long time coming and not an easy process, but Winthrop will be stronger for it.  

Redesigned Website
On May 31, we will launch the much anticipated, redesigned Winthrop website on www.winthrop.edu.  It will have a modern look and feel, reorganized navigation and, most importantly, it will be mobile friendly and responsive. The website is one of our biggest recruitment tools, so we are excited to debut this new, user-friendly design. Web authors know many of the details, but we should all be aware that much work will continue to be done over the summer to ensure content is up to date in the new system by the beginning of the academic year.  

Orientation Sessions
Freshman and transfer student Orientation sessions will be held mostly in June. The great news is that Orientation registrations are up from last year, and our New Student and Family Programs staff is putting together fun and informative programming to jump start these students’ Winthrop experiences. I hope that if you see these students and their families on campus this summer that you’ll extend to them a friendly welcome or offer assistance if needed.  

Thank you again for all of your hard work, and I hope you enjoy your summer! 

Sincerely,
Dan