Dear Southernites: This week, I felt like I had been caught in a rip in the space-time continuum. The governor and the members of the legislature negotiated down to the wire on various bills to plug the $943 million budget deficit for this fiscal year. In the end, they came up short, but the damage was not nearly as bad as originally projected. The state ended up raising taxes and cutting funding in many areas. Unfortunately for higher education, this budget battle sounds all too familiar. That said, thanks to all of you for your calls, emails and letters to legislators this session. We begin the regular legislative session in a few days. No taxes can be raised during this regular session, and another special session is likely to be called after this regular session ends in June. On a high note, Southern University assembled an amazing lineup of events as part of our Founders' Day celebration that featured former astronaut, Dr. Mae Jemison, and the Southern University students who helped integrate NASA in the mid-1960s. On Tuesday, I attended a Founders' Day reception at the College of Engineering honoring these Southern University students. It was a touching moment to know that Southern had a major role in such a rich part of this nation's history. During our Founders' Day convocation, Dr. Jemison, the first female person of color on the planet to travel into space, shared with us wonderful stories about her space travel and life's journey. While standing among the crowd waiting to talk to Dr. Jemison after the program, I bumped into Dr. Stephen McGuire. Dr. McGuire is a Cornell and Southern University alumnus and physicist who works with the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO). You may recall that he is one of the scientists involved in the recent finding proving Einstein's theory of relativity with respect to the space-time continuum.
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| | President Castille and SU physicist Dr. Steven McGuire |
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| | SU College of Engineering students who integrated NASA in the mid-1960s (Henry Thurman III for his late father, Dean Henry Thurman) |
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| | Former Astronaut Dr. Mae Jemison and President Castille |
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