PORTLAND, Ore. — When students of Portland State University head back to class on Tuesday, there will be a new leader at the helm of Portland's public research university, located right in the heart of the city.
PSU's board of trustees voted unanimously to name Dr. Ann Cudd the university's 11th president. She takes over from former president Stephen Percy, who retired in July. Dr. Cudd is only the second woman to serve as PSU president in the school's 76-year history.
Dr. Cudd relocated to Portland from western Pennsylvania, where she has served as provost and senior vice chancellor at the University of Pittsburgh since 2018. Prior to that, Dr. Cudd worked at another urban college as the dean of Boston University's school of arts and sciences. She's also held faculty positions at the University of Kansas and Occidental College.
Dr. Cudd holds three advanced degrees from the University of Pittsburgh, including a doctor of philosophy and master's degrees in philosophy and economics. She also holds a bachelor's degree in math and philosophy from Swarthmore College.
Joining Laural Porter on Straight Talk this week, Dr. Cudd shared her vision for PSU and how it connects with reviving the city of Portland, as well as the challenges and opportunities she's identified for the years ahead.
Why Portland?
According to Dr. Cudd, she's always been drawn to the Pacific Northwest, and she was excited to see that there was an opportunity in PSU's leadership — a college known for its ability to provide social mobility for its students.
"Portland State is really serving so many students from different communities, minoritized communities and low-income communities," Dr. Cudd said. "It is really an accessible university, it's the kind of university that prides itself on who it includes, not on who it excludes, so it is the kind of university that I am really proud to serve."
Dr. Cudd noted that PSU is quickly becoming a university where historically minoritized groups are a majority. Last year's class of PSU undergraduates were 58% BIPOC, she said, and the school has made great strides in drawing Asian American Pacific Islander students and Hispanic students in particular.
Almost half of PSU's students are first-generation, meaning they're the first in their family to go to college or graduate with a degree.
Because of PSU's central location in downtown Portland, Dr. Cudd also sees it playing an important role in reviving the central city. The university is the largest landowner in downtown Portland.
"We're such a large part of the downtown area that we have to be part of the solution going forward," she said. "We are dependent on Portland being a vibrant place to attract our students and to to make families feel like their students can be safe on our campus. So that is so important to us. On the other side, you know, we are such an important employer and provide a talent pipeline for the city of Portland."
Dr. Cudd is taking an active role on that front, and serves on one of the committees convened by Gov. Tina Kotek's Portland Central City Task Force. That committee meets Thursday to discuss efforts for improving the city.
"This committee has only started to to meet, but we're on a very short timeline and Governor Kotak really emphasized with us in our first meeting that we need to act," Dr. Cudd said. "This is not just about studying the problem, but it's about finding real solutions. So I think with the inspiration of her and with the many great leaders from downtown Portland and from around the city, I think we can make some real changes that will make a lasting difference in Portland."
The perception that downtown Portland is unsafe has had an impact on PSU, Dr. Cudd acknowledged, for both students and their families.
"Really, I feel like in many ways it's been kind of overstated in the national press," she said. "Certainly the South Park blocks where I frequently am walking — I walk to and from campus — I feel very safe and and I think that if people come and experience it, they will find that that they'll feel safe as well as a relative newcomer."
For the two months that she's been in the city, Dr. Cudd said, she's come to know Portland as a beautiful city with wonderful greenery and great attractions within visiting distance.
Challenges for higher education
PSU has seen declining enrollment, which is as much a national issue as it is a Portland one. Prior to the pandemic, PSU's enrollment was over 27,000. Last year that number was just over 22,000. There are still question marks about enrollment this school year, as PSU gathers official numbers.
"We don't know exactly, but it looks like we'll begin to sort of stabilize, maybe be down just a little," Dr. Cudd said. "But our master's degree programs are on the rise. So that's one good place. Also our first-year student (numbers are) up a little bit from last year. Our transfer student pipeline is still not as strong, and that really relates to the problems that the community colleges have had."
On a national scale, Dr. Cudd said, public confidence in college has been declining due to the problem of student debt, eroding the idea that college offers a solid return on investment.
"That said, it is still the case that over a lifetime, a college degree holder is, on average, going to make $1 million more than someone who does not hold a bachelor's degree," Dr. Cudd said. "And so that's, that's still a good reason to invest in a college education."
According to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, enrollment at community colleges has dropped 40% since 2010. Dr. Cudd thinks there are opportunities locally to work toward reversing that trend.
"One thing that we might be able to do is to create stronger pathways so that a student can see exactly how their beginning at community college can lead to a four-year degree, and that, you know, real wage benefit over a lifetime that they can get from that ... and so I'm looking forward to rolling up my sleeves and and working with the community college presidents to make that happen," she said.
Declining enrollment has produced a budget deficit at PSU, Dr. Cudd acknowledged. Though PSU gets support from the state, it relies heavily on tuition to fund its programs. How much PSU will have to raise tuition, exactly, depends on the amount that the state pitches in for public higher education.
PSU is now offering a tuition-free degree program for students who are eligible for federal Pell Grants, which is similar to something that Dr. Cudd helped implement at the University of Pittsburgh.
"The way that we did it was we used institutional funds to match dollar for dollar, the Pell Grant. But Pittsburgh had such a high tuition rate that those doubling Pell's did not completely get to the tuition level. So here at PSU we're doing a better job of lowering the cost of tuition for for our students."
Despite these challenges, Dr. Cudd said that she sees opportunities at PSU for helping to solve some of the big issues facing both Portland and the U.S., including achieving climate goals and addressing homelessness.
"That mission is really part of what brought me here to Portland State, because I see Portland as such a vibrant city and yet needing a great academic institution," Dr. Cudd said. "So we do it in a number of ways. You know, our faculties' research really addresses the real challenges of Portland and of the region. So you know, smart grid technology ... chip technology, and also the social issues, such as the houseless. So we have a homelessness action collaboratory that works specifically on research on homelessness. So that will be an important source of information and research that we will draw on to design actions that are designed to to help address the problems."
Straight Talk airs Friday at 7 p.m., Saturday and Sunday at 6:30 p.m. Straight Talk is also available as a podcast.