Welcome Back, Faculty Colleagues

August 15, 2024

Dear Faculty Colleagues,
Welcome back, and happy orientation week to our colleagues at LLS and our various graduate programs on the Westchester and Playa Vista campuses. I hope you were able to unplug this summer, enjoy travel opportunities, and engage in research and creative projects. For those of you who taught summer courses in person or virtually, I hope you also found opportunities to relax and recharge. With the start of the academic year just around the corner, I invite you to reflect on your time away from campus and seek out opportunities to incorporate your research discoveries into your classroom instruction this coming semester. 

This semester, our students return to our campuses in the context of ongoing crises around the world and the presidential election season, and I hope we encourage them to engage in the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm (context, experience, reflection, action, and evaluation) when entering into these challenging conversations. St. Ignatius and his early followers, too, lived in times of deep political and religious turmoil. As we navigate these potentially challenging times, may we be like St. Ignatius and seek to find God in all things.

As you are aware, in June our non-tenure track faculty in BCLA, CFA, and SFTV voted in favor of union representation through Service Employees International Union, Local 721 (SEIU). While there is still much work to be done to solidify our next steps, Vice President of Human Resources Nancy Pluzdrak and I will maintain transparency in our communications, bargain in good faith, and work together to continue to provide the best educational experience for our students. More information and a dedicated website are forthcoming.

Lastly, our Westchester faculty's presence (in your colorful regalia!) will be celebrated at this year’s New Student Convocation on Friday, August 23, at 4 p.m. on Lawton Plaza. If you have yet to RSVP, please do so here.  

I look forward to reconnecting with you in the coming weeks and thank you for your leadership, scholarship, and commitment to our mission.

Sincerely,
Tom

Thomas Poon, Ph.D.
Executive Vice President and Provost
Professor of Chemistry