University Update

Dear UAlbany Community,

Now that the fall semester is in full swing, I wanted to take a moment to extend my best wishes for a productive and engaging academic year.  It’s been a busy and exciting three weeks, filled with activities like Convocation, Candlelighting, Great Danetopia, Block Party, Latin Fest in Washington Park, the Faculty/Staff University Welcome at Casey Stadium, and so much more. 

And the past few weeks were just the beginning—we will have so many opportunities over the course of this academic year to celebrate, connect, and engage as a community. For starters, I hope you will join me tomorrow (Saturday, September 15) at our first Great Dane Game Day and home football game—all starting at 5:00 p.m!

This week marked my one-year anniversary as UAlbany’s 20th President, and what an amazing 12 months it has been. We made tremendous progress in the past year—including creating and launching a new Strategic Plan. This plan, Authoring Our Success, provides a focused roadmap for our work over the next five years.

In addition to five core priorities laid out in the plan, as a community we selected four values:

ACCESS: To enable individuals to pursue learning, research, and service regardless of economic, societal, or physical factors.

INTEGRITY: To be committed to—and expect from all—honesty, transparency, and accountability.

INCLUSIVE EXCELLENCE: To value diversity of all forms, academic freedom, and the rights, dignity, and perspectives of all individuals.

COMMON GOOD: To work collectively and collaboratively to benefit our communities—and create a sustainable way of life on earth.

These values speak to the ways in which we carry out all that we do—how we strive to make a positive impact on each other, on our communities, and on the planet. The more time I spend with UAlbany’s extraordinary faculty, dedicated staff, talented students, and high-achieving alumni, the more confident I become that these aspirational values will be the foundation of our success.

As we approach UAlbany’s 175th Anniversary celebration in 2019, I am deeply enthusiastic about UAlbany’s future, and about the opportunity to work with each and every one of you as we move toward our vision, which is to be the nation’s leading diverse public research university—providing leaders, knowledge, and innovations to create a better world.

Go Great Danes!

Sincerely, 

Havidán Rodríguez
President