September 8, 2023
Dear all,
It’s Friday again! TGIF, except for me, because Friday comes with its own fresh hell delightful challenge: writing a Friday message! Look below the line if you dare, and now I know that some of you look below the line even before you ponder the pithy information and eloquent exhortations of the above the line section, I feel extra pressure to keep you engaged. Here goes.
- First, a correction. I implied in my Friday message last week that Dean of Students Office is responsible for student orientation. They are certainly involved, but it is Lauren Garrett and her team at Student Transition Engagement Programs who organized the programming for our incoming first years a couple of weeks ago. A big thank you to them for settling our students in so that they arrived in our classes confident and ready to go.
- Don’t forget the inaugural performance in the new PBK, Nine, with the Leah Glenn Dance Theatre and W&M students, tomorrow (Saturday) at 7:30.
- Also, the Provost just sent out the attached message about the Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) related to our upcoming decennial reaffirmation by SACSCOC. Please read her message carefully and consider putting your own stamp on the next few years of student education.
- I know many of you will be interested in this new language and Q&A on the Admissions page relating to the SCOTUS decision on race-based admissions.
- I am working with Student Assembly to promote sustainability, so with this message I am exhorting you to avoid printing course and other materials whenever possible. I know not everyone loves reading online, and of course this is your decision, but I wanted to make you aware that this is a major priority for our students.
- Last but not least, Teaching Faculty colleagues, please reply as soon as you can to the invitation to a celebratory reception sent by Erica Macleod last week. We are really grateful to you all for your help in developing the Teaching Faculty Framework, and we want to have the opportunity to thank you and to celebrate your transition into your new roles (whether you are continuing faculty, or have just arrived on campus).
Suzanne
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I don’t want to reveal my secrets, but sometimes it’s a little tough to think of something to go below the line. When I think I might have found a winning streak, I stay with it until it just seems like it’s going on forever. The Queen was one such streak. I had to stop when I began to worry that you might think that I somehow identified with the Queen, or thought I was the Queen, or something. (My teenage daughter calls her friends “queen,” which has been extra confusing for me). Then someone asked me the other day what I thought of the King. Ha! A new streak! So here he is, with his new fashionable glasses.
And here he is again, with a new hairdo.
Oh sorry. Wrong type of King Charles.
Have a great weekend,
Suzanne
Suzanne Raitt
Dean of the Faculty of Arts & Sciences
Chancellor Professor of English
Pronouns: she/her/hers
