3) First major project: I have been thinking that our first major project should be attempting to get Wiki student / staff groups going at Universities. Do others have interest in this? Other suggestions for initial projects?

I agree totally, partly so that they learn the ropes of WP:CITE, WP:NPOV, WP:OR/VS, WP:COI and MOS and so on (so that we're not always picking up after emergent editors....)

Another suggestion, which I've pondered here in the Okanagan, though moving Coast-wise soon, is seminars for museums, tourist boards/CoC's etc on proper article format, NPOV, no-SPAM and so on....quite a  few times tourism-board specific SPAs have shown up, e.g. User:Tourism Ucluelet and it's frustrating to know that they have useful information (not always correct, as with the Okangan wine region bunch)....have always wanted to see a "this information is welcome on WikiTravel, but not suitable for Wikipedia" for tourism-directory kinds of input, and "peacock" language, likewise the general brochure-y tone of many town/place artices.....

MC