PresRelease

James Knox photo
It’s great to see the campus coming alive as the new semester begins. I’m looking forward to an exciting year. To be sure we have challenges ahead, but also many opportunities and, I know, many accomplishments to celebrate.
One potential challenge for which we must brace ourselves is the possibility of a flu outbreak. Many of you have probably been reading about the potential for outbreaks of H1N1 influenza (sometimes called “swine flu”), particularly at schools. You’re probably also aware that UConn already has a comprehensive plan for addressing an influenza pandemic. And, last spring, when the H1N1 flu first began appearing, our pandemic planning committee mobilized and worked throughout the summer to ensure that our plan is up-to-date. I’m grateful to this group for their good work and pleased to say that we’re prepared, should the flu appear in our community.

The group’s efforts include development of a Web site as a key source of information for all of us:
http://www.shs.UConn.edu/swine_flu.html
I encourage you to bookmark this Web site, which will be updated as information becomes available.
We’re also working closely with the state health department to monitor flu conditions. If this year’s flu season becomes severe, the University may take additional steps to prevent the spread of the virus, in accord with our own plan and the advice of health experts. We’ll communicate those steps to you, if it becomes necessary, and post them on the Web site above.
Of course, there are precautions you can take to help us, including getting flu shots, staying home if you are ill, and practicing good hand-washing techniques and respiratory etiquette. The above Web site offers further suggestions.
In addition to those suggestions, I ask that you continue the tradition that makes this such a wonderful community – looking out for one another. UConn is filled with expert and caring people. All of you make me proud to be a member of this great community. It is this tradition of compassion alongside the rich and diverse array of knowledge that you all bring to our community, which contributes the health and safety of us all.

I’ll be excited to meet you and your families this afternoon at 5:00 pm in Gampel Pavilion for our 2009 Convocation ceremony.

Convocation at UConn is our annual, official start of the academic year, when students, faculty, and staff gather to reaffirm our shared purpose and look to the year ahead.  The ceremony features the symbolic presentation by our Director of Admissions Lee Melvin of the new first-year class to Provost Peter Nicholls, who is the chief academic officer of the University.

People sometimes wonder what a provost does, especially when they look the word up in the Oxford English Dictionary and find that at one time provosts were:

5. a. An officer charged with the apprehension, custody, and punishment of offenders. Now hist.
. . . In France many of the officials called prevost (prévôt) were specially charged with the keeping of public order and the apprehension, custody, trial, and punishment of offenders, for which they had considerable powers of summary jurisdiction . . ..

I can assure you that Provost Peter Nicholls is not the keeper of a prison.  He’s the person responsible for charting our University’s academic course, everything from majors to prerequisites, from curriculum to faculty tenure, from the libraries to the laboratories, from branch campuses to branches of knowledge.  In fact, you should look at the Academic Plan for the University, which sets our direction for the next few years.

Provost Peter Nicholls
At Convocation you’ll also hear from Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor Sandra Weller, who will exhort you to reach high and share some very sound advice on how to do that.  She should know how: She’s Professor and Chair of the Department of Molecular, Microbial and Structural Biology at the University of Connecticut Health Center. Her lab works on the Herpes Simplex Virus. And she’s the current Secretary of the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering (CASE).

Prof. Sandra Weller
And I’ll get a chance to say a few Words of Wisdom myself. See you there, and at the picnic afterwards, outside the Student Union. The weather promises to be perfect!

Marching Band Director Dr. David Mills and piccolo section
“The Band is back
And you’re gonna be in trouble.
Hey-la, hey-la,
The Band is back.”

I can hear the Band practicing as I type this.  You can tell when the Band is back in Storrs.  Early every morning, students carrying oddly-shaped suitcases stream toward the School of Fine Arts and the Pride of Connecticut Van parked outside.  Every evening, the strains of “UConn Husky” waft across Horsebarn Hill, like a harbinger of good things to come.


If you’re a Band Fan, you can keep up on their Facebook site:

As you can tell, I’m a big Band Fan, and I can’t wait to get reacquainted with this year’s Pride of Connecticut.

Dean Choi
Connecticut House Majority Leader Denise Merrill has appointed UConn’s Dean of Engineering Mun Choi to the State of Connecticut Renewable Energy Investment Board (also known as the “Clean Energy Fund”). His service begins immediately and coterminous with Rep. Merrill’s tenure as House Majority Leader.

Dean Choi has a lot going on. The School of Engineering recently captured four U.S. Department of Education grants aimed at enhancing the nation’s technological competitiveness. The three-year grants were made under the agency’s Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need (GAANN) program. The grant support, paired with additional matching funds, totals nearly $1 million per year and will support approximately 30 to 35 graduate students annually.

“It’s actually very simple…”

I used to be involved in engineering, too, on the Illinois Central. But that was several years ago.

Things have been pretty quiet around here. Sitting on my front porch in the evening, I can hear a lot of tree frogs as I watch the shadowy shapes of the horses on Horsebarn Hill. I can’t believe that we’re nearing the end of August and the start-up of Fall Semester here at UConn. Here in Storrs, it seemed like we didn’t have much summer at all, except for this past week when we finally saw temperatures and humidities in the 90s.

When I was a kid back in Iowa, hot weather meant big corn crops. In late July and early August I remember sleeping at night on the roof of our back porch because it was too hot in the house. (The roof was mostly flat and there was a railing so you wouldn’t roll off – a common feature of midwestern farm houses.)

I haven’t seen anyone sleeping on rooftops in Storrs this past week, but I do know that our Res Life people are very hard at work getting the dorms ready for our students. A few students are here already. And Move-In Day is Friday, August 28. I’ll be out and about that day, helping students and their parents find their rooms and get all that stuff from the family van to the dorm. Many of our UConn office staff volunteer to help. If you need some assistance, find one of us wearing a GQ (Got Questions?) Tshirt, and don’t be shy!

Note to parents: We do not house students in our water towers

And I hope to see all our new students and their families at the 5:00 pm Convocation in Gampel Pavilion on Friday the 28th – and at my President’s Picnic immediately following, outside the Student Union.