Dear Wesleyan:
We are tremendously satisfied today. Although we as an institution struggle with inequalities and are often mired by constant contradictions, we are taking steps toward bettering ourselves. As you have now heard, the board of trustees has unanimously selected Michael Roth as the 16th president of Wesleyan University.
Michael Roth is an accomplished scholar with a tenacious commitment and connection to Liberal Arts Education. Throughout the interviewing process we found President-elect Michael Roth to be a great communicator with a commitment to the larger world and many of the pressing social issues of our times. Michael has a proven record of being an agent of change at his former university and posses a healthy dose of idealism, all which will make him an excellent fit at Wesleyan. Michael Roth’s outstanding record and his ability to lead and empower high performing teams will allow the Wesleyan community in the coming years to synthesize its hopes and aspirations as a university in order to realize a continued and yet improved path of success and excellence.
With this hope comes a great-shared responsibility. As a community we stand much to gain from this change. However, we must not hinder our own growth and impede our own progress. There is constant miscommunication and misunderstanding between all bodies of the institution. On some levels we are a divided community with disparate interests. However, we have become convinced otherwise. Our outreach on campus, as imperfect as it may have been, paired with our communication with the board of trustees, faculty, and staff has left us with great hope and has helped reaffirm our passions and beliefs in the future of the university. Hopefully, in the upcoming future everybody will be brought together to the table to shape the future of the university. Even if we have to re-conceptualize the table and the mediums of communication in order to do this, we will do it together as a group. In doing this, it is important for the Wesleyan community to rally around and work with President-elect Roth.
We will work to create opportunities for all student groups and students to get together for discussions as a larger community, and several one on one discussions to discuss our hopes of the university for President-elect Michael Roth. We will record some of these sessions and present them to Michael as a video recording resource to help with his transition. Please take the time to work with us to improve Wesleyan. We will be coming around to your residences, but you can also invite us to your student group meetings or send us statements to be read anonymously.
Wesleyan is at an exciting transition period, lets make sure our voice are heard in regards to which direction this transition will take us.
Please feel free to contact us should you have any questions or comments.
Sincerely,
Patrick Senat
Class of 2008
(psenat@wesleyan.edu)
Brittany Mitchell
(bmitchell@wesleyan.edu)
Class of 2007
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