Dear Colleague,
I would like to cordially invite the students, faculty, staff, and our clinical affiliates to attend the 2009 State of the School address.
This past year was highlighted by significant success in all our focus areas: research, education, and service to our community. It also marked the beginning of an exciting and ambitious plan, in partnership with our clinical affiliates, to become one of the country's preeminent academic medical centers.
More recently, the downturn in our economy and financial markets has challenged us to review our financial health and plan carefully for the future. The good news is that our financial position relative to our peer institutions remains fairly strong.
This is a sample of the topics I plan to address on February 25th. I hope you will be able to join me.
I'm so glad that our exorbitant med school tuition is going somewhere. In fact, as long as we can hold on to the "most expensive Chicagoland medical school" title, I think we're all going to make it through. It also deeply reassures me that you had the foresight to increase our tuition 7-10% every single year for the past decade. I only wish you had told the rest of us that the economy was going to go down the crapper.
