Messages to the Caltech Community
2023 Commencement Speaker
February 22, 2023
It is my pleasure to announce that Danielle Allen, James Bryant Conant University Professor and director of the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University, will deliver the keynote address at Caltech's 129th Annual Commencement ceremony on June 16, 2023. Allen is a leading scholar in political philosophy, ethics, and public policy who offers a unique perspective on the critical importance of democracy and civic engagement. Her ability to connect classical thought and human experience with modern day societal challenges has illuminated the pathways that we traverse as citizens and scholars.
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Monterey Park Tragedy
January 22, 2023
The celebration of the Lunar New Year, a time for gathering and celebration by the Asian community and a wide circle of friends, has been horribly altered by last night's mass shooting at a dance club in Monterey Park. I write to express my deepest sympathy and condolences to all those at Caltech who are directly or indirectly impacted by this devastating event. The shooting, one of the worst mass shootings in recent history in California, is painfully close to our campus and to our community.
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Racist and Antisemitic Graffiti on Campus
October 14, 2022
Wednesday afternoon, Caltech's Campus Security responded to a report of racist and antisemitic speech drawn in marker on a bathroom stall in the W. M. Keck Engineering Laboratories building.
Hate speech and hate symbols in any form will not be tolerated at Caltech. We are a learning community that fundamentally depends on the exchange of ideas, an exchange that honors the worth of all individuals and provides an environment in which all feel included in our mission of forefront research intertwined with education. These markings—and the violent reductionism of individuals to stereotypical tropes—are a direct attack on our community, our mission, and our shared values.
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2022-23 Academic Year Welcome
September 28, 2022
As the shackles of the pandemic loosen, we have an opportunity to reset and to ask what calls to us as scholars, as Caltech colleagues, and as citizens of the world. Irène Joliot-Curie, whose alchemy created nitrogen from boron, and phosphorus from aluminum through alpha-ray bombardment, averred: "Without the love of research, mere knowledge and intelligence cannot make a scientist." The award of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1935 with her husband Frédéric Joliot-Curie, following in the footsteps of her parents Marie and Pierre Curie, made for five Nobels in the family, providing a rarefied vantage point for her reflections!
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Juneteenth 2022
June 16, 2022
Next Monday is the formal observation of Juneteenth, a day that marks the June 1865 emancipation of all enslaved people, many of whom had not learned of President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation when it was issued more than two years prior.
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2021-22 Academic Year-End Letter
June 1, 2022
In the April 1928 issue of Harper's Magazine, George Ellery Hale made the case for a new telescope to sail "…the uncharted seas of space." This was less than a decade after the commissioning of the 100-inch Hooker telescope on Mount Wilson, a project so fraught and complex, spread between Europe and the United States, interrupted by World War l and seemingly insurmountable glass casting challenges, that it took a severe toll on Hale's health. However, the discoveries by Edwin Hubble and colleagues of an expanding universe reanimated the conversation, opening new possibilities for understanding the structure of the universe and the constituents of matter.
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Support for Students and Scholars Affected by the War in Ukraine
March 29, 2022
In a community-wide message on March 6, the Institute stated its commitment to supporting scholars affected by the war in Ukraine. Since that time, we have been working to identify practical approaches for hosting students and scholars from the region, either through enrollment in our degree programs or through visits hosted by members of the Caltech faculty.
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Caltech and the War in Ukraine
March 6, 2022
Powerlessness in the face of atrocity is as dispiriting a feeling as there is. We watch close up on video Ukrainians huddled in subway stations and fleeing to the west as bombs rain down and explosions raze cities. Our hearts go out to those whose lives are turned upside down by the death, the destruction, and the uncertainty of what tomorrow will bring.
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New JPL Director
January 27, 2022
I am delighted to announce that Laurie Leshin, president of Worcester Polytechnic Institute, distinguished Caltech alumna, and a space science and technology leader, will join Caltech as JPL director and vice president on May 16, 2022.
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Resurgence of Anti-Semitic Attacks
January 24, 2022
As I talk to other university presidents around the country about the events in Colleyville, Texas and their effect on our campus communities, a primary theme that emerges is the need to teach history and establish context. The old adage proclaims that those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it. Especially for our students who may not have a visceral feel for the Jewish diaspora of the 19th and 20th centuries, from pogroms to the Holocaust, history provides at least a partial means to come to grips with the trauma of hostages held in a house of worship on the Sabbath day, a travesty emblematic of the rapid rise in violent anti-Semitic attacks around the world.
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President's 2021 End of Year Message
December 9, 2021
A few days ago I stood on the sands of Omaha Beach. It is almost winter and the days are short in Normandy. The gray skies and the windswept terrain summon the ghosts of the 156,000 American, British, Canadian, and free French troops wading through the ocean swells into German gunfire as D-Day unfolded. Twisted metal hulks of tanks and landing craft emerge on cue as the tide ebbs.
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Update on Caltech's Renaming Process
November 8, 2021
The Caltech Board of Trustees, in accord with recommendations from the Committee on Naming and Recognition and the Ruddock House Renaming Committee, has approved new names for campus assets and honors that previously memorialized individuals affiliated with the eugenics movement.
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2021-22 Academic Year Welcome
September 27, 2021
There is enormous energy and excitement on campus as summer programs wrap up and fall term begins. The undergraduate residences are once again full of life, classrooms (some newly sprung outdoors) are open for instruction, and graduate students, postdocs, faculty, and staff are back in their offices. Long discussions over cups of coffee at the Red Door, serendipitous encounters with old friends and ones to be, and the exchange of ideas that lead to new collaborations, remind us of the joys of an environment where we share a passion for discovery.
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JPL Director Transition
August 9, 2021
It is with regret that I announce that Michael Watkins will step down from his position as Caltech vice president and director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, effective August 20, 2021. Mike will remain on Caltech's faculty as professor of aerospace and geophysics.
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2020-21 Academic Year-End Letter
June 8, 2021
Last week, Eric Lander was confirmed as Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy and became the first presidential science advisor to assume cabinet rank. In a letter to the community marking the occasion, he noted: "Science and technology—when applied with vision and optimism, with wisdom and humility, with rigor and integrity, and with a commitment to engage and serve everyone—are among the most powerful forces ever devised to better the human condition."
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Update on Caltech's Renaming Process
April 12, 2021
I write to update you on progress implementing the recommendations of the Committee on Naming and Recognition to remove from campus assets and honors the names of those associated with the eugenics movement. Our actions fall into two classes: those where the naming of the asset or honor was a requirement of a gift to the Institute and those where it was not.
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Support of Asian and Asian American Communities
March 17, 2021
The rise in incidents of verbal and physical violence against individuals of Asian, Asian-American, and Pacific Islander descent over the period of the coronavirus pandemic has been frightening, underscored in horrific fashion by yesterday's murders in Atlanta. Over the last year, communities across California have been challenged by an alarming increase in hate crimes, with 45 percent of reported anti-Asian incidents occurring within our state. We recognize the damaging effect that these targeted incidents have on the Caltech community as a whole, and on individual members of our community who are forced to carry the additional burden of fear for the safety and wellbeing of loved ones or themselves.
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Caltech's Naming and Recognition Practices
January 15, 2021
Following the unanimous recommendation of the Committee on Naming and Recognition and my recommendation, the Caltech Board of Trustees has authorized the removal of Robert A. Millikan's name, as well as the names of five other historical figures affiliated with the Human Betterment Foundation (Harry Chandler, Ezra S. Gosney, William B. Munro, Henry M. Robinson, and Albert B. Ruddock), from campus buildings and a series of additional memorializations.
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Capitol Violence
January 7, 2021
One of the most gratifying elements of belonging to the Caltech community is being part of a pursuit greater than oneself. We are knit together by the commitment to discovering how the world works and to educating the next generation of scholars, in service to society. We believe in facts and truth. We argue with one another, but we honor the differences that emerge, open to the possibility that we can grow as citizens of a great university through the empathetic exchange of ideas.
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2020 End of Year Message
December 7, 2020
This has been an extraordinary year, a time of sorrow and trouble, but also a testament to fortitude and the ability of human beings to pull together and transcend their own personal interests. The Caltech community is an exemplar of the commitment to raising the human spirit through achievement, leadership, and service.
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New Secretary to the Board of Trustees
November 4, 2020
I am delighted to announce that Cathy Light, secretary of the corporation and advisor to the president at Carnegie Mellon University since 2018, will join Caltech as secretary to the Board of Trustees effective January 4, 2021.
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2020-21 Academic Year Welcome
September 21, 2020
As I write these words on the east edge of campus, the sun is glowing an eerie pink, rising above the horizon. The atmosphere has a yellow cast; shadows are tinged blue. You can taste the smoke in the air and feel the burn in your lungs from the wildfires raging across California.
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2019-20 Academic Year-End Letter
June 4, 2020
In April 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. responded from a Birmingham jail cell to admonitions from eight white clergymen for leading a nonviolent protest against segregation: "I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere… Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly." The ideals that Dr. King expressed a half century ago remain true today. Tragically, we are still far from realizing them. The burdens of violence and racism weigh heavily on the shoulders of the Black community here and across the nation.
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2019 End of Year Message
December 9, 2019
At a special college assembly on February 11, 1920, President James A.B. Scherer announced that the Board of Trustees had voted to change the name of the Throop College of Technology to the California Institute of Technology. According to The Pasadena Star-News of that same date, "the trustees felt impelled to change the name of the institution in order to denote and signalize its altered scope, recent developments having transformed it from a college of primarily local significance into a scientific school of national importance."
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2019-20 Academic Year Welcome
October 3, 2019
The start of a new academic year is one of my favorite times, full of potential and renewal. There are old friends to greet and new students and colleagues to welcome. The easy mingling of undergraduates, graduate students, postdocs, faculty, and staff emphasizes the advantages of Caltech's small size and the intimate nature of our campus.
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Mary Webster Retirement
September 4, 2019
Mary Webster, who has served the Institute with unparalleled distinction for 53 years, will retire in January 2020. Mary defined the positions of secretary of the Board of Trustees and executive assistant in the Office of the President. Although irreplaceable, I have appointed a joint trustee, faculty, and staff search committee to identify a new secretary of the Board.
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New General Counsel
July 29, 2019
I am delighted to announce that Jennifer Lum, currently Caltech's deputy general counsel, has been appointed Caltech's general counsel, effective September 1, 2019. In her new role, Jennifer will provide advice and legal counsel to the senior leadership of campus and JPL, as well as the Board of Trustees, on a broad spectrum of issues pertaining to the management and governance of the Institute.
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Our International Community of Scholars
July 11, 2019
The strength of the United States as a scientific, technological, and economic power has depended crucially on the contributions of scholars and entrepreneurs from all over the world. Our universities, in particular, have long opened their doors to foreign talent, seeking to become destinations for the most creative, original minds, irrespective of heritage or national origin.
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New Vice President
June 17, 2019
I am delighted to announce that Dexter A. Bailey, Jr., senior vice president for advancement and executive director of the Stony Brook Foundation since 2011, will join Caltech as vice president for advancement and alumni relations effective July 15, 2019.
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2018-19 Academic Year-End Message
June 11, 2019
Last week, a delegation of faculty from GPS and the Seismological Laboratory presented their latest results to Caltech alumni and friends in Seattle. With its high-tech gleam, Seattle has become a popular destination for our graduates. Just offshore is the Cascadia Subduction Zone, with the potential to unleash a magnitude 9.0 Earthquake.
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Caltech Launches Merkin Institute for Translational Research
May 30, 2019
We are delighted to announce the launch of the Richard N. Merkin Institute for Translational Research, made possible by an extraordinary philanthropic commitment from Caltech Trustee Dr. Richard Merkin. The new Institute will propel scientific discoveries into technologies that improve human health.
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2019 Commencement Speaker
March 28, 2019
It is my pleasure to announce that Dr. France Córdova, distinguished astrophysicist, Director of the National Science Foundation (NSF), and Caltech alumna (PhD '79), will be Caltech's 2019 commencement speaker. She brings to the Institute perspectives on governmental and academic leadership, grounded in her scientific training at Caltech.
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Update: Partial Government Shutdown
January 15, 2019
As the partial federal government shutdown enters a record fourth week, Caltech operations continue apace, but future negative consequences remain a possibility.
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Victoria Stratman to Retire
January 13, 2019
Victoria Stratman, who has served the Institute with distinction and dedication as Caltech's general counsel since 2009, will retire from her position this coming summer. I have appointed an Institute-wide search committee to identify Vicci's successor.
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2018 End of Year Message
December 10, 2018
On the Monday after Thanksgiving, I sat nervously in the back row of the JPL Mission Support Area (MSA) control room. To my left was Jim Bridenstine, the NASA administrator; to his left, Michael Watkins, the director of JPL; to my right, Thomas Zurbuchen, the head of NASA's Science Mission Directorate; and to his right, Bruce Banerdt, InSight's principal investigator. The InSight spacecraft was fast approaching Mars, the culmination of a many decade's long dream of Banerdt's to probe the interior of Mars: to measure Marsquakes and to understand how the magnetic dynamo that protected Mars' atmosphere billions of years ago disappeared and, along with it, Mars' rivers and lakes.
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2018-19 Academic Year Welcome
September 30, 2018
As we start the new academic year, national debates swirl around the relationship of higher education to society. These issues center on two areas: taxes and undergraduate admissions. With last year's changes to the tax law, endowment gains at select universities, either those with very large endowments or those with very small student bodies like Caltech, are suddenly taxable.
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Brian K. Lee
September 23, 2018
Brian K. Lee, Caltech's Vice President for Development and Institute Relations, has announced his intention to step down on November 2, 2018. Brian has accepted the position of vice president for alumni affairs and development at Harvard University.
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2017–18 Academic Year-End Message
May 25, 2018
Today is Ditch Day (not the eternal "tomorrow" of Institute tradition!). Months of planning and hard work by Caltech seniors culminate in Ditch Day, where for almost 90 years seniors ditch classes and escape campus for the day. They leave behind complex challenges known as stacks to divert the remaining students from interest in the temporarily abandoned rooms and possessions.
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Message on the DACA Program
April 12, 2018
In the absence of action by the legislative and executive branches of government, the future of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) program lies with the courts. Caltech, along with sixteen peer institutions (Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Emory, Georgetown, George Washington, Harvard, MIT, Northwestern, Stanford, Chicago, Penn, Vanderbilt, and Yale), filed a brief of amici curiae yesterday with the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The brief makes a powerful statement about our shared core values and educational mission. It can be found online at http://bit.ly/brief_filed.
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Tax Cuts and Jobs Act Update
March 12, 2018
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was approved in December 2017. The Act resulted in changes to tax rates and brackets, and deductions for federal taxes at the new tax rates were reflected in paychecks starting on February 1, 2018.
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2018 Commencement Speaker
February 26, 2018
It is my pleasure to announce that the Honorable John Lewis, United States congressman and leader of the Civil Rights Movement, will be Caltech's 2018 commencement speaker. Lewis's visit to our campus will mark the 60-year anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s three-day visit to Caltech in February 1958.
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Message from the President and Provost on the Federal Tax Bill
January 2, 2018
When we wrote to you in November about the pending federal tax bills, we were responding to concerns expressed by our faculty, students, and staff. Some of those concerns were personal, triggered by the possibility of increased personal tax liabilities, while others were directed toward the potential impact of the legislation on higher education and research and on Caltech in particular.
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President's 2017 Year-End Message
December 7, 2017
As the end of the calendar year approaches, we look forward to what the next year will bring. The desire to wipe the slate clean and start anew is often palpable, but the ideas and passions of the past are never far below the surface. We experience this keenly in the ebb and flow of the Institute's intellectual pursuits.
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Message from the President and Provost on the 2017 Federal Tax Bill
November 21, 2017
Some members of our community have expressed concern about provisions in the 2017 federal tax reform proposals that are likely to have negative effects on the educational and research programs of the nation's colleges and universities. Several of these provisions are included in the bill that was passed by the House of Representatives; some appear in a related proposal that awaits action by the Senate. All provisions approved in either chamber will be on the table for conference consideration if the Senate passes a tax bill.
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2017 Nobel Prize in Physics
October 3, 2017
We are delighted and honored to congratulate Kip Thorne (BS '62) and Barry Barish of Caltech and Rai Weiss of MIT on the award this morning of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics. The first direct observation of gravitational waves by LIGO is an extraordinary demonstration of scientific vision and persistence. Through four decades of development of exquisitely sensitive instrumentation – pushing the capacity of our imaginations – we are now able to glimpse cosmic processes that were previously undetectable. It is truly the start of a new era in astrophysics.
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2017–18 Academic Year Welcome
September 25, 2017
The highlight of the summer was undoubtedly the great American eclipse. Many of us shared in the experience as a band of totality cut a swath across the United States. We were reminded of the magnificence of nature, and the satisfaction derived from understanding and being able to accurately predict how the world around us behaves (at least at the level of celestial mechanics!).
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Statement on DACA
September 5, 2017
Earlier today, President Trump ended the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. This action puts at risk more than 800,000 students who were raised in the United States, students who have flourished as scholars and leaders, and who have enriched their campuses and communities, intellectually, socially, and economically. It cuts to the core of what we stand for as an educational institution: to identify, attract, and support talented individuals, and to create a community where students, staff, and faculty alike can learn from each other and thrive. In this way, we create knowledge and improve society, helping our nation realize its aspirations.
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Statement on Charlottesville
August 16, 2017
The hate-filled and race-tinged violence in Charlottesville has been a jarring challenge to our colleagues at the University of Virginia, to the academic community as a whole, and to our nation.
As an academic community, and as a nation, we must reject hate speech and violence as incompatible with our mission and our aspirations. In particular, as an Institute devoted to creating knowledge and committed to the scientific method, we have a special responsibility to stand up for tolerance and freedom of expression whenever fundamental threats arise.
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Federal Budget Proposal
March 20, 2017
The President's budget savages science, the arts, and the humanities. This is only the opening salvo in a complicated negotiation with Congress, and many of the most draconian cuts are unlikely to survive. However, it does underscore the need for us as an academic community to make a better case for the centrality of inquiry, research, and innovation to the nation's well being. We must generally and specifically defend analyses substantiated by data and arguments based on evidence.
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Immigration Update
February 21, 2017
The success of America and, in particular, American higher education has been our ability to attract extraordinary talent from around the world. We welcome diverse perspectives and new approaches to problems as the surest means to create knowledge and improve society. Whether we are the immigrants, or our parents or our grandparents, the opportunity to contribute to the success of our country – through the arts, through science, through technology, through business – has been an animating principle of the American ideal.
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Executive Order Issued January 27, 2017
January 28, 2017
Friday's executive order limiting immigration and entry to the United States has heightened anxieties for members of our community on campus and at JPL. This order immediately impacts the personal and professional travel of a subset of students, postdocs, faculty, and staff from abroad and elevates uncertainties for the next few months and likely beyond.
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Year-End Message
December 12, 2016
The recent election brought into sharp focus a substantial divide in American society. It illuminated very different conceptions of where this country is and should be heading, and challenged assumptions about the relationships between its denizens. It also raises for us, the members of the Caltech community, questions about the role of universities in the fabric of American life.
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Academic Year Welcome
September 26, 2016
The most impressive feature of Caltech to me is the Institute's spirit of reinvention. Members of our community switch fields, make abrupt turns in career directions, if the problem to be solved is fundamental, entrancing, and impactful. This ethos not only leads to new ways of understanding and manipulating nature—geobiology, quantum information, medical engineering, to name a few recent examples—but it also sustains a powerful culture of fearlessness and ambition.
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Academic Year-End Message
June 13, 2016
June is a natural time to think of transitions. Newly minted Caltech graduates flow from Pasadena across academia, industry, and society, fearless if not yet confident about solving problems that matter. On the horizon is a new retinue of enthusiastic young people, ready to reinvigorate the spirit of the Institute and remind us of why we choose to be part of the academic enterprise. We transition from the classroom to SURF and savor uninterrupted time for research.
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Year-End Message
December 7, 2015
As the new year approaches, it is a time to celebrate the special ways that our students, faculty, and staff contribute to knowledge and to society by doing what we do best: challenging the accepted wisdom, rigorously analyzing problems, and devising innovative solutions. It is also a propitious time to reflect on our values as an intellectual community in the context of the national conversation about diversity, inclusion, and freedom of expression.
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Thank You
December 11, 2014
It has been an exhilarating first few months at the Institute and I am deeply grateful for your generous welcome. There is indeed only one Caltech! As the late President Murph Goldberger aptly observed when asked to explain Caltech's distinction:
"If any single factor can be called responsible for this. . . . it is Caltech's absolute unwillingness to compromise on excellence: excellence of faculty, excellence of students, excellence of facilities."
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