Dear Colleagues,

I’ll first start with a confession.

The initial impetus of my revisiting The Gift earlier this month was not the intellectual exploration of the gift nature of education; that idea surfaced on its own.

My real impetus was my overwhelming awareness of the magnificent gift that you have all given me over the last two years and my sense of indebtedness and urgency to “come up to the level” of this gift so that I can honor it, fully receive it, and be ready to pay it forward.

Indeed, serving as your Provost these last two years has been a true privilege, and a very rewarding and enriching journey for me. You welcomed me in your physical and intellectual spaces, engaged with me authentically, and honored every interaction we had with intellectual rigor, candor, trust, and friendship. I hold every one of you with the highest regard and admiration. You, GVSU faculty and staff, are what makes this institution the great university that it is.

This is what has been going in my head the last three weeks in preparation for the public announcement. Whatever composure and cool headedness I managed to keep until then melted and evaporated this last week when the news was announced and your reactions to the news “caught my heart off guard and blew it open.” I am very deeply touched by how many of you reached out by email, notes, texts, direct communication, by the personal stories you shared, by the book suggestions (you know me), by the invitations to connect, and most of all by the magnificent beauty of your gestures and the places from which they emerged.

Forever grateful,

Fatma