Dear Colleagues:

Last week, as I reviewed this year’s promotion and tenure dossiers, my heart was full, bursting with great pride and appreciation for our remarkable faculty. I am awed not only by your outstanding achievements in research and teaching, but also by the heroic dedication those dossiers represent. The dedication of unseen academic labor performed late into the night and on weekends, the dedication of amazing mentors, the dedication of external reviewers taking on a task vital to the academy yet often unrecognized, the dedication of our college committee members who review these dossiers with enormous diligence and care.

Our excellent staff keep a million things on track and we would all be lost without them. Whether that means deciphering travel reimbursements; tracking down surplus computers; processing P3As, P10s, or P14s; crafting creative social media content; or showing that one person how to unjam the copier for the thousandth time, you bring good humor, endless amounts of patience, and great skill to your work.

I know this year has been a very hard one for many members of the CLAHS community.  Early hopes of an imminent end of the pandemic thwarted. Concerns about the future of our planet and our nation heightened. Anxieties about our families and friends ever-present. These all exact real costs. And still you give your all to the university, the college, your colleagues, and our students.   

All of this and more makes me incredibly grateful for the gift leading this college is. I wish you and yours the happiest of holiday seasons and hope that the break brings rest and rejuvenation.

Be well,

Laura Belmonte
Dean, College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences