President’s Perspective

Dear Friend,

It has been a busy winter at Springfield College and I hope you enjoy reading about the fruits of our labors—and yours—in the following pages.

In December, we signed with the Cal Ripken, Sr. Foundation to build a baseball park on our campus. This enterprise reflects just one of the many community, corporate, nonprofit, and academic partnerships that we are pursuing as a means to enhance our brand and academic reputation while providing increased opportunities for student engagement through internships, jobs, service opportunities, and scholarship.

The youth development field, as the foundation calls it, is the first to be constructed on a college campus. In fact, the foundation is calling this “the Springfield model,” and there are hopes that we are paving the way for others like it that will follow. This project, managed by Director of Athletics Craig Poisson, will serve our students, our student-athletes, and our community while allowing both the College and the foundation to pursue their connected missions. (Read more about it on page 6.)

We celebrate the 125th anniversary of the invention of the game of basketball at Springfield College (page 12) and the 30th anniversary of Ed Steitz’s three-point field goal (page 16). To add to the anniversary excitement, we had the pleasure of hosting several Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Famers on our campus this year, including NBA stars Shaquille O’Neal and Yao Ming.

We are excited to announce the inaugural Springfield College 40 Under Forty class. (See page 8.) These fine alumni represent the future and the many ways that Springfield College is making the world a better place for generations to come. They personify the Springfield College mission and are pursuing their passions to lead positive change. They are influential, inspirational, and have a profound impact on the lives of others. As you might expect, they have been selected from a large and robust nominee pool, and the criteria were rigorous.

We believe that the members of this inaugural class represent the best of the best of Springfield College, and that their compelling stories will inspire all of us—especially our current students—to lead authentically. We are hopeful that prospective students who have the same spirit and determination will see themselves in these pages and will consider Springfield College for their education.

I applaud each of the members of this select group as well as our whole alumni body, made up of committed individuals like you who live the Humanics philosophy each and every day.

My very best,