I hope everyone enjoyed the warm weather over the 3-day weekend. I spent a fair bit of time outside getting the gardens ready for spring. All my plants need now is rain.
Please welcome Carolyn Whitesell who started this week as a Human-Wildlife Conflict CE Advisor, based in Half Moon Bay, with programmatic responsibilities in San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, and Sonoma Counties. I have no doubt Niamh and Roger look forward to having another colleague. Based on the news I heard this weekend regarding a mountain lion in San Mateo County, I'm sure the County is glad to have Carolyn on board.
Today was full of meetings, in part because the week is short a day and, in part, because I begin traveling with few days left available in March to schedule anything. During a call of Vice Chancellors for Research, we talked about the coronavirus and how campuses are handling risk and travel challenges. I was quite surprised to learn how few faculty have been caught in China. While there are a dozen or so students, only 3 non-student employees are impacted, thus far. Hopefully, none of the U.S. cases are impacting UC employees. We are a long way from talking about this in the past tense.
Wednesday the ANR Governing Council meets. We are taking a field trip to the South Coast REC. The meeting is a bit shorter than the typical meeting, to allow for travel, but still full of good information for the members. The agenda focuses entirely on UC ANR programs at South Coast, including urban forestry, water conservation, production agriculture, urban wildlife, and the important role UC ANR plays in urban areas. I'll be interested to hear the impressions of our Governing Council members.
Later this week, I am off on a different type of field trip for a quick board meeting in D.C. before heading back. While only a quick trip, I have big plans to get much work done onboard the plane. We'll see how that plays out.