Dean's Update
March 1, 2024 - Aron Sousa, MD
Friends,
Give ear to my words and consider this my meditation on contingency and whether we should be sore vexed. If we look up, as Dr. Woodruff asks, we will see ahead a ways. To be sure, though, the path will be incomplete or hidden, and too often it feels like iniquity joins us uninvited. When we are buffeted by winds of mischief and worse, seemingly from all sides and for years on end, the shadowed way could be foreboding and frightening. But, that is why she has asked us all to look up. Together, there is promise in possibility. And, we are enough, if we listen and look, use our senses and our sense.
Any lessons from the last sixteen months must include the need to look ahead, to take a next step, to avoid bitterness, and to understand that the obscurity inherent in the contingencies of life contains multitudes. It should be so. For if the future were too clear, there would be but a single path in the wood. We would have no reason to look, to learn, to seek truth, to excel, or to work for justice. Saleh.
What we have witnessed has been remarkable. We know what has beset us, and we have seen what lurked in the corners. In truth, the path out of the wilderness has never been clear, but if it were, we would have no chance to see the beauty and wonder in the wild. We are fortunate to be called to the clear purpose and service of a great university. And we welcome Teresa happily “back to the faculty,” because she never left us. Perhaps we are sore, but assuredly we are not sore vexed. Our braided paths will now encompass the familiar and beloved as well as the new and welcomed.
Serving the people with you,
Aron
Aron Sousa, MD, FACP
Dean, Michigan State University College of Human Medicine