 As a faculty member, you have an incredible opportunity to shape research, teaching, and outreach at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln for the next generation. I encourage you to make time to be involved in the Grand Challenges Initiative, part of the vision that, as you know, we charted for our university by the N-150 Commission and the N-2025 Strategic Plan. Now that we're entering the second year of the Grand Challenges Initiative, we're at a crucial inflection point for turning our vision into a reality. And we need involvement from every college, department, and unit across campus. In 2020, more than 500 people across campus worked together to identify seven Grand Challenge themes. They are anti-racism and racial equity, climate resilience and adaptation, early childhood education and development, health equity, quantum science and engineering, science and technology literacy for society, and sustainable food and water security. These are enormous challenges, big, wicked problems, but at Nebraska, we do big things. These focus areas represent a broad cross-section of expertise that already exists on campus, as well as areas that we want to grow in. We're at the right time and the right place to solve these wicked global challenges and positively impact society through our work. Now I have a challenge for each of you. This academic year, make a commitment to go deeper. Help us to develop the bold transformational ideas that will shape the direction our campus takes in each of these focus areas. You will be invited to participate in community building events throughout the academic year, with the goal of developing new, interdisciplinary projects that help solve some of society's most complex challenges. Nebraska is making a $40 million investment over the next four years to support projects that show the greatest potential to have lasting impact. However, this challenge is not business as usual. It requires us to think differently about our research, teaching and outreach. I urge you to look outside the familiar and to form teams with colleagues that are outside your discipline. Lend your expertise to help solve a challenge that isn't directly related to your primary research area. The biggest, boldest ideas will come from collaborative teams who shift the paradigms of how they work together and think differently about complex problems. This is an exciting moment for Nebraska. We know we can do big things. By leveraging our combined strengths and expertise, we can positively impact our community, our country and our world.