Serving up the Holidays

Above, some members of the Student Affairs staff served up breakfast on Thursday, December 10 at midnight to hundreds of TU students. This is the seventh annual winter breakfast served to students as a study break during this tense (finals and packing) and fun (break is here!) time of year. Wanda Olson, Associate Director of Residential Life actually took over this program from me several years ago. My version of the program had students paying for their own breakfast and the midnight feast was actually at 10 pm. It was a flop. Mrs. Olson injected life and holiday spirit into the program, making it an important campus tradition. It has become so popular that it is held in the spring now as well. Also serving with the SA staff was director of the library, Diane Graves, Admissions dude Jeremy Johnson, and Tiger Card director and Santa, Jerry Ferguson.

This is the last scheduled post of the semester. The Dean's List blog will resume its regular irregular publication schedule in early to mid-January. Thanks for reading and Happy Holidays!

Counter InTUitive 12.4.2009

I thank my friends at the Trinitonian for a nicely done piece on December 4. In it the editorial staff welcomes the new President, acknowledges the old (quite gracefully) and holds up me and one of my role models and mentors, Dr. Coleen Grissom, for the length of our tenures at Trinity. It was a touching tribute all the way around. We are all lucky, indeed, to be connected by our wonderful Trinity experiences.

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One last tip of the cap...

Good luck to retiring Trinity President Dr. John Brazil and his wife Janice. Thank you for your dedicated service to Trinity University.

Tiger Tales: Student Lessons

The above ad was on display in the DFW airport, so I took it as a sign that I needed to blog about Tiger Woods and his recent issues. So here, in no random order, are thoughts and lessons that students can take from this saga:

1. Just because someone is an athlete, an entertainer, a minister, or a politician it doesn't define their character in one direction or another. Doctors, lawyers, professors, deans, neighbors, and couch potatoes are no different. The one common denominator is being human. (Exception for Manu Ginobili.)
2. The best role models are the ones people know well personally: family members, friends, co-workers. They are real.
3. Sometimes private matters are nobody's business.
4. Sometimes we just can't look away.
5. People love to judge others. We are all regularly on both sides of this.
6. Some jokes are funny even if we don't want them to be.
7. In the electronic age things don't go away: 911 calls, voice messages, texts, videos, and pictures. Expectations of privacy have changed over the last decade.
8. A walk on the Appalachian Trail is not always a walk on the Appalachian Trail.
9. Integrity and ethical behavior matter. This underscores the importance of blending academic learning with experiential learning, and applied decision-making. College is a great place to learn.
10. Nobody's perfect. People make mistakes.
11. An indiscretion and a pattern are two different things. But you also can't kill a dead person.
12. The road to high performance isn't always paved.