Summing it up

We have an exciting event on campus today. It’s Math Day. More than 1,200 high school students from all over the state are here to compete for some large scholarships and to have some fun testing out their math skills. The whole Mathematics Department participates. I think it’s a really good recruiting tool for us. It gets students to campus and they have a good time. Hopefully they’ll return, whether to study math or something else.

It’s also Alumni Masters Week, during which particularly successful alumni, one from each college, are invited to return to campus to share their experiences and knowledge with students. Our college’s “master” is Therese McGuire. I met her this past February while I was visiting Chicago on business. I’d heard that we had this great alumna who is a professor in the Kellogg School of Business at Northwestern University. As soon as I met her, I knew she’d be a perfect master because she’s articulate, she loves to talk about what she does and she’s a perfect example of what you can do with a liberal arts education.

Students will have several opportunities to hear from her (see details of her visit at http://go.unl.edu/tnt) and I hope they take advantage of it. I think her insight and practical advice would serve any student well.