DR. ROSARIO CEBALLO: Good afternoon. I'm Rosie Ceballo. And it is my great honor to serve as your Dean, the Dean of the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts. Before we dive into things, I want to thank everyone who helped who make the State of the College possible: our colleagues in technology services, our facilities crew members, the Dean's office staff, and the events and communications team. If you're joining us via livestream, you can turn on live captions using the closed-captioning button. For those of you joining us here in person, you know that you can view captions on the display next to the stage. So now, I get to welcome you to the State of the College. As a professor of psychology, and women’s and gender studies, I would be remiss not to acknowledge the history of this beautiful building that we're in. The Michigan League opened its doors in 1929 as a space designed for women, who at the time were barred from entering the Michigan Union unless they came in through a side door, and were accompanied by a male escort. While the League's identity has shifted over the past 50 years, I believe it is important to recognize that history. In LSA, we aim to create room for all people with the broadest range of perspectives, disciplines, and ideas so that we can operate as a single, united, and innovative college. The State of the College provides a unique opportunity to come together as faculty and staff, to take a collective pause, and reflect on our shared accomplishments. As well as our values and goals, and the challenges that lie ahead. The College of LSA is among the leading preeminent liberal arts and sciences colleges in the world. It's really great to say that. Our mission is two-fold: To push the boundaries of what is understood about human experience and the natural world, and to foster the next generation of rigorous and empathic thinkers, creators, and contributors to the State of Michigan, the nation, and the world. Simply put, LSA is a powerhouse in research and creative practice. During the past fiscal year, LSA reported $243 million in research expenditures, third among all of U of M schools, colleges, and units in terms of total research volume. Research expenditures, however, are more than just numbers. They represent the powerful role that LSA humanists, social scientists and natural scientists play in generating new knowledge, advancing technology, solving societal challenges, and improving our quality of life. The toughest challenges we face today cannot be solved by one-dimensional thinking. Instead, they require brilliant minds and new approaches. We need scholarly colleagues and students challenging each other to find new ways forward, through the dogged pursuit of new knowledge. For example, one might ponder can planets outside of our solar system, also known as EXO planets, support life? A team of LSA researchers are leading a project that will shed light on that very question. Their work will culminate with the first space mission led by our Department of Astronomy, the crewless starry mission, or star one mission. Does somebody know? Star-E star one mission. This is just one example of the vital work happening around LSA every day resulting in insights in places as far away as multiple light-years and as near as our own backyard. LSA is also a powerhouse when it comes to experiential learning and teaching innovation, all in the service to the State of Michigan, our country, and the world. Today, Liberal arts and sciences colleges like ours are under enormous scrutiny. These are not easy times for institutions of higher education. We face changes in federal funding support for scientific research, changes in immigration policies that impact many of our students and colleagues, changes brought about by the pervasive availability of Generative AI, changes in requirements for digital accessibility and changes in our national political climate as seen in the longest government shutdown in our history. Frankly, it's a really hard time to be an academic leader. Still, what I want you all to know is that there's no place where I would rather be, and no place where I would rather be serving than as your Dean here in the College of LSA. LSA transformed my life. I am the person who I am because of my 36 years in this college as a graduate student, a faculty member, a DUS, a Department Chair, an Associate Dean, and now as your Dean. [Applause] LSA staff are smart, thoughtful, and highly dedicated professionals. LSA faculty are brilliant scholars and dedicated teachers who understand the importance of protecting the principles of faculty governance, academic freedom, the centrality of research across the liberal arts and sciences, inclusive excellence, and our ability to dialogue, debate ,and discuss intellectual disagreements. It will take all of us collectively working together across LSA to uphold those principles. I believe it will take all of us. I really mean that. It will take all of us to preserve the strengths of LSA, the strengths that include educational opportunities for students that bridge the humanities, the natural sciences and the social sciences, and approaches to scholarship that embrace the messy complexity and interdisciplinarity of the many things that we study and teach. LSA is an exemplar of the intellectual richness that flourishes when we honor academic freedom, scientific exploration for the sake of pure science and discovery, and collaborations across our college and campus. As the oldest and largest college at the University of Michigan, we will always have a lot to celebrate. Beyond our size and scope, the State of the College has historically served as a catalyst to unify our vibrant academic community. Given the current historical moment, this may be more important than ever before. Given last October, when I delivered my first State of the College address, I had only been in the role as your Dean for two months. It's hard to believe now that I look back. Above all else, a goal that I shared was to make time to listen, and to learn from as many people as possible across the college when I spoke to you last October. Since then, I have met with dozens and dozens of units across LSA. Over the past 3 months, I have visited with 18 departments, programs, and museums that are in the process of a leadership transition. I've also had a series of faculty lunches with several departments and visited with several staff teams in the college. With every meeting, I have gained a deeper appreciation for the breadth and the depth of knowledge across our college. And for the multitude of ways in which the experience, passion, and dedication of our faculty and staff permeate each and every inch of the more than 1.7 million square feet of buildings that we occupy. And I like to share a sense of the highlights with you. I'm going start with undergraduate education. This semester, LSA welcomed 4,839 first-year students and 1,050 transfer students. That's an increase of 500 students as compared to fall of 2024. On less than a month's notice, Assistant Dean Tim McKay worked with department chairs, associate chairs, D-U-Ses, and academic support staff to plan for a much larger number of students in our popular first-year and introductory courses. To give you just one example, chemistry 130 had 438 more students this fall than last fall. For a total of 2,207 students, our largest class in any subject ever! Yeah! [Applause] Across the college we worked together to implement numerous strategies including adding new sections, hiring more lecturers, and filling all of the seats in our classrooms. As a result, the college has the lowest waitlist in over 5 years. So, thank you. Thank you to everyone whose hard work and collaboration made that happen. Of course, this means and I know some of you are thinking, of course this means we will also need to start planning to accommodate this larger class in our upper level classes. And Tim and his team will work in partnership with all of you to find creative and sustainable solutions that ensure success for all of our students, and the appropriate support and resources for our instructors and staff. Another set of highlights have to do with the many important anniversary celebrations that have taken place across LSA. 60 years ago, the Camp Davis Field School in Jackson, Wyoming was transferred from the College of Engineering to the College of LSA in 1965. Field courses at camp Davis have been an integral part of the curriculum for earth and environmental science majors ever since. The psychology and women's and gender studies joint doctoral program celebrated its 30th Anniversary with a day-long symposium on September 5. This joint program was the first-of-its-kind to offer this dual Ph.D title. On September 26, our Michigan in Washington Program celebrated its 20th anniversary. This program is a brilliant example of our commitment to experiential learning. Our students spend a semester in D.C. taking classes, while also working in internships and gaining valuable experiences. On November 5, the physics department celebrated the spin centennial symposium to commemorate George Uhlenbeck and Sam Goudsmit’s 1925 discovery of the magnetic spin of electrons. Their discovery established our physics department as a national leader. At the symposium, professor of physics Aaron Pierce drew on a treasure trove of materials from the Bentley Library to document their working relationship in their discoveries. I was especially struck by a quote that Professor Pierce shared from Sam Goudsmit in 1947. Quote: "I am interested, rather, in why German science failed where the Americans and British succeed. And I think the facts demonstrate pretty conclusively that science under Nazism was not and in all probability could never be the equal of science in a democracy." Close quote. Finally, yeah. [Applause] Finally, on December 3, professor Elizabeth Cole will lead a celebration of the National Center for Institutional Diversity, NCID's 20th anniversary at U of M. Allow me also to share a few highlights from my meeting with LSA staff teams across the college. During my visit with four units under Dr. Perry Fittrer’s undergraduate Ed team, I know you're here, I saw you. There you are. I learned that the Newnan Academic Advising Center conducted 13,872 advising appointments with students so far this semester, and the student Academic Affairs team has processed 1,401 late ads and 1,277 late drops this semester alone. Yeah. [Applause] When I met with the LSA facilities team, Caitlin Jacob, our LSA sustainability manager, shared that our new swap shop redistributes excess lab equipment across campus, saving LSA researchers more than $300,000 on supplies last year alone, and creating opportunities to reuse unrecyclable materials. Under the direction of Dr. Norris Chase director of the first-gen commitment, we recently celebrated our second LSA first-gen day to coincide with national first-gen celebrations and once again he let me see first-gen in big, big lights. Finally, in response to overwhelming interest, Karla Renee Williams, our Chief People Officer, yes, you, our Chief People Officer recently launched a staff mentoring program available for all LSA staff. Next what I like to do is turn to some of my strategic priorities. [Applause] Since starting my term as your Dean, I've worked with college leadership to advance 5 strategic priorities that include: Promoting the value and importance of a Liberal Arts and Sciences education, fostering a culture of purpose and well-being, expanding support and resources for our first-gen students, and nurturing a tolerance for debate, disagreement and dialogue across difference. What I’d like to do now is give you a sense of how we're moving with these strategic priorities by selecting a few to dive into today. So as Dean, one of my top priorities always, since I started, every day, every night is to advocate for the value and the importance of a liberal arts and sciences education. A liberal arts and sciences education doesn't solely provide students with specialized knowledge, training them for a particular sector of the workforce. A liberal arts and sciences education prepares students to live full, purposeful lives. We teach students about different world views and approaches to thinking, while challenging their own biases and blinders. We teach students to weigh and assess the veracity of new information, to grapple with its implications, and to leverage its applications to enact change in their lives and in their communities. Still, our system of higher education, and liberal arts and sciences education, what we do in our college, in particular, is under enormous scrutiny and critique from many groups, including business leaders, policymakers, and members of the media. For example, this year, the CEO of one of the fastest growing companies in tech and AI ran ads on college campuses across the country that declared quote "college is broken." The company invited high school students to apply directly to a fellowship with their company and to quote "skip the indoctrination," close quote, of a college degree. The irony will certainly, I hope, not be lost on any of you, that this same CEO studied philosophy as both an undergraduate and a doctoral candidate. This individual is not an anomaly. Policymakers sitting in the highest echelons of power have called to dismantle our system of higher education. News headlines also highlight the level of scrutiny surrounding a liberal arts and sciences education. In my opinion, attacks on liberal arts and sciences education are attacks on thinking, questioning, and challenging. They are attacks on a civil, democratic society that strives for equity and fairness, and they are part of a narrowing and a devaluing of intellectual pursuits. Instead, we should focus on broadening the scope of study and intellectual inquiry, which is precisely what we do in the College of LSA. Our college teaches students to explore the unknown, to tolerate uncertainty, and to problem solve creatively, persistently, and ethically. Moreover, a liberal arts and sciences education is rooted in the practice of discernment, where students embrace intellectual exploration and knowledge in a meaningful and personal manner. It includes questioning, reflection, and the exploration of ideas and possibilities. So please put a pin on these thoughts about a liberal arts and sciences education, because I want to turn to another strategic priority. And then I want to share a proposal that will address both strategic priorities. So as you'll remember, another of my priorities is to foster a culture of purpose and well-being. We are currently facing skyrocketing rates of depression, anxiety, and other forms of psychological distress among college-age students. According to the National College Health Assessment, which was conducted in 2019, please take note that was before the pandemic. With a sample of close to 68,000 college students, 45% of the college students reported being so depressed that quote "it's difficult to function." 66% reported experiencing quote "overwhelming anxiety." 87% reported feeling overwhelmed by all they have to do. According to the American Psychological Association in 2020, 87% of our college students reported their education was a significant source of stress. A 2022 study in the Journal of Frontiers in Psychology was a strong correlation between perceived academic stress and student well-being. I believe that the crisis in mental health, this crisis, coincides with the widespread devaluation of intellectual exploration. And I think we need to think very seriously about how to change an academic culture that breeds stress and multiplies anxiety among our students and among other members of our community. We need to ask ourselves "how do we foster an environment where students can do their best thinking and their best learning without sacrificing personal motivations, purpose, and a sense of well-being?" So let me turn to a proposal that I believe will address both of these priorities. The college leadership team, Associate Dean Tim McKay, who is here, there you are, and I are working on a proposal called "first year foundations." We would like us, all of us, to consider a new policy to have a grade-covered semester in students’ first year in LSA. This proposal would address several important strategic priorities by supporting students' mental health and well-being, by supporting student's ability to have a protected time for true intellectual exploration, something by the way, which is at the heart of a liberal arts and sciences education. And additionally, we think it would help to foster more connections rather than competition among our students. During the pandemic, roll back, let's remember. During the pandemic, we gave LSA students complete control over grade covering for all of their courses during the fall 2020 and the winter 2021 semester. And guess what? The world kept spinning. Everything was fine. MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has a long history of grade covering going back to 1968. In their first semester, every MIT student’s courses are graded on a pass, no-record scale. This means that a grade of C-minus or above is recorded as a pass on students' transcripts. A grade of D or F does not earn the student any credit and it is not included on their transcript. Faculty report grades as usually, but they don't show up in that form on students’ transcripts. An MIT report states quote: "since 2002, students and faculty have widely accepted pass/no-record as a valuable on-ramp to the pace and pressure of an MIT education." I would add that MIT has had no graduate or professional school deny their student admission due to this practice. We believe that a grade-covered semester in the first year would help all students establish early momentum, a key criteria for student's academic success at Michigan. A grade cover semester invites students to invest in intellectual exploration, to try a course in a field they know nothing about, to learn about something that doesn't come easily to them, and to allow intrinsic motivations to launch personal and meaningful academic journeys. I'm going off script. But also to not do well at something. That's really okay. And that is part of growing and learning. Back to script. We are considering two options. The first is simple and uniform. Like MIT, covering all grades in a student's first semester. The second option, students choose whether to cover grades in either their first semester or their second semester. So we empower students with choice. We're still in the early stages of gathering feedback on this proposal. We're collaborating with Vice Provost Angela Dillard’s team in the Provost’s Office, and with our partners in CRLT, especially Executive Director Matt Kaplan and Melinda Matney, CRLT’s managing director for educational development and assessment services. I also want to thank one of our Dean's Fellows, Nicholas Love, for his work on this proposal. In the months ahead, my team and I will rely, and we will have to rely on your expertise, your creativity, and the collaboration of many of you in this audience so that we can explore this possibility. It will, again, take all of us working together to protect the world-class education that we provide for our students: effectively bridging humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences. LSA provides each of our students with a singular, unreplicable educational experience. That is what a liberal arts and sciences education is about, and that is what LSA does so brilliantly. First Year Foundations offers us another opportunity to position ourselves as a leader and an innovator, not only for the University of Michigan, but also for other institutions across the country. I'd also like to tell you about another initiative that my team and I are working on to address the first strategic priority of supporting the value of a liberal arts and sciences education. We believe a liberal arts and sciences education opens doors to a panoply of possible careers, and empowers students with choices about their own future jobs and careers. Indeed, a liberal arts and sciences education allows students to thrive and succeed with whatever career path they choose, but also to pivot, change their minds, change careers, assume jobs that emerge in the future, but that don't yet exist and we don't know what they look like today. We plan to develop and launch a college-wide liberal arts and sciences career exploration fair. We will highlight the wealth of jobs and professions that a liberal arts and sciences education makes possible for all of our students. Working with Joslyn Johnson, assistant dean of student development and career initiatives, and Amber Strickland, managing director of the opportunity hub, the opportunity hub will partner with departments and programs across LSA to launch a spectacular liberal arts and sciences career exploration fair. We'll engage our alums who are eager to come back to campus to help current students, and we will highlight the success of our graduates. We need to impress upon our students and their families the marketability and the versatility of a liberal arts and sciences education for future careers and purposeful lives. Many of our departments have already started this work. And the Opportunity Hub hosts several successful internship fares and career explorations, and what we want to do next is build on that work. Coordinate and merge resources. And collaborate across the college to scale those efforts into a truly powerful career explorations opportunity. I'm not competitive with Ross, that's not—that's off script. We can do this too. We look forward to working with many of you to make the LSA liberal arts and sciences career explorations fair widely successful. Okay. In closing, I want to reaffirm the incredible honor that I feel in serving as your Dean. And the enthusiasm that I have for what we can accomplish together in the months and the years ahead. Thank you for everything that you do for this college, and for this great university. Your stewardship and support, your curiosity and courage, and your unwavering commitment are truly inspiring. I hope you'll stay and enjoy the reception. I look forward to talking with many of you at the reception. And now I promised you something, right? I promised you a picture. For those of you that are paying attention, I want to close by leaving you with a picture of my new puppy, Moxie. Because Moxie is our 5-month old Golden Doodle. And I learned from one of my former psychology Department Chairs that puppies make people smile. And I like to leave you all with a smile. Thank you very much.