Monday, December 9, 2013

Building Community - Great Reindeer Seminar at the Isenberg School

Today UMass Amherst, because of the ice, did not open until noon and final exams had to be rescheduled, some of which will start at 8:45 PM tonight.

Somehow some of us still managed this morning to make it to a faculty candidate seminar over in Engineering and the presentation was worth it!

During this time of the year, we are reminded of the communities that we belong to -- from our neighborhoods to various professional societies to the places that we work at and the organizations that we support.

On November 25, I took part at TEDx UMass in its Professor Speaker Showcase and I have written several posts since then about the event and some of the speakers.

Dr. Pierre Rouzier's presentation at TEDx UMass continues to resonate with me. He is the Team Physician at UMass Amherst and has volunteered at 5 Boston Marathons, including last year's one on April 15, at which the horrific bombings took place. The New York Times recently had an article on how it may be advisable for medical professionals to go in early at points of attack and, as many ran away, Dr. Rouzier ran towards the victims of the marathon bombings.The Daily Hampshire Gazette had a moving article on Dr. Rouzier's heroism.

He stated in his TEDx talk that "UMass is his Community." And he has traveled far and wide not only with UMass sports teams that he avidly supports, treats, and heals, but also to Haiti.

Today, we had our Reindeer Seminar, which is an end of the Fall semester celebration that takes place in our lovely Isenberg School of Management atrium. We celebrated with great food and cameraderie plus the giving out of staff awards. I took the photos below, beginning, of course, with the dessert table.

A fabulous time was had by all and we received great fortification for the final exams and subsequent grading this week.Such special events bring us together and help to build communities.