Dear colleagues:
Life on a college campus is still often referred to as being inside an ivory tower. If this were true鈥攁nd we don鈥檛 believe it is鈥攐ur tower this year was anything but ivory. It was battered and bruised by a pandemic and a fire. We also watched a war break out. Today, our tower still stands, proudly and successfully. And it鈥檚 because of the amazing work of you, our CU Boulder baby直播app and staff.听
This year was more than real. Collectively, we struggled with work and life, with nature and with our physical, mental and spiritual health. We struggled in our own little corner of the world and in the larger world that shrinks all the time.听
Through it all, our baby直播app found the personal strength and the professional resilience to envision, invent and inspire鈥攖o mentor students trying to make a future out of an uncertain present and to create new knowledge in the field and in the laboratory for a world that so desperately needs it.听
Our staff built and held steady the scaffolding that allowed countless successes. They awoke before dawn to ready all the tools and physical resources our baby直播app and students would need. They made innovations in their own work every bit as remarkable and transformative as those of their baby直播app partners鈥攍ittle adaptations and big systemic innovations to keep CU Boulder not merely enduring, but thriving.听
Our entire community navigated the cataclysm of the Marshall Fire, the emotional trauma of the anniversary of the King Soopers shooting, and the horrid spectacle of the war in Ukraine. We navigated the ongoing local and national struggles about race, equality and social justice, and we kept alive the critical conversation about what kind of nation we think we are and what kind of nation we want to become.
These confrontations with reality are not idealistic discussions in an ivory tower. They are more than any of us ever imagined would be in our job descriptions or among the daily baby直播app challenges we鈥檇 have to meet. Yet, we met them. And in the process, we met ourselves. We learned what we are made of and what we are grounded in: being a public university, serving the public good and serving humanity鈥攁nd doing it all in the most human way possible.
Saying thank you is not sufficient for this kind of work, much less for doing it so well. So as our academic year closes, simply know that we鈥攁long with thousands of young people and their families, our entire university community, the people of baby直播app and our alumni around the world鈥攐we you far more than these simple words of gratitude can convey for your work, your struggle and your sacrifice this year.听
With our best wishes for a safe and relaxing summer,
Russell Moore
Provost
Patrick O鈥橰ourke
Chief Operating Officer