I spent part of this week traveling to New Orleans and Baton Rouge to meet with alumni and to attend a Board of Regents meeting. We hosted a “Tech’s in Town” event in Baton Rouge on Tuesday evening and had an excellent turnout of alumni, parents of current students, parents of prospective students, grads who are currently in the LSU Vet school, government officials and other friends. I was pleased that some of our deans were there to talk about the exciting activities taking place in their colleges. And Dean Gary Kennedy showed off his auctioneering and fund-raising talents while auctioning off an autographed football helmet and basketball. It is always enjoyable spending time with our alumni and friends, and our deans’ participation made this a particularly special day. Even though this has been a short week, it has been a full one. My office time was filled with numerous meetings with my administrative team, faculty, staff, current students and prospective students. I also met with doctoral students and faculty in our industrial and organizational psychology program who have designed and implemented a campus survey to help us assess satisfaction levels, issues of concern, and opportunities for improvement. I was impressed with the work of our doctoral students in developing the survey and believe they have developed a good instrument for us to use annually for continuous improvement of our campus environment. I also had a meeting with my Administrative and Planning Council to review activities related to our strategic plans and to share updates on activities of our faculty, students and other campus groups. During that meeting, we received word that the Governor had announced a plan to make up the state budget deficit in a way that did not impose additional cuts to higher education. We have had some other cuts earlier in the year and are absorbing some of the short-fall for Louisiana’s TOPS program, but the news from the Governor’s office was most welcomed and served as a great way to kick off Easter week-end.