Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. While it is a normally a time to relax and enjoy family, the holiday has an interesting history.
As my friend Rev. Candace McKibben recently wrote in the Tallahassee Democrat, the history of the holiday is connected to trying times. Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a national holiday during the Civil War and Franklin Roosevelt set the holiday on the last Thursday in November just before the U.S. entered World War II. As Rev. McKibben noted, gratitude is a helpful thing especially when dealing with trying times.
Clearly we have been in trying times. At the start of 2020 no one expected that we would have more than 250,000 deaths in the country from COVID-19. Here in Northwest Florida, our folks have felt the pain from Hurricane Michael which devastated our area a little more than two years ago.
Candace is right about expressing gratitude. In fact, it is one of the things I always admire about my wife, Jerri. She is always looking for the positive things and does her best to express gratitude for things that others have done.
I find myself always wishing I had done better in expressing gratitude. This year there are many things I am thankful for, especially the health of my family.
I am especially thankful for the opportunity I have to work with a group of very dedicated and student centered professionals. As Hurricane Michael hit our shores, we realized that our students would be spread out all over the Southeast trying to find refuge. And as part of our FSU PC Promise, we committed to them that that we would be their partners. So our faculty worked hard to be able to not only teach students who were able to return to classes in person, but also those who were dislocated.
Things seemed very similar earlier this year as we realized that we may be living with this virus for a while. Not only did they turn on a dime to teach their classes remotely, but our faculty and staff prepared for the summer and fall semesters using the game plan they developed after the hurricane. Students were given the opportunity to attend classes in person or remotely and no student was left behind.
This was hard work. Every member of our team stepped up to the plate and the results have been remarkable. Student retention rates have remained just as strong as prior to the pandemic. In fact, FSU just posted a 95% freshman to sophomore retention rate, one of the best in the country. Professors improvised to deliver lab courses in a virtual format and in many cases having students conduct experiments at home. Our nuclear science camp became a virtual event with middle and high school students working on projects without outside entities, including the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Our nurse anesthesia graduate students had to work around the closing of clinical sites. Our faculty and students in our acclaimed Early Childhood Autism Program Clinic found ways to teach the parents until we were able to reopen under safe conditions.
Our student advisers worked with students through Zoom and other virtual means. Our recruiters located potential students any way they could. Our student affairs workers created virtual activities for students who had returned to their homes. The technology workers made sure the virtual experience was as close as possible to the in-person experience. Our custodial and facilities crew made sure the buildings were safe for those taking in person classes. And our mental health and disability professionals have faced unforeseen challenges and met them head on.
I know that every business, university, college, school, or organization has had to deal with similar situations. And I know we did not get everything right.
However, there is no group that I would have rather been working with to help our students succeed than the faculty and staff at Florida State University Panama City. A special thank you to all of them and Happy Thanksgiving.