Dean's update

June 18, 2012

Graduation is now behind us and our attention is now on completing our move from the Young Building and welcoming new students and their parents to summer orientation. On May 5, more than 550 students graduated from our College, the largest graduating class ever. Marshall Matz, a UConn alumnus and friend of the College, served as our commencement speaker and provided a compelling address to our students. 

As of this writing, we are in the final days of our big move from the Young Building for our much anticipated year-long renovation. For the most part we have accomplished this move without major disruption to our programs and services. Building occupants were moved to seven different locations over a two-week period. I would like to personally thank the members of Young Building move planning committee, chaired by Associate Dean Faustman, Cynthia Bastek, Joe Bonelli, Boris Bravo-Ureta, Tom Corso, Pat Jepson, Sara Putnam, Kristin Schwab, John Volin, Bonnie Burr, Rigoberto Lopez, Rich McAvoy and Steve Miner, who worked through all the necessary to make the move as smooth as possible. We all owe them our thanks.

Two additional candidates have been recommended by the search committee to be invited for on-campus interviews for the Associate Dean for Extension position. Although it is challenging to schedule interviews during the summer, we do not want to delay our search for this key leadership position in our College. I would urge everyone to take the opportunity to meet the candidates as search dates are announced.

The campus recently announced the positions approved for year one of the UConn hiring initiative. Funds for this hiring initiative are the result of a four-year increase in tuition approved by the Board of Trustees and endorsed by Governor Malloy. Our College received approval to fill seven new positions for the fall of 2013. These positions will fill some critical voids as well as help us build some strategic new initiatives. Our proposed multidisciplinary hiring clusters were built around the central themes of enhancing sustainable agriculture, environmental sustainability and food, nutrition and health. We will continue to build our requests upon those central themes over the four year period.

Gregory J. Weidemann

Dean and Director