Despite having a short week because of the Thanksgiving holiday, it was jammed packed with activities. As has been the case for the last few weeks, we had several faculty candidates interviewing and visiting with members of the School of Law community. In addition, on Monday I had the opportunity to meet with Dr. Mark Cochran, director of the American Association of Engineering Societies and associate vice-president for agricultural research, and Dr. Ivory Liles, associate vice-president for agricultural extension. I very much enjoyed their overview of the Division, and appreciated them taking time from their busy schedules share that information with Associate Dean Kilpatrick and myself. We were able to think of ways in which the School of Law and the agricultural division could cooperate more to both units’ benefit, and we’re looking forward to following up with Drs. Cochran and Liles in January to flesh out those ideas. It was a very productive meeting, and again, my thanks to them for coming to visit with us.
Monday was also our staff Thanksgiving potluck, unfortunately I wasn’t able to attend, but I’m sure that a good time was had by all. By all accounts, the meal was delicious. There was pork loin along with all the traditional fixin’s and lots of dessert. There certainly weren’t many leftovers. It’s great that the Law School staff had such a great time.
Monday evening I went down to the Town Center where Mayor Dan Coody announced this was his last term in office and that he was not going to run for re-election. He also talked at great lengths about the contributions and accomplishments of the City of Fayetteville staff. After attending that event, it’s clear that we really do have hard working, capable and competent staff running the City of Fayetteville. Thanks to Mayor Coody for all his work to date—we’ll certainly miss him. Following that event, I went to the Law Review pizza party at U.S. Pizza where Suzanne Clark and Ryan Ray thanked all the members of the Law Review for their hard work in getting issues to press. Thanks also to Don Judges, Kim Coats, Carl Circo, Scott and Ami Dodson, Tim Tarvin and Angie Doss for attending. I know that both the members of the Law Review and I appreciated them being there.
In addition to interviewing a faculty candidate visit on Tuesday (as well as class), I was able to spend some quiet time that evening with Ray Niblock, class of 1993, who cooked a lovely dinner (steak, salad and broccoli) and graciously provided some downtime. That quiet dinner allowed us to catch up and was wonderful. Thank you very much, Ray. It was great to see you and visit with you.
Wednesday was a very slow day around here. We operated with just about a skeleton crew. The highlight of the day was being able to go to lunch with alumnus Melissa Lee. Melissa graduated in 1998, and it was great to catch up with her on all the new things happening in her life. She is going to be serving in Afghanistan next year and talked about what her duties there will entail. We ate at Emilia’s and I had salmon with tabouli. It was a relaxing middle of the day. Then I was off to the office again to finish up some correspondence before beginning the holiday. I hope that everyone was able to have a warm, safe and joyful Thanksgiving! Hopefully everyone had an opportunity decompress and enjoy the love and laughter of friends and family.
Nancecy 