Dear Nazareth students,
Happy October! And happy “we’ve made it halfway!” I am so grateful to be part of this learning community with you, and I am so proud of the progress we have achieved. We are resilient!I think of you often, as students learning, growing, and pursuing your life’s work in such a complex time. We are dealing with the ongoing pandemic, participating in the important work of social justice amidst the heaviness, divisiveness, and trauma of our times. We are all coping in our own ways and we are not only coping, we are working diligently at making progress towards a better future for each other no matter our differences.
And we’ve created success day by day with the individual decisions and contributions made by each and every member of our community.
With sacrifice, we’ve seen our community adopt PPE and safety protocols, turning restrictions into new daily habits embraced by all with care and creativity.
With ingenuity, we’ve seen our community adopt new ways of learning in many forms as we continue our mission of academic excellence and transformative learning.
With great purpose, humility, and courage, we’ve seen our community rise to the resurging call of social justice, finding myriad ways to learn about and support and take action for the cause of equality and human rights.
With dedication to experiential learning, we’ve seen students taking full advantage of newly developed resources to engage in distance internships and virtual international experiences in full pursuit of their life’s work.
With compassion, we’ve seen Nazareth’s neighbor-to-neighbor partnerships adapt to be agents of meaningful social change at this critical time.
With deep commitment, we’ve seen faculty and staff develop new ways of connecting and engaging with students with care for what’s happening today and also preparing for the emerging future.
With positivity, we’ve seen our community innovate and participate in the many new ways we now safely socialize, exercise, spend time, and have fun together.
Our community has embraced that which is very difficult — sustained, systemic CHANGE. Let’s take a moment during this midway point to thank each other and to feel pride for our great effort, resilience, and success. And let’s take the time to rest, reset, and rejuvenate as we take on the second half of our semester. As you relish a deep breath, reflect on the ways you have found to cope and be resilient. Let’s each think about some small act of kindness we can extend to another Naz community member to remind our community of the goodness and care that defines our community.
Together, we will complete this semester with continued resolve, community, and resilience. We won’t miss a beat in making the daily individual decisions which protect our right to be here on campus for all the semesters of our future. And we will continue to prove that with principles of caring and responsibility, we can show the way forward.
See you soon,
Beth Paul, Ph.D.
President
Nazareth College
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