Good Morning Fellow Vandals,

This is the first of many more blog post to come. I hope you all survived midterms and are set up for success the rest of the semester.  I must admit I did quite horribly on one of my midterms and will have to pick it up here in the second half to even have a chance of pulling off a “B.” 

Remember to meet with your advisor this week or next.  I still need to schedule my advising appointment as well.  Registration for spring semester opens on Monday, November 9.  If you are like me and have stopped attending a class and have not yet officially withdrawn the last day to do so is Friday, October 30.   

Moving on; as fall continues to advance towards winter and despite mid-year budget holdbacks, the sun continues to shine on THE University of Idaho! From the accomplishments of our athletic programs to the inauguration of our 17th President, there are many positives on this campus.

I can’t put into words how much I have enjoyed watching our Vandal’s play this fall and how well they are doing, in all their sports. Football draws the most attention and has had the greatest turnout. With a 6-2 record and looking to keep adding on the wins, we will be playing in bowl game. Now, it’s just a matter of which bowl game it will be. I could talk about athletics all day, but I need to stay focused. But first I want to say thank you to everyone who is helping to make tailgating a safe, fun and clean place to enjoy Vandal Game Days together. The atmosphere is exciting, people are going into the game and the recycling and cleanup crews are doing an amazing job!

ASUI has been busily working on your behalf these first 8 weeks of the semester. We created a Communications Board; it is chaired by Nicole Strunks. This blog is one of the many new mechanisms the Communications Board will be using to reach out and supply you with information. In addition we have the following web-based tools:
ASUI Website: http://www.asui.uidaho.edu
ASUI Facebook Fan Page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Moscow-ID/ASUI/167054208435
ASUI Twitter Page: http://twitter.com/ASUIVandals

Another initiative we are working on is to develop a Campus Community Hour. I have presented a draft proposal to just about everyone on campus and will be taking a formal proposal to the Faculty Senate soon. I will be asking them to adapt a Campus Community Hour for the Fall 2010 semester as a pilot program. The idea of the Campus Community Hour is to provide an hour once a week, in the middle of a day, that will be free from academic instruction and available to build a more connected Vandal Family on campus. Events, guest lectures, mentoring, pep rallies and numerous other campus events could take place turning this hour. Most of these events already occur but would have far greater attendance if they were in the middle of the day, at a common time.

I could go on and on about many other things as well but I am coming up on a page of text right and now and don’t want to take up too much of your time.

I really do hope you are having a great semester and hope that as student leaders we are making life better for you all here at THE University of Idaho. I am excited to have Dr. Nellis officially inaugurated as our President and look forward to the progress this great institution will make under his lead.

Have a wonderful week and look for a new blog post next week from someone inside the ASUI leadership.

Thank you and GO VANDALS!

Kelby