Leaders, faculty celebrate 'birth' of new college
United effort and fruitful collaboration among faculty and staff over the past several months not only brought the new College of Natural Sciences into being but will help to position it well for success in the future, said dean Steve Goodwin at the college’s first convocation on Sept. 8 at Bowker Auditorium.
The event allowed Goodwin, executive associate dean Jim Kurose, department heads and chairs to recognize and applaud “the individuals who have brought us where we are today, expecting really wonderful things to be happening here over the next year,” in Kurose’s words.
Chancellor Robert Holub said the new college, created as part of his strategic framework for elevating the campus into the ranks of the best public research universities in the country, will foster “new spaces for exploration and discovery” and enhance the campus’s ability to attract and retain the best faculty and facilitate research collaboration across science disciplines.
Reflecting on his own undergraduate research experience, James V. Staros, the new provost, said it is important for undergraduates to be taught and inspired by the people who are creating new knowledge, which means the faculty’s education and research roles are not separate but “absolutely integrated.”
Both Goodwin and Staros took care to encourage the faculty and staff present that the current challenging financial situation in the Commonwealth won’t last forever and that “the budget will get better in time.”
Goodwin and Kurose took a “tag team” approach to introducing 15 college awards and new department chairs, who in turn introduced their new junior faculty. Kurose remarked that “our future is very, very bright indeed” judging by the high caliber of new appointees. Goodwin added that a core tenet of ecology, that there is “strength in diversity,” is illustrated by the science faculty’s impressively wide-ranging talent and expertise.
More Information
Convocation program
September 17, 2009.
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