For as long as there has been a Georgia Tech, students have sung and danced, acted on stage, played all sorts of music, painted and sculpted, and written poetry. And since it became possible, they have also created interactive art, films, and video games. Historically, though, the arts happened on the sidelines — in clubs and extracurricular programs intended to enrich student life, not as part of the academic experience itself.

Georgia Tech students ran away with this year’s National Security Agency Codebreaker Challenge, a competition that tests the country’s best cybersecurity students. Out of 448 colleges and universities, Georgia Tech finished first for the third year in a row. Even better, our friends at the University of North Georgia finished right behind us in second place, making this the fifth consecutive year that one of our schools has earned the top prize!

Georgia Tech is one of America’s top research universities and No. 1 among those without a medical school. This distinction is about far more than bragging rights. Rather, it is a measure of our impact in addressing some of the world’s most consequential challenges and of our central role in driving competitiveness and innovation in our state.

One of the greatest privileges of my job is getting to celebrate with our graduates and their families at Commencement, and I took immense encouragement this past weekend, when we sent off more than 6,300 future leaders.

Earlier this month, I had the great pleasure of speaking at the investiture of our friend, Mike Shannon, as president of the University of North Georgia (UNG) in beautiful Dahlonega. Mike is a two-time alumnus (M.S. HP 2003, Ph.D. NRE 2009), a nuclear engineer, and a 20-year veteran of the U.S. Army. [...] Mike is a rare breed, and it’s no wonder the Board of Regents tapped him to be UNG’s president. However, Mike is just the latest Yellow Jacket to accept a leadership position in academia or public service in Georgia.