Welcome to the Fall 2021 semester, and welcome back to a much more normal Pace experience.
The last 18 months have been tough. And we’re not fully out of the woods yet. But we’re reopening our world, safely and carefully, and I couldn’t be happier to see our campuses once again busy, our residence halls once again full, and the Pace Community once again going about many of our in-person activities.
Thank you for doing your part—for getting vaccinated, for being safe, for following the rules and procedures we’ve put in place to have a safe and successful new semester. As much as we’re all facing new challenges, this is also a really exciting time to be engaged with education and ideas: so much is changing right now, and there are so many ways you can make an impact in the world. You’re resilient and ambitious, and you’re ready for this.
I want to give you a sense of where things stand at Pace as we start our new academic year.
We’re thrilled to welcome our largest new class of incoming students in at least 20 years (and probably our largest in history). At Haub Law, we enrolled our biggest new class in 15 years, and we nearly doubled the number of part-time law students.
We’re excited to continue progress on our transformation of the New York City Campus, with three floors of brand-new classrooms, including a new home for the Lubin School of Business, now open on the west side of One Pace Plaza. We’re moving forward with our plans for 15 Beekman Street, which will include a new residence hall to replace Maria’s Tower, new community spaces like a dining hall and library, and new learning spaces, including a dedicated home for the Seidenberg School of Computer Science and Information Systems. And we’re also developing plans for an expanded new home for Pace Performing Arts.
In Pleasantville, we’re moving ahead with plans for a state-of-the-art new Healthcare Hub serving students in the College of Health Professions. We’re also renaming the former Wright Cottage in honor of CHP dean emerita Harriet Feldman (who is now our first-ever chief wellness officer). At Haub Law, we’re renovating spaces to host other University offices, as we continue to more deeply integrate that campus into the broader Pace Community.
We’re starting to implement our new Strategic Plan, Pace Forward, which will set us up for a strong and successful future. We’re introducing new programs to meet the needs of today’s students and employers, like master’s degrees in health informations, cybersecurity, and human-centered design and a new badge in human rights advocacy. And we’re continuing to roll out our new, modern brand platform—which will mean more storytelling and more media attention, plus our up-to-date new website and the new flags and banners you’ll see on our campuses and more new signage on the way.
Finally, we’re reaffirming our commitment to ensuring that Pace is an inclusive space, where everyone sees themselves in our community. Faculty are working to ensure that syllabi and scholarship reflect a diversity of voices. We launched a new website on which students can register incidents when our community is not living up to our values. And I have received the final report of the Presidential Task Force on Diversity and Inclusion; now we’re working with the community to adopt its recommendations.
I also want to take a moment to mark the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Here at Pace, we remember those we lost, and we salute the veterans in our community who have served to protect us all. In New York City, we will be observing this milestone with a ceremony in the West Lobby of One Pace Plaza this afternoon at 5:00 p.m. In Pleasantville, Alpha Phi Delta, the national service fraternity, will host an observance at 8:00 p.m. on Saturday in front of the Kessel Student Center. Thank you, veterans, for your service.
The tough last 18 months have shown us what the people of Pace are able to do when we work together toward a common goal. We’ve persevered, and we’ve come out stronger. I’m proud of our accomplishments, and I’m excited for our future.
Let’s go and build it together.
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Marvin Krislov
President
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See our Coronavirus website for additional communications from Pace University. For the Elisabeth Haub community, please refer here for the most up to date information.
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