News Briefs

Photo by Tom Jorgensen.

Preparing Our Sons

Nick Herbold, UISG president, and Michelle Wichman, senior research assistant in social science/biostatistics, ask Tim Van Dee to be the spokesperson for his creative art activity group at the annual Prepare Our Sons For Life event Oct. 23 in the Currier Residence Hall multipurpose room. Tim is the son of Brenda Van Dee, clerk in accounts payable and travel. Other activities included lunch, a scavenger hunt with UI baseball players, residence hall tours, and entertainment by the PanAmerican Steel Band. It was the fourth year for the event, hosted by UI WorkLife and funded, in part, by Staff Council and Arts Share.

In memory

Some longtime University staff and faculty may stop what they are doing Nov. 1 to remember the day in 1991 when a disgruntled graduate student shot and killed five people and wounded another on the University campus.

The gunman, Gang Lu, was disappointed when another graduate student won a $1,000 cash prize he felt he should have received. The other graduate student, Chan Lin-hua, also a native of China, was one of the persons killed. So was the chairman of the Department of Physics and Astronomy, Dwight Nicholson, who had rejected Gang Lu's appeal of the decision. Professors Christoph Goertz and Robert Smith, who were involved in the research Gang Lu was doing, also died immediately of gunshots.

T. Anne Cleary, vice president for academic affairs, who upheld Nicholson's decision, and a temporary assistant in her office, Miya Sioson, were injured. Cleary died the next day in the hospital; Sioson was permanently paralyzed by a gunshot but lived. Gang Lu killed himself.

Give your time to campaign

The UI Foundation will host a number of campus campaign information sessions to provide more details about campaign goals and ways of giving. Two general sessions will be held later this month in the Levitt Center, Level 4:

• Making gifts that help you, your family, and the campus campaign, 3-4 p.m., Nov. 12.

• Campaign goals for campus beautification and Old Capitol, 3:30-5 p.m,. Nov. 20.

Those who attend will be eligible for door prizes not awarded at the kickoff event. RSVPs are strongly encouraged. Additional sessions are being held within colleges and other units. To sign up or learn more about the campaign, visit www.goodBetterBestIowa.org/campus and click on “Campus Campaign Facts and Updates.”

Bibliophiles organize

Arthur Bonfield, professor and associate dean for research in the University of Iowa College of Law, will be the first speaker for a newly formed group, the Iowa Bibliophiles, at 7 p.m., Nov. 13 in the Special Collections Department of the Main Library.

Bonfield will speak on “Confessions of a Bibliomaniac,” talking about his lifelong book collecting.

The new group is open to anyone with a serious interest in the creation and preservation of books, or forming a personal collection. For further information contact Sid Huttner, sid-huttner@uiowa.edu, (33)5-5921.

Diversity series features films

The Office of Affirmative Action’s Diversity Dialogue Film Series continues this month with facilitated conversations on films, which are open to the public.

Religious Diversity in the United States, featuring the film America’s New Religious Landscape, 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. Nov. 5, River Room 1, IMU.

Native American Heritage Month, with the film, In Whose Honor? American Indian Mascots in Sports, 4-5:30 p.m. Nov. 13, Latino Native American Cultural Center, 308 Melrose Ave.

Racial Difference Through Students’ Eyes, with the film Skin Deep: College Students Confronting Racism, 5-6:30 p.m. Nov. 20, Hoover Room, IMU.

Who Brings Food to Our Tables? The film is Ties That Bind: Immigration Stories, 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. Nov. 26 in The Cottage Bakery and Café, 14 S. Linn St., mezzanine level.

Historian of women’s role to speak

Gerda Lerner, Ida Beam distinguished visiting professor and a pioneer in the study of women’s history, will speak on “Archives and women’s history" from 8-10 p.m. Nov. 15 in Shambaugh Auditorium, Main Library.

Currently professor emerita of history at the Universfity of Wisconsin at Madison, Lerner is the author of Fireweed, A Political History and the best-seller, Why History Matters. She has challenged long-held assumptions about women and their place in history. A native of Vienna, Austria, she was the only member of her Jewish family to reach America in 1938 as they fled the Nazi rise to power.

The symposium, “Making women’s history,” celebrates the 10th anniversary of the founding of the University of Iowa Women’s Archives.

Political science students to survey polling places

You have a one-in-four chance of being asked to participate in an exit poll if you vote Nov. 5 at selected polling places in Iowa City and Coralville.

A group of University political science students will conduct an exit poll measuring voters’ perceptions of government corruption and opinions regarding selected local issues.

Students in the Political Campaigning course taught by David Redlawsk, assistant professor of political science, will work in shifts at 14 polling places. They will ask every fourth voter leaving the polls to fill out a brief questionnaire and place it anonymously in a cardboard ballot box. Redlawsk estimates the poll will take voters no more than 10 minutes to complete.

“This is a great opportunity for students to get out into the community and perform a valuable service, and at the same time learn about local politics firsthand,” he said. “We hope voters will be willing to take a few minutes to participate in this project.”

The poll is a follow-up to a 2000 poll conducted in Iowa City and eight other cities examining voters’ attitudes toward political corruption. It also will contain questions on local issues.