So tonight
we're here in Charlotte NC at
the home of Steve and Dee Dee Leeolou
who are fantastic supporters of the university
of course have been very involved with
the alumni and
of course the building is named after
them on
campus in their honor
and it's it's an annual event, their
holiday party here in Charlotte
to which they invite
JMU alumni from the area and one
of the great things about this chapter
is they get terrific turnout, they have a very
healthy percentage of the alumni in
the area who come
to their events who are involved and engaged
and it's a beautiful, beautiful setting so it's just 
real treat for us to be here tonight and
to celebrate the holidays at the same time.
So tonight but the point came up it's not just
a quality student experience in and outside
the classroom, and a well-rounded experience
but very specifically
that leadership development
is a strength that JMU provides to it's student body
and there are so many ways
that we do that, there are student
organizations
that provide leadership opportunities
there are classes in leadership develop
programs in leadership development. There are a lot of
events and activities that are student
run and student lead at JMU
and we all benefit from that we've
learned from our students and they
learn a great deal from those leadership opportunities.
So it was very good for someone to
raise this point tonight as one of the
areas that is a challenge and a growth
opportunity for us and that is the diversity
of our campus. The student body and also
the faculty and staff diversity.
So to build on that strength
one of the things that I
had asked for this semester is a
diversity task force that will look both at the student component,
at the student body diversity and what we could do there,
and also separately at faculty and
staff diversity and initiatives, and programs
to help develop that further.
My hope is that this task force will
take a broad look to say
let's look at the things we've already
done that might want to be continued
or that we might want to augment, but then
also let's take a step back and say
what are some new initiatives
and ideas and best practices as we look nationally
that might step up our efforts to take them
to a next level, this has been a passion
of mine
in higher education for many years
I've devoted a lot of my career
to these types of initiatives so I'm
really looking forward to working
with that task force and to thinking about
what we can do to step up our efforts in that area.
