June 14

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On the 14th the part of the University I used to work for put on a special evening for retirees.  I hadn't been in the main building since I retired.  It has a new wing.  This is the atrium between the original part of the building (not really visible at right), and the new construction (at left and straight ahead).

I like all the repeated straight lines and rectangular shapes, contrasted with the round hanging planters and the irregular shapes of the foliage.  Or is it faux-liage?  I'm not seeing how anyone could take care of those plants, if they really are plants.  But maybe they're on some sort of fancy pulley system and can come down to be taken care of.

It was an interesting evening.  The new director of the institute is nearing the end of his first year in that position.  He spoke to us about the State of the Institute.  We heard that things are going well.  A recurrent theme for the evening was that the institute is a place that values its staff as well as its faculty, and that it is stronger because of the teamwork between all of the people who work there.  I wonder if most of us who were present that evening were staff rather than faculty........  I was staff; essentially all the people I know from my time there are staff, so the few people I knew who were there were staff.

One of the faculty gave a talk about how much of her own work is devoted to encouraging collaboration between different disciplines -- in her case the disciplines are psychology, population study, and brain science.  That was interesting, too.  Her talk touched on many things I have learned from my online classes in the last few years (and did not agree, entirely, with many things I have been told in class!).

It was very nice of them to put on this event for us, to help us stay (even peripherally) in the loop.



Walking home.  My favorite garden on 7th street was full of these nice orange lilies on the 14th.

A wider view of just some of these lilies.

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