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Dear Case Community:
It's my great pleasure to welcome you to the new academic year. I'm looking forward to working with all of you—new and returning students, faculty, and staff—to make this a transformative year of discovery, fun, and memories.
This is truly an exciting time to be at Case. Here are a few reasons why:
- On August 21st, the Village at 115 opened to students. Case's $126-million residential complex, a stunning departure from traditional college housing, sets a new standard nationally. The seven houses that make up this living-learning showplace respond sensitively both to environmental concerns and student wishes. The entire complex surrounds Case's dramatically upgraded athletic facilities. And this is only the beginning, as the Village is the first part of the multiple-phase North Residential Village, which will be home to all undergraduates.
- We've welcomed the largest and most national first-year class in the history of Case Western Reserve University, and these men and women are combining with the cohort of returning students to pump amazing new life into this campus. The incoming class of 1,150, which has brought the highest SAT scores in the university's history, represents a 50 percent increase over the size of last year's group. Members of the class come from 40 different states, including Alaska. The improvement we're observing in our enrollment directly reflects our university's increasingly high national profile.
- After three pilot years, Case's SAGES program (Seminar Approach to General Education and Scholarship), takes its place as the common undergraduate education experience for all entering students. In the way it unites our undergrads with the university's world-class research faculty for three years of small seminars and a senior capstone project, and emphasizing as it does experiential learning and mentorship, SAGES redefines liberal learning in a research university. The College of Arts and Sciences, which leads SAGES, has renovated Crawford Hall's quad level and opened it as SAGES Central, a highly visible headquarters—which includes a café—for intellectual and social activity.
- At the graduate and professional level, we have attracted new faculty to accelerate research advances and major curricular enhancements. The research highlights are too numerous to cite in this space, but recent ones range from a discovery of the perils of taking ibuprofen before surgery to correct gum disease, to central involvement in determining provenance in the recent discovery of previously unknown Jackson Pollock paintings.
- Case's momentum can be seen in the generous support we are receiving from our alumni and friends. In 2004-2005, cash donations to Case totaled more than $87 million, more than a 25 percent increase over the previous fiscal year's total of $69 million. Of this year's $87 million, alumni contributed $29 million, more than a 100 percent increase over the $12.7 million contributed by alumni the previous year. In September, we welcome J. Jeffrey Robison as Vice President for Development. He comes to us from his position as president of the Florida State University Foundation, where he has served since 1994 and has overseen the raising of more than $803 million. Please join me in thanking Lisa Marshall for her strong leadership as Interim Vice President for Development.
The coming year promises even more excitement. Here is just a small sampling of events we're eagerly awaiting:
- We open the new year with Fall Convocation on Thursday, September 1st, when we welcome Pulitzer Prize winner Tracy Kidder, author of this year's common reading, Mountains
Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who
Would Cure the World. Ceremony and celebration is the order of the day at Fall Convocation, with faculty marching in their colorful regalia and students being honored for their volunteer activities. I encourage you to join me and the rest of the university community at Severance Hall for this gathering. The 4:30 p.m. event is free and open to everybody, but we ask that you register in advance. You can do so at the convocation website: http://www.case.edu/convocation/.
- On September 10th, pack the stadium at the Village at 115 and make lots of noise for the Spartan football team's inaugural game on our new field. We have officially designated as "Spirit Days" the Fridays before home football games. Deck yourselves out in blue and white, and get ready to cheer on Saturday.
- On September 14th, the university's Third Annual Case for Community Day gives you the chance to spend an afternoon volunteering your time for a worthy local cause. Faculty, staff, students, and alumni turn out in large numbers for this event, which links to one of Case's core values: to be a good partner with our community. Visit http://www.case.edu/events/cfc/.
- Henry Louis Gates Jr., chair of the Department of African and African American Studies at Harvard University, will speak from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. on September 15th at Severance Hall. The speech is in conjunction with the Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities and SAGES and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, administered by the Cleveland Foundation. Dr. Gates will speak on the topic "Pursuing a Dream: W.E.B. Du Bois and His Encyclopedia." The event is free and open to the public.
- The First Annual Constitution Day Forum unfolds in Strosacker Auditorium on September 22nd. Five faculty will share views around the topic "What Should Be in a Constitution?" In these days of charged political debate, join in this discussion on the document that forms the bedrock of our republic.
- The West Quad, Case's emerging biotech park taking shape on the 14-acre site of the former Mt. Sinai Medical Center, gathers even more momentum on October 4th. That's the day the university dedicates the official opening of two of the complex's signature tenants, the Cleveland Center for Structural Biology and the Wright Fuel Cell Group. Day by day, the West Quad strengthens its presence as a "big magnet," pulling in attention from biotech, research, and business interests.
- The annual Louis Stokes Leadership Symposium on Social Issues and the Community will take place October 17th in the Ford Auditorium of the Allen Memorial Medical Library. Case welcomes Democratic North Carolina Congressman Melvin Watt, chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, to this free and open public forum dedicated to leadership in public service and civic engagement as espoused by retired Ohio Congressman Louis Stokes.
- Alumni Weekend and Homecoming, taking place October 14th through 16th, is built around a fun series of events, led off by a performance by comedian Dennis Miller in Severance Hall. The weekend marks the first-ever all-university reunion in our history. This weekend also marks the Case School of Engineering's 125th anniversary celebration.
- Serving as a bookend to fellow Pulitzer Prize winner Tracy Kidder, our keynoter for Fall Convocation, Jared Diamond joins us next March 1st for Case's Distinguished Lecture Series. Dr. Diamond, a professor of geography and physiology at UCLA, is the author, most recently, of the book Collapse:
How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. This second-annual event happens in Severance Hall.
All of the activities ahead of us this year, inside and outside the classroom, grow out of Case's vision, to have a transformational impact on all who teach, learn, discover, and work here, so they are prepared and engaged to serve humanity. Each one of us plays a vital role in creating this transformative culture, and I look forward to striving with you toward our goal over the coming year.
In Tracy Kidder's Mountains Beyond Mountains, the author describes Paul Farmer's practice of creating to-do lists. Dr. Farmer writes out his upcoming tasks, and next to each one draws a box—in Creole, a bwat—in which he puts a check when the job is completed. He calls his to-do items bwats. It's my hope that these university events become bwats for you!
Before closing, I'd like to note that, in the coming year, we'll also be searching for a new dean of the School of Law. Gerald Korngold wishes to return to full-time teaching, his first love, and will step down from the deanship at the end of this academic year. Gerry deserves our thanks for nine years of exemplary leadership. All best wishes to him as he refocuses on teaching.
Thank you for being part of Case's remarkable community of scholars. Let's all look ahead to a wonderful year.
Very truly,
Edward M. Hundert, M.D.
President
Case Western Reserve University
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