My first academic year in UVM's College of Arts and Sciences is almost at an end, and I, like all faculty members in the College, am immersed in reading and grading student work and getting ready for graduation. Pausing from my attempt to assess what the students in Sociology 196, "Deviance and Identity," have learned, I would like to assess what I've learned during the last nine months. First, let me talk about the students for they are what the College of Arts and Sciences is first and foremost about.

I decided when I first contemplated coming to UVM as Dean of Arts and Sciences that teaching was just something I couldn't give up. That was a decision I have not regretted. I have come to know a class of about 35 students very well. I now have a first-hand sense of the range of their academic strengths and weaknesses, their passions and preoccupations. I must say that I am quite impressed. They are bright, earnest, inquisitive, witty, and dedicated to leaving the world a better place than they found it. They also sometimes get distracted by the things that plague all young adults: crises of confidence; confusion about their place in the larger scheme of things; balancing school, work and fun; political passions; financing their educations; and last, but very much not least, their amorous relationships.

I look forward to greeting another group in the fall and leading them on a journey through the works of Durkheim, Weber, Simmel, and Marx as we try to figure out what these founding fathers of sociology thought humanity (and sociology) might achieve. Many thanks to those students for what they've taught me.

Then, of course, there is the faculty. I have been told over and over again how proud former Dean Joan Smith was of the Arts and Sciences faculty. I have certainly come to see why. They are a learned, dedicated, creative, and compassionate group of scholar-teachers, among whom I now count many friends. We are losing some stalwarts of the College to retirement (Psychologists Rik Musty and Marc Kessler and Classicist Phil Ambrose), and regrettably have lost two wonderful faculty members tragically, one to violence (Anthropologist Jim Petersen) and the other to cancer (Sociologist Valerie Moore); however, we also have about 25 new faculty members from an array of distinguished institutions that include Berkeley, Oxford, Harvard, Penn, Chicago, MIT, and Cal Tech joining us, including the very first Assistant Professor of Dance. At the same time, we are already gearing up for the year after next, when the College expects to greet another 25 or so new faculty members and to be well on its way to launching a new major in Global Studies, minors in Linguistics and Dance, making more years of study available in Chinese and Japanese, and beginning to add some interdisciplinary doctoral programs in the social sciences and the humanities at the same time that we continue to strengthen those already in place, including the new inter-college Ph.D. in Neuroscience. This expansion of graduate education and graduate faculty simultaneously signals an even greater commitment by the faculty of the College to producing cutting edge research that will contribute to the commonwealth and making the UVM community an even more vibrant educational milieu for undergraduates, who we expect to be fully integrated into that research. This year in sharing in the hopes and dreams of this faculty for the future of the College, I've learned much about what makes UVM the special place it is. For allowing me to help advance their vision, I am deeply grateful to them.

The College staff has also taken on a professorial role vis-a-vis the Dean. In fact, every day I offer up a quiet word of gratitude to former Dean Joan Smith and former Interim Dean Jane Knodell for recruiting staff for the College office that is unparalleled in its dedication, wisdom, good will, and good humor. This staff includes the College's three Associate Deans, Stephanie Seguino, Jim Overfield and Joel Goldberg, all long-time faculty members, who have been loyal guides to me as I sought to master the College and the University as bureaucracies. It also includes Patty Corcoran and her staff of advisers; Kerry Castano and Linda DeMag, who oversee the College's increasingly complex finance and personnel operation; Andrew Henderson and Beth Wilkins, who keep the technology quietly humming; Sarah Gilmore, who makes sure that I'm where I'm supposed to be and fully briefed, and her own staff, who in myriad ways make the College an efficient and, at the same time, a warm and welcoming place; and Natalie Fleischman, with her keen eye for matching donors with College needs. I am grateful for all that they have taught me and hope that my diligence as a student has matched their dedication as teachers.

Finally, let me extend an invitation and a final word of thanks. Thanks to the efforts of President Dan Fogel, Provost John Bramley, and the Board of Trustees of the University of Vermont, the College has a beautiful new home. In July, the College of Arts and Sciences will move into that new home at 438 College Street. The morning of Saturday, October 7, during the homecoming festivities, we will host a gala open house. You are most cordially invited to join us from 10:00 A.M. until noon for brunch. But, if you can't make it then, you should feel free to schedule a visit anytime. We would all love the opportunity to show you around.