Powering Minds. There’s nothing new about that, Arkansas State University people will tell you. We have been in the business of educating, enriching and enhancing lives since 1909. The words seem simple enough, but they have a distinct message.

Throughout much of 2003 and 2004, ASU students, faculty, staff and community representatives conducted a strategic planning process for the campus. Participants identified challenges and concerns while on their way to developing Arkansas State University-Jonesboro’s goals for the foreseeable future.

One of the goals was to increase enrollment, retention rates, and graduation rates through development of a comprehensive enrollment management plan. Another goal was to enhance ASU’s reputation, visibility and influence by supporting the university’s academic leadership position in the Delta and beyond, expanding communications, and becoming more competitive.

University committees developed an enrollment management plan that includes a central theme that ties together the university’s history, capability and vision: Powering Minds.

To develop the visual identity for Powering Minds, ASU’s Publications and Creative Services team took inspiration from the stone carving of a thoughtful-looking scholar reading a scroll. From the day Wilson Hall opened on Nov. 28, 1932, The Scholar has adorned the west wall above the original exterior entrance to what was then the library.

That entrance was closed as part of a Wilson Hall remodeling in the 1960s, after the Dean B. Ellis Library opened in 1963. But the scholar, captured in limestone in his quest for knowledge and enlightenment, still remains.

That quest has been shared by generations of students, first at Agricultural and Mechanical (A&M) College, First District, beginning in 1909; at Arkansas State College, beginning in 1933; and at Arkansas State University, beginning in 1967.

As the current students contemplate their future, they may draw on some artistic inspiration from the past and a University that knows what it’s doing: Powering Minds.

Powering Minds is a registered trademark of Arkansas State University