We received a second piece of good news this week - from NIST to whom we submitted a $1.5M proposal for Federal Stimulus funds to complete the ultra clean lab in Comer - we have reached the second round of the review process in this competition too. So there will be a lot of crossed fingers around here over the next few weeks.
The new Dean of the School of Engineering, Feniosky Pena-Mora, spent a few hours here on Monday and we had many good discussions about opportunities to further grow the existing strong bonds that we have between our respective organizations. Thanks to the many who helped make this a successful visit.
I hosted a lunch on Thursday to celebrate the tenth anniversaries at Columbia of 18 folks on the Campus, 7 from IRI, 5 from CIESIN and 6 from Lamont - the Lamonters were Cathy Troutman, Spahr Webb, Pat Temple, Bonnie Bonkowski, Trevor Williams, Suzana Camargo. How could Lamont possibly have survived the past ten years without these six fine folks?
Those of us who spend large amounts of time in DC have been lobbying CU leadership for sometime to increase the University's presence down there and provide more support for our efforts to bring wisdom to federal decisions about how to spend the tax payers money in the support of basic research. I am very pleased to report that the University has hired a new full time person to focus upon this task as well as securing the services of a high-level consulting company with expertise in DC advocacy. This could be progress.
The sun is supposed to shine, so have a great weekend,
Mike