Dear Alumni, Friends and Partners of Ashland University, Looking back at 2016, we recall a year summed up by Merriam Webster—and many others—as “surreal.” As an educator, 2016 was also a year of astonishing discovery and breakthrough, a reflection of the exciting times in which we live. We discovered “Proxima b,” a potential “sister planet” orbiting Proxima Centauri. We also found the oldest woven garment, dating to between 3482 and 3103 B.C., and the oldest existing animal on the planet, the “Greenland shark,” a deep-sea swimmer that lives between 272 and 512 years. A number of “new” Dead Sea scrolls were discovered in 2016, and the purported tomb of Jesus was “reopened” by a team of scientists who found its ancient limestone base, leading a National Geographic archeologist to describe his “knees shaking” in wonder at the sight. In addition, 2016 brought us our first “DNA app,” (Helix) true progress toward self-driving cars, and “CRISPR,” a revolutionary gene-editing tool that promises to cure illnesses and solve environmental calamities. Dr. Carlos Campo