Message from the Dean
April 2021
Dear Faculty, Staff and Students in the Klingler College of Arts & Sciences,
This is the third of three related messages on the themes of heart, hands and head.
These themes speak to the formation of the whole human person, a central tenet of
Marquette’s educational mission. Having focused previously on heart and hands, this
month we turn to the head.
Of the three themes, the head is most obviously associated with the university. We
are an institution of knowledge and learning. We pursue wisdom and intellectual growth.
One of the six topics of Marquette’s Beyond Boundaries strategic plan is Formation of Hearts and Minds. Pairing heart and head, the goal statement associated with this topic is “To develop
persons of faith, hope and love committed to service for and with others.”
This pairing and commitment are reflected in the College of Arts & Sciences through
our focus on the how and the why alongside the what. In addition to asking factual questions and solving problems, we care about process
and purpose. We pay attention to how we frame our endeavors, to the story we tell
about them. As a colleague has shared, it is helpful to frame challenges not as battles
but instead as journeys. We are then more likely to see others as partners and to
recognize the opportunities before us. The virtue of wisdom is more likely to be nurtured
if we can approach others as companions on a journey.
This month, the College hosted our annual Père Marquette lecture featuring Dr. Rowan
Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury. His inspiring talk on the relationship
between theology and poetry demonstrated his unique talent for linking head and heart.
Our Dean’s Advisory Council meeting took inspiration from this linking as we asked:
How will we continue to develop tomorrow’s leaders who demonstrate their shared commitment
through hearts, hands and heads? How might we build upon past successes and current
excellence to achieve a brighter future?
The excellence of research in the College of Arts & Sciences was much in evidence
during the recent campus-wide Distinguished Scholars Celebration, where both Provost
Ah Yun and President Lovell affirmed Marquette’s ongoing commitment to research and
scholarship. Our award-winning faculty are conducting innovative research across a
wide range of areas. Examples include research on estrogen therapies, the impact of
the Civil War on soldiers and families, the Medieval Arabic philosophical tradition,
the social imagination of gang borders and citizenship in El Salvador, how and why
gene regulation goes wrong in cancer, disordered breathing, women intellectuals of the Spanish-speaking Caribbean and non-verbal communication
in eighteenth-century literature. Our faculty have recently received numerous external
fellowships and honors—which we have celebrated via social media channels—and a physics faculty member saw his team’s research featured on the cover of Nature.
This is only a sampling of the excellent research happening across the College—much
of it interdisciplinary and focused on public-facing efforts that improve communities
and transform lives.
Now is the perfect time to envision and enact a bold vision, in light of this month’s
public launch of Marquette’s philanthropic campaign, Time to Rise: The Marquette Promise to Be The Difference. I look forward to working with all of you to envision a bright future for the College
and to galvanize our community of supporters in order to make these dreams a reality.
As always, please feel free to contact me with questions, concerns or suggestions. I appreciate hearing from you and exploring
ways we can all work together for the common good.
Sincerely,
Dr. Heidi Bostic Dean, Klingler College of Arts and Sciences
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