Hello, buddies of CAST! I hope this message finds you properly. Our school, employees, and college students within the College of Applied Science and Technology proceed to do wonderful issues, and we’re excited to let you know a few of these tales on this version of ForeCAST. Please permit me to share some faculty updates and highlights right here.
Illinois State University and CAST proceed to be very enticing to college students and luxuriate in sturdy enrollments as soon as once more this yr. For the third consecutive yr, I’m blissful to report that we once more set a university report for our enrollment with 5,033 college students this fall. This is the primary time CAST has enrolled greater than 5,000 college students! I’m so appreciative of the great work of our school and employees in serving this report variety of college students, in keeping with our scholar success mission. To assist our development, Illinois State and CAST have invested in hiring six new tenure-monitor school who began in fall 2025, with 4 searches underway for extra school to hitch us subsequent fall. Four new division chairs and faculty administrators began of their roles in summer season 2025, bringing revolutionary concepts and nice vitality to our staff. Investing in management improvement is a precedence of mine, with our new CAST LEAD (Leadership, Exploration, and Development) program supporting a cohort of six school members final yr, with 5 new members this yr. Further, three CAST employees accomplished the University’s Leadership Development course by way of Human Resources final yr. Developing leaders amongst our school and employees is crucial in guiding CAST to new heights in a difficult increased training setting.
Here are various different thrilling accomplishments in CAST over the previous yr:
- As we previewed in final yr’s ForeCAST journal, we efficiently launched our 2025-2030 CAST Strategic Plan in January 2025. The plan identifies sturdy targets associated to scholar success, making a tradition of belonging, supporting our school and employees, and interesting with exterior stakeholders.
- CAST Connections serves as an revolutionary scholar success middle, working with first-technology college students and different CAST college students in want of assist. Under Tamekia Bailey’s management, CAST Connections supplies mentoring, engages college students in neighborhood service, and helps college students determine microinternship alternatives. CAST Connections engaged with 481 college students in its numerous occasions in the course of the 2024-25 tutorial yr.
- The oldest collegiate circus within the nation, Gamma Phi Circus, had its largest troupe in almost a century of historical past, with 157 members who got here from all corners of campus. Under the management of Executive Director Marcus Alouan, Gamma Phi’s April 2025 present weekend attracted greater than 14,000 spectators to campus.
- Faculty throughout the school revealed 132 refereed manuscripts in 2024 and introduced in almost $2 million in grants. As a continued funding in our priorities as a excessive-analysis establishment, we developed a CAST Research Fellows program as an initiative to boost scholarly productiveness within the faculty. The fellowships present school students with further time to submit for exterior funding or full analysis tasks. Three fellows have been chosen in spring 2025, and 4 new fellows have been recognized for the 2025-26 tutorial yr.
- Our curriculum committees proceed to refine and modernize our curriculum throughout the school to be conscious of our ever-altering world and scholar wants. The tutorial applications launched in CAST over the previous yr included various accelerated applications that permit college students to stack their bachelor’s and grasp’s diploma applications to finish each levels in much less time than by way of conventional means. This permits college students to enter their chosen profession fields extra rapidly with sturdy credentials and infrequently much less scholar debt.
- CAST loved one other sturdy yr within the space of improvement, exceeding our annual fundraising purpose by elevating greater than $2.6 million! These funds are important in supporting our college students and key initiatives all through the school. Thanks to all of you who give generously to CAST!
Even extra spectacular is that the accomplishments described above and all through this journal have been made in an setting the place we navigated reasonable price range cuts throughout the campus and the school. It is crucial that we handle our sources in a fiscally accountable approach, and I’m proud that our management staff labored to attenuate the influence of cuts on school, employees, and college students, and to maintain a give attention to supporting our individuals within the nice work they do.
We hope this problem of ForeCAST reveals you a number of the wonderful work our school, employees, and college students do all through the school. Please keep in contact with us, and I hope to see you quickly at a university or college occasion.
Go You Redbirds!
Dr. Chad McEvoy
Dean, College of Applied Science and Technology