Dean's Welcome

Over the course of my 17 years on the LSA faculty and now as dean, I have always felt deeply lucky to work here, surrounded by exploration and discovery and the contagious energy of learning. The LSA faculty, staff, and students inspire me and each other with their curiosity, creativity, and commitment to contributing to positive change in the world. LSA is a place where every day, faculty are pursuing fascinating, cutting-edge research in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. They are also working closely with students in classrooms, labs, and research project groups. Across LSA, students get the chance to ask (and answer!) questions they didn’t know they wanted to ask—and in the process, to discover what they are passionate about. That kind of exploration is one of the real joys of a liberal arts and sciences education. 

LSA is one of the nation’s greatest liberal arts and sciences colleges, at the heart of one of the world’s finest public research institutions—a remarkable combination. The depth and breadth of LSA’s academic offerings and faculty expertise are breath-taking. LSA students have access to 90 majors and sub-majors. They can also get involved in original research, working with LSA faculty on projects with important implications for some of the state’s, the nation’s, and the world’s most serious problems. Students also all have access to the LSA Opportunity Hub, which helps them connect their liberal arts education to their post-college aspirations.

As a college, LSA is committed to what lies at the core of our mission: excellence in research and teaching, diversity and inclusion, demonstrating the power and relevance of a liberal arts education, and building a community that supports all its members. I am committed to making LSA a place where diversity and excellence are inseparable, and where purposeful inclusion and equity are practiced and appreciated every day. 

The world is filled with variability, complexity, and contradictions, and rather than shy away, we place those at the center of a liberal arts education. We seek to understand why and how and what next? The liberal arts and sciences empower students to step into uncertainty equipped with the skills, adaptability, and creativity to devise an original path. It teaches students to think systematically, analytically, and with rigor, to help them become the people who will change our world with innovative and empathetic thinking. Our 225,000 living alumni are the proof.

LSA students become citizens and leaders who contribute to the common good. Every day we strive to embody LSA’s values of exploration and discovery, purposeful inclusion, collaboration, and well-being. As dean, I am guided by such values and I’m honored to be part of a community that works to listen deeply to one another, to engage across difference, and trusts that together we can find answers to the hardest questions.