Welcome from GovState's new deans
Faculty and students -- welcome to the 2024-25 academic year at GovState!
Your library is moving away from passively warehousing books to an active space for experience, involvement, empowerment, inspiration, and meeting destination. We began this intentional transformation by asking you what you need for success as a student, teacher and researcher. And you came through! The library now has its Junior Jaguar Learning Lab supporting the early childhood education program, an Innovation Hub with robotics and 3D printers (hosting STEAM CAMP 2024), and a Digital Humanities Lab training students, faculty, and cultural heritage professionals in their engagement with digital tools and techniques. We also have plans for some really cool transformative curriculum and research library spaces supporting project-based learning: Social Equity And Research Collaboration Hub (SEARCH), and the Research Data Center (RDC). And of course, the library is also investing in modern tools such as enterprise-level AI tools and simulation software to reduce barriers for you to participate in the best possible education, and be graduation and career-ready.
Have a great semester and let me know how the library can help you.
Dr. Jan Figa
Dean
University Library
Jaguar Nation, welcome to the 2024-25 academic year at GovState! We’re glad you’re here.
For 55 years, Governors State has been a university built around transformative and aspirational goals. We were a university without walls before the internet was a thing. We were producing HD content before you had an HDTV to watch it on. Today, we’re a university with limitless bounds.
These are goals I am proud to watch undergraduates live out every day as Dean of GovState’s newest college, the Honors College. There is no can’t in GovState Honors. Our students become the GovState student leaders of today and aspire to be the teachers, accountants, filmmakers, and counselors of tomorrow. From their student leadership on campus to the research scholarship presented nationally to their focus on global learning with Honors Study Abroad to Rome, they helped transform what was the honors program of the past into the GovState Honors College today.
Whether your aspirational goals are to be a teacher, a physical therapist, the next TikTok sensation, a social justice community activist, the next nonprofit CEO, or for a career that doesn’t exist yet like an AI ethicist or space travel agent, come curious. Come with questions. Because our world-class faculty are dedicated to using their wisdom and expertise to help you transform from who you are now to who you didn’t know you could be. Resource centers are here to help you overcome challenges and learn about opportunities you didn’t know existed, so use them. Want to find belonging with other students? Join one of our many clubs here from pre-health to ALAS. When you think you can’t do something, you can turn can’t into can at GovState.
Welcome to GSU@55. Keep moving forward.
We are GovState!
Dr. David Rhea
Dean
Honors College
I’m excited to welcome you as graduate students to the Fall 2024 semester at GovState! Whether you’re returning to continue your graduate program or just starting, be prepared to be challenged, enlightened, and maybe even inspired by your advanced graduate coursework and experiential learning. Please take full advantage of discussions with, and assistance from your instructors, graduate advisor, and fellow students as you progress along your academic journey. If you should need additional help, the GovState College of Graduate Studies is here to support you as you progress toward your degree. Have a great semester, and Go Jaguars!
Dr. Mary Carrington
Dean
College of Graduate Studies