Welcome Back to Campus

To the Dickinson community: 

I hope you took time for rest and renewal this summer and are as eager as I am to get the new academic year underway.  

Beth and I welcomed our fourth grandchild in July, so that was certainly one highlight for us! We also celebrated many exciting developments for Dickinson during these past several months. 

In May, we marked the completion of one of the first major programs in our Dickinson Forward initiative, the Campaign for Scholarships: Change a Life—Change the World. Thanks to the generosity of our community, we not only reached our $75 million goal, we surpassed it, allowing us to meet the full demonstrated need for all of our incoming students. The campaign also allowed us to launch the Dickinson Promise, a landmark new initiative to help more Dickinsonians graduate without the financial burden of student debt. We are one of only 50 schools in the country that can offer this kind of support. 

At a time when other institutions are experiencing a decrease in donors, Dickinson is proudly defying that trend. In the fiscal year that ended June 30, Dickinson saw a 7.5% increase in the number of donors—for a total of 6,808 philanthropists supporting our college with more than $67 million in donations. That is an amazing statistic and a notable sign of our strength. 

Work continues on the HUB project, and you’ll notice the building and Britton Plaza look a bit different than when you left in the spring. Please be patient and follow the directional signage throughout the building. This is an important project that will provide refreshed spaces and more student gathering areas and it is long overdue. 

I’m also excited to share that we will be installing Bloomberg Terminals throughout campus including Althouse, the Center for Career Development and the library this fall. The terminals will provide students with real-time financial data and use cutting-edge market tools and analytics that will help students studying areas as diverse as data analytics, business, healthcare and environmental science. 

I am pleased that the Core Values Project, with Professor Amy McKiernan at the helm, continues. Amy and her team have taken a grassroots approach with this effort, learning from our community members—past and present. The team has done extensive research on Dickinson’s past, and the archives staff have provided indispensable guidance. This fall, team members will share their findings during a second round of focus groups. Be on the lookout for opportunities to participate. 

Make no mistake, Dickinson is a college on the move. We’ll be announcing other inspiring developments in the weeks ahead. It is truly an honor to lead this community at a time of great innovation and unsurpassed momentum.  

As we reconvene, I want to reaffirm that, despite the headwinds impacting higher education, Dickinson remains true to its mission. We will continue to champion academic freedom, intellectual inquiry and scholarly exploration. We will work to create a community in which everyone feels a sense of belonging, and we will rise above the partisan divides and vitriol that often characterize public discourse.  

Welcome back to campus, thank you for being a part of this community. I hope to see many of you at Convocation when we officially kick off the academic year! 

Sincerely,  

John E. Jones III