The end of another school year is upon us! Let’s take a moment to celebrate and reflect.
Dr. Greg Schrock, Associate Professor and School Director
This past weekend we celebrated the graduation of our Toulan School students at two events - a graduate hooding ceremony on Friday in Smith Ballroom organized with our friends in the Hatfield School of Government, and the PSU Commencement on Sunday at the Moda Center. These are always joyous events - an opportunity to meet family and friends who have supported our students through their journey and recognize all the hard work that got them there.
Spring blossoms annually with the fruits of student and faculty labor. The departmental calendar is filled with Urban Studies students defending master’s theses and doctoral dissertation crafted over months and years. MURP students present six months of work on Planning Workshop projects to a packed house of faculty, fellow students, and community partners. Curricular proposals, like the creation of our new Community, Urban Studies, and Planning (CUSP) undergraduate major, get the final stamp of approval from the PSU Faculty Senate. Exciting times!
It is also a time of departures, but also new arrivals. This year the Toulan School will see four colleagues - Gerry Sussman, Lisa Bates, Megan Horst and Kacy McKinney - departing from the full-time faculty through retirements or other moves, while we also say goodbye to our beloved Student Services Coordinator, Pauline Duffy, who is retiring at the end of this month. We will miss all of you! In August our new CUPA Dean, Jeremy Youde, will be arriving, and taking the baton from Shawn Smallman, who has served admirably as Interim CUPA Dean for the past year and will be returning to the faculty in Politics and Global Affairs.
It has been a challenging year for PSU on multiple fronts. The university’s historic budget deficit forced us to think hard but creatively about how to streamline our course offerings and staff capacity while minimizing the impacts on program and student success. This spring’s campus protests drove an important conversation about the tragedy unfolding in Gaza, but unfortunately resulted in damage to and temporary closure of the Millar Library, causing disruptions for many in our campus community. Each year brings new challenges, and the summer gives us a moment to reflect and restore as we look ahead to next year.
Finally, I want to thank you for your continued generosity in supporting our students. In April we had a successful PSU Day of Giving - we raised over $3000 for the Tony Lamb Racial Justice Fellowship! If you missed it, you can give to it or one of our other impactful funds now.
Enjoy the summer!
Sincerely,
Greg Schrock, PhD
Associate Professor and School Director