Winter 2001-2002
From the dean:
CLA on the move
Photo by Tom Foley
As this 2000-01 annual report was getting under way, we were busily beginning a new academic year, welcoming new students and faculty, celebrating our successes, and looking to the future with optimism. Then, on September 11, we awoke to a jolt out of the blue skies of Manhattan and Washington, D.C.
If ever there's been a time for universities to lead the deep and reflective search for answers, that time is now. Far from stalling our momentum, September 11 engaged every discipline in the college, galvanizing the intellectual and creative energies of our faculty and bringing people together in unprecedented ways to put in perspective our radically changed world.
We thought you might like to know how our faculty are leading the search for knowledge and understanding, and what questions our students are raising. So this issue features an 8-page special report on the College of Liberal Arts (CLA) in the wake of September 11.
While looking toward the future, it also looks back at the remarkable achievements of the past year.
Building momentum
The enormous momentum set in motion under University President Mark Yudof's leadership is continuing campus-wide. And CLA is delivering an enormous boost to this momentum. All "Vital Signs"--highlighted throughout this publication--attest to a college that is vibrant and strong.
In five years, we have brought 190 new faculty to CLA. This fall, 34 remarkable new faculty joined veteran faculty and their 55 colleagues new last year, bringing to CLA yet another wave of national honors for scholarship, creative work, teaching, and public service.
Our new Department of Asian Languages and Literatures is gathering steam, as is a new major in Cinema and Media Culture. Sixty freshman seminars are serving more than 1,000 students from across the University. Our new B.F.A. program in acting, a joint production with the Guthrie, is attracting notice--and wonderful young actors--from around the country.
And we continue to fine-tune our community-based undergraduate advising model to tailor academic and career planning to individual students' needs.
We also are taking care of our teaching and research facilities, not to mention our most precious resource, the people inside those facilities. Continual upgrades are creating state-of-the-art learning environments for our students. Last year, we opened "Studio B"--a digital television facility for students and faculty in the arts, journalism, and speech-communication. We renovated the psychology labs in Elliot Hall. We began construction on the new Art Building, signaling the completion of the West Bank Arts Quarter. And we completed plans for the Humanities District, which will bring CLA's humanities programs together in the historic East Bank Knoll area.
Much more to come
We must not lose the remarkable momentum we have worked so hard to ignite and sustain. That's why in 2002 we will ask the State of Minnesota for help in transforming Nicholson Hall into a modern teaching and learning center for undergraduate students, housing freshman seminars, the Language Center, student computer labs, the Student Writing Center, and CLA advising. We also will seek state funding to bring historic Jones Hall into the 21st century, with classrooms and offices for two popular departments--Classical and Near Eastern Studies, and Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature.
Renovation of both buildings continues our push to create ever more vital teaching and learning communities for our students and faculty.
Breaking records: Campaign Minnesota
It's been another record-breaking year, with private giving exceeding $20.6 million. Gifts from alumni and friends have doubled over the past three years and increased about eight-fold in five years. This generosity is a dramatic vote of confidence in our faculty and in the quality of the education we provide our students.
The importance of private giving
As state support for the University has waned, these gifts have become increasingly crucial to the vitality of the college and our ability to ensure access to excellence. They have enabled CLA to recruit and retain some of the nation's most outstanding scholars and artists; to recruit extraordinary students; and to transform classrooms and laboratories into powerful spaces for learning and creative work. I am deeply grateful for this demonstration of commitment and support.
Maintaining momentum
One of the most difficult challenges we face in 2002 is communicating to our legislature and governor the critical importance of "staying the course" in investing in the state's future. And that, of course, means investing in education. Fortunately, Minnesota has built up an $888 million rainy-day fund (reserves plus budget balance) for times such as these. This fund will help both the state and the University to weather the blow from September 11 and to withstand the dip in the world economy. It will allow us to continue providing a world-class education to our students. It will help us stay on course.
The challenge
There has never been a better time to invest in the University and in the College of Liberal Arts. By supporting education, we can help create a world where conflicts may be resolved over conference tables and in board rooms, not in the skies and on the battlefields; where the tools we reach for are words of diplomacy and negotiation, not instruments of destruction; and where we can heal and move forward in common purpose, linked across national and cultural boundaries by mutual respect and deep reciprocal understanding.
Thirty-nine years ago, as the Cuban Missile Crisis threatened our nation, President John F. Kennedy said, "I am certain that after the dust of centuries has passed over our cities, we will be remembered not for victories or defeats in battle or in politics, but for our contributions to the human spirit."
In the College of Liberal Arts, we are preparing students not only to take on the profound challenges of living from day to day in this increasingly complex world, but to make contributions to the human spirit. What could be more important than that?