Happy Thanksgiving

Dear Colleagues,

I want to thank you for working so hard all year, and in particular this semester! I am especially grateful for the following.

We got a new chemistry CLA! Please join me in welcoming Alyssa McCaskey, who started on 11/4. I thank Kirk Boraas and Chris Kulhanek for their great work in the search process. I also thank the entire chemistry faculty for helping out in the lab during the transition.

We made a seamless CLA transition on the third floor biology lab. Thanks to the referral from Maire Sustacek, we were able to hire an excellent alumnus, Colleen Hutchison. Colleen started on 11/12, the day Anna Lytle officially departed. Please join me in welcoming Colleen. I also thank Chris Kulhanek for helping Colleen get acquainted with the lab and the responsibilities.

We are thriving on the new partnership with US Bank. The ITEC Team has been progressive and proactive from the start, and continues to interact with US Bank with enthusiasm and creativity. The outcomes are fantastic for our students and programs: the hackathon, the named scholarship, the monthly guest lectures, the upcoming equipment contribution, the internship opportunities, and much more. I thank the ITEC team for their work.

We continue to promote student research related initiatives. Many of your proposals in SciMath have been selected to create student research projects, materials or courses by a grant Renu Kumar won from the System Office. This will inject extra energy to our classes and our students. I appreciate your effort to elevate our college from a place to pick up transferring credits to a higher learning institution that encourages scientific inquiry and nurtures student research. I cannot thank Renu enough for her tireless work on this grant.

And the list goes on.

Whether you are celebrating Thanksgiving or not, below is a Taiwanese magic spell for your holiday feast. It says "Eat-at-will-and-gain-no-weight".

​Happy Thanksgiving!