PUBLICATIONS Inside Illinois Vol. 26, No. 22, June 21, 2007

brief notes

Krannert Center
Celebrate summer solstice June 21
Summer solstice recognizes the longest day of the year and the point when the sun reaches its farthest point away from Earth. Krannert Center for the Performing Arts is collaborating with astronomy professor emeritus Jim Kaler, the CU Astronomical Society and the UI Jazz Studies Program to present a free program inspired by the ancient need to revel in a bit of extra daylight and keep it going on into the night.

The celebration begins at 4:30 p.m. in the center’s lobby, where guests of all ages will discover a 16-foot by 11-foot inflatable indoor planetarium called Starlab, operated by Wayne James and Dave Leake. Starlab will allow visitors to explore the farthest reaches of the galaxy – from Central Illinois to Alpha Centauri and more.

At 7:30 p.m., 8 p.m., 8:30 p.m. and 9 p.m., there will be 15-minute presentations offered in Starlab that will go into greater depth about the images being displayed.

In addition, Krannert Uncorked, the center’s weekly wine tasting, will take place in the lobby from 5-7 p.m. Intermezzo Café and Interlude Bar will be open throughout the evening.

The Summer Studio Theatre Company will present “Bus Stop” at 7:30 p.m. as part of its regular summer schedule. Call the Krannert Center ticket office for ticket availability.

At 9:30 p.m., the Chris Reyman Trio and special guests Jeff Helgesen and Holly Holmes will take to Stage 5 in the lobby to present jazz renditions of tunes appropriate for the event – think “Fly Me to the Moon,” “Night and Day,” “Summertime,” “Round Midnight” and “East of the Sun (and West of the Moon)” – to name a few. Kaler will provide commentary.

Starlab will continue to welcome visitors during the musical performance. If weather permits, telescopes will be set up in the outdoor amphitheatre for stargazing.

This program is supported by the College of Fine and Applied Arts. For more information about the Summer Solstice Celebration, Krannert Uncorked, or the Summer Studio Theatre Company, visit www.KrannertCenter.com.

Campus Recreation
Take the ‘Million Step Challenge’
The Division of Campus Recreation has created the Million Step Challenge this summer as a pilot program through the Wellness Services program. The challenge encourages physical activity through walking since walking has been shown to significantly improve an individual’s health.

The Million Step Challenge promotes participants to work together, as a part of a team, in order to reach a goal of all teams combining to walk 1 million steps in seven weeks.

Inspiration is provided for walkers through a Web site customized for participants, where they can also enter their daily number of steps, access an activity conversion chart, and download a walking map.

Registration for the Million Step Challenge is under way. Registration and more information can be found at www.campusrec.uiuc.edu/millionstepchallenge.

“We created this summer’s pilot program and will improve upon it and then launch a full scale program with the start of fall semester, getting more faculty, staff and students involved, along with community members,” said Brittany Haugen, Wellness Services intern, who helped launch the Million Step Challenge.

CITES
Security orientation workshops offered
The campus Security Office is offering a Security Orientation for new faculty and staff members. Units may schedule an orientation for their staff members.

Topics that are covered: How IT works on the Urbana campus; Urbana campus passwords; appropriate use; maintaining your computer; protecting sensitive data; and preventing identity theft.

Summer Security Orientations will be from 10 –11:30 a.m. July 18 and Aug. 15 in Illini Union Room 209.

For more information or to schedule an orientation, contact the campus Security Office at securitysupport@illinois.edu.

The campus Security Office, located in the Office of the CIO, works with units across the campus to ensure the integrity, confidentiality and availability of electronic resources, services and data at the UI’s Urbana campus. For general security information, go to www.cites.uiuc.edu/security. For dates of future security orientation sessions, go to www.cites.uiuc.edu/security/orientation.html.

I space exhibition
Architecture professor’s work featured
A one-man retrospective featuring installation and architectural projects will be exhibited through July 7 at I space, the Chicago gallery of the UI’s Urbana campus.

“erik m. hemingway: h+a [WORK]” includes architectural constructs, artifacts, drawings and video work by the UI architecture professor, representing projects constructed from his studio locations in Chicago, Detroit, New York and San Francisco. The exhibition traces Hemingway’s professional evolution, from his 1992 Columbia University thesis work – collapsing electronic landscapes titled “Television City” – to recent design/fabrication work of hemingway+a/studio, which he titles “ready-made[ARCHITECTURE].”

The award-winning architectural designer – whose work has received international recognition in such publications as Architecture Record, *surface, architecture, and Global Architecture – recently relocated his office from Detroit to Chicago in a Mies van der Rohe-designed Lincoln Park Tower. More information about Hemingway and his work is available online at www.hemingwaystudio.com.

I space gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Summer Cooperative African Language Institute
Nine languages to be offered
For students of African languages who want an immersive learning experience that also emphasizes the rich, diverse cultures of the African continent, this summer the UI is where it’s at.

“There is no other place. It is a fact,” said Eyamba G. Bokamba, a UI professor of linguistics and African languages who is serving as director of the national Summer Cooperative African Language Institute. The UI is the host campus for the 2007 institute, which rotates its location every two years to a different university with African area studies centers that have been designated by the U.S. Department of Education as Title VI National Resource Centers.

This year’s institute has been organized by the Center for African Studies in cooperation with the department of linguistics.

In addition to instructional and cultural opportunities for enrolled students, the summer institute includes activities open to the local community. Among them are a weekly film series, research forum and concerts.

Students enrolled in the program have the opportunity to study one of nine African languages offered. Instruction is intensive; students spend four hours per day in the classroom, Monday through Friday, for seven weeks, using the target language for instruction from day one onward. They also experience total immersion in the culture associated with the language they are studying through a program of extracurricular activities and experiences ranging from cooking classes, potlucks and picnics to musical performances, film screenings and research forums.

The languages offered at the summer institute are Akan/Twi, Amharic, Arabic, Bamana, Pulaar, Swahili, Wolof, Yoruba and Zulu. Among them, Arabic has become an increasingly popular choice for students.

In regard to opportunities for intensive summer instruction in African languages, Bokamba said, the institute is unrivaled. “If you want to learn Arabic alone, there are other universities to choose from,” he said. “But you won’t get this kind of mix of African languages offered at SCALI anywhere else.”

Part of the draw may be that “the UI has a reputation as being one of the best academic programs for learning a language like Arabic,” he said. “We have the most comprehensive program (in African languages) anywhere in the country. ... A result of this is that our language program in African languages enrolls over 800 students per academic year – clearly the largest program of its kind in the nation,” Bokamba said.

More information about SCALI, including an events calendar, can be found online at http://scali.afrst.uiuc.edu.

Back to Index