Greetings from the School of Education and Human Development! We hope our winter newsletter finds you healthy, joyful, and steeped in activities that bring meaning and hope to your lives.
As we bid adieu to 2023, we take a moment to be mindful of one seemingly simple question: What is in a year-in-review, after all?
The end of the calendar year begs us to pause and reflect on ourselves, our commitments, and the progress we have made towards translating our intentions into acts of promise and good faith.
For SEHD, 2023 afforded our academic community with the opportunity to lean into the needs of larger society (and more specifically the fields of education and mental health) reinvigorate our offerings, realign strategic priorities, deepen our ability to deliver excellence in instruction and professional training while caring for the totality of our students, and exercising our uncompromising commitment to becoming a community of transformative change agents helping to heal very complex and hurting world.
This year has underscored the critical roles of educators and mental health providers emphasizing the importance of these professions now more than ever.
2023 also brought to SEHD a new vision and mission for our school — one that threads through all of our programs, offerings, and partnerships. We’d like to take this opportunity to share this new mission statement with you here:
The School of Education and Human Development is committed to innovatively and responsively meeting the needs of a complex world by preparing professionals who serve fields dedicated to human flourishing with the highest level of competence, moral leadership, commitment to equity and justice, discernment and intentionality, and lifelong service to others.
The good work of our faculty and students to enact this mission cannot exist without your care, commitment, and support. You are an essential part of our fabric and our evolution.
Happy holidays to all members of our SEHD community. I am grateful to you, celebrate you, and look forward to welcoming a new year and all of its hope and promise for furthering our school together.
Evelyn Bilias Lolis, PhD
Interim Dean
