SCSU’s Tomso Claiming 3 Early Wins

St. Cloud State University President Dr. Gregory Tomso has been on the job for just over a month.  He joined me on WJON for an update on his progress learning the job and connections with the community.

Settling In

In the last month Tomso says he's been working to meet as many community members and SCSU students and staff as possible.  He believes when he took the job he thought it was the right fit for him and now he knows he made the right decision to accept the job and come to St. Cloud.

Three Early Wins

The newly formed advisory board met Monday.  Tomso says there have been times when the University and community communicated well and times where they have not.  He says the advisory board will allow them to bring the University and community together to work on common goals and projects.  Tomso indicates they have some short term wins which include; working on fundraising efforts, athletics initiatives, enrollment plans, workforce initiatives, and reputation and stewardship issues.

Connecting to Advisory Board

Tomso has invited their men's and women's hockey coaches to meet with their 22 advisory board members.  14 of those board members are SCSU graduates.  Tomso also has announced a Husky Student Success fund.  He really believes the community should be investing in the success of SCSU students.

New Scholarship

A top goal of Dr. Tomso is to improve retention and recruitment of students.  He has launched a new Husky Grit Scholarship that is intended to take students who were enrolled at SCSU in the fall but didn't come back for the spring semester and learn why they didn't return.  Tomso says they have called each one of those students.  He says they've offered a scholarship to clear a balance or address other issues they may have had to bring some of these students back.  Tomso says they saw an uptick in their retention because of that.

If you'd like to listen to my conversation with Dr. Gregory Tomso, click below.