Despite the challenges facing higher education, Assumption continues to evolve and celebrate watershed moments in its storied 115-year history.
This edition of Assumption Magazine shares a number of examples of the institution’s innovative approach to those challenges, but it also explores a critical turning point in our rich history: the 50th anniversary of the enrollment of women at Assumption. Similar to the rose garden adjacent to Bishop Wright Hall, they and their legacy – and the richness that women have infused into the academic enterprise of Assumption – endures.
As this issue attests, preparing students to be global citizens is an important component of the liberal arts formation that we offer. Increasingly, students have opportunities for internships, post-graduate
service, and campus projects that foster a link between Assumption and other cultures. Through collaborations with Assumptionist schools in Latin America, Assumption College in the Philippines (run by the Religious of the Assumption), or, as you will read, the Prince of Peace School in the Congo, our students and faculty are making a difference while they expand their horizons.
As we reflect upon the past, we also prepare for the vibrant future of Assumption College.
Two days before Commencement, the campus community gathered to celebrate yet another groundbreaking for a new academic building – the second of such milestones in only three years. The Health Sciences building will be a state-of-the-art learning facility that will house the Nursing and Physician Assistant Studies programs when construction is complete in fall 2020.
Throughout campus, a structural transformation is also underway. Associate Professor of Accounting Joseph Foley has been named Dean of the Grenon School of Business; Professor of Psychology Paula Fitzpatrick, Ph.D., has been named Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences; and Associate Professor of Biology and Chemistry and Associate Provost Kim Schandel, Ph.D., has been named Dean of the School of Graduate and Professional Studies. They join Caitlin Stover, Ph.D., Dean of the School of Nursing, and Michael Whitehead, Dean of the School of Health Professions. The deans assumed their new positions in July.
These new deans are led by Greg Weiner, Ph.D., Assumption’s new Provost, who also assumed his new position in July. Provost Weiner, who often publishes columns in The New York Times and Washington Post on American politics, is a nationally recognized scholar and public intellectual who is widely respected by his peers.
And this fall, the College welcomed its first nursing class since the early 1990s, to a new program that will train future healthcare leaders to provide safe, high-quality, and compassionate care.
As we look to the future of the institution and await the decision on university status, we are empowered by our past and the decisions made to continually adapt, endure, and thrive.
Francesco C. Cesareo, Ph.D.
PRESIDENT
