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To the Case Western Reserve Community:

Ours is a campus full of people driven to make a difference. Whether pursuing a cure for Alzheimer’s or prosecuting pirates on the high seas, our faculty, staff, and students strive for impact. They translate discoveries about nature into state-of-the-art technology. They turn insights about oral health into answers to orthopedic issues. They even use irritation about a common car problem as fuel for a promising product.

Are we dreamers? Absolutely. But at Case Western Reserve, aspirations are only the start. Then come questions: How can we make this concept work? What tweaks will take it farther? What improvements can we add?

As Gmail inventor Paul Buchheit (’98) told our 2012 graduates, the correct path may not be the one everyone else identifies. Sometimes the answer involves forging through unfamiliar trails. In such instances, the key is not only to listen to instincts, but follow them.

In 2011-2012, that spirit spurred Celia Weatherhead to announce that she and her late husband, Albert, had committed $50 million to our university to advance management education and community health. It led an anonymous donor to commit $20 million for our programs in the natural sciences. And it prompted trustee Larry Sears and his wife, Sally Zlotnik Sears, to contribute $5 million to think[box], a campus initiative to encourage entrepreneurial innovation.

Such support inspires us all. It also helps attract still more like-minded achievers. The undergraduate class we admitted this spring represents the largest, most diverse and most academically accomplished in our university’s history. They enter with extraordinary achievements, and we can’t wait to see what they do next.

For now, though, I encourage you to take a look back at last year—and see how we think ahead.

Barbara R. Snyder, PRESIDENT