ACBSP-day

Friday, 14 November

Today I got down to the reading and thinking that precedes each meeting of the ACBSP Baccalaureate/Graduate Board of Commissioners. The full name of the ACBSP is the Association of Collegiate Business Schools and Programs. It exists to help business schools learn and practice fact-based management and the processes of continuous improvement. My home school has been a member for 12 years, and I have been active in the association since 1998. All but a few of us who serve the Association are volunteers who do this work because we believe in the mission of the organization. As a commissioner, part of my duty is to attend meetings in Kansas City in November and April of each year, at which the Board of Commissioners judges the applications for accreditation of member schools, and reviews their periodic Quality Assurance Reports. Reading and judging those submissions is real work, but it is rewarding because one learns a lot in this job, and because the people in the ACBSP are good folk, serving other good folk. Still, this academic year, getting to Kansas City will require special effort.

Monday, at 11:27 PM, I will take the overnight train to Bucharest, where I will have lunch with Mihai Moroiu of the Romanian Fulbright Commission, then sleep for a few hours at the Casa Victor Hotel before catching a 6:00 AM Wednesday flight to Amsterdam, from which I will fly to Dulles Airport in Virginia, then on to Kansas City for the board meeting. I will arrive in KC at 5:43 PM, if all goes well. While it doesn't look like a very long day if you compare departure and arrival times, there is an eight-hour time change between Bucharest and Kansas City, so I will actually be travelling from Bucharest for twenty hours. Make that 22 hours, if you count from 4:00 AM, the time at which I must leave the hotel.

Rendezvous!

Shirl and Duncan in their kitchen, about 1993

But, this trip is not all about work. Shirl will arrive in KC from NH (via Southwest) about an hour later. My wife Shirley and I have been apart now longer than at any time since our wedding 35 years ago. Just this week my absence topped our seven-week previous record, which occurred when I was teaching in Greece in 2001. It will be great to see you, my love. Travel safe!