Dedicated students, distinguished colleagues and dear friends,

Happy Friday!

I have a clear recollection of the day six years ago when we closed our campus here at S&T due to fear of spreading the COVID virus. Uncertain of the future, we shut down the campus but not the university. We delivered classes and courses online, increased our communication, held virtual town hall meetings, and strategized our way out of the COVID crisis. And, as a result, we reemerged stronger.

Fast forward to today, and post-national college decision month. Guess what? The headlines are stark and ominous like those scary days six years ago: “demographic cliff,” “enrollment declines,” “political and regulatory scrutiny of higher educational institutions,” “AI interference with the long-established process of teaching and learning” and, of course, “AI disruption of workforce needs and development.” Headlines that make it abundantly clear that higher education institutions are experiencing challenges and facing the difficult question of how to move forward. How to convert losses to lessons. How to know what to do when we might not know what to do!

Nonetheless, some things are clear: we must assess and navigate competing priorities across our entire enterprise, we must use past ambiguous and similarly disruptive situations as guiding precedents, and we must make short-term and long-term decisions despite the absence of clear information. Most importantly, we must remain resolute in pursuit of our mission, goals and strategies.

For us here at S&T, this precarious moment in higher education highlights the importance of remaining focused on our North Star goals and our data-driven strategic plan. We must remain focused on our solid principles if we are to emerge stronger again, as we did post-COVID, which caused major turbulence in our operations and instructional delivery modalities. The principles that enabled our success then – focusing on our mission, remaining resolute on our objectives and executing with discipline – still hold true today during this current period of unprecedented challenges.

I personally remember the Great Recession of 2008 at my former university, Johns Hopkins, when many institutions responded by adopting austerity plans of belt-tightening, budget cuts, and delaying strategic investments. Other, more foresightful institutions, including Hopkins, resisted the temptations to slow down and retrench. Instead, they focused on their long-term strategies to take well-defined steps in bold directions that, in the long run, enhanced their academic appeal and national standing.

Of course, at the same time, we cannot afford to squander the opportunity to re-evaluate, rethink and realign our approach in the face of present realities. Through careful assessment of rapidly developing AI tools, for example, we are enhancing our curricula to ensure that all our students are AI fluent by the time they graduate from S&T, regardless of their field of study. This enhances their opportunities for employment in the AI-driven world. Our other new initiatives include expansion of engineering thinking into biosciences and biotechnology, quantitative finance and accounting, energy and manufacturing.

Given today’s realities of state funding instability, enrollment decline and political scrutiny, we must adjust and adapt but not retrench. We cannot afford to retrench and risk our future progress. We must, instead, refocus on our foundational principles and strategic directions, articulate our value proposition and continue to serve our students as we have for over 150 years to produce career-ready engineers and scientists.

Decision Day 2026 is behind us, but many future decision days lie ahead. We must continue to “build” for success by staying focused on our mission and strategies, if we are to weather current disruptions and be prepared to reap the benefits of calmer, more prosperous times ahead.

Warmly,

-Mo.
 
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Mohammad Dehghani, PhD
Chancellor
mo@mst.edu | 573-341-4116

206 Parker Hall, 300 West 13th Street, Rolla, MO 65409-0910
chancellor.mst.edu