Welcome back
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0TpxCvmBrc]
Welcome to what promises to be a magnificent year at Virginia Commonwealth University.
In fact, I believe there has never been a better time to be at VCU.
Our community is composed of nationally competitive students and internationally renowned faculty who continue to elevate the VCU name around the world. We were recently selected as a “Great Value College” in the South because of our affordability and unique learning environment. Our commitment to diversity in all of its forms continues to make national headlines: This summer, we learned that we are a top 10 university nationally in awarding Ph.D.s to women in engineering, 10 percent higher than the national average.
Our physical footprint continues to take shape, including the landmark Institute for Contemporary Art at Broad and Belvidere streets; the next phase of our living-learning corridor along Grace Street; and, at the heart of our mission and our Monroe Park Campus, the renovation and expansion of Cabell Library.
Our game-changing Quest for Distinction strategic plan is halfway complete, and we are already beginning to see how it is transforming our great university. Graduation and retention rates are at their highest levels ever, and we have never been more productive in research and creative activity.
Our successes are only just beginning. I look forward to working with all of you to build on them in the new year.
This is also, of course, a pivotal period in our university’s history.
It is a time in which we will work together to brand VCU as new type of research university in our nation: one that is committed to working together as one university to address quickly the needs of people in our community and beyond. I will talk much more about this vision in the year to come.
I will also continue to count on your leadership, support and big ideas to help VCU move forward. That means I will continue to communicate and engage with you, although I will begin doing so in new ways that, I believe, will be more engaging.
For example, you will receive fewer emails from me in the coming year. As many of you have already noted, I have moved my Periodic Updates from email to this blog, where you can subscribe and receive updates. I will also begin communicating more through social media channels such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram. My goal is to keep you informed in various ways and anyplace you go, not just when you may be reading your email.
You are what matters most to me. I appreciate the many and profound ways you continue to advance VCU around the block and around the world. We are a great university because of our people, and I could not imagine a better team coming together to help create VCU’s future as a premier urban public research university in our nation.
To me, this really is the most wonderful time of the year — a time when we are all recharged, inspired and motivated by the energy that comes with beginning a new academic year.
In fact, I have a made a brief video to show you just how excited I am. <> Enjoy.
I look forward to a wonderful new year with you.
Categories Uncategorized