Dear Orange Bleeders:
I write this right after attending a “lava pour.” It is an event unique to Syracuse University. This is an inspiration of Bob Wysocki, a sculptor and professor in the College of Visual and Performing Arts. Along with collaborator Jeff Karson, a professor of earth sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences, he makes lava from basalt-based gravel, by heating it in a furnace his team built, and pours it under controlled conditions that produce path-breaking geologic research opportunities. The event drew collaborators from the sciences at Columbia University and Dickinson College as well as a film crew from The Weather Channel. The pour also generates remarkable materials for Bob’s work, fantastic shaped glass-like rock that Chihuly would admire and envy. Watching a crowd of people ages 7 to 80 cheer on the lava outside during a snow flurry is something that you can only do here!
Late last week, I attended much of Professor Helen Doerr’s Calculus I course in a full auditorium in Newhouse 1. This was engaged and engaging teaching, with students solving problems on their own and learning from their mistakes and solutions as the class went along. It is the calculus class we all should have had and benefited from in college or before. That was a theme echoed on Sunday by President Freeman Hrabowski, this year’s speaker at the Martin Luther King, Jr. event in the Carrier Dome. President Hrabowski has transformed the University of Maryland Baltimore County during a 22-year presidency in which he has emphasized rigorous and engaging math and science education, including for under-represented minorities. He is proud that UMBC’s chess team is one of most revered teams on campus and that his school has produced so many fine Ph.D.s who go on to do research and teach themselves.
Four unsung heroes were recognized at the MLK dinner, including Dottie Russell, who has helped students in Dining Services (and particularly in the Schine Center) for 54 years. Like all the recipients, she manifested grace and cheer while being, for once, sung about in front of thousands who cheered for her.
My quietest moment was eating a steak sandwich at Varsity at noon on Sunday – few students awake yet after the Pittsburgh victory, but the sandwich was as good as any time when it is packed! You may be spoiled by years of experience in Syracuse and no doubt think it hokey to celebrate a steak sandwich, but for us newcomers, it is amazing how many big and little things are really the best here.
There are many challenges at Syracuse. They include the next phase for the Carrier Dome and how to keep this community thriving. How to excel in the very changing environment for higher education ranks as the greatest challenge. Yet in 10 days here, I have come to appreciate that we all have so much to work with—great programs and people—because of all that has been invested in this place for many decades.
Thank you to all of you who have made those investments, from helping students in Schine, to having the inspiration to make lava, to teaching and researching well year after year. I am grateful to be here.
Sincerely,
Chancellor Kent Syverud