October 5, 2023
Happy Fall! I hope everyone on our campus has settled into comfortable, productive routines as we get deeper into the academic year, cooler (and darker) mornings prevail, and we see annual holiday traditions peeking around the corner just ahead.
I was reminded of the importance of feeling settled and comfortable – and most important, having a sense of truly belonging – during Los Cien’s 10th annual “State of the Latinx Community Address” held in the SSU Student Center on September 28. Los Cien, Sonoma County’s largest nonprofit Latino leadership organization, themed the event “The Power of Belonging, Shifting Mindsets, and Transforming Communities.” Hundreds of community leaders listened and learned about the difference between simply welcoming and accepting others and doing all we can to make everyone feel as though they truly belong.
Whether you are a student, alumnus, employee, supporter, or all of the above, SSU is designed to do more than simply welcome and accept you. It is meant to help realize your goals and dreams within the context of a community where you are seen, heard, empowered, and co-create this environment in collaboration with others. That combination, that process, creates a true sense of belonging, and is an invaluable life tool: By taking these steps, we learn how to facilitate a sense of belonging for everyone, everywhere, in everything we do.
After my own “settling in” and acclimating period, I felt that sense of belonging at my alma mater, Tunghai University in Taiwan, and it is a feeling that persists to this day. I remain deeply interested and invested in what happens there; the sense of community, of belonging, that I experienced while a student lives on. I was recently reminded that the feeling works both ways when I was informed I am to receive recognition as the university’s 24th Distinguished Alumnus, which is an unexpected and humbling honor. Then and now, I belong at Tunghai, just as Tunghai lives in me.
I feel the same way about Sonoma State, and hope that you do, too. Reaching a sense of belonging is an imperfect process – no two people experience it in exactly the same way – but I can assure you that everyone living, studying, and working here belongs here. Creating and maintaining that sense of belonging for all – remaining vigilant about seeing, listening to, empowering, and co-creating with everyone on our campus – is essential to our community and to our future.
On the topics of community and future, I want to congratulate new CSU Chancellor Mildred Garcia as she officially took office beginning this week. Dr. Garcia, formerly president of CSU Dominguez Hills and CSU Fullerton, is the first Latina appointed to oversee the 23-campus CSU system, is president of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, and made a lifelong career commitment to higher education following her own achievements as a first-generation college student. I cannot help but respect and admire her academic and professional journey, and know she is precisely the right leader for the challenges and opportunities ahead.
I also want to congratulate Athletic Director Dr. Nicole Annolaro and Sonoma State’s athletics program, which is having an outstanding fall season. More about our athletes’ accomplishments follows in this newsletter, but suffice to say we should all be rooting on our Seawolves!
I was pleased to welcome an important and enthusiastic group of education colleagues – high school and community college counselors – to Green Music Center on September 15 for the 2023 SSU University Counselor Conference, where they learned more about why our beautiful university is an excellent first-choice college for their students. I also was privileged to be in attendance, again at the GMC, for the latest Women in Conversation event featuring Nicole Mann, a NASA astronaut (and graduate of Rancho Cotate High) who earlier this year completed a 157-day stay at the International Space Station.
The GMC welcomed even more exciting events during September – the inaugural Global Roots Sonoma, bringing music from all over the world to campus September 23 and 24, and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with legendary trumpeter and composer Wynton Marsalis on September 29. Many thanks to Executive Director Jacob Yarrow and his team for continuing to coordinate and host innovative, world-class events at the gorgeous Green.
Onward, Fall!
Warmly,
Mike
Mike Lee, Ph.D.
President