Just getting started: Hess speaks on vision for OSU's future

Friday, September 19, 2025

Media Contact: Mack Burke | Associate Director of Media Relations | 405-744-5540 | [email protected]

In August, Oklahoma State University President Jim Hess welcomed a large crowd at the ConocoPhillips OSU Alumni Center to celebrate a record-setting funding package from the state Legislature that will drive the future of veterinary medicine in Oklahoma for decades to come.

"We've already begun the planning processes for what the animal teaching hospital will look like," he said. "We've identified a couple of locations that would be ideal for it, and it's really going to be a facility that I think will be transformational for the College of Veterinary Medicine.

"It will be the premier animal teaching hospital in the United States. And I think it's something that as a land-grant university, that we're all going to be very, very proud of - not just the people who are here, but the people who are alums, our donors and the folks who believe so much in the OSU mission. I just think it will be a masterful demonstration of our land-grant mission."

After achieving a monumental step toward one of his key priorities as president in just a few short months, the event was a well-deserved celebration for the CVM and everyone in the Cowboy family. But now, Dr. Hess said, "it's time to get to work."

That's certainly an interesting choice of words for a president with over four decades of service to the university who hit the ground sprinting upon taking office in a permanent capacity in April.

From the very beginning of his time working at OSU - shoveling CVM horse stalls as a student - he's never been afraid to get his hands dirty. In some ways, he said, it feels like he's been shoveling ever since. In some ways, it now feels like he's just getting started.

Here's a quick look at the core pillars of President Hess' leadership vision
for OSU.

Expanding Student Scholarships

• Raise historic student scholarship support to expand access to a world-class OSU education
• Reduce financial barriers, improve retention and boost graduation rates

"One of my most pressing priorities is to raise money for student scholarships. We've done a great job of keeping our tuition and fees flat. For the last four years, we've not raised tuition and fees, and we've not had but one tuition and fee increase in the last six years. Our No. 1 goal is to keep accessibility always on our mind for our students. In that vein, we need to raise a lot of money for student scholarships, because affordability is the No. 1 obstacle for a student getting a college degree. So, we're going to be raising a significant amount of money for student scholarships."*

Transforming the Student Experience

• Implement career readiness plan beginning freshman year
• Early career assessments to match strengths with potential careers
• Two dedicated counselors for each student:
• Academic counselor for degree planning
• Career readiness counselor for post-graduation preparation
• Training in in-demand skills, plus early resume-building and interview preparation
• Strengthen the OSU family connection by pairing each student with an alumni mentor for guidance and career networking

"We're focused on them from the day a student arrives, whether that be through their orientation or admission process or their first day of class, all the way through graduation, we want that experience to be the very best they can have. Every student will get an academic counselor when they come to this university. That counselor will work with them to get them in the right curriculum, the right coursework, and get them on their degree path. But what they also need from the very first day they arrive is a career readiness counselor - someone who focuses on students' career hopes and dreams and works with that student from the time they're a freshman until they graduate to help them get placed in a great job."

Strengthening Mental Health Support

• Emphasize emotional wellness as key to academic success and position OSU as a "home away from home" with a moral duty to protect student well-being
• Remove barriers to mental health support by consolidating OSU counseling services under one "virtual umbrella" with a "master appointment system" for quick, easy access to the resources
• Initiate mental health task force led by President Hess and First Cowgirl Angela Hess
• Launch Cowboys Care mental health campaign led by First Cowgirl Angela Hess

"Every student can be successful if we give them the right academic support, the right mental health support that they need. And our job here is to make sure that their experience is the very best it can be. We're their home away from home. So, in many ways, Angela and I feel like we're surrogate parents of 36,000 people, and we take it as a moral responsibility to make sure that the well-being of those students is at the forefront in our mind all the time."

Building a Unified OSU System

• Connect all OSU campuses and partner institutions through a unified and strategic vision
• Ensure all students feel part of the Cowboy family
• Standardize admissions, registration, payment and advising processes
• Simplify transfers, continuing education and resource access across campuses
• Increase access without requiring relocation, expanding upper-division OSU coursework opportunities for place- bound students at partner campuses

"We have many different missions. Stillwater has a specific mission. Oklahoma City has a specific mission. OSUIT in Okmulgee has a specific mission, and Tulsa has a critical mission in Green Country. But our responsibility is to meet those students where they are, get them through whatever program they've chosen, and to get them employed in the job that they want, or in a graduate program, if that's their desire. So, when you think about OSU as a system, what it really means is that here in Stillwater, we need to honor what those individual missions of those different locations are and provide the back office and support services for them to be successful and give their students the best experience they can."

Renewing the Land-Grant Mission

• Enhance research, instruction and Extension services to deliver practical solutions statewide
• Drive innovation that directly improves the lives of Oklahomans in all 77 counties

"I always like to describe Oklahoma State University as the people's university. We have lots of institutions in this state. They do a great job. We just happen to be better at it. Of course, I would say that, but our land-grant mission makes us unique. We are different from every other university or college in this state with our land-grant mission and its history. We need to fully embrace it. I know all of our students know that we are a land-grant institution, but what I'd like for all of our students and our alums and donors and our supporters to remember is that the land-grant mission focuses on a single concept. That is solving practical problems that our state and our society face, and giving those solutions in a research application or an Extension application or an instruction application to solve their problems."

Photos by: Ellie Piper

Story by: Mack Burke and Adam Hildebrandt | STATE Magazine