Happy New Year! This January marks the beginning of my second semester as Dean of the College of Liberal Arts. I joined CSU on August 1st, moving with my family from East Lansing, Michigan where I had been an academic leader at Michigan State University. The fall was a glorious whirlwind of getting to know our students, faculty, staff, and alumni, learning about the academic programs, scholarship, and creative works in the college, and finding my way around campus and Fort Collins. I can tell you this: The College of Liberal Arts is a remarkable place.
I had a chance last semester to visit several classes in the college and spend time with our students. I met students who are pursuing dreams of international social entrepreneurship, who are novelists-in-the-making and preparing for a life of public service, or who are painters, graphic designers, dancers, or musicians. A double major in political science and creative writing. A sociologist with a business minor. A trumpet player-biologist. Liberal arts students know how to take advantage of the extraordinary opportunities we provide in the college to think across disciplines and invent futures for themselves that many of us can barely imagine. The future is safe in their hands. It is a point of pride that nearly every student at CSU will take a class in the college.
The students who will join us this fall will be the first to experience the new Clark Building when A re-opens in spring of 2026 and the new, four-story B opens in late 2027. On a chilly afternoon at the end of October, we broke ground on the the new Clark, joined by CSU’s president and provost, two of our student leaders, and an enthusiastic crowd from our CLA community.
When Clark was constructed 60 years ago to help realize President William E. Morgan’s vision to transform the university, the building was a gateway to transformational learning experiences.
Then, and now, the Clark building has created opportunities for students to imagine futures for themselves and to imagine themselves as citizens of their communities.
Our mission as we bring a new Clark building to life and fill it with life is this:
to build the home for liberal arts scholarly excellence and CSU student success.
The new Clark will stand as a symbol of the importance and impact of the liberal arts now and a symbol of the excellence to come.
Clark B will take shape as a four-story, 120,000-square-foot building with a radiant glass, stone and steel façade connecting the A and C wings.
The halls will be filled with light and filled with brilliance—and the experience of being a student in liberal arts will look like what it has always felt like: energizing, transformative, meaningful, joyful.
I hope that your experience of the liberal arts here at CSU also felt energizing, meaningful, and joyful. Based on the amazing things you’re doing in the world, I’m certain that your experiences post-CSU are full of life.
This edition of our alumni magazine is full of inspiring stories… we have an anthropology alum who is associate collections manager at the (George) Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, a video producer who worked at the Olympics in Paris this summer, a U.S. diplomat in Barbados, a neighborhood development liaison having tough conversations with the community and city, and a staff member at the International Monetary Fund.
Please share your post-CSU story. We would love to hear it.
Sincerely,
Kjerstin Thorson, Dean
College of Liberal Arts