Perlmutter (right) enjoyed spending time with CoMC alumnus K.O. Amoako (left) and Gov. Greg Abbott (center) at a Texas Tech football game. Abbott was in Lubbock to toss the coin at the beginning of the Tech - Lousiana Tech football game.

A good journalist will tell you that in order to understand facts you need to consider context and history. But sometimes data present such a clear pattern of outcome that little explanation or commentary is needed to draw fairly obvious conclusions from them. Looking back at recent academic years and forward to the new one, this is the case. In brief, we in the college believe that this has been the most productive and spectacular year in our history. We make this claim even while acknowledging the prominent milestones of the recent past, including the formation of our independent college, the creation of the Ph.D. program, the move-in to newly renovated facilities, and the merger with the Communication Studies department.

Specifically, like any enterprise, we are judged by a set of metrics – analogous to sales, market share, and customer satisfaction figures. They number in the hundreds, but as for any nonprofit, business, or government agency, some are more important and more revealing than others. So I will simply list, in no particular order, the headline achievements of the college as of the last year and assert that these highlights not only the robust health of CoMC but also, above all, the incredibly talented, hardworking and dedicated team of faculty and staff serving our mission, students and future.

• Increased grad enrollment by 87.9 percent from Fall 2013 to Fall 2016
• Launched the fastest growing grad program in Texas Tech history with the online professional M.A.
• Placed 100 percent of Ph.D. graduates in academic or industry jobs
• 2 Ph.D. students earned the college’s first Faculty-double Legacy Scholar Grant from the Arthur W. Page Center for Integrity in Public Communication at Penn State
• Record enrollment of 1,828 students in Fall 2016, highest number of majors ever
• Increased the total number of Student Credit Hours 79.4 percent from Fall 2013 (14,848) to Fall 2016 (26,634)
• Increased the one-year retention rate from 84 percent in 2014 to 88 percent in 2015
• Redesigned the CoMC website with emphasis on recruiting and retention
• Communication Studies Adviser Judy Poffenbarger received the 2016 President’s Excellence in Academic Advising Award for outstanding vision, dedication and commitment
• The Daily Toreador readers voted the following as Best of Texas Tech for 2016:
• Best Professor: Bill Dean (#1)
• Best Major: Advertising (#2)
• Most Helpful Department: CoMC (#2)
• The Texas Tech debate team is #18 in the nation out of 88 teams
• Number of successful funding awards for sponsored research in FY16 up 73 percent from FY13
• Value of successful funding awards for sponsored research in FY16 up 273 percent from FY13
• More than 4,500 hours of research participation and more than 40 research projects conducted through the Center for Communication Research

In sum, it was a grand year, and we are working for more to come!