January 31, 2023

Dear Colleagues,

Today is my last day serving as your interim president.  It’s been a wonderful seven months of nonstop activity! I’m in possession of many fun memories of this time, which I hope were reasonably good ones for the University as a whole.

I feel very grateful to so many who made that possible, starting with the Board of Governors and Chancellor Frank who had confidence in me to take up the position.  The staff of the office of the President has been amazingly helpful – Jean Jenes, Wayne Hall, Somer Gomez, Abby Marweg, and the incomparable Emily Lewis propped me up constantly!  My colleagues Laura Jensen, Albert Bimper, Cara Neth, and Anthony Lane have been by my side throughout, as has Interim Provost Jan Nerger, and they have been a constant source of good counsel and great support.  I’ve worked closely with our Vice Presidents, Vice Provosts, Deans, and others in the administration – the attention they all bring to their roles and the genuine concern they have for our students, our staff and faculty, and the future of the University is impressive.

I was spending most of my time with the folks mentioned above – but I’m especially grateful to all of our faculty and staff who work tirelessly, week in and week out, on behalf of our students and our campus.  Our campus leadership in the administration know well that our roles are in service to their efforts, and I’m proud that this culture is strong here at CSU.

I’ve checked my home office, and I am quite certain that there are no classified documents to be found there; I leave the position with a clean conscience on that score.

Finally I want to say how delighted I am to be able to continue to contribute as your Executive Vice President for the upcoming period.  I’ve been working closely with incoming President Parsons on transition issues and will continue to support her however I can.  I’m glad to be back in the classroom, too, this semester, teaching geometry in Math 470, assisted by Rachel Tremaine (who teaches me and challenges me more than she knows).  Spending time with some of our students is a much better use of my MWF lunch hour than eating!

Our students are why we’re here, it’s why we exist, it’s what we signed up for when we joined CSU, and attending to them is the highest best use of our time.  Last night, I had the pleasure of spending a couple of hours with student leadership of our various student fee boards – and they asked great questions, probing our university’s budget details, challenging us to get as creative as possible to keep tuition low while still delivering on the promise that CSU makes to each one of them.  It’s a special honor to interact with them, to work with them, to learn with them – let’s not ever take that special mission for granted.

– Rick

Rick Miranda
Professor of Mathematics and Interim President

P.S. In a calculus exam the other day, a student complained about having to sit between identical twins. They said it was hard to differentiate between them.