Some students living in UT residence halls have been surprised on recent Fridays by having President Lloyd Jacobs knock on their doors and ask how they’re doing. Dr. Jacobs, along with Student Affairs Vice President Kaye Patten Wallace and Facilities Vice President Chuck Lehnert, is touring all the residence halls on campus. Not only are they meeting students, but inspecting the buildings and listening to any problems the residents might express as well.

So far the administrators with other student affairs and residence hall staff members have visited Carter Hall, Parks Tower, and McComas Village. As Dr. Jacobs’ Chief of Staff I have also tagged along and, believe me, the whole group of us make quite an impression.

Dr. Jacobs and Matt Donlen

The president is a hands-on inspector. He unlocks maintenance closets and notes problems such as water-stained ceiling tiles. The staff with him makes notes on what needs repairing.

At the PI KAPPA ALPHA house, fraternity member Matt Donlen presented the president with a PIKE sweatshirt.

Dr. Jacobs will continue touring on upcoming Fridays until he has visited all the residence halls.

I was a frog on Tuesday.

That stands for First year Resident Orientation Guide.  I was supposed to help new students move in to Parks Tower, but I was scheduled to help late in the afternoon. By the time I arrived most of the new students had already found their rooms thanks to about thirty student staff members who carried boxes and pushed large plastic containers filled with computers, lamps, pillows, and other necessities of residence hall life.

I couldn’t help but remember my residence hall experiences many years ago at the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point. This first came to mind a couple of months ago when my “Pointer Alumni Newsletter” reported that my old dormitory, Hyer Hall, was going to be torn down and replaced by a new modern apartment style residence hall. I loved Hyer Hall which housed a mere 200 students (all guys).

UT’s Parks Tower, on the other hand, houses 665 first-year students on sixteen floors. Needless to say it’s coed. But that’s only one improvement over Hyer Hall. The dining facility is on the first floor and is open until midnight. The dining hall at Point was only open until six p.m. My friends and I used to watch Walter Cronkite and the CBS News at 5:30 on the only TV in the place, which was in Hyer’s basement, and then have to run to get to the dining hall before it closed.

On Tuesday, since there was plenty of help, Sandra Alef, the hall director, took me on a tour of Parks. We visited four floors and met a number of R.A.s, mentors, and G.A.s who work for Sandra. They all were enthusiastic and anxious for fall semester to begin.

I have a new blue t-shirt that proclaims that I’m a “frog.” Frankly, I don’t remember frogs or anyone else helping me move into Hyer Hall. So, I’m proud to be a UT frog and I hope all those freshmen who I almost helped will have a great time living in Parks.

A couple of weeks ago some of us at UT got to hang out for a few hours with Vice President Joe Biden. You might remember that the vice president was visiting a new solar panel plant located just south of Perrysburg. He brought along Gary Locke, the Secretary of Commerce, and Ed Montgomery, the so-called Car Czar who is assigned to help communities impacted by the crisis in the automobile industry. Governor Strickland was also on hand. The comments and conversation centered on the economy and how new alternative energy manufacturing plants might help improve our prospects in northwest Ohio.

I always enjoy being at events with the president or vice president. The excitement. The media. The crowds. The security. The long waits. Well, okay, some of those aspects of these events are not so enjoyable. However, in this case, the event was handled very well. The crowd was relatively small—about 300 or so people I would estimate. The security line moved quickly. And the vice president was reasonably on time.

The Veep with Gov. Strickland in blue shirt

In fact, the only negative was that the warehouse-like plant was very warm. But turning on the large fans that normally cool the area were so noisy that they drowned out the speakers. I might add that it is usually very difficult for anything to drown out Joe Biden when he gets talking.

Yes, the VEEP is just as loquacious in person as he is portrayed by the media. The event lasted for more than two hours, which is an extraordinary long time for a president or vice president. However, Vice President Biden was having a good time. He spoke from a podium, then led a panel discussion, and finally conducted a Q & A as he wandered around the audience. It was an impressive performance

The funniest thing that happened came at the end when the vice president was back sitting with the panel members wrapping up. He addressed the owner of the solar plant and praised his company for getting started without using any government money. At that point, Governor Strickland leaned over to the vice president and said, “He didn’t get any federal money, Mr. Vice President, but the State of Ohio gave the company $10 million.”

These are serious times in the state legislature. Ohio is facing a budget shortfall of a billion dollars or more in this year’s budget, which ends on June 30th. At the same time, the legislature is attempting to create a balanced biennium budget for 2010-2011.

Nevertheless, normal state business continues and many bills of varying importance are introduced daily by state legislators.Two such new bills were referred the week of May 4th by the full Senate to the Senate’s State & Local Government & Veterans Affairs Committee.

Senate Bill 125 if ultimately passed by the Senate and the Ohio House and then signed by the governor will designate January 26 as Paul Newman Day. Meanwhile, Senate Bill 127 if passed and signed will adopt the Ohio Tartan as the official tartan of the state.

I like Paul Newman—both his movies and his spaghetti sauce. He won his only Oscar for his role as an aging pool hustler in The Color of Money, based on the novel by Walter Tevis. Walter Tevis was one of my creative writing professors when I was in graduate school at Ohio University. Newman, who passed away on September 26, 2008, was a native of Shaker Heights. He was born on January 26, 1925.

I also like Scottish tartans since both my father and mother were part Scot. My mother was from the MacKenzie clan, which has a beautiful green and blue tartan. However, my father’s MacMillan tartan is a garish red and yellow. Fortunately, if you didn’t know, clans are matriarchal and I can officially wear my mother’s tartan.

But if SB 127 passes we can all wear the official Ohio tartan, which you can view at this Web site.

Next week, back to the Ohio budget and more serious legislation.

On Monday, March 2, UT President Jacobs received a personally signed letter from Ohio governor Ted Strickland. Dr. Jacobs has received personally signed letters from the governor before. However, quite frankly, this one unlike the others was probably a form letter sent to the university presidents in Ohio and other state leaders. Nevertheless, it was a letter from the governor!

In the letter, the governor outlines the process of how Ohio is going to distribute funding from the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The state has established a Web site and applications for state funding have to fill out a form on that Web site and submit it. These applications will be sorted and given to state agencies. Those agencies will then ask certain submitters to fill out project proposals. We don’t know how those certain submitters will be determined.

The Web site actually has been up for about three weeks and the UT Office of Government Relations along with the provosts, and various campus research offices have been promoting its existence. To date we estimate that UT has submitted more than 100 proposals to the Web site. This is only an estimate because the Web site does not restrict anyone from submitting. In other words, a person at UT does not have to go through one office to submit a proposal. However, to put that number in perspective, at this writing, the Web site has received exactly 16,716 submissions from all over the state!

UT’s direct submissions do not include submissions where the university might be a collaborator or partner and also do not include any submissions that go directly to the federal government in Washington such as submissions to the National Science Foundation or the National Institutes for Health.

In the last paragraph of his letter, Governor Strickland states that “It is our goal to assure that every eligible entity has the opportunity to apply for funds, and that all potential applicants are treated equally and fairly.” Of course, we applaud that goal. Nevertheless, it will be a mammoth task for state government to sort out more than 16,000 submissions. Stay tuned.

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Mascot Note:  I hope everyone saw in a recent UT News the photo of Dr. Jacobs surrounded by university mascots from across Ohio. My name was actually under the photo because I took the photo with my I-Phone. Unfortunately, that nasty falcon from BGSU immediately snatched the phone out of my hand. But then Rocky Rocket sped after Freddie. There was a huge battle on the roof of the state capital between Rocky and Freddie. But Rocky prevailed and returned my I-Phone and that’s how the photo got in the paper. If you didn’t see the photo, here it is:

On Tuesday, February 17 a group of UT students, faculty members, and administrators are traveling to the Statehouse in Columbus to participate in the annual Mascot Day for legislators. For many years now the Inter-University Council has planned a day when representatives from the fourteen four-year universities in Ohio can meet with legislators and other state officials. The highlight of the day is when the university mascots attend a 4 p.m. reception in the Atrium, which is the enclosed area between the Capital and the State Senate office building.

 This may seem a little silly. However, politicians love to have their photos taken with the mascots. Last year even the governor showed up for a group hug, I mean photo. Over the years as I have visited many legislative offices that prominently featured a mascot photo behind the legislator’s desk.

 Fortunately, the Atrium is a large area because all those mascots take up a lot of room. I mean you have to be able to make out a mascot from the top row of a football stadium. Mascots tend to be a bit territorial as well. They fortunately don’t get into fights, but there usually are some bumping matches. Rocky and Freddy Falcon. Zippy the Kangaroo and the OU Bobcat. It’s inevitably the job of government relations administrators like me to make sure the bumping doesn’t get out of hand.

 Times are tough with the state legislators. The budget is tight. We don’t know how much stimulus money either the State of Ohio or UT will get. Everything is pretty grim so maybe it’s not so bad to have a little fun with mascots.