Where are we and when are we going?
August 14, 2025
As I begin my second year as your Dean, I am very much aware of the difference in the mood on campus between last summer and now. Last August, the university community had just started to implement about 250 sustaining excellence projects, and there was considerable excitement about the future. It was a great time to arrive on campus.A year later, things look different. We did not come close to achieving our enrollment target. We will not be collecting the amount of tuition revenue from the Class of 2029 that we had anticipated. We have offered early retirement incentives to eligible faculty and have not renewed the contracts of others. We are reducing our operating expenses. And although we had a round of raises in January, we didn’t see the raises that we had expected this summer and are experiencing temporary salary reductions. McKinsey is not among the popular groups on campus. The mood feels much more sober.
Still, over all concerns, we should not forget what we have achieved in the past year. CAS alone started six new majors and several new minors and concentrations. The new programs are clearly in demand because slightly over 10% of this Fall’s new enrollment in CAS programs is in one of our new majors. Our college is starting two new graduate programs: the MS in Instructional Design and the graduate certificate in the American Founding and Constitution. Communication is combining three programs into its new major in Digital and Strategic Communication. All colleges are working on additional graduate and undergraduate programs, including our new major in 3D Animation and Immersive Game Design and the Collaborative Humanities Learning Community. The fully-funded College of Medicine building is rising, and many more initiatives outside the Provost Area are in the works. The campus is not even halfway through the many projects that we started last summer. It is true that not every project is proceeding as smoothly as we had hoped. Internal communication could be better. Accountability is important. Much can be improved. But change is difficult, and change takes time. Higher Ed itself is changing at a rapid pace, so “no change” is not an option for us. It is far too early to conclude that this truly massive Sustaining Excellence project will not deliver the anticipated results. Because most ideas originated from the faculty and staff, I still consider Sustaining Excellence much more promising than comparable projects that I have experienced at other universities.
At the end of Dena Morton and Jen Droege’s chairs’ training last Friday, Justin Link asked what keeps us awake at night and what keeps us coming back every day. What keeps me awake at night is the challenge to prepare our college for the incoming class in Fall 2026 so that we can continue to provide our students with the transformative experiences that they expect. What brings me to campus every day is the prospect of engaging with you, our faculty and our staff. Our college operates so well because of you: your ideas, your engagement, and your willingness to voice your concerns. Please don’t stop the latter—our college cannot succeed if the deans’ office does not know where things go wrong and where we can help.
This Fall, I will visit every department to discuss our changing landscapes. We will also meet as a college four times during this academic year, twice in the Fall and twice in the Spring, for Q&A and to discuss updates. I am looking forward to receiving the report of our Summer task force that will get us started on developing a vision for our college.
We still have much to do. Let’s continue the good work. And let’s welcome our students, those who are joining our community for the first time and those who are about to return to campus. They are looking forward to transformative experiences. We know how to provide those extremely well.
Best wishes for the Fall semester,
Florenz