To our alumni and friends:
I have been very fortunate to culminate twelve years of service as dean by witnessing the transformation of the Graduate School of International Studies into the Josef Korbel School of International Studies. Our school's journey over the decades has taken us from being a top school in the American West to one that stands in the top ten among its national peers and is now poised to ascend to the highest tier of the nation's finest professional schools for the study of transnational issues and subjects.
While our already considerable reputation for excellence has many dimensions, alumni are one of our key strengths. In helping us recruit students, secure internships, identify employment opportunities for recent graduates, improve our curriculum, and increase our financial resources, you play an increasingly important role in the life and future of our school. Our faculty and staff are grateful for the many gifts of time and personal resources that we receive from you. We are enriched each year because of the investments you make in us.
I believe our school is now uniquely positioned to play a leading role in the education and development of tomorrow's leaders. Together we can achieve new levels of distinction and help our students realize their dreams for a more peaceful and prosperous world. How do we get there? By attracting the best and brightest students and faculty, developing distinctive, innovative programs, and building an even deeper reservoir of talent and resources. We will attract eminent new faculty with endowed professorships and students of unusual ability with larger merit-based scholarships, cutting-edge programs, state-of-the-art facilities and our traditional commitment to help each student shape an experience that corresponds to her or his professional aspirations and dreams. We are committed to systematic and relentless enhancement of our programs so that each one will have no superior among our peers.
For us to stand no worse than first among a few equals, we will require new resources. To those of you who have given financially to the school over the years, our appreciation is profound. As we coil to spring still higher on the ladder of pedagogical and scholarly distinction, we anticipate with confidence that your numbers will swell both because our surveys reveal a high level of support for the school among graduates and because greater eminence of the school reflects favorably on those who have passed through our halls no less than on those who will do so in the future.
At the same time we understand that many of you still have debts incurred during your years of study and others are contributing to human welfare in positions whose remuneration does not match their importance. As I have already noted, there are numerous ways to associate with and to help the Josef Korbel School as it surges into the future and we welcome your suggestions about how to strengthen ties between yourselves and the current faculty and staff and students. We want to be your intellectual community for all of your life.
From time to time we will contact you. Among other things, we are working to make lectures, workshops, debates and other events or excerpts from them available in one or another electronic form. Please do not hesitate to contact us with ideas about how we might better serve you. The best person to contact is Alicia Kirkeby, our terrific director of alumni relations and special events (Alicia.Kirkeby@du.edu or 303.871.2541). She can provide more information on how you can stay close to your school. Thanks for visiting us online, and we are always delighted when you visit in person. For all you have done for us in the past and with hope for assistance in the future, I salute you.
Sincerely,
Tom Farer
Dean