News in brief

History in the Making: Conference planned Oct. 27-28
Imagine an art history exam that doesn’t mention female artists. Picture a world without discussion of women’s roles in different countries, a world where research about women’s issues such as mother-daughter bonding was not considered valid.

A conference honoring the past 25 years, “History in the Making: Celebrating 25 Years of Women’s Studies Scholarship and Activism,” will be Friday, Oct. 27, and Saturday, Oct. 28, at the Pyle Center.

Students, academicians, researchers and community members will hear Friday from keynote speaker Gerda Lerner. The conference also includes a choice of workshops and a plenary session with the producers of and featured speakers in the video “Step by Step: Building a Feminist Movement, 1941-1977.”

Workshop topics include: international women’s voices, teaching about gender issues in the schools, historic studies of empowering women, “young” vs. “old” feminists, women in academic professions, women in sciences and women’s studies, and other disciplines.

“Presenters, who are drawn from a wide variety of disciplines, represent all four-year campuses in the UW System as well as other universities such as Iowa and Florida State,” says Nancy Worcester, conference coordinator for the Division of Continuing Studies.

For information call 262-3635 or visit: http://www.uwsa.edu/acadaff/womens/.

State department official to discuss cultural affairs
William B. Bader, assistant secretary for educational and cultural affairs, will visit campus Nov. 1-2 to discuss the current status of international educational programs.

He will deliver a public talk Wednesday, Nov. 1, at 3:30 p.m., 206 Ingraham. The International Institute is sponsoring Bader’s visit.

Bader oversees the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, which fosters mutual understanding between the United States and other countries through international educational and training programs; and promotes personal, professional and institutional ties between private citizens and organizations here and abroad. The bureau also presents U.S. history, society, art and culture to overseas audiences.

As assistant secretary, Bader is in charge of educational exchange and cultural affairs programming, including the J. William Fulbright Program, the Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowships, the International Visitor Program, citizen exchanges, cultural programs and English teaching programs.

His department administers the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act, which makes the United States a party to the UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export or Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property.

Bader visits the UW–Madison campus on the eve of International Education Week, Nov. 13-17. A partnership between the departments of state and education, the week provides a global forum for promoting and celebrating the benefits of international education. More information: Donna Veatch, 262-2042; dlveatch@facstaff.wisc.edu.

Speech to explore future of universities
“The Evolution and Revolution of the University in the Digital Age” will be the topic of a speech Monday, Oct. 30, by University of Michigan President Emeritus James Duderstadt.

The talk will start at 4 p.m. in the Lakeshore Lounge of the Pyle Center.

Duderstadt is the first speaker in the new lecture series “Expanding the Boundaries of Today’s University,” sponsored by the Wisconsin Center for the Advancement of Postsecondary Education. The free lecture is open to the public.

The series brings together the campus community and public policymakers to reflect on issues confronting today’s university. Duderstadt will examine historical and contemporary issues surrounding the impact of technology on higher education and will propose alternative structures and strategies for the 21st century university.

A graduate of Yale University, Duderstadt earned his doctorate in engineering science and physics from the California Institute of Technology. He is a professor of science and engineering at the University of Michigan, and he serves as the director of the Millennium Project, a research center in Michigan’s Media Union concerned with the future of higher education.

Student choreographers perform works Nov. 2-4
Dance majors are in the last phase of rehearsals gearing up for the Fall Student Concert 2000. The program features original choreography by eight Dance Program students and runs Nov. 2-4 at 8 p.m. in the Margaret H’Doubler Performance Space, Lathrop Hall.

Tickets: $8 for students and senior citizens, $10 for general public at the Wisconsin Union Theater Box Office, 262-2201, or at the door. Information: 262-1691.

Roundtable features new dean of students
Alicia Fedelina Chávez, UW–Madison’s new dean of students, is the featured speaker for the University Roundtable Thursday, Nov. 9.

Chávez will speak on “Living Authentic Lives: Balance and the Higher Education Professional,” beginning at 11:45 a.m., Tripp Commons, Memorial Union.

Roundtable features university and community leaders speaking on important and timely issues over the lunch hour on campus during the academic year.

Reservations are required by Thursday, Nov. 2. Checks for $8.50 to cover the cost of lunch must be made out to UW Roundtable and sent to 270 Bascom.

Alum awarded Nobel Prize
Alan Graham MacDiarmid, a chemistry master’s and Ph.D graduate of the university, is co-winner of a Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discoveries of polymers that conduct electricity.

MacDiarmid, 73, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, is one of three Nobel laureates in chemistry this year. He shares the prize with Alan Heeger of the University of California-Santa Barbara and Hideki Shirakawa of the University of Tsukuba in Japan.

All three are pioneers in the discovery and development of conducting polymers, also know as “synthetic metals.” The fact that some plastics conduct electricity was a surprising discovery to scientists, since it’s normally one of the most common insulating materials for electrical wires.

MacDiarmid earned his master’s degree in 1952 and Ph.D in 1953 from UW–Madison’s chemistry department, where he majored in inorganic chemistry and minored in analytical chemistry.

Ineva Reilly Baldwin dies
Ineva Reilly Baldwin, a longtime resident and civic leader of Madison and a former assistant dean of women at the university, died Oct. 2, in Tucson, Ariz., at age 96.

She was the widow of Ira Lawrence Baldwin, who died in 1999 at age 103. He was a professor emeritus of bacteriology and vice president emeritus of the University of Wisconsin. During the 1930s, Baldwin was on university staffs at Colorado, Northwestern and Wisconsin, where she taught and counseled undergraduates and began her career in administration. After World War II, Baldwin was assistant dean of women.

“Biocomplexity’ project to focus on northern Wisconsin lakes
A team of a dozen university scientists will conduct a five-year, $3 million federal study of how human use of northern Wisconsin lakes affects sensitive shoreline ecosystems.

The grant is part of the National Science Foundation’s new program on biocomplexity, which will help foster greater understanding of how living things at all levels interact with their environment. The UW–Madison study will focus on 50 lakes in Vilas and Oneida counties in northern Wisconsin and include scientists from zoology, economics and agronomy.

“Lake-edge environments are ideal for this program, because so many things are happening in the near-shoreline area,” says Stephen Carpenter, principal investigator and professor of limnology. “It’s the nursery for most life in a lake and the area where most human impacts occur.”

The study will analyze human land use issues, such as forestry and recreational development, fish production, near-shore vegetation and habitat, and exotic species problems in the lakes. The goal will be to measure how human use of the lakes affects the overall health of the ecosystem.

Included in the study will be a suite of lakes associated with Trout Lake Station, a research outpost north of Woodruff that has conducted basic research on lake for nearly a century.