Welcome to the third edition of The Innerlink, an annual newsletter for alumni and friends of the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences at Cleveland State University. We as a college are growing and prospering. Our student headcount this fall is at about 3,100, which represents an increase of about 3% over last year, and our graduate enrollments are up considerably.

While we had a significant number of faculty retirements last spring, this fall we have welcomed thirteen new tenure-track faculty to our classrooms. They reside in departments or schools such as History, English, Modern Languages, Sociology, Political Science, Art, Economics, Communication, and Social Work. The Dramatic Arts Program also added one new tenure-track faculty member. These faculty will add new vision, talent, and energy to the college.

The college continues to offer intellectually challenging courses in strong degree programs. Our Political Science Department just added, for example, a new Master’s Degree in Global Interactions. In addition, our School of Communication will collaborate with the College of Urban Affairs and the College of Business on a new degree program in Organizational Leadership. This program is specifically designed for working professionals in business and in the non-profit sector, who began their undergraduate studies earlier and now wish to complete a degree.

Beyond offering our regular courses, the college has been alive this fall with public lectures, concerts, plays, and art exhibits. Our famous People’s Art Show, for example, opened on October 24 and will run through December 4. The School of Communication and the Department of Political Science each hosted a discussion panel on the November elections. On November 1, the Department of Economics hosted a regional conference for economists from the Federal Reserve Bank and from several universities in the Northeast Ohio region. 
On November 5, faculty from several CLASS departments teamed up to lead a Town Hall meeting on race at Cleveland’s Museum of Natural History.

The Dramatic Arts Program produced Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House from November 13 – 23.  Most of these events are free and open to the public.      

There are too many to list here, but you can learn about them through the CSU home page at www.csuohio.edu. I invite you to join us at these events whenever you have the chance.

The college is becoming increasingly connected globally. Last summer, for example, CLASS students studied in Costa Rica, Mexico, and France, and new exchange agreements are being negotiated with other universities in China, France, and Turkey. 

Over the past few years, CLASS faculty have been awarded Fulbright appointments in Ethiopia, Sri Lanka, and Nepal.

This leads to the perfect combination of international orientation and local engagement.

CLASS started the year with a new Center for Slovenian Studies, which is funded through grants from the government of Slovenia and the University of Ljubljana. 

The Cleveland area is the home of the largest number of Slovenian heritage Americans in the country, and this Center will help us serve this important regional population. This fall three classes were taught on the Slovenian language, two at CSU and one at Lakeland Community College. They were taught by a visiting instructor from the University of Ljubljana. 

In the years ahead we hope to expand the curriculum by offering courses in Slovenian history, politics, and culture. 

In addition, an exhibition on Slovenia can now be seen in the CSU Library. We will also host several Slovenian visitors, who will lecture at CSU in the spring.

I now invite you to read more about our college in the pages of this newsletter, which was researched and written by students in Professor Craig Sanders’ Communication class. I am grateful for their good work.