dean's note

Warm Wishes for the Holiday Season

With gratitude for the work we do and the people we are privileged to work with.

As we head into the holiday season, I wanted to reach out with a brief reflection on the past year, a note of gratitude for all we have done together, and a re-commitment for the mission that unites us. 

As I look back on 2024, it has been, in so very many ways, a good year. We welcomed new students, faculty and staff into our community. We continued to generate scholarship of consequence, to advance excellence in teaching, and to support health at the local, national, and global level. We contributed to the public conversation about issues of consequence for health, intersecting with the conversations and debates that defined the 2024 federal election in the US. We have kept the faith in the face of challenges and setbacks, working, always, to advance a forward-looking vision of a healthier world. 

But it has also been a hard year. Devastating conflicts around the world have harmed many and contributed to a climate of global instability. Political shocks, social unrest, and polarization have tested our compassion and comity and further deepened the uncertainty of this moment. Persistent inequities have continued to undermine the health of many, creating a world of health haves and have-nots. While this is in many ways the healthiest time in human history, our progress has made all the starker the areas where our efforts to promote health have not yet borne fruit.      

Such challenges remind us we are fortunate indeed to be living where we are living, and to be part of a community dedicated to the pursuit of a better world, guided in this pursuit by core values. These values include a focus on improving the health of populations, with particular concern for ending the health inequities that so characterize our world. The persistence of these inequities reminds us that the ingredients of a rich, full life that we sometimes take for granted—a supportive community, education, opportunities for time off—remain, for many, unattainable luxuries. As long as this is so, the work of public health will continue, until no one is excluded from the resources that support health and human flourishing.      

It has been a joy to be part of this community for the past 10 years—a joy which makes this season, for me, bittersweet. This will be my last holiday message as I transition out of my role as Dean in the coming weeks. I will send a separate note to the school with my gratitude for a wonderful decade as part of this community. For now, I simply want to wish everybody a delightful, restorative holiday with loved ones. I hope we can all take time in the rush of these weeks to recommit to using our advantages—of resources, of time, of community—to improve the lives of others. It remains a privilege to know and work with so many who share this commitment. Thank you for all you have done this past year to build a healthier world, and for all you will do in 2025 and beyond to carry forward the mission of public health.   

With best wishes for the season,

Sandro

Sandro Galea, MD, DrPH
Dean and Robert A. Knox Professor
Boston University School of Public Health

Previous Dean’s Notes are archived at: http://www.bu.edu/sph/tag/deans-note/