UMass Moving Forward

Yesterday, we visited the Peace Pagoda. I probably haven't been there for a couple of years. The trees are taller (it used to be possible to look out and see UMass), there are more benches by the pond, and the old foundations of the building that burned down have been converted to a rock garden, but the place is otherwise untouched by the span of years. The boys enjoyed looking for frogs and tadpoles -- there were several different kinds of tadpoles. Charlie spotted some newts in the pond as well. Jackie and I wore our malas and I brought my staff. The weather was beautiful.

In the morning, I attended a meeting to set the agenda for the continued general faculty meeting on Thursday. Last night, there was encouraging news that UMass will be considered by the Governor's task force on education. Tomorrow morning is the Board of Trustees meeting followed by our press conference and then the general faculty meeting. They had just announced their own commission, but we'll see whether they try to follow through with it tomorrow. We need to keep the pressure on. My contribution was a call for an ad hoc committee on university system governance that can begin doing the research we'll need to have in place to understand what a reorganization might result in and to monitor whatever commission -- or commissions -- are driving a reorganization.