On Elephants

Elephants figure large (ba dum boom, ching!) in English idiom.

• The elephant in the room.
• Seeing the elephant.
• Blind men and an elephant.
• White elephants.
• Pink elephants.
• When the elephant dances.
• Elephants never forget.

Elephants are large, expensive, complicated, dangerous, gentle, magnificent, social, intelligent, and most assuredly non-ignorable. Sometimes other colleges at the U think of CLA as an elephant, some days beating out a trail for others to follow, and other days blundering around (see dancing elephants and mice).

Here in UGE we have a baby elephant of our own: the Career Readiness Initiative. It’s new. It’s complex. It’s going to grow into something huge and be pretty expensive. You can no longer ignore it. It’s going to establish or widen some paths in CLA, and we think it’s going to be a wonder and magnificent when it is fully grown.

Dean's Freshman Research and Creative Scholars Reception

Monday, December 5 was our day to recognize our 2015-16 Dean’s Freshman Research and Creative Scholars program student scholars, thank the many wonderful faculty who mentored them, and inspire the 2016-17 scholars to dive into their projects, reach outside their comfort zones, and do great things.

UGE Shout-outs at the State of the College Address

Dean John Coleman gave his annual State of the College address at the CLA Assembly meeting on September 20, 2016. For those who were unable to attend, the text of his message can be found here (in John’s blog). John has a very nice exposition on how the liberal arts build empathy and compassion, imagination, and community. For those who were unable to attend and who are impatient, let me just summarize by saying that Undergraduate Education received several shout-outs for our accomplishments over the past couple of years.