Dean's Blog

This week embodied what I love about the start of springtime on Xavier's campus. Energy. Surprise. Change. Exuberance. Unexpected sunshine followed by rain, warm weather by cold. A smiling...

In 2019, the college's Academic Leadership Group agreed on five-year goals that expressed our collective aspirations for the state of the College of Arts and Sciences in 2024. In 2024, the College...

Learning, Serving, Achieving, Together. Our colleagues over in the WCB Marketing department call those our university's "brand pillars." One brand pillar particular came to mind this week, not long...

Ash Wednesday marked the start of the Christian season of Lent with an invitation to to reflection, to penance, and to reconciliation. This year Lent didn't turn my mind to the consumption of or...

What difference does Xavier's Core Curriculum make? How would you answer that? If you were talking with a prospective student or parent? With a student in your office or classroom? With a...

I grew up two miles from Eatonville, the first Black-owned city in Florida, founded by formerly enslaved people in 1887. Zora Neale Hurston's father served as its mayor, and her writing featured...

Curiosity. Intelligence. Courage. Perseverance. Hard work. Collaboration. All are essential ingredients in the research that our college's accomplished teacher-scholars produce. ...

Universities follow multiple calendars simultaneously. In addition to the solar, fiscal, and academic calendars, the rhythms of several recruiting calendars order our daily activities. Within the...

James Weldon Johnson's Black National anthem exhorted us to march. Dr. Walter Earl Fluker inspired us to keep running despite dangerous times ahead. So why was a bench, of all things, the...

Welcome to the new year! Whether you stayed here or traveled (or TRIED to travel despite the weather), I hope that you found time over the past weeks for some year-end rest and reflection. Some...

As exam week slips into the frenzy of grading, we have much to do and plenty to occupy our minds. Even the quickly approaching holidays may inspire more anxiety than anticipation; how many shopping...

Many of you joined us yesterday afternoon to celebrate the deep contributions of Nan Moore and Marybeth Dulle to the college. Day after day throughout nearly all my time as Dean, both have kept...

Even for insiders, the astounding diversity of Catholic religious orders of men and women can seem dizzying. Monks and nuns, friars and canons, priests and brothers and sisters of many stripes....

I've walked by the place thousands of times. Yesterday I paused there to reflect and pray with others -- at the peace garden tucked against Bellarmine Chapel on our campus. It wasn't...

This week those words from Our Mutual Commitments of CAS have displaced the normal chaos on my calendar. So I'm writing these words in advance before leaving for El Salvador,...

Leave it to my Uncle Oral to die unexpectedly this week on All Saints Day.Had that been his plan, I'm sure he would have penned a poem grumbling that he'd aimed for Halloween but missed. Oral was...

Speech on campus? As we approach another important election, few topics are more contentious. An administrator's nightmare, to be sure!I've nevertheless been cheering the recent outpouring of...

Like any self-respecting institution, Xavier has insider acronyms. Most we've adopted from our Jesuit, Catholic tradition. A few we even derived from ancient languages, just to be tricky.Maybe...

Did you notice it too? This week's powerful calendrical confluences? The final week of National Hispanic Heritage Month plus Indigenous Peoples Day. Then National Coming Out Day -- and the...

The college's highest priority this year is to support our students to flourish. The relationships they build with their faculty advisors and success coaches will be critical for that. Priority...

Yesterday, Russia's autocrat marked the UN International Day of Peace by escalating his unprovoked war against Ukraine. Meanwhile members of our community presented their art and music against...

Bernoulli and beetles, cancel culture and chemotaxis were there.Cincinnati City Council, decaffeinated nematodes, and even Justin Bieber also made appearances in Alter Hall on Friday afternoon.A...

Week 3 already? For many on campus, that means we're hitting our strides once again. But for our new students, this week marks the start of a particularly critical stretch. Over the next 3 weeks,...

Only 2 of my 21 Goa students this year hail from Cincinnati — which has reminded me that welcoming new students (and new faculty and staff) to Xavier also means welcoming them to our...

On Monday we welcomed the Class of 2026 into our classrooms -- as many of us have done for many previous cohorts of first-year students. This year our privilege to be entrusted with them has...

Welcome to the first weekly CAS Bulletin of the new academic year! It's a great place to bring your questions. At this time of year, we've all got at least a few of them. Some of you are new to...

Yesterday afternoon I had the chance to participate in a new event for our seniors: the Graduate Toast.  Students and guests gathered on the sunny Upper Lawn (aka the dining...

The orange cones have returned to University Drive today, signaling the quarterly gathering of Xavier's Board of Trustees. Its diverse members have converged from across the country to...

Celebrate? Surely that's premature. We haven't quite finished the last week of classes. Piles of grading, final exams, and then still more grading stand between us and the end of the academic...

At this time of year, we rightly make time to celebrate our colleagues' milestones and achievements. And after more than two years of pandemic postponements, we were more than ready. Last week's...

The events of the past several days have powerfully reminded me who keeps this university running. You do. The staff and faculty who painstakingly planned, ran, and attended the All Honors...

And we're off! The last day of classes will arrive in less than a month, if you can believe it.  You don't need reminding of the impossible amount that we'll squeeze into the intervening...

Yesterday I was reminded — and cheered — by the return of something I hadn't realized how much I've missed since the start of the pandemic: a thought-provoking lecture by a...

I hope you found some time over the break to refresh yourself in preparation for the final, frantic quarter of the academic year.As for me, I finally joined my family's daily word-game...

Ashes appeared again on campus yesterday. As the CAS Student Advisory Board members reminded us recently, the first sight of ash-crossed foreheads can be baffling to many among us.If we...

Troops crossing borders of a European democracy? Before dawn broke in Moscow this morning, Russia's boss declared his invasion. I'm trying to understand how we got here. Yes, I...

I left Monday's college meeting with an unexpected word on my lips. No, not "cookie." That was in my pocket.It was "balm," a word that feels awkwardly round in my mouth.You put it there....

People have likened pandemics to wars. They've mapped pathogens' spread as if they were invading armies.I know something about this.Yet plagues are not wars. They have...

Working from home on the morning of the university’s first ever “remote day,” I find myself pondering the meaning of animals. Not the meaning of Q...

Bright, bracing weather welcomed us back to campus in 2022. After some well-deserved rest over the holidays, January's crisp mornings invite us to look forward. As you know, this week...

Yeah, I know. Just by looking at me, you can tell I'm privileged.But as I write my final CAS Bulletin post for 2021, I am struck by one of my less visible privileges.It has been and remains my...

Autumn colors, shortening days, and the final campus classes until the new year. Already? Some of us began this week on a cold morning in the warm company of those who came before us,...

What if middle-age nostalgia about college life partly reflects the remembered joys of living in a walkable community – the first and only time that many in our...

In the midst of a busy week, Tuesday felt eerily quiet on campus as we set aside time for voting (congratulations to our very own Emily Franzen of Norwood!). In...

More than a few times over the past several years, I've joined peacock processions of gowned delegates honoring another university's new president.Just last weekend, I represented Xavier as...

The return of autumn this week put a smile on my masked face.The change of seasons always has that effect. Maybe because I grew up in Florida, where we only had two seasons: warm and too warm.I...

"How is the beginning of your semester going?"At yesterday's all-day diversity and inclusion training for some campus leaders, I must have been asked that half a dozen times. To this...

Like emerging from the darkness into the light, like taking a deep, cleansing breath. That's how it felt, watching graduating CAS students walk -- really walk -- across the Cintas stage on...

As exam week gives way to final grading, I want to recognize and thank you all for the heroic work that everyone in CAS has done over the course of this academic year. What a year!You -- the CAS...

It’s been a year of new constraints. What we must wear. How we cannot gather. What we may not risk. And now this! “If you are fully...