Dear College of Science Faculty and Staff,
As I shared yesterday in Community Meeting (here are the slides) and as in an official notice today, I’ve decided to step down as your Dean at the conclusion of my five-year term, June 30, 2025. I’m glad to have brought five years of stable leadership to the College, and I’m hugely proud of what we’ve done together. You should be hugely proud also. My October vision talk title was real and a celebration of our success – “Together, we are building the Good Power of Science”. Thank you for all your good wishes.
When I started way back in June 2020, there were some great strengths in the college: our undergraduate education, advising and coop, for example, top researchers, great staff members. But there was a lot that needed fixing – our financial oversight, grants administration, mechanism to develop space. We’ve fixed those and more. We changed the prior COS ‘customer service’ philosophy to a culture of collaboration, and acknowledgement that each person in the College is important to our mission. Because of your contributions, we’ve gained the reputation of being a superbly organized college at Northeastern.
Then we built. We innovated together. You showed great courage sometimes, bearing with me as we explored new, unusual ideas. A Diverse College where Everyone Belongs. INVEST. Connected Science Community PhD. Combined PhDs. Graduate Coop. New MS Programs. Global Expansion. Entrepreneurship. Undergraduate Research. RampUp courses. Bridge to Science. Cross-College Centers. Cross-disciplinary faculty hiring. CONNECTIONS to the Future. All of our innovations were carefully considered, and every one of these is succeeding. Congratulations!
Many of you were here before I joined the university. But an amazing 33% (101) of all COS faculty (307 total) were hired under my leadership as well as 60% of COS operational staff. That is a huge heritage and thank you to everyone involved in this brilliant hiring.
My goal has been to promote excellence through innovations in education and research, and to do so in the most supportive way. We have succeeded enormously, and have become a cohesive community, an innovative, important College of Science. Warm congratulations to everyone. The college is poised for a strong future, because of your excellent work.
And finally for this week, a word about our taglines:
The Good Power of Science is way more than a tagline: it’s a deep and important landscape.
CONNECTS was our first tagline. It’s real also, describing our inclusive, collaborative community.
And Science Husky says it all, embracing the warmth and fun of belonging in the Northeastern University College of Science.
I’ll be here fully for the next seven months, until the end of my term. My door will remain open. I hope you will view our years together in celebration!
Warm wishes to everyone.