Thank you, Chair Ricks, and good morning, everyone!

I want to begin my remarks today by extending a warm welcome to Elizabeth Ford, App State’s student body president and the newest member of this board. Elizabeth, we look forward to your leadership, energy and perspective on behalf of our students and App State Community.

There is nothing quite like the opening weeks of a new academic year at App State — with the sound of the Marching Mountaineers filling the air, Sanford Mall coming alive with students and our campus buzzing with new connections and bold ideas. Amid all of this dynamic energy, one thing remains constant: Every decision we make is guided by our laser focus on the student experience and student success, and our obligation to the people and communities of North Carolina.

Powered by the dedication of our faculty, the drive of our students and our strong regional partnerships, App State creates measurable, enduring value for our state and region. Across four core areas, our collaboration throughout our campuses and with our regional partners is elevating our public impact, fortifying our position of strength and shaping the trajectory of App State, North Carolina and the broader region.

• First, we are strengthening access and opening more pathways to degree completion, serving our state by expanding educational opportunities across the High Country, Catawba Valley and beyond.
• Second, we are deepening our community relationships, regional partnerships and local support systems.
• Third, we are expanding our economic impact and elevating public impact research across the region and state.
• And fourth, we are achieving record-breaking success in institutional philanthropy, as fiscal years 2025 and 2026 were the most successful fundraising years in university history.

Today, my primary focus is highlighting our student-engaged, public impact research and the value it delivers for our state and region. Before I share these examples, I’d like to briefly review our fall enrollment figures and our strategic initiatives to open pathways to an App State education.

App State opened the 2026–27 academic year with 21,308 Mountaineer students enrolled at the university, welcoming our largest online, graduate, transfer and first-generation student populations in the university’s history. Our prospect and application numbers remain strong, and our total enrollments over the last four academic years represent the four highest in university history.

In the face of nationwide demographic and competitive pressures, our targeted investments in Hickory and expanded App State Online programs — including Flight Path — have been well timed, and we are taking a hard look at our local yields to ensure that we continue to deliver on our promise, in our traditional markets, to provide access to a high-quality education in fulfillment of our mission. To meet the challenge, we are executing new long-term marketing and enrollment initiatives that elevate our brand, innovate program delivery and expand access for students across the region.

Without a doubt, our greatest opportunity to serve more students lies in multiyear, predictable scholarship support. Students and families need confidence in their financial path to commit to an App State education. Through our recent fundraising momentum and upcoming comprehensive campaign — and with your help — we are building sustainable, recurring scholarship funding that opens doors for future Mountaineers.

Equally important to providing scholarship support is ensuring that once students arrive, they thrive. App State’s dedication to student success is demonstrated by a first- to second-year retention rate and a four-year graduation rate that are both well above the national averages. We are further enhancing our student support systems by deploying an integrated student success and retention platform this fall. This tool provides our faculty, staff and advisors with actionable, early-intervention information to support every student’s academic journey, from admission to graduation.

That same commitment to empowering our students underlies our approach to research and innovation at App State. In addition to our doctoral candidates, App State undergraduate and master’s students are at the forefront of discovery, rather than on the sidelines. By involving them directly in the research process, App State drives meaningful innovation, enriches the student experience and creates long-term value for our region and beyond. Allow me to share a few examples.

Inside Dr. Daniel Chen’s cancer biology lab, student researchers are building a close community while taking on one of humanity’s toughest battles. Many of these students chose this work because of personal experiences with loved ones affected by cancer. These students are studying how cancer cells respond to stress and searching for ways to target vulnerabilities in therapy-resistant ovarian and gastric cancers. They are frequent co-authors on published papers and earn competitive research grants. They aren’t waiting for a diploma to start changing medicine — they are doing it right now, right here at App State.

Jose Picado, a recent graduate who completed our dual master’s program in Kinesiology and Applied Data Analytics, partnered with Dr. Alan Needle to examine elbow stress among App State baseball pitchers. Jose discovered that wearable arm devices consistently underestimate elbow torque — proving that sports programs cannot rely on wearables alone to prevent injuries. In our own program, our athletics staff combine motion-capture technology from our state-of-the-art pitching lab with physical assessments to track biomechanical trends, tailoring daily training to proactively prevent injuries. Today, Jose is applying his App State training as a performance science associate for the Detroit Tigers, while Dr. Needle’s lab continues this research to help sports medicine professionals prevent injuries and optimize performance.

Team Sunergy, App State’s solar vehicle team, exemplifies the innovation, teamwork and technical grit of Mountaineers. Since 2013, Team Sunergy has earned podium finishes in every single year of international racing competition. 

Just this summer, Team Sunergy made history at the American Solar Challenge by becoming the only team ever to win its multi-occupant vehicle category twice. After five years designing, building and testing their new solar vehicle, Autumn, our students completed extensive road testing at North Wilkesboro Speedway before driving Autumn nearly 1,830 miles in a cross-country road race. 

This is experiential learning at its best — students taking on a complex challenge, developing and testing advanced technologies that will improve lives and livelihoods and discovering along the way what they are capable of achieving.

We are also putting innovation directly to work for North Carolina’s signature industries, including agriculture. Dr. Brett Taubman and Daniel Parker’s Rootsii project is transforming surplus North Carolina sweetpotatoes into a first-of-its-kind, plant-based milk and food product line. With backing from NCInnovation, this initiative directly supports our state’s farmers by reducing agricultural waste, creating new economic pipelines and giving our undergraduate researchers valuable experience moving a novel product from the lab to the market.

Yesterday, we heard a presentation from Dr. Zach Russell in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, who leads a team at App State that is currently refining and optimizing an AI-enhanced robotic microscope that they designed for use directly in the field. Also backed by an NCInnovation grant, this device will allow North Carolina livestock and poultry farmers to instantly identify field parasites without waiting for costly laboratory delays — potentially saving our state’s agricultural sector millions of dollars.

In our Department of Applied Design, assistant professor Jimena Vergara-Sanz and her students are using 3D printers in the University Libraries’ Makerspace and the College of Fine and Applied Arts’ Lab for Innovative Design to craft custom, accessible, wrist-powered prosthetic hands. Globally, only one in 10 people who need a prosthetic device has access to one, and the team hopes their research will contribute to more affordable, customizable solutions.

Through a partnership between the Hayes School of Music and the Beaver College of Health Sciences, App State students provide research-based music therapy in the Thomas O. Eller Preschool Language Classroom at University Hall. They use music to boost engagement and retention of vital language skills for young children with language delays, including children with autism.

Supported by the Chancellor’s Innovation Scholars Program and led by Christopher Taylor in the Walker College of Business, the Western North Carolina Cyber Resilience Initiative is putting innovation into action. Based at our Hickory campus, this cybersecurity clinic pairs student researchers directly with faculty mentors to perform vital security assessments and defend local small businesses from emerging cyber threats — translating academic theory directly into public impact for our region.

Aspiring STEM students get an early start as researchers through Summer Ventures in Science and Mathematics, a state-funded, four-week residential program for academically motivated high school students. One of just four UNC System universities to host the program, App State’s Summer Ventures experience is led by the Reich College of Education’s Mathematics and Science Education Center. Students work alongside App State faculty and staff, conducting research, solving problems and learning to communicate their findings. The experience gives students a meaningful introduction to college-level research while helping them build the skills and confidence to pursue STEM fields.

To experience more of this impactful work firsthand, I encourage you to join us for our annual Research and Creative Activity at Appalachian event on Friday, Sept. 18. 

As I conclude today’s updates, I want to take a special moment to recognize Trustee Ricks, as his tenure as chair of this board comes to a close. Chair Ricks, your strong leadership, unwavering advocacy and deep love for Appalachian State have strengthened this university in fundamental and enduring ways. Fortunately for all of us, Chair Ricks isn’t going anywhere — he will continue to serve as a dedicated advocate and steadfast supporter of our university, and he will forever be our 2022 Distinguished Alumnus. 

On behalf of the entire Mountaineer community, please accept this token of our profound gratitude for your service to Appalachian State University, and we look forward to our continued work with you on behalf of this university and our students!

I’ll conclude my remarks today with a short video — our new institutional ad, created by University Communications.

Mr. Chair, this concludes my remarks.