I like TV as much as the next guy. But it’s a little different when the TV camera is trained on you.

Yet there I stood, in a video production studio in Haag Hall, preparing for my “close-up” during the shooting of UMKC’s newest television commercial, “Choose UMKC. Kansas City’s University.” You may have seen it air on TimeWarner Cable during the NCAA basketball tournament. If not, click here, and you’ll see not only me, but a terrific cast of UMKC students.

I’ll be honest. Standing still while staff members brush lint off my suit and blot my face with pancake makeup is not my favorite way to spend time. But it did give me an opportunity to do something I really enjoy – talk about UMKC and all the great opportunities we offer to students. And it gets even more tolerable when I think about that message getting out to a much larger audience than I can reach in person.

We all need to be willing to do what it takes to move our university and our community forward, even if it occasionally calls for small sacrifices like standing still for makeup or repeating a script line over and over again for sound checks. The way I see it, if this will help us grow and make significant contributions to the community, enable us to touch more lives – and I strongly believe it will — then I’m game.