Well, we’re here tonight in Dallas, Texas
at the home of Pat and Emmitt Smith.
What a treat it has been to be in this
beautiful home; and it was so gracious
of Pat and Emmitt to open up their
home to us.
This is one of the events that was
one of the farthest away from campus
that we’ve been. We’ve been to California,
now here we are in Texas and a lot
of alumni have come here from other
parts of the country and resettled in
Texas; and they talked about the fact
that that can be challenging.
That it can be hard to stay connected
when you can’t get back to campus
as often as perhaps others might.
And yet, an event like this really
rekindles the flame. It reconnects
people with each other , and that’s
part of the importance of these events
is to remind us that we’re all part
of that JMU community and to get
the alumni chapters to think about
‘What can we do to keep that spirit going,
that sense of the JMU community for
people when they come to Texas?’
For example, what can we do to help
young alumni or recent grads of JMU
who might be looking to resettle in Dallas,
or Houston, or Austin. We had
representatives from all of those
chapters tonight and we talked about
what they can do to help out recent
graduates. And it’s really exciting to see
that alumni network getting stronger,
and to have people thinking about how
they can work with that next generation
of students. It was really interesting tonight
to hear people talk about the importance of
faculty-student interaction, including by the
way, a former faculty member who was here
tonight. One of the questions that came up was,
‘Well, as JMU becomes more more and more
well-known nationally, isn’t it going to be a
challenge or a temptation or a concern to
want to go for those well-known faculty,
who might bring in a lot of research dollars,
but who don’t care about teaching or who
don’t want to be involved with undergraduates?’
And what I have seen, as we’ve interacted
with faculty across campus and with all
the academic units, is that we bring and
attract people who want to teach, who want
to interact with students and particularly
with undergraduates. That’s one of JMU’s
hallmarks. That’s what we’re known for in
American higher education. And I think that
reputation has spread nationally, but it was
good to hear the perspectives of people who
graduated 10, 20, 30 years ago, all talking
about why that’s important. And then to
have that reinforced today as we talk to
our own students and faculty on campus.
