Congrats. And good luck with the owl suit in the heat.

Yeah, it was nice and toasty warm in the “owl suit.” Particularly when we had to stand outside in the 100-degree heat after the convocation…

Unfortunately, I have an off campus meeting during today’s convocation (when we don our owl suits). It’ll be the first one I’ve missed since I got here. It’s quite nice really. At the end of convocation, the president leads a procession of the “owl suited” faculty out of the auditorium followed by the 1100 or so freshmen, who are all wearing their blue t-shirts given to them at orientation, onto the front lawn where campus clubs and organizations, local businesses, local churches, etc, have set up tables where the students can get information.

Obviously this wouldn’t work at a much larger institution. BTW, although our colors are garnet and gold, the “blue line” comes from the late 1800s (when we were a women’s only institution) and each Sunday morning, the university president would lead the women of the university, dressed in their predominantly blue uniforms, down the street toward the center of town where the women would slowly exit the line as it passed “their” church. The locals dubbed this the “blue line.”

And I borrowed liberally from your “class rules/procedures” for my syllabi this semester.

We probably could have done something similar here… leading the freshmen over to the student center or something. Instead we lined up facing each other like soldiers at an officer’s wedding or something; it was a little bizarre.

“lined up facing each other like soldiers at an officer’s wedding ”

There’s a joke in there somewhere about swatting bottoms with your saber, but I’m not touching (the joke OR your “saber”!!!!)