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I was attending the President's Dinner tonight at the Alumni Pavilion with Dr Rawlins. It's a chance for club and organization presidents to mingle with each other and get in touch with members of Rawlins cabinet and the higher ups of Student Affairs. During Rawlins' speaking portion of the event, he, in his usual frank and honest manner, was of course encouraging us all to get our organizations out to Tuesday's game and all the festivities with it ..... and then addressed the rumor of canceling classes at 3PM that day. This is how it went as well as I can remember: Universities today for better or worst (he considers it better) get no greater coverage and recognition than in their athletic prowess, ability, and turnout. UNT admittedly gets very few opportunities to access such a wide audience in a prime, uninterrupted time slot on national TV. That's why next Tuesday is so important. He personally is for the idea of closing the academic campus and encouraging students to attend the game, BUT he recognizes that executing such a policy in the middle of a semester during lab times, etc. would not be universally beneficial to all students or faculty. Thus, he is not canceling classes in any way. He is sending out a memo to all faculty tomorrow morning explaining his position, but will include the proviso that if a teacher or professor wished to alter their schedule or academic calendar for the event, it will be up to them and they certainly would not be frowned upon or faulted for such. It was entirely surprising and off the cuff to hear him address it. He went on to extol his love for our team and Coach Mac, even giving his own analysis of the last few games. It all just completely reinforced why I love having Rawlins as our President and I really hope he doesn't consider going back into retirement any time soon. *SIDE NOTE: got to seem some sketches on the reworking of the Master Plan today as well. Lots of cool stuff going on, but relevant to this board: It's an overarching goal to completely unify the identity of the campus and not have any particular section be simply a "destination point" (MGVillage). That hotel/convention center is going to have a large footprint. *