PUBLICATIONS Inside Illinois Vol. 24, No. 17, March 17, 2005

brief notes

‘Catch the action!’
Veterinary Medicine Open House April 2
Do you want to learn how veterinarians work as a team to keep animals and people healthy? Then attend the 2005 Open House from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. April 2 at the UI College of Veterinary Medicine.

Animal and science lovers of all ages will enjoy this free, student-run event, which provides a behind-the-scenes view of the program at the state’s only veterinary college. There will be more than 40 exhibits and demonstrations, featuring animals to pet, microscopes to peer into, and science and medicine to discover.

This event will feature hands-on activities, including cow- and goat-milking, the “window” cow, and a petting zoo featuring a camel, zebra and more. Visitors can meet and learn about the birds of prey that are permanent residents of the college’s Wildlife Medical Clinic. The open house also is a good time to learn more about admission to veterinary school.

Returning favorites to the open house include a police-dog demonstration, a reptile show sponsored by the local herpetology society, and a children’s activity tent for face painting, games, coloring and more.

There’s plenty of free parking, and large groups are welcome. For a list of exhibits and directions, call 333-2907.

April 7-9
UI hosts industrial design conference
While filling the tea kettle in the morning, most people probably don’t give a whole lot of thought to the shape or style of the kettle, let alone ponder why the handle on the tap is angled just so.

But someone else has given considerable thought to such matters. In fact, a whole team of industrial designers likely has labored over the design of just about every consumer product we come in contact with daily – from alarm clocks to zippers, and yes, even the kitchen sink.

“Good design should go unnoticed,” said Deana McDonagh, a UI professor of industrial design. McDonagh is providing faculty oversight for a student-led initiative that goes against that grain. UI students Danielle Moorman, Mona Haggag and others have been working overtime to push industrial design out of the shadows of inconspicuousness and into public focus on campus next month.

As a result of their efforts, some of the field’s most talented and respected designers will assemble at the UI April 7-9 – along with industrialists and academics – to share their experiences and vision as participants in “IMPACT – The Synergy of Design, Business and Technology,” the Industrial Design Society of America’s Midwest Conference. The UI’s industrial design program is hosting the event, one of five regional conferences organized each year by the society.

Conference activities will take place in Lincoln Hall Theater, the Art and Design Building, Temple Buell Hall, Krannert Art Museum and Wohlers Hall. Registration information and updates on event locations are on the conference Web site.

“This year’s event is unique because we’re bringing in top names in design, business and technology,” McDonagh said. “We’re attracting speakers that no one has brought together in one place before.”

Among the “star” attractions are New York City-based designer and self-described “cultural provocateur” Karim Rashid, whose projects for such companies as diverse as Prada and Sony range from consumer products, furniture and lighting to interiors, fashion, art and music.

Other conference headliners include:

• Cat Chow, the avant-garde, Chicago-based artist/fashion designer who is making waves with art dresses fashioned from unlikely materials, such as zippers, tape measures and dollar bills.
• Dan Formosa, a design and research consultant with Daniel Formosa Design, whose background includes being a member of the teams that designed IBM’s first personal computer and OXO Good Grips kitchen tools.
• Bruce Nussbaum, an author, essayist, broadcast commentator and editorial page editor of BusinessWeek, who also frequently writes on design topics.
  Moorman said the IMPACT conference has been planned to educate and engage multiple audiences – from students and faculty members to design professionals.

The conference also will present opportunities for the public to learn what inspires the people who create many of today’s most popular consumer products. The conference’s opening panel discussion with Rashid and others, at 7 p.m. on April 7 in the Lincoln Hall Theater, is free and open to the public.

Also opening to the public on April 8 will be an exhibition of the industrial design program’s new Design Excellence Collection at the UI’s Krannert Art Museum. The collection, which includes products designed by Rashid, Michael Graves, Ross Lovegrove, Teams Design, Herman Miller, SmartDesign and others, has been organized by McDonagh “to promote design excellence, designers, and manufacturers who are investing in design excellence.” McDonagh said the collection will be used for teaching design students, research and public exhibitions. It also will be featured in a forthcoming publication celebrating the impact of design.

Civil Service Employees
Employee, dependent scholarships
Applications are now available for civil service employees and dependent scholarships. Last year scholarships were awarded to three employees and four dependents of employees. The committee tries to award about eight scholarships each year to qualified people pursuing degrees of higher education at an accredited college or university.

The application deadline is April 5. Recipients typically are selected the second week in May with an award ceremony in mid-June.

Applications are available on the Personnel Services Office home page at www.pso.uiuc.edu and at the Benefits Center, Facilities & Services and Personnel Services Office. They also may be obtained from Civil Service representatives Barney Bryson, Gary Fry, Bob Schweighart or Tim Wood.

The scholarship fund was established by Civil Service employees for Civil Service employees and their dependents to provide recipients with financial assistance in their pursuit of an undergraduate degree.

Rent movies for free
Library offers DVD service
The Undergraduate Library’s Media and Reserve Center has begun a circulating DVD collection on a trial basis. Items in the collection include mostly popular culture titles, such as television series and movies, and are separate from the teaching and research collection.

The DVDs are available to all library patrons for three days at a time with a $5-per-day late fee per item. Media materials must be picked up and returned in person at the MRC desk.

Patrons can view available titles by searching the MRC collection. To narrow searches to DVDs available for checkout, be sure to check the “limit search to openly circulating collections” box.

Overlooked Film Festival
Ebertfest single tickets go on sale April 1
Tickets for individual films will go on sale April 1 for the seventh annual Roger Ebert’s Overlooked Film Festival April 20-24 at the Virginia Theater in Champaign and at the UI.

The lineup of films and the schedule for “Ebertfest” will be announced within the next two weeks through the local media and the festival Web site, according to Mary Susan Britt, the festival’s assistant director.

Tickets for individual movies will be $9 each and available through the theater box office (phone: 217-356-9063; fax: 217-356-5729).

The 1,000 festival passes, covering all screenings during the five-day event, were sold out last month. This marked the first time passes have sold out before the films were announced. About 800 passes had been sold by this time last year, Britt said.

Ebert, a 1964 Illinois journalism graduate, adjunct professor and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, will again host the event, which centers on films he believes have been overlooked by audiences, critics and
distributors.

The festival is an event of the UI’s College of Communications, and last year recorded about 18,000 admissions for the 12 featured films, associated panels and other events. The festival also attracted more than 50 producers, directors, writers, actors and other guests associated with the film industry.

Sponsors and volunteers for the festival are still being sought. Those interested should contact Britt at 217-244-0552. Those seeking additional information and updates on films, guests and festival events should contact either Britt or festival director Nate Kohn at 706-542-4972.

Mid-semester rates
Campus Rec memberships for sale
UI Campus Recreation spring mid-semester memberships are for sale at Member Services, Room 140 IMPE. Spring memberships are valid through May 15.

Campus Recreation offers four facilities – IMPE, the Outdoor Center, the UI Ice Arena and the Campus Recreation Center East, which is scheduled to re-open this spring. In addition, two playing fields also are open for use. A membership provides access to all of these facilities. There also are a variety of programs available to members, including intramural sports, group fitness classes, personal training, outdoor clinics and trips, swim lessons, skating activities and leadership development packages. Memberships are available to UI faculty and staff members and their spouses/partners, recent UI graduates, UI retirees, allied organization employees, adult dependents and children of UI students and faculty/staff members, UI Alumni Association members and associates.

For more information on membership opportunities, call Campus Rec Member Services at 333-3806.

Robert P. Larsen Human Development award
Nominations due April 8
Nominations for this year’s Robert P. Larsen Human Development award are due by April 8. Separate awards are given to individuals and to a group that made a significant contribution to the campus that enhanced student development and maximized student capabilities to make effective and satisfying life choices. Any person or group that is part of the UI community (except individuals associated with the Counseling Center) is eligible for these awards.

The award will recognize recipients’ efforts with a plaque and $200. Recipients also are honored on a plaque in the Counseling Center lobby at the Fred H. Turner Student Services Building. The award is named in honor of Robert P. Larsen, who was a staff member at the Counseling Center for more than 50 years.

Nomination forms are available online or in Room 110 of the Counseling Center, or by calling 244-3356.

IM isn’t just for fun
Ask library questions through IM
The Library is now offering patrons the opportunity to use Instant Messaging to reach a librarian for immediate assistance with research questions. The service is available using several brands of IM software, including AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo Messenger and MSN Chat.

To contact the Library by IM, go to http://web.library.uiuc.edu/ugl/vr/ or users can IM librarians directly. The screen name for the Undergraduate Library is askundergrad and the screen name for the Main Library is askuiuc.

More information, including an FAQ section, is available at www.library.uiuc.edu/askus. Anyone with problems using the service also may call 333-2290.

University Ethics Office
Statements of Economic Interest due
The Office of the Secretary of State has sent notification letters and forms to UI employees required to file a Statement of Economic Interests under the Illinois Governmental Ethics Act. All completed forms must be submitted to the UI Ethics Office by April 25. The Ethics Officer will review and forward all completed forms to the Secretary of State by the May 1 deadline. Completed statements should be sent by campus mail to the University Ethics Office, 505 E. Green St., Suite 206, MC-498.

Employees with questions about the criteria for filing may call the Ethics Help Line at 1-866-758-2146 or consult the University Office of Human Resources Web page. (Click on Policies/Labor and then select University Ethics and then Statement of Economic Interest.) Additional information also can be found on the UI Ethics Office Web page.

Questions about the Illinois Governmental Ethics Act should be directed to the Office of the Secretary of State at 217-782-7017. Questions regarding certification of names to the Secretary of State should be directed to the appropriate Human Resource staff member listed under Question #2.

Civil rights leader, Pulitzer winner, Nobelist
CAS/MillerComm lectures continue
Mary Frances Berry, a former chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and Seymour Hersh, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter, will present the first and last in a series of five lectures during April and May at the UI.

Berry will discuss the past and current struggles of blacks for equal opportunity, and Hersh will discuss his Abu Ghraib prison torture stories and other work for The New Yorker magazine. Other lectures will deal with the mystery behind a map claimed as evidence of Viking travels to North America prior to Columbus, the Mayan conflict in the Chiapas region of Mexico, and the consequences of differences between lived and remembered experience, as presented by a Nobel laureate in economics.

The lectures are part of the Center for Advanced Study/MillerComm series, begun in 1973 and supported with funds from the George A. Miller Endowment and various co-sponsoring campus units and community groups. The MillerComm lectures provide a forum for discourse on topics spanning the university’s many disciplines.

All of the lectures are free and open to the public.

April 4: Mary Frances Berry, the Geraldine R. Segal Professor of American Social Thought at the University of Pennsylvania, will talk on “New Challenges, New Opportunities: For African-Americans the Struggle Continues.” Her lecture begins at 4 p.m. on the third floor of the Levis Faculty Center.

April 12: “Before Columbus? The Mystery of the Vinland Map,” by Garman Harbottle, senior chemist at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, N.Y. Harbottle’s lecture begins at 4 p.m. in the Knight Auditorium of the Spurlock Museum.

April 14: “The Celebration of the Word: Maya Confront the Military as They Define Their Future,” by June Nash, Distinguished Professor Emerita of anthropology at the City University of New York. Her lecture begins
at 7:30 p.m. on the third floor of the Levis Faculty Center.

April 19: “Living and Thinking About It: Experience, Memory and Well-Being,” by Daniel Kahneman, the Nobel laureate in economics in 2002 and the Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology at Princeton University. His talk begins at 8 p.m. in Foellinger Auditorium.

May 10: “The Chain of Command: From 9/11 to Abu Ghraib,” by Seymour Hersh, reporter. His talk begins at 5 p.m. in Foellinger Auditorium.

To confirm scheduling details prior to a lecture, or for additional information, check the calendar page on the CAS Web site.

See a rare blue poppy
Plant conservatory hosts poppy show
Area flower lovers are invited to get a close-up look at one of the world’s rare, true blue flowers, the Meconopsis (mee-koh-NOP-sis), known more widely as the Himalayan blue poppy, March 19-20 at the UI Plant Biology Conservatory.

The “Himalayan Blue Poppy Show” will be open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. March 19 and from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. March 20. Admission will be $3.

Visitors can see the flower often called the “elusive butterfly of the garden” and discover why this poppy is so rare that it grows in only a few areas of the world, said Deborah Black, manager of the plant biology greenhouses.

Visitors also may tour the adjacent greenhouses to view other plant collections from around the world. The conservatory is the tall greenhouse south of the main entrance on the east side of the building, located at 1201 S. Dorner Drive, Urbana.

College of Communications
Two journalists, filmmaker featured
Two prominent journalists and an Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker will discuss current news issues and present their work during appearances over the next month at the UI.

Each of the events, sponsored by the university’s College of Communications with support from other campus units, is free and open to the public.

On March 31, Ken Paulson, editor of USA Today, will speak on “The Land of the Free and the Home of the Easily Offended: The State of Free Expression in America.” His talk will begin at 4 p.m. on the third floor of the Levis Faculty Center.

Paulson was named to his current position in April 2004. Previously, he was executive director of the Freedom Forum’s First Amendment Center, where he drew on his background as both a journalist and lawyer to write columns and lead other efforts to promote greater understanding of the First Amendment. He will be on campus to receive a Distinguished Alumni Award from the College of Law, from which he graduated in 1978.

On April 8, David Horovitz, editor-in-chief of the Jerusalem Post, will speak on “Journalism in the Holy Land: Reporting War and Peace.” His talk will begin at 2 p.m. in Room 314 of the Illini Union.

Horovitz took his position with the Post in October of last year, after 14 years at The Jerusalem Report news magazine, which he edited and published. He also has written for newspapers in the United States and worldwide, and is author of the books “Still Life With Bombers: Israel in the Age of Terrorism” and “A Little Too Close to God: The Thrills and Panic of a Life in Israel.”

On April 11, filmmaker Mark Harris, three-time winner of Academy Awards for documentary productions, will present a screening of his 2001 Oscar winner “Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport.” The screening will begin at 7 p.m. in the auditorium (Room 1025) of the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology. A panel discussion will take place afterward.

The film tells stories of those involved in the “Kindertransport” of 1938 and 1939, in which about 10,000 children, most of them Jews, were sent by their parents from Nazi-occupied countries to the safety of foster families in England.

Harris, a professor in the School of Cinema-Television at the University of Southern California, began his career as a journalist with the City News Bureau in Chicago. In 2003, Harris’ HBO documentary, “Unchained Memories: Readings From the Slave Narratives,” received two Emmy nominations. In addition to his film work, he has written five children’s novels and two books of non-fiction.

Discussion series
Uni High series begins April 6
“Educating the Gifted in Champaign-Urbana, the Uni High Story,” the first in a new discussion series hosted by University Laboratory High School, will begin at 7 p.m. April 6 in Room 1320 of the Digital Computing Laboratory on the UI campus.

Panelists for the first discussion include:

• Ned Goldwasser, professor emeritus of physics, who served for many years as UI vice chancellor for academic affairs and was active in guiding and preserving Uni High during those years. He also is a former Uni parent.
• Linda Sims, a coordinator of research programs at the Beckman Institute for Science and Technology who is pursuing a master’s degree in educational psychology at the UI. Sims’ 25 years’ experience teaching elementary school has helped shape her thoughts about gifted education. She is a Uni parent.
• Nancy B. Hertzog, professor of special education at the UI and director of University Primary School, and a former Uni parent.
• Lauri Feldman, a senior at Uni High.

The program will open with a short documentary, “Gifted,” produced by students in Uni’s Social Advocacy class. Feldman, who participated in the production, will introduce the film. “Gifted” includes numerous observations by students about their experiences in gifted programs both at Uni High and Champaign Unit 4 schools. The evening’s program is designed to present a variety of perspectives about gifted education at Uni High and to stimulate additional discussion about the future of gifted education.

The program is free and open to the public. For more information, contact the Uni High office at 333-2870.

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