It’s a Wednesday morning in mid-September, and you’re walking across the Pentacrest. The air is cool enough to remind you that fall is on its way. 

And everywhere you look, you see black and gold. 

A Hawkeye sweatshirt. An Iowa polo. A black jacket with a Tigerhawk stitched over the heart. A black and gold backpack, even gold sneakers with black stripes. 

Years ago, a friend visiting from another university looked around campus and asked me, only half joking, "Do you pay people to wear black and gold?"

I smiled and said, "No. This is just Iowa."

I've thought about that conversation many times since because what my friend noticed wasn't about school colors. It was about culture.

Culture isn't something that simply exists. It isn't created by a strategic plan or written into a mission statement. It is built every day through thousands of individual choices.

It's the choice to wear your pride on your sleeve or over your heart.

It's the choice to mentor a student, to encourage a colleague, to ask a thoughtful question in class, or to welcome someone new to campus.

It's the choice to believe that every one of us has a responsibility for the kind of community we are creating together.

That doesn't mean we will always agree. In fact, I hope we don't.

Universities are meant to be places where ideas are tested, assumptions are challenged, and difficult questions are asked. We come from different backgrounds. We bring different experiences. We hold different perspectives. Those differences are not obstacles to our mission— they are essential to it.

And what defines the University of Iowa is not whether we disagree. It is how we disagree.

We have the opportunity, and the responsibility, to listen before we judge. To challenge ideas without diminishing people. To approach conversations with curiosity instead of certainty. To remember that disagreement and respect are not opposing values; they are partners in the pursuit of knowledge.

Each interaction matters, every conversation contributes, and every choice shapes the experience someone else has on this campus.

The culture of this university is not created by any one office, department, or leader.

It is created by all of us.

As we begin a new academic year together, I hope each of us will consider the role we play in making this a place where people feel they belong, where ideas can be debated with rigor and respect, and where every member of our community has the opportunity to learn, contribute, and thrive.

That is what makes Iowa different.

And that is what makes Iowa extraordinary.

With best wishes and go Hawks!
Barb Wilson