I think it's important for leaders of the organizations to kind of keep a balance for everyone, to make sure that for our faculty and staff, that they know that we're gonna be continuing to move forward.

We're gonna want to continue to be innovative and creative.

But at the same time that there are these other things.

So we really try to kind of focus on how do we maintain who we are?

We are a regional public university.

And I say that all the time.

Let's keep focused on our mission.

What do we do?

We educate and help young people learn, right?

We want them to get a degree and go off into the community or go off into graduate school.

We really want to keep that focus in mind.

And so how do we do that within these external resources and these external factors that are happening?

And so if we keep that in mind, I think that that's what's really helped us moving forward.

So as we talk with faculty, make sure that, continue to teach your classes, continue to work with your students outside, with undergraduate research, with internships, with study abroad, continue to do those things.

Yes, we may have a decline in resources, but focus on the students, focus on their success and remember who we are.

We are a regional public university that is servicing Western North Carolina and beyond.