<p>A Message from President Hill</p>
<p>As I write this to you, we are already one month into the fall term at Vassar. It has been a period framed by two important, annually recurring rituals: Freshman Drop-Off Day, a particularly anxious time for both arriving first-year students and the families who will leave them behind here; and Freshman Families Weekend, when many of those same parents and other family members and friends return to campus to find their students confidently at home in a place that is rapidly expanding their horizons.</p>
<p>In between, other traditions have asserted themselves. These include Fall Convocation, which this year featured an informative and entertaining talk by Professor of Biology John Long, whose research with robots is yielding surprising new insights on the evolution of a variety of species, including our own; and the start of the fall athletic season, where the Brewers are off to a strong beginning in several sports, including mens and womens soccer, womens volleyball, and mens rugby. Then there are events unique to this year, such as pioneering feminist Gloria Steinem speaking to a crowd that not only filled the Chapel but actually spilled out onto the steps and the lawn. This recent event provided vivid evidence that, four decades after Steinem co-founded Ms. Magazine, concerns about the rights and status of women, which were so central to the founding of this College, remain as pertinent as ever.</p>
<p>Throughout this first month of the 2012/13 school year, the freshman Class of 2016 has made its presence strongly felt. They arrived here five weeks ago already an interesting, smart, talented, engaged and engaging group of young people and, as a group, they are impressively diverse.</p>
<p>This last point is worth exploring more deeply, because the diversity of 16 reflects the very essence of life at Vassar today, and in the future. The class is 660 strong, having been selected from a pool of 7,908 applicants, 22.8 percent of whom were offered admission. The classes of 2015 and 2016, therefore, now share the distinction of being Vassars most selective to date. At a time when students of color are an ever-greater percentage of high school graduates in America, and elite colleges and universities have lagged in reflecting this diversity, nearly 37 percent of the members of our Class of 2016 self-identify as students of color. </p>
<p>The diversity of 16 is also socio-economic; 83 members of the class are the first in their families to attend college. It is geographic, too: 46 U.S. states and 31 foreign nations are represented, and 114 students in the class speak multiple languages. And at a time when there is widespread concern about a decline in the percentage of male students in higher education and at liberal arts colleges in particular (including many of our formerly all-male peers), the number of men in our freshman class has been growing the past several years, and is now at nearly 45 percent. </p>
<p>There remains in some circles the misguided notion that gains in diversity such as these come at the cost of academic excellence. That is a myth, which is not borne out by the numbers; quite the opposite, in fact. The Class of 16 entered Vassar with the highest ever average combined SAT score, 2093, and 96 of its members achieved a perfect score on one or more standardized tests. Seventy percent of the class graduated in the top 10 percent of their high school class, and 90 percent graduated in the top 20 percent.</p>
<p>In addition, as has always been the case for Vassar students and graduates, their record of achievement extends well beyond the traditional classroom. There are members of the Class of 2016 who arrived here having already established nonprofit organizations, including a summer camp to teach English to low-income children in China, and an organization dedicated to providing people in developing countries with access to clean water (another echo of Vassar history Ellen Swallow Richards, Class of 1870 and the first woman to graduate from MIT, was a trailblazer in identifying the connection between clean water and public health). The class includes a professional beekeeper as well as an eco-farmer, and two students, one a vocalist and one a cellist, who have performed at Carnegie Hall.</p>
<p>I mention all of these facts and figures as a reminder of Vassars commitment to diversity and to access. It is a commitment that we continue to expand, encompassing all kinds of diversity. For example, as you may have read, this past spring Vassar was chosen as the first college in the nation to partner with the Posse Foundation in a pilot project to enroll groups of military veterans at selective colleges and universities. The program is aimed at increasing the college-going and graduation rates of those who have served our nation in the military. Ten participants will join the Vassar student body through Posse as part of next years freshman class. The process of interviewing those candidates is already under way, and I am confident that those we select will be impressive young people who will bring important new perspectives to our campus.</p>
<p>Our commitment to access is also one that we all acknowledge is not inexpensive. (Let me offer you one more statistic about our freshman class: 58 percent of the students in the Class of 16 receive some form of financial aid from the College.) And it is because of our commitment to providing access to a Vassar education to well-qualified students, whatever their means, that we see the great strides we already have made toward achieving such impressive diversity.</p>
<p>Stop and think for a moment, too, what it means for the education of all students at Vassar, whether or not they are direct recipients of financial aid, that they share classrooms, residence halls, in fact an entire campus, with other students who have such a dazzling variety of backgrounds, interests and abilities. This semester I am back in the classroom myself, teaching a course on the economics of higher education and I can tell you firsthand that the talent and diversity of our students has enriched the Vassar experience for all of us, faculty and staff as well as students.</p>
<p>Sustaining and augmenting this diversity in its many aspects through financial aid remains a top priority of my presidency. I want to thank you for the part you have played and are playing in helping to create the Vassar of today and tomorrow. </p>
<p>Sincerely,</p>
<p>Catharine Hill
President</p>