AN INVITATION
Dear CC Community:
Everything that I’ve learned, experienced, and observed since joining our remarkable community two and ½ months ago inspires and fills me with such hope and optimism about our future. I feel fortunate every day to be part of this special place. I know that together, we will continue our extraordinary accomplishments.
This year, I invite all of us to harness our creativity, ingenuity, and courage to ask ourselves this question: How can we do what we do better?
I believe it’s both a critical and an opportune moment to ask ourselves this question. We are experiencing a transitional moment at CC, with new leadership and the evolving nature of the pandemic providing us with new opportunities to do things differently. Our society is grappling with necessary and important questions about structural inequities. Some are questioning the value of a liberal arts education.
Times like these provide opportunities for us. What I have learned about our CC community is that we care very much about our future. We also are not content to simply do things the way they have always been done. Our mission to provide the finest liberal arts education in the country is what drives us to continue to be imaginative, bold, and pioneering. What I have learned from my conversations with you is that our desire to dream big, to be courageous, and to dare to imagine how we can do what we do better is strong.
So, this year, I would like us to step back and consider the distance between our aspirations and our actions. I invite us to look ahead at the realities likely to affect higher education over the next several decades and to think about ways to address them. I ask us to engage in conversations that focus on the possibilities for our future rather than the challenges and problems of the past and present. Let’s dare to have visionary discussions about how we educate our students, capitalize on our unique strengths, and take advantage of the opportunities available to us to do what we do better.
THE PROCESS: Committee of the Whole
This is a bold plan, and it won’t be easy. Because of the importance of this endeavor, and because the voice of every member of our community is critical to its success, I would like us to engage in these conversations as members of a committee of the whole.
To that end, I am thrilled to announce that Susan Ashley (Professor of History, Chair of Economics and Business, and former Dean of the Faculty and Dean of the College) has generously agreed to serve as the coordinator of this venture. She will share more information about the process soon.
THE TENTATIVE TIMELINE
My hope is that we will celebrate the successful completion of this process by CC’s 150th anniversary in 2024. This year (2021-22), we will determine what we hope to do. Next year (2022-23), we will determine how we do it. And in the final year (2023-24), we will do it.
I don’t yet have a name for this endeavor and hope that one will develop during the year. In the meantime, I will refer to it as Project 2024.
I look forward to us challenging ourselves and asking, How Can We Do What We Do Better.
Thank you.
Song
