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On Oct. 21, 2025, President Laura Bloomberg was joined on stage by members of the university community to discuss strategic initiatives, including integrated degrees, experiential learning and AI.

Key Takeaways

With innovative academic programs, like integrated degrees for undergraduate students, 51���� is providing a unique and carefully designed academic experience.

• 51���� offers 12 integrated degree programs and is the only college or university in Ohio to offer this type of degree pathway.
• Students in integrated degree programs, like Design + Psychology, complete a specially designed curriculum that bridges two distinct academic areas.

By participating in hands-on experiential learning programs, students at 51���� are more likely to have the professional resources they need to succeed early in their careers. In addition, 51���� students can provide consequential services to the communities of Northeast Ohio.

• Programs like the Engineering Co-op provide students with experiences in professional settings and allow them to explore career options before graduation.
• Residents from Northeast Ohio and the state benefit from 51����’s community-oriented initiatives, like 51���� College of Law’s Pardon, Clemency and Reentry Clinic.

As artificial intelligence becomes more prevalent in educational settings, 51���� is engaging with students, instructors and the surrounding region to increase understanding and competency.

• Starting this year, 51����’s AI Teaching and Learning Lab is providing workshops and resources for students and faculty members to explore AI tools.
• With the annual AI Symposium, 51���� is bringing students and instructors together from the University and Greater Cleveland to learn as a community about ethical and impactful AI practices.

Oct. 21, 2025
Delivered by President Laura Bloomberg
(presented as prepared)

Good afternoon. Thank you for joining us today as we discuss how 51���� is serving as Cleveland’s University.

Before I begin, I would like to give a special welcome to the guests in the audience. Among us today are 51���� alumni, members of the 51���� Board of Trustees and 51���� Foundation Board, elected officials, as well as community and industry partners from across the region. We are glad to have you with us.

I would also like to take a few moments to recognize the remarkable leadership of this University.

First, thank you to Chair Tim Cosgrove for his warm introduction. Although this is his first year as Chair of our Board of Trustees, Tim has long served this University in many capacities, and I am grateful for this partnership and unwavering commitment to his alma mater. Recently, we welcomed several new members to our Board, including our student trustees — Skye Carlson and Abigail Blackburn — and I appreciate their perspectives and insight.

Second, I would like to thank all members of the Senior Leadership Team. These individuals have done and continue to do phenomenal work to lead and innovate in all areas of our institution. The achievements I mention this afternoon are due to their leadership, and I offer each of them a sincere thank you for their work.

Third, I would also like to recognize the executive officers of our Faculty Senate: Senate President, Dr. Carol Olszewski; Vice President, Dr. Adam Voight; and Secretary, Dr. James Marino. They have been vital collaborators and important voices on behalf of the faculty. Thank you, all.

We are an institution of more than 60 years now, and unfortunately, we lose members of our community — instructors, peers, students, and alumni — each year. Each member of our university made a contribution or touched someone else’s life in a way that our university has benefited from it. My remarks today are a tribute to the memories of these individuals who are not able to be with us. 

My goal today is not to summarize everything we have accomplished since my address last year. We have certainly accomplished a lot and, more importantly, we have done so together.

We have made a concerted effort to document these accomplishments in multiple ways. Our monthly newsletters share the latest and greatest at 51����, and over the summer, we began releasing Viking Voices, the official 51���� podcast. I encourage you subscribe to ensure you get the latest episodes.

In your program, you have a link to access our communications, as well as several reports, dashboards, and other resources you will hear about. Later today or tomorrow, I encourage you to review these resources to get a detailed look at how 51���� is moving forward.

I want to use this time to discuss a select few priorities that are critical to our students, to our entire university, and to Northeast Ohio. And to help me in describing the value of these priorities, I will be inviting some guests to join me later on. 

To set the stage, I would like to begin by reviewing the roadmap we are following over the next several years. 

In January of this year, we announced Cleveland State United, our strategic plan through 2030. The name of this plan is an acknowledgement of the input and participation we received from so many of you during the strategic planning process and the priority we place on building and maintaining strategic connections across the region. We are thankful for the input we received from so many of you, across so many sectors, when designing this plan. 

As a result, we were able to launch a plan that is focused on its key elements. Cleveland State United is not a strict roadmap, but instead, it is nimble enough for us to adjust as the landscape changes in ways we could not predict.

With this plan now in place, our mission is clear: Cleveland State: Cleveland’s University. Infinite Opportunity.

This is not the same as infinite programs. Not anything will do. Instead, “infinite opportunity” is a nod to preparing our graduates for a future we are only just beginning to see. Preparing students for careers and jobs that haven’t been created yet.

This mission speaks to our role as this city’s public university, serving a student body largely from within Northeast Ohio and providing remarkable ways for these students to experience their educations.

We are an alma mater for alumni who make up a considerable percentage of the workforce in and around Cleveland. 

And we are an employer of thousands. For our faculty and staff members, we want to also provide them with opportunity — the opportunity to expand their skill sets to adapt to the needs of today’s students or to design new ways of learning and bridging academic areas to expand students’ knowledge.

We are an institution that betters the communities that surround us. We collaborate with Cleveland organizations to strengthen the region for us all and to work together to tackle issues that are too daunting to address alone.

In Cleveland State United, we established three key priorities. All our strategic initiatives are directed toward these priorities, as progress toward any of them results in a stronger institution for everyone. 

I do want to acknowledge that change — and a focus on the future — is not without conflict. We are an institution in its 61^st year, and reexamining the ways in which we serve students is not easy. However, change is our imperative as a learning organization, and I am proud of how we have come together to explore higher education in 2025 and beyond.

I will address three key areas today: the innovation of our new integrated degree programs, the immense value of experiential learning for our students, and the growing ubiquity of artificial intelligence in higher education. Each of these areas has great importance to our students, now and in the years to come. 

At this time last year, we announced that we had received approval from the Ohio Department of Higher Education to offer undergraduate degrees that no other university in the state offers. These new degree programs were designed for students whose specific area of academic study was at the intersection of two distinct fields. In the past, these students would have likely pursued a double major, taking on the graduation requirements for two degrees.

Or they would have selected one major and one minor — but that puts one field of study as the primary and another as secondary. For some students, both are vital to their goals.

Rather than burden students who are looking for a cross-disciplinary course of study, we designed integrated degrees. These programs are specially designed to bridge two areas and explore that intersection of learning.

We now offer 12 of these undergraduate, integrated degree programs. And I’m proud to say that, already, students are showing great interest and enthusiasm in pursuing these degrees. This fall, we welcomed a number of new students who enrolled at 51���� specifically for these programs, and we have more than 90 bachelor’s students already enrolled in these programs.

We also quickly gained attention in the media for these programs. Although some other colleges and universities have designed similar programs, most only pair Computer Science with another discipline. At 51����, while Computer Science is a key part of these programs, half of our integrated degrees focus on other areas. 

In fact, one of our most popular programs is Design and Psychology. This Bachelor of Arts degree combines the concepts, statistical analysis, and research designs of psychology with the study of interfaces and user experience of design.

Today, I am delighted to introduce you to Dr. Eric Allard, chair and associate professor of Psychology, and Sarah Rutherford, associate professor in Art and Design. Both Eric and Sarah served as authors for this new degree.

I would also like to welcome Angelica Catacutan, one of our students in the Design and Psychology integrated degree program.

(President Bloomberg engages in a discussion with panelists regarding 
the Design and Psychology integrated degree.)

If you would like to learn more about our integrated degrees, we have an excellent webpage with more details on each of these programs.

We know, of course, that a student’s education benefits from more than classroom learning alone. It is transformational to use that knowledge in practical, real-world applications. 

Data suggests that, by participating in internships, co-ops, hands-on research, and other experiences, students can kickstart their careers before they’ve even earned their degrees. And within the first few years of their professional lives, these students have an advantage over their colleagues. They are more likely to have a developed network for support and growth. They could also see a nearly 25% increase in salary compared to their peers who did not have this type of experience in college.

Of course, our institutional focus on experiential learning is not aimed solely at improving a student’s career prospects. Experiential learning has a range of benefits, including emotional fulfillment and support. For instance, experiential learners are nearly twice as likely to have a mentor early in their career. And they report a much higher rate of career satisfaction.

As an urban university with undergraduate, graduate, and law programs, many of our students have unique experiences. These are experiences that build connections with Cleveland industry, and they also allow our students to serve the communities of Greater Cleveland. 

Already, a significant number of our programs require applied learning for graduation. My expectation is that virtually all of our degree programs will have a similar requirement by 2030. 

To share with you just a sampling of these experiences, please join me in welcoming Christopher Joyce, a third-year student at 51���� College of Law, and Rebecca Zamarripa, a senior undergraduate student in the Washkewicz College of Engineering.

(President Bloomberg engages in a discussion with panelists regarding 
student experiential learning programs.)

These are, of course, just a few examples of the hands-on opportunities we have in place. Each of our colleges has an impressive array of experiences for our students, and we have more planned for the coming years.

There are two projects underway that I want to mention on this topic. Both of these, in addition to being hubs for new student experiences, are also expansions upon our built environment. They will be substantial additions to our main and arts campuses, and I’m proud to say that both of these spaces will encourage guests and passersby to stop in and see the exciting developments at 51����.

First, we have a planned renovation and addition to our Science Building, at the corner of Euclid Avenue and East 24^th Street. With input from our partners at Cleveland Clinic Research, the 51���� Biomedical Discovery Complex will be a cutting-edge research facility and will include lab spaces for research teams and learning spaces for classes. 

In addition, the space will be designed for interdisciplinary collaboration, bringing branches of science together to approach research through different lenses.

We are also moving forward on a new gallery space on our Arts Campus in Playhouse Square. For the past few years, we have not had a dedicated, permanent gallery for our students and local artists to show their work. And so, we are developing a new space — the Galleries at East 13^th Street, powered by 51����.

This space will take over an existing parking garage in the Middough Building, which houses our Departments of Art & Design and Theater and Dance, as well as our School of Film and Media Arts. Expanding upon the arts corridors along Euclid and Chester Avenues, the galleries will be a welcome spot for the Cleveland arts scene and provide our students the opportunity not just to create art but also to learn the business elements of art and design and what it takes to stage a show.

Both of these new facilities will be made possible thanks to gifts from our donors and foundation partners in Cleveland. We are incredibly grateful to all of you who support our students and the programs that promote their success.

I am sure that it comes as no surprise to any of you when I say that artificial intelligence is having a tremendous impact on education. The wide slate of AI tools — and their ever-growing functionalities — is changing how our faculty members teach, how our students learn and study, and how our support services help our students feel prepared.

Of course, this is not unique to 51����. Recent studies indicate that 80% or more of global college students are now using AI regularly as an academic tool. Half of those students use AI at least weekly. Talk about preparing for careers that don’t exist!

Their uses of AI vary as they grow more comfortable with the technology. Some students use AI as an advanced spelling and grammar check, while others use it to summarize information or suggest ideas for essays. As we know, those functions are only the first few steps into a larger world. And as AI drafts essays or explains concepts to our students — potentially bypassing interactions with instructors or tutors entirely — questions quickly arise about a technology that is evolving at a pace perhaps faster than most of us can keep up with.

As I said, 80% of all college students are using AI, yet studies also show that fewer than 50% of students feel adequately prepared to use it. And similarly, half of all students worry that using AI may have implications regarding their academic performance.

I am certainly not saying that 51���� has the answers to these questions, but I am proud to say that we have been exploring the impacts of AI for a while now. 

We have also begun using AI tools to support our operations as a university. 51���� faculty, staff, and students will be able to participate in Microsoft’s Prompt-a-thon to experience AI in action. Through in-person “hack sessions,” participants will design and test prompts in Microsoft 365 Copilot to make it more effective for our university.

And earlier this year, we welcomed autonomous AI team members to our Offices of Advancement and Enrollment respectively. Ave and Claire are enhancing our operations as they talk with interested donors, alumni, and prospective students and their families.

Now, I would like to welcome Dr. Melanie Gagich and Mr. Chris Rennison to the stage to discuss how we are using AI in the curriculum.

Melanie is a senior college lecturer in the Department of English. In addition to serving as the director of our First-Year Writing Program, she is also the inaugural facilitator of our AI Teaching and Learning Lab, which is a part of the Academic Support Hub.

And in Chris’s role as the director of academic technologies in our Office of Instructional Excellence, he focuses on making artificial intelligence and emerging technologies accessible and approachable.

(President Bloomberg engages in a discussion with panelists regarding 
artificial intelligence.)

As we draw to a close, I want to reiterate our university’s mission — Cleveland State: Cleveland’s University. Infinite Opportunity. We will strive to meet these expectations daily, and in doing so, we will continue to serve as a resource for higher learning and a community partner.

To the students here today, I want to remind you that there is a listening session scheduled for tomorrow at 11:30 here in the Student Center Ballroom. I want to use this time to hear from you directly and answer the questions important to you.

Thank you to the students, faculty, and staff members who joined me on stage this afternoon. 

To those of you here today, I hope what you heard from these stories was encouraging and inspiring. And I hope you heard the excitement in their voices as they talked about their developments in critical areas of education.

As a university president, theirs is the excitement and encouragement I hear on a daily basis. Their words inspire me to make new connections in Cleveland and beyond so that we can share this new knowledge and get more of our graduates to the places they need to be.

This academic year, we will make further progress toward our strategic goals. I hope you will follow along with us as we become a place where everyone thrives.

I would like to remind you that, following this event, I will be joined by members of the McCombs family and members of our Board of Trustees for a ribbon-cutting of our new McCombs Family Plaza. The plaza is located just outside of where we are now — between this Student Center and the iconic Rhodes Tower.

This plaza is our way of recognizing the incredible generosity of alumnus Walter McCombs and his wife, Katherine. Together, they provided a transformational estate gift, the majority of which established the Katherine F. McCombs and Walter Lee McCombs Transformative Impact Fund to provide for students who need help in covering the costs of their tuition, room and board, and more.

I hope you will join us. And following this ribbon-cutting, we will have a reception, which will include the musical talents of our wonderful student-musicians.

Thank you again for joining us today.