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PUBLICATIONS Inside Illinois Vol. 26, No. 18, April 19, 2007

brief notes

College of Veterinary Medicine
Celebrity doodles support Wildlife Medical Clinic
Celebrity hounds and nature lovers alike will want to attend the sixth annual “Doodle for Wildlife” benefit from 6-10 p.m. April 21 at the Round Barn Banquet Center, 1900 Round Barn Road, Champaign.

The event supports the Wildlife Medical Clinic at the UI College of Veterinary Medicine, a non-profit, volunteer-run organization that cares for nearly 2,000 sick or injured animals a year while training veterinary students and educating the public about local wildlife.

Kris Fitzpatrick, interim UI chief of police, and her late husband, Tim, will be honored with the first “Wildlife for Life” award in recognition of their long-time support of the Wildlife Medical Clinic. The evening also will feature dinner and entertainment, including live jazz and a nature tale from noted storyteller Patricia Hruby Powell.

Tickets to the event are $50 each. A table for eight may be sponsored for $500 and includes a special visit from one of the clinic’s resident birds of prey.
Signed, original drawings from Carol Burnett, Conan O’Brien, Donald Trump, Dave Barry, Emma Thompson, Joe Theismann, Loretta Lynn and many more will be auctioned at the event. Special adventure packages, including behind-the-scenes tours of animal attractions and a trip to Paris, also will be up for bid.
To reserve a seat, view a list of auction items and learn other details, visit www.cvm.uiuc.edu/wmc/.

WILL-TV and WILL-AM (580)
Increasing drug costs to be examined
Americans spent nearly $189 billion on prescription drugs in 2004 and are expected to spend more than $440 billion per year by 2015. Illinoisans spent $6.5 billion on prescription medication in 2005, sixth most in the nation. This issue will be critical to public policy discussion for years to come.

WILL-TV’s “Electing Health Care: Prescription Drug Crisis,” to be broadcast at 7 p.m. April 19, will examine the high cost of medication through the eyes of people who deal with it every day. WILL’s John Paul will host the program, talking to members of the Illinois congressional delegation and to a panel of experts who will discuss options for coping with the rapidly increasing costs.

Panelists include Richard Kaplan, a professor of law at the UI and expert on Medicare, and Lorens Helmchen, a professor of health policy and administration at UIC.

The program will be simulcast on WILL-AM (580) and repeated on WILL-AM at 5 p.m. April 21.

IFLIP
Summer foreign language classes offered
The foreign languages departments at the UI are offering a learning opportunity for summer 2007. The Intensive Foreign Language Instruction Program will provide foreign language instruction Monday through Friday, May 14 through June 1, with most classes being held from 9 to 11 a.m., unless otherwise noted.

IFLIP is open to UI students, faculty and staff members, retirees and the general public. Children under the age of 18 may not participate and no academic credit is given. Tuition for the three-week course is $75 for UI students; $100 for faculty and staff members and retirees; and $125 for the general public. Registration deadline is 5 p.m. April 27. (While registrations will be accepted after April 27, decisions concerning classes to be offered will be made based on enrollments on that date.)

Classes will be offered in the following languages: beginning Arabic, beginning Basque (5-7 p.m.), beginning Catalan (5-7 p.m.), beginning Chinese, beginning French, intermediate French, beginning German (9-11 a.m. and 5-7 p.m.), intermediate German, advanced German, beginning Hindi, beginning Italian, beginning Italian (9-11 a.m. and 5-7 p.m.), intermediate Italian, beginning Japanese, beginning Portuguese, beginning Spanish (9-11 a.m. and 5-7 p.m.), intermediate Spanish, and advanced Spanish.

To download a registration form, go to http://services.lang.uiuc.edu/forms/IFLIP-Registration.doc. For more information, contact Marita Romine at 244-3252 or mromine@illinois.edu.

‘Qualitative Inquiry and the Politics of Evidence’
Congress of Qualitative Inquiry is May 2-5
The Third International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry will take place May 2-5 at the UI. The theme of the congress is “Qualitative Inquiry and the Politics of Evidence.” Participants will explore the politics of evidence and truth and what these terms mean for qualitative inquiry in this new century.

Questions to be considered include: In qualitative inquiry, what is truth? What is evidence? How is evidence evaluated? Can evidence be manipulated? How can qualitative research inform the policy-making process? How is qualitative evidence represented, discounted, or judged to be unacceptable? What is a fact?

The congress will consider the influence of scientifically based research models on qualitative inquiry. The congress also will consider what evidence and truth mean under the terms of postpositivism, poststructualism, indigenous, democratic, postcolonial, queer, feminist, performative and participatory models of inquiry. Participants will explore new ways of evaluating and using qualitative evidence in social policy arenas. They also will examine how new understandings of qualitative evidence can advance the goals of social justice and progressive politics.

For more information and to register, visit: http://qi2007.org/.

UI Library
Free online resources available
The library has purchased a subscription to the Chicago Manual of Style Online. Fully searchable and easy to use, the manual provides quick answers to questions about grammar and style as well as guidance in formatting citations and references. It is available through the Online Research Resources page at www.library.uiuc.edu/orr/ or the Online Catalog at www.library.uiuc.edu/catalog/.

In addition, TimesSelect, the online news service of The New York Times, is available free to university students and faculty and staff members who have e-mail addresses ending in .edu. To activate a subscription, visit the Library Office of Collections at www.library.uiuc.edu/administration/collections/ and click on the TimeSelect logo.

Center for Teaching Excellence
Call for presenters and facilitators
The Center for Teaching Excellence is looking for presenters for the Graduate Academy for College Teaching on Aug. 16-17 and the Graduate Symposium on Grading and Office Hours on Aug. 20, the center’s redesigned teaching assistant and international teaching assistant orientation programs.

Faculty members, academic professionals and experienced teaching assistants are invited to design engaging concurrent sessions about teaching and/or to facilitate small group sessions on foundational teaching topics. Deadline for submissions is April 30. For more information, visit www.cte.uiuc.edu/Did/Tas/Aug07CallforPresenters.pdf or contact Sandra Finley at sjfinley@illinois.edu.

Society of Women Engineers
Bring your children to work April 26
The Society of Women Engineers will host “Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day!” on April 26. UI faculty and staff members are invited to bring their children (ages 7-12) to campus from 1 to 4 p.m. Participants can tour different labs and learn more about science and engineering.

For more information, registration and permission forms, visit www.uiuc.edu/goto/todstwd_forms.

Participation is limited to 100 children. Registration will continue until filled. To find out if space is available, go to: http://eng-council.cen.uiuc.edu/soc/swe/. Participants must register in advance.

Pampered Chef Family Resiliency Program
Conger to speak on adolescent risk April 26
Rand Conger, professor of human development and family studies at the University of California at Davis, will speak on “Pathways of Adolescent Risk and Resilience” in the Knight Auditorium of the Spurlock Museum at 7 p.m. April 26. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Conger will discuss findings from an 18-year study of rural youth from mid-adolescence to adulthood. The talk will focus on adolescence as a time of special vulnerability in terms of substance abuse, risky sexual behaviors and antisocial behavior, and trace the course of these emotions, thoughts and behaviors through the transition to adulthood. He will discuss personal and social resources during adolescence that promote resilience and show how they operate to foster successful, positive transitions to adulthood.

The lecture is sponsored by The Pampered Chef Family Resiliency program in the UI department of human and community development.

Program for the Study of Religion
Colloquium looks at religious violence
“Discrete moments of religious violence” in American history will be one of the topics ethicists, rhetoricians, legal and religious scholars address during a half-day colloquium at the UI.

The April 20 meeting, which is free and open to the public, is titled “The Cross, the Sword and the Flag: Multidisciplinary Reflections on Faith and the Narration of Violence.”
Sponsored by the UI Program for the Study of Religion, the event is 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in Room 314B of the Illini Union.

According to organizer Jonathan Ebel, a professor of religion at Illinois, the event is “aimed at addressing the intersection of religion and violence in America’s past.”
Participants include ethicist Jean Bethke-Elshtain, the “just war theorist” from the University of Chicago, who will talk about torture and interrogation; and John Witte Jr., of Emory University law school, who will discuss Protestant foundations of rights and revolutions.

Also presenting are John Carlson, a professor of religious studies at Arizona State University, who will talk about a just war of independence; and Ned O’Gorman, a professor of speech communication at Illinois, who will discuss the rhetorical evolution of John Foster Dulles’ “Massive Retaliation.”

The colloquium is organized and co-sponsored by the Illinois Forum on Religion in America, a unit Ebel and his colleague Richard Layton founded at Illinois. Other UI sponsors are the departments of history and speech communication, the Foreign Languages Building, the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities and the Unit for Cinema Studies.

Allerton Park
Mother’s Day brunch is May 13
Allerton Park will host a Mother’s Day brunch from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. May 13 at the Allerton mansion, 515 Old Timber Road, Monticello. The lunch will feature blueberry muffins with crunchy top, strawberry stuffed French toast, pork sausage, smoked salmon with capers and lemon, fluffy herbed scrambled eggs, eggs Benedict, fresh fruit skewers, classic Belgian waffles and more.

The cost is $22 for adults and teens 13 years and older; $7.95 for children, ages 6-12; and free for children 5 years and younger. Reservations are required. Call 333-3287 for more information.

‘Interfaces and Visualizations’
High-tech meets humanities April 20-21
How and where the humanities and high-tech will meet in the future is the topic scholars from the United States and abroad will explore during a conference at the UI.

The conference, “Interfaces and Visualizations: A State-of-the-Art Conference on the Humanities in Post-Human Times,” is April 20 and 21 in Room 407 of the Illini Union. It is free and open to the public.

The conference Web site, including links to the program and to presenters’ abstracts, is at www.french.uiuc.edu/schehr/conference.

According to organizer Lawrence R. Schehr, a UI professor of French, the term “post-human” in the conference title refers to the fact that because humans and machines today “meet every second, we are all, humanists and non-humanists alike, some combination of human and machine.”

He said the goal of the conference is to “explore the interfaces between the humanities and high technology.”

Toward that goal, the presenters will examine “the ways in which emerging technologies can literally and figuratively illuminate and illustrate cultural artifacts, as well as the ways the humanities can pursue traditional and not-so-traditional subjects.”

Alan Liu, a professor of English at the University of California at Santa Barbara, will give the keynote lecture. His talk on “Imagining the New Media Encounter” also is a MillerComm event.

Other presentations include:

  • Dmitri Williams, speech communication at the UI, on “Code and Community: The Future of Online Games.”
  • Bertrand Gervais, literary studies, University of Quebec at Montreal, “The Edenic Illusion: Cyberspace and the Myth of Transparent Media.”
  • Lucy Suchman, sociology, University of Lancaster, England, “Human-Machine Configurations.”
  • James Hay, speech communication at the UI, “Helping Themselves: Men and the Kitchen.”

Sponsors for the conference are Applied Technologies for Learning in the Arts and Sciences; Center for Computing in Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences; Center for Advanced Study; College of Liberal Arts and Sciences; departments of English, French and speech communication; Foreign Languages Building; Graduate School of Library and Information Science; Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities; Trowbridge Office on American Literature, Culture, and Society; and the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory.

‘Petstravaganza’
Event features exotic species, wildlife
For the second year, children will have the chance to learn about their pets and other animals at “Petstravaganza” at the UI Stock Pavilion. This year’s event is 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. April 28. Admission is free.

“In addition to many of the interactive, family friendly exhibits we featured last year, we will have a number of new things,” said Amy Fischer, UI Extension companion animal biology and humane education specialist. “There will be more exhibits featuring exotic species and wildlife – to help people understand which animals make good pets and which do not.”

In addition to the UI College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences and UI Extension, sponsors include the department of animal sciences, and the Champaign County Humane Society.

“The UI Wildlife Medical Clinic’s resident raptors will be at the event and we will also have demonstrations of bloodhound trailing and dog agility,” Fischer said. “Some of the exhibits will feature pet first aid, therapy dogs, puppy socialization and animal rescue.”

Because many of the exhibits will feature live animals, visitors are asked to leave their own pets at home.

Additional information about “Petstravaganza” is online at http://pets.ansci.uiuc.edu/outreach/petstravaganza.cfm.

Department of dance
Architectural renderings on view May 2
The public is invited to view architectural renderings of a “dream project” for the UI dance department at a free event from 5 to 7 p.m. May 2 at Temple Buell Hall.

The designs represent the culmination of a purely speculative project called “Designing Our Dreams: A Collaboration Between Architecture and Dance.” The renderings, which will be on view in Temple Buell’s West Gallery, were created by graduate students Allan Bernhard, Brooke Funkhouser, Kyuwan Kim and Matthew Niermann as part of a studio exercise directed by architecture professor Tom Kamm.

Dance department head Jan Erkert said the architecture students received the assignment to design an ecologically sustainable building that could – in theory – provide a new home for the dance department and better position it to meet its goal of becoming the national center for the development of dance artists and leaders.

The event will feature refreshments, along with a performance in Temple Buell’s atrium by Kirstie Simson, an internationally acclaimed improvisation artist in residence in the dance department.

Simson also will lead performances planned in conjunction with the Boneyard Arts Festival at 3 p.m. April 21 at Krannert Art Museum; 4 p.m. April 22 at Channing Murray Foundation; and from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. at the festival’s Late night spACE in Champaign’s old train station, 116 N. Chestnut St. Performances will feature collaborative movement pieces created by dance department and community participants in an improvisation class Simson taught this semester.

College of Education
May 4 forum looks at learning outcomes
Assessment and documentation of the learning outcomes of college students may be the single most pressing demand facing universities today. Accrediting agencies, policy makers, the current Secretary of Education in the Bush administration and a host of others have moved the assessment issue to the forefront of discussions on the future of higher education.

One of the foremost authorities on the subject, Peter Ewell, will lead a dialogue on this issue from 10:30 a.m. to noon May 4 in the Beckman Institute auditorium. Ewell is vice president of the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems.

The program is the second in a series of conversations sponsored by the newly created Forum for the Future of Public Education, a new strategic initiative of the UI. The forum was created to address critical issues facing education and its future.

R.S.V.P. to Staci Provezis at sprovez2@illinois.edu.

Nanotechnology Workshop 2007
Social implications of technology advances
The Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology at the UI will host its annual Nanotechnology Workshop 2007 on May 3-4 at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications.

“On this campus alone, there are hundreds of nanotechnology research projects covering a wide array of topics and applications that are likely to have profound impact on virtually all aspects of our lives in the future,” said Irfan Ahmad, associate director of the center.

“This year’s theme focuses on nanoscale energy, and societal implications of nanotechnology,” Ahmad said. “In addition, there will be sessions on nanomedicine, nanoelectronics, nanofabrication, nanomanufacturing and nanomaterials.”

Plenary session speakers include Leonard Yowell, NASA, and Wendy Sanhai, senior scientific adviser at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Workshop attendees may tour the recently expanded Micro and Nanotechnology Laboratory, which now also has bionanotechnology laboratory areas. In addition, computational biology applications leveraging NCSA’s cluster and teragrid computing also will be on display at the workshop venue.

At 10 a.m. April 30 several CNST representatives will appear on “Focus 580” on WILL-AM (580). Participants will discuss “Nanoscale Energy and Public Perception of Nanotechnology,” as well as report on nanotechnology research and development on the UI campus.

For more information, visit: www.cnst.uiuc.edu/NanoWorkshop2007.htm.

College of Law
Professor to speak on same-sex marriage
The Sexual Orientation and Legal Issues Society will host a lecture on same-sex marriage by David Cruz from the University of Southern California Gould School of Law. Cruz will discuss the most recent legal arguments made for and against same-sex marriage, as well as the most recent court decisions about same-sex marriage, at noon April 23 in the auditorium of the UI Law Building. The lecture is free and open to the public.

In the past few years, same-sex marriage has been in the spotlight throughout the U.S. and abroad. Provincial courts in Canada began ordering the recognition of same-sex marriage in 2003, and nationwide legislation made same-sex marriage available in 2005. Other countries that allow same-sex marriage include Belgium, the Netherlands, South Africa and Spain. In the United States, only Massachusetts has recognized same-sex marriage, as a result of a decision by its Supreme Judicial Court. Previously, a similar court decision resulted in the recognition of civil unions in Vermont. Recently, a court decision in New Jersey ruled that denying same-sex couples the benefits that accompany marriage violates the state constitution, and the legislature reacted by approving civil unions. Connecticut also recognizes civil unions.
For more information, e-mail solis@law.uiuc.edu.

YMCA
‘Dump and Run’ collections begin May 7
The University YMCA is preparing for the 2007 Dump and Run collection, a fundraising program the organization has hosted for the past six years. The YMCA collects reusable items, which students would otherwise dispose of as they move out, and sells the items at its annual garage sale in late August. This project reduces litter and consumer waste, saves space in landfills, lowers dumping costs for certified housing units, provides inexpensive items for students to purchase in the fall, and acts as a fundraiser for the YMCA, Champaign County’s oldest charity.

Items accepted include clothing in nearly new condition, furniture, working electronics, backpacks, bicycles, school supplies, jewelry, winter clothing, shoes, kitchen items, CDs, books, computer sets (tower and monitor), artwork, toys, sports equipment, non-perishable food items, soap and other household goods.

The YMCA cannot accept computer monitors, holiday decorations, video and audio cassettes, sleeper sofas, sinks, tires, large appliances, non-working electronics, non-working computers, large exercise equipment and mattresses.

Donations will be accepted at the University YMCA in Champaign and at designated locations on the UI campus beginning May 7.
Specific dates and times to “Dump and Run”:

  • May 7-12: 9 a.m.-4 p.m. (extended hours until 8 p.m. May 10)
  • May 14-18 and May 21-25: 9 a.m.-3:30 p.m. (extended hours until 8 p.m. May 17 and May 24)

The sale will be Aug. 23-25 at the UI Stock Pavilion.

Anyone who wants to volunteer, should call 337-1500. Volunteers who work more than four hours get to shop before the sale.
For more information, visit www.universityymca.org.

Cities, county co-sponsor event
Recycle electronics, computers April 21
The cities of Champaign, Urbana and Savoy and Champaign County will host a computer and electronics recycling event from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. April 21 at 1500 E. Main St., Urbana (in the Solo Cup north parking lot). Accepted items include: computers, stereo equipment, printers, scanners, video conferencing equipment, PC peripherals, loose hardware, networking equipment, servers, phones, cell phones, copiers and televisions. Some items require a small fee. For more information, call 819-4105 or visit www.co.champaign.il.us/news.htm.

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