Recognizing Your Accomplishments This Semester - December 1, 2023

Dear Faculty, Staff and Graduate Assistants,

 

As we near the end of the semester, I want to celebrate the many achievements of our campus community. Because of you, our university continues to be a hub for innovation, inspiration, and cutting-edge research.

 

This semester, we’ve provided educational opportunities to more than 32,000 students, which is no small feat.  We’ve advanced our land-grant mission of teaching, service, and discovery.  We’ve helped improve our community and made our state, the region, and the nation a better place.  You’ve been a part of our purpose and have played a major role in our success.

 

I am amazed at many of the things we’ve achieved this semester.  For instance, our Institute for Integrative & Innovative Research (I³R) visited the White House to demonstrate a prosthetic hand system designed to restore meaningful sensations of touch and grip force to individuals with an upper limb amputation.  In addition, our researchers made great strides in developing an artificial kidney that could replace dialysis and significantly impact patients with kidney conditions. Furthermore, the Department of Music partnered with the Data Science Program to launch a data science concentration in Music Industry Data Analytics (MIDA), the first of its kind in the nation. All these accomplishments further our research excellence in the sciences and the humanities, showcase what we are truly capable of as an institution, and greatly benefit our state, nation, and the world.

 

During the past few months, we’ve also celebrated our faculty, staff, and graduate students at various awards ceremonies and events.  We recognized many employees at the annual Employee Awards Banquet, including our Employees of the Year and those who celebrated service anniversaries of 5, 10, 20, and even 45 years.  We honored faculty for teaching excellence at the Faculty Teaching Awards Reception. We hosted the SEC Emerging Scholars Career Preparation Workshop for doctoral students and postdoctoral researchers from across the SEC who plan to pursue careers in academia. We’re proud to honor our faculty, staff, and graduate assistants for their dedication to their work and commitment to the university.

 

We’ve also launched programs to provide faculty, staff, and graduate assistants with resources to advance their careers and contribute to student success.  The Career Everywhere Faculty Conference held in October provided faculty and staff with resources to aid in the success of our students by embedding career readiness education in the classroom. The Graduate School and International Education welcomed over  1,000 graduate students this semester and launched the Graduate Student Teaching Enhancement Project, or G-STEP, to help graduate students transition to graduate teaching assistant roles. These special events and programs are vital to our growth as individuals and an institution.

 

I’m grateful to you for making our university a place where technology, industry, ideas, and scholarship thrive. As we wrap up this semester and head into the holidays, I hope you all enjoy a much-deserved break and return to campus refreshed and ready to start 2024.

 

Best regards,

 

Terry Martin, Ph.D.  

Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs  

Professor of Electrical Engineering