NORTHERN KENTUCKY — This week, we’re continuing our series looking at some of the fastest-growing communities in our state, which includes Campbell County.
It’s also home to Northern Kentucky University, which is a public university in Highland Heights, Kentucky. It is primarily an undergraduate institution with over 14-thousand students; over 12,000 are undergraduate students and nearly 2,000 are graduate students.
“This is this is one of the most exciting times of the year for us, especially after the last couple of years with the COVID impacted situation we found ourselves in circling back in 2020, when we had to make the adjustment to go fully virtual. We gradually came back and this past year we had some really great opportunities to be engaged with the students and the campus vibrancy was back up again. But we’re really looking forward to the start of the fall semester...I’m looking forward to welcoming our new students and continuing students back to campus. We’re really excited about that. They’re going to see a few different things. We made a major investment in our first-year student success hub. This is an opportunity for all our first-year students to find a one one stop shop for all their issues related to student success. Whether its financial aid or anything to do with health and counseling, their academic schedules, whatever it is, they don’t have to go running around campus. That is one place everybody is ready to help them get moving and get going on the track to have a successful first semester itself. So we’re looking forward to that as well. As I mentioned, we have students in our dorms back again. So we’re really excited about the start of the school year. This was this was a great view for us in many, many regards. You know we had a capital campaign. Further; Faster, in support of our donors, our friends and alumni has been absolutely inspiring. And so much of that support goes into directly supporting our students, our faculty and staff. So we know that they’re coming into an enhanced experience with a great deal of opportunity to succeed going into this next academic year,” explains Dr. Ashish Vaidya, NKU president.
As thousands of students and employees return to colleges across the Commonwealth, the Northern Kentucky University wants to remind its campus community about the importance of COVID-19 health and safety guidelines.
“These two years, I have been so incredibly proud of the way the campus community came together to support our students and to make sure that all of us are keeping safe, remaining healthy and taking care of each other. We’ve gone to great lengths to make sure that vaccinations are available on campus. We provide all that kind of support. We provide masks for students, and faculty and staff if they need it. You know, just this past March, we went to mask optional. So all this while we’ve maintained a very steady and consistent approach in making sure the campus community stays safe. With our great partners in St. Elizabeth and others in the Northern Kentucky public health department. We’ve been very focused on making sure we pay attention to what’s happening in the community. We’re making sure we’re looking at the data to seeing where exactly some of the challenges are. We’re obviously encouraging people to be vaccinated and boosted if applicable, and then taking precautions whenever possible.” said Dr. Vaidya.
To learn more about COVID-19 guidance at NKU along with questions about screening, testing or tracing the virus, click here.
You can watch the full In Focus segment in the player above.