Our Faculty's Resilience and Brilliance

Those of us who have made careers in higher education are driven at some fundamental level by hope. Education can take many forms, but it is ultimately about improving the lives of those with whom we engage, whether our students or the communities we serve. To remain dedicated to that mission despite the polarized and complex world in which we find ourselves requires resilience, determination, and a deep belief that the high-quality, research-informed instruction we offer has the power to positively transform lives and communities. In the face of so much that is challenging, exercising that resilience and remaining dedicated to the work is not always easy, but I see these characteristics everywhere among our campus community. This gives me hope. 

One marker of that dedication can be seen in the stellar accomplishments of College of Arts and Sciences faculty and students. Our faculty continue to make significant contributions to their fields despite the pandemic, and they welcome students to join them in this important work. It’s worth noting that despite the challenges of the past few years, our faculty continue to be nominated and inducted as fellows of major national academies and societies in significant numbers. They continue to publish transformational research that changes our lives for the better, and for which they are awarded prizes and medals. They produce creative work that is exhibited and performed internationally to great acclaim. They implement ground-breaking pedagogies that help our students take the next steps towards the lives they seek and provide them with the tools to make our world a better place. 
 

Our faculty and staff also offer outstanding guidance, support, encouragement, advising, mentoring, and a range of important research and co-curricular opportunities to our students — work that does not often enough receive recognition but is of enormous value. That is a distinctive feature of a UW education, for which I am enormously grateful. And I can’t help mentioning the ways the Burke Museum — awarded a 2022 National Medal for Museum and Library Service — as well as our stellar Meany Performing Arts Center and Henry Art Gallery — serve as crucially important entrance points for members of the public to engage with the arts, humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences on the UW campus. 

Those venues, along with the work that happens daily in our classrooms and research spaces, offer everyone we serve critically needed tools to navigate the complex times in which we find ourselves. Not only are our faculty breaking new ground in their labs, in archives, and in studios, but they are also leading in new models of cross-disciplinary research and in generating the most diverse, equitable and just environments in which to pursue that work. 
We are not likely to see the end of global turbulence, but our work — built on our resilience and brilliance — continues to shine a light on all we know the world can be. 

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