Dear Staff, Students, Parents, College Community, and last but certainly not least, Faculty —

I can say with a huge sigh of relief, after an arduous and trying semester, that we’ve defeated the pandemic. Go Squatters!

Although we did not do any better proportionally at controlling our school’s outbreak than Flagship State University, I can honestly say with a straight face that fewer of our students, staff, and faculty fell ill with COVID-19 than at several much larger schools. This is a very real and not-made-up win.

Thanks to Lab Manager Kit Spitz for personally preparing full sack breakfasts for students in quarantine, and to the coaches who volunteered to guard the entrances to the college with barricades and shotguns. Please remove all weights and weight benches from the road as soon as possible.

Big thanks to College President Duke Pillsbury and the Board of Trustees for just being you. The President’s Open House and all of the in-person recruiting events organized by the Admissions office really projected strength in these uncertain times. Extra-special thanks to Chairman of the Board Hal “Chip” Chowder. Even though your term was technically expired, you were so dedicated to seeing this college through the worst of the pandemic that you dared faculty to call the Governor to have you removed.

Thanks to everyone’s heroic efforts, we managed to suppress a faculty insurrection, preserve our uniquely student-centered learning environment, and fill the gaps created by our public-private partnerships. Now we can all trot off boldly to the holiday break safe in the knowledge that we beat this pandemic once and for all. I, for one, am looking forward to returning to business as usual next semester.

We know that tensions are high between administration and faculty, what with the pay cuts, furloughs, layoffs, and program cuts, but through all of that, we managed to hire some really top-notch senior administrators and renovate the President’s house, which we know will gratify even our most vocal and smarty-pants professors.

It takes a special group of people to bring students to campus during a runaway global epidemic and then take a victory lap before the epidemic is even over, but by God, between your silent consent and our bold leadership, we did it.

Congratulations,
Pat Slafman, Ph.D.
Associate Vice President of Self-Congratulation