Briefs

WOW-ing students

Tony Weston, right, a student employee at the Ronald McDonald House, and Lindsey Towne, a student volunteer at UI Hospitals and Clinics Volunteer Services, share information with students Cody Olson, left, and Brett Arends at an Aug. 25 community service fair at the IMU. A wide range of on- and off-campus agencies attended the event, which was part of WOW 2004, the annual Week of Welcome activities for new and returning students, faculty, and staff. Photo by Tom Jorgensen.

UI Press announces poetry winners

The UI Press has awarded poets Megan Johnson and Susan Wheeler the 2004 Iowa Poetry Prize, and will publish their winning collections in the spring of 2005.

Johnson, a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, won the prize for her coming-of-age piece, The Waiting. In January she will teach at Victoria University in New Zealand.

Wheeler, who has taught at Iowa and currently is on the faculty at Princeton University, was honored for her fourth book, Ledger.

Poems from the collections:

How it comes to pass (from the forthcoming book The Waiting by Megan Johnson)

That Been to Me My Lives Light and Saviour (from the forthcoming book Ledger by Susan Wheeler)

For more information on the UI Press, see www.uiowa.edu/uiowapress.

Saturday Scholars set to start up

The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences is offering a chance to dip into five different topics this fall during its annual Saturday Scholars program, a series of five free lecture-and-discussion sessions open to the public on Saturdays in September and October.

Some of the college’s top scholars will share their work on a range of topics. All presentations will begin at 10 a.m. in 40 SH. Each session will last about an hour, including a 20-30 minute presentation followed by a question-and-answer session. Refreshments will be served.

This year’s program includes:

• Sept. 18: “From Kabuki to Peter Pan: Cross Gender and Cross Cultural Theatre Costumes,” Loyce Arthur, theatre arts;

• Oct. 2: “100 Years and Counting: A ‘Radical’ View of the Science of Aging,” Kevin Kregel, exercise science;

• Oct. 9: “Broadway Starmaking at the Turn of the Last Century,” Kim Marra, theatre arts;

• Oct. 23: “Marketing Culture: Native Amazonians in the Public Sphere,” Laura Graham, anthropology; and

• Oct. 30: “Immigrants’ America: Then and Now,” Shelton Stromquist, history.

Additional information is available at www.clas.uiowa.edu.

UI ranked in top 20—again

For the second year in a row, Iowa has been ranked the 19th best public national university in the country, according to U.S. News & World Report.

The University’s ranking—a tie with Rutgers University and the University of Georgia—places Iowa in the top 12 percent of some 162 public national universities. The magazine also ranked undergraduate programs in business and engineering, where the Tippie College of Business is ranked 21st among public universities. Also among public universities, the fields of accounting and management are ranked 9th and 15th, respectively, and the College of Engineering is ranked 33rd.

The annual U.S. News & World Report “America’s Best Colleges” guide was published Aug. 30 and is available online at www.usnews.com.

Nominations sought for alumni award

The Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity seeks nominations for the 2004 Catalyst Awards. Recipients will be honored at the Catalyst Awards Program on Nov. 11.

The award honors faculty, staff, programs, and departments whose outstanding and innovative contributions enhance the University’s commitment to achieving excellence through diversity. This year, the office will broaden this recognition by acknowledging the diversity-related achievements of an outstanding student or student organization.

To make nominations, go to www.uiowa.edu/~eod/diversity/Catalystpage.htm or contact the Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity. The deadline is Sept. 20.

ITS employs new measures to reduce spam and e-mail virues

To protect against viruses, worms, and other malicious programs spread by e-mail, Information Technology Services (ITS) now is preventing certain file attachments from entering the University’s e-mail system.

Messages containing these attachments are still delivered, but the file attachment is removed, and the recipient is notified within the message that the attachment was removed. All messages with an attachment that is considered safe (or that has no attached file) will be delivered intact. Office productivity files (documents, spreadsheets, etc.), text files, and other files that are not executable programs will be delivered as usual. For a complete list of which types of file attachments are being removed from e-mail messages, see www.its.uiowa.edu/cs/email/cdp.html.

In addition, ITS is introducing a new system this semester to help users combat unwanted commercial or “spam” e-mail. The system allows individual users to decide which spam option is acceptable for delivering messages to their inbox. Users can elect to receive all messages without marking or rejecting any spam, to continue to have spam marked and delivered with the current pound-sign format (spam?#) in the subject line, or not to receive messages that are spam-rated above certain scores (based on probability of the message being spam).

The default rejection will be at the 99 percent probability and above score. Users are able to opt out and/or change their spam-rejection threshold using a self-service web page. For more information, see www.its.uiowa.edu/cs/email/cdp.html#s.

Additional questions about the new attachment-blocking and spam-rejection systems can be directed to the ITS Help Desk at (38)4-4357.

Facilities department gets new name

As of Sept. 1, Facilities Services Group is called Facilities Management. The department is responsible for the planning, design, construction, utilities management, operation, and maintenance of campus buildings and grounds.

In addition to this name change, two departments within the organization implemented name changes effective Sept. 1. Planning has been renamed Campus & Facilities Planning, and Utilities has been changed to Utilities & Energy Management.

To keep costs to a minimum, the new name and logo will be phased in over the next several years, as branded supplies need replenishing, and uniforms, vehicles, and business cards need replacing.

Facilities Management and its departments will keep the same telephone numbers and addresses.

Learn skills for working with international students

The Office of International Students and Scholars (OISS), in cooperation with UI Learning & Development, is offering a new series of free workshops entitled “Building Our Global Community.” The workshops will provide all interested faculty and staff members with skills and insights as they seek to educate and serve international students and scholars.

Participants can earn a global certificate by completing the required introductory workshop plus their choice of four of the specialized workshops within a two-year period.

More information on the courses is available at www.uiowa.edu/~intl/OISS/documents/global_community_04.pdf. To register, see www.uiowa.edu/~fusstfdv/courses/sep2004/global.html.

For additional information, contact Helen Jameson, OISS assistant director for programming, at helen-jameson@uiowa.edu or (33)5-0335.

OISS is part of International Programs, which consists of a number of offices, centers, degree programs, academic programs, research projects, and services that further internationalize the campus and community and promote global scholarship, research, and teaching.

UI to conserve energy dollars

The University is launching an energy conservation program to help faculty, staff, and students reduce energy expenditures paid through the General Education Fund (GEF). The program is designed to help address a $250,000 reduction in the utilities budget for FY2005.

Administrators are confident that the $250,000 savings in energy costs can be realized by turning off unnecessary lights and equipment, and by turning off computer monitors, printers, and other office equipment overnight and on weekends.

“We need to work together to reduce unnecessary energy consumption. Every GEF dollar realized by the energy conservation program is a dollar that doesn’t have to come out of other programs,” says Don Guckert, associate vice president and director for facilities management. “While each item may only reduce costs by pennies, when you multiply that by the number of items and number of hours, we can save substantial energy dollars.”

In the weeks and months ahead, faculty, staff, and students will start to see signs reminding them to turn off equipment and lights when not needed. This includes classroom and conference room lights, task and office lights, coffee makers, computer monitors, printers, photocopy machines, and any other equipment that uses electricity.