August 29, 2022
Dear All:
Welcome back to campus! I hope that the summer provided each of you the opportunity to recharge for an exciting new academic year.
Today, we welcome our impressive, incoming Class of 2026 (322 students, from 33 states and 21 countries, with well over 600 robust leadership experiences), 12 transfer students, and many outstanding new faculty and staff to our singular learning community.
Last year, we celebrated our 75th Anniversary in a big way.
This year, we build on our momentum.
We launch our new Kravis Department of Integrated Sciences, with the recruitment of our first set of founding faculty hires and development of the first pilot course in the spring.
We mark the highly anticipated groundbreaking ceremony for the Robert Day Sciences Center, the iconic home for the Kravis Department, on September 30.
We wrap up the summer improvements in Mid Quad, north and east of Collins, and North Quad, with the installation of beautiful new public art before the beginning of next semester and the first phase of work on our expanded Roberts Campus already underway.
We celebrate the final event of our 75th Anniversary with a CMC float in the 2023 Rose Parade (Turning the Corner) on Monday, January 2, 2023.
We conclude the academic year with our 75th commencement in May and the close of our record-breaking Campaign for Responsible Leadership in June.
Within the four corners of these big CMC moves, we reinforce our strongest values and commitments to our outstanding teacher-scholars; diverse array of research and experiential opportunities at institutes, centers, and labs; competitive athletic and recreational programs, from CMS to innertube water polo; and dynamic student leadership and residential life experiences, including the full restoration of cross-campus dining at The Claremont Colleges! Our Open Academy commitments to freedom of expression, viewpoint diversity, and constructive dialogue, as our community works to counter the forces that are pulling our nation apart with educational strategies that bring us together; and our Presidential Initiative to develop behavioral commitments, ethical courage, and effective strategies to combat racism and grow our appreciation of the Black experience in America.
And yes, we will be back in the full swing of Athenaeum events and full community dialogue this year with our distinguished guest speakers: from Jared Diamond on surviving upheavals to Mary Ziegler on reproductive rights; from Bari Weiss on the new founders our country needs to Amanda Little on climate change and food sustainability; from Sanjib Kalita on fintech to Alex Ehrlich on banking; from Timothy Frye on Russia to Oriana Mastro on China; from Jesse Washington on race and sports to Lynda Barry on creativity; from our own Jon Shields and Stephanie Muravchik on identity politics to Sahil Kapur ’09, Michael Shear ’90, and Elise Viebeck ’09 on January 6; among so many other prominent speakers. I encourage you all to make the Ath a regular part of your experience on campus at dinners, afternoon tea, lunches, and special class events.
All of these create powerful learning opportunities for each of us. We can take advantage of every moment this year if we join in shared purpose, to learn, and to learn from, across, and through our different perspectives and experiences, together.
We begin that process today with convocation. Please join us at 11:00 a.m. in Roberts Pavilion, to welcome our new students and mark the milestone of a new academic year with our full community. Heather Ferguson, associate professor of history and CMC’s faculty co-director of the Open Academy, will deliver this year’s keynote address, “Between Education and Catastrophe.”
As we turn this first page of the 2022-2023 academic year, many congratulations!
I look forward to seeing you all later this morning.
Very best,
Hiram