Today was my third day as a dean, and the morning agenda included my first meeting with the university provost, the three other collegiate deans, and the associate deans from two of the colleges. My strategy for this meeting was to mostly listen and to try not to appear too nervous as the newbie in the room. This approach worked, except when we were discussing how each college would be allocated four awards to support undergraduate student research. I asked a question about how the 12 students would be selected. “Um, there are 16 students in the program, four for each of the four colleges,” a colleague gently corrected me. I should have joked that I was using new math! Alas, I just nodded and was quiet for awhile, but at the end of the meeting I did ask more questions, and did not make any errors, math or otherwise. Whew!