News from the President: Oct. 22, 2024

The weather has finally cooled, a stunning orange moon shined Friday night, and Halloween is coming soon. This year marks our 176th in Georgetown and generations of students are Pirate alumni. With age comes stories, and there are lots of ghostly happenings that have been handed down over the years.

As you walk across campus during the day you might hear the angry cawing of invisible birds, at night mysterious lights in Alma Thomas Theater are turned on and off by ghostly musicians, and on one occasion, a live cow roamed the third-floor hallway of Cullen, clearing the hallway of students and faculty. The mystery of how the cow appeared there has never been solved, and since cows can’t climb downstairs, no one knows how it disappeared.

These final days of October are filled with events for current students as well as alumni celebrating their 50th reunion. This weekend we will celebrate our 114th Homecoming. Southwestern students, faculty, staff, and alumni held the first Homecoming, in fact the first university ever to hold such a gathering, on April 21, 1909. Unsurprisingly, BBQ was the entree, and a resolution was passed by the faculty thanking the Artesian Manufacturing and Bottling Works of Waco for supplying 1,200 bottles of Dr Pepper.

Friday will feature decade alumni parties held at our Oktoberfest biergarten right in the heart of campus, and there will be an outdoor screening of Hocus Pocus. On Saturday, the parking lots at Birkelbach Field will be full of Southwestern tailgaters looking forward to cheering on our Pirates as they face the Centre College Colonels at 11:00 a.m. Over a dozen SU organizations will be hosting a Trunk or Treat alongside the tailgates. At halftime of the football game, we will honor our 2024 Homecoming Court and Royalty, bringing this tradition back to Southwestern after a 35-year hiatus. Come out and support our wonderful student athletes!

Also this weekend, the Sarofim School of Fine Arts presents Hand to God at the Jones Theater inside the Alma Thomas Fine Arts Building. The play is a hilariously funny dark comedy that touches on adolescence, religion, and the supernatural. Showtime is 7:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, with a 2:00 p.m. matinee performance on Sunday. Tickets are free for Southwestern students, faculty, and staff.

Just in time for Halloween, I am pleased to announce our third annual pet costume contest! Enter to win a prize by submitting photos of your scary, cute, or just plain weird pet costumes. Fingers are crossed that this will finally be the year I can take a photo of Miss Twinkles before she eats her costume! Click here to submit your photos.

We are just one week away from SUnity Day, and I’m looking forward to joining our students, faculty, and staff next Tuesday, October 29 to strengthen the bonds across our Southwestern community. The annual all-day, cross-campus event focuses on making connections and enhancing our community. We have a full schedule of events planned, and the first 400 students in attendance will receive a free t-shirt!

As Election Day approaches, I encourage everyone to vote! Southwestern University will once again serve as a polling place. The Julie Puett Howry Center will be open to voters from 7:00 a.m. until 7:00 p.m. on Election Day, which is Tuesday, November 5. Please be mindful of some extra traffic on the east side of campus, and don’t forget to cast your ballot.

Last, and this is no trick, we were just named the fifth best university in Texas, coming after Rice, UT, Trinity, and Texas A&M (you’ve heard of them). We were also ranked #33 in the country. Wallethub compared more than 800 higher-education institutions across 30 key measures. These measures fell into seven categories and included student-faculty ratio, graduation rate, and post-attendance median salary.

Have a safe and fun Homecoming and Halloween!

Congratulations are in order for several of our student-athletes who recently earned awards from the Southern Collegiate Athletic Association. On the track, Breanna Steele was awarded Runner of the Week honors, and Samantha Hazen was named Offensive Player of the Week for her contributions on the soccer field. Annika Flora was recently crowned Setter of the Week while Emily Marks was named the Offensive Player of the Week as the Pirates volleyball team is off to a record-setting start to the season, ranking as high as #16 in the nation.

Associate Professor of German Erika Berroth played an integral role in hosting the Texas Chapter of the American Association for Teachers of German’s annual fall conference here at Southwestern. The conference brought together German educators across all instructional levels and institutions from around the state.

Finally, kudos to Regional Assistant Director of Admission Jaime Gonzalez, who recently presented “Beyond Translated: Shared Bilingual Resources” at the National Association of College Admission Counseling’s national conference. Jaime shared admission counseling resources that Southwestern uses to better serve Latinx and Spanish-speaking bilingual families in the college search process.

Santiago Cuevas ’26 aims to apply valuable skills learned during an internship with the Texas Junior Golf Tournament to his own small business.

A group of Southwestern students discovered ancient fossils, cretaceous limestone, and even dinosaur footprints at the Canyon Lake Gorge.

Southwestern alumna Abigail O’Connor embarks on her seventh season as the Director of Football Performance and Development at the University of Michigan.

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