A Message From President Dudley President Dudley offered a welcome message to the W&L community as we approach the start of Fall Term.

President's Office
August 21, 2024

To: W&L Faculty, Staff and Students
From: President Will Dudley
Date: August 20, 2024

Welcome to the new school year at Washington and Lee.  I hope you enjoyed the summer and share my excitement about the arrival of fall.

The return to campus beckons with anticipation and possibility.  Our law students and athletes are already here, and the first-year undergraduates move in on Saturday.  They will commence their college journeys by participating in a variety of Leading Edge experiences, which were made universally available last year.

Faculty and staff kick off the season, as always, with two weeks of professional development in Fall Academy, which runs through August 30.  The program includes speakers, workshops, and training sessions on topics ranging from artificial intelligence to employee benefits, grant writing to general education, and much more.  I hope many of you will take advantage of these opportunities to learn with and from your colleagues.

New Faces
Among the joys of fall is getting to know the newest members of our W&L community.  As we greet our new undergraduate and law students, faculty, and staff, we also welcome and congratulate new and longtime colleagues taking on key leadership roles:

• Alex Miller, vice president of student affairs and dean of students
• Susan Wood, vice president of university advancement
• Matt Davis, director of the institutional history museum
• Melissa Kerin, director of the Roger Mudd Center for Ethics
• Melissa Neal, university registrar
• J.T. Torres, director of the Harte Center for Teaching and Learning

Please join me in offering a warm welcome to all of our new students and colleagues.

Points of Pride
As we embark on a fresh academic year, it is worth reflecting on a few of last year’s highlights, in which we take justifiable pride:

We awarded $1,675,656 to 374 undergraduate students for research, conference participation, internships, and study abroad, furthering our commitment to ensuring that every student has access to the full W&L experience.

We awarded $236,800 to 48 law students and 35 law alumni through our Path to Public Interest Program, which supports summer opportunities in public interest work and offers loan repayment grants for graduates employed in public interest positions.

Washington and Lee students set another record for nationally competitive fellowships, with more than 57 awarded in 2023-24.  Katie Yurechko ’24 became the university’s first Marshall Scholar, Tanajia Moye-Green ’23 became the university’s first Knight-Hennessy Scholar, and we had record numbers of Gilman Scholars (11), Critical Language Scholars (8), and Goldwater Scholars (3).

The Summer Research Scholars cohort was larger than ever, with more than 200 undergraduate students supervised by more than 75 faculty and staff across a wide range of academic disciplines.  These students will be invited to present their work at the Fall Showcase of Student Summer Research on October 4.

The extraordinary generosity of our alumni, parents, and friends supports all of the good work at W&L.  Last year, they contributed more than $10 million to W&L’s Annual Fund — the largest total in the last five years.  Total giving to all areas of the university was more than $66 million, the fourth highest in history, including $21 million for undergraduate scholarships and $10 million for law scholarships.

Capital Campaign
Building on our fundraising success, we will celebrate the launch of our “Leading Lives of Consequence” capital campaign on October 24-25.  The public launch is a significant moment in the life of the university, signaling the commitment of the Washington and Lee community to raise the funds necessary to accomplish the priorities in our Strategic Plan.

Some of those strategic initiatives have already come to fruition.  These include the addition of interdisciplinary programs in data science, entrepreneurship, and law, justice and society; the establishment of the DeLaney Center for the study of Southern race relations, culture, and politics; the creation of the Harte Center for Teaching and Learning; the development of the Class of 1994 Center for Inclusion and Engagement; the expansion of indoor and outdoor dining facilities in the Marketplace; and investment in a large-scale solar array that gets us significantly closer to meeting our climate commitments.  Other strategic projects are actively underway.  These include the construction of the Williams School building on Washington Street and the Lindley Center for Student Health and Wellness on East Denny Circle, both of which will open a year from now.

Remaining aspirations, which will be funded in the course of the campaign, include becoming need-blind in undergraduate admissions; ensuring that every student has the opportunity to take part in internships, research opportunities, and study abroad; constructing a new admissions and financial aid center; creating a museum of institutional history; renovating Huntley Hall; expanding the science center; providing new rehearsal spaces for music and the arts; and adding a varsity softball team.

Many of our most impactful donors will return to campus in October for the campaign launch, and I hope you will join me in expressing our heartfelt gratitude for their generosity to W&L.

Intellectual Pluralism
Many campuses struggled last year to balance freedom of expression, which is critical to the academic enterprise, with protecting community members from threats, harassment, or disruption of their work.  I was proud of how we navigated the challenging environment and encourage us all to remain thoughtful and compassionate as we approach a contentious national election and the conflict in the Middle East continues.

Our commitment to doing so is grounded in our mission statement:

Washington and Lee University develops students’ capacity to think freely, critically, and humanely and to conduct themselves with honor, integrity, and civility.  Graduates will be prepared for lifelong learning, personal achievement, responsible leadership, service to others, and engaged citizenship in a global and diverse society.

As I wrote in 2022, our very purpose is to help young people get better at examining, evaluating, and expressing points of view.  Liberal arts education teaches students to pose questions, challenge assumptions, consider competing interpretations, and draw conclusions based on the best available information and the most compelling arguments.  We strive to cultivate these habits of mind in our students in the service of their becoming lifelong learners, responsible leaders, and engaged citizens.

This means, of course, that all of us must be prepared to encounter and engage with ideas with which we disagree, and perhaps find offensive or even abhorrent.  As a university, we embrace intellectual pluralism, providing a setting in which all ideas can be freely exchanged and discussed.  We do not prohibit speech that some may find objectionable, nor do we take institutional positions on issues that ought to be freely debated by the members of our community, which is intentionally diverse and naturally holds a wide range of views.

In the course of these discussions and debates, we should engage respectfully and in good faith with those with whom we disagree and exercise our freedom of expression in ways that do not jeopardize the safety of the community, damage property, or prevent speakers from delivering remarks.

When issues are personal and deeply felt, this can be hard work, but it is work that we must undertake together to fulfill our educational mission and prepare our students to be critical thinkers and responsible citizens.

I have great confidence in the ability of our community to continue to be a bastion of free and respectful discourse.  And I am pleased that we will host several related programs this fall term:

• August 21: A Fall Academy talk by Dr. Andra Gillespie, professor of political science at Emory University, on the presidential election and freedom of expression on small liberal arts college campuses, followed by a discussion on facilitating difficult conversations in the classroom
• October 28: A pre-election panel discussion led by W&L faculty members
• November 12: A post-election panel discussion led by W&L faculty members

I hope you will join me in taking advantage of these opportunities.

Coming Together
This year, as always, we will deliver an outstanding education for our current students while sustaining our efforts to enhance the university for the benefit of future generations.  I am deeply grateful for your individual contributions to our collective success.

I look forward to welcoming faculty and staff at our annual Community Breakfast next Wednesday, August 28, at 8:00 a.m. in Evans Hall.

The entire university community is invited to Convocation on September 4 at 5:30 p.m. on the Front Lawn.  Roosevelt Montás, senior lecturer in American Studies and English at Columbia University, will be the featured speaker.  Dr. Montás, who directed Columbia’s Center for the Core Curriculum from 2008-2018, is the author of “Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed My Life and Why They Matter for a New Generation.”

Enjoy the last few weeks of summer, and I look forward to seeing you around campus soon.