Dear St. Thomas University Community:
I hope you and your families are well and recovering from the effects of Hurricane Irma. Hurricanes create very difficult circumstances for many, but also seem to bring out the best in people who pull together to help one another.
Our campus was fortunate not to have severe damage. Structurally our buildings are still intact, but as you can imagine with all the foliage on campus there was quite a bit to clean up after Irma passed by. As usual, our Physical Plant crew, with its great leadership was superb at restoring order to the campus, cleaning up as much as possible before we open.
As we communicated to you before, we were able to open the campus at noon on Thursday, since our electricity had been restored the day before. The teamwork among the members of our campus, especially the members of our Emergency Management group, enabled us to make proper decisions and communicate them in a timely fashion. I thank everyone who worked so hard, especially the Office of Emergency Management and the Office of Communication.
Our resident students who were not able to evacuate, received hospitality at FIU. I am deeply grateful to President Mark Rosenberg for his kindness to us. The students are now back on campus.
We are ready to begin classes on Monday. Our Provost is meeting with the deans to arrange the schedule for the rest of the academic year to accommodate the missed classes.
Mass will be offered Sunday, September 17th in the Chapel of St. Anthony at 7pm. Our thoughts continue for those who are not as fortunate as we in avoiding devastation. May God help them recover as quickly as possible.
I look forward to seeing you on Monday.
Sincerely,
Msgr. Casale
