State of the School and the Semester Ahead

Dear VP&S Community,

Thank you so much to those who joined last week for the annual VP&S “State of the School,” which is always a special opportunity to celebrate our community’s amazing achievements and progress toward our strategic goals. While our school’s accomplishments are too numerous to include in one presentation, we were delighted to review just some of the highlights of the last year with all of you, such as our Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) eight-year accreditation; many groundbreaking, new research programs; the launch of ColumbiaDoctors Now to promote employee wellness; expanded health education and promotion initiatives in Upper Manhattan and the Bronx; and welcoming the first cohort of the Vagelos Institute’s Biomedical Research Education (VIBRE) PhD students.

For those who could not join us, you can find the 2026 State of the School here to learn about these achievements and more.

The upcoming year brings a sense of possibility, and we are excited to see all that our community will accomplish in our collective missions to educate future leaders, advance scientific knowledge, and improve the health of our patients and communities. This fall we are looking forward to the opening of the world-class Roy and Diana Vagelos Innovation Laboratories building, the continued growth of our ColumbiaDoctors faculty practices, the inaugural Frontiers in Research Symposium, the new AI at VP&S Research Forum series, and the Irving Institute for Clinical and Translational Research’s 20th anniversary symposium, among many other important activities.

Thank you for everything you contribute to VP&S. I was honored to present the State of the School this year and as I did, I was reminded once again of how special it is to be part of this incredible community.

Sincerely,

James McKiernan, MD
Interim Dean of the Faculties of Health Sciences and the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons
Interim Executive Vice President for Health and Biomedical Sciences, Columbia University 
CEO, ColumbiaDoctors