For the Record

Annual pesticide application notification

UW–Madison Physical Plant has traditionally applied fertilizer and herbicides to turf areas and landscape display beds in the general areas of campus and to invasive plants in the Lakeshore Nature Preserve. For a listing of products used on campus and the Lakeshore Nature Preserve please see the UW–Madison Safety web site at http://www.fpm.wisc.edu/chemsafety/pesticide.

The departments of Environmental Services and Lakeshore Nature Preserve are sensitive to the community’s concerns regarding the use of herbicides and fertilizers. Therefore these departments emphasize that their use is a tool as part of an integrated plant management program. Promoting healthy turf and landscape displays minimizes pesticide use. Promoting diverse biological communities in natural areas minimizes pesticide use for weed control.

New faculty development seminar in humanities launched

The Center for the Humanities and the Institute for Research in the Humanities announce the inauguration of the Faculty Development Seminar in the Humanities (FDSH) beginning in spring 2007. The seminar aims to create a formal setting that promotes sustained collaboration and dialogue across disciplinary lines on a specific topic. This pilot project is designed to enhance the quality of humanities research at UW–Madison.

The FDSH will enable an individual senior faculty member or a team of two senior faculty to teach fellow faculty for 10 weeks (a weekly two-hour seminar) on a topic of interest across the humanities. The presiding faculty member(s) will receive course credit and the faculty’s department will receive funds for a replacement lecturer. The 10 faculty members taking the course will receive research funds to recognize their selection and to cover the costs of materials. The presiding senior faculty member(s) as well as the participating faculty members will be chosen by a selection committee.

This is a call for proposals from senior faculty for the initial spring 2007 Seminar. This seminar will be team taught by two faculty members from different departments in the humanities (both faculty members will receive teaching credit, and their departments will get funds for replacement lecturers). Topics should be broadly conceived and of potential interest to a large number of humanities disciplines. Please send a one-page proposal for the seminar, a one-page preliminary syllabus for the 10 weeks (the proposed format or weekly topics and sample readings), and curriculum vitae to: Faculty Development Seminar, Institute for Research in the Humanities, 1401 Observatory Drive. The deadline for submission is June 1. If you have questions please contact David Sorkin (Institute for Research in the Humanities, djsorkin@wisc.edu) or Susanne Wofford (Center for the Humanities, wofford@wisc.edu).

This initiative is funded by the Office of the Dean, the College of Letters and Science, the Center for the Humanities and the Institute for Research in the Humanities.

UW–Madison awarded grant for adult student Scholarships

UW–Madison recently was awarded a gift from the Bernard Osher Foundation of San Francisco that will provide scholarships for up to 10 adults who are returning to college to complete their first bachelor’s degree.

“The Osher Foundation has chosen to give a grant to assist returning adult students at UW–Madison and may renew it annually for up to two more years. After that, with the program’s demonstrated success, the university may apply for a $1 million endowment to support the program in perpetuity,” said Dean Howard Martin of the Division of Continuing Studies.

Scholarship applicants must:

• be between the ages of 25 and 50 at the time of application,
• be a newly admitted or continuing student (full or part time) at UW–Madison seeking their first baccalaureate degree,
• have completed a minimum of 15 college credits,
• have experienced a break of several years in their undergraduate education,
• demonstrate potential for academic success, and
• demonstrate financial need.

The scholarship assists with the cost of tuition, books and other education-related expenses. Recipients are given a tuition grant of up to $5,000 per academic year. The program is not intended for transfer students or those seeking an additional degree.

“The university wants to reach out to this group which is so often overlooked,” Martin explained, adding that the Division of Continuing Studies has been supporting returning adult students for more than 25 years. “We are pleased to extend our support by offering these scholarships with the help of the Bernard Osher Foundation,” he said. “The Osher Reentry Scholarship program seeks to recognize the commitment, efforts and financial hardships of re entry working adults as they balance family, work and school responsibilities in order to achieve their educational goals.”

The Bernard Osher Foundation was founded in 1977 by Bernard Osher, a successful businessman and community leader, to provide scholarship support for students of colleges and universities principally in Northern California and the State of Maine. UW–Madison recently also received a $100,000 grant from the foundation to establish an Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, jointly with the Wisconsin Alumni Association, to assist lifelong learning for area residents aged 50 and over.

The deadline to receive an Osher Reentry Student Award for the 2006-07 academic year is June 1. Applicants must be fully admitted to UW–Madison before Aug.15. For information about the admission process, contact the Adult and Student Service Center at 263-6960. Information about the Osher scholarship is available at http://www.dcs.wisc.edu/services/finanserv/scholarships/osher.htm. For information about other scholarships for adult students, visit http://www.dcs.wisc.edu/services/index.htm.

UW-CTRI receives grant to study quitlines

The School of Medicine and Pulic Health’s Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention (UW-CTRI) this month was awarded a three-year grant to study the impact the creation of a national tobacco quitline network has had on state quitlines and state funding. Specifically, does state quitline funding change over time, have states without quitlines created them, and has overall state funding for tobacco control increased or decreased?

In the fall of 2004, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) developed a National Network of Tobacco Cessation Quitlines, based on a recommendation from the Subcommittee on Cessation of the Interagency Committee on Smoking and Health. This action created a single, nationwide, toll-free access number to bring state quitlines together as a network to provide smoking cessation treatment to millions of people across the country who smoke or chew tobacco.

DHHS also provided grants to states to enhance quitline services and to establish quitlines where none exist. States and the tobacco control community widely praised this action, yet concerns were raised about the modest financial investment in this service ($25 million per year), the source and sustainability of federal funds, and the impact on existing state tobacco control funding and state quitline funding.

This project will evaluate consequences of the new quitline network on existing state quitlines by conducting surveys of the 50 states annually for three years. The data will be compared to data collected in 2004 and 2005. Eight to 10 states will also be selected to describe state level decision-making regarding quitlines and tobacco control funding and environmental factors at the state-level that affect these policy decisions. This data will be compared to previous comparative case studies completed in 2005. The UW-CTRI, the UW Population Health Institute and the North American Quitline Consortium are collaborating on this research.

This grant was awarded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Substance Abuse Policy Research Program, which funds policy research that can help reduce the harm caused by the use of alcohol, tobacco and drugs in the United States.

For more information, contact Gloria Meyer at the Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention, 265-4447 or GKM@ctri.medicine.wisc.edu.

New federal grant application submission requirements

Grants.gov is intended to be the single electronic portal for the submission of all federal grant applications, and many federal granting agencies are already requiring proposal submission through Grants.gov. All federal agencies will be required to use Grants.gov by the end of fiscal year 2007.

Grants.gov is different than any other type of electronic proposal submission. Instead of working on a remote server, the entire software package, called PureEdge, is downloaded to a principal investigator’s (PI) hard drive. This software is PC-based; Mac users must use another solution. When the application is complete, the entire package is routed to the Research and Sponsored Programs office (RSP) for submission to Grants.gov. Grants.gov then routes the proposal to the intended agency.

There are a few key pieces of information that all PIs intending to submit a federal application through Grants.gov should know:

1) Don’t register; the university is registered. No individual must register with Grants.gov. All that is required by UW–Madison applicants is to use DUNS No.161202122 on any application. The “find” portion of Grants.gov does not require registration.

2) The application forms are different than those of any single agency. It is a good idea to become familiar with them early,

3) The software does not currently support MacIntosh, though there is a Mac solution called CITRIX,

4) Do not buy an individual vendor solution.

To meet the challenges of all federal proposals going through the system, a campus task force is working on three areas of concentration: 1) short-term submission solutions, including solutions for Mac users, 2) long-term solutions that will involve a Web-based system-to-system interface, and 3) training and communications strategies. This task force is meeting frequently to develop materials to assist the campus in this new process. RSP is keeping the campus informed of updates, training sessions and tools on its Web site:

http://www.rsp.wisc.edu/preaward/grantsgov.html.

For questions regarding the Task Force or the existing campus process, please contact Diane Barrett, Grants.gov task force chair and assistant director of RSP, at 262-0252 or barrett @rsp.wisc.edu. In addition, many of the schools/colleges also have individuals in their research administration offices to assist with Grants.gov questions and submission.

Transportation Services offers Middleton bicycle commuting group

Transportation Services is now offering a Middleton Bicycle Commuting Group to offer assistance and advice for those interested in bicycle commuting from the Marshall Park area.

Join one of Bucky’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Ambassadors for the morning commute from Middleton to the central campus area. Meet at Marshall Park and enjoy a ride on Madison’s side streets and bike paths to reach campus feeling invigorated and ready to start your day.

Students and staff interested in bicycle commuting to campus from Middleton can meet at 7:45 a.m. Monday-Thursday at Marshall Park to join in. To learn more, call 263-2969 or e-mail mburczyk@fpm.wisc.edu.