COA Déjà Vu

I started this morning of the “president’s boot camp” like every morning so far – five miles of running along the Charles River. The Canada goose population is thick and particularly ornery here in Cambridge.

Hands down the best talk to date has been by Freeman Hrabowski, president of University of Maryland, Baltimore campus. Freeman turned a more or less ho-hum average urban school into an exceptional hard science research institute and an institute that graduates more minority math and science PhDs than anywhere else in the country.

His biggest piece of advice for the audience of new presidents? Push your body and your mind – don’t forget about individual human health.

Maybe I liked him because that’s the advice I wanted to hear – I find solace in running, biking, climbing, avoiding vicious geese…

I’ve said it in other contexts before – I believe human ecologists need to think with their head and their body. It’s going to be important for me to keep running, biking, climbing, avoiding geese despite a very hectic schedule.

I’d like to set a goal of trying to run every mile of carriage path and every mile of national park trail on MDI in X time (we’ll work on that – short time frame is not vital). If anyone wants to join me in this goal, we can do it as a team.

DC