The first full week of classes has been great. The energy level of our student body is high and we can feel it as we walk across campus. I have enjoyed meeting many of the new freshmen and renewing relationships with our upperclassmen this week. Although we are still processing students in for the Fall Quarter and do not have complete numbers, it is clear that our freshman class is up significantly. I have been pleased to see the diversity of backgrounds, hometowns, and interests of these students, and have also been impressed with students that are pursuing double majors in areas such as physics/music, engineering/theatre, and psychology/kinesiology. KTBS-TV ran a nice story about our freshman class and the academic convocation. I had several meetings this week with students, faculty, staff, alumni and partners. On Tuesday, VP Stan Napper and I went to CenturyLink to attend a presentation from representatives of the WISE Council who are traveling around the State to let the public know more about the goals of this program which is providing funds for higher education to focus on workforce development and innovation for high-demand jobs, such as those being created by CenturyLink. Most of our northeast Louisiana legislative delegation was there and I was able to thank them for their support for higher education during the last session. On Wednesday, I had a visit from several representatives of Louisiana’s construction industry who came to campus to present us with a check from donations collected by the contractor’s licensing board. One of the goals of Louisiana’s WISE fund is to encourage industry to support higher ed by matching the WISE funding provided by the State of Louisiana. The construction industry has been ahead of the curve, providing support for us for many years and their regular contributions to our program really make a huge difference for us. Attending the check presentation were Vic Weston (Contractor’s Education Trust Fund), Ken Naquin (LA AGC), Michael McDuff (LA State Licensing Board for Contractors), Steve Terrill (LA AGC) and Danny Graham (Lincoln Builders). On Wednesday afternoon, I also had a visit from Brig. Gen. Michael Fortney, Director of Operations at the USAF Global Strike Command who was visiting campus to speak with our AFROTC Detachment and its commander Lt. Col. Devin Kudlas. We are very proud of our association with the Air Force and the leadership opportunities that AFROTC provides to our students. On Thursday, Ryan Richard and I headed out to Denton, Texas, to attend our football game with the University of North Texas. On the way, we stopped in Bossier City to meet with Craig Spohn of the Cyber Innovation Center to do some planning for some major collaborative activities over the next few weeks. We arrived in Denton in time to attend the alumni tailgate. In addition to the large number of alumni who dropped by the tent for BBQ and fellowship, we had visits from several prospective students who had been invited to the game by Tech’s DFW recruiter Daniel Dupuy. The evening was capped off with a great win over the “Mean Green” of UNT, the second big victory by Coach Skip Holtz and the Bulldogs over the last five days.