From the Dean | August 2022
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Dear Arts and Science community, As I enter my fifth year as dean, I have been reflecting on what makes the College of Arts and Science successful. What has allowed us to adapt, grow, innovate, and expand over the last few years? Why are our students, faculty, and alumni so engaged, supportive, and increasingly accomplished? During the pandemic, when most of our peer institutions were cutting programs, releasing staff, freezing faculty hiring, and cutting benefits, how were we able to expand our academic offerings, add new initiatives, support our staff, and hire more faculty? The central reason is our undeniably talented and dedicated community. We attract top talent—faculty and staff—that support our amazingly gifted students and our institution in countless ways. Our alumni, friends, and donors support us in critical ways, providing needed time, resources, and brainpower to ensure we excel. I remain extremely appreciative of our tightly knit community and recognize we would not be successful without all of you. I also believe that we have carved out a unique space for ourselves. The College of Arts and Science sits at the hub of a major intersection, where the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences converge. Many colleges such as ours can claim that they sit at this same intersection, as well. However, we have a different approach. We understand deeply and fundamentally that these intersections present fascinating and innovative ways to explore, approach, and solve some of the most pressing and intractable issues of our time. It is at these intersections where new opportunities exist. It is at these intersections where we create something greater than the sum of its parts. This collaborative and multi-disciplinary approach is baked into everything we do. Our courses, our majors, and our faculty cross traditional boundaries, exposing new ways to address important issues. Our unique structure supports and drives collaboration, from our Grand Challenge Initiative to our “big-theme” classes to the many departments and centers that were built on cross-disciplinary work. We understand that history can help us better understand climate science, and that astronomy can develop new insights by tapping into philosophy. We let art inform science, and let science inspire art. We let these worlds collide and build meaningful connections from these interactions. This approach allows us to offer an exceptional academic experience to thousands of students every year. By bridging science and art, we are teaching our students to think about ideas from multiple perspectives, to listen with an open mind, to cultivate curiosity, to embrace discomfort, to debate, and to build critical and fundamental skills that will serve them for decades after they leave this brick and mortar. Students take that knowledge with them throughout their lives, as engaged citizens, and throughout their careers, as people who make a difference. The value of an education from the College of Arts and Science only increases over the years. We will continue to push boundaries, exploring where these new and exciting ideas can take us. We truly believe that when art and science come together, anything is possible.
My best,
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