Earlier this month, we celebrated more than 4,500 new bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral graduates with four inspiring Commencement ceremonies at Bobby Dodd Stadium. It was the perfect way to finish one record-setting year — and hopefully begin another. 

Americans are understandably concerned about the rising costs of attending college, which have significantly outpaced inflation over the past three decades. Despite these national trends, I am delighted that Georgia Tech not only has been able to keep tuition and fees flat over the past three years but also, thanks to major state investments, will significantly reduce fees this coming year.

I see no better way for us to celebrate Women’s History Month than to recognize the contributions of women among our faculty, staff, students, and alumni over the years. From the late Dorothy Crosland, Tech’s longtime director of libraries who helped establish an information science graduate program in the 1960s that laid the foundation for the College of Computing, to Sandy Magnus (Ph.D. MSE 1996), a member of the National Academy of Engineering who was just elected to the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame (joining the likes of Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Buzz Aldrin), Georgia Tech women have shaped industries, institutions, and scientific disciplines, shattering glass ceilings and holding doors wide open for others to walk through.

Ramiah Martin was born in 2017 without a windpipe, an extremely rare and usually fatal condition. Her physicians placed a 3D-printed tracheal splint, lifesaving technology ushered in by Georgia Tech researcher Scott Hollister and developed in a lab at Georgia Tech. Just before Christmas, Ramiah turned four. She is in preschool, learning to communicate through sign language, and “is nothing short of a miracle,” according to her mom, Leanne. Ramiah’s story is why the work of leading research universities matters.

I’m delighted to deliver great news in my first newsletter of 2022. As we returned from the holiday break, we were thrilled to learn from the National Science Foundation that in fiscal year 2020, Georgia Tech became the top institution in the nation in terms of research and development expenditures among universities without a medical school.