Your daily dose of news, notes and links from around Kansas University.

• It feels good to be back in the saddle here at Heard on the Hill World Headquarters at Seventh and New Hampshire after a nice, long vacation that took me to New Orleans, a beach wedding in Florida and to central Illinois.

One moment on the vacation reminded me just how connected our world has become.

I was wearing a KU shirt in the French Quarter, and, as anyone who has ever traveled just about anywhere knows, that will bring forth a few “Rock Chalks” and fist bumps from passersby.

So I tweeted that I was hearing some Rock Chalks in New Orleans.

I got a few responses — the KU Alumni Association, for one, seemed to enjoy that bit of info. But perhaps the response I enjoyed most came from Kirk Schulz, Kansas State University’s president and a prolific tweeter (you can catch him @kstate_pres).

He asked me, “how about any ‘Go Cats?'”

He was the first I’d heard that from, I told him. A neat gesture, still, I thought.

• That beach wedding in Florida meant I had to miss my first KU commencement since taking this job back in 2008, but things seemed to go off without a hitch anyway.

Here’s the chancellor’s speech, in case you (like me) missed it.

The profiles of the outstanding graduates each year are among my favorite stories to write. Before we leave the commencement topic completely, here’s one tidbit that didn’t quite make it into a story I wrote about Mathew Shepard, who helped select the class motto and banner.

Danielle Hanson, a graduate in graphic design, actually designed the class banner that Shepard carried down the hill. Shepard was involved in the design process and told me that they had a contest for design students (and anyone, really) to come up with the banner, and they chose Hanson’s design.

You can get a good look at it over at Hanson’s website.

• A former KU administrator and federal appeals court Judge Deanell Reece Tacha had some interesting remarks in an interview with the National Law Journal.

Her last day as a judge is May 31.

Tacha had a wide variety of thoughts on why being a federal judge is awesome and why she left it to become the new dean of law at Pepperdine University.

“I came to the bench from academic life and have missed, to some extent, the interaction with students, faculty, alumni and universities in general,” Tacha said in a Q&A. “I have remained very active in the work of several academic institutions, but the appropriate constraints under which judges operate were sometimes confining to me! Let’s just say that my personality includes a side that very much yearns to be involved with people, causes, and active involvement in a variety of interests.”

She had lots of other good thoughts, too, in the complete article.

• I got a lot of good tips over my vacation, so be sure to stay tuned for more exciting Heard on the Hill goodness. But that doesn’t mean you should stop sending me stuff. Keep it coming at ahyland@ljworld.com.