It has been my pleasure and privilege to serve as dean of this exceptional college since 1998. When I took the job, my plan was to work as hard and intelligently and as long as I could to strengthen the college’s public reputation and support, its faculty and programs, and its engagement with professional, public policy, and other groups to share our knowledge and expertise. My humble personal assessment is “mission accomplished.” We are in a very strong position as a college as we celebrate our centennial year.

My plan also called for choosing the right moment to step down and have the opportunity to, again, be a professor full time. That moment will occur next year. I recently announced my plan to rejoin the faculty after July 1, 2006. My final year will be filled with the challenging work of leading the transition from the college we are today to a new College of Education and Human Development that includes new departments, many new colleagues, and many more students, including first-year undergraduates.

In the spring 2005 issue of Link I outlined what the University’s strategic positioning process is bringing to the college: We, along with the departments of social work and of family social science from the College of Human Ecology, and along with General College, are forming a new collegiate unit at the University, effective July 1, 2006. (If you have missed details of this transformative process, please read more at http://www.umn.edu/systemwide/strategic_positioning/.)

The “Briefly” article for this issue of Link outlines the visions of many people for this new college. I enjoyed these comments—they offer a great deal of food for thought.

I am filled with a sense of the new opportunities that are being created. The process of understanding these opportunities is clear in its broad outlines, but we have just begun the exciting journey to understand, more concretely and specifically, exactly what these possibilities might look like. The journey is already an energizing one, as we learn about the different creative activities going on in the various colleges, and see possibilities for strengthening one another’s work.

Integration also will mean many new relationships among our varied alumni bases. This work is already going forward, beginning with a successful alumni board retreat in August that included representation from both the College of Human Ecology and General College. The retreat was marked by sensitivity to our various alumni affiliations and priorities, as well as a commitment to preserve and support all of the alumni groups and their activities under the umbrella of this new college.

Academically, we have begun to identify some areas of affinity already existing or for potential development: work related to the President’s Initiative on Children, Youth, and Families; the synergy of bringing together four mental health licensure programs under one tent; the opportunity to serve new undergraduate audiences; a broadening of our research and scholarly methodologies and approaches; new skills and tools to work in more integrated ways on the challenges facing schools, families, and communities dealing with poverty, language barriers, and new immigrant status; an expanded set of public outreach activities to link and engage us—these are just a few that readily come to mind!

The integration of our colleges and departments will take place, officially, July 1, 2006, but we understand that the full integration of programs and services, and the weaving together of the different cultures and styles of work, will take at least several years to accomplish. We approach this process with enthusiasm and good will.

—Steve Yussen, dean