Dear Staff, Faculty and Students,
We have made it through eight weeks of the fall semester, and have less than four weeks until the in-person phase of the semester is over. Congratulations and thanks to everyone for making this fall possible against long odds; and if you have not seen it yet, check out this short thank you video. We have conducted over 200,000 COVID-19 tests and our rate of positives is still very low. You can see our daily testing results at https://www.unh.edu/coronavirus. Please stay vigilant!
We got the go-ahead from the University System of New Hampshire Board of Trustees last week to restart the Spaulding Hall project, which had been temporarily halted due to financial concerns. When complete, Spaulding will offer modern laboratory and classroom space for life science disciplines, an important and growing area for UNH.
We have had a very successful year in research. In 2019-2020, the university received $129 million in new research grants and contracts, the highest in the history of the university. Congratulations to everyone responsible for this accomplishment! You can learn about the kinds of research our colleagues are conducting here. Many of our students are involved in these research projects.
As you know, the election is next Tuesday. I hope that everyone is exercising their precious right to vote; if you need to vote during the day, please take the time to do so. I ask all supervisors to be flexible with employees who need to vote during their work hours.
Prior to COVID, I held monthly office hours for students, in 20-minute increments. I would like to re-institute this practice, using Zoom, for faculty, students and staff. For interested students, visit myWildcat Success and follow the instructions to schedule a time by choosing President Dean in the drop-down list. For interested faculty and staff, email Cheri.ONeil@unh.edu and she will work to schedule a time.
To end on a fun note, UNH is on TikTok and recently recreated the #DreamsCranberry video with Wild E. Cat. You can watch it here. Thanks to our social media team for their great work on this. You may not know that the president and CEO of Ocean Spray is UNH alum Tom Hayes (‘87). If you are interested in his take on the skateboarding video that led to the new truck, click here for an article from UNH Today.
Warmest wishes,
James W. Dean Jr.
President
P.S. -- If you are interested in what I have been reading.
