A Letter to Bill Hart-Davidson
The spirit of your gifts are present all around us, they animate our relationships and illuminate a world broken without you and better because of you.
Christopher LongMay 3, 2024
Finding the Values in Committee Work
The transformative power of values-enacted scholarship is only really felt in lived-experience. Just before spring break, and only two weeks after the mass shooting on the MSU campus, a small group of staff, directors, and…
Christopher LongMarch 16, 2023
Power, Love, Justice, and Joy
Since Thursday, I have been reflecting on the powerful keynote address Professor LeConté Dill gave at the 43rd Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Unity Dinner. Drawing on King's insistence that "ower, properly understood, is…
Christopher LongJanuary 14, 2023
Revolutionary Dean
A few weeks ago, I was asked to speak to an amazing group of new deans at Michigan State University about the role of the dean in higher education during a period of intense transformation.…
Christopher LongFebruary 25, 2022
The Promise and Perils of Democracy
Below is a message I sent to my colleagues in the College of Arts & Letters at Michigan State University in the wake of the first turbulent days of 2021. Dear College of Arts &…
Christopher LongJanuary 7, 2021
Open Letter Regarding MSU Interim President Transition
Dear College of Arts & Letters Alumni, Students, Staff, and Faculty, One year ago this week, the courageous testimonies of the Sister Survivors began to sow the seeds of change at Michigan State University. Taking courage…
Christopher LongJanuary 17, 2019
2018 Dean’s Report – Resilience
Dear College of Arts & Letters Students, Faculty, Staff, Alumni, and Friends, For generations, the students, faculty, staff, and alumni of the College of Arts & Letters at Michigan State University have demonstrated the capacity…
Christopher LongNovember 16, 2018
To the Class of 2022: MSU is an Open Door
Welcome to the College of Arts & Letters at Michigan State University! As you embark on your educational journey here at MSU, I invite you to consider the doors that are opening for you all…
Christopher LongAugust 28, 2018
Open Letter to College of Arts & Letters Alumni and Friends
Dear College of Arts & Letters alumni and friends, By now many of you have heard that the university has agreed in principle to a $500 million global settlement with the survivors of the sexual…
Christopher LongMay 24, 2018
The Liberal Arts at the Heart of the MSU Land Grant Mission
When Ryan Kilcoyne and I met late last year to plan the 2017 MSU College of Arts & Letters Dean’s Report, we wanted to show what we have long talked about: situating the liberal arts…
Christopher LongJune 26, 2017
A Living Place of Education
The places we inhabit habituate us. The virtues they cultivate are grounded in the values they embody. In 1855, a natural opening in the oak forest of the Burr farm was selected as a fitting…
Christopher LongJuly 28, 2015
The Edge of the Oak Opening
As I begin my tenure as Dean of the College of Arts and Letters at Michigan State University I find myself thinking of these lines adapted from Deuteronomy 6:10-12 by Peter Raible: "We build on…
Christopher LongJuly 1, 2015
