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January 24, 2007 |
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The 2005 hurricane disaster from tropical storm Katrina will be the focus of an upcoming conference on Saturday, Jan. 27 at the Officers Club in historic Fort Douglas. Morning sessions will include papers by guest presenters on the social and historical context of Katrina and the aftermath of the hurricane. An afternoon panel will feature hurricane survivors. “The Katrina Conference promises to go behind the headlines and offer several perspectives on a tragedy that exposed the racial and class fault lines in American society,” says Robert Goldberg, director of the Tanner Humanities Center. “Scholars from New Orleans and Utah as well as survivors of Katrina will explore the meaning of the crisis for America and their personal experiences in coping with catastrophe.” The conference, which is free, is sponsored by the Tanner Humanities Center. For more information, visit www.hum.utah.edu/humcntr.
For the past year and a half, the U of U has been making contributions (courtesy of funds from ASUU) to support the development of wind power. Today, thanks to these contributions, electricity equal to 13 percent of the U’s total usage is delivered to the Western United States Grid (connections that tie supply and demand for electricity together) from wind turbines in California and Wyoming. This does not change the monthly bill received by the U of U from Rocky Mountain Power. The U’s contributions to wind power are a separate investment to subsidize the costs of building windpower capacity. A new program offered through the U’s Plant Operations office provides a way for individuals to participate in the program. Individual contributions to Campaigns for Sustainable Energy (CSE) support the production of windpower at the same low “favorable” rate offered to the U of U. (The U gets an institutional rate because it buys a large amount of power.) Because the contribution is made to the U of U, it is tax deductible to the individual. Several campus colleges,
departments, programs, and the Utah Museum of Natural History have
set up their own campaigns. For details on the program, contact
Christopher Hill at chris@biochem.utah.edu
or visit http://windpower.utah.edu.
Middle East Film Series Imagine making a
low budget film where you have restricted access to all of your
cast and locations during a 25-day shoot. On top of that, your cast
has special dietary requirements that everyone else on the set must
also follow. Then there’s your lead actor. He can only appear
in the film if the woman playing his on-screen wife is also his
real-life wife... although she isn’t actually an actor herself
and will need some persuading that she can pull it off. You’ll
also have to follow a set of rules that you personally don’t
believe in. And here’s the killer – your finished film
can’t actually be shown at cinemas locally on the two most
popular box office days of the week. Sound like a challenge? The film in question is Ushpizin (Holy Guests), directed by Israeli filmmaker Gidi Dar, and billed as a “warm, touching comedy-drama about an ultra-Orthodox man whose shady past comes back to haunt him during a particularly fraught Jewish festival.” It is the first offering in a new film series sponsored by the Middle East Center and will be shown Wednesday, Jan. 31 at 6 p.m. in the Utah Museum of Fine Arts. The series will continue every other Wednesday through March 28 and will include a discussion of the films’ social context by Laurence Loeb, a professor in the Department of Anthropology. Other films in the series include Under the Moonlight (Iran), Feb. 14; The Closed Doors, (Egypt), Feb. 28; The Syrian Bride (Israel), March 14; and A New Day in Old Sana’a on March 28 (Yemen). The films, several of which are award-winning, are not rated and may contain mature subject matter. The film series is free and open to the public. For more information, visit The Middle East Center.
Photo by Roger Tuttle Send your answer (be specific!) to FYI@ucomm.utah.edu by noon on Thursday, Jan. 25 for a chance to win two tickets to the U of U vs. New Mexico basketball game on Saturday, Feb. 24 at 3:30 p.m. in the Huntsman Center. The winner will be randomly selected from the pool of those submitting the correct answer. The winner will be listed in the next FYI News due out Feb. 7. Thanks to Athletics for providing the prize! This contest is open to U of U faculty and staff only.
A
Grace Note on Gratitude Jay
Jacobsen is a professor of internal medicine at the U and chief
of the division of medical ethics at University and LDS hospitals.
In this podcast, he presents a stimulating and thoughtful “intellectual
hors d’oeuvre” at the December 2006 Humanities Happy
Hour. Talking about the words grace and gratitude,
he quotes the well known, such as Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein,
and Helen Keller; and the not-so-well-known, and relates the questions
that come up around those words to his teaching and to his own life.
Sounds like the humanities! The Humanities Happy Hour is held the third Thursday of each month and serves as a reminder that intellectual engagement is interesting, innovative, and downright fun. Additional Humanities Happy Hour presentations will be available soon at www.utah.edu/podcast.
Established in 1983 by the family of Nathan and Tillie Rosenblatt to honor their parents, the Rosenblatt Prize for Excellence honors excellence in teaching, research and administrative efforts collectively or individually, in behalf of the University. The $40,000 prize is announced and presented annually at commencement. It is particularly suited for faculty who are nationally recognized scholars with demonstrated excellence in teaching, research, service and/or administration. The generosity of the donors makes this prize one of the most remarkable in higher education. Previous Rosenblatt Prize recipients are: Sterling McMurrin (philosophy/history, 1984), John Dixon (surgery, 1985), Milton Wadsworth (metallurgical engineering, 1986), David Grant (chemistry) and John Flynn (law), 1987, Irwin Altman (psychology, 1988) Harold Wolf (pharmacology and toxicology, 1989), John Roth (biology, 1990), Edwin Firmage (law, 1991), J.D. Williams (political science, 1992), Ray White (human genetics, 1993), Karen Lawrence (English, 1994), Peter Stang (chemistry, 1995), Anne Osborn (radiology, 1996), David Pershing (engineering, 1997), Mario Capecchi (human genetics, 1998), Dale Poulter (chemistry, 1999), Margaret Battin (philosophy) and Leslie Francis (law/philosophy), 2000, Francis Brown (geology & geophysics, 2001), Kristen Hawkes (anthropology, 2002), Sung Wan Kim (pharmaceutics, 2003), Gerald Stringfellow, (engineering, 2004), Jack Simons (chemistry, 2005) and David Chapman (geology and geophysics, 2006). Nominations should include: a letter of nomination with supporting discussion indicating the candidate’s accomplishments; a current curriculum vitae; a minimum of five but no more than 10 letters of reference, a majority from referees external to the University; and a brief description of the referees’ qualifications and relationship to the nominee. For 2007, previous nominations made during and since 2004 will be carried forward. Also invited are re-nominations with additional information about the nominee. Send nominations and letters of support to:
The following faculty members have been named to receive the 2007 Distinguished Teaching Award: Dan Adams, associate professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering; Kenneth Golden, professor, Department of Mathematics; Barry Stults, professor (clinical), Department of Internal Medicine; and Don Wardell, associate professor, Department of Management. The Distinguished Teaching Awards honor faculty with eight or more years of service at the U for outstanding teaching, innovative pedagogy, concern for students, and exemplary contributions to the educational process outside the classroom.
• Hope
for the Homeless • Study
Abroad is for you, too! • Don’t
miss Mars • Black
History Month to feature Donzaleigh Abernathy • Women’s
Club annual luncheon
• Student
and staff focus group participants needed • Three
administrative searches underway • Staff
Optimizing Abilities and Resources (SOAR) Program • Quick
Fact • Student
enrollment holds steady • Research
funding is up • New crosswalk
improves safety • Instructional
Computing Funding Process • Campus
Wireless Initiative More information is available here. • Cholesterol
Screening
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