The President’s Blog

On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918, Germany signed an armistice with the rest of the western world to end the “Great War” or World War I as it came to be known. Thereafter, the day, November 11, was observed as an unofficial holiday to recognize veterans of WWI, and it was made an official state and federal holiday in 1938: “a day to be dedicated to the cause of world peace and to be thereafter celebrated and known as ‘Armistice Day.”
In 1954, by act of Congress, Armistice Day was expanded to include all veterans of all wars and the name of the holiday was changed to Veterans Day.
With American engaged in two active wars, Veterans Day takes on even more importance as our students and employees return from military service to take on their place in society as civilians once again. I am deeply grateful for the sacrifices they have made and believe that we are a better world for their willingness to serve our great country.

Two weeks ago, I made a pilgrimage that I have wanted to make for almost 40 years–I went to Canterbury Cathedral. As an undergraduate major in English, I had studied Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in Middle English and, of course, the Tales are about the lives of pilgrims who are going to Canterbury Cathedral to visit the site of the murder of Thomas Becket who was killed by knights of King Henry II.
Despite many trips to Great Britain over the years, I had never visited this historic site. Well, it was worth the wait. Canterbury Cathedral is still drawing pilgrims from all over the world. It is one of the most beautiful cathedrals in Great Britain and it is an active church. The site of Beckett’s murder by the knights is marked by a special altar and the chapels of the cathedral are as wonderful as any I have ever seen.
This is one of the special places in the history of the western world, and I am fortunate to have had the opportunity to visit there.

It only took a casual remark in my office to set off several reminders of how old I am. Passing by a candy dish (why do we do this to ourselves) I made the comment “Do you have any Squirrel Nut Zippers?”. It was as if I had asked if there were poodles in the puddles or some other nonsensical thing.

Only 50 years ago, in my hometown, that would have been a very sensible question to ask, as Squirrel Nut Zippers, BB Bats, and Zagnuts were popular candies that would have been a welcome addition to any candy dish. Apparently, not anymore. Time has moved on and so have the candy choices. It is hard for me to get excited about Chocolate Pop Rocks, Bratz Candy Star Dust, Sour Patch Xploderz, and Chewy Atomic Fireballs.
In the end though, as good as the banana BB Bats are, the Squirrel Nut Zipper has to be my favorite. Chewy caramel, nuts, and that little wrapper that always seemed to be a little oily–yum yum.

Mast General Store still carries the great old traditional candies in case you are looking for some special treats.

Ron Kesterson was part of a visiting SACS team to a college in northern Kentucky last month. He reports that they have a very interesting approach to security on their campus. They use no security guards at all. The security of the campus is monitored by a team of faculty and staff who meet periodically to review and update emergency plans. Parking on the campus is all “open” so no parking tickets are ever necessary.
In case of emergency, every faculty, staff, and student knows to dial “911″.
Ron tells me that each SACS team member was instructed by the chairperson to ask faculty, staff, and students at the college how they felt about the security arrangements. They all reported that security was good and they felt no need for security guards to patrol the buildings.
It seems that this is an idea worth pursuing. Rather than spend hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to provide security and parking enforcers, we might be better off to open our parking and to spend that money on something more important. I’ll be taking a look at that college and getting feedback from the president there about how it all works. We may have an opportunity to try it in the future.

Last weekend’s balloon festival was a tremendous success for Pellissippi State. I don’t think that I could have asked for a better event for our college and community than the one that Pat Myers and her team produced last week. The weather cooperated just enough for the pilots to stage the “glow” around the pond on both nights which means that people went away happy each night.

This event is successful because of the tremendous support we get from volunteers–both community volunteers and college volunteers. Without them, this festival would not be possible. We tried to make it easier on volunteers this year by doing away with the children’s area “inflatables” and I believe that this was a good decision. It took an incredible number of volunteers to staff that area, and it was a very stressful job. This year, we used fewer volunteers, and they had easier jobs for the most part. I think everyone left tired but happy with their contributions to the success of the event.

The event has been good for my family as well. This year I had family drive over from Charleston SC and from St. Simons Island GA to enjoy the festival. We all had a grand time reacquainting ourselves and talking about the relatives who were not here. I hope everyone had a great time. We can continue as long as our pilots and our volunteers stay with us.

Picnic Video

The International Student picnic was a great success. Many thanks to the Rotary Club of Knoxville for their continued support of this event. The students played lots of volleyball, many went kayaking and canoeing, and everyone ate a lot. An excellent turnout of students, faculty, staff, and Rotarians.

The painting of our former dog Ollie is by faculty member Gay Bryant. Ollie lived 18 years with us and it was a difficult relationship at times. As one guest told me after Ollie had herded up all the children in the backyard into a tight circle, “Ollie barks to a different moon.” Gay captured his intelligent, good side.

I’ve often suspected that Ollie, after we “put him to sleep” inspired Billy Collins to write this poem.

The Revenant by Billy Collins

I am the dog you put to sleep,
as you like to call the needle of oblivion,
come back to tell you this simple thing:
I never liked you–not one bit.

When I licked your face,
I thought of biting off your nose.
When I watched you toweling yourself dry,
I wanted to leap and unman you with a snap.

I resented the way you moved,
your lack of animal grace,
the way you would sit in a chair and eat,
a napkin on your lap, knife in your hand.

I would have run away,
but I was too weak, a trick you taught me
while I was learning to sit and heel,
and–greatest of insults–shake hands without a hand.

I admit the sight of the leash
would excite me
but only because it meant I was about
to smell things you had never touched.

You do not want to believe this,
but I have no reason to lie.
I hated the car, the rubber toys,
disliked your friends and, worse, your relatives.

The jingling of my tags drove me mad.
You always scratched me in the wrong place.
All I ever wanted from you
was food and fresh water in my metal bowls.

While you slept, I watched you breathe
as the moon rose in the sky.
It took all my strength
not to raise my head and howl.

Now I am free of the collar,
the yellow raincoat, monogrammed sweater,
the absurdity of your lawn,
and that is all you need to know about this place

except what you already supposed
and are glad it did not happen sooner–
that everyone here can read and write,
the dogs in poetry, the cats and the others in prose.

Pellissippi State faculty and staff process to the annual President’s Convocation on September 5, 2008. What a treat it was to hear from Associate Professor Sue Yamin as she told of her very personal experiences in Iran. This was a great start to our academic year and we are fortunate to have such great faculty members on our campus. Cut and paste this link to see more photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pstcc-ets/s…

It has been said before, but I couldn’t be prouder of our Pellissippi State team than now. We faced a “perfect storm” this semester with Banner looming over us along with the redesign of Developmental Studies, the addition of “confirmation testing” and a new Vice President for Student Success and Enrollment Management. The storm passed with very little damage done. In fact, I think this was our smoothest, best organized process that we have ever developed.
My thanks to all of you who made this such a successful start. Dr. Ashford has made a great start in her career at Pellissippi State. She and the members of her teams were much more patient than I could have been as they helped late arrivals find their way through our system. In addition, Dr. Wise and his team were everywhere filling in gaps, putting in advisors when we needed extra help, and monitoring everything very closely.
Once again,

The Business Office and Financial Aid worked overtime to provide the best service they possibly could at this time, and the Physical plant, Security, and Information Services were all on hand to make this year a very good one for us all.
I am very proud to be president of this college and am deeply grateful to you all for that you have accomplished this year.

Lisa Bogaty sent me an article about new devices being developed for use in the near future. I sent it to Mark Milliron as she requested but thought others might be interested in this as well. Here’s the link:
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