Comprehensive testing and appropriate placement in courses is key to meeting students' needs and helping students succeed. In recent years, Eastern increased the number of developmental courses in response to students' needs. The University is committed to decreasing the need for these courses by recruiting better-prepared students, and by finding ways to fit necessary courses into offerings of academic departments. For instance, the mathematics and writing developmental curriculum is being radically transformed. New rigorous courses are being introduced to better prepare students.
Eastern today is in many ways a different institution from what it was a decade ago.
More than half of the instructional faculty members were hired in the past decade. Faculty and staff with strong credentials and from a variety of backgrounds have enriched the institution greatly. Eastern enjoys the status of being the most diversified public university in the state in terms of its students and employees. These include the need to develop more comprehensive data and planning documents for Student Affairs, and the need for additional opportunities for student input to Student Life, for additional communication from the administration regarding decision making, and for improvement in advising and extracurricular programs and activities. Since 1993, significant progress has been made in mission and planning.