This past week has been exceptionally busy. Our transition to a new home has become more firmly established. Laurie and I closed on the new home and will be moving in next week. The good news is that we will be able to unpack our boxes and settle into our new house. The bad news is that we have a lot of boxes. We also traveled to New York City for our son’s wedding. The Big Apple can be daunting enough on its own, but when you throw in all the activities with a wedding, new in-laws, etc. Well, let’s just say it’s good to be back home.

But the activity I am most excited about from the past week is a conversation we started with the community about the future of Victoria. On Monday, we had the first meeting with a group of community leaders about working together to shape our future. The primary task assigned to me was to make our main campus in Victoria a “destination campus.” This does not mean that the Katy teaching center won’t also be a “destination,” but here we want to establish a residential campus. That means we want students to come and live with us here in this place. As I see it, that means making our campus a place where students want to live, and that also means Victoria has to become a destination for students. Victoria, a place I am personally pleased to call home, has to evolve into a place that college students will want to call home.

The conversation we started last Monday was about how UHV can work with the community to affect change and what kind of change we want to pursue. We will have to have many, many conversations. The composition of our discussion groups will likely change repeatedly, and we will need to engage a large number of community members. In addition, we will need to have focus groups with faculty, staff and students. I am hopeful that many of the leaders within our campus community also will assume leadership within the movement to transform Victoria. I will keep you posted on our progress, but in the meantime, I would love to hear your thoughts. What would you change/improve/add/delete about Victoria? Would you be willing to be an agent of change? What is your vision for making UHV/Victoria a “destination?” I hope you will join the conversation.