Rich Wandschneider, left, director of the Josephy Library of Western History and Culture in Joseph, confers with Eastern Oregon University President Kelly Ryan Oct. 30, 2023, about Indian materials that will be exhibited at the university.

JOSEPH — Kelly Ryan, Eastern Oregon University’s new president, is wasting no time getting used to the entire eastern half of the state, consulting with educational leaders and hatching ways the university can expand the ways it serves rural communities.

“Since I came to the university, I’ve been traveling quite extensively to build contacts and networks,” Ryan said while in Wallowa County Oct. 30. She started work July 1, hired from Indiana University Southeast, where she was interim chancellor.

Barely three months on the job, she was in Enterprise to check up on EOU’s Rural Engagement and Vitality Center, a joint project with Wallowa Resources, the county’s largest nonprofit. REV matches EOU students with public and private organizations in Wallowa, Union and Baker counties to provide training that equips the students to work in Eastern Oregon after graduation.

“The goal is to move from these three counties to Grant County and get better coverage,” Ryan said.

REV currently has students working in forest management, workforce housing, transportation, urban-rural theater and community projects.

While in Wallowa County, she also viewed Indian tribal materials that the Josephy Library of Western History and Culture in Joseph was about to exhibit at the university.

EOU operates 11 Regional Outreach and Innovation centers throughout the state, including one in Enterprise, equipped to help with admissions, academic advising, online courses and other support. The Enterprise center, staffed by Rhonda Harguess, is located inside the Wallowa County Education Service District office at 107 SW First St.

“I also have joined with the InterMountain ESD helping me keep in touch with our school districts,” she said. The InterMountain ESD covers 17 districts in four counties.

“One of the things I hear is similar needs in the ways that we can assist them,” Ryan said.

She pointed to EOU’s School of Education and its Oregon Rural Teachers Pathway program, which prepares teachers for work in rural schools. Additionally, Eastern involves nonstudents in drama and music productions and has a new writing center at Cook Memorial Library in La Grande.

“There are many ways that we’re trying to bring our visibility to the region,” she said. “It’s something we have to continue to focus on to make sure the entire region feels served by us.”

Ryan said another initiative is to reach high school counselors, many of whom have shifted from promoting a college education to routing graduates toward trade schools or simply getting jobs.

“There’s nothing wrong with technical fields, of course, but we’ve had a 9% decline in college enrollment in Oregon over the past 10 years,” she said. “It’s a precipitous loss that’s going to affect workforce development. When you have fewer teachers, fewer nurses, fewer accountants and lawyers, eventually you’re going to hit a point — unless you stop it now.”

She pointed out that with a college education “you’re going to make a million dollars more over your lifetime, you’re going to be more involved in your community, you’re going to have better health, you’re going to live longer. These things are indisputable.”

She is proud that EOU is the most affordable of Oregon’s colleges and universities. A year’s education costs $28,188, compared to University of Oregon’s $33,639 or, for comparison, Stanford’s $82,162.

New programs at the La Grande campus include a master’s degree in clinical mental health counseling, a master’s of social work and a master’s in accounting.

Ryan is working on another initiative that she won’t discuss until she has determined whether it’s workable.

“Labor is extremely expensive when you’re talking about a rarefied class of PhDs and the program often has to be accredited,” she said.

Overall, her No. 1 priority?

“Student success, and it will be as long as I’m allowed to be president of EOU. We want to make sure that students who come to EOU are successful at EOU.”