Welcome Back!
Dear Colleagues:
The 2024-25 academic year seems to have moved at the speed of light. The past year,
my first at FSC, brought forward movement propelled by our strong collective efforts
as well as some changes stimulated by external forces. In all cases I'm incredibly
proud of the work you all have done and so pleased by the collaborative approaches
taken to adapt, create, and move our campus community into tomorrow.
I spent a great deal of time learning, meeting folks (on and off campus), and working
to bring new opportunities and partnerships to the College, while supporting and extending
those already established. With Laura Joseph's retirement, we welcomed a new provost.
Dr. Sean Lane has set an ambitious agenda for himself and has quickly reached out
across campus to continue to build new programs and prepare us for upcoming accreditations.
He will be working with all of you to consider exciting graduate level programs as well as new undergraduate programs and, with extended education,
not-for-credit programs.
As our new vice president for student affairs, Dr. Ron Jackson is making good headway
revamping our Division of Student Affairs. Some of you may know that Ron is an avid
runner and has literally hit the ground running at FSC, powering forward with new
directions and strong approaches to better support our students. We have had other
changes in positions of leadership, all to support our students, college, and finances.
Dr. Dylan Gafarian has taken on the newly created role of acting dean of extended
and experiential learning. In addition, after a few outstanding years as an acting
dean, Mike Nembhard is now our permanent dean of students. And after five years as
vice president of development and alumni engagement, Matt Colson is leaving FSC at
the end of this month to begin a new adventure as vice president at Mather Hospital
to lead External Affairs and the Mather Foundation. Our search for a new vice president
for development and alumni engagement will bring candidates to campus early in September
and I hope to have someone in place soon thereafter.
As noted at Convocation, FSC remains strong. But as we look forward, we have work
to do. We remain focused on increasing opportunities to grow and better support scholarly
activities, to build graduate and expanded (continuing) education programs, to develop
cutting-edge undergraduate degree programs, to ensure a stable budget, to continue
strengthening our regional and national relationships with industry and the community,
and to deepen our fundraising and grant successes. Your ideas for all of these are
welcome and needed.
I look forward to seeing all of you at the first Governance meeting of the new academic
year on October 7, after which we'll be hosting another ice cream social. This will
be a great opportunity to get a picture at our new Ram-Bo bench. We can post these
photos and have a friendly competition for best and most creative images (more to
come on this).
As always, thank you for all you do on behalf of our students. Welcome back once again,
and best wishes as we launch what I know will be an outstanding academic year.
Go Rams.
Robert S. Prezant, PhD
President
Professor of Biology
