This is such a treat for me to 
be back in the nation’s capital 
here at the Ronald Regan international
 trade center of this beautiful 
venue tonight and as I understand 
it was one of our own JMU alums 
who helped us secure this space 
so we’re very grateful for that it 
was a wonder conversation with 
people who are very involved in 
politics in government and so many 
different sectors of the economy as 
well A really good mix of alumni 
and parents we also had students 
and faculty and staff so quite a good
 representation of the JMU family 
so we both heard the concern but also
 that people really understood the value 
of the sense of family
 at James Madison University  and it 
clearly resonated with people when 
we talked about the fact when you come
 to JMU you’re a member of the family
 not just for the time you’re on campus 
but for the rest of your life and we heard 
from a number of people that they were 
concerned as the university got bigger as 
its growing and evolved over the years will 
it lose that sense of family that was so 
important to them that sense of community 
that sense of being valued and respected 
and known at the university I think people 
came away from tonight feeling that we 
still very much have that family focus that 
family sense now it’s a big family it’s a broad
 diverse inclusive and constantly changing 
family but it is a family and that includes 
our students their parents our alumni our 
faculty and our staff it’s a big wonderful family
 and we want to make sure we maintain that
 sense of how we treat each other and how 
we value each other in our community so 
I think people wanted to make sure that we
 understood how important that was as 
part of their experience 
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