With Gratitude As my time serving as RISD’s president draws to a close, I offer my heartfelt thanks to all of you who have been with me on this journey. Your commitment to RISD’s future and to generations of extraordinary students is inspiring. Together we are transforming the college and museum in exciting and important ways, helping RISD to fulfill a commitment to make a positive impact in the world. Since I became president, first as interim in 2014 and then named in January of 2015, we have raised more than $110 million to offer more generous financial aid, better support our faculty, advance the campus master plan, enhance student life and advance Social Equity and Inclusion initiatives. Generous donors have given more than $35 million for financial aid—the largest amount in our history. Your commitment, allowing students to realize their dreams of attending RISD, is also helping to define a future led by creative RISD alumni. In my 50-year relationship with RISD—as a student, alumna, faculty member and administrative leader—I have viewed the long horizon of the impact of a RISD education. Your generosity is changing lives. This progress has been possible because we made a strategic investment in the Division of Institutional Advancement that continues to deepen our alumni and family engagement as well as elevate philanthropy. We ended the 2016 fiscal year having raised $6.9 million. Last fiscal year donors gave $24.7 million, and we are on track for another year of record generosity. Philanthropy has been crucial to the success of many important initiatives, including the 2020 launch of the Society of Presidential Fellows, which supports the recruitment of outstanding graduate students. I am pleased to share that RISD will be awarding the Roger and Gayle Mandle Presidential Fellowship and the Rosanne Somerson Presidential Fellowship next year. In less than two years we have created the first fully funded graduate
education awards at RISD, welcoming five fellows this academic year and expanding to 17 fellows in 2021–22. We will enroll at least 19 fellows in 2022–23 and fully expect this program to continue to grow. These awards are benefitting extraordinarily talented students who would never have been able to attend RISD without this support. In another philanthropy-driven advance, this summer we will launch a three-year pilot preorientation program open to 30 incoming students annually who are first in their families to go to college. The systemic racism and class inequities that plague our society are also present in education, and RISD is committed on all fronts to undo these injustices. Programs that help students acclimate to college, utilize their strengths and take full advantage of a RISD education will help advance equity. A gift from the estate of Rachel Doane 64 LA established the Presidential Initiatives Fund, and I have directed some of it to be used to launch this pilot program which will become a transformative part of participating students’ RISD experience.
