It was great to get 2019 kicked off on campus this week as our faculty, staff and students returned from the Christmas & New Years break. I enjoyed several special opportunities to reconnect with students. On Thursday, Aramark allowed me to be “Celebrity Chef” and serve our students gumbo at Tech Table. This is always a lot of fun for me and I enjoyed chatting with all of the students. The gumbo was excellent too!

On Friday, I enjoyed a luncheon at the Ropp Center with several students who have been providing leadership for the COES graduate program. The luncheon honored those students who had won awards in the recent Graduate Symposium. And on Friday evening, I enjoyed reconnecting with my civil engineering and construction engineering technology colleagues and students at their annual banquet. They invited me to speak about the profession and the institution. I am still a tenured faculty member in civil engineering, but my schedule doesn’t afford me the opportunity to teach or participate in many program activities. So this was a particularly special evening for me.

Earlier in the week, I attended the Bossier Parish Schools in-service workshop at the CenturyLink Center in Bossier City. Thanks to Superintendent Scott Smith for inviting me to hear the national speaker Jamie Vollmer who spoke about the responsibilities of communities in support of education. It was great to see many of our Tech alumni at that event.

The rest of my week was filled with meetings, mostly with my administrative team as we reviewed our plans for the coming year.  Hope you enjoy some of my favorite pics for the week.