meetings, meetings, meetings
it's not just UVA. There are meetings at sea too. Crazy. Back-to-back-to-back today. You'd think I hadn't left Grounds. We had a morning meeting to introduce all of the support services and so Sherri & I did a library song and dance, which was well-received. Faculty seem very impressed with all of the UVA services & support. I've had a number of faculty that don't seem to believe that we really would have done scanning for them from just a citation list. We have to figure out how to get that across better. I had thought we made that clear, but I don't think the faculty really trusted it. I'll definitely leave David Gies & Jean with that one to ponder for the summer voyage. I'm having a great time working directly with the faculty. It's been a long time since I've done that kind of front-line support and I'm really enjoying it.
Then, we had a number of faculty meetings & a field trip meeting about the trips & roles & responsibilities of the trip leader. Including how to navigate the first aid kit. I seemed to be assigned as trip leader for two trips that I definitely don't recall volunteering to be trip leader for. I'm still pondering this one. One is the safari, which is deeply discounted (50%) if I lead it (definitely attractive), but not sure I really want to be in charge of a 20-some undergrads for a 4-day safari trip ...
We learned a bit about the community today: we have 702 students, 27 faculty, 35 staff, 17 life-long learners, and a good handful of spouses/children. We even have a 7-month old baby. We are officially a full ship. The average GPA for the students is 3.25. University of Colorado-Boulder is sending the most students (70), with a few other institutions ranking high (none of which currently includes UVA). A number of staff have UVA connections, undergrad degrees, graduate degrees, etc., but I am the only staff. I have met several folks who are from the Philadelphia area, including a couple from Belmont Hills who was quite amused to learn that I went to elementary school there.
We had a textbook meeting where we learned how we interface with the bookstore folks and we got ISE to agree to allow us to ship the textbooks that the library has for reserve back with the store's buy-backs at the end of the semester. That seemed like happy news. Also, after a meeting earlier in the week, ISE is now considering selling travel guides through the UVA Bookstore with the pre-ordered textbooks, where students could order them in advance and have them delivered magically to their cabins. No packing in their luggage. This would help the library as well.
The new library catalog system is still a no-go. Lots of people are banging their heads against walls on my behalf -- Kenny, the crew's IT system manager, Sal, from ISE, Jim Jokl from UVA -- but it's definitely worrisome.
That's all the news fit to print in libraryland. Sherri & I went into Nassau for dinner with an anthropology professor named Gloria & ate at a lovely Thai restaurant. The restaurant we originally wanted to go to was closed because Prince Edward was arriving for a 50th anniversary celebration of a Nassau bank. We saw him get out of the car but I didn't get any good photos. We walked around a bit and then came back to the ship. Tomorrow, we anchor out a ways so that another ship can come into port, but we're back at port around 3:00, so I'm hoping to get away for a little while and walk around some more. Seems I should find a beach. We have a bunch more orientation meetings in the morning and our workstudy students arrive in the evening.
I've added some photos to the map above. 'Night.
