Dear College of Science Faculty and Staff,
Many summers ago, in Vermont, my young daughter and I went on a hiking adventure. We drove to what our book indicated was a pretty hike, and the adventure started as we turned onto a tiny road to be confronted by a bridge consisting of two planks, one for the wheels on each side of the car. A lively river coursed underneath. We stopped, looked, looked again, aimed, and went for it, the car making it safe across. We were the only car in the trailhead lot. The trail was beautiful with a gentle start, then suddenly it turned upward into steep, wet granite rocks. (That daughter has gone forward with a bold love of hiking, and could now get up those rocks no prob.) But at the time, we decided to enjoy our snack, and declare victory, making it back across the scary bridge.
There’s concordance between the notions of BRIDGE and CONNECTS, one of our great College of Science taglines. A bridge implies a means to assist in getting from one type of place to another. Connects implies more a reaching out to join in common interest or endeavor, for example in our extensive cross-disciplinary research and our myriad combined majors. Both notions have merit in helping us deal with troubled times across our country and the world.
A bridge type, that is unequivocally meritorious and has wide non-partisan support, is the wildlife bridge, that allows animals to safely cross busy highways. Animals find these quickly and use them fully. A fantastic upcoming wildlife bridge is this one in California, home state of our beautiful Northeastern Oakland campus. It will cross a ten-lane highway and comprise a 210-foot wide, vegetation-covered bridge.
On the Boston campus, there are wonderful science bridges in progress. The outstanding Summer 2024 Bridge to Calculus Program, part of our College of Science Bridge to Science Program began last week. 120 Boston Public School students are spending their summer on campus learning fun and interesting calculus, physics, chemistry, biology and more. Congratulations to everyone involved! Congratulations also to the COS team involved in the SummerBridge program, promoting success of under-resourced students as they begin college. Thank you for teaching in Summer 1 and welcome to Summer 2, building bridges for students to their next level of science acumen.
CONNECTS is what we do all year in the Northeastern University College of Science. As we move into FY25 on July 1, we will connect with new opportunities and new challenges. Always we will keep focused on our center: training the next generation of science professionals and solving the most crucial research challenges. We are one community, a Diverse College where Everyone Belongs, together Building the Good Power of Science. Thank you for your commitment and your excellent work. It’s an honor to work together.
I hope you are enjoying the lovely Boston weather, that your window box or garden is flourishing, that you are finding good books to read (my daughter recommended Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki, and it’s the freshest sci-fi I’ve read for a long time), that you are getting peaceful sleep, and that you are enjoying great summer food.
Warm wishes to everyone.