From the Dean: Welcome to the 2025-26 school year

Welcome to the 2025-26 school year! I want to extend a special welcome to the new faculty joining us (who will be profiled in a future COEfyi edition) and the staff members who have joined us over the summer.

As we begin a new academic year, I extend my sincere appreciation for your continued dedication to our shared mission. The work we do together is not easy. It asks much of us: our energy, our time, our creativity, and often, our resilience.

I am also acutely aware that this work takes place within an ever-evolving and often challenging context. And yet, we persist. We persist not because the work is easy but because it matters. And, even in the midst of difficulty, there are moments of joy, connection, and purpose.

This year, I invite us all to actively look for joy—not in spite of the hard parts but sometimes because of them. Joy in the lightbulb moments with students. Joy in a hallway conversation with a colleague that sparks a new idea. Joy in mentoring, collaborating, growing. Joy in advancing knowledge. Joy in knowing that what we do here touches lives beyond our College, beyond campus, beyond now. Joy that reminds us of why we wanted to do this work in the first place.

I also encourage us to remember that there are many in the College who do work behind the scenes that is easy to miss or take for granted, but that work is essential to accomplishing our mission. Sometimes this is the person who drops whatever they are doing to help a stressed student. Or the person who fixes the issues with your travel expense statement rather than making you do it. Or it’s the person who is here on Saturday working with a student group. Or it’s the person who sets up and cleans up for a department event. Or it’s the person who does any one of hundreds of other small and large things that make our College a better place to be. Let’s make a special effort to show appreciation regularly to those whose work is underappreciated.

There will be challenges ahead—there always are—but there will also be many moments of joy. Let’s hold onto that–and to one another. As we move forward together, may we continue to find strength in our community and joy in the work we are privileged to do.

Wishing you a meaningful, joyful start to the semester.

Denise A. Spangler