September 3, 2020
Dear L&S Colleagues,
I want to take this opportunity of the first week of classes to welcome all of you to the Fall 2020 semester and thank you for all the work you have done to get us prepared for this moment. I certainly miss the usual excitement and energy on campus that comes with the start of the new academic year. No matter how unusual this year turns out to be, L&S will move forward with making new discoveries and insights, sharing knowledge and creating connections through innovative teaching and learning, and make an impact in the lives of our students. We may need to pivot and change course. But resilience is our strength. Already, as a College, we are interacting in ways we could not have envisioned just a few months ago.
But even as we look forward, I must acknowledge the exhaustion and stress that many have experienced over the course of this long summer. I know that many of you are returning to campus with heightened anxieties about health and safety, about simple things like how you’re going to physically distance while using an elevator in your building or maintain physical distancing among the students in your classrooms and laboratories. I have both seen and heard your comments, and I understand and appreciate them. Please know that as college, we’re doing everything we can to ensure that we’re strictly following the recommendations made by health experts.
I also know that you share the anguish and concern over the racial injustice that has roiled our nation, our state and our city. I share your concerns. I will continue to work hard this year to ensure that all feel safe, welcomed and included. I am grateful for and enthusiastic about the work that you are doing in your units in advancing our goals of inclusion, diversity and equity.
My heartfelt thanks go out to each and every one of you, for the work you have put in to ensure that we are ready for fall instruction. Your efforts have been extraordinary. Your support and cooperation have been critical to the successful roll-out of course offerings designed to offer our students an L&S experience that meets our traditionally high standards for teaching and learning.
“Appreciation and gratitude are the elixir of resilience,” said our colleague Richie Davidson, Director of the Center for Healthy Minds, in a recent Badger Talks video, and I could not agree more.
As we embark on an academic year like no other, I am enormously grateful for colleagues like you. Together, we will get through this time of worry and uncertainty. Continue to support one another and to appreciate each other. And remember to take care of yourself.
I wish you strength and resilience in the days ahead.
On, Wisconsin!
Eric M. Wilcots
Dean and Mary C. Jacoby Professor of Astronomy
College of Letters & Science
University of Wisconsin-Madison