I spent quite a bit of time this week on the road. University of Southern Miss President Rodney Bennett and I flew over to Dallas to meet with Conference USA staff on Monday. Rodney is serving as Chair of the Board and I am Vice Chair, so we wanted to meet with the staff to get more familiar with them and their activities. It was a very productive day and I left most impressed with the staff that has been assembled in our league office. On Tuesday, I was able to stay in the office for meetings with my senior leadership team and the Administrative & Planning Council. On Wednesday, I drove over to Bossier City for a review of our new Academic Success Center being built within the BPCC STEM building at the National Cyber Research Park. The construction is progressing well and we hope to begin having a lot of activities there by mid-November. This facility will be a hub for all of our programs in the Shreveport/Bossier community and will help us better support the needs of that community. We are particularly excited about the new Cyber Training Center that will be a key part of workforce development in our rapidly growing cyber security economy of North Louisiana. I traveled to Monroe on Thursday to visit with colleagues at CenturyLink. This company is such a vital part of our North LA economy, and we enjoy a strong partnership with them in education, workforce development, research & development, and innovation. Many of the students who work for companies like Fenway Group on our campus in Tech Pointe become employees of CenturyLink or CSRA (in Bossier). This workforce development pipeline is being widely recognized as one of the most innovative and impactful approaches in the nation. Friday morning, I worked in the office and then spent some time walking around campus to check on our students. Later today, Kathy and I head out to Bowling Green, Kentucky to watch the Bulldogs take on Western Kentucky in what has been one of the top C-USA matchups in recent years. Here are a few of my favorite pics for the week: