MESSAGE FROM THE DEAN

The purpose of the Colin Powell School is to create new pathways to success for our graduates and, thereby, change our city and nation for the better.

Dear Colin Powell School Community,

When you see up close what it means for a single student to be the first in his or her family to finish college, you appreciate the truly transformative potential of higher education. When I witnessed that achievement among two-thirds of the almost 1,000 students who graduated from the Colin Powell School this May, I was reminded of the fundamental and absolutely essential mission of this place. I consider it to be a great personal privilege to support and advance that mission as dean of the Colin Powell School.

The purpose of the Colin Powell School is to create new pathways to success for our graduates and, thereby, change our city and nation for the better. We imbue all of our students with the values of service and leadership, and the sense of responsibility to one another that accompany those values. They study how society works and how it can be changed; they study power, wealth, cognition, culture, justice, and our connections to one another and to the larger communities that make up our world. We encourage them to make a mark through a lifetime of service to improve the long-term health of our society. We educate them to succeed at affecting domestic and international policy, law, business and finance. We prepare them to be leaders in our cities, our country, and the world. The School’s purpose is big, bold and unflagging. I have been impressed every day since becoming dean in February by how all of us work together to achieve it.

We have an extraordinary faculty and staff and a tremendous range of programs and initiatives available to our students. We also have systems of student support—scholarships, fellowships, advising, mentoring, internships—that help to make the experience affordable and that assist students in connecting their studies with their ambitions. Our students bring with them an unparalleled determination to succeed, and we provide the learning resources to enable that success. We could not do this without the investment of time, energy and resources from our supporters, alumni, and donors, and without the leadership of General Powell, President Boudreau, and our Board of Visitors.

In this annual report, we offer updates on our students, our programs, and our alumni. Seven years into our work at the Colin Powell School, we have much to celebrate. Looking ahead, there’s an opportunity to knit all of the School’s outstanding parts more tightly together to support our students. We have the chance to build on the foundations and the lessons of the Colin Powell School’s early days to do even more to help our students succeed and become tomorrow’s leaders.

I hope you enjoy this report, and I look forward to working with you as partners in our very important mission.

Sincerely,

ANDREW RICH Dean, Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership