The outgoing chairs and directors deserve our thanks for a job well done. The incoming replacements we look forward to testing on a regular basis. CLAS has had a very active year in faculty recruitment, with approximately 40 searches authorized. At this point, over 30 have been successful, others are still in progress, and a few have been deferred to next year. If you could see, as I do each year, the credentials of the faculty our departments are able to attract to UF, you would be equally impressed with the outlook for our future.
Outstanding faculty are the lifeblood of any university.
Congratulations to the search committees. President Lombardi has asked that we grow at the graduate level, and CLAS is making every effort to comply, particularly in areas that offer solid reason for expansion. The reputation of CLAS programs is steadily building, which will be more and more helpful in the difficult competition for top-ranked graduate students. Finally, the core of our programs, the undergraduate students, mostly from Florida, who have objective quality scores that show them to be among the best entering class of any public university. Because these students stream to UF each year, seemingly without any real effort on our part, there is the danger of overlooking their importance.