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By the time you read these words, the students in this fall's entering class will have announced their astute decision to matriculate at Case. As I write, however, these high school seniors are still weighing their options, and we are unabashedly courting them— with Experience Case days, our first Liberal Arts Weekend for prospective humanities majors, and faculty calls to accepted students, to describe what they can learn and achieve as Case undergraduates.

These calls are a joy to make. Some of the students are flabbergasted to answer their cell phones and find that they are speaking to a professor! (As one of them said to me, "What is your title? . . . And you're making these calls yourself?") But they begin to talk about their hopes and dreams very quickly.

Such remarkable young people! Courteous, engaging, and impossible to pigeonhole. I have notes on individual students who told me they were interested in civil engineering and Latin; in history and Antarctica; in biology and theater arts. One student, whom I interrupted during a volleyball trip, proclaimed her interest in the new communication sciences department and in classics. And in response, I said to all of them: You are the kind of student we have in mind for SAGES. We are as eager to cross disciplinary boundaries as you are. You would be coming to the right place.

I felt an unexpected, anticipatory pride in these students, and a resurgent pride in the scholarly community I was inviting them to join. And I trust that everyone in the College, as well as our valued alumni and friends, will feel the same.

Mark Turner
Institute Professor and Dean