A Message for Students on Strengthening Drexel's Financial Resilience and Academic Enterprise

Dear Drexel Students,

It’s been a pleasure to kick off Drexel’s new academic year as your interim president. I am deeply grateful for the warm welcome, and I am eagerly looking forward to meeting so many more of you soon.

As I wrote in September, my primary goal is to keep our student-centered institution moving along the critical path of continuous improvement. Together, we will strengthen our academic enterprise and excel in all our core endeavors, while continuing to invest in your success and future by maintaining a safe and vibrant living and learning environment.

As we undergo academic transformation, we are also moving forward on a parallel track to build a financially resilient University. This morning, before an audience of faculty and professional staff, my senior leadership colleagues and I hosted a forum where we presented our plans for solving Drexel’s financial challenges. To be clear: Like most universities nationwide Drexel is facing some financial challenges, but our challenges are manageable, and we are already in the midst of solving them.

We will continue to invest not only in your success today, but also in building an even more innovative and exciting University as we execute our plans for academic transformation. That process includes: the restructuring of schools and colleges into integrated, forward-looking pillars of expertise; a move from quarters to semesters in fall 2027; the creation of undergraduate core competency requirements that will support greater curricular alignment and flexibility and provide differentiating skills that define a Drexel education; and the development of greater consistency in practices and policies across academic units to support flexibility and collaboration.

For more than 130 years, Drexel has evolved and grown with the times to remain a national leader in experiential education, a powerful economic engine, and an unstoppable force for progress. Through our work to transform our academic enterprise and build financial resilience, Drexel’s evolution and growth will continue unabated.

Sincerely,

Denis P. O'Brien
Interim President