The fall semester is here! To mark our return, I wanted to bring you a short video because we have a lot to celebrate.

After so much hard work over the last year, we are returning to full, in-person operations. I am so excited we can take this important step together. Our community has shown incredible resilience, commitment and respect for others as we work to protect our core missions and enhance the ways we serve our communities and Missouri. These values remain essential to our continued success and ability to have the kind of fall semester we know is possible.

More than 8,000 undergraduate and graduate students are joining us as the newest members of our Tiger family. Already, we have been able to commemorate some of our great fall traditions such as Tiger Walk and First Roar. And I had the opportunity on Saturday to join Marching Mizzou at its final weekend of Band Camp to thank our remarkable student musicians for making the student experience at Mizzou so special.

We also officially welcomed our new Director of Athletics, Desiree Reed-Francois, to Columbia yesterday. She is all moved in and ready to lead Mizzou Athletics into its excellent future.

There are so many incredible milestones for Mizzou in the coming months: a return to a full fall Mizzou Football schedule, the groundbreaking celebration of MU’s new Children’s Hospital on Oct. 1, the grand opening of our transformative NextGen Precision Health building on Oct. 19, Homecoming, and much more. It’s going to be a busy few months, but it will also be an extraordinary time as we move Mizzou forward in our research, academics and impact.

Thank you to everyone — our faculty, staff, coaches, alumni, supporters and students — for all that you do to support our university and the many communities we serve across Missouri and around the world.

— Mun