After 16 months on the job, Dr. Cheryl Green officially accepted the mantle as the sixth president of Governors State University in a formal investiture ceremony on Friday, Sept. 17.
GSU’s Center for Performing Arts opened its doors – in person and virtually – to all GSU students, faculty and staff to join in the celebration of Green’s investiture. The venue was only about 25% filled with masked attendees to maintain social distancing, with three seats blocked off for each one available for attendees.
In her acceptance speech, Green outlined three initiatives designed to make GSU even better in coming years. She defined them as:
To magnify the university’s brand through marketing, outreach and engagement.
To increase resources and opportunities for the faculty and for academic excellence.
To expand extracurricular and co-curricular activities to improve the holistic student experience.
Green also took note of GSU’s tradition of cultural relevancy, saying the university has been “a haven for all people, irrespective of their ethnic identities, social class, religion, gender, age, sexual orientation, and primary or secondary language, to come together to study, to learn, to live, to worship, to love, and to build a better society for ourselves, for our families, and our communities. GSU is still living true to its founding innovations.”
Addressing the students, Green said: “We take an issue that confronts all of us, and we use our scholarship, our commitment to service, our dedication and our love for our students to find solutions to that problem.”
“You can succeed at Governors State University, we can and we will help you realize your dream of a college education here. Give us your best efforts, and I promise you we will give you ours.”
Among those who spoke, honoring Green during the ceremony, were State Sen. Patrick K. Joyce and John Atkinson, chairman of the Illinois Board of Higher Education. Gov. J.B. Pritzker appeared via video.