Dinner with the President

OK, so it wasn't the President of the US, only the President of the University of North Dakota, and we didn't actually have dinner with him, just at his house. Though we did chat briefly with the President and his wife upon arriving, they were too busy with their hosting duties to spend too much time chatting with everyone. They were both extremely gracious hosts and we learned that Marcia Kelly (The UND First Lady) has her degree in Speech and Communication Disorders and occasionally guest lectures at UND. I pointed out to Alycia that it's always beneficial to have someone in your field in such an influential position.

The occasion was a welcome dinner for all new faculty and I was invited to accompany Alycia, provided that I got all gussied up in my finest business casual attire. Most of the new faculty that we chatted with were quite friendly and sociable, immediately dispelling my presuppositions of the nerdy, anti-social professor. Since my name tag only had my name and not my academic department on it, some people asked "what department are you in?" and I happily replied "I'm in the Arm Candy Department". This caused some eye rolling from Alycia, a few chuckles, and a quizzical look or two from the non-native English speakers who didn't get the joke. But that's OK, it was all in good fun.

We ended up dining at a table with members of the Nursing School and the Aerospace School, arguably two of the biggest and most powerful departments at UND, and well regarded nationally. One of our dining companions was Bruce Smith (no not the Hall of Fame Defensive End for the Buffalo Bills), Dean of the Aerospace School, which I'm told is the best program of its kind in the country. He had lots of cool stories, and by far a more dynamic and interesting vocation than mine. Sadly in the world of accounting, very few stories start with you piloting across Colorado on a silvery moonlit night. Oh well....