2023 WELD Graduation

Dear Colleagues,  

Later this week, I will have the honor of speaking at the graduation ceremony of the 2023 Women’s Executive Leadership (WELD) program.  

This program develops a new generation of leaders in at the University of Kentucky who complete an eight-month-long curriculum covering topics that include leadership attributes, budgeting, strategic planning, legal issues and regulations and crisis management.  

At the ceremony, I will congratulate them for their achievement and the impact their participation will have, both on the overall success of WELD and on their own career trajectories as they continue in their respective fields across campus.  

I’m grateful for the opportunity to recognize and express my gratitude to this remarkable class of colleagues.  

The 2023 graduates hail from across our enterprise. Among them are individuals who focus each day on helping students succeed, teach in disciplines ranging from Fine Arts to Engineering, from Health Sciences to Arts and Sciences and from Education to Design.  

There are graduates who tell the stories of our faculty, staff, students, and programs, make our campus operations possible, uplift communities through Cooperative Extension, provide healing and hope to patients and train future physicians  

Our shared mission — to advance Kentucky — is remarkable in scope, and it is our promise to the commonwealth. These WELD graduates work every day to make this mission possible. 

This program is another example of our commitment — as outlined in our strategic plan, UK-PURPOSE — to taking care of our people. It’s an investment in the incredible talent that exists across our campus. Our people make our mission possible.  

As a reminder, applications for the 2024 cohort are open now. 

Thank you for everything you do. 

Robert S. DiPaola, M.D.   

Provost