Spring Carnival Pictures

We were supposed to have spring carnival a few weeks ago but it got rained out. Yesterday was the Spring Carnival redux, and it was a good time as usual. There were bands, all the clubs had booths and were selling food and t-shirts and all kinds of, well, carnival type stuff. They also had various inflatables from a rock climbing wall to those bouncy castle things where people revert back to childhood instantly. All in all, a good time was had by all. Folks, I was an English major, and you should never have the word 'all' three times in a nine word sentence. I don't think there is any grammatical rule against it, it just looks weird. Anyway, I digress...below are the pics from carnival. Enjoy:

UML Tour Guide Wins Big

Nicole Plante, one of our excellent tour guides here at UML (Her profile can be found here: http://www.uml.edu/admissions/visituml/tour%20guides/plante.html), would never advertise this about herself, but she's a dominant runner. She is also a stellar student in one of our most competitive and difficult majors. Anyway, the below story speaks for itself.

http://intranet.uml.edu/umltoday/fs/viewannouncement.aspx?id=636

LOWELL (May 8, 2007) – Senior Nicole Plante (North Adams, MA) was named the recipient of the Laurie Mann Award while senior Jason Tejchma (Muskegon, MI) received the David Boutin Award for female and male student-athletes of the year Tuesday night at UML's Athletic Awards Night.

The Mann and Boutin Awards are presented to the UML female and male student-athletes who excel in the classroom, playing field, exemplify leadership as well as give back to the community. The awards are named after Laurie Mann, a member of the UML women’s basketball team from 1993-95, who passed away in 1998 after a long battle with cancer; and David J. Boutin, a member of the baseball team from 1988-90 who also lost his life to cancer.

Plante, a finalist for the Laurie Mann Award last year, will graduate as the most decorated female student-athlete in UML history, all but booking her place in the Athletic Hall of Fame. A seven-time All-American, Plante has enjoyed a senior year for the ages, earning All-America honors in cross country as well as the 5,000 meters and distance medley relay at the NCAA indoor track and field championship in March. On the cusp of a national championship, Plante finished second at the 2006 NCAA Cross Country Championship and second in the NCAA indoor 5,000 meters championship. Should Plante earn All-America at the NCAA Track and Field Championship May 24-26, she will surpass former standout Jill Croft (1998-02) for total All-American honors in a career.

“Nicole is everything we embrace as a member of the track and field and cross country teams at UMass Lowell,” said UML head coach Gary Gardner. “Without her, the women’s teams would not have achieved as much as it has over the last four years. She has set a new bar as an athlete, a student and a teammate.”

Currently, she owns the fastest time in the country in the 10,000 meters (34:07.03) as well as the second-fastest time in the 5,000 meters (16:32.56). She has also qualified for the NCAA Championship in the 3,000 meters (9:55.03), but will likely forego the event to concentrate on the 10,000 and 5,000. In the track record books, Plante owns every indoor and outdoor distance record, which she has set several times over.

A nursing major, Plante has been an exemplary student and has maintained a 3.221. Outside of her athletic and academic commitments, Plante has been active in community service in her native North Adams, MA, where she volunteers at a local homeless shelter and offers free babysitting. In Lowell, Plante has been a volunteer track and field instructor and has assisted in UML athletic department projects such as the Special Olympics and the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

Plante is the daughter of Richard and Betsy Plante of North Adams, MA.

Livin On a Prayer

Break out the stonewashed jeans, tassled leather jackets, and start pegging those pants boys and girls because one thing is apparent after today's first New Jersey fair session: 80's fashion is back! Well, maybe that kind of 80's fashion isn't back, but I certainly saw some things that would have fit right in back in the 80's, including but not limited to an Iron Maiden shirt, Vans shoes, and tight and tapered jeans on guys. I saw traces of this revival with the arrival of The Strokes, then girls started wearing leggings under skirts and long boots tucked into tight jeans, but I think it is now official that 80's fashion has fully come around for some folks. Needless to say, Jeff Spicoli would have thought these duds were awesome.

Here's hoping Z Cavaricci and B.U.M. Equipment can be overlooked in this back to the 80's craze. Anyway, I'm out for the day. I'm going to buy my girlfriend some Jordache jeans and a Benetton shirt and I'm going to snag a Champion sweatshirt with a matching turtleneck.

Ed

On The Road Again...

Mt. Katahdin

Somewhere on the Maine coast

One great thing about my job is that I get to travel. For work I have been as far south as Washington, D.C. and as far north as Presque Isle, Maine. That is a lot of time spent in the car. That is also a lot of great scenery to take in, cool local spots to check out, great restaurants to hit up, etc. I love travel. ...I can't wait to be on the road again. - Willie Nelson tribute.

Oh wait, I am on the road again. Jeez, it seems like just yesterday we were wrapping up fall travel, looking forward to some structured days in the office, and waiting for the applications to start rolling in. Four months later, after a decent five hour drive, I'm checking in with the blog from the Hampton Inn in Somerset, NJ, which reminds me of a few things.

I really enjoy coming to New Jersey for a variety of reasons, mostly but not exclusively due to memories of past trips. The state that sends the most college students out of state is a hotbed for college recruiters, and it is also the site of my first ever college fair, which was a good time and made me think to myself, 'Hey, I think I could do this for a living.'

During that first year I went down with my boss and was very pleasantly surprised to see that the trees had all bloomed and there was green everywhere. In fact, the area of New Jersey I was in was dramatically different from the stereotypical drive down the turnpike that is pictured in the opening credits of The Sopranos. Where we were was very suburban and very leafy, and the green trees do wonders for the mood. Seeing those trees full is like officially saying goodbye to the long winter. You don't know how bare brown trees affects you until you make a dramatic shift from bare trees to full trees in one afternoon. That happens every year too, and this year was no exception. When I arrive back in Lowell, I know that the trees are soon to be full of green and that is always a nice feeling.

My second year here I stayed in a hotel in New Jersey (which I won't name) off route 1 about 40 minutes outside of NYC. My view outside my window was a junkyard. I'm not making that up. The best part was that there were literally junkyard dogs there. That's right, not just a dog, but a literal pack of junkyard dogs. There must have been 20 of them. I never really thought about junkyard dogs other than in the context of the guy with the name Junkyard Dog of WWF fame from my youth, but they really do exist I guess. Here's proof:

Like I said, you can't make stuff like that up. Side note: I now stay in a hotel that is not adjacent to a junkyard.


Anyway, one other reason I really enjoy coming to New Jersey is to see what the upcoming trends will be. For some reason - I suspect it has to do with the enormous malls and proximity to New York City, but that's just a hypothesis - kids in New Jersey wear what will be trendy everywhere else before kids everywhere else wear it. I know because I have witnessed this trend for the last four years. Hollister, the emo kid look, Growing Up Gotti hairstyles, those short sweater things (I think they're called smocks or something), popped collars, you name it; I swear I witnessed the start of the trend in New Jersey.


The other big reason I like coming to New Jersey is the pizza. I'm serious, the New York and Sicilian style pizza here, with few exceptions, is tremendous. I thoroughly enjoy it.


Finally, my trip to New Jersey is like the start of the next cycle. It is the first chance to meet new prospective students even before we have enrolled last year's class, and that is always pretty exciting. I'm looking forward to it.


The only real negative aspect of the trip for me is that you cannot get here from New England without crossing the Hudson River. That's not a big deal for most people, but I am absolutely terrified of big bridges. There are few bridges bigger than the Tappan Zee and the George Washington. That's the only part of the trip that I don't like. I just drive slow and put my hands at the 10 and 2 position and think about getting to the other side. I never seem to get rid of the nerves though.


I just wanted to add this from an e-mail I got from housing today. This is from the director of housing and I'm pasting it as it came in the e-mail. I hope that's okay. Anyway, here it is: "...all contracts received or postmarked after May 1st will be considered “waitlisted”. Students on the waitlist will not be assigned until everyone on the on-time list (what we call the TBA or to-be-assigned list) is placed. Once we get to our waitlist, everyone will be assigned by their distance away from the university and the time that they got their contract in."


I'm off to bed. I'll try and post something tomorrow too.


Ed

Some Cool Stuff

RC, one of our tourguides who is pictured above, is a freshman Music Business major from Portsmouth, NH. He's a great kid. Anyway, RC hosts a radio show on our radio station, 91.5 WUML. You can find WUML here:

http://www.wuml.org/

and here:

http://www.myspace.com/wuml.

You can also find a direct link to the show's own site here:

http://www.myspace.com/rockcandywuml.

The show is on Fridays from 4-6 p.m. As the blurb on the site says, "tune in for a little bit of jazz, folk, and indie! Expect to hear Minus the Beat, Sufjan Stevens, and Ampere."

RC is also very involved in the music business program and wants to take it to new heights. I fully support that. Anyway, check that out at your leisure.

In other news, the Baseball Research Center at UMass Lowell is a great place. They test bats and balls put into play in high school, college, and even MLB. It is a really interesting place, even for non-science majors. Below is the website for the center followed by the link to an article on wired.com that was posted very early in the morning.

UML Baseball Research Center:
http://m-5.eng.uml.edu/umlbrc/index.htm


Wired.com artilce:

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.05/posts_baseball.html

Purple Cow.

Once concept we discuss semi-frequently in a Management class I attend at times is the concept of the Purple Cow. The Purple Cow is something that helps a business differentiate itself, or be noticed. I also always think of it as the thing that makes people stop and go, "What is that?" And now you have their attention. The analogy works like this - Let's say you're driving through the midwest or Vermont or something. You're driving through the country and you see cows. You are interested in them at first, but once you drive by farm after farm after farm you start to not see the brown cows, the white cows, and the spotted cows. What you would notice, however, is a purple cow. This is the goal of advertising; to stand out from competitors and be noticed.

The above pic is one of our tourguides, Phanny (pronounced Pah-nee like the Native American Tribe the Pawnee. Or, as her facebook page says, "Not FANNIE!") I just really liked the picture and wanted to post it because it has purple cow written all over it in that you can't look at the picture and not have a reaction. Bonus points go to the guy in the background for being so fired up. More bonus points go to Phanny for wearing a UML sweatshirt while getting this pic taken. Thanks, Phanny.

This week is April vacation for high school students in Massachusetts and our tours are gigantic. I'm going to try and snap a picture of them this afternoon. We love all the visitors, and we thank everyone for coming, but one thing we really like to stress here is that you will not feel like a number if you attend UMass Lowell. On most daily campus tours we give we make sure that people feel like they are given individual attention. With that said, given that our tours are five, six, or even seven times the size of our normal tours this week, we feel that a lot of the personal touch that you normally get with a daily tour is being lost. We understand that there are people who can only make visits during vacation. However, if you are going to be in the area again and want to make time to take another visit during a less busy time we would recommend that. We have daily campus tours at 10:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. Please give our office a call and schedule a tour at (978) 934-3931.

So Much For Keeping Up With The Blog

Jeez, it seems like every time I commit to keeping up with the blog I run out of stuff to talk about. We've been really busy since the last post, and it seems like there just isn't a lot of time to get the blog in. I have to make myself do it more I guess.



So what have we been up to? Well, a lot of events and travel, which is more time out of the office and away from the computer. I was down in Connecticut for a week trying to recruit some nutmeg staters. That was great. If you are ever in the Fairfield County area and want the best chicken parm sub you have ever tasted, go to Mike's in Fairfield. It's right downtown ironically abutting the plaza in which there is a domino's. Mike's is a Fairfield institution, as any Fairfield resident or Fairfield U. alum will gladly tell you.



We also recently hosted our two accepted student receptions. They seemed to go well, and the surveys we collected reflected that for the most part. Those days are some of the more gratifying days of the year as we get to see faces on campus rather than just names on applications. Seeing someone at one of those receptions after meeting them during the fall or during the spring of their junio year, well, that's why this job is fun.



Another really cool development that happened without any contribution from our office is a facebook page for the incoming UML class of 2011. We're happy to see people excited and forming a "community" even before they get to campus. That is just great stuff. Way to go guys and girls.



Anyway, that's about it for now. I would say I'm going to keep up with the blog, but that hasn't really worked out so well. Just to stay consistent, I'll post a random pic I took last year as I was driving through the North Campus. One of the cool things about our school is that the original buildings are still very heavily used, and a kind of living history is evident everywhere. Here's a great example:

Notice the "Lowell Textile Institute" engraving. I love that stuff.