Thursday I had the opportunity to spread the ZUMBA® love with some incoming freshman attending Cub Camp.
If you've heard all the "fuss" about Zumba, but don't know what it is - here's the official "definition" from zumba.com: "The Zumba® program fuses hypnotic Latin rhythms and easy-to-follow moves to create a one-of-a-kind fitness program that will blow you away. Our goal is simple: We want you to want to work out, to love working out, to get hooked. Zumba® Fanatics achieve long-term benefits while experiencing an absolute blast in one exciting hour of calorie-burning, body-energizing, awe-inspiring movements meant to engage and captivate for life!"
Not one word of this is "false-advertising." Zumba® burns approximately 600 calories per hour (and I have a cardio watch to prove it). You can ask anyone that attends our classes - it's a TON OF FUN! The hour goes by so fast you don't even realize it ... before you know it - it's cool-down time. I am warning you, though, it's highly addictive!! You quickly realize one class a week is not enough ... Zumba® leaves you craving more!
Zumba® is not to be confused as a "dance" class. It's all about fitness!! No prior dance experience is required (and I am proof of that).
So, you're curious now ... check out the two clips below for a small sampling of what Zumba® is all about.
Southeastern Police Investigator O'Neil De Noux has won a 2009 Derringer Award in the "Best Novelette" category for his story, "Too Wise." The award was one of four presented May 1 by the Short Mystery Fiction Society to recognize excellence in the mystery short story form. De Noux's story "The Bonnie and Clyde Caper," which appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine in August 2008, was also nominated for a Derringer award in the Best Long Story category. In 2007, De Noux's "The Heart Has Reasons" won the Private Eye Writers of America's Shamus Award for Best Short Story. Both "Too Wise" and "The Heart Has Reasons" are Lucien Caye private eye stories set in 1940s New Orleans. New Orleans Confidential, a collection of Lucien Caye stories, was published by PointBlank Press in 2006. A professional writer since 1988, De Noux joined the Southeastern's University Police Department in 2006.
Hey, if you're a commuter who uses the Causeway or a resident of Southeast Louisiana who might have to evacuate for a hurricane (OK, I think that includes everyone!), here are two FREE iPhone Apps that you can download, developed by Ray DeJean, who is the Systems Engineering Coordinator for Southeastern's Office of Technology (just another way that Southeastern is helping to make your drive better and safer...)
The first app Ray developed and put into production is great for commuters using the Causeway. It's called CausewayOK and users are fed any current advisories and traffic updates. There is a link to call Causeway Police, a listing of tolls, and even a traffic cam Download it for free at: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/causewayok/id380043786?mt=8.
Ray has also just released a second new iPhone app called EvacGuide. It contains all pertinent information needed during a tropical storm. It includes contraflow maps, shelter information, and information about using 2-1-1 just to name a few. Download it for free at: http://itunes.apple.com/app/evacguide/id383272647?mt=8.
So, download and make Mr. Jobs happy(ier).....
... and do send Ray an email at Ray@selu.edu to thank him for saving you minutes in your commute...or finding out when contraflow starts (let's hope it's a calm hurricane season....)
Good day! Want to earn continuing professional education (CPE) credit and learn more about how to strategically use reverse auctions - all while not having to leave your office - or your backyard?
Here is a link to an upcoming teleconference - September 23, 2010 - that I will be conducting for Lorman - with info on registration as well - see:
One of the things that makes Southeastern very unique is the fact that we are one of the few colleges in the country that has a textbook rental system. Now with the rising costs of textbooks (up FOURTEEN PERCENT in the last year alone!), there are budding entrepreneurial start-ups like Chegg (http://www.chegg.com/) and Campus Book Rentals (http://www.campusbookrentals.com/) - and a little company called Barnes & Noble - that are starting to enter this market - with the cooperation of universities and their bookstores.
Read about these developments here in an article from today's Boston Herald:
What are your thoughts? How much do you think this has saved you as a student over your college career? What does this mean to you as a professor? Post your thoughts as comments here on the blog...and share this post to show how little old Southeastern Louisiana University has been doing something for decades that other leading colleges and universities are scrambling to put together now to serve their students!
David
P.S.An Important Point: This blog is not endorsed by, funded by, supported by, controlled by, (insert your verb here) by the Administration at Southeastern Louisiana University. All the input you see here is being done by faculty, staff, and students who care about Southeastern, and we are taking our own off-duty time and effort to use this space to publicize the things that are being done, today, on our campus and in our outreach beyond.
Ken Benitez of ActionNews17 (http://www.actionnews17.com/) is definitely one of the hardest working people in any local media market anywhere on the planet! If you follow his news site, (and it's a "must check daily" for seeing what's going on all around the Northshore that's not being reported elsewhere), you know that he writes voraciously and goes to countless meetings around Tangipahoa, Livingston, Washington, and St. Tammany parishes in search of interviews with the prominent - and even the not-so-prominent - to deliver their ten minutes of fame on YouTube!
Well, I must say that I overlooked this gem on Ken's Website for a few days now. It was an interview posted as dealing with the Southeastern Athletic Association. However, what Ken assembled was a fantastic panel, consisting of all of the parish-wide elected officials in the home parish of Southeastern (Tangipahoa Parish) for a roundtable discussion.
As you will see in the clip below, these gentlemen speak widely on the overall value of Southeastern to the region from an economic, educational, athletic, cultural, and yes, crime prevention perspective. I guarantee you that this is one of the more positive cases I've seen made in local media - or any media of any form - for our university and what it means not only to Hammond, but to the entire area.
Watch the clip below (and for gosh sakes, as of Monday, July 26th, it had a whopping 23 views - including my two - on YouTube):
This video should start a great deal of conversation - and maybe even some buzz! Please forward this posting to your colleagues, friends and even beyond to help Southeastern's cause! And yes, post your comments here on the blog and click to the right to follow Wyld About Southeastern (http://wyld-about-southeastern.blogspot.com/) to keep-up with what we - the faculty, staff, and students - are doing to say "We may be in a rough patch, but we're going to be OK and continue to do great things into the future!"
David
David C. Wyld Maurin Professor of Management Southeastern Louisiana University
P.S.An Important Point: This blog is not endorsed by, funded by, supported by, controlled by, (insert your verb here) by the Administration at Southeastern Louisiana University. All the input you see here is being done by faculty, staff, and students who care about Southeastern, and we are taking our own off-duty time and effort to use this space to publicize the things that are being done, today, on our campus and in our outreach beyond.
The Office of Technology's Relay for Life “Tech Team” has put together a cookbook which contains 200 mouth-watering recipes from staff, family, and friends. Many of the recipes are in honor of or in memory of loved ones, and the book is being dedicated to the memory of our colleague, Don McEwan who lost his battle with cancer last year. The cookbooks sell for $9.00 or $8.00 for 5 or more. They are currently in production and will be available mid August. But you don't have to wait to reserve your copy. Advanced sales coupons are available.
We are also selling this year's Relay t-shirt (which is also available as a tank top). The shirt features a fleur de lis design which utilizes the purple cancer ribbon as the focal point of the fleur de lis with the slogan “Fight Dat.” T-shirts sell for $15.00.
We'll be bringing back our famous Hot Dog Fundraiser in the fall, and we have lots of other exciting fundraisers planned between now and Relay day, November 13th. Please follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/techteam for all the latest updates. For information about any of our fundraisers call us at 985-549-2138 or come by McClimans Hall.
Well, this is a new adventure for me and one that I hope will include you if you are colleague on the faculty, a staff member, a student, or simply a friend of Southeastern Louisiana University. The mission of my work here is to be a "Web 2.0" showcase for the good things - the very good things - that are being done by all of us at Southeastern.
Sometimes in a crisis, we do lose sight of the big picture. At times like this, it is easy to point to what others should be doing - or not doing - and who should be cut - but not us, of course (recalling the hurricane prayer that goes something like, "Dear God, please let it {insert name of storm here} hit them, not me!"). Indeed, in the face of the perils we now see, some may not want to take the lead, recalling what happens to Samuel L. Jackson in one of the great movie scenes of all time from Deep Blue Sea:
Yes, we may have uncertainty in our jobs. Yes, we may have far fewer resources at our disposal than we had in years past. Yes, we are all having to stand shoulder-to-shoulder to do more with less. Yet, day-after-day, we continue to carry out the mission of the university, to serve the needs of our students, and yes, to do great things professionally in our research and writing, to do great things in the classroom, and to do great things with the local community.
Some may think of this effort as being that of a "cockeyed optimist," but I think that it is exactly what we need in this time of crisis. Think of all that we as Americans, as Louisianians, and as a part of Southeastern have overcome since the university's founding in 1925. Just to name a few:
The Great Depression
World War II
The turmoil of the 1960s and the Vietnam War
The inflation and gas lines of the 1970's (think of that if you are commuting today from Baton Rouge, Slidell, New Orleans, or beyond to attend/teach here at Southeastern!)
Disco
The Iranian Hostage Crisis
The Impeachment of a President
September 11th and the two wars that have followed
The Great Recession
...and Justin Bieber
And now, this is our crisis - our test - and how will we respond? Let's take the advice of that great philosopher in song:
"When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get Going"
----- Billy Ocean (and hey students, just picture the fact that many of your professors actually danced to this!)
And so, this is YOUR forum. It is not intended to be a place to talk about the negative - there are other sites on the Web for that if you wish to do so. It is not intended to interfere or replace the university's own public information and outreach efforts. Rather, this is intended to be a way for all of us who truly care about Southeastern and the future of our great institution to showcase the positive. It will be a way to tell - in an unfiltered way - the success stories that can be found from work being carried out by our faculty, staff, and students all across our campus and indeed, all across the Northshore Area of Louisiana and in many cases, across the country and around the world. While there are indeed dark clouds surrounding us in the economic and budgetary realities we face, we - the faculty, staff and students - continue to "fight the good fight" and do good works - and in many cases, produce outstanding results in research forums, in the classroom and online with our teaching, in the arts, on the sporting fields and courts, and in many underpublicized ways in the communities in which we live and work.
So, I invite you to share your stories here. I will "moderate" this forum and share my own stories, but I hope that the great majority of the content will come from you! To that end, I am providing you with this email address (dwyld.kwu.southeastern@blogger.com). By emailing your written (and visual) material to this special email set up for this purpose, you will be feeding material for inclusion on this website. I will update this site daily to provide this real-time information to all who care about Southeastern to share with others, both in person and online in your own social networks. Just be sure and clearly identify yourself with your name, position, and email at the end of your email to the blog site. Want an example - look at the fine work being done by my students in the College of Business to publish their papers in editorially reviewed, online publications (see the list of related articles at the end of this post for links to a sampling of these works that have been published by students over the past year!).
If you wish to join me further in this effort, you can become a permanent contributor to this blog to tout things being done in your department, in your college, in the community, or even in your own sport or on the stage. Just email me at mail to: dwyld@selu.edu to assist me in this effort.
Now we begin this great experiment in the World of Web 2.0 and participatory media. This is today the world in which I work, so I hope you will join me in this cause. And even if you can't contribute content, please do follow the site and forward the postings on to your friends on Facebook, Twitter, and in other online networks. Let's stand up and work to publicize on the Web all that is going on at Southeastern. In this time of crisis, let's take the attitude of John Belushi:
And to close, let's take advice from an unlikely source - yes, Rocky Balboa (my apologies to my colleagues in D. Vickers - hey, I'm a BUSINESS professor!). This is a favorite clip of mine that I now share with students at the end of each semester. Watch, as it has a special message for all of us at Southeastern at this time:
Let's us show some courage now to "keep moving forward!" Let's show why we are wild - or Wyld - about Southeastern! Finally, let us show that we are resolute and can face an uncertain future with faith that we are "fighting the good fight" for Southeastern every day in our classrooms and hallways, in our labs and in the marsh, and in the community. So, in the words of Timothy (words that have always meant something special to me as a {former} marathon runner, but now more than ever in the uncertain environment we face now), let's have the courage to show who we have been, who we are today, and who we will be in the future:
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith.
David C. Wyld (dwyld@selu.edu) Professor of Management College of Business Southeastern Louisiana University
P.S.An Important Point: This blog is not endorsed by, funded by, supported by, controlled by, (insert your verb here) by the Administration at Southeastern Louisiana University. All the input you see here is being done by faculty, staff, and students who care about Southeastern, and we are taking our own off-duty time and effort to use this space to publicize the things that are being done, today, on our campus and in our outreach beyond.
