Taking nothing for granted

When I was a student at the University of Florida in the 1980s, I took almost everything for granted. So when I returned to campus in December to serve as the College of Journalism and Communications’ first director of communications, I promised myself I’d make up for that mistake.

It’s been my easiest-to-fulfill New Year’s Resolution since vowing, in my late 20s, to have more fun.

On a daily, sometimes hourly basis, I find new reasons to appreciate being back at UF. When I finish my pleasant 10-minute walk to my office, I thank God and ask Her to help all the poor souls stuck in commuter traffic in cities around the world. When I use my Gator1 card to munch as much as I want at the Gator Dining hall by the Gator sports complex, I rub my stomach and whisper to it, “Get ready to rumble!” When I sit with my laptop outside the Reitz Union pond on a sunny day and wirelessly, effortlessly log on, I e-mail family or friends to say, “Wish y’all could be here!”

Topping my growing list of appreciation-worthy activities has been producing the communigator. In case you suspect I’m just being diplomatically correct, here are a few reasons why I mean it:

  • I’m not just an editor, I’m a reader. I’ve been looking for the communigator in my mailbox since I graduated in 1988.
  • I welcome the challenge of following the publication’s strong tradition. James L. Terhune, who retired last year and now splits his time between Gainesville and Atlanta, established the communigator as one of the best of its kind in the country. For 20 years, he delivered a high-quality product that served its readers’ needs.
  • I love working with the students. As you can see by flipping through the communigator, the students generate many of the elements. They’ve been taking full advantage of their unique opportunity to help customize the publication they’ll one day receive.
  • I enjoy working with my former teachers and with new professors and staff members. Editing your mentors is fun!
  • I’m excited to implement Dean Terry Hynes’ vision. It calls for excellence, accuracy, creativity, fairness, balance, timeliness, relevance and all the other elements that make our field so, well, exciting.
  • I look forward to boosting your involvement. Although much of the publication is devoted to news about alumni, we’re far from satisfied. It’s your magazine, and we want to see more of you in it.

Therefore, we hope to hear from you:

  • Mail, fax or e-mail your updates. We can’t emphasize this enough. The more, the better. Keep ‘em coming!
  • Propose story ideas – don’t hesitate to call or write us with any ideas you might have. We may not be able to use all of them, but we would like to consider all of them.
  • Send us postcards. As you can see on this page, we will reprint our favorite one in each of our three annual editions (April, August and January).
  • Work on then&now with one of our students. Help us compare and contrast different categories and different decades.
  • Send us letters to the editor. We hope to start publishing them as soon as August.
  • Write a guest column. We’re looking for strong, timely, interesting, relevant pieces about issues or personal experiences in journalism and communications. And we would need your picture, too.

Being an alum, I think I know what you’re looking for; but how can I be sure unless you tell me? Call (352-846-3013), write (bdvir@jou.ufl.edu), send smoke signals. I’ll do my very best to meet your needs. Believe me, I won’t take your involvement for granted.

Now I’m off to Burrito Brothers. The sun is shining. The air is crisp. I will sit on a shaded picnic table on campus, read the Alligator, and savor a Mexican Dinner as if it’s my very first one.

It’s part of my education. The course? Taking Nothing for Granted 101.