Dean's Message - September 2024

A message from Dean DeWalt sent to the CBS community on September 10, 2024. 

Colleagues,

Welcome to the 2024-25 school year! I hope your semester is off to a great start, particularly for those of you new to CBS. A week and a half ago, I celebrated my one-year anniversary at the U and in CBS by attending Convocation and our CBS-specific College Day. It was so fun to welcome the largest class of first-year students ever to the College. Demand for a CBS education is clearly very strong. I hope you all are as excited as I am to continue to build on the College’s strengths and work toward a collective vision for excellence in all aspects of our mission.

New leadership
With President Cunningham’s inauguration a little over a week away, we are busy welcoming our own new leaders in CBS and working together to identify strategic opportunities. Here are some of the leadership and other changes that happened over the past few months.

  • Aaron Goldstrohm became head of the Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biophysics; Kieran McNulty became head of the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior; and John Ward became interim head of the Department of Plant and Microbial Biology. 

  • Jeff Gralnick started serving as interim associate dean for research. He also continues in his role as associate dean for faculty. 

  • Gretchen Ambrosier joined CBS as our lead development officer and head of the advancement team. She leads the team’s efforts to attract philanthropic support and engage CBS alumni. 

  • Sara Eliason's role expanded to provide additional capacity for college-level graduate student and postdoc support as the CBS graduate programs and postdoc coordinator. Sara also continues in her role as the graduate program coordinator for Plant and Microbial Biology. 

  • Fred Williams joined CBS Student Services as associate director for career readiness. Fred will focus his efforts on career-readiness initiatives and programming for undergraduates, among other responsibilities. Fred graduated from CBS with a biology degree and was a peer mentor for the first cohort of Nature of Life!

  • Tamar Resnick started serving as the assessment and curriculum liaison for the 2024-25 academic year. Working closely with Laurie Parker, our associate dean for undergraduate education, she will provide leadership and expertise regarding the assessment of undergraduate student learning in CBS and coordinate the directors of undergraduate studies.

I look forward to working with our leadership team and all of you to build on the College’s considerable strengths in the year ahead. 

BTL turns 10
We have another anniversary to note this year. A decade ago, CBS launched the first-of-its-kind Department of Biology Teaching and Learning (BTL) with an eye to developing evidence-based approaches to biology education. In that time, the department has become a model for other universities. They look to BTL as a leader in this burgeoning field. The department bridges theory and practice, and in so doing provides valuable insight here within CBS and well beyond. As our undergraduate enrollment continues to grow, that work is more important than ever to ensure that we deliver the best instruction to our students. Members of BTL are engaged in innovative research focusing on active learning, integrating math into biology courses, modeling and quantitative approaches to teaching and learning, and much more. Happy 10th, BTL!

Reasons to be CBS proud
One of the best parts of my job is getting a front-row seat to the amazing things happening across this college. In each dean’s message going forward, I plan to share reasons we should all be proud to be part of this vibrant, driven community. 

I’ll start by highlighting Nature of Life at Itasca, which is where most of our undergraduate students start their college careers. This summer, the Nature of Life team joined up again with staff at Itasca Biological Station and many CBS faculty and staff (and even a few postdocs and graduate students) to welcome and connect with our incoming students. I attended the fifth of our seven sessions this summer and got to see first-hand how valuable Nature of Life is for creating a sense of belonging among our new students, encouraging their curiosity and building life-long relationships. Thank you to our fantastic faculty and staff who make Nature of Life at Itasca one of the many reasons to be CBS proud!

You can check out photos of Nature of Life at Itasca as well as other pictures from the past few weeks at the State Fair, Convocation and College Day here.

Best regards,

Saara J. DeWalt

Dean, College of Biological Sciences