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Great universities elevate the communities they serve, and Western Kentucky University remains committed to producing graduates who are leaders in our region, our state and beyond.
For over a century, WKU has provided students with hands-on, applied research and learning opportunities to ensure that they graduate with practical skills that enable them to serve as difference makers in their communities. WKU students, faculty, and staff are engaged in ongoing partnerships with some of Southcentral Kentucky’s key community organizations, including the Bowling Green Chamber of Commerce, Bowling Green Parks and Recreation, LifeSkills, Inc., Kentucky’s Cabinet for Health and Family Services, Warren County Schools, Bowling Green Independent Schools, and Mammoth Cave National Park. The research and service opportunities these partnerships provide equip WKU students with real-world skills while also assisting our community in strategic operations and problem solving.
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WKU’s commitment to innovation, research and applied learning continues with the enhancement of the Innovation Campus. This 285,000-square-foot facility serves as a hub to provide business and industry with resources, attract talent and nurture intellectual capital to promote strategic innovation, problem-solving and cutting-edge research. In April, MyXR, Inc., announced that it would be joining companies and organizations such as Logan Aluminum, The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Southern California, Kentucky to the World, the Workforce Participation Taskforce and others that have all found a home at the Innovation Campus.
In June, WKU broke ground for a new building to house the Gordon Ford College of Business. While celebrating WKU’s rich tradition of business education, this state-of-the-art facility will help prepare the next generations of business professionals, support academic innovation among faculty and staff, sustain GFCB’s enrollment growth trajectory, enrich the region’s business community and enhance the beauty of the campus.
In the past two years, WKU has opened new and renovated facilities to serve the campus community. In August 2022, WKU dedicated The Commons at Helm Library, transforming a traditional library facility into an innovative space where the WKU community shares meals, discusses course content and celebrates the collaborations central to academic life.
The Commons serves as the cornerstone of a dramatic transformation underway at the top of the Hill. In 2021, the Garrett Conference Center was removed, and President Timothy C. Caboni announced a proposed renovation of Cherry Hall that will be completed during the next several years. The Commons, the William “Gander” Terry Colonnade at Ivan Wilson Fine Arts Center, Cherry Hall, Gordon Wilson Hall, and Van Meter Hall will surround the green space formerly occupied by the Garrett Conference Center to create a more traditional academical village at the top of The Hill.
In February 2022, WKU dedicated two new residence halls and its First Year Village. Regents Hall and Normal Hall, which opened in fall 2021 as part of the First Year Village at the south end of campus, house the majority of WKU’s Living Learning Communities where focused, first-year programming takes place.
Living Learning Communities play a key role in WKU’s retention efforts. Earlier this year, WKU celebrated historic fall-to-spring retention rates among undergraduate students. First-time, first-year students who were enrolled at WKU in the fall of 2022 returned in the spring of 2023 at a rate of 91.1%, representing a 4.8 percentage point increase in just more than half a decade. First-time underrepresented minority (URM) students returned this spring at a rate of 90.8%, a gain of more than 10 percentage points since the 2017-2018 academic year. Additionally, 95.7% of the first-year students who participated in a Living Learning Community (LLC) returned in the spring, compared to 89.6% of non-LLC participants.
WKU made significant gains in its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion efforts. In August 2022, the ONE WKU campaign, which drives the institution’s DEI efforts, received the Excellence and Innovation Award for DEI Leadership from the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. The Jonesville reconciliation workgroup hosted two events, a reception in October 2022 at the Kentucky Museum to honor the history, community and legacy of Jonesville and a daylong symposium in April 2023 to continue this important conversation. Also, in October 2022, WKU dedicated Munday Hall in honor of Margaret E. Munday, the first Black undergraduate student to enroll at WKU.
WKU continues to expand access to hands-on, applied learning and research opportunities for students. In October 2022, as part of an ongoing commitment to sustainability, WKU announced a unique farm-to-campus program, a partnership between the university and the WKU Restaurant Group that enables campuswide distribution of the produce, meat and dairy products our students produce at the WKU Farm. In November 2022, WKU dedicated its new Disaster Science Operations Center (DSOC), which brings together faculty, staff and students from multiple academic programs to improve emergency disaster mitigation, management, and response.
WKU is committed to continual academic innovation and renewal, creating new programs that respond to student interests, meet the needs of the region, and address the challenges facing our world.
New programs enjoying enrollment growth and generating additional interest from students include the Bachelor of Science in Environmental, Sustainability, and Geographic Studies, the Bachelor of Fine Arts in Film Production, the Master of Education in Instructional Leadership for aspiring school principals and the Bachelor of Arts in Legal Studies. This year, the Gordon Ford College of Business developed six new graduate and undergraduate certificates– Enterprise Management, Executive Decision Making, Sales, and Executive Influence in Organizations, in Managing Inclusive Organizations and in Creativity and Innovation Management -- to meet the needs of business and industry and to provide job skills, experience and opportunities for students, non-traditional students, and adult learners.
WKU continues it works to expand access to the WKU Experience across its 27-county service region and beyond, including its campuses in Glasgow, Owensboro, Elizabethtown-Ft. Knox and Somerset. This fall, the new Early College at WKU in Glasgow welcomes 73 students from area high schools in the inaugural class for the program that will bring the WKU Experience to even more students in the region.
WKU students excelled nationally in 2022-23. In the March 2023 application cycle, 20 WKU students earned the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship for study abroad — as many as all other colleges and universities in Kentucky combined. Six WKU alumni and graduating seniors received Fulbright US Student Program grants with two more alumni named as alternates. Three students in the Chinese Flagship Program were awarded David L. Boren Scholarships to fund intensive language study in Taiwan during the 2023-2024 academic year; one other student was named an alternate. And WKU had its first recipient of the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship since 2019.
The WKU Forensics Team maintained its national success in speech and debate by winning the National Forensics Association National Tournament sweepstakes championship, the second annual Asynchronous Speech Championship, the fifth annual NFA-LD Grand Prix, and the combined team sweepstakes national championship at the 2023 Pi Kappa Delta National Comprehensive Tournament. WKU also was crowned the Kentucky Forensics Association Grand Champion for the 31st consecutive year.
WKU civil engineering students placed fifth overall in the 36th annual American Society of Civil Engineers’ (ASCE) Concrete Canoe Competition and 11th overall in the ASCE UESI Surveying Competition. WKU’s School of Media & Communication finished third nationally in the Hearst Journalism Awards Program’s 2022-2023 Overall Intercollegiate Competition, its 14th straight top five national ranking. WKU has placed in the top eight for 30 straight years with four overall championships in 2000, 2001, 2005 and 2018. A recent WKU graduate became the school’s 16th individual national champion since 1985 by winning the 2023 Hearst Multimedia National Championship.
Register for the August BG Coffee Hour, proudly sponsored by WKU: https://bit.ly/AugCoffeeHourWKU