Email from the research vessel. Our colleague here at IU South Bend, biologist Peter Bushnell, has just sent his first email dispatch from a research voyage with a Danish scientific expedition on board the HMDS Vaedderen. They've left Christchurch, New Zealand and will arrive in about 12 days at the Antarctic Penninsula. There are 40 scientists on the ship, for a total of 100 crew and passengers. Peter is on board for about a month of the ship's eight month voyage.

I mention it because he's sending back these dispatches for the university's blog, showing how appealing this kind of research can be and, at the same time, helping to show how blogging can reveal the work of the university to its community. About a year ago another colleague, sociologist Scott Sernau, taught in the Semester at Sea program, and he sent back many dispatches that are still featured on the blog. Another team, headed by faculty member Dé Bryant, for the Social Action Project reported on a month of work in South Africa last summer.

It's been wonderful to have these posts. I'm thinking more and more that the blog needs an advisory board to help brainstorm about how to make the lively work of teachers, researchers, and others visible to the community. On a good day I hear stories that amaze me about excellence in service, teaching, and research on our campus; on an average day, classes go on but the distinction is masked by the routine. We lose track, and in doing so, maybe we lose energy, confidence, too. So a university's blog can keep the progress, the excellence, in view. [0 & P]