This week was not as quiet and uneventful as I expected it to be - lots of activities ramping up for the new academic year - not least of which is the arrival of a new cohort of students - a total of 54, I think - 15 PhD students, 38 Climate and Society and one Earth and Environmental Science Journalism. I met with them briefly on Wednesday - they filled every seat in the Comer Seminar room. Meeting with them was a great way to start the new year.
A couple of 'Save-the-dates' that are particularly worthy of mention.
This year's Jardetzky lecturer is Penny Chisholm from MIT. Her title is "Too small to see, too big to ignore: What Prochlorococcus has taught me about life and the ocean". Friday October 2nd at 330pm in Monell. Penny will be here only briefly but if you would like to meet with her, let Bev know and we will see if we can arrange a reasonable
schedule.
Another very special event will take up the whole of the afternoon on Friday October 23rd - a celebration of Bill Ryan's long and illustrious career here at Lamont. We have a number of great speakers - both from inside and outside Lamont - who will talk about their research and how it has been influenced by Bill's work.
I do not know how widely circulated Steve Cohen's announcement earlier this week was - announcing the availability of temporary work space in Hogan Hall on the Morningside Campus - you need to reserve in advance, but if you are stuck downtown for a few hours in between meetings the Earth Institute is now making available somewhere for you to work with
workstations and internet access - this a great new resource for us. Contact Hilary Dewhurst hdewhurst@ei.columbia.edu at 212-854-3893 or Judy Jamal jjamal@ei.columbia.edu at 212-854-3830 to schedule any of the spaces.
Next week will be interesting - our Office of Marine Operations is being subjected to a 'Business System Review' by NSF. The actual 'review' will take place next year, but to prepare for it a group of NSF folks are visiting us for three days next week. Needless to say, Edie and I are really looking forward to this...
Have a great long weekend,
- Mike