 Well good afternoon. Thank you all for joining us. It is great to be at the University and it's great to see such a wonderful turnout today. We have a number of distinguished awards that we're going to be giving today as well as hearing from a number of campus representatives. So we'll begin right away with our program. First I'd like to welcome a few guests that are with us today. We have from our Alumni Association Mr. Chad Koker who is president of our National Alumni Association. Chad would you please stand. Thank you. We also have Mandy White who's a district six vice president of the National Alumni Association. Mandy would you please stand. And finally we have Calvin Brown who is director of our Alumni Affairs here at the University. We certainly appreciate all that you do for the University of Alabama in the many many different ways that you serve us. I think you'll have other full-time jobs of our volunteers and y'all are always here and and it's great it's great to have such supportive people like you all. I know that many of you in this room are faculty members and advisors and so the first thing we're going to do is we're going to recognize some teaching and service awards with which map to certainly two of our three missional tenants of the University which really focuses on the commitment to our students in our day-to-day activities and certainly it's essential to their success and to our success as an institution mentoring them teaching them and making sure that they're on track to graduate. I got a chance to visit with a class today I told them to be sure and go to class do their homework that includes the extra problems at the end of the chapter and be prepared for tests and they all assured me that's exactly what they were doing. Well today we have a few awards to announce and which will honor several of our exceptional faculty members our advisors and staff. The first of these are the outstanding commitment to teaching award and we've asked Mrs. Wyatt to please present these please welcome her to the stage. Mandy. Good afternoon I'm Mandy Wyatt and it's been an honor to be on the Octa selection committee for the past two years. We have faculty staff and students nominate members of the faculty and we have student representatives as well as alumni staff and board members from the National Alumni Association who review all these wonderful staff members and faculty members and it's quite a hard decision but today we have forward that we really want to take the time to honor today. So on behalf of the nearly 200,000 alumni and friends of the University of Alabama please join me in recognizing these 2017 outstanding commitment to teacher awards. The first is Dr. Daniel G. Bachrock from the Culverhouse College of Commerce. Collegy from Bates College his master's degree in industrial organization psychology from the University of Wisconsin and his PhD in organizational behavior and human resources from Indiana University. He joined the University of Alabama in 2002 it's been promoted to full-time professor in 2014. His primary teaching responsibility is the introduction to management course but he's developed three management courses since he's been here. He serves on the editorial boards of two of his field's leading journals the Journal of Applied Psychology and the Journal of Organizational Behavior. So congratulations Dr. Dr. James Hubner who is a master's degree from the University of Florida and received his PhD in aerospace engineering from Georgia Tech. He joined the capstone in 2005 and serves as an associate professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics. His research interests include experimental aerodynamics and solid mechanics. He has been in the principal and he's been the principal investigator on more than 25 research projects funded by the government. So congratulations Dr. Hubner. Hicks earned his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Alabama and his master's degree in PhD in computer engineering from UAH. He currently serves as an associate professor and the assistant department head in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering here at the University. Prior to joining us at the capstone Dr. Hicks worked for NASA at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville where he developed real-time simulations of several NASA vehicles and performed astronaut training in the natural buoyancy simulator. So congratulations Dr. Ricks. Dr. Taylor earned her bachelor's degree in English at the University of Alabama and her MD from the University of Alabama School of Medicine in 2004. She then completed her pediatric residency at Cincinnati's Children's Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio. She joined us here at the capstone in 2007 as an associate professor of pediatrics in the College of Community Health Sciences. She's a board certified general pediatrician with a clinical practice at the University Medical Center. So congratulations Dr. Taylor. Thank you Mandy and again my congratulations to all of our honorees. Thank you for your commitment to excellence in teaching and engaging with our students. The next set of awards are our outstanding commitment to advising awards. Please help me welcome Allison Jarnigan, Director of Student Services and Registrar of the College of Communications and Information Sciences as well as President of the University of Alabama Academic Advisors Association to the stage to present the awards. Allison. Any of you know academic advising is oftentimes more than just core scheduling. We're looked to be advisors, mentors, sometimes parents away from home for students as they kind of transition through the challenges of becoming adults. So the University of Alabama Academic Advisors Association sends a call out every year to young alumni, faculty, staff and other advisors asking for students to nominate their outstanding advisors from the previous year. This year we had two winners. The nominees are elected by the University of Alabama Academic Advisors Association based on the nominations and we always award one professional advisor and one faculty advisor this award. So this year's winners are our faculty advisor award goes to Dr. Jim Gleason. He's a professor of mathematics with the College of Arts and Sciences. And then the award that goes to our professional advisor has been awarded to Ashley Newsome. She's a professional advisor with the College of Engineering. Thank you Allison. Congratulations to Jim and Ashley. We certainly thank you for your commitment to our students. In addition to faculty advisors we have a wonderful staff who serve our students and the University every day and to recognize a few teams who provide extraordinary service each year. We honor them with recipients of the Sam S. Maye Commitment to Service Awards. Please welcome Provost Kevin Whitaker as he presents these awards. Thank you. It's great to be here this afternoon. We have a number of awards to present so let me dive right in. I certainly have the pleasure of presenting the Sam S. Maye Commitment to Service Award. This is named for a remarkable staff member from the Department of Chemistry who filled his career tutoring generations of students. The Sam S. Maye Award recognizes a department, office, team or center that provides exceptional service through commitment, innovation, creativity, and continuous improvement in customer relations. We have a number of recipients today. When I announce your team please stand to be recognized. Our first recipient is the Educational Technology Web and Editorial Team in the College of Arts and Sciences. This team has worked hard over the last five years to respond to the Dean's request to update all of the websites for the college. Nominators mentioned the team's reliability and their commitment to their customers, stating that they go above and beyond consistently, never complaining and always performing their jobs with passion, professionalism, and enthusiasm. So please stand. Our next recipient is the Crossroads Community Engagement Center. Crossroads has been committed to engaging our campus with the community by hosting workshops and other events for students, faculty, staff, and partners around the state and the region to spur meaningful dialogue. They generate innovative programming to promote engagement that is intercultural, helping to cultivate an environment for everyone that is inclusive and diverse. Nominators remarked on their uncanny ability to make everyone who walks through their door feel valued and respected. Please stand. Congratulations to your team and thank you for the commitment you give to our students and our community. Next to be recognized as a recipient is the UAPD Community Oriented Police Division. The COP Division has significantly increased the numbers of students, faculty, and staff they directly engage with positive programming over the last year. For the last academic year they conducted over 180 safety programs that reached over 13,000 members of the UA family. In addition to investigating crimes they spend thousands of hours walking to residence halls to ensure student safety. They talk women's self-defense classes to students, faculty, and staff and they spend time weekly reading books to children at the RISE Center and the CDRC. They partner with multiple divisions on campus as well as off-campus businesses to provide entertaining and educational programs to our students, cultivating a positive relationship with the community. So if I could get them to stand please. The fourth recipient of the award for this year is the Alabama Innovation and Mentoring Entrepreneur's Center. The AEM Center provides proof of concept assistance, prototyping surface and commercialization or entrepreneurship training to campus. They have organized various programs to help ensure proper support for faculty, staff, and student business ideas. They have promoted intellectual property generation, patent application, funding applications, and business startups in the UA community. They brought the University national attention through grant awards and have partnered with the National Science Foundation in several initiatives. We applaud their success and appreciate their contributions to the University and the economic development of our area. So please stand. Our final recipient of the Samus May Award is the Online Wellness Portal The Online Wellness Portal is a tool that benefits each and every faculty and staff member at the University. The Portal Team has worked tirelessly to ensure efficiency and functionality of the site for all employees. Because of their work, the Office of Health Promotion and Wellness has been able to offer quality programming to a variety of interests from employees at the University. Their nominators mentioned their dedication to exceptional customer service while they keep UA up to date with technology changes for their products. If you'll please stand. Thank you Kevin. It is now my pleasure to introduce the presidents of our various organizations on campus and to begin with we'll hear from our faculty Senate President Donna Meester. Donna. Thank you Dr. Bell. This will likely be the last time that I have the honor to address you the faculty and the staff is the capacity in the capacity of the Faculty Senate President. These past three years certainly have been a whirlwind and very rewarding experience but for now I'm going to focus on what the Faculty Senate has been doing this past year. Our relationships with the Faculty Senate at UAB and UAH continue to grow. Last spring Chancellor Hayes addressed the group and emphasized his desire to see the three Senates working together. The discussion at this meeting explored the possibilities including a system-wide daycare and partnerships from the three campuses. What began as a thought bringing the three groups together is blossoming blossoming into what looks to be a very exciting and rewarding endeavor. We will be meeting again following the Board of Trustees in November. There's a mute button right there. Sorry. It was nothing important don't worry about it. We are cautiously seeing the light at the end of the tunnel when it comes to the faculty handbook update. This committee continues to meet regularly with a typical meeting lasting about three hours. The biggest challenge has been updating the mediation and grievance information and procedures. This has recently been completed and is currently waiting to be approved by the Senate before moving forward and incorporating it into the handbook. The proposed updates were sent to the faculty this past week and we invite all faculty to attend our meeting at 3 30 this afternoon three o'clock this afternoon to participate no it's 3 30 to participate in the discussion before it goes to a vote in the Senate next month. While we are updating information we are also making a bit more user-friendly with the inclusion of links to this information rather than having all the pages of paperwork to be going through. As I last reported that we along with other groups have been working on creating a non-profit saying sexual assault nurse examiner program and you may be aware that this has finally come to fruition. We are working with Kathleen Cramer who is the project manager for this newly minted safe program sexual assault forensic examiners program to continue this important process. We are charged by Provost Whitaker to clean up the campus-wide standing committees. This included making sure all named committees were active and needed and had a clear charge as well as identifying areas that may need a new committee. In the process it was discovered that the environmental stewardship committee had been frozen and it may be time to thaw this out as well as develop a current charge for that committee. We've also been asked to review the application for sabbatical leave. We'll be doing this in more detail before next year's deadline. The faculty senate has also taken on the responsibility of identifying faculty who are deserving of the honor of serving as the commencement marshal. We recently sent out nomination forms to the entire faculty and had a fabulous response. The soon senate will soon be reviewing these nominations and we'll be voting for four honorees for the next seven commencement exercises. In a related matter the Karen Steckel regalia loan program is busting at the seams literally. It's a great problem to have. Faculty who do not have graduation regalia can contact Linda Knowles to borrow regalia if they wish to attend the ceremonies. Almost all of the robes were loaned out last spring. The only ones that weren't were those that weren't in great shape or just some weird size. And I'd like to thank Registrar Ken Foshee who recently donated about 12 more gowns and tams. We're always accepting donations to this program and we're especially in need of tams so if anybody or if you know people have them let us know and contact Linda. These are just a few of the projects and concerns the Faculty Senate has recently been involved in for more information in these as well as all the other activities the senate is working on. All that information is found on our website including notes and minutes of meetings and upcoming meetings and who the speakers are going to be. We have a great slate of speakers. In fact this afternoon Chancellor Hayes will be addressing the Senate. As a Senate we have had many accomplishments this past year and look forward to many more in the year ahead. We're interested in helping Chancellor Hayes and his quest to see the three campuses in the UA system working together. We're always working towards the betterment of our UA family, of faculty, staff and students and we continue to do this as we keep the four pillars of President Bell's strategic plan as a map to do this. Faculty Senate meetings are open to the public and we invite you to attend. Our website will tell you that they are typically in the third Tuesday of the month and you can find out when and where each of those takes place. If you're not able to attend but have a concern that you would like to see addressed please email me let me know what's going on and we'll take it to the Senate. We look forward to continued faculty interest and participation in our Senate and thank you and we'll roll out. And now we will hear from our professional staff assembly please welcome Robert Baxter. Hello I'm Robert Baxter professional staff assembly president I work in the division of financial affairs IT. Good afternoon faculty, staff and community members. On behalf of the professional staff assembly thank you President Bell for the opportunity to report on the accomplishments of the PSA over the summer and into the fall semester. The PSA has accomplished well since I last spoke with you in the spring. Campus address our newly elected and returning members have made great strides with our community goals in the 2017-2018 term. It is my honor to serve the president professional staff assembly for the academic year. PSA is an elected body of professional staff in all areas of the university. Our members serve on seven PSA committees and 17 standing committees on campus including the faculty senate and office cleric staff office cleric and technical staff assembly. This provides for our assembly members commitment to address the needs of the staff, listen to concerns and share knowledge to the professional staff on campus. Our goal is to collectively as a group move the University of Alabama forward with our commitment to success as an educational institution that attracts the best and brightest staff faculty and students. The efforts of our officers committee chairs and assembly members show great returns as we make progress to our goals in this academic year. This progress will help to improve the PSA providing it to the U.S. to the UA campus at Tuscaloosa community. The service now reach community community committee sorry co-chair by Daphne Wright and Julie Elmore who started the fall 2000 semester strong. Assembly members have volunteered 195 hours since April. This includes the Brewer porch children's center Easter activities, UA move-in, UA week of welcome and Habitat for Humanity. The committee is currently raising money for our annual sponsorship of Brewer porch children's center Christmas fun and upcoming programs. The professional development committee and their chair been bigger staff have begun the fall semester reviewing applications for our Mark G. Foster scholarship. I am pleased to announce the committee awarded the scholarship to Jennifer Patrick contract administrator with contract administration. This will help her and pursue an undergraduate degree in accounting. The committee is also looking at professional development opportunities for staff professional opportunities for staff on campus including traditional and online options. Our committee and public relations committee chaired by Jessica Aguilar is working to communicate with professional staff and assembly members. The committee works to share the information that the PSA members are a monthly progress. They also review our social media presence and ways to engage more encourage more engagement from our professional staff. Our assembly operations committee chaired by Lynn Hurd works to interpret our bylaws and recommend changes. One such change was to include the new employee class of the UA professional non-exempt. To allow our assembly to continue to represent this new employee class we voted interchange for our bylaws in September 8th. The staff life committee chaired by Jackie Northwood continues to look at staff benefits. This committee has proposed a policy for a summer flex schedule and a resolution supported this. This is to bring us in line a little more with some of the other campuses in the UA system that do have a similar policy. The committee is also writing resolutions in support of the recommendations from the faculty and staff benefits committee including a two-week paid parental leave policy in an on campus child care. The technology committee chaired by Jason Miller maintains the PSA web presence and reviews our use of technology. The committee works to maintain the accuracy of our PSA website PSA.ua.edu. It also is working on a charge for better handling digital communications within our assembly. This includes a way PSA can hold online meetings and how to retain the minutes for those. The nominations and election committee chaired by Holly Graff have taken on additional responsibilities. They have worked on myself to find replacements of assembly members for those who have left UA retired or stepped down. They are also preparing and filing employee contact information for our upcoming elections in March. During the fall semester PSA has been joined by three guest speakers that are August meeting we heard from Dr. Kevin Whitaker with a brief rundown of the strategic plan for UA. His speech included UA's commitment to hiring new faculty and increasing research opportunities to help grow our graduate school in terms of students. Dr. Whitaker introduced to the PSA our new vice president and associate provost for diversity equity and inclusion Dr. Christine Tate. She proposed to the assembly that we co-labor to help better prepare students when they graduate and advance into a diversified life beyond the laws of UA. I was able to share with Dr. Taylor our PSA diversity inclusion resolution passed in January this year to confirm our assembly's commitment to support and advance a culture of inclusivity at the University of Alabama. Our September speaker was Andy Reagan with strategic communication. He presented to our assembly UA's new content management system OU campus. This provided great information about UA's change to a new website management tool for all colleges and departments on campus. I recently created an ad hoc committee to rewrite our PSA bylaws. This is of their bylaws to meet the needs of our assembly, changes within the professional staff and changes to our digital world. Our past president Darrell Hargraves will chair this committee. A committee to review those changes and a subsequent committee to review the spelling and grammar of those changes will follow this. At our September steering committee meeting we discussed the creation of resolution in support of domestic bylaws awareness fund. This resolution written by Jackie Northwood was read to the assembly and passed by unanimous vote. It recognizes the important work done by domestic violence programs and the month of October as National Domestic Violence Awareness Month. The resolution urges all PSA members and the larger University of Alabama community to actively participate in the scheduled activities and programs to work toward improving victim safety and holding perpetrators of domestic abuse accountable for their actions against individual victims in our society as a whole. This is the reason I am wearing this purple ribbon today to support mourning to support mourning those who have died because of celebrating those who have survived and connecting those who have who worked to end domestic violence. If any of those are any of you are interested there are more outside of community perpetrators. I want to thank the PSA officers who meets the committee chairs for their leadership and commitment they have shown to the PSA. I'm very proud of the work our membership has done to start the fall semester for the professional staff at UA. The PSA will continue to build on our appreciative accomplishments throughout the 2017-2018 year. On behalf of the PSA members I would like to thank Dr. Bell, Dr. Whitaker and Dr. Gilbert for their continued generous support of our organization. I look forward to the remainder of my term as president and appreciate the opportunity to address you today. Thank you and well done. It's now my pleasure to introduce Jesse Richardson from our office of clerical technical staff assembly and some things she has to share for us. Come on up Jesse. For a lot of you the OCT staff assembly represents the office clerical technical staff of the University of Alabama and serves as an advisory and policy referral organization to administration. We have five committees to address the concerns of staff that includes communications and public relations, staff life, service and outreach, professional development and then our newest one to tell you about is membership. OCT-SA also has representatives on the University Section 1 committees. The Communication and Public Relations Committee compiled our second year in review document highlighting our guest speakers, special projects and accomplishments for this past 2016-2017 year. We've increased our membership by 50% participated in several drives and have donated time to several local organizations. The staff life committee has continued to review policies that affect our staff and has worked closely with human resources and other appropriate departments and committees to be a voice for our representatives. Our assembly voted to support the faculty and staff benefit committee's recommendations for paid parental leave and the recommendation for additional child care options in our September meeting and our steering committee is tracking those resolutions of support to go before our assembly. The service and outreach committee has worked with Alabama Adopt-a-Mile program to adopt a mile between mile marker 87 and 88 on University Boulevard and we're very pleased to announce that the sign is now up. You can see us coming or going so we will be sending out more information to schedule cleanup opportunities very soon. We will continue to partner with Alabama Reach by supplying their pantry items throughout the year and then give cards around the holidays. The Professional Development Committee has worked with HR this past year to review and provide feedback on current university courses available through Skillport and make recommendations for any other useful offerings for our staff. Additionally, this committee coordinates our outstanding staff award that's presented to two office clerical and technical staff members to recognize exceptional job performance and a strong spirit of service and these are held in May. The membership committee is our newest committee. With additional interest in OCTSA membership we would like to review and revise our membership by-laws to best meet the needs of our staff. The committee can also serve to greet new members and connect them with our committees and projects of interest to them. Finally, OCTSA is sharing a survey with members and other non-exempt staff across campus to gather data and feedback that will help guide our committees in planning and initiatives for the upcoming year. That will go out today and it will close on Friday, November 3rd. We are pleased to represent a portion of the university staff and look forward to a great 2017-2018 year. Thank you and real time. Our final speaker today will be our representative, our students, who represents a little over 38,000 of our constituents within our community. Please join me in welcoming our Student Government Association President, Jared Hunter. Jared, good afternoon. Since I was last year in the spring, I talked a little bit about how I wanted my administration to put the action back in SGA. Since 1914, the Student Government Association has served as the preeminent example of student governance in a collegiate environment. From working with the administration and athletics to determine student organization seating in Bryant Denny to helping students find appropriate parking on campus based on where they live and where they're going, our SGA has a storied history of constantly pursuing our mantra, students serving students. But we can do more. I've lived in the South almost all my life growing up in the small town of Witsomka in Elmore County and going to school in Montgomery. My 11th grade history teacher was everything you'd expect, witty, goofy, and absolutely obsessed with U.S. history. He would constantly remind us of his favorite call to action, always improve. That idea that Dr. Macklemore constantly posited has followed with me through my academic career and has undeniably influenced how the Hunter Administration has approached our chance at running the SGA. So, though we work on block seating and parking partner and homecoming and many other important programs, I wanted to do more. And I'm excited to say we are. Vice President of External Affairs Price McGifford has worked with Dr. Linda Gilbert from Financial Affairs since the summer to open the Robert E. Witt Student Activity Center earlier, so students that have early classes or work can still maintain their physical health. While focused in the residential campus, the newly expanded hours will surely afford students across the capstone greater access to our workout facilities here on campus. Dining dollars has successfully been expanded to two of the food trucks on campus. Local Roots and Snow Co. Both have been incredibly popular food options for students and will hopefully inspire other dining options to begin accepting dining dollars. In fact, today SGA is hosting our first annual food truck festival from 5 to 8 on the Strip with a portion of the proceeds going to fund the SGA needs pace scholarship. Spurred from a recently relaxed and very successful fireside chat organized by Dr. Bell and Dr. Grady, I along with leaders from the Black Student Union, Athletics, Culver House Investment Management Group, Interfraternity Council, Alabama Panhellenic Association, and others are meeting Thursday to discuss what we as a campus can do to extend a helping hand to communities across the country and the world. From Las Vegas to Puerto Rico to the recent attack in Somalia, I look forward to collaborating across campus organizations to do our part in mending the torn world by planning a campus-wide fundraiser or philanthropic effort. One of the most pressing issues facing students today is depression and anxiety as highlighted in a recent New York Times article. From that article in 2016 an annual survey of students was taken by the American College Health Association and they found that 62 percent of respondents reported experiencing quote, overwhelming anxiety. On campus resources of the Counseling Center and Women and Gender Resource Center are available for all students that need mental health care and services. But like I said earlier, I wanted to do more. And I'm more than happy to announce that in a major collaboration with student leaders from IFC, Panhellenic, and CIMG, along with faculty like Dr. Perez of Student Health and Well-Being and Dr. Amy Trailer of Faculty Senate, SJA has created the Respect Fund. Respect is an acronym standing for reaching every student possible ensuring care and treatment and will act as an endowed trust fund that anyone and everyone can donate to. We've currently raised $75,000 for the fund and I'm excited to see that number grow as other organizations and private donors contribute. The money will be used to bolster services and care provided through Student Health and Well-Being, intended to expand access for all students at UA. Life at times can be pretty scary and lonely. SJA wants to make sure everyone, regardless of creed, background, race, or ethnicity, has access to the care they need while as a student here at the University of Alabama. And with that being said, we realize we're not perfect. As my 11th grade teacher encouraged years ago, SJA is striving to improve always. There is absolutely ways our organization can get even better and I welcome those critiques and comments openly. But I'm incredibly proud of the hard work we've done so far. We have some of the most diligent, concerned students serving on behalf of the UA family. This week it's our award-winning programming, it's on us. And I can't wait to share what we accomplish next. Thank you for the opportunity to stand here today. God bless and of course, full time. Thank you Jared, Donna, Bob, Jesse for all that you do every day, every week. We're honored to have such great leaders with servant hearts here at the University of Alabama. And good afternoon again to everyone. Thank you all for being here. This is one of my favorite times I think of the year to hear about these awards, to hear from the leadership, so many of our staff and our faculty who give of their time over and over again. Many of you have, perhaps, are here for the first time. Others of you have never missed the Faculty Staff Assembly but whatever that case is for you, I appreciate your interest, your engagement and your willingness to give such an active part of your life to this vital, vital role that we have at the University. When we came together last fall, we talked about our new strategic plan and I continued that conversation into the spring. Today what I'd like to do is take a few minutes and pull together those conversations and to paint a picture of our great university today but also what it will be for the future. And whether we think of ourselves as the canvas or whether we think of ourselves as the paint or the painter, I think the important part is that each one of us plays a significant role and that painting starts with us because without exceptional faculty, without exceptional staff and students, all of you, quite frankly we would not be the great University of Alabama that we are and it is that greatness you all that drew Susan and I back to the University of Alabama after being away for a short few years but again we could not be more excited to continue to call the University of Alabama and Tuscaloosa our home. Without a doubt you are what makes this place a very special place at the University and our success is painted one stroke at a time, one day at a time, when you come to your jobs you help our students succeed, you work on that next performance, write that next research proposal, submit that paper sorry if it's due and I just reminded you about it or as you welcome our next freshman class, each due doctoral student who comes here or perhaps that postdoctoral student that you're hiring to work on part of your program. As you move through your daily activities you encourage one another, your colleagues and our students to success. Stories are often written about our researchers who explore in their laboratories and they make new discoveries or about our faculty who receive accolades or our students who receive national honors. Those who perform at the highest levels on the field, on the court, in the classroom or on the stage. As I move through our community, through the state, through the nation, I'm reminded everywhere I go of the role that each of us, of each of you have on our campus and its success. Students like to tell me the stories of their favorite professors who helped them to solve a problem or an administrator who gave them special encouragement or help them land that new job. Faculty tell me about collaborators that they have with their colleagues here and across the globe and our students who are excelling in their laboratories. And even those who visit our campus are quick to remind me of what a welcoming and beautiful place that our campus in this university is. Let me share with you an email that I received from a Colorado State fan right after the CSU game and she writes, hello I just wanted to relate to you my experience at the Big Game in Alabama this past weekend. It was a big game for CSU. After much deliberation, the four in our group decided to attend the long weekend in Alabama with our fellow alums. We stayed in Birmingham as we waited too long to get to book anything in Tuscaloosa. We all know about that. So we drove down early Saturday morning and arrived about 10 a.m. Everyone came in that we came in contact the entire day became our friend. From the wonderful ladies at the parking lot to the shuttle bus drivers, the students, the parents, the staff, what a fabulous attitude we encountered. We had purchased our parking online several weeks before. You can do that. And we were still amazed at the organization of the university and all things pertaining to this event we parked in our lot, the pendants were already there waiting to receive the fans. We got on a wonderful free shuttle We went to the quad for a look around the university. There were four other locals on the bus with us. They immediately greeted us by saying welcome to Alabama. Thanks for coming. Where are you from? Where are you staying? Can we help you with anything? Wow! I did ask the question how the elephant became a mascot and was told both the history of the crimson tide and the elephant mascot. One three-person family was there for parents today as well as the game. When we got off the bus a fourth person waited for us and told us all about the chimes and actually walked us to the chime tower which was across the tailgating field. She must have spent 20 minutes with us telling us all about the campus and this was just the tip of the iceberg. It would take me four more pages of which I'm glad she didn't send. Related to the incident of kindness shown while we were on your campus and as we waited for the CSU tailgate to begin at three o'clock we were invited to spend the night at someone's home in case we got stuck after the game. We were told about the history of the tailgate system shown the president's home the elephant topiary the glorious air conditioned bathroom facility what a life saver the humidity was so high. The student center a fabulous student bookstore and boutique invited to sit in their personal tailgate tents ask if we would like them to take our pictures offered refreshments and went on and on both for the game and after game. I am an army brat and have lived in many locations across the world and I can honestly say that I was taken aback by the southern hospital hospitality that we were shown by everyone whom we came in contact with on that Saturday. They were lovely caring sincere people and the pride of their state and the pride in their school definitely came through. We seriously did not hear any one negative comment the entire day we felt overwhelmingly welcome on your campus so even though I began as a reluctant participant for this trip I am so happy that I was able to experience it what a wonderful event it has left a positive lasting effect on me about the University of Alabama and the people of Alabama. Thank you and all your staff and workers who make this event a most enjoyable day caring from golden Colorado. I want to share that with you all just to know I receive these every week thank you all for what you do if you are one of our staff associated with our facilities our grounds our shuttles any of those in fact would all of our staff just stand up so we can recognize them all the staff if you are a staff member here you guys are on. I also want to and Kevin Provost Whitaker did this earlier but I also want to provide a special thank you for our police department who work every day to keep our campus safe to keep you and I safe and I will tell you it is a 24-7 job many times you know if we look at the number of students we have our faculty our staff we're a we're a city of about 50,000 people and there's a lot of activities that go on every day if we add fall Saturdays we invite about another 100,000 of our closest friends to come and join us on campus and we have an economic impact of about 20 million dollars for each home game that we host here so would our officers please stand and I know we have some here but Ronnie all of you guys please stand Ronnie Robertson but we've heard a lot of programs and every time I get in our staff senate and our students I think there are so many activities so many programs that we have ongoing I know in the midst of all those and if you were like me sitting there you're saying I'm not trying to get that program but I plug in all the programs that we have there's so many great things happen there's so many great individuals behind the scenes that make them happen but each of you or a city industry know that I know that each one of you are part of the outreach or part of the service function whether that's in the classroom or the laboratory or in many other ways that our universities serve our constituent base thank you for what you do because that's what it's really all about the future of our university and the 38,000 plus students who are entrusting us with isn't wonderful that they continue to come in growth from across our state and truly across the country and we have the opportunity to educate them to research with them to perform with them and to graduate with them and to help them be successful new entries into our society every day as you came in this afternoon we were playing a video that showcased many of our outstanding legends that we had and I know we had a lot of conversation going on because we don't get get together enough that we like to have conversation but you may have recognized some of them if you those may have surprised the progressive group it's certainly not all of them but they are making their mark wherever they are across the world but they're also shining a light on the University of Alabama in the process and that light continues to burn the rider at the undergraduate level this year's first in class is the most academically gifted class we've ever had and you know you all heard me say that last year and it was true sometimes I say it's the second most and when I'm speaking to alumni I'm telling them each of your classes is one or most but our our students do continue to maze us with their credentials let me talk about a couple of those 40.6 percent scored a 30 or higher on the ACT and Young University class that's a bit higher than last year more than 38 percent of them graduating the top 10 percent of their high school class that's a bit higher than it was last year over 34 percent of our freshmen had a GPA of 4.0 or higher that's a bit higher than it was last year the average GPA of our incoming freshman class of totality is a 3.72 that's a bit higher than it was last year you see a thing emerging through without a doubt our recruiters and admissions and many of those are not here because where are they across the world without a doubt they are working tirelessly to bring us the best and the brightest students from across the country and it's up to us to take those students to educate them to retain them and to graduate them so they can go out and share their talent their passion and their intellect with the world it reminds me of a student whose family moved here from another state moved actually to Norfolk graduated from local high school she decided to attend U.A. she worked a night job as a switchboard operator some of this was in America then she graduated U.A. and began a career like so many of our students and it's because of the caring professors the static administrators like you that a few weeks ago that student returned to campus to give back to the University of in a remarkable ways. Maryam Hussain, the 1977-79 U.A. graduate, the student switchboard operator out at Price and worked on the night shift. Is now C.Mill Lockheed Martin, she's number three on Forbes magazine's most powerful investment award. She came to our campus and pledged $5 million to the Culver House of College to continue our ability, your ability to impact students in the same way that she was impacted when she was here at the University of America and Marilyn is not the only alumnus who has chosen to give back in a big way this year perhaps the biggest year which I'll have to wait for more on that just a few months ago alums Galen and Susan would call it a college of arts and sciences. The largest endowment over 20 years to establish the McCulloch Institute for Preliminary Scholars and the Susan McCulloch Art Denali. Mike and Kathy Moran gave so generously so we could build a new demographic analytics facility and the list goes on. Why do you think we continue seeing that trend? It's because you and others before you have given them not only a great education but also a great experience that they have never forgotten. Your passion for serving students has been contagious to me and as we talk to these CEOs it never ceases to amaze me that they first reflect on this staff person that's this faculty member went out of the way. It's occurred 20 years ago but to them it's like yesterday. It's like impacted them and this is now their chance to give back. I'm not going to spend much time telling you about all the wonderful like-added programs, our latest rankings, that would certainly be like preaching to the choir. You already know about those but I have heard would it be nice to have a reference of some of those talking points so when you came in and if you didn't get one of these be sure you do one of these. We're here together a nice little brochure that highlights some of these talking points. Some of these facts about the University of Miami accomplishments of our staff, our faculty and students. I hope you will read that. I hope you will share that with your neighbors over the back fence or maybe neighbors far far away perhaps share on social media but to help us continue to spread a great quarter of things going on here at the University of Miami. I also don't have to tell you of all the great improvements that we're making on our facilities. Thank goodness we've got the University Boulevard open. But you certainly see those as you drive around each day but I do want to tell you if you haven't had the opportunity to be on the rise on campus lately and see the work that's taking place to build your new performing arts academic center it is definitely worth the look. So is our adapted athletics program that I mentioned earlier that will open later this fall or this spring it will be named for Margaret Strain and Grant Martin who were strong advocates who have devoted their lives to so many of our students. New buildings are essentially new buildings being built at H.M. Comber, what we over in January call M.I.D. The New Freshman Hall by Lakeside. Several new Greek houses. The North Wing of the Moody Music Building. A new parking deck at Top Wild. And there's many, many more. And what an amazing transformation Little Hall has undergone. It has a renewed beauty and functionality that will serve the School of Social Work for decades to come. You may not know this but our School of Social Work is the only free standing school of social work in the state of Alabama and that I think that's a testament that our faculty and our universities committed to service to our state and to the people of our state. You see everything that we aspire to be was captured in our strategic plan advancing the flagship. We launched this last year out of getting input from a broad group of individuals including all of us in this room. But it is a living document and it will continue to evolve and continue to be shaking years to come. It's easy to talk about the new faculty that we've had this year or the institutes that we've created to leverage the strengths in our research and life research, water, transportation, cybersecurity, all of which provide tremendous impact to our state and our nation. These are all tangible parts of our plan but what is more important and most important is for all of us to know that we, you, are the critical link and role to moving our university forward in this place that we go home to. So whether it's providing a premier educational experience or increasing the discovery and innovation research scholarship and creative pursuits or providing an inclusive inviting campus or recruiting the best faculty and staff, you should see yourself in each of these levels because none of these initiatives can succeed without you being in the middle of those dreams. Do not become real without your talent and your commitment to our climate. I'm proud to work alongside you every day. We've already accomplished so many great things but even more on the rising there is much more that remains to be done. We make strides this fall in growing our graduate enrollment and increasing our research productivity and the two of those are mutually supportive. We continue to enhance our facilities in higher talented people such as Dr. Christine Tabor who joined us in August as our vice president and associate provost for diversity, equity, and inclusion and Dr. Sashi Mabasano, executive director of our new transportation institute, just a minute or two of the many who have been hired this year. We have many more important searches underway. It is a incredibly exciting time to be at the University of Alabama and as I look around this room and I see all of your faces and I hear about the strong leadership we provided faculty and professional staff assembly at our office clerical and technical staff assembly and our student government association. I know the successes that we have today will pale in comparison to what lies before us. With your support and your continued dedication, the University of Alabama will thrive in years ahead of us because what makes this university so special is all of us and all of us will continue. Our best benchmark has always been ourselves academically and on the field. We continue to refine what we do so well to be even more successful tomorrow than we are today or than we were yesterday. Thank you for everything that you do every day for the University of Alabama to make it a special place that it is and to be in the hearts of so many new passers. Have a great afternoon and roll type. Thank you.