Picnic Party!

Yesterday was one of my favorite events of the new academic year – the Annual UIS Chancellor's Welcome Picnic! Granted the weather was a little on the hot side; but most important it was an opportunity for me to offer a warm welcome to hundreds of new and returning students, faculty and staff. I so enjoyed talking with members of our academic community, checking in with new students to see how things were going, and enjoying some great food – especially the cookies. My thanks to all the food service staff who created a wonderful meal, to all the staff and volunteers who served the food, to the facilities folks who handled setting the scene for such a huge crowd, to student Jaime Cruz for serving as DJ again (and playing a Willie Nelson classic just for me), and to the hundreds of students, faculty and staff who attended the event. As you can see from the photo – we all had a very, very good time. Should do this every Tuesday? Hmmmmmm... 

Welcome to the UIS family

What a great weekend to be part of the UIS community. I had the pleasure of participating in the UIS  golf teams’ annual outing, attended the UIS Athletics BBQ and I watched the UIS soccer team kick off their fall season - with a win! At each of those events I met students, parents, faculty and staff eager to begin another school year, and what a great year it’s going to be. I’m also happy to report that there were two more White Sox fans on campus this weekend at least briefly, besides student, Mihai Smarandescu and me - see attached photo of the four of us at the BBQ. 

My kind of lunch break

I continue to be amazed at the number of people with a UIS connection at each and every event I attend in Springfield and throughout the central Illinois region. This week I had the pleasure of being the speaker at the Springfield Chapter of the Association of Women in Communication. It was like walking into a room full of family and instantly feeling comfortable. The majority of professionals in the room were UIS alums who still feel very connected to UIS and nearly all are regular visitors to campus. The topic of my presentation was "Leadership lived" and how a university goes about developing and implementing a new image in ways that enhance its visibility and reputation. It was great fun, especially because this particular group really understood the topic – its what they do in their work every day! 

Thanks to Illinois Issues magazine's Rachel Lattimore for the invitation to be part of this interesting group for a short while. Shouldn’t most lunches be like this?