Georgia Institute of Technology Office of the Provost | Georgia Institute of Technology | Atlanta, GA

Last Nov. 10, the day before Veterans Day, my wife and I spent two and a half hours horseback riding around Chickamauga National Military Park, the site of a major Civil War battle in 1863. It was a beautiful day, sunny and brisk.

At times, we all feel overwhelmed by circumstances, anxious, alone in our troubles, or desperate. It is important to first recognize that these emotions are common to all of us and make us human. And second, that we do not have to face them alone.

I grew up in a middle-class family in Puerto Rico. My childhood was a worry-free existence — we were safe in school, in stores, and on the streets.

As he enters his 10th year as the provost of Georgia Tech, Rafael L. Bras shares his aspirations and a series of goals for the 2019-20 academic term. 

This week marks the 50th anniversary of the most extraordinary engineering and technological feat that the world has ever seen. It was a day like today that Apollo 11 took off on its historic spaceflight to the moon. In my opinion, we have not surpassed that technological feat and will not until humans return to the moon, still some five years away. From a technological and scientific perspective, I believe that there is almost nothing we can’t achieve. The pace of new knowledge and new technology is breathtaking. Unfortunately, even over centuries, our mastery of human relations has not made that much progress.

On May 31 I was honored to receive an honorary doctorate in education from Universidad del Sagrado Corazón in Puerto Rico, where I was born and grew up.