PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE Dear Friends, For some of us of a certain age, these familiar words from Ecclesiastes were more likely etched in our memories not by a pastor but by folksinger Pete Seeger in his 1959 song, To Everything There Is a Season, later more popularly known as Turn, Turn, Turn after a version by The Byrds became a number 1 hit in 1965. Seeger added only a handful of words to the text, including the closing line “a time for peace, I swear it’s not too late.” In a time that has seen unspeakable horrors of terrorism and war, we all pray that a time for peace will come. Closer to home, the year 2023 was an historic and extraordinarily busy one at McCormick. It was a time of change and transition, a time to break down David H. Crawford and a time to build up, a time to keep and a time to throw away. And it was a President time to imagine: a time to imagine a new home, a time to imagine a new era of collaboration and cooperation with neighbors, a time to imagine an institution now unencumbered by long-term debt and the capital needs of an aging To every thing facility. And while we honor and give thanks for the many memories of what was, we are excited and grateful for all the good things ahead. there is a season, During this season, we are all inundated with “top ten” lists: the best this, the and a time to most that. If we were to share with you everything McCormick accomplished in 2023, the list would be very long indeed. I suspect that for many of you every purpose the “most” notable item on that list would be the sale of the campus we shared with the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago (LSTC) for the past under the heaven. twenty years to the University of Chicago. While I cannot deny the sale was certainly an historic event, I would suggest that our move—and the move of Ecclesiastes 3:1 (KJV) our good friends at LSTC—into beautiful, newly built-out space at the Catholic Theological Union, just blocks east of the campus that McCormick had occupied since 2003 and LSTC since 1966, has the potential to have impact far beyond the walls of our new home. It is a tangible demonstration of hope and unity in a city, country, and world desperately in need of both. 2023 ANNUAL REPORT 1