mid-week reality check

Nope, not much reality here–but what a week!!!

Weather Report

No reality in this backpack:

Backpack on Lemon Creek Glacier

Or anywhere up here we could find:

Unloading Running Helicopter

Or down here by Mendenhall Lake (Torsten at the small swimming pond on the side of Mendenhall Lake), after swimming for a while on the nice sunny afternoon (too much sun for the camera to get a good picture!).

From Swimming Mendenhall

Oh, a little more non-reality from the Weather Service:

Record high reached Wednesday in Juneau, another record could be in store today
The record high temperature for the date yesterday was tied.

Here’s Meteorologist Corey Van Pelt in the Juneau Forecast Office says it hit 79 degrees at 4:46 p.m.

That matches the high reached in 1954.

Another record could be in store for today.

The high today is forecast to range between the upper 70’s and low 80’s. The record for this date is 80 which was also set in 1954.

Life and Times at UAS

This is the latest UAS article in today’s Juneau paper.

I think it does actually give a reasonable view of life and times at UAS. The university environment here is not just “lack of support for research”, which would be frustrating enough, but it is actually distracting from our efforts to grow an integrated, predominantly undergrad environment built on place-based interdisciplinary research programs. It is really too bad–there is so much potential here..

There are a few details I’d quibble with–the no confidence against Chancellor Pugh is currently tabled in Senate (there hasn’t been a vote on the motion), the senate resolutions weren’t “asking for a larger role in governance of the university”–it asked to recognize and practice shared governance as laid out in the UAS faculty constitution (signed by the current Chancellor when it was adopted in ~2003).

The contrast over the latest Dean search is “interesting” (“the search panel was unhappy with the candidates.” vs “all of the finalists withdrew“)

And unfortunately, the Chancellor says “we don’t have large research labs”–what a missed opportunity, because we do have great research labs! Three of ’em: the Juneau Icefield, The Tongass National Forest, and the Pacific Ocean/Inside Passage…

And here are a few photos of us at work in the lab yesterday–thanks Ayanna!

From Mendenhall Glacier Divide

From Mendenhall Glacier Divide

(and the whole (5 pictures so far!) album)..