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In praise
of UWGB students, liberal arts and a dear friend
Greetings from Green Bay’s University of Wisconsin, where spring is in
the air!
Wishful thinking, perhaps, but if spring isn’t here
yet, it will be soon ... arriving on the south breezes of our first 70-degree
day, accompanied by the seasonal reemergence of students strolling the campus,
roller blading, catching some sun or using the grassy slopes near the Cofrin
Library as one big open-air reading room.
Indoors, I think, the season already has changed. While “spring
semester” might have seemed a misnomer when classes resumed in January,
a certain urgency surfaces in April. Pass students in the hall or at their study
tables, this week, and it’s possible to overhear serious conversation about
class projects, increasingly challenging subject material, or hopelessly impossible
work loads.
It is an exciting, energizing time of the year.
It is also one of those times I most miss the classroom.
I taught political science for 20 years at Oregon State University and the occasional
seminar while provost at Eastern Oregon, but being chancellor, a job I love,
requires a full-time commitment and then some. I envy the time spent working
directly with undergraduate and master’s degree students.
My teaching these days takes place in a little different
context. Actually, each of us is an educator, or a potential education advocate.
Each of us is presented daily with opportunities to educate others. One message
I hope we share is this: In UW-Green Bay and its people, this region has an
extraordinary institution with an exceedingly bright future, deserving of broad
support.
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A temporary gallery of woodcut prints to brighten the 8th floor
hallway outside the Chancellor's Office was largely the creation of a student
curator Deborah Dalman, lower right, who organized her classmates' art. From introductory
art classes to advanced courses across campus, April is a month we showcase student
work at its best. |
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