Looking Back with Gratitude, Looking Ahead with Hope

Happy holidays to you and your loved ones!

As we close out the year at the UIA, we received news that prompted deep reflection on the people we work with and the impact this community has generated over more than a decade. I am deeply honored to receive the 2025 Clark Kerr Award from the Academic Senate of the University of California, Berkeley. This recognition is not about me as an individual. It is recognition of the collective work of the UIA and the power of universities choosing to innovate together on behalf of students.

This award is particularly meaningful to me because, in the early days, when I was first trying to explain what we were trying to do and why it was different, I would ask a simple question: what if the Clark Kerr of this generation was not one leader, but rather a group of presidents and chancellors choosing to work together to model the kind of leadership the future of our sector needs? This recognition tells me that question was worth asking and that the bet our institutions made on collaboration, shared accountability, and student centered innovation has paid off.

This honor belongs to the presidents, chancellors, provosts, liaisons, fellows, faculty, staff, and advisors across our 19 campuses who have done the steady, often unglamorous work of redesigning systems so more students succeed.

It also belongs to the funders and partners who believed that innovation could scale when institutions linked arms and committed to improving outcomes together; to the team at ASU for serving as the UIA’s fiscal sponsor since the beginning; and to every past and present UIA board member who believed this work was possible long before it was widely understood. Most of all, I am deeply grateful to colleagues, mentors, and friends across the country who have shaped my leadership and shown me what real innovation work looks like in practice.

This recognition is a reminder that we are better together than we are alone, and that real progress happens over time through steady, collective effort. As you wrap up the year, I hope you are able to pause and reflect on the impact you have helped create. This work takes all of us. Every role matters. Every campus matters. When we pull together for students, change happens.

Happy Holidays,

Bridget Burns
Executive Director
University Innovation Alliance

"I believe that care of the community is how we go forward together, and it's only by working together, standing up together, really having the conversations about how we find a path forward that we will be successful." - Wendy Wintersteen, President, Iowa State University

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