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2005
Faculty and Staff CONVOCATION |
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WELCOME BACK Cyndie joins me in offering a warm welcome back. We know that the idea of summer as a time of rest disappeared from the higher education landscape along with raccoon skin coats and freshman beanies. You have been extraordinarily involved with facilities projects, Outreach, FOCUS for freshmen and transfers, pre-college programs, camps and conferences, and scholarly research, writing, and presenting. Thinking only of camps, conferences, summer school, and summer guests program, you enriched the lives of nearly 9,000 people who took advantage of our various summer offerings. Busy, yes. Still, Cyndie and I hope you also found, as did we, the chance to relax, enjoy family and friends, and rejuvenate. With a seventeen-year-old in our household, our summer included a de rigueur visit to that blockbuster: Star Wars Episode III: The Revenge of the Sith,. If you also attended, then you know that George Lucas revealed what you have long suspected: The Chancellor really is aligned with the forces of the dark side. We also got out of town for a week away from phones and computers. It was about the third day when Cyndie observed, "I can always tell when you are finally starting to relax: Your sense of humor comes back." Now, it can be an odd sense of humor and so she also added, "Couldn't you just keep some of that humor to yourself?" |
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Fun and humor, yes. Relaxing, yes. And, I hope you feel, as I do, the excitement
and juices begin to flow anew as we start off the academic year together. This is my fifth opening convocation. I consider this opportunity to impose upon your valuable time to be a great privilege, one I take most seriously. Usually, it is some time in June, soon after commencement, that my mind turns to the year ahead and what I would like to say as we kick off that year. But, it was not a normal, temperate Wisconsin summer. Long and hot. Meteorologically speaking, of course. Also politically speaking. Tempers flared along with temperatures, and hopes of maintaining our capacity to serve our students and region began to wither in the relentless heat. Cyndie will confirm that my sense of humor was in the deepest of deep freezes. I was worrying, among other things, about how I would address you this morning. My solution is simple: to be frank. You may even hear a note or two of anger. And, being frank, I will observe that we may have some healing to do this morning. We also have an important agenda to unambiguously define. Consequently, my remarks are going to be more focused, less formulaic, and more direct and detailed than is customary on such sometimes largely ritualistic occasions. |
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TOP OF PAGE Office of the Chancellor, David A Cofrin Library, Suite 810, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, 2420 Nicolet Drive, Green Bay, WI 54311-7001 Phone: 920-465-2207 E-mail: shepardb@uwgb.edu Comments to: Chancellor's Web Manager Revised: 03/02/2006 |