Thank you for upholding our promise to advance Kentucky Thank you for upholding our promise to advance Kentucky

Campus Community,  

 I was recently asked by a colleague what I am most thankful for in this time and at this moment.

I immediately thought of my family, a wife, daughter and son-in-law, relatives near and far, with whom I am deeply connected through a lifetime of shared experiences, moments of joy and sadness, times of abiding happiness and inevitable loss.

That is what it means to be connected to and with others. There is beauty in all those moments because they are shared with family, based on a lifetime of striving to see and understand each other.

I also thought of my UK family, too, a community that has worked to be a place for belonging, where people of vastly different backgrounds and perspectives have found common ground around the power of ideas and the call of service.

To be sure, this season of thanks and reflection can all too easily yield to a winter of discontent and discord. So much of our politics and our world seem irrevocably fractured and fractious, making our mission to educate and discover both more challenging and more important than ever.

The power of what we do, throughout our Commonwealth and world, is based on the belief that even in the depths of debate, so fundamental to education and discovery, we share a humanity. And that shared humanity tells us that everyone is worthy. Everyone belongs. Everyone is someone of infinite worth. Everyone can contribute because we are and can be so much more together.

That is the power of our purpose.

It is the promise of our community.

Too often, of course, in an attention economy, more heed is paid to the heat and hate of posts on platforms that value slogans over substance and promote words that sting over those that help and heal.

At this place, though, I know that on most days we are less focused on statements and slogans and more on the statement we make as a community in what we do to support each other, in good and bad times, in moments of success and challenge.

Indeed, in times like this, we owe it to each other to listen to each other, even more intently and more empathetically.

In moving beyond the barriers and divides so many so often erect, we strive as a community to really see each other. And when we see each other, we create bridges of understanding and acceptance. It is, after all, hard to hate someone when you have taken the time to see them and know them.

I believe that, even in this time, we are united and driven by our purpose. And this season, I am grateful for us; for what we embody as Kentucky’s university –– hope.  

Hope because we teach, heal, serve and transform.  

Hope because we care about what we do, who we are and what each of us brings, uniquely as people of inestimable value, to this community. 

Thank you for upholding our promise, through this special community, to advance Kentucky. 

 I wish you a restful and rejuvenating break before we return to finish another remarkable semester as the University of, for and with Kentucky.  

Eli Capilouto 

President