Dr. Neil Hair

 I was recently asked by the Provost to represent the Saunders college of business at the Greater Expectations Institute that was held in Burlington VT over the past few days. We were charged by Number One to explore the 'experience' of our students and make recommendations towards enhancing it. The team was an excellent example of what can be achieved with a diverse set of faculty, staff and students from all over the institute who care about one thing - RIT success. I was truly amazed at the extend to which we managed to bond, resolve issues and come up with strategic as well as tactical recommendations for the university. Our efforts are still on going and therefore I cant say too much about the ideas as they need to continue to be fleshed out. I can say though that we all hoped to make a difference in the perceptions of our students and that from our perspective we've come a long way towards achieving it in just a few intense days of deliberations. I met a number of really interesting people from RIT as well as a number of cool folk from the US Navy - as my twitter feed attests, I was even hugged by a General in the closing hours of presentations to delegates. Not many people get to say that in a lifetime As an aside I was also taken aback by the whole renewable / recycle / local produce focus on Burlington university. They really made an effort to source all materials from local quarries and businesses helping to reduce its footprint ecologically, the buildings even had water bottle filling stations to help in the reduction of bottles of water being bought by students. We could learn a great deal from this campus effort.