Message from the Provost
January 10, 2013
As I rang in my first New Year as provost last week, I had the chance to reflect on the extraordinary beauty of this campus. I took this photograph one morning to try to capture the dazzling combination of pristine white snow, brilliant blue sky, and historic limestone.
Similarly, this website aims to share snapshots of all that is happening here academically. There are many exciting initiatives underway, described in more detail on the academic initiatives page, but here I’ll offer just a few impressions of how this campus community is coming together to build IU Bloomington’s academic future.
Certainly, our faculty and staff can be proud of what has begun through the New Academic Directions initiative. The new School of Global and International Studies, the new School of Public Health, the reimagined School of Informatics and Computing, and the important discussions about the future of communication, media, and journalism all represent faculty members’ courageous commitment to building academic programs that anticipate the needs of tomorrow. Students can be proud to be a part of an academic community that positions itself to assure they receive the best education possible.
We are also beginning to plant seeds for discussion among our broad community about emerging strategies for strengthening academic and career counseling. Other top priorities include identifying and implementing effective means of increasing diversity among our students and faculty, continuing to develop pioneering tools for online learning, and creating more opportunities for women to thrive in science-centered fields.
All these elements come together to help us achieve the goal of aligning our academic activities with emerging global needs. In the coming months, I hope to provide some tools for collaborating across schools and disciplines and for making optimal use of the resources we all share.
What I am most eager to do, however, is acknowledge and celebrate this collective mission of academic excellence. As with my photo, IU Bloomington continues to shine with exceptional brilliance.
