News in Brief
NOTABLE
Badgers headed to Sun Bowl
The university will receive 8,000 tickets for the Sun Bowl scheduled Friday, Dec. 29, in El Paso, Texas.
The Wisconsin football team accepted the bowl invitation Nov. 20. “Our team is very excited about the opportunity to extend our bowl streak and participate in the Sun Bowl,” Coach Barry Alvarez says.
Each UW season ticket holder received a bowl application last month and has a Friday, Dec. 1, deadline to receive priority for a bowl ticket order. Any available tickets will go on sale to the general public beginning Tuesday, Dec. 5, at 8:30 a.m.
The Sun Bowl generally pits the fifth-place team from the Big Ten Conference against the third-place squad from the Pac-10 Conference.
CBS will televise the bowl game live. Kickoff is set for 1:15 p.m. CST in the 51,171-seat Sun Bowl Stadium.
Finalists named for human ecology dean
Two national experts in the field of family studies have been named the finalists for dean of the School of Human Ecology.
Robin A. Douthitt has been acting dean of the school since 1999. Douthitt, a professor of consumer science, specializes in behavior research. She has been on the SoHE faculty since 1986.
Last year, Douthitt was named the Vaughn Bascom Professor of Women in Philanthropy, a title she will hold until 2004. She also received the 2000 Wisconsin Alumni Association Cabinet 99 Recognition Award this fall. In 1996 she won the Chancellor’s Certificate of Appreciation for her work in establishing the UW–Madison Women Faculty Mentoring Program. Her research interests span consumers’ perceptions of risk related to biotechnology, the cost of raising children, the value of volunteer work, the role of university mentoring and more.
James Arthur Blackburn is dean of the School of Social Welfare at UW-Milwaukee, a position he has held since 1992. A UW–Madison alumnus (M.S.S.W., 1977, and Ph.D., 1980), Blackburn was recognized in 1999 with a Distinguished Alumni Award from the UW–Madison School of Human Ecology. His research interests include intellectual performance in old age, alcohol use among elderly women, the role of grandmothers in three-generational families and the impact of Wisconsin Works (W-2) on Milwaukee’s African-American community.
A decision on the dean appointment is expected by the end of this year.
COMMUNITY
General Motors drives engineering diversity effort
A $550,000 grant from General Motors will steer diversification and other key areas of the College of Engineering over the next five years.
The gift, announced by GM officials Nov. 14, will fund activities in four areas of particular interest to GM, including engineering diversity programs, the Engine Research Center, the Powertrain Control Research Laboratory and the Spatial Automation Laboratory.
“This grant will have an undeniably important impact on several crucial areas of education,” says College of Engineering Dean Paul S. Peercy.
The grant will provide $110,000 a year for five years. Of this, 20 percent will be used to recruit and retain underrepresented minorities and women in engineering.
In addition to support for diversity affairs, the Engine Research Center will receive $40,667 per year, the Powertrain Control Research Laboratory will receive $18,000 per year and the Spatial Automation Laboratory will receive $29,333 per year. This funding supports two General Motors fellowships, one in the Engine Research Center and a second in the Spatial Automation Laboratory.
Regents approve Camp Randall renovation
The Camp Randall Stadium renovation plan, which would add 5,500 seats to the 83-year-old facility, was approved Nov. 10 by the UW System Board of Regents.
The $99.7 million proposal will be forwarded to the Legislature for inclusion in the 2001-03 state capital budget.
Athletic Department and private sources will cover most of the cost. About $10 million in state funds is sought to pay for maintenance improvements needed regardless of whether the addition was approved.
The overhaul will add three levels of 32 suites each and 900 club seats on the east side of the football stadium. Revenue generated from the sales of the suites and club seats will help pay for the project. Total seating under the renovation plan will increase to 82,500.
The regents also approved a $499,000 addition to the Camp Randall Sports Center, commonly known as the Shell, for women’s hockey team locker rooms and other space. Athletic Department funds will pay for the addition.
SECC: Not too late to donate
The State, UW and UWHC Combined Campaign of Dane County closes Friday, Dec. 1, and so far, UW employees have contributed $493,397 to the annual charity fund-raising effort.
Of the nearly 14,000 eligible donors, only 1,852 – or 13 percent – have participated in the 2000 “Partners in Giving” workplace campaign to date.
Overall, the SECC-Dane has raised $1,510,236 so far, or just over 64 percent of the 2000 goal.
Contributions will be accepted after Dec. 1, but employees who wish to give through payroll deduction must have their pledge forms turned in by Dec. 15 so that the Payroll Office can process them.
LEARNING
Environmental institute awarded $245,000 for fellowships
The Institute for Environmental Studies will receive $245,000 from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation over the next four years to support graduate students planning careers in conservation.
Each Doris Duke conservation fellow will receive up to $32,000 toward tuition, an internship at a conservation organization and educational loan repayment.
Fellows are selected by their own universities.
MILESTONES
Center builds network for food research
The Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems has taken the lead in building a national network of centers and programs working to foster more sustainable food and farming systems. In early November, for example, the center hosted a gathering of sustainable agriculture centers and programs that identified ways to increase programs’ impact by working together.
“As a result of this gathering, our center will collaborate more closely with other sustainable agriculture centers and programs,” says Chuck Francis, director of the sustainable agriculture program in the Center for Applied Rural Innovation at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. “Key issues can be tackled across states and regions more effectively than in one state.”
Twenty-five representatives of a dozen sustainable agriculture centers and programs from across the country attended this gathering, which was held at the Wisconsin Union on Nov. 2-4. These centers and programs conduct research, teaching and extension on sustainable agriculture and food systems that contribute to the economic, ecological and social well- being of farmers, workers, consumers and their communities.
Advocacy, research and networking were identified as areas that will benefit from increased collaboration nationally. The participants agreed that collaboration will raise public awareness about sustainability issues and their impacts on farms, the environment and local economies.
Four “hammered’ for effort
Four faculty have been honored with Vice President Al Gore’s Hammer Award for excellence in government.
The award recognizes their work on a community project designed to demonstrate the benefits of geographic information for “smart-growth” planning efforts of the town of Verona.
The honorees are: Richard Chenoweth and Bernard J. Niemann Jr., professors of urban and regional planning; Stephen Ventura, professor of soils and environmental studies; and D. David Moyer, adjunct associate professor of environmental studies.
The four researchers worked with Dane County and several federal participants. The Hammer recognizes successful efforts to reinvent a process or program to make government work better and cost less.
Roundtable features Ward; spring speakers set
Chancellor David Ward is the featured speaker for the Dec. 14 University Roundtable, the last of the fall semester. The event begins at 11:45 a.m. in Tripp Commons at the Memorial Union.
Reservations are required by Dec. 7, and seating is limited. Checks for $8.50 to cover the cost of lunch must be made out to UW Roundtable and sent to Colleen McCabe, 270 Bascom.
The spring semester Roundtable series will feature three speakers:
- UW System President Katharine Lyall Feb. 19
- John Wiley, incoming chancellor , April 12
- Steve Ackerman, atmospheric and oceanic sciences, May 14.
Reservations are due one week before each luncheon.
Orner dies of cancer
Marilyn “Mimi” Orner, 40, has died after a lengthy bout with cancer.
Orner recently had accepted a position as an assistant professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. She had served the university as a teacher and advisor in the Women’s Studies Program, where she often taught courses such as Women and Popular Culture, Gender and Education, Constructions of Gender in the Media, and Race and Ethnicity in the Lives of U.S. Women, among others.
Earlier this year, Orner won the Letters and Science Excellence in Advising Award. In 1999, she received a Chancellor’s Hilldale Award for Excellence in Teaching.
The family says donations may be made to Ovarian Cancer National Alliance, Box 33107, Washington, D.C. 20033; Gilda’s Club, 95 Madison Ave., Suite 609, New York, NY 10016; Congregation Shaarei-Shamayhim Children’s Educational Fund, 430 Sidney St., Madison, WI 53703; or Hospice Care, 5395 E. Cheryl Parkway, Madison, WI 53711.
A tree-planting ceremony will be held for Orner in the spring.