News in Brief

Transportation options highlighted at events
Transportation Services is sponsoring “Great Choices Week” through Friday, Sept. 28, to help campus community members find out more about alternative transportation options in the Madison area.

Events are planned around campus this week. You can find out more about alternative transportation, enjoy refreshments and pick up a T-shirt (while they last). Or you can stop by and get your bike adjusted courtesy of The Trek Bicycle Store and Williamson Bicycle Works.

Here is the schedule, 7 a.m.-5 p.m., for the rest of the week: Wednesday, Sept. 26, at Union South/Computer Science; Thursday, Sept. 27, at the WARF Building; Friday, Sept. 28, at Library Mall.

If you’re one of the first 30 faculty or staff each day, you get free Quick Tix to give the Madison city bus system a try.

Press publishes poet
Madison poet Charles Cantrell wrestles with the lingering effects of his father’s alcoholism in the latest release from the Parallel Press, “Cicatrix.” In this personal 21-piece collection, Cantrell exposes a childhood tainted by addiction and violence.

Nominated for a 2000 Pushcart Prize, Cantrell teaches English at Madison Area Technical College. He holds a master’s in Fine Arts from Goddard College in Vermont. Each Parallel Press chapbook is $10; annual subscriptions for six are $50. Titles may be ordered by writing: The Parallel Press, 372 Memorial Library, 728 State St., Madison, WI 53706. Information: 262-2600.

UW conference addresses violence against women
The School of Nursing, in conjunction with the Nursing Network on Violence Against Women International, is presenting a conference Sept. 28-30 on the international problem of violence against women.

Dozens of experts from around the world will present and discuss research findings and practical recommendations to confront violence against women. Rachel Rodriguez, assistant professor at the School of Nursing, will deliver the keynote address Friday at 1 p.m. on “Nurses’ Response to Violence Against Women as a Social Justice Issue: Action Research as a Tool for Liberation.”

Beginning Friday, Sept. 28, at noon, the conference will cover a multitude of topics related to violence against women. They include:

• Training health-care professionals to detect and confront domestic violence.
• Barriers to women’s disclosure of violence in their lives.
• The link between domestic violence and child abuse.
• Adolescent dating violence.
• Responding to emotional abuse.
• Understanding the needs of older battered women.
• Changing the medical school curriculum to educate medical students about intimate-partner violence.

“The goal of this conference is to affirm the UN Platform of Action that asserts that all forms of violence against women are violations of human rights,” says conference chair Geri Diemer of the School of Nursing. “As health-care professionals, we must pay attention to how our health-care system responds to violence against women.”

About 300 nurses, doctors and health and human services providers are expected to attend the conference at the Concourse Hotel in downtown Madison.

Distinguished broadcaster Stamberg to visit campus
Susan Stamberg launched a long and distinguished career in broadcast journalism in 1971 by slicing tape as an editor for National Public Radio.

Jack Mitchell, then an NPR producer and now a professor of journalism and mass communication, saw greater potential in Stamberg. In 1972, he auditioned her as a potential host for a new national newsmagazine, “All Things Considered.”

“Susan was one of about a half dozen or so we tried, and by far the best. She was and is professional without being cold, allowing her humanity to show without parading her opinions. She is genuinely interested in ideas and in people as human beings. By simply following her curiosity, she has been able to discover unique perspectives on both,” Mitchell says.

NPR listeners in Madison will be able to see Stamberg’s journalistic style in person Tuesday, Oct. 16, when she will visit the university to deliver the School of Journalism and Mass Communication’s Ralph O. Nafziger Lecture. The free public event will begin at 4 p.m. in Frederic March Play Circle, Memorial Union.

After 14 years as one of the hosts, she anchored NPR’s “Weekend Edition” and has reported on cultural issues for all NPR programs. These days, she is a special correspondent for NPR.

“She should excite and inspire — as well as inform — everyone who hears her,” Mitchell says. “She was a successful woman in journalism before it was common. She also has managed better than most people do to combine a career with a commitment to family and her personal life.”

Information: 263-1740, jwmitch1@facstaff.wisc.edu.

WAA, business school stage ‘alumni business challenge’
Faculty from the UW–Madison and University of Iowa business schools will present a seminar Nov. 1-3 addressing current issues and future trends in business and management.

The Alumni Business Challenge will be held at the Fluno Center for Executive Education. Set to begin at 1:15 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 1, the program will feature presentations from leading faculty on a variety of business topics and will include networking opportunities for participants. The seminar will conclude with a “Deans’ Debate” 9-10 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 3.

This is the first of what will become an annual event during the weekend of the Wisconsin vs. Iowa football game on the home team’s campus, says the Wisconsin Alumni Association.

To register, 262-5699, SarahSchutt@uwalumni.com.

For information, visit: http://www.uwalumni.com/learning/wisconsiniowa.

Angelou to visit Madison
Poet Maya Angelou plans to visit Madison Tuesday, Oct. 9, in conjunction with TEMPO’s 20th anniversary celebration.

TEMPO is a Madison-based organization of professional women leaders in the fields of business, industry, government, education, communications, the arts and social services, and includes many UW–Madison, UW Extension and UW System members.

The event will start at 6 p.m. at Monona Terrace Convention Center. Cost: $60 per person. Reservations: 268-3060.

Feinberg debuts at Union
World-renowned pianist Alan Feinberg will make his solo debut at the Wisconsin Union Theater as he opens the 82nd Annual Union Concert Series Friday, Oct. 5, at 8 p.m.

Feinberg first appeared at the Wisconsin Union Theater in recital with violinist Thomas Zehetmaier in 1992. He has achieved a reputation as a vanguard pianist and musician who has charted his own unique path in music.

Tickets: $30 ($29 for Union members and $14.50 for UW–Madison students), Union Theater Box Office, 262-2201.

High energy: Computer exercise gives state residents a lesson
Engineering Ph.D. student Paul Meier has developed a Citizens Energy Choices Exercise for the We the People/Wisconsin media coalition as the group tries to educate state residents about energy issues.

Meier, who is working toward a doctorate under engineering physics professor Gerald Kulcinski, developed a computerized energy choices exercise for the Powering Wisconsin energy conference this week in Madison.

In the energy choices exercise, which Meier developed with help from assistant professor of engineering physics Paul Wilson, participants first must select a growth rate for Wisconsin’s future electricity consumption. Then, based on that number, they add or subtract megawatts from several generation sources until they have provided enough electric power to meet their projected energy needs. The program then returns a low, medium or high blackout risk; an overview of how their choices affected the average residential electric bill; and the amounts of pollution.

“We the People wanted people to consider economics, environment and other concerns, and this is basically a tool to let them do that,” says Meier. “It’s partly a game and partly educational. They can see how their changes affect emissions, the cost for electricity and reliability.”

The exercise also includes links to more information about each energy source, and enables people to explore such idealistic options as powering the state entirely with wind — even though it’s unrealistic for technical and economic reasons.

The exercise currently is a Microsoft Excel document, but eventually Meier and Kulcinski hope to put it on the Web.