Student Advisory Council

One thing that I have learned during the time that I have been involved with student government is how much the people at USU really care about students and their success. These pictures are from a student advisory council that I am participating in. We meet once a month with various administrators to discuss what students like or have concerns about so that they will know best what needs to be changed, improved, continued, etc. It is another way for them to check the pulse of the student population so to speak.

In this picture from l-r, Tiffany Evans (Director of Student Involvement & Leadership Center) Krista Bustamante (Campus Diversity V.P. with ASUSU) James Morales (V.P. of Student Services) and Tyler Haws (Student Advocate V.P. with ASUSU)

This is James Morales who just joined USU as the new V.P. of Student Services this summer. I have spoken with him several times and I am very impressed! I can tell that he genuinely cares about the students here and wants to make a difference for us. He keeps me updated about things going on at the regional campuses that I may not have known about and always has an open door. I have found that he is more than happy to talk to me anytime about anything that is on my mind. Even though he is here in Logan, he is very interested in the other campuses and what he can do for them. I can tell he is already a great addition to USU!

I am definitely not in danger of getting bored this semester. I've been so busy that I haven't had time to post what I've been up to. So here are a couple of pictures showing what I've been doing lately.

Last Friday I took my family with me to the opening social for Psi Chi and the psychology club. As part of this we went and helped with a project that many organizations at USU have been helping with. We helped with the building of a playground at the Whittier Center in Logan. This playground has been built in one week by community volunteers and is unique because it was designed to be accessible and fun for children of all abilities. We had fun participating in this project, and it was neat to see how many people there were wearing their Aggie shirts!

As you can see from this picture, even my hubby had fun.

A week ago we got to be in the Peach Days parade in Brigham City with my friends from the Utah State campus there. My kids love doing this and didn't want to miss out even though all of my classes are in Logan this semester.

This is Clair and McKinzie Hawkins, the student reps from Brigham.

Good cat, bad cat.

Well the bat didn't stay hidden for long. Monday evening we were all sitting at the kitchen table playing a game when we heard an unusual noise that we knew was the bat. We sat quietly to listen for where the sound came from and saw our fearless feline Maui emerge from the basement with the bat in his mouth (GOOD CAT, the bat is no longer loose in the house.) My kids all ran to the bats rescue. My son grabbed the cat; the cat dropped the bat and my son threw the cat into my bedroom and shut the door. Then he locked the the dog in another room to get her out of the way and I ran to grab a pair of gloves. The bat did not seem hurt and began flying in circles around my living room with all of us watching. We were hoping it would land so we could catch it but it didn't appear to have plans of landing anytime soon so we threw a light blanket over it and then carefully picked it up with gloves. It tried to escape and even bit the gloves but fortunately it's teeth were too small to be able to bite through the gloves. We took a couple of pictures, set it loose in our yard and watched it fly up into a tree. When we let the cat out of my bedroom he ran to where the bat had been and sniffed around for his treasure. I think he was mad at us for stealing his fun because when we went back to our game he went and left a puddle for us at the bottom of our stairs...BAD CAT!

Labor Day

A couple of weeks ago we had a pretty good wind storm in Deweyville. A tree in our back yard that had been mostly dead was knocked down but we hadn't had time to deal with it until Labor Day. When my husband was cutting it into logs he discovered that there was a bat sleeping behind a big piece of loose bark. My kids did what any normal kids would do. My son put on a pair of gloves, caught it and put it in an old bird cage. The poor critter was obviously upset to wake up to this predicament and so to calm him down, the kids covered the cage with a towel and put it in a closet in the basement where it was cool and dark. They were planning to look at him later when he calmed down and then release him on the mountain behind our house. After about an hour I decided to go down and take a picture of the bat to put on my blog but guess what...when I took the towel off the bat was gone! We searched the closet but without any luck, so now we have a small bat living IN our house.