From early morning to midday I was in a variety of meetings around campus.  Here are a few glimpses of things observed during that time.

– It’s cold.  Not 3′ of snow in Boston cold, but cold for Winston.  It feels like the high 30s, and there is not a lot of sun to help warm you.

– I was surprised at the number of students who were not wearing a jacket (opting only for a sweater or hoodie or fleece).  I wonder if they, too, were surprised when they left their residence hall or apartment in the morning at how cold it was?

– No one was just lounging on the Quad or sitting at the outdoor tables.  Way too cold for that.  Everyone who was outdoors was moving pretty purposefully toward their next destination.

– While normally you might see people looking at their phones and texting or reading while they walk, there was a lot less of that today.  My hunch is that people walk slower when they are trying to type or read, and it was too cold for that.

1 28 15– There is a sign outside of Kitchin Hall seeking feedback on the Kitchin Refurbishment Project.  I don’t know much about this but will try to find out more in the coming days.

– In Reynolda Hall around 9:30 am, there were very few students hanging out in the Green Room.  Either it was too early to have the ‘this is where I study‘ crowd there, or people didn’t want to be in a place where the doors constantly open and close (letting the cold air in).  The latter seems pretty likely, as the Green Room is a frequent pass-through for students going from south to north campus and vice versa.

– I observed one student leave a laptop while said student went outside for a few moments.  The student was always able to see the laptop from their standing place, but in general this always seems like a bad idea to me.  Unattended property can be taken, and if this student had been distracted and run into a friend who started chatting, I or anyone else could have grabbed the laptop and walked away with it.

– There were two students I knew and briefly chatted with during my time on and around the Quad.  Both were sick, though one was at the front of the illness and the other’s was finally trailing off.  They told me ‘everyone is sick right now.’  Whether that is a fact or not, that certainly was their perception.

– There were signs all over the Quad about Nancy Lublin, who is the Project Leadership Keynote speaker next week.

— by Betsy Chapman

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