My dear colleagues — thank you. We did it. Somehow, we did it. 

At major events hosted by the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning each year, we play this video in which graduating students read congratulatory letters from their loved ones. It’s a tear-jerker, but it’s also an explicit validator of our purpose as educators. It reinforces our reasons for being here, helping to shepherd our Wildcats as they overcome personal obstacles and get one step closer to their dreams.

If there was a similar letter to us as a campus this year, it might go something like this:

My dear Wildcat colleagues, thank you for your grit and resilience through a year in which we saw moral injury shake our campus and our chosen profession. It was a year in which we acutely felt the effects of an increasing misalignment with why we do what we do, and the larger environment in which we are asked to do our work.

From the shuttering of our cultural centers and spaces of vital support for our students because of House Bill 261 at the beginning of the school year, to the dissolution and absorption of Weber State’s foundational college, and university-wide cuts to numerous programs and positions at the end of the year because of House Bill 265, it has felt like an earthquake. And partly because of these cuts, you are saying goodbye to more colleagues at once than we could have imagined.

Yet, you showed up and persisted — for our students. For your purpose. 

Even as you still grieve the losses of dear colleagues, you found space to support our students through theirs. As you waited in the long, helpless shadows of uncertainty — no knowing what our new campus structure would look like, what topics you won’t be allowed to teach, what research projects wouldn’t be funded or allowed, what contradictory new policies you would have to implement, what new words would be forbidden — you still found a way to show up for our students. 

Even as you grappled with your personal crises, anxieties, and struggles with balance, you showed up.

And because you did, our students are grateful. They know that you are a crucial ingredient to their success. They saw your unrelenting efforts to connect and build personal relationships with them, to expand their range of perspectives and experiences so that they can think critically and make their own decisions about how to make their way in the world, and to help them achieve long-term success in their chosen professions. They felt every act of care, even if they didn’t always respond because their lives were too difficult at the time.

This year, more than 7,000 students earned a degree or certificate from Weber State. They were able to do so because you showed up and you cared. Thank you, my dear colleagues. I’m grateful for you, and I’m sending you all the Purple Love. Now, I do hope we all take some time to rest — to renew our purpose and our why — because we don’t know what’s coming next.

Nicola A. Corbin is a professor of communication at Weber State University, where she teaches public relations and mass media courses and directs the university’s Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning. This commentary is provided through a partnership with Weber State. The views expressed by the author do not necessarily represent the institutional values or positions of the university.