Graduate and Professional Student Appreciation Week
Dear Vols,
As we enter our second week of online learning, I want to thank all of you—our students, our faculty, and our staff—for your hard work and the support you’ve given one another through this transition.
This week is Graduate and Professional Student Appreciation Week. Our graduate and professional students are critical to our mission of education, conduct life-changing research in our laboratories, and are among the hardest-working members of our Volunteer community.
Without their contributions over the past three weeks, supporting our faculty and assisting our undergraduate students—while transitioning to online learning themselves—we would not have been able to accomplish the tremendous feat of moving entirely to online platforms.
Typically we recognize these students with a series of campus events, but—like all of our celebrations—this recognition has moved online. Graduate Student Senate President David Willis and Vice President Sue Choi have volunteered their time to help transition this week’s events to take place online while continuing their leadership duties, serving on search committees, and juggling their academic work and family responsibilities.
Across our campus, our graduate and professional students are finding ways to step up in this time of need. I hope that you will join me in thanking the students who have made a difference to you and your work.
Donde Plowman
Chancellor