Dean’s Message Winter 2020

The holiday season is upon us, and as we reach the appointed hour, we feel the pull from our family, friends, and loved ones calling us home. These gatherings may look a little different this year than normal circumstances, but what has not and will not change is our capacity to celebrate, share, and reflect on this year.

Be it a phone call, a Zoom session, or seated around the dining room table, how we spend this holiday season reminds us how truly alike we are. The differences between traditions and customs are not barriers to understanding but are, in fact, the very ties that bind us together. From Christmas to Kwanza to Chanukah to the coming New Year, we are in a season of communal spirit. It is that sense of community that will allow us all to emerge better.

As I reflect on a year like no other, I appreciate your resilience and your optimism. I am proud of our faculty and staff’s strides to accommodate and support our students. It’s our charge to keep our classes engaged and motivated. We have an incredible caring and giving culture, paced by a wonderful staff and a wonderful faculty. We go above and beyond every day at the College of Business. Those efforts are reflected in the success of our students such as The Secure Mask cofounders Pablo Hernandez and Matthew Brown. Our work is further championed by alums such as the 2020 Alumni Fellow Jim Shircliff. We celebrate both sides of this coin in the pages of Currency.

We continue to build upon our successes and learn from our challenges. We are finding ways to make investments, enhancing the student experience. We are investing in technology as well as our faculty’s ability to teach online. We are making improvements in our facility — all with a commitment to make the College a great place to learn, work, and grow as a community.

Those developments include providing opportunities for our graduate students, such as offering internships and assistantships within the College. It also means collaborating with industry partners to offer scholarships such as the Kentucky Distillers’ Association Lifting Spirits Scholar program. Building bridges and more extensive networks for all students means increased prosperity for all.

Throughout this issue, you will see highlights of these investments. I hope it gives you an insight into your contribution to this virtuous cycle. While the future may be unwritten, we all have a hand in how the College’s story is told. I hope that you’ll consider joining our effort by making a gift to our annual fund.

I hope you all take time to celebrate the successes of the year, reflect on what has been learned, and allow the charity of the season to propel us all into 2021.

Best,

Todd A. Mooradian

Dean, University of Louisville College of Business