March 8, 2021
Dear William Paterson Faculty & Staff,
Last week’s warmer weather melted enough snow to reveal the first green shoots of the season, which always has me thinking ahead to spring and Commencement. While it was my sincere hope that we would be able to return to the Prudential Center for this year’s ceremony, the pandemic protocols that will remain in place through at least the spring are too restrictive to allow us to effectively take advantage of that venue. Instead, as the Commencement Committee detailed in its Friday email, we will again hold a series of smaller, socially distanced outdoor ceremonies here on campus, as well as a virtual event for the entire graduating class. As always, we will do everything we can to properly celebrate our graduates and ensure a special experience for them and their families. Check the Commencement website for more details.
Following my March 1 email on the subject of open communication, I was pleased to see robust participation in last week’s Student Town Hall. Approximately 80 students participated in the event, and asked a lot of good, tough questions of senior administrators about all areas of University operations. What was scheduled to last one hour, ended up running for almost two. It was the kind of exchange that is key to sustaining our academic community, and I look forward to everyone’s continued involvement.
If you haven’t already, please click here to register for Thursday’s inaugural President’s Diversity Lecture, where Dr. Shaun Harper of the University of Southern California Race and Equity Center will speak about racial challenges and opportunities in higher education, and why faculty, staff, and institutional leaders often mishandle racial situations. He will also offer practical strategies for those working to advance racial equity at William Paterson and throughout higher education. I hope you will join us for what promises to be an informative and engaging talk, followed by a Q&A session.
Our University reaccreditation visit by the Middle States Commission is scheduled for March 14-17. The members will be meeting with various campus constituency groups that have already been contacted or will be shortly. Information on the Open Forum will also be shared, including as a Daily Announcement, soon. Our Self-Study can be found at this website, and we invite you to review it, particularly those of you who have a formal role in the visit with the Middle States Team.
Today, we celebrate International Women’s Day. In celebration, I hope you’ll join me in the #ChoosetoChallenge campaign, which states that we can all choose to challenge and call out gender bias and inequality while also choosing to seek out and celebrate women’s achievements.
This week’s WP: We are Proud – William Paterson’s Café con Leche program was recently featured in two prominent publications. An article in Ed Prep Matters, a journal produced by the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE), was written by David Fuentes, WP Associate Professor of Teacher Education, and Johanna Torres, Director of Student Enrollment Services. Another article, in Diverse Issues in Higher Education, discusses Café con Leche in the broader context of our Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) Task Force. It was written by Professor Fuentes and Director Torres, as well as Francisco Díaz, Associate Vice President of Campus Life,
Maribel Rodriguez, Associate Director of Campus Activities, Elena Sabogal, Associate Professor in the Department of Community & Social Justice Studies, and Daisy Rodriguez, Associate Director of the Counseling Health & Wellness Center. Café con Leche debuted on campus in fall 2018 as a pilot program of afternoon gatherings to bring together Latinx students, faculty, and staff to socialize, address various questions and establish a welcome space to engage, where English, Spanish, and ‘Spanglish’ could be spoken freely and without judgment, as AVP Diaz explains.
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Sincerely,
Richard J. Helldobler, Ph.D.
President
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