MyLynn “votes” are coming in fast and furious
We’re only 3 days into our weeklong myLynn awareness effort and I need to say publicly that I am so thrilled by the response. Everyone – and I do mean everyone from students to staff to faculty to even our own CIO – has been more than willing to stop and take 30 seconds to fill out our ballots, even proudly wearing the “I voted for myLynn” sticker. Considering we’re in their face and cornering them as they hurry to lunch or class, they have been gracious and willing participants. So, I’m thanking everyone here in advance. And a shout out to some of our myLynn fans I didn’t even know we had – professor Jill Levenson said she “loves” myLynn and student Dan Hennessey says he reads it all!
We’ll be around for a few more days donning our “Vote for myLynn” T-shirts and urging you to cast your ballots – and then we promise to leave you alone while we go about the business of pouring and sifting through the results. Our Discovery Phase is almost behind us, what with this massive voting week and the various sessions we’ve had with student and staff groups. We are hearing you all loud and clear; we will take it all in and process it.
As we go about the business of redoing, rebuilding, redesigning – whatever you want to call it – know that you have played an important role. Also, please feel free to offer input, feedback or ask questions at any time.
One final note: During a lunch session on myLynn with our student bloggers, they wondered aloud why our blog – Knight Writer – was able to commandeer such prime real estate on the Home page now. What about them? They are still relegated to the black hole of the Community tab (hey, I’m just saying it as I hear it). We are working on getting them more front and center, so if you do not regularly read their blogs you should. They’re awesome!
Big news about big bucks (and a few more details about that soccer stadium)
At the State of the University on Wednesday, the big news was all about the big bucks– a recent $1 million anonymous gift to the university for a soccer stadium and the $45,000-plus savings possible for those students selected for Lynn’s new 3-year degree program. As the Sun-Sentinel’s Scott Travis reported, the Lynn Degree 3.0 initiative “will start next school year and will be available to freshmen who receive at least a 3.0 grade point average their fall semester and maintain or improve their GPA during the spring semester.”
Exciting stuff. And the 3.0 marketing materials are already moving. The table tent above will be going on the road with Lynn’s admissions officers beginning immediately. (That’s our Lynn design team, Andreia Brunstein and Shaun Aaron in the background.)
As for the soccer stadium, here are a few more details you didn’t hear about Wednesday. The site selected for such a facility is the current intramural field (west of the deHoernle Center) and is expected – according to our most recent athletics master plan – to have approximately 1,000 seats.
Last but not least in this rundown of State of the U news: if you were at the fourth annual address by Dr. Ross, you saw the person below snapping pictures from a variety of angles. Some of those pics have been loaded to our Facebook page. And the photographer? None other than CIC grad and master’s student (and marketing photographer!) Carolina Gonzalez. The photographer on this blurry shot? Me. Yes… that’s why we have Carolina shoot the important stuff!
Vote for tomorrow’s myLynn today
Marketing is jumping on the awareness week bandwagon. Everyone else is having one; why not us? So, it’s official: the week of Oct. 26-30 is myLynn Awareness Week. What the heck is that, you might ask. As many of you already know, my “partner in crime” and fellow blogger, Jason Hughes, and I have been combing the Lynn community looking for feedback – about, you guessed it – myLynn. So, armed with a Napoleon Dynamite-ish election theme, we’ll be set up at tables each day (in various locations) to solicit your feedback. We want you to want us (a la Cheap Trick), and we want myLynn to be yourLynn, so help us out. You can fill out a ballot and vote for your favorite features, and/or you can stop by our table and play with our dot stickers Gensler style; and as a thank you and in celebration of upcoming Halloween, we’ll even have some treats – but no tricks, we promise.
Here’s where we’ll be and when:
* Monday, Oct. 26, Student Center lobby, 11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
* Tuesday, Oct. 27, Student Center lobby, 12:30 – 1:30 p.m.
* Tuesday, Oct. 27, Ritter courtyard, 5:30-6:30 p.m.
* Wednesday, Oct. 28, Student Center lobby, 12 – 1 p.m.
* Thursday, Oct. 29, Assaf courtyard, 10-11 a.m.
* Thursday, Oct. 29, Assaf courtyard, 5:30-6:30 p.m.
* Friday, Oct. 30, Library fountain area, 11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Stop by!
Brrrrrrr… baby it’s cold outside – and in
Well, finally … the 90-degree heat wave has broken. I heard on the Weather Channel (one of my favorite stations) that we had more than 15 days in a row of temperatures in the upper 90s, making it an unusually hot October, not to mention the heat and humidity of the last 6 months. So, temperatures over the weekend plummeted to the mid 50s at night. That may not sound like frigid air to the average, hearty Midwesterner, but to us, it’s plenty cold: cause for celebration for some (open the windows, break out those flannel shirts!) and chattering teeth for others.
I guess it takes awhile for our buildings on campus to catch up to this sudden seasonal temperature change, cause the a/c is still cranking away. In our staff meeting today, it was interesting to note the various forms of winter dress – sweaters, scarves, closed-toe shoes, and my favorite (below). Love the look!
So, is it cold enough for you – outside and/or in?
Little LU in danger!
*WARNING* – Contents of this blog post may be disturbing to our more sensitive readers. Please view at your own risk.
For those of you who missed it, Little LU, our small but significant, tiny but tough face of Lynn University – and the smaller sidekick to “Big LU,” the taller but softer Lynn mascot, has been getting himself into some sticky situations lately…
In fact, earlier this year Little LU got kidnapped for, as his assailants say, “too much traveling and well… just being a celebrity really. If you are willing to pay the ransom we might be willing to provide proof of life.”
These evil-doers were no match for our little guy. LU easily escaped the rubber band that held him captive for only a few short days.
He may be strong and tough, but he’s still not staying out of trouble. There have been reports of Little LU nearly drowning in the bottom of a lake during the Adirondack Experience and others have reported seeing LU decapitated after one of his wild adventures.
All I know, is that Little LU needs to start playing it safe and being more careful during his world-wide travels.
Have your own Little LU adventure story? Please share below!
Look what the Internet “killed”
London’s Telegraph newspaper recently took a look at the way we work, play and even think; and in the process came up with a list of 10 traditions the Internet has “killed.” Very interesting …
Here are some (the snide comments are mine): letter writing (an obvious one, what with e-mail and all); telephone directories (you know that big, fat book with the teeny, tiny print?); music stores (can you say download?); photo albums (the kind where you take the printed photos and put them in between the clear, sticky sheets); newspapers (I’ve already said enough about that one); memory (who needs to remember anything when you can Google); and my favorite … doing nothing (even when walking down the street, people are checking iPhones, texting, etc.; it’s hard to “stop and smell the roses” when you do that)
Since this topic was right up my alley (being the “back in the day” girl and all), I thought up some others … encyclopedias and library card catalogues (have all but gone away with the advent of Google); video stores (not when you don’t have to leave home to get a video – or more importantly bring it back); bills (paying online means never having to hunt around for a stamp); shopping (again, you don’t have to leave the house with Amazon, eBay and dozens of other online sources available); sending greeting cards (have you seen the prices of one lousy, little card lately – $3.99!); the post office (just recently in the news about all the closings, since clearly nobody is sending those obsolete letters or bills through snail mail anymore); getting directions (that’s what MapQuest is for); dating (meet the love of your life online); and spelling/grammar (what happened to the English language anyway? how r u?).
All that doesn’t even take into consideration all the social media by products of the Internet i.e. mySpace, Facebook, Twitter, blogs, etc. Now I’m not saying we revert back to the way we were, but it is sure does bring to light just how much the “times they are a changin’.” (If you don’t recognize the lyrics, Google it!)
Anyway, you get the idea; can you come up with any others?
Performing Arts Center getting all dressed up
The rough edges are quickly getting smoothed out over at the Wold PAC. The first coat of external paint is on, the framing for the sweeping front entrance is complete and the windows are also appearing. It’s finally starting to look like the renderings.
Size matters … when it comes to advising and parking
It’s true. Size DOES matter, and in this case, small is good. I’m talking about Lynn, of course. This weekend, two articles in the Sun-Sentinel caught my attention. (Yes, I still read that antiquated relic they drop on my driveway every day, called a newspaper.)
The first article titled, “Long line to get college advice,” talked about the ratio of advisors to students at some of our Florida universities. The standard ratio, it says, is 300-to-1, and at the school just “across the street” from us – FAU – it’s a whopping, 1,332-to-1. Can you imagine? Not much individualized attention there. Clearly we have a distinct advantage with an advising ratio of approximately 25-to-1. Granted we are not a big state school, but it’s just another great plus at Lynn, where “individualized” is one of our hallmark strengths.
In the second article, “FAU students to stage protest about parking,” it says parking at FAU has become “so scarce that students are holding a protest on Tuesday, saying they can’t make it to class on time.” It was also mentioned that some schools are offering valet service (FIU); and at UF most students aren’t allowed to park on the central part of campus until they’ve earned 120 credit hours!
Here at Lynn, I know that parking is a hot issue and most students and employees, if asked, would say we have a parking “problem,” but compared to these larges universities, our “hike” across campus is much more like a walk in the park. You can really get anywhere on foot in just 10 minutes. Now, during our fast-moving rain deluges or our Sahara-like scorching heat, it can be a bit uncomfortable and inconvenient, but you’re not exactly walking a marathon.
So, Lynn’s small class size and small campus hopefully cut down on those big headaches. What do you think?
Animal Kingdom’s got nothing on us
My esteemed colleague has written recently about an on campus frog migration. And we all contend daily with the roving packs of squirrels. But today I discovered signs of something else (I think) on our beautiful – and woodland creature-friendly – campus.
Budding naturalists help me out. What was this creature walking the steps of the Schmidt building?
Seeing PINK – here, there and everywhere
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and it seems like the whole world has gone pink – from clothing to computers; cookware to cereal boxes; to, well, just about anything. No inanimate object is immune to turning pink these days. But now, football?
Have you seen the games lately? NFL football players and teams are sporting pink on towels, patches, jerseys, caps, fields, and anything else they can think of. Even the referees are sporting pink wristbands to go along with their requisite stripes, and sports announcers are wearing pink ribbons on their lapels. This “pink” breast cancer awareness campaign knows no boundaries. And I mean that in the nicest way possible, and from a marketing perspective it’s definitely a “touchdown.”
Speaking of pink – I mean breast cancer – last year, over 200 Lynn staffers and students volunteered and helped to raise over $350,000 for the American Cancer Society’s “Making Strides Against Breast Cancer” event. This year, the event is on Oct. 17 at Mizner Park, with our own Annie Weaver, student involvement coordinator, heading up the Volunteer Committee, and Chris Childers, our career center director, organizing the Lynn walking team, Lynn’s Knights Fighting Cancer. So, get in the pink and join them.
And though another American Cancer Society signature event – Relay for Life – is not until April, fundraisers and activities are held all year long leading up to the main event, starting this week and next with a Relay fundraiser at Uncle Julio’s Oct. 15 and the Kick Off event on campus Oct. 22 – when the “theme” will be revealed. I know what it is, but am not telling. You’ll just have to find out for yourself.