Writing the dean’s letter for the Bryan Business Report each year is difficult. There are so many great new initiatives, outstanding accomplishments, and heart-warming stories to choose from that it never feels like we have enough space. For that reason, instead of teasing ahead to the great storytelling in this magazine as I have done in years past, I will use this valuable real estate to tell the story of our School’s new BONUS! Initiative (or Bryan Online Nontraditional Undergraduate Student Initiative).

For this initiative, we are launching an effort to enroll more undergraduate students between the ages of 25 and 45. Most likely, these prospective students will have some college but no degree, and they will be balancing full-time work and family commitments that preclude them coming to campus. This group is not unknown to us as 27 percent of our undergraduate students are 25 or older and 73 percent of our students work a full-time or part-time job alongside their studies. Despite our success in this space, there are 1 million North Carolina workers who have some college credit and 4 million more who have no higher education credit. As a state, we can do better, and the Bryan School is leading the way.

To be successful we will need to build the same high-quality, high-touch recruitment and admission processes, that have helped us set record graduate enrollments for six straight years. We are doing that with UNC Greensboro’s Undergraduate Admissions and Financial Aid offices in collaboration with the university’s Enrollment Management Division. We will also need to expand our exceptionally effective student success initiatives, including personalized professional advising, and extend both our Bryan Blueprint Series for professional development and our successful YOU BELONG! initiative we launched last year to help new students learn about the sincere culture of care that exists in the Bryan School.

As you read this year’s Bryan Business Report, pay close attention because you will read about some incredible successes of some of our nontraditional students. These stories only solidify our belief that we can be successful with our BONUS! Initiative. There are, of course, stories of other exceptional problem solvers and our engagements. Whatever you take from this latest edition of the Bryan Business Report, I hope most of all that you enjoy it. I hope it comes through that we do not want to be a well-kept secret. That when we say your career is our business, we put tangible resources toward helping our students get to where they want to go. And I hope it rings true – to those who know first-hand – how anyone can belong at Bryan.

Warm regards,