The start of the school year is right around the corner at Portland State University, with students starting to move into on-campus housing this week.
Ann Cudd, left, speaks at Portland State University's faculty and staff convocation in downtown Portland on Sept. 20, 2023.
Meerah Powell / OPB
Although the university’s new president, Ann Cudd, officially stepped into her role last month, she gave her first official remarks to the campus community at PSU’s faculty and staff convocation on Wednesday. There she laid out key priorities, including working with the city to revitalize downtown.
Cudd talked about her excitement about taking the position, but she also acknowledged that it will be a tough job.
“I knew that PSU faced challenges — many are challenges that universities are facing across the country … while some challenges are special and actually unique to this place,” she said. “But from where I sat back in Pittsburgh, I saw a tremendous opportunity.”
Like many of Oregon’s other public universities and colleges, Portland State is facing falling enrollment and the budgetary stressors that come with that.
Unlike other institutions, PSU has one unique challenge Cudd has said she hopes to address — its location in the downtown district of the state’s largest city.
“Here we are under these trees, all this greenery, the birds, the squirrels,” Cudd said of the park blocks adjacent to the university’s student union building. “Of course, the park blocks are the heart of this campus, but they’re also technically City of Portland property, and it’s just one of the many, many examples of how intertwined we are with this city.”
Gov. Tina Kotek announced last month the Portland Central City Task Force, a group that will meet to focus on addressing crime, homelessness and other concerns within the downtown core. Cudd is on that task force.
The task force has only met once so far, Cudd told OPB, but the meeting was “energizing.”
“I think everybody is hoping that we can find solutions to make the city safer, cleaner,” she said. “But also, we just need to make the city more vibrant — bring businesses back so that our beautiful buildings downtown are occupied, and so that our food vendors and beverage vendors are busy again, so I hope that those are some of the tangible outcomes.”
Cudd called the work to make downtown safer a “shared responsibility” between the city and the university.
Along with a focus on revitalizing downtown, Cudd also went over some of her other priorities for the school year, including prioritizing in-person classes and events, investing in campus safety and cleanliness, and creating a strategic plan to “ensure our collective success in the future.”
Fall classes begin next week.