Springing observations

** A lot of good feeling and optimism about the incoming Coker College president, Dr. Robert Wyatt, who has just been hired and who be on campus in his new role of president elect during the board meeting in two weeks.

** The Cobra baseball team is on a five-game winning streak.

** The Communication Senior Seminar is going well with two good presentations on ethics in media on Wednesday and looking forward to two more on Friday. These are team presentations and they are doing a good job in getting some key concepts out very quickly along with generating some discussion among classmates.

** Pressure is building within the Communication Senior Seminar and several other classes around campus as major research projects are underway. One of my students, who is working on social media and the Obama campaign, did a survey in the media writing class this morning.

** Speaking of pressure, the Coker College graduation is less that two months away and I have been working on getting some students (some of mine and some who are friends) to pick up the pace in job applications. This is certainly going to be a year that will require a great many lines in the water to reel in a job. Francis, who is a Criminology major and a full-time Coker employee, and a 20-year Army veteran, will be graduating in May and we spoke for a few minutes about her options come graduation. She has worked hard for the degree and wants the opportunity to move back to some work with people -- perhaps as a probation officer and perhaps as a children's counselor. Someone is going to be lucky to get her.

** Speaking of after graduation, there are some exciting things happening for a few communication majors in the graduate school area. One student told me today she has an offer of an assistantship that covers tuition and a fair stipend. Looking forward to being able to talk about those with names and schools.

** The Coker golf tournament won their tournament last weekend and Chris Marsh came up with tournament honors (he won it). Today (Thursday) there seems to be a great deal of action over the near the athletic fields so maybe some softball (they split on Wednesday, maybe some tennis, maybe some baseball and certainly soccer is doing their spring practice.

Jim Dawson, president of Coker, did the invocation at the SC Governor's School for Math and Science Foundation Townes Award dinner in Columbia last night and his prayer really set a great tone for the evening of celebrating 20 years of GSSM, which started on the Coker campus. Harris DeLoach, president of Sonoco, is the Townes Award winner for 2009.