Welcome to 2024 at The Beach

Dear Beach Community,

Welcome to the Spring 2024 semester. I so look forward to working with each of you in this New Year!

Despite the heartbreaks that characterized last semester, I ground myself on the campus triumphs that we earned together. Students across all our colleges distinguished themselves in regional and national competitions. Faculty members won prestigious career awards. Staff members continued the strong tradition of supporting community members, especially foster children. Alumni amaze all of us with their accomplishments.

The campus is the beneficiary of unprecedented philanthropic investments that will ease the financial challenges students face and enrich faculty research and teaching through endowed chairs and programmatic support. Our new venture in early childhood education is just one illustration of our commitment to the public good.

Last semester brought forth world events that, even today, continue to affect many community members. I urge all of us to keep reaching out to each other to support our aspiration to be a community where diversity is a real strength. This strength includes differences in viewpoints, politics, religion, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, gender identity and the many other identities that characterize our community. We are a national university where civil debate and conversation should be happening all the time.

The coming semester will require our collective participation to bring solutions to unprecedented budget pressures. We’ll find the collective will to grow our student body, compensate our fabulous faculty and staff, and stay focused on student success. This won’t be easy, but I believe in the power of our university community, and I know we will advance and overcome as a united force for good.

I believe in us.

Go Beach,
 
Jane Close Conoley, Ph.D.  
President