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Dear Western Community:

Despite all the difficulties of enduring the COVID-19 pandemic in the past year, one of the unexpected outcomes of social distancing and a downregulated economy seemed to be a hiatus in mass shootings.  That relative peace was broken this week by a gunman’s rampage in the Atlanta area that killed eight…

Dear WWU Community,

Like many of you, I have been reflecting on living through a pandemic year.  I returned from a short trip to Pakistan on February 28, 2020, with Uzma following a couple of weeks later, just days before international travel was suspended.  While there was talk about coronavirus even before I left on the trip in mid-…

Dear WWU Community,

A couple of weeks back, Provost Carbajal and I shared with you some reflections on our Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity (DEI) work, including an update on several facets of our collective work in advancing DEI at Western.

In our update, we acknowledged the considerable energy and thinking going into a more…

Dear Western Community,  

Recently, we have been in several conversations within our university community and beyond on the priorities for higher education as we emerge from the health pandemic.  Western is not unique in being under pressure from pandemic-related enrollment declines, loss of critical auxiliary revenue, reduction in…

Dear Western Community,

As we look ahead to the days getting longer and brighter, I am also eagerly looking forward to bringing our Western community back together.  The introduction of vaccines and a continued focus on prevention measures in our state and across the country gives us reason to believe that conditions will begin to…