Spring fling

Sammy the Slug and I are looking forward to Alumni Weekend. Photo by Carolyn Lagattuta.

Do you feel spring in the air? I do. The pace of activity on campus has picked up. The sprint to the finish line has begun.

Two impressive rankings came out just in time for Alumni Weekend: UCSC placed 11th in the annual Leiden Ranking, which measures the scientific impact of universities. We also earned top marks for environmentalism from The Princeton Review. We were the only UC campus to get the highest-possible score in their annual "green ratings" of colleges. More evidence that Banana Slugs love sustainability.

In other great news, the San Francisco Chronicle published an outstanding story about the UCSC Farm, its pioneering role in organic agriculture, and our ongoing contributions to sustainable food production. If you want to the highlights of media coverage of the campus, check out the "UCSC in the News" section on our Newscenter website.

I'm looking forward to Alumni Weekend. I'll be attending as many events as I can, including the all-alumni lunch on Saturday and the tribute dinner for my old friend and Oakes College colleague Herman Blake on Saturday night. But first, I'll be at the Academic Senate's forum on online education this afternoon, and I hope to make it to the campuswide student talent show tonight, too.

There's almost too much to do, but that's a good thing. It's spring, after all!

Comments or questions? Write to chancellor@ucsc.edu and put "Spring fling" in the subject line.