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My Inauguration on May 12, 2005 brought about 2200 persons
to Symphony Hall for a concert by the Boston Pops, the UMass Marching Band
and a small singing group called Rockappella. The Governor presided at
the ceremony for my installation and I presented the President's medal to
Senator Edward M. Kennedy. At the end of the concert, Senator Kennedy
and I teamed up to conduct the Boston Pops and the UMass Marching Band in
the Stars and Stripes Forever. What a spirited night!
<Video>
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Alan Solomont - Jack Wilson - Barack Obama -UMass Club
<--Jack Wilson and Barack Obama
Jack Wilson-Teddy Kennedy-Marty Meehan - UMassLowell -> |
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 On February 22, 2006, I was privileged to grant an honorary degree to Nelson
Mandela and his wife Graca Machel at the Mandela Foundation in Johannesburg,
South Africa. they were incredibly warm and friendly.
Video of my comments on his death -on NECN |
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 <-I've
enjoyed getting to know the Red Sox President and CEO Larry Lucchino, who
was born in Pittsburgh in 1945. He attended Taylor Alderdice High
School in Oakland. Posing with the Red Sox Trophy was quite an honor
since most Bostonians had waited 86 years for that privilege.
I was honored to be able to throw out the first pitch at the Red Sox spring
training games in both 2007 and 2008. --> |
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Shaking hands with the catcher after the throw.
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| With Wally |
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On Friday October 21, 2005, Steve Ballmer, CEO of
Microsoft, came to UMass Amherst to announce that Microsoft was designating
UMass Amherst as the first Microsoft Showcase School in the world. A
breakfast in the Dubois library Learning Commons, was the venue for the
announcement. Then Steve and I flew back to Boston on a helicopter
chartered by Microsoft. It was a great flight, on a beautiful day.
I pointed out the sights along the way including various buildings in
Boston, including the UMass President's Office. He was an interesting
and relaxed conversationalist. I then headed off for the dedication of
the UMass Mass Biologics Laboratory building in which we manufacture vaccines for the state
and others, while he was off for a visit to the Boston Public Schools with UMB
alum, Mayor Thomas Menino, and Mass Technology Leadership CEO, Joyce Plotkin. |
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Jack Hart-JackWilson-unknown-Craig Mello, Nobelist |
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Jack Blais is one of the great philanthropists in
Massachusetts. His gift of over $20 million enabled us to build
the Aaron Lazare Research Building at the UMass Medical School. This
was not his first gift to UMass medical and it would not be his last.
He also endowed a Chair for Craig Mello, one of the co-discoverers of RNAi. In
characteristic fashion, Jack did not ask that the building be named for him,
but suggested that it be named for the long serving Chancellor of the
Medical School. Similarly, when he donated $15 million to build a
facility for the Patriots, he named that facility for Dana Farber and
donated tickets and other fund raising items to Dana Farber. At right, I am
in Jack's box for the Patriots vs Jets. |
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On February 22, 2006, I was privileged to grant an honorary degree to Nelson
Mandela and his wife Graca Machel at the Mandela Foundation in Johannesburg,
South Africa. they were incredibly warm and friendly. |
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Jack Wilson, Steven Tyler, and Keith Motley at the UMass
Boston Commencement on June 3, 2005. |
Steven originally declined to speak after receiving the
degree, but as we turned to go back to our seats, he asked if he could step
to the microphone for a moment. When he did, he began to shake a box
of Altoids as a percussion instrument and sang out a very clear "Sweet
Graduation! |
Emily Rooney was the main speaker for graduation. In this photo, we
are sharing a few laughs at the Commencement breakfast. I have
appeared on her show several times. |
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David Ortiz came by the UMB Commencement breakfast to honor the President of
the Dominican Republic who also spoke. |
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The President of the Dominican Republic was a bright and engaging leader.
We discussed the possibility of having UMassOnline help with an online
education strategy for the Dominican Republic. |
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Mikhail Gorbachev visited Boston in April 2005. As you
can see, he was more than willing to "go native" by donning Red Sox regalia.
Mikhail Gorbachev dons a Red Sox hat and looks like he is ready to run.
His speech that day was a very articulate defense of the changes that he
brought to the Soviet Union, now broken up into several countries with
Russia as the core of the former Soviet system. He also appealed to
the United States to pursue a policy of cooperation and multilateralism.
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Notice also Bob Metcalf, Founder of 3COM and inventor of the Ethernet
networking protocol is in the back at the far left. |
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Julius Erving (Dr. J) has been an active alumnus of UMass
Amherst. In addition to hosting an annual Julius Erving Golf
Fundraiser, he hosted the ceremonies honoring Al Skinner and retiring
Skinner's jersey. Al is presently coaching Boston College. On
the left I stand with Julius at the Basketball Hall of Fame. I bought
the autographed ball at the fundraiser to help kick off the auction.
On the right, Julius, Al, and I pose in front of the Amherst seal at the
dinner in the cage. |
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| Steve Ballmer and I were the
keynote speakers at the Mass Software Council meeting |
While I was in China to keynote a meeting of the American
Society of Engineering Education, we were privileged to meet with Chen Zhili,
who was approximately the third ranking person in the Chinese government.
She also attended MIT in the past. It was most interesting to see such
a high ranking government official who came from the sciences. |
At a dinner at the Union club, I signed an exchange agreement with the Minister
of Education, Udo Corts, from Hessen. Later, in June 2005, I
visited with him at the kickoff of a visit by our students and faculty to
the universities in his state. |
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| Jack Wilson and Senator Ted
Kennedy share a light moment at the MassInsight event at Sun Computer |
Rick DesLauriers and Lucy Ziobro
present FBI Award to Wilson |
Jack Wilson, Judi Wilson,
Rosalynn Carter, Angela Motley, Keith Motley |
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Each year that Bill Bennet served as Secretary of Education, he met with the
team. We presented him with one of the IPhO Tee shirts and enjoyed seeing
him jogging while wearing one of them some months later. I can be seen hiding in
the back, the third from the left. Arthur is the first from the left and
Avi Hausser, another coach in that year is the sixth.. |
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In one year, Dan Quayle also hosted the entire group.
The group was kind enough not to ask him to spell potato (or is it potatoe?).
They were far too kind to ask him any physics questions. |
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Carl Sagan was always one of my favorite person's to host. Alternately
pompous and charming, he was always energetic and interesting. My favorite
conversation came after we had both returned from visits to Moscow during the
first year of Glasnost. He had met with many of the same people that I
had, but he had had the pleasure of a long meeting with Gorbachev. I
picked him up at the Atlanta airport and we were riding together back down town
and we started exchanging stories. I asked him about his meeting with
Gorbachev, thinking that they must have had the most profound discussions about
nuclear winter, disarmament, or global warming. Instead he told me that
Gorbachev had regaled he and his new wife with stories of how to make a new wife
happy!
This picture was taken when I hosted Carl for the first Robert Resnick
Lecture at Rensselaer. It was a typical Sagan "tour de
force." He managed to combine, astronomy, engineering, politics, and
common sense into a discussion of how to (or not to) prepare for a potential
asteroid impact on earth. After the talk he spoke with students graciously
(with one exception) for an hour. The one exception? a student asked
him about UFO's. Carl then proceeded to "pull the student's wings
off."
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One of my most fulfilling moments came when I was named the J. Erik Jonsson
'22 Distinguished Professor in 1998. J. Erik Jonsson had left Rensselaer
to become the founder of Texas instruments and later the mayor of Dallas.
He was a giant, and I was honored to carry his named Professorship. |
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On February 22, 2006, I was privileged to grant an honorary degree to Nelson
Mandela and his wife Graca Machel at the Mandela Foundation in Johannesburg,
South Africa. they were incredibly warm and friendly. 
<-I've
enjoyed getting to know the Red Sox President and CEO Larry Lucchino, who
was born in Pittsburgh in 1945. He attended Taylor Alderdice High
School in Oakland. Posing with the Red Sox Trophy was quite an honor
since most Bostonians had waited 86 years for that privilege.
