Cullinan gives State of University address

New Eastern Washington University president Dr. Mary Cullinan has been on a dead run since arriving in Cheney some six weeks ago.

But she slowed down long enough last Friday, Oct. 3 to address a crowd at Showalter Auditorium with her initial State of the University speech.

She described her time on the job so far as being a "whirlwind" of meeting local people in all areas of the community. "I wish everyone would wear nametags," she told a nearly full main auditorium.

Cullinan, the 26th president at EWU, has also been quite visible at a variety of sporting events where she threw out the first pitch at a Spokane Indians baseball game and dropped the puck at the Spokane Chiefs' home opening hockey game Sept. 27.

She of course handled the coin toss at EWU's home opening football game Aug. 23 against Sam Houston State University and said she enjoyed meeting second and third generation Eagles while tailgating.

Cullinan even tried her hand at croquet, but stopped short of another activity.

"I hear there's a mechanical bull someplace," Cullinan said, but she doubted she'd give that a try.

Cullinan's been front-and-center in all corners of the Eastern community and had high praise for the efforts of school staff as they welcomed students and the new school year. "They really know how to launch an academic year," she said. The Pass Through the Pillars is "a beautiful tradition."

During her trip to Seattle to watch Eastern play the University of Washington in football, Cullinan said she sensed the power presence Eastern now enjoys outside the Cheney area.

That is partly due to the enrollment growth - about 13 percent - Eastern has seen in the past five years, as well as endowments that have reached $14 million. That's a 60 percent gain.

Cullinan also praised the EWU women's basketball team for their collective 3.615 GPA and having spent 13 years on the national honor roll.

Student success stories are everywhere, Cullinan said, and she encouraged the audience to personally send them to her. "Thousands of students are out there making a difference," she said.

The new president found it an appropriate metaphor that the university's mascot is an eagle, a powerful animal with great vision. Eagles are able to adapt and have figured out how to survive.

"We have to be adaptable - flexible," Cullinan said of the university.

She outlined a series of goals for the school to pursue going forward though 2017. They included:

• To have a retention rate of over 80 percent.

• Have the best advising in the country. In all her years in higher education Cullinan never met a student who said their advising was something they remembered.

• Provide a powerful curriculum for every student.

• Improve private financial scholarship support. "We have to ramp this up," Cullinan said.

• Reach out to the non-traditional student as early as first grade. There are a tremendous number of people out there who either never started or finished college and Eastern should help them complete that journey, she said.

• Help students be successful after graduation.

• Improve Eastern's green initiative and make the university more environmentally sustainable.

Eastern and Cheney have long been a meeting and gathering place over the past 100-plus years and continue to be that way today, Cullinan said. The university currently hosts students from more than 30 states, and many countries worldwide.

"We can do great things working together," Cullinan concluded.

Paul Delaney can be reached at [email protected].