Our Common Endeavors

President Stephen Sundborg, S.J., outlined four priorities for Seattle University's 2016-2017 academic year in his welcome remarks to faculty and staff on Sept. 16. 

After thanking a number of people and offices for doing extraordinary work, Father Sundborg shared a sense of hopefulness for the year ahead. He spoke about the Cabinet's growing collaboration, both among its members and in how it is engaging more fully with others on campus, particularly the deans. "It is a new day among us with a reaching out to engage, to listen, to learn, to ask for help, to admit when we make mistakes, to be advised, to respond, to share the way we guide the university," said the president. 

Father Sundborg also spoke of the university's 125th anniversary as being a "bridge between heritage and hope," saying, "I am profoundly humbled knowing our 125-year history and inheriting the legacy of the people who have given their lives to this school, college and university. We inherit not an institution but the legacy of the very lives, hopes and loves of women and men who look to us to carry forward with our lives, loves and hopes this living reality which they have given us and which we now hold." 

The president went on to share what he sees as our four common endeavors for the year ahead, namely to: (1) develop greater mission alignment; (2) make inclusive excellence concrete and at the center of what we are about; (3) build new structures of shared governance; and (4) make enrollment and student success a common commitment.

Before concluding, the president also addressed the possible unionization of some of SU's faculty.

Visit President's Speeches and Homilies and click on Faculty/Staff Convocation 2016 to read the full text of Father Sundborg's remarks.