[Vision2020] The UI Friday Letter for October 26, 2007

[Tom Hansen]

Copied and pasted below is the UI Friday Letter for October 26, 2007 from UI
President Tim White.

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University of Idaho
Office of the President
Moscow, Idaho 83844-3151
Phone: 208-885-6365
Fax: 208-885-6558

The Friday Letter
A Newsletter for University of Idaho Alumni and Friends Oct. 26, 2007

Dear Friends,

Last week, I reported on the sound financial health of the University of
Idaho and how it has enabled us to move ahead on a number of critical
capital improvement and energy savings initiatives. This is a time of great
potential for us - potential for even greater leadership by the people,
programs and place that are the University of Idaho. By the way, though our
carbon emissions are estimated to decrease by a very substantial 12.2
thousand tons annually through our energy savings plans, this is not the
staggeringly high number (12.2 million tons) that several sharp-eyed readers
questioned! Thank you for doing so. 
       
This week, we had understandable but disappointing news about our plans for
a University of Idaho Sandpoint campus. The Wild Rose Foundation, our
partner in the development, placed the project on hold due to financial
considerations brought on by the volatile national economy. Indeed, one can
view this as a bittersweet occurrence. The disappointment arises from having
to delay the increased opportunity this campus will provide for current and
future faculty and students. The positive aspect is the transparent and
deliberative process that we undertook internally and with University of
Idaho's Board of Regents. Our careful process and planning enabled the
University to incur minimal actual, out-of-pocket costs - our costs to date
principally have been in the form of staff time and associated travel
expenses. None of the university's financial, real or capital assets were
placed at risk. Kudos to our legal affairs and finance staffs for their good
work...we will continue to pu!
 rsue big
reams at the University of Idaho, but we always will do so in a prudent and
responsible manner.

We are confident that our work will resume at the appropriate time, and
we're grateful that existing University of Idaho programs in Sandpoint,
including our new Executive MBA program, are unaffected. Dennis Pence,
director of the nonprofit, charitable Wild Rose Foundation, expressed his
continued, unqualified support for the plans and said he looks forward "to
putting the project back on track as soon as the asset base improves."
Dennis's vision for creating educational opportunities in northern Idaho
resonates with the university's mission. Our faculty and staff have been
engaged in innovative planning and curriculum development for this new
campus, and we will be well positioned when the project continues.

A wonderful conference took place this past Friday on the Moscow campus that
I am delighted to say will become an annual event. The University of Idaho
Women's Center and Athena, our professional women's organization, hosted the
Women's Leadership Conference: Exploring Your World, Charting Your Future.
This workshop is but one of several new initiatives under the rubric of
"professional development" that support progress in Goal Four (the
"Organization, Culture and Climate goal) of our innovative and well-regarded
Strategic Action Plan. The day's workshops, networking opportunities and
guest speakers brought together several hundred women in higher education -
students, staff and faculty - to explore the worlds of work, career and
life, and issues of equity, diversity and leadership. I am proud to support
this and future Women's Leadership Conferences, and I'm grateful for the
long and important work of the members of Athena and the Women's Center.

Tim White
President

Here's the latest news from the University of Idaho:

The University's Dance Theatre will perform its main-stage concert "Moveable
Feasts" on Friday and Saturday, November 2 and 3, at 7:30 p.m., in the
Hartung Theatre on the University of Idaho campus. The concert will
highlight choreography from faculty, guest artists and advanced dance
majors, and include winners of the "So You Think You Can Dance Idaho?"
competition. Also, the National Endowment for the Arts has awarded a $10,000
grant to Greg Halloran, associate professor of dance at the University of
Idaho. The grant will support the reconstruction of Arnie Zane's and Bill T.
Jones' work, "Continuous Replay" and its performance next year in Dance
Theatre's 2008 Fall Concert.

Julie Fodor, director of the Center on Disabilities and Human Development,
has been elected to serve on the National Board of Directors for the
Association of University Centers on Disabilities. The association supports
and promotes a national network of university-based interdisciplinary
programs, leadership programs and Developmental Disability Research centers.
These programs serve as a bridge between universities and communities to
achieve meaningful change in systems, policy and application of knowledge to
improve lives of people with disabilities and their families.

The McCall Outdoor Science School (MOSS) has received a $60,000 grant from
the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation to support a two-year project that will
develop assessment tools for MOSS K-12 science programs. The only
residential, environmental science education center in Idaho, MOSS is
operated through a partnership between the College of Natural Resources, the
Palouse-Clearwater Environmental Institute and Ponderosa State Park. The
assessment project will help schools see how the innovative methods used at
MOSS, like inquiry-based and hands-on learning, contribute to achievement.
Since its founding in 2001, MOSS programs have engaged more than 5,000 Idaho
K-12 students and more than 65 Idaho graduate students in inquiry-based
outdoor science learning.

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Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

Came a tribe from the north brave and bold . . .

"Here We Have Idaho"
http://www.tomandrodna.com/HWHI.mp3

"I-D-A-H-O Idaho Idaho Go Go Go"
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