The week began with an interesting day over in Lamont Hall spent discussing marine mammal research priorities and opportunities with a group from NSF and the oil industry. We met Jim Holik (a Lamont graduate - Phil Rabinowitz
student) who has taken the critically important program manager position at NSF that used to be Sandy Shor. He will be the key contact for us in the future for running Langseth science operations.
On Monday I also met with the CU Senate sub committee on Officers of Research to talk about our Research Professor plan - that was also a very useful and constructive meeting.
But today - Friday - has been something of a disaster. We had to cancel an important and long-awaited visit to the Campus by CU Executive Vice President for Communications, as well as the Friday Colloquium, though quick-thinking
Jason Smerdon rescheduled that for a Morningside venue - which I sincerely hope was successful.
It was a difficult decision at 6am this morning - determining whether the snow was bad enough to justify closure. Closing the campus creates such havoc. The determining factor in the end (besides all the accidents and blocked roads) was concerns about folks getting stranded out here. We do not control the bus drivers - they can decide at any time that the road conditions are unsafe and shut down (and of course that makes sense). With the predictions for worsening conditions we were concerned that if we pushed the bus company to start the shuttle service and then they shut down, we would have folks sleeping in Lamont Hall...
I have been here all day - it has been nice and quiet!! Only the sound of Dick Greco and his crew doing their usually excellent job of keeping our roads clear.
With luck this will be the last snow fall of the year...
I am out of the office essentially all next week - an EI retreat and then three days in DC - doing the rounds at NSF, on Capitol Hill and a day long Board of Trustees meeting for Ocean Leadership Inc.
Have a good weekend,
Mike