The beginning of every new school year brings about changes and good news. There have been a lot of positive ones at Samford. For instance, we saw this news just today: Samford creates $335M annual economic impact.
President Westmoreland got a little face time with the media, too:
There’s a new business building going up. There have been renovations in my building. And, of course, there are all those new faces buzzing about, too. The food service in the cafeteria is provided by a new company this year, as well. Food is important. I eat it every day. But feeding hundreds and hundreds of people each day can’t be easy, so I won’t say anything so far. Everyone is figuring out all of the new things, which might explain the weird, chaotic energy during lunch. And they might still be working through their menu as well.
But this … this …
There’s a cultural standard to be met here and it isn’t met with “plain tea.”
Who says “plain tea” anyway?
There’s a little sign that says Red Diamond is coming soon. Not soon enough.
Things to read … because this section always comes up soon enough.
Did you see the Star Trek selfie? Who is the guy in the background? There’s a story in that photobombing.
Here’s a great interactive infographic, Losing Ground:
In 50 years, most of southeastern Louisiana not protected by levees will be part of the Gulf of Mexico. The state is losing a football field of land every 48 minutes — 16 square miles a year …
What a great story, and adventures, brave young reporters. High school journalists cover Michael Brown’s funeral after addressing legal, safety concerns
“We did not, and do not, advocate our students attending the heavily protested areas,” Goble said. “However, we felt there was an immense journalistic opportunity for them, and they could capture these stories without being in the midst of a protest.”
[…]
But even with the concern for the students’ safety, Goble and his students still felt that this was an important story for them to cover given the proximity and importance of the events.
Student-Built Apps Teach Colleges a Thing or Two:
(S)tudents are showing up the universities that trained them by producing faster, easier-to-navigate, more informative and generally just better versions of the information systems at the heart of undergraduate life.
Students now arriving for fall semester may find course catalogs that they can instantly sort and re-sort according to every imaginable search criteria. Scheduling programs that allow someone to find the 47 different classes that meet Thursdays at 8:30 p.m., then narrow them down to those that have no prerequisites, then narrow again to those that count toward requirements in two majors. Or apps that allow you to see what courses your friends are considering, or figure out who has the same free periods that you do, or plot the quickest route between two far-flung classrooms.
But this culture of innovation has accelerated debates about the flow of information on campus, and forced colleges to reckon with some unexpected results of the programming skills they are imparting.
Seeing the initiative is great, terrific and wonderful. Watching them struggle with information access is rather understandable. The really sharp ones will work around it all. And some of them will probably get very, very rich.
Here’s a little PR piece that points out that paying attention to social media pays off. Just ask the airlines! Southwest Airlines’ new listening center making an immediate mark makes perfect sense. You’ll wonder why more shops aren’t doing the same thing.
