SENIOR FACULTY TESTED FOR COMPETENCY

School Council has ruled that in order for senior faculty to avoid forced retirement, an annual skills testing will be performed. Any faculty member failing the professorial basics (i.e. dressing themselves, parking between columns under SLAB, talking on the phone while leaning back in a chair, or holding a white board marker in one hand and eraser in the other while digressing) will be retested in 30 days. Faculty members can alternately choose to attend the semi-annual school-wide faculty meeting and prove their alertness by remaining awake while Dean Brown serves up his pie charts.

MULTI-TASKING REQUIRED FOR TENURE

The School Council has designed a battery of tests for for junior faculty still striving for tenure. Ability to multi-task must be proven such as participation in teleconference call with co-PIs while taking notes on proposal draft and pushing laptop bag with foot in airport security line. The ability to be protandry or protogyny to save time in one's personal life is considered a plus for all tenure-seeking faculty.

SPACE PROBLEMS CONTINUE

All areas of the campus continue to be plagued by lack of space needed to function as an efficient research and teaching institute. Use of exterior spaces grows across campus. The outside terrace of the Science and Administration building now functions as additional lunchroom space. Will somebody PLEASE buy us a new building?

DID MAC TAMPER WITH THE DOOR PRIZE TICKETS?

Questions abound since the Dean's holiday party about the surprisingly large number of party door prizes that landed all in the same division. Did MAC mix up something in one of their labs that made the desired tickets cling to the dean's hand when he pulled the winning numbers. Did people travel more that once through the "get your door prize ticket here" line? Or was it truly some kind of magic as claimed by one of the MAC staff refused to be identified "Stand over here. I win things" was overhead in the group huddled near the SLAB doorway. We can be certain the other 5 divisions will be watching closely next December, ready to cry "foul" if another record number of prizes land in the same division.

A recommendation for the party planners - one of the faculty recommended a door prize of 6 months on 8803 for next year.

SORRY, CHARLIE!

Even our bar mascot, the yellowfin tuna, compromised and drank bottled beer when the Wetlab beer taps were broken recently. Bottoms up!

Hurricane Wilma's Theme Song

by Dr. John Barimo

SUGGESTION BOX IDEAS THAT WERE REJECTED IN 2005

• Move the dock closer to the wet bar.
  
• Let's publish and sell a calendar of some of the male faculty and staff and give profits to the faculty sabbatical fund.
  
• Caviar in the cafeteria!
  
• ALL MONDAYS OFF following weekends with UM football games.
  
• All shaded parking places should be assigned by lottery drawing.
  
• The UM mascot is the ibis but the Rosenstiel School mascot should be the turkey buzzard.
  
• Nuke KRONOS!
  
• Buy the Marine Stadium for use in combined faculty, staff, and student meetings.
  
• Do away with the individual divisional holiday parties and have one big weeklong party aboard the Explorer of the Seas.
  
• Have the next faculty retreat in Fiji.
  
• Clothing optional volleyball.
  

KAREN ASKS FOR A RAISE

"After a job well done, NOSB coordinator Karen Wilkening asks Dean Otis Brown for a raise".

MEMORY LANE

Take a stroll with us down memory lane with these items from circa 1980 submitted by Frank Millero.

TAKING HURRICANE PREP SERIOUSLY

Anything can happen when those hurricanes begin to blow so the dedicated physical plant staff takes no chances before locking down the campus. They make sure that Security is also in place - literally - in the form of Mad Dog Tyrrell. Florizel McKenzie and Juan Rosado have the task of lashing Mad Dog to the guard house as their final step before hunkering down! "I've been watching over this campus for over 17 years and a little hurricane isn't going to stop me", barks Mad Dog.

TAKING TIME TO LAUGH AT OURSELVES

I've worked at RSMAS over 15 years now. It saddens me that at campus gatherings I still hear comments like "this place USED to be so much fun". For many long time RSMoids, there is a sense of something lost in the past 20 years or so. Have the times changed or have we changed?

I'm reminded of a line from the TV show MASH where Hotlips says to Hawkeye, "It's no fun being the clown when you have to run the circus." If we permit it, the joy of applied intellect and passion for new discovery can be overshadowed by the responsibilities of respectable science and the business of "paying the bills".

This joke issue of Soundings is dedicated to the ghosts of RSMAS past. Maybe if we all take ourselves less seriously we can continue to kick scientific butt AND enjoy it more at the same time. Let's make some new good old days with wonderful events like the recent MSGSO talent show! Thanks to everyone who made that event happen.

Thanks to Angel Li, Hunter Augustus, Karen Wilkening, John Barimo, Frank Millero, Brian Giebel, and Deny Rowand, and all the various unnamed photographers for their help creating this issue.

Michele Rowand
Editor, Soundings

MORE HURRICANE NAMES NEEDED

• With the busy 2005 hurricane season still an unpleasant memory and the next one only 2 months away, the friends of Soundings want to help the National Weather Service by suggesting a new, expanded naming system including both first and last names as well as international names.
  Here are the suggestions submitted so far.
• Ivanna Getouttahere
• Haywood Jablomahowzdowne
• Hal Deep
• Fimah Letuzdowne
• Konoff d' Strockshun
• Yagot Powryet
• Noruf Onmaihowz
• Duck N'Cuver
• Kissur Asgoodby
• Weir Gonners
  

  ---

Dr. Sharan Majumdar demonstrates to prospective PhD students, how much cushier their chairs and lives will be once they graduate and get their professorial posts. "It wasn't long ago that I sat where you are - all uncomfortable and insecure. Now, I'm 'Doctor Cyclone!"

DURING CAMPUS STORMS

During heavy rain events please remember that the Science and Administration building garage is automatically designated as a "no wake zone". Manatee cautions apply as well until floodwaters subside.

WHY THE "PARTY SCHOOL" REPUTATION?

While the atmosphere at the Rosenstiel school is affected by its steamy tropical island location, the perception that all we do out here is sip rum-runners and play volleyball is highly over exaggerated. Our work must be done just like it is at other universities across the nation

.Using the latest in audio technology and working late into the night, these women practice for their dissertation defenses.		Putting the "fun" back into the fundamentals of ocean chemistry, Dr. Frank Millero and his class of graduate students get down into their studies of the effects of iron when added to deep levels of ocean circulation.

WET LAB MIXED DRINK SPECIALTIES

The Qualitini' - the qualifying exam martini

Kommons Kahlua - for the Koffee Kraver

Walton Smith & Wesson - a double shot

PhDlight - favorite RSMAS beer

Cramming for my comps - cranberry juice plus anything else that causes a buzz\

Data port - favorite RSMAS wine

Drunkin' dive partner - a conconction guaranteed to make you dangerously lose both track of time and where you buddies are

Postdacquiri - mixture strong enough to make anyone go postal
Sand in my snorkle - not a drink, just an annoyance

BACK TO THE TARMAC
Dean Brown tries to blend in with furniture aboard the hurricane hunter airplane to get a free ride aloft. He was eventually discovered, given a good talking to, and returned to the tarmac.

RAINEX DEMO
A Rainex staff member demonstrates how repeatedly hitting yourself in the side with a weather sensing dropsonde can greatly affect the expected readouts achieved after deployment.

ACTUAL E-MAIL POSTED TO
Info@rsmas.miami.edu

Wet Suit
There was a black wet suit with a "Dark Star" logo on it drying outside the Dive Office. It has appeared to walk off; if anyone accidentally picked it up thinking it was theirs, please e-mail me.
Thanks,
Rebecca

E-MAIL WE'D LIKE TO SEE -
The aforementioned wet suit was stopped by security guards as it attempted to make a break for the front gate. It appeared that the suit was trying to get over to the recently re-opened Miami Seaquarium and slip into the Lolita Show. The reluctant neoprene has since returned to its wearer. It was heard muttering "I was meant for show business not science."

Judy Grey demonstrates AOMLs new whistle-while-you-work campaign designed to brighten spirits and lift morale at NOAA. Dean Brown and others listen intently and evaluate the program for possible adaptation here at RSMAS.