Dear OVC,

As we move into winter break and the holiday season I hope you take an opportunity for a well-deserved pause before IAP.

Thanks for all of your hard work, diligence, and energy on behalf of our students, faculty, and staff. It’s amazing to see how far we’ve come at OVC and to reflect on all that we’ve accomplished, from enhancing the first-year undergraduate experience to building a strategic roadmap for improving the graduate experience to working together, and coming together, as a team after the organizational changes.

Here at MIT new innovations and initiatives tend to get a lot of the attention and buzz. While such attention is deserved, I encourage you to take stock in all the ways you and your colleagues have, each and every day, been committed to excellence. Whether that was by helping students with their finances, sharing expertise on pedagogy, offering advice on careers, making MIT a little more welcoming and warm, or simply being there as a mentor, friend, or cheerleader, all of those things help make MIT a wonderful place.

Sometimes these efforts may seem invisible. I want you to know that I do see them and appreciate them. Our students and faculty also tell me that they are grateful for all the OVC does. And the leadership of MIT recognizes how we contribute to the Institute’s mission of developing “in each member of the MIT community the ability and passion to work wisely, creatively, and effectively for the betterment of humankind.”

It fills me with pride to see all the ways OVC is building a better world within MIT—and beyond.

Again, thank you and best wishes for the holidays and a bright and brilliant New Year.

Sincerely,

– Ian