Pomp and circumstance

We recently had the annual donors-and-board-members visit to the University. It involved a lot of VIP visitors, special events, reasons to get dressed up and luncheons. Here's me with a couple students before the lunch guests arrived. The one on the left is Mahilini, one of our top students--an amazing, sweet, wonderful student from Sri Lanka. The girl on the right, Rosy, is from Nepal and another top student.
Here is a photo of the luncheon:

After lunch, there was a program with some students reading their personal writings and essays. Here's a photo of them during the Q & A session describing where they would be if they weren't at AUW.
From left to right we have Afghani, Pakistani, Nepali, Vietnamese and Bangladeshi.

After the lunch and program, we ALL got bussed out to the permanent AUW campus site for a groundbreaking ceremony. Here's the big tent they set up for us:
And a couple VIP guest speakers. The first is Cheri Blair (the wife of former british PM Tony Blair) who is a benefactor for the school.
And Moshe Safdie, the VERY FAMOUS architect who designed the new campus.
And a shot of the crowd in the tent. The light was beautiful and the weather was gorgeous (cool, nice sunset, if a bit dusty....)
And here's a couple shots of me with some of my students. I like wearing a sari--it's quite comfortable once you have faith it's not going to fall off (it won't).
Three Cambodians and a bangaldeshi:

And two beautiful Sri Lankans....