President Caboni

Dear Colleagues:

Our community continues to work through unimaginable loss and destruction resulting from the tornado that ravaged our area yesterday morning. Early information from first responders to the WKU Emergency Operations Center (EOC) gave us the name of a student as a fatality. As we continued conversations with emergency managers throughout the morning, we learned that, in fact, it was a close relative of our student who passed away. While at this time we are not aware of any deaths among our students, faculty or staff, I do know this: members of our WKU Family are dealing with significant loss and trauma, from property damage to the injury or death of friends or family members.

In true Hilltopper fashion, many of you are already out in the community working to help your neighbors, friends, family and those you’ve never met. Some also have asked about ways that you can help other Hilltoppers or the community at large. While campus will be open tomorrow and Tuesday, we will not be conducting business as usual. In this time of catastrophic loss and devastation, we encourage all employees who can to take these two days to volunteer with local organizations, relief agencies, churches, schools and other groups leading support and recovery efforts throughout the area. Supervisors, please work with your direct reports to best accommodate their willingness to assist with relief efforts. Our responsibility to elevate and support our surrounding community is more important now than ever before.

Additionally, many of our employees are still without power, in temporary housing, or are unable to travel to campus. I’m also asking supervisors to provide maximum flexibility for those dealing with these challenges. Staffing and campus operations will be fluid for the next two days, but our primary focus will be to take care of each other, our students and our community. We will reassess campus operations for the remainder of the week on Tuesday afternoon. 

For those of you wishing to donate money, time, or items to support local recovery activities, I encourage you to connect with a local church, school district, community organization, or civic group already leading these efforts. Also, Governor Beshear established the Team Western Kentucky Tornado Relief Fund. Visit https://secure.kentucky.gov/formservices/Finance/WKYRelief to donate.

GO TOPS!

Timothy C. Caboni