By: Joe Adgie

For the first time, President McKinney will give the State of the University in a speech on Friday.

McKinney will discuss what VSU has done in the past year and plans for the university in the future.

“Because Valdosta State University’s accomplishments, your accomplishments at our university, are deserving of recognition and acknowledgement, I have decided to change things so that the entire VSU community — its faculty, staff, students, alumni, and friends — can share in our successes and more importantly, understand the positive momentum of our achievements,” McKinney wrote in an email. “This positive momentum is not an accident, but rather represents quite clearly that we are purposefully moving our great university forward in to a very bright future.”

The speech will be given at the Whitehead Auditorium in the Fine Arts building tomorrow at 1:30 PM, and will be streamed live at useducationtv.com.

In addition, McKinney announced that the annual convocation will change, and will no longer feature a speech from the president.

“Rather than a long speech from me, we will feature an address and several break-out sessions with a nationally recognized expert aligned with our strategic planning goals,” McKinney wrote.

This nationally recognized expert is Dr. Susan Albertine of the Association of American Colleges and Universities.

“Student success sits at the very heart of everything that we do at Valdosta State University, and we will all benefit from what Dr. Albertine has to offer us in August,” McKinney wrote.