A message from Dean DeWalt sent to the CBS community on February 8, 2024

Colleagues,

Spring semester is in full swing and energy and activity around the college are high. It’s a wonderful time of year on campus and there have been many highlights in recent weeks.

Making their case
This past weekend, I served as a judge at the annual Case Competition hosted by CBS Student Services. Aryn Lipnicki, Rachel Perlin, Mimi Tran, Pheng Xiong and the entire team put together a wonderful event in which students worked together to address a specific scientific challenge with social implications in one of three categories (health, environment, biotechnology). Students had just a few hours to develop a poster and a presentation. I was so impressed by the caliber and creativity of their work. I want to give a big thank you to those who served as coaches including Kamar Abdullahi, Sarah Eddy and Brian Sostek. I had a great time judging in the environment category. Thank you to my fellow judges including CBS staff members Liz Kalinowski Ohrt, Christina Rowland, Adara Taylor, Stephanie Xenos, and CBS alumna Emily Orr. You can see photos from the competition and of the winning teams on the college’s Instagram page. 

Inclusive excellence
A few weeks ago, members of the CBS community gathered to recognize the 2023 cohort of Inclusive Excellence Fellows and learn the outcomes of their projects at the Inclusive Excellence Symposium. The 2023 Fellows, along with several DEIJ microgrant recipients and a departmental DEI committee, shared their work at a poster session in Walter Library. Professor Anita Schuchardt gave the keynote address to a group of ~40 faculty, staff, postdocs, graduate students and undergraduate students from across CBS. You can see their posters and links to resources here and photos here. I loved seeing the connections the attendees made among themselves. The range of topics covered – from increasing access to fieldwork for those with mobility challenges to understanding grade gaps  – underscores the value of bringing this lens to all that we do and sharing what we learn. 

Congratulations and thank you to Adam Engelhardt, Charlie Willis, David Matthes and Kristina Prescott for completing the Inclusive Excellence Fellows program and their contributions to advance DEIJ efforts in CBS. We are excited to continue the Inclusive Excellence Fellows program with six instructors participating in the 2024 cohort. New this year, we are also piloting the Inclusive STEM Teaching project with a cohort of five graduate students.

Black History Month
As you know, February is Black History Month and the U is sharing stories of students and alumni as part of the “Where It Starts” series. There are also a number of exhibits and events on campus. You might also check out CBS alum Jocelyn Ricard’s story about addressing racially exclusionary practices on neuroimaging data. Jocelyn is now a Ph.D. student at Stanford and continues to explore the impact of inequity on the brain.

See green!
If you haven’t already, I encourage you to check out the CBS Conservatory & Botanical Collection on the St. Paul campus. Take a break from the gray winter landscape and explore this incredible collection of plants from around the world. It’s open to the public weekdays from 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Conservatory Curator Jared Rubinstein informed me that the beautiful Trichodesma scotti from Socotra (an island in Yemen) is flowering.

Best regards,

Saara J. DeWalt
Dean, College of Biological Sciences