A Message from President Hubert Benitez to the AIC Community: We Welcome A New Year Filled with Hope

I would like to extend my best wishes to you and your families for a happy and prosperous New Year. While we usually take this time to reflect on the good that happened in the past year, and we are grateful for the many blessings we received, we must also remind ourselves that many AIC families lost loved ones, and others suffered difficulties. Despite these unique life circumstances, I invite all of us to welcome this new year 2023 with hope.

On a personal level, I continue to feel blessed to have arrived last year at AIC and join this community of education. Thus, let me express my deep appreciation to you for being a part of the AIC family. It is because of your hard work that we were able to overcome another post-pandemic year. Unfortunately, as a society, we continue to feel the impact of the pandemic, and sadly the pandemic exposed the significant inequalities that exist across our communities, with the most vulnerable populations disproportionately affected.

The implications and options of how we, as communities, decide to move forward, are vast. As a college, we decided to look forward and to start creating our own future. We recognized the challenges ahead of us—we know that the work ahead is difficult and complex. Therefore, we came together as one committed group of colleagues to create a new guiding blueprint for our college: AIC Reimagined. AIC Reimagined is driven by several fundamental elements: a shared understanding that diversity and inclusion are fundamental to the mission of higher education, and that colleges and universities should be engines for community and workforce development. I invite you to join us in leaning forward to the work that is ahead as we implement AIC Reimagined. In doing so, we will continue to make a difference in the communities we serve; one student and one family at a time.

Thank you for believing in AIC, and let’s welcome 2023 with a sentiment of hope for a brighter future.