Annual Report

Dear campus community members:

This report is a snapshot of what we have accomplished together over the past year. As I deliver it for my final time as chancellor, I cannot help but reflect on my last nine years as part of this great institution.

We achieved a record enrollment, established the world’s first engineering-based medical school and launched Illinois Commitment to increase affordability and access. We remain among the nation’s premier research institutions, and we are renowned globally as a leader in higher education.

We also endured a state budget crisis and a global health crisis. We have shared the intense pain, sorrow and suffering that are the inevitable prices of inequity, injustice and war.

And we came through even stronger. The university is at a historical high point in its transformational impact on the state of Illinois and the world. We are bigger than ever, we are bolder than ever, and we continue to aggressively pursue the grand ideas that will benefit humanity.

Next is a period of transition that will bring new ideas and new discoveries. Immutable, though, is the audacity with which our students, faculty, staff and alumni pursue world-changing and community-focused solutions.

Time and again, you have shown that your strength of character, empathy, ingenuity and fearless commitment to the pursuit of knowledge continues to be what makes Illinois a global center of discovery and learning. This is more valuable than any academic program or research project. It is the essence of who we are.

Thank you for granting me the privilege of serving as the chancellor of the greatest public university in the world. The past year in particular was the apex in what has been a truly profound experience.