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MSU President
Waded Cruzado began her term as Montana State University’s 12th president in January 2010 and has significantly reshaped the face and the future of Montana’s first land-grant institution.

President Cruzado has consistently reaffirmed the importance of a campus environment that places student success as the top priority. To that end, she has made student retention a major priority of the university by funding numerous programs and appointing an executive officer to oversee related initiatives in increasing students’ financial literacy, helping more students graduate in four years and providing more student support services such as tutoring, mentoring and advising.

To further support students, the “Freshman Fifteen” campaign was announced by President Cruzado in June 2012. The campaign promotes expediting student progress to degree completion and serves to reduce student and family debt. At MSU, once a student enrolls for 12 credits, there is no additional cost for additional credits. The “Freshman Fifteen” encourages students to enroll in at least 15 credits per semester. By taking full advantage of the tuition dollars already invested, students can graduate on time and reduce the amount of debt.

An articulate and inspirational speaker on the role of the public university, President Cruzado has become well-known for her understanding of the Morrill Act, which created the land-grant university system 150 years ago. She is a passionate champion of the land-grant’s tripartite mission of education, research and public outreach, and the important role higher education plays in the development of individuals and the prosperity of the nation.

Under President Cruzado’s leadership, MSU was named the winner of the prestigious C. Peter Magrath University Community Engagement Award by the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities in the fall of 2011. Montana State was recognized for the contributions its students have made in bringing clean water to a region in Kenya through the work of the MSU chapter of Engineers Without Borders. Given just once a year, the Magrath award recognizes a four-year public university that embraces outreach and community engagement and comes with a $20,000 prize. MSU competed for the award against three other finalist schools that have significantly larger enrollments than MSU: Michigan State, Penn State and the University of Tennessee.

Also in 2011, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching awarded MSU its community engagement classification in recognition of the university’s commitment to teaching that encourages volunteer service and the spreading of knowledge that benefits the public. MSU is among only 311 universities out of more than 4,400 nationally to receive such recognition.

This was the second Carnegie classification for the university. Since 2006, MSU has been included in Carnegie’s “very high research activity” classification, an achievement that goes to less than 3 percent of the nation’s colleges and universities.