Great weekend closes semester

We are in the midst of final exams, clearly a demanding time for all but one that also validates the hard work done by students over the past 15 weeks.

On Friday, we had our annual holiday celebration in two shifts! Thanks to great work by Laurie Jones, director of Human Resources, we had a huge afternoon event for faculty and staff at our Cunningham Center and than later a smaller but no-less-wonderful event for our many staff who work the evening shifts at the university. This is important recognition for very important people who many rarely see because of their work hours.

On Saturday, our men's basketball team posted a victory over the University of West Alabama, and two of our soccer players were named All-Americans, marking the first time ever that two student-athletes in soccer were honored the same year.

Later on Saturday, our Student Recreation Center hosted the annual holiday gathering for one of the Valley's great non-profits, Big Brothers,Big Sisters. We had the "bigs" and the "littles" on campus, and it was a great affair.

That evening, Lauren and I took the entire student delegation from the Beijing Institutue of Petroleum and Technology for dinner. They had a great semester and will be exceptional ambassadors for CSU in China.

We are looking forward to commencement on Friday the 16h and hosting Regents chair Ben Tarbutton and honoring our friend Mrs. Richard Hallock with an honorary degree.

From music to athletics to lectures, ours is a busy, busy campus

Last night, Lauren and I had the great pleasure of enjoying a student chamber recital in Legacy Hall involving some 30-plus Schwob School of Music students performing nine different pieces.

From Beethoven to Brahms, Schubert to Dvorak, it was a great end-of-semester concert. My thanks go to professors Oberlander, Schwartz, Tomkiewicz, Pershounin, Kobrin and Jakovcic for coaching the various groups of students. Tonight is a wind orchestra concert. Last night, the men's basketball team beat the U of West Alabama for the first time and are 3-1.

Tomorrow, I will be visiting high schools in metro Atlanta with our enrollment management team, home basketball games resume, and we'll host an important presentation by Dr. Jane Nsubuga, a physician, originally from Uganda, who will present the "Epidemiology of HIV/AIDS: the Successes/Challenges of Current Treatment" and a global perspective on the HIV/AIDS epidemic, including a Ugandan case example.

These days offer quite a reflection on the diverse array of quality programming at our university.