February 29, 2024

Dear Firebird Community,

Hope you all have been enjoying the frost-filled winter landscape as we begin to gear up for the spring – a season of renewal and a great time to try something new. I’ve been trying my hand at some long-neglected activities lately, such as shooting hoops alongside some rather talented Firebirds. I like to think I held my own, but it may be too soon to quit my day job just yet …

This February, we have celebrated both Black history and UDC history in tandem, honoring our HBCU legacy and members of our UDC family who have made a positive impact on their community, locally and nationally. Earlier this month, we joined fellow HBCUs for HBCU x D9 Night. We welcomed new inductees into our UDC Athletics Hall of Fame. We shared stories from alumni from two different eras in UDC’s past – the 1990s and its early days in the 1970s. And we saluted the achievements of students, faculty, staff members, community members and alumni at our Founders’ Day celebration, including longtime WAMU 88.5 radio host Kojo Nnamdi. (Learn more about each awardee here.)

With the theme “Delivering on the Promise,” our Founders’ Day ceremony laid out five bold goals from our strategic plan, the roadmap to UDC’s future. Within the next five years, UDC aims to become:

• a world-class flagship University for the nation’s capital
• a national model for urban student success
• a workforce and economic mobility engine for the District
• a research and innovation hub that addresses the District’s critical needs
• a University that unites all its stakeholders in support of a shared vision, One UDC.

This is not easy work. And these are daring goals. But anyone who would doubt our immense potential doesn’t know UDC – they have yet to be touched by the heat of Firebird pride. And we are unstoppable when we come together – when we equally invest in each other and in a shared vision of greatness for this University as One UDC.

Firebirds, we’re just getting started. As we move into March, let this spring be a time to renew, recharge and recommit to our shared vision of greatness. Let’s deliver on the promise. Let’s rise to this occasion – this moment in time – together. Let’s rise!

In service,

Maurice D. Edington, Ph.D.
President
University of the District of Columbia