From the dean

As I sit here writing this note, WashU finds itself in a potential perfect storm of legislation that may dramatically impact its financial position. The combination of proposed research funding cuts, reduction in overhead (which, despite the rhetoric around covering administrator salaries and bloat, includes funding PhD fellowships, building out faculty research laboratories and purchasing shared instrumentation), endowment tax and Medicaid cuts (we share a balance sheet with WashU Medicine) – all of these represent an unprecedented assault on America’s research universities. And if that storm wasn’t enough, just last week a tornado ravaged the neighborhoods around the Danforth Campus, upending many of our community members’ lives. (The campus came through relatively unscathed but many homes nearby have significant damage.)

And yet, when I look at this edition of Engineering Momentum magazine, even in the face of all the adversity mentioned above, I feel a deep sense of optimism. Whether it is the potential impact our research has on understanding the brain and possible interventions, or the ambition and ingenuity of our students (and the chutzpah: They decided to build a satellite!) or the academic leadership of our faculty and alumni, all these efforts are about the future. Administrations come and go, economic resources ebb and flow, but the time constants of all of these perturbations and contexts are significantly shorter than that of McKelvey. So I invite you, as you read through the articles and news, to imagine the future that these students and faculty portend: It is an exciting one with capabilities that were not even imaginable just a short time ago. The people who come through McKelvey help shape the world – and they will make a difference.

Administrations come and go, economic resources ebb and flow, but the time constants of all of these perturbations and contexts are significantly shorter than that of McKelvey.”

However, please do not mistake my optimism regarding the future as my not having dramatic concern about the state of the present. Higher education, especially at research universities, is no longer presented as the driver of economic strength and national security that it has been since the 1950s. Rather, it has become politically powerful — and in some cases expedient — to label these institutions as bastions of elitism instead of elite universities that improve the condition of our nation and of all humanity. While I suspect that most of you reading this magazine already deeply appreciate the contributions these universities make to our world, you might be surprised how many people in your orbit do not. Or at least are being swayed by rhetoric excoriating these institutions.

In response, I am asking that each of you engage your neighbors, co-workers, friends and family in dialogue about why you believe America’s great universities – including WashU – are critical to the future of our country and of our world. Most of you are alumni who have seen firsthand what a dynamic research university can do. Share those perspectives. Together we can change the narrative. In some sense, future generations are counting on us to do that.

Aaron F. Bobick
Dean & James M. McKelvey Professor