At the Hilton.
Good crowd. Raise several thousand for scholarships in auctioning off helmets, jerseys, game day experiences, and some other stuff.
Jerry Gilbert, Provost, spoke first. This guy has really been good for the university. MSU grad and post grad, Duke phD. Runs a pretty tight ship academically. This is an instance of an MSU guy who is extremely qualified and does a super job. Not a stand up comedian or enthralling story-teller, but a definite plus when it comes to getting things done. Mentioned that we are over 20,000 in enrollment and are still shooting for 22,000 by 2018. Construction-wise, the days of Evans Hall are numbered. It's coming down and a new dorm is going up in its place. No specs on number of beds. Also, the building behind the post office in the gully is going to be three stories of classrooms and two stories of parking garages. The biggest building on campus. Will be in the Old Main style of architecture. The Infinite Impact initiative has a goal of $600 Million and they are just shy of $400 now. Unreal - who gives this money? John Rush, head of development, said that the generosity of State folks is off the charts. Evidence is that we have the highest % of alumni in the Alumni Association in the entire SEC at 18%. That's a little hard to believe - that the highest is only 18%, but it is what it is. Back to Gilbert, he said he feels that we gave a great effort on the Phi Beta Kappa team that came to campus in January. Happenstance meeting with Field Brown, our resident Rhodes Scholar, was something Keenum arranged and it struck gold with the visiting scholars.
Stricklin spoke and gave an update on construction. Golf gets the next million with a clubhouse and all that goes with it. Van and Per get the next several million with a shared facility between softball and tennis. I really like what they are doing here - makes so much sense. If you haven't seen the plans, look them up - might actually get a lot more folks out to see those two fine sports. By the way, 10 of 16 sports participated in post season this past year. Soccer gets its million, indoor tennis gets its multi-milions with indoor courts over where a practice football field is now. Wish I knew my directions better so I could tell you. The Hump will get its facelift, but (another conversation with another official ) that comes after we get the 'demand' back up. BTW, I agree with those that say that RIck Ray is a good coach. He's a player or two short right now or else he wins three to five more games this year. I digress.
Scott said Dudy Noble is on the drawing board but did not tip his hand on refurb or redo altogether. Yet another side bar conversation said that if we refurb, we have to raise every dollar, no bonding. Buut if we rebuild, we only raise a percentage of the dollars and then bond the rest. Looks to me like the easy money is on rebuilding with bond money.
Willie Evans was there. Gosh, he looks like he could still nail a QB from the blind side and do it in an instant.
Hail State.
Good crowd. Raise several thousand for scholarships in auctioning off helmets, jerseys, game day experiences, and some other stuff.
Jerry Gilbert, Provost, spoke first. This guy has really been good for the university. MSU grad and post grad, Duke phD. Runs a pretty tight ship academically. This is an instance of an MSU guy who is extremely qualified and does a super job. Not a stand up comedian or enthralling story-teller, but a definite plus when it comes to getting things done. Mentioned that we are over 20,000 in enrollment and are still shooting for 22,000 by 2018. Construction-wise, the days of Evans Hall are numbered. It's coming down and a new dorm is going up in its place. No specs on number of beds. Also, the building behind the post office in the gully is going to be three stories of classrooms and two stories of parking garages. The biggest building on campus. Will be in the Old Main style of architecture. The Infinite Impact initiative has a goal of $600 Million and they are just shy of $400 now. Unreal - who gives this money? John Rush, head of development, said that the generosity of State folks is off the charts. Evidence is that we have the highest % of alumni in the Alumni Association in the entire SEC at 18%. That's a little hard to believe - that the highest is only 18%, but it is what it is. Back to Gilbert, he said he feels that we gave a great effort on the Phi Beta Kappa team that came to campus in January. Happenstance meeting with Field Brown, our resident Rhodes Scholar, was something Keenum arranged and it struck gold with the visiting scholars.
Stricklin spoke and gave an update on construction. Golf gets the next million with a clubhouse and all that goes with it. Van and Per get the next several million with a shared facility between softball and tennis. I really like what they are doing here - makes so much sense. If you haven't seen the plans, look them up - might actually get a lot more folks out to see those two fine sports. By the way, 10 of 16 sports participated in post season this past year. Soccer gets its million, indoor tennis gets its multi-milions with indoor courts over where a practice football field is now. Wish I knew my directions better so I could tell you. The Hump will get its facelift, but (another conversation with another official ) that comes after we get the 'demand' back up. BTW, I agree with those that say that RIck Ray is a good coach. He's a player or two short right now or else he wins three to five more games this year. I digress.
Scott said Dudy Noble is on the drawing board but did not tip his hand on refurb or redo altogether. Yet another side bar conversation said that if we refurb, we have to raise every dollar, no bonding. Buut if we rebuild, we only raise a percentage of the dollars and then bond the rest. Looks to me like the easy money is on rebuilding with bond money.
Willie Evans was there. Gosh, he looks like he could still nail a QB from the blind side and do it in an instant.
Hail State.
