Report from the Rockies….the return home!

This will be the final report from NCUR 2010, unfortunately all good things must end…but that just means it's time to start working on our data for NCUR 2011 in Ithaca, New York!!! We only have about 360 days until we all meet again to celebrate undergraduate research from across the nation. And you can bet that UWRF will be there (in force), leading our region in this important “high impact” educational activity! We have already talked to Sun Country about the jets to get there next year…so now it is up to our students to do their research, scholarly and creative activities in the coming year so that they can once more join their peers in growing, expanding and building the future for us all!

As you can see, the trip home, as always, was very tiring…after 3 solid days of meeting, presenting, learning and a little “just plain fun stuff”…we are all worn out. Of course that didn’t stop some folks from breaking out the homework and getting ready for their week back in class! Montana bid us a lovely farewell with nearly perfect flying weather again and we had one last long look at those gorgeous mountains as we headed home.

Once on the ground, it was particularly bittersweet to realize that this was Dr. Bill Campbell’s last official NCUR meeting as the “travel-agent-to-future-stars”. Though we seriously doubt it is actually his last unofficial NCUR meeting ;-)). Bill will be retiring in the summer and so finished off his long efforts to build a research culture here at UWRF with an immensely successful final trip this year. Bill has been working for the betterment of UWRF through a variety of means since the early 1990’s and was the key administrative element in the formation of SURSCA. In fact, it was Bill and several students who cooked up the idea over lunch at NCUR 2002 in Whitewater, WI. The rest as they say, is now history…leading to the charter of 2 jets and transport of 360 young scholars from across our region to this year’s event! To thank Bill and acknowledge his many contributions to these efforts and the thousands of students he has impacted through his efforts, the UWRF travelers this year presented him with a signed NCUR 2010 T-Shirt… we wish him well and all the happiness and success that he has helped bring to so many students over his entire career.

On behalf of all those current and former students, SURSCA wishes to say, THANKS BILL and WELL DONE!!!