Moving forward with optimism and collaboration

Happy New Year, and welcome to the spring 2023 semester!
 
I hope you are reinvigorated after some well-deserved rest and time with friends and family. We are excited to reunite across our campuses for this new semester. After the quiet interlude of winter break, I particularly appreciate the energy and enthusiasm present again across our Indiana University community.
 
Looking ahead, our collaboration and shared efforts will continue accelerating our university-wide IU 2030 strategic planning to enhance student success, transformative research, and service. We will complete plans this spring, and I’m grateful to our faculty, staff, students, and community members for their dedication to these crucial efforts that will guide IU’s future.
 
One of my favorite parts of being IU president is connecting with students—the heart of our university. I am proud of our campuses’ ever-expanding initiatives to help students thrive. IUPUI’s spring Weeks of Welcome, which is already underway, is a great example of this. It includes a community health and wellness fair, study abroad fair, and Welcome Back Bash.
 
Support for our outstanding faculty continues to grow with numerous initiatives, including an annual Research Equipment Fund for IU Bloomington and IUPUI. This will provide faculty with $4 million in fiscal year 2023 and $5 million in fiscal year 2024 for research equipment, instrumentation, or datasets in any field. Faculty poised to become global leaders in the arts and humanities are further expanding the reach of their important work through the recently reorganized IU Presidential Arts and Humanities Program.
 
This semester, we also continue to redouble our efforts to enhance quality of life for Hoosiers and beyond. This will take many forms, but I’m particularly excited about the School of Social Work’s Voices from the Field: Careers in Community and Organizational Leadership, a platform for alumni to share their experiences with students interested in professionally serving their communities. The connections forged will no doubt have an incredible impact on countless individuals.
 
Finally, I look forward to our many celebrations of the life and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. Among these are IUPUI’s 54th annual celebration dinner featuring NAACP president Derrick Johnson, IU’s third annual social justice conference, IUPUC Student Affairs’ trip to the Muhammad Ali Center in Louisville, and a conversation facilitated by IU Northwest with Junifer Hall, whose late mother, Rep. Katie Hall, sponsored legislation to make Dr. King’s birthday a national holiday.
 
These are just a few ways to connect and expand our horizons. While IU’s campuses stretch across Indiana and our networks span the globe, we are ultimately one IU community dedicated to supporting each other’s goals.
 
Thank you for your continued dedication to IU, and I wish you all the best as we start 2023 strong.

Pamela Whitten

President
Indiana University