Best Wishes and Sincere Thanks in Difficult Times

I would like to extend my best wishes and my sincere hope that you and your loved ones are safe, healthy and coping as well as possible with the upheaval caused by the coronavirus pandemic.Dr. Christophe Pierre, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs

The 2019-2020 academic year at Stevens has been disrupted at each end; it began with a cyberattack and will conclude amid a pandemic. Through it all, I am proud of the way the Stevens community has responded. You have come together quickly and decisively to ensure that the university is able to carry out its academic mission and serve our students.

I am deeply grateful to our faculty, staff and students for their cooperation and dedication as we made the transition to online classes and worked to maintain educational, research and administrative operations, all remotely.

In the last few weeks, we have moved off campus, embraced new ways of teaching and learning, and revised academic policies and procedures a number of times in an effort to accommodate the extraordinary conditions we face, all while maintaining the quality and integrity that are hallmarks of a Stevens education.

The academic leadership and I understand how stressful these disruptions have been, not just on our professional endeavors, but also on personal lives. And we will continue to make adjustments in response to feedback from across the university

I would like to remind you that a number of resources are available online to assist faculty and students with academic issues as we move into the final weeks of the spring 2020 semester. They include:

• The university’s latest advisories and FAQs,

• Remote academic support and advising for undergraduate and graduate students,

• Guidelines for conducting research, and

• Resources for faculty teaching online.

Despite the current hardships, there has been some amazing news for members of the Stevens community. You’ll see a considerable number of notable accomplishments across all of our schools and departments highlighted throughout this newsletter.

Among them, I would like to congratulate the 17 members of our faculty who have earned promotions and/or tenure effective September 1; the eight members of the administrative staff who were promoted in January; our top researchers for the numerous external awards so far for 2020; and Brendan Englot and Nick Parziale of the mechanical engineering department in the School of Engineering and Science, who both received 2020 Young Investigator Awards from the Office of Naval Research. It is a rare honor to have two recipients of this prestigious award in one department.

Congratulations, also, to Antonia Zaferiou and Damiano Zanotto of SES, whose outstanding work earned them a combined $1.4 million in NSF CAREER Awards, and to Paul Grogan of SSE, on his $500,000 CAREER Award.

I regret that I will not get a chance to see you before this academic year ends, but I am pleased that wherever you are, you are keeping the spirit of Stevens alive.

Once again, I wish you all the best. Thank you.