January 11, 2021 | 2:42 PM

 

To: Graduate Faculty, Graduate Students, Directors of Graduate Studies/Program Directors, Program Administrators, LGS Staff

 

I hope everyone had a safe and restorative winter recess. I am writing to you after an unspeakable first 10 days of the year, filled with contrasts. In Georgia, with assistance from many volunteers working on voting access and safety, our runoff elections were successfully completed, demonstrating democracy at work.

 

Yet, last Wednesday also brought us to a new boiling point with an assault on our democracy, adding to the long assaults on justice, equity, and civility.  

 

As one graduate school, we are of many communities.  From these many communities, we are united by the graduate project. This project, our work, is fueled by our academic and professional ambitions and curiosity.  Our work is shaped by methods and standards of excellence that define our academic fields and disciplines. 

 

Our shared values and commitments center around truth and evidence – seeking and reporting what is true and tested.  We are a community committed to discovery and innovation, to imagining and reimagining, in service of the global good.  

 

As members of the Laney Graduate School community, let us re-affirm our commitments and values – to truth, equity, discovery, justice, and civility.  Your work and your strength bring hope and optimism for the days ahead.

 

Please stay safe, and continue to work with mind and heart to create, preserve, teach, and apply knowledge in the service of humanity.

 

With care, with appreciation,

 

--Lisa

-----

Lisa A. Tedesco, Ph.D.


Vice Provost for Academic Affairs – Graduate Studies


Dean, James T. Laney School of Graduate Studies

Professor, Rollins School of Public Health


Emory University