News in Brief
COMMUNITY
Alum receives Nobel
Jack St. Clair Kilby, a 1950 master’s degree graduate in electrical engineering, has been named a co-winner of the 2000 Nobel Prize in physics.
Kilby received the prize for his part in the invention of the integrated circuit, or the chip, an insight that led to what is now the foundation of the modern electronics industry.
He will receive the prize Dec. 10 in Sweden.
Kilby joined Texas Instruments in 1958. Texas Instruments says he was working with borrowed and improvised equipment when he conceived and built the first electronic circuit in which all of the components, both active and passive, were fabricated in a single piece of semiconductor material half the size of a paper clip. The successful laboratory demonstration of that first simple microchip Sept. 12, 1958, made history.
College of Engineering Dean Paul Peercy says the invention was a watershed event in technology. “The integrated circuit is the engine that drives the information age.”
Ward stresses strategic direction
Chancellor David Ward told a joint session of faculty and academic staff leaders Oct. 2 that the university’s future is well-grounded in a strategic vision that “gives this very special institution a very special place among the best public research universities of the 21st century.”
Addressing a joint meeting of the Faculty Senate and the Academic Staff Assembly, the chancellor stressed the importance of the Madison Initiative as a bridge into the future, including the strategic hiring of faculty in many clusters of new and emerging areas of academic expertise. He also called investments in biotechnology “one of the keys to the economic growth and well-being of the state of Wisconsin.”
Ward, who will step down as chancellor Dec. 31 after nearly a decade at the helm of the university, was invited to address the joint session of faculty and academic staff leadership and share his assessment of the status and the future of the university.
The major challenges met by the university in the 1990s, Ward said, have been enhanced focus on the undergraduate experience, updating the physical campus, responding to resource needs and defining the university’s “special niche” as the flagship institution in the UW System.
Ward explained that the foundation for ongoing strategic planning remains a combined vision of the university as “a learning experience, a learning community, and a learning environment.” Other priorities are continued strategic hiring of new faculty, broadening student learning programs, maintaining affordability and improving the state’s economy.
Pilot report reveals complexity of monitoring
Findings from a pilot project that inspected workplace standards of makers of university-licensed goods reveal the complexity of ensuring those standards are met, university officials say.
“The pilot project was designed to give us a better understanding of the logistics and difficulties of global inspection and monitoring, so that we are more prepared to accurately evaluate potential strategies for preventing university-licensed merchandise from being produced under sweatshop conditions,” says Casey Nagy, special assistant to Provost John Wiley.
UW–Madison participated in the pilot project with Boston College, Duke University, Georgetown University, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and the University of Southern California.
Five U.S. companies took part in the pilot project. Each company makes university-licensed merchandise. Factories inspected are located in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Korea, Mexico and Taiwan.
The report findings show that most workers interviewed expressed satisfaction with their jobs. There was no evidence found that workers were paid below minimum wage or forced to work more than 60 hours a week, although not all workers were aware of overtime pay. Most locations, however, had health and safety concerns, such as poor ventilation, temperature, sanitation and fire safety.
To download a PDF version of the pilot monitoring project report, visit: http://www.news.wisc.edu/misc/pilot_project.pdf.
MILESTONES
Humanities renaming honors late scholar George Mosse
The Humanities Building has been renamed in honor of George L. Mosse, the renowned scholar of European cultural intellectual history who died last year.
Mosse was internationally recognized as an expert on Holocaust studies, fascism, and Jewish and German history. Toward the end of his life he turned his attention to the history of sexuality and the body.
The change to the George L. Mosse Humanities Building is a fitting tribute to Mosse’s memory, says history department chair Thomas J. Archdeacon.
“George was an intellectual whose interests and skills went far beyond the discipline of history. Concern and support for art, music and other forms of cultural expression were integral to George’s heritage and life. In the breadth of his imagination and the scope of his work, George L. Mosse embodied the word “humanist,'” Archdeacon says.
Mosse joined the Department of History in 1955. He later became the John C. Bascom Professor of History and was the first Weinstein-Bascom Professor of Jewish Studies in 1983. Born in Berlin and trained at Cambridge University in England and Harvard University in the United States, Mosse wrote more than 25 books. He also helped found the influential Journal of Contemporary History and in 1989 inaugurated the Shapiro Scholar-in-Residence program at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C.
Humanities opened in 1969. Today, it houses the School of Music and the art and history departments.
NOTABLE
History of Medicine Department marks half-century with events
The History of Medicine Department is celebrating its 50th birthday Oct. 27-28 with a jubilee program featuring a lecture by Guenter Risse (faculty 1971-85) Friday afternoon followed by a reception and historical books exhibit.
Saturday features an all-day program of speakers who have received advanced degrees through the History of Medicine Department at Wisconsin. Bioethics as well as topics of interest to medical historians are included. A gala banquet Saturday evening at the Monona Terrace Convention Center features Charles E. Rosenberg (B.A., 1956, L.D.H., 1977) highlighting the accomplishments of our “Founding Fathers.”
History of Medicine has maintained a tradition of academic excellence, as well as serving as home for a prominent program in medical ethics. Today these programs are recognized as leaders in research and education worldwide. Six historians and six ethicists make up the faculty of today’s department.
For more program information, see the Wisconsin Week Bulletin, or contact: jrboelte@facstaff.wisc.edu or http://www.medsch.wisc.edu/medhist/.
Nobelist Hoffmann gets Hirschfelder Prize
Roald Hoffmann, the Polish-born chemist who shared the 1981 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for independently developing a theory about the course of chemical reactions, has been named the 2000-01 winner of the Joseph O. Hirschfelder Prize in UW–Madison Theoretical Chemistry.
The Hirschfelder Prize is the largest in the field of theoretical chemistry and is awarded annually by the Theoretical Chemistry Institute. It carries a stipend of $10,000.
Hoffmann is the Frank H. T. Rhodes Professor of Humane Letters and Professor of Chemistry at Cornell University. Hoffmann has made enormous contributions to theoretical chemistry, especially with regard to the geometry and reactivity of organic and inorganic molecules and of infinitely extended structures. He is the author or co-author of more than 450 scientific articles and two books. Hoffmann is also a writer of scholarly and popular articles on science and other subjects.
Hoffmann will give three talks while visiting campus:
- “Electron-Rich Multicenter Bonding All Across the Periodic Table,” Wednesday, Oct. 25, 4 p.m., 1361 Chemistry.
- “A Chemical and Theoretical Approach to Bonding on Surfaces,” Thursday, Oct. 26, 4 p.m., 1361 Chemistry.
- A reading from “Oxygen,” a new play by Carl Djerassi and Hoffmann, Friday, Oct. 27, 2:25 p.m., 1361 Chemistry.
The Hirschfelder Prize is named after the late Joseph O. Hirschfelder, the founder of the UW–Madison Theoretical Chemistry Institute and an influential force in modern theoretical chemistry.
ON CAMPUS
Library sale offers 15,000 books
More than 15,000 books on almost any subject and a collection of long-playing records will be put on sale in a fund-raiser for the Friends of the Libraries Oct. 25-28.
The public sale helps fund an annual lecture series, library collections and a visiting scholar support program. In the past four years, nearly two dozen campus libraries received nearly $70,000 through a grant program supported by the sales.
The sale, open free to the public, will be in 112 Memorial Library. A preview sale ($5 admission) will be held 5-9 p.m., Wednesday, Oct. 25. The regular sale will be 10:30 a.m.-7 p.m., Thursday and Friday, Oct. 26-27. On Saturday, Oct. 28, from 10:30 a.m.-2 p.m., bring your own grocery bag and fill it for $2. From 2-3 p.m. Saturday, everything is free.
Tudor dinners scheduled
Egads! Is it too late perchance to reserve a spot at the 67th Annual Tudor Holiday Dinner Concerts in Memorial Union? No, but good seats are going fast.
The magical night of fine dining, old English pageantry and rich choral presentations features classic and contemporary holiday selections performed by the Philharmonic Chorus of Madison, directed by Patrick Gorman.
The dates of Tudors are Wednesday, Nov. 29, through Sunday, Dec. 3, and Tuesday and Wednesday, Dec. 5-6. Tickets: $32.50 for UW Madison students, faculty and staff, Union members and guests, and $37.50 for all others ($5 processing fee for all orders), Wisconsin Union Theater Box Office. Order by phone starting Monday, Nov. 6, 262-2201.
TECHNOLOGY
DoIT help desk offers ISIS experts
While UW–Madison’s Integrated Student Information System retrieves student-related data for a myriad of campus offices supported by an array of both functional and technical experts, its first line of defense after more than a year in production remains the Department of Information Technology Help Desk.
The Help Desk has maintained an ongoing ISIS training cycle as the project continues to phase in new functionality required by such core offices as Admissions, Student Financial Services, Registrar, Continuing Studies and the professional schools. Upgraded software and changing campus needs can quickly make yesterday’s solutions today’s problems, and the Help Desk provides a centralized source of updated answers.
“The Help Desk staff is trained and ready to handle most ISIS-related questions,” says Brian Rust, DoIT senior tech specialist. “In fact, over half of the calls received are now handled within ten minutes by a Help Desk agent. The more unique problems are quickly escalated and addressed by a technical person who has experience in that area.”
Customers can log and update their own cases through a new Web site called Help Online, http://helpdesk.doit.wisc.edu.
The Help Desk phone number is 264-HELP. Always ask for a case number so the process is not duplicated and slowed down.