Welcome Back, Spring 2023
January 20, 2023
Howdy!
Welcome back to our returning Aggies, faculty and staff; and welcome aboard to our 78 new students, including 12 graduate students and 12 maritime academy cadets! I know you have all worked hard during this first week of classes, and I look forward to seeing you around campus this semester.
A huge thank you to our employees, including the SSC teams, who continued to work through the holiday break to provide essential services on campus and help us quickly recover from the deep freeze right before Christmas.
2022 was a great year, with its celebrations, challenges and opportunities. Fall 2022 was the first semester we could fully live, learn and work alongside one another without significant restrictions since COVID-19 changed our lives in 2020. I applaud every one of you for doing your part to contribute to that milestone.
The new year also brings a close to a year of celebrating 60 years of marine and maritime excellence. Thank you for joining us in activities throughout the year that celebrated our heritage and reminded us that our future is bright!
Over the 2022 fall semester, we made considerable progress on the Aggie Ring Statue, and I’m pleased to share with you that the statue will be installed on our campus next month! We will have a formal unveiling ceremony soon after. We are especially grateful to the Maroon Delegates of 2018, who approached the administration with a dream, and to our generous donors Sue ’94 and Patrick Mahoney ’71 and Kathy B. ’81 and Peter D. ‘80 Huddleston, who made this dream a reality.
We look forward to the year ahead with anticipation and determination to keep moving forward. We continue to implement changes in Student Enrollment Services, Division of Marketing and Communications, Human Resources and Organizational Effectiveness, Technology Services and Finance and Business Services as we lean forward in implementing centralized services on the Galveston Campus. We are encouraged to see many of these areas already benefiting from this effort. We expect to receive our organizational review, included in The Path Forward recommendations, before the end of this month. Additional details and opportunities to connect with you through our campus review process will be announced in the coming weeks.
Thank you for the work you do every day to support our mission and one another. I encourage you to embrace the opportunities this semester brings to grow and evolve.
Make it a great one! Gig ‘em!
COL