Celebrating tradition and triumph

Friday, March 14, 2025

Dedicated students, distinguished colleagues and dear friends,

Happy Friday!

Victories are hard to come by and, when they do, we celebrate. They are the prize of hard work and culmination of incremental achievements. Project milestone after project milestone, college course after college course, sports game after sports game. Progress inspires, and the buildings get built, graduations achieved, and championships realized.

Today, no group on our campus knows this better, and none is better deserving of it, than our men’s basketball team, which advanced to their NCAA Division’s regionals for the first time in 29 years. We are extremely proud of our team and the winning streak that got them to the top spot, but this is not about the numbers, the size or the place. Rather, it’s about the winning spirit that I witnessed in virtually every member of the team. I know! I was at nearly every home game and witnessed firsthand the spontaneity with which every player and every coach worked together to stack up win after win, all the way up to the tournament. Their progress was inspiring, and as they go the extra mile, we acknowledge and celebrate their hard-earned success with them. All of us, members of the Miner family, wish them well and look forward to yet another and final victory of the season.

Coincidentally, the campus is also buzzing with excitement and for another reason. It’s S&T’s 117th annual, two-week-long celebration of a terrific tradition that started in 1908. St. Patrick – the patron saint of engineers, according to our engineering majors – is looking out for all of us Miners here at S&T and every member of the Miner family around the world. For 117 years, generations of S&T students have endeavored to make our St. Pat’s celebration the “Best Ever.” This tradition that has anchored us during times of change and uncertainty has continued uninterrupted even during the two World Wars.

This weekend, the 117th Best Ever St. Pat’s celebration wraps up two weeks of celebration. True to tradition, St. Patrick and the court arrived on campus on Wednesday in time to preside over the Follies. For the thousands of our diehard St. Pat’s fans who will descend on campus this weekend, coronation will take place tonight, Friday, March 14, at 9 p.m., when we recognize our honorary knights. The parade will start tomorrow, Saturday, March 15, at 11 a.m. in downtown Rolla, followed by the St. Pat’s concert at 6:30 p.m.

As we celebrate this year’s “Best Ever,” we know that the next year’s and the following years' will be the “best ever.” We are simply grateful for a beautiful tradition that has served as a common thread for generations of our students and alumni. And in that sense, it will always be the “best ever.” 

To all our students, faculty, staff, alumni and friends, I say Happy St. Patrick’s Day; please take on your “we-dership” roles and accept communal responsibilities to make our “best ever” the safest ever!

Warmly,

-Mo.

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Mohammad Dehghani, PhD
Chancellor
mo@mst.edu | 573-341-4116

206 Parker Hall, 300 West 13th Street, Rolla, MO 65409-0910
chancellor.mst.edu