Final Thoughts

The past few months have truly demonstrated the resilience and strength of the Eastern community. In March our faculty stepped up to adjust their teaching to an entirely online modality, readying 1,500 courses for their students in one week. Our students moved home without complaint and attended online classes for the balance of the spring semester. We held a safe, yet moving Commencement on May 19, with thousands of graduates and their families attending from the safety of their homes.

Even as we work on our plans for the fall semester, I want to remind our friends and donors that COVID-19 has created additional financial burdens for many of our students. Wage earners and family members may be out of work. Some students may be dealing with personal or family health issues.

In this very challenging year in the history of our nation, the support that Eastern alumni and other donors provide the University has never been more important.  I ask that each of you consider making a donation to help Eastern support our students. With so many students facing unmet need, your assistance has never been more critical.

With your help, the University can continue to play a critical role in responding to the workforce needs of the State of Connecticut while preparing our students for productive professional careers and engaged lives as private citizens. With more than 40 percent of our students being first-generation college students, Eastern also can have a fundamental impact as a force for economic and social equality in our state, region and nation.

The thousands of young men and women who have studied on this campus since its earliest days as a normal school have shared more than common walls and walkways. Since its beginnings, Eastern has been intent on providing students with an exemplary education that can serve them throughout their lives. In 1998, Connecticut named Eastern the state’s public liberal arts university. More than 40 years prior, Willimantic State Teachers College President J. Eugene Smith told graduates in the 1955 yearbook Sustinet to consider themselves “as ‘liberally-educated persons’ . . . men and women who are prepared, and in some way morally obligated, to ‘make a difference’ . . . in the lives of the families you will build, in the children you will teach, in the teachers with whom you will work, in your churches and in your communities.”

That is the ground on which we all stand as members of the Eastern community — in times of plenty and in times of peace, as well as in times of uncertainty. Please take the opportunity to celebrate and support this very special University.

Kenneth J. DeLisa

Vice President for Institutional Advancement