I hope this email – following the first day of spring –finds you well as I write with updates and information that you may find of interest.
This week saw a number of important events, meetings, and announcements. Not surprisingly, our stellar students were at the forefront of many of these!
We recently received word from the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) that CSI has its first ever All-American! Congratulations to men’s athlete Yubal Parra (1M diving) for his fantastic accomplishment and his top-6 finish at the National Championship in Indianapolis. The hard work and dedication that went into his accomplishment—coming on the heels of a pair of gold medals at the NE-10 championship – is a testament to the resiliency of so many of our students. Another example can be seen in the selection of Maya Corda as a Class of 2027 Jeannette K. Watson Fellow! This prestigious award is given to a select number of high-achieving college students who will spend the next three years interning across disciplines, sectors, and international borders. Maya’s selection will allow her to intern as part of a cohort where she will benefit from unprecedented opportunities to learn more about the world of work and herself. Congratulations to Maya on this amazing achievement! The demonstration of high academic and athletic achievements will be on display at this Sunday’s Macaulay Honors College Olympiad, held at our own 1R – I am sure our dynamite MHC @CSI students will represent our campus well!
The week also saw the monthly meeting of the CSI Foundation, where we toured the theater and performing arts spaces in 1P (and many thanks to Matthew Fick for the detailed tour), received updates on the upcoming Spring into Giving gala (buy tickets here), and reviewed financial information related to portfolio performance. We also discussed our upcoming Undergraduate Research Conference (May 1), a spring Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for local high schoolers, scholarship opportunities for our students, and the state of the College and its enrollment and budget projections. This final pair of topics was also covered in the monthly College Council and Faculty Senate meetings: while our mid-year forecast is better than we had projected, we still have a multi-million dollar structural deficit to address, the closing of which will require continued prudence and stewardship. I appreciate your patience and support here, and maintaining and growing our enrollment will be key: that is why events such as this week’s slate of Advisement activities are so critical to our success. Many thanks to the team in the Center for Advising and Academic Success (CAAS) for their hard work here, which I am sure will yield positive results. The governance meetings also discussed our nascent Strategic Plan (available on the Intranet for review using your FLAS credentials), as well as our campus climate…. and I want to remind everyone of today’s “Know Your Rights Workshop,” put on by the Center for Teaching, Learning, and Professional Development, and co-sponsored by the Student Government Association, Faculty Senate Executive Committee, College Council Executive Committee, and Student Affairs. Many thanks for their collective leadership on this important issue. After Faculty Senate, we also saw the opening of Land/Scape in our Art Gallery, which is a group exhibition of several artists curated by Miguel A. Aragón. This exhibition will be on view through April 25.
Wishing you all a restful weekend.
Until next time,
Timothy G. Lynch, Ph.D. (he/him/his)
