August 2024
Dear Willamette Alumni,
It’s been a pleasure welcoming new faculty, staff, and more than 900 new students to the Willamette University community these past few weeks. In Salem and Portland, it is great to have our campuses full again and for the excellent work of the year to be underway.
Summer brings a different rhythm to life on campus, but it’s far from idle. Students and faculty can engage in more focused scholarship and creative work than is possible during the academic year. It’s also a busy time for PNCA’s low-residency MFA programs in and and, increasingly, for our other graduate programs that offer instruction year-round.
Significant infrastructure improvements on the Salem campus, including the ongoing boiler decentralization project, were started right after commencement in May. It seemed like magic to see the trenches vanish in recent days, quickly preparing the campus for Opening Days! Thank you to our Facilities team for all that hard work this summer.
On August 26th, we cut the ribbon on Willamette’s new Graduate and Professional Center located at the Natural Capital Center (also called the Ecotrust Building) in Portland, just a few blocks from PNCA.
This space will house our new Master in Computer 快活视频 program and the top-ranked Master in Data 快活视频 and MBA programs. PNCA will also use it for some liberal arts classes, and the Center will allow expanded access to our legal clinics. Consolidating our Portland programs in the Pearl neighborhood makes our growing presence and expanding role in the city’s economic and cultural vitality more visible.
While commencement is always a joyous moment and fills me with pride for our graduating students and the alumni who preceded them, Opening Days is moving in a different and more personal way.
I watch as students take a courageous step towards, as our Opening Convocation speaker Dani Cone BA’98 said, deciding not just what they want to do but who they want to be. I spent a lot of time talking with parents and family members, and each conversation reminded me of their profound trust in us. I am grateful for the confidence they express in their decision to send their students to Willamette. The work we do here is essential, even transformative. We are more than up to the task.
This year marks my 14th year as president of Willamette University. I continue to find myself invigorated by the work leading the state’s most dynamic, innovative, and fastest-growing private university. We continue to hold fast to our founding mission as the West’s first university: providing rigorous education in the liberal arts and professions to prepare leaders for all sectors of society, ready to “turn knowledge into action.”
Despite our age, we have shown nimbleness as we’ve made curricular and co-curricular changes to align with student needs and the opportunities in our region. Few other universities in the country touch our capacity to build coherent, thoughtful, cross-disciplinary programs and pathways for our students to prepare them for the complex challenges of the 21st century.
Although we all know the external environment for higher education isn’t easy, and neither is the world for which we prepare our students, that only makes the work we do more valuable. Willamette is well-positioned to flourish in the years ahead. I couldn’t be more grateful to share this work of building a stronger Willamette with a faculty and staff so dedicated to serving our students with care, compassion, and an enduring commitment to excellence.
I look forward to keeping you updated with what we accomplish this year.
Sincerely,
Steve
