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What do today's leaders look for in recent college graduates? First, they point to writing skills as critical to success in today's world. Second, I hear more and more that students need high cultural awareness, knowledge about group dynamics, and an awareness of the needs and preferences of people from a wide variety of backgrounds.

The Class of 2016 has special significance for me personally. Along with this year’s graduating class, I became a part of CU-Boulder in 2012, joining the university as this college’s dean. I’m delighted to see the successes of this remarkable class of students in earning their degrees.

I have the honor of announcing that the renewal of the Ketchum Arts and Sciences building is complete. We undertook a major renovation of the building in partnership with the state of Colorado. The building is now one of the premier academic buildings in the country.

Recently, University of Colorado leadership, including President Bruce Benson and Boulder Chancellor Philip DiStefano, reiterated their commitments to diversity on behalf of the university and its campuses.

The College of Arts and Sciences proudly announces the new Ketchum Scholars Fund, a source of scholarship support for students in our social-sciences fields.

The announcement last week that Elizabeth Fenn, associate professor and chair of the University of Colorado Boulder’s History Department, had been awarded the 2015 Pulitzer Prize in History for her book Encounters at the Heart of the World: A History of the Mandan People provided a striking exclamation point to mark the end of a truly remarkable year for the faculty in our humanities departments.

The College of Arts and Sciences is partnering with other units on our campus to upgrade many of our classrooms, creating some of the world’s best places for teaching and learning.

Signs of strong economic growth are readily evident along the Front Range, with significant increases across many sectors of our region’s economy.

Educational innovation is core to CU-Boulder’s mission. Recent years have seen particularly rapid changes in education in the so-called STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). Revitalized interest in STEM education can be traced directly to the realization that education is critical to national security.

Endowments help reduce the costs of education in many ways. Most importantly, endowments allow universities to support professors, graduate students and undergraduate students in undertaking visionary, high-risk, high-reward research.