News Bureau

By Sharita Forrest, Assistant Editor 217-244-1072; slforres@illinois.edu

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Behind every computer are miles and miles of cables that keep the information systems on campus connected to the UI network and the rest of the world. Draftsmen such as Jeff Carder, a chief engineering draftsman at Campus Information Technologies and Educational Services, are responsible for designing and documenting the infrastructure that supports computing and communications on campus. After graduating from Jamaica High School, Carder earned an associate's degree in architectural engineering from ITT Technical Institute in Indianapolis in 1990 and worked for Daily & Associates in Champaign for nine years as a land surveyor and draftsman. Carder has been an employee at the UI since September 2000.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - The Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will host a series of lectures on Wednesday evenings through Nov. 12 about bridging the digital divide in communities, education, libraries and public policy.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - The first comprehensive U.S. exhibition of the work of Japanese architect Kengo Kuma will be exhibited Oct. 10 through Nov. 15 at I space, the Chicago gallery of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Campus Recreation opened the doors to its new Activities and Recreation Center on Aug. 21 with thousands of visitors checking out the renovated facilities on that first day.

Faculty and staff members and students who occasionally want access to a car but don't want to buy or borrow one will have a new option in late October when a community car-sharing program is expected to take off.

She shoots guns, rides a Harley - and she bakes cookies and runs circles around the competition with a Hula Hoop. And when Alice Dilts isn't on the firing range, riding the range or in front of the range in her kitchen, she's a building service foreman at the Illini Union. Shortly after graduating from Centennial High School, Dilts worked at the UI in accounting for nine months, then left to pursue other opportunities before returning to the university and working as a clerk in the Purchasing Division for three years. Dilts joined Housing Facilities Building Services in 1989, where she worked for 16 years before joining the Illini Union as a building subforeman. She has been in her current job for about two years and is a member of the Staff Advisory Council.

With the winter heating season rapidly approaching and predictions that energy prices will continue to escalate, the UI Board of Trustees approved a plan that will allow the university to save money by contracting for future deliveries of natural gas.

Urbana officials unveiled redesign plans for Goodwin Avenue during a public information meeting at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts on Sept. 9.

The Teaching Advancement Board recently selected Annie Abbott, a professor and director of the Spanish & Illinois program in the School of Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics, and Rajeshwari Pandharipande, a professor of linquistics, of Sanskrit and of comparative literature, as its Distinguished Teacher/Scholars for the 2008-2009 academic year.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - The Gender and Women's Studies Program has announced the lecturers for its Feminist Scholarship Colloquia Series for the fall semester. The brown-bag lectures, which are free and open to the public, provide an opportunity for students, faculty members, and visiting scholars and artists to share their work with members of the U. of I., Champaign and Urbana communities.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - "Disciplinarity - Films on Film" is the theme for the fall film series sponsored by the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - "Our Mothers, Our Daughters, Ourselves: Black Women in the Age of Lincoln and Beyond," an original production premiering Sept. 6-7 at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts at the University of Illinois, provides a fresh and critical perspective on Abraham Lincoln's legacy and its influence on African-American women. Blending historical accounts, the performers' personal reflections, scholarly research and the perspectives of young black women in the community, the production examines historical and contemporary issues such as slavery, emancipation, injustice, and black women's experiences of mothering.

A new certificate program being offered on campus intends to help life scientists protect and commercialize their ideas.

Football fans and other campus visitors have a new place to stay this fall that is close to the action at Memorial Stadium. The I Hotel and Conference Center at the corner of St. Mary's Road and First Street opened Aug. 11. Prior to official opening day it had already hosted two large weddings, an anniversary party and a luncheon for the Women's Quarterback Club.

Quinty, the UI police department's newest canine officer, is only 1 1/2 years old - in human years, that is - but he's already taking a bite out of crime.

Among the newcomers to the Urbana campus are faculty members whose appointments began this summer or fall. Inside Illinois continues its tradition of introducing some of the new faculty members on campus and will feature at least two new colleagues in each fall issue.

Linda Kemplin started as the Extra Help receptionist in Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences in April 2000 and was hired permanently in Oct0ober 2000. In July 2001, Kemplin moved to the NRES Human Resources Office and was the human resource manager there until a few weeks ago, when she accepted a similar position in the department of crop sciences.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Prize-winning poets, journalist Naomi Klein, and a University of Illinois physicist will be among the speakers this fall on a diverse schedule of lectures and discussions at the U. of I.

This is only a test ... Public Affairs will conduct a campuswide test of the Emergency Web Alert System at 10 a.m. Sept. 2 in conjunction with the monthly siren tests. Web pages that have the code embedded will display a test message. The test will last about 10 minutes.

One of the leading publishers of works about Abraham Lincoln, the UI Press, is publishing two new Lincoln books later this year in advance of the bicentennial of his birth in February 2009.

A new dining experience awaits students who will be eating at Pennsylvania Avenue Residence Halls this coming school year. The kitchens and dining rooms have undergone some physical and operational transformations.

Talisa Webber, an office manager at the Law Library, started her career with the university in the clerical learner program working as a secretary at David Kinley Hall in 1997. Webber then worked at Beckman Institute and then at Continuing Education as a secretary for the Elderhostel Program before starting her current job in 2001. Webber earned a bachelor's degree in liberal arts from Eastern Illinois University in 2006 and a master's degree in human resource education in May 2007 from the UI.

The UI Board of Trustees unanimously approved the appointment of a new chancellor at the Chicago campus when the Trustees met July 24 at UIC.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - The Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has been ranked the number one library and information science program - also known as information schools or "iSchools" - in the U.S. and Canada, according to data from a recent survey of academic libraries.

Under the guidelines for Identity Standards, which are available on the Web at www.identitystandards.illinois.edu, the I Mark must appear on the cover of all publications, and a campus logo must appear inside. Print and durable goods such as brochures, newsletters, signage and imprinted items that are developed, printed or created after Sept. 8, 2008 must comply with the standards. Items currently in production that are scheduled to be printed or created before Sept. 8 do not need to be updated. All existing materials should be used until the supply is exhausted, but all print products and durable goods must comply by Jan. 1, 2010. Web pages developed after Sept. 8 must comply with the standards, and home pages for all campus units must comply by Jan. 1, 2009. The I Mark and the text "University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign" should appear prominently on the first page of PowerPoint presentations; new templates - as well as more information about the branding initiative - are available on the identity standards Web site, www.identitystandards.illinois.edu.

Nationwide, a slumping economy and high prices at the gas pump are changing many people's summer vacation plans. While some opt to take shorter trips closer to home, others have curtailed vacation plans altogether.

Recent studies have indicated that intellectual and social engagement are vital to the health and well-being of older adults. The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute on the Urbana campus, which recently celebrated its first anniversary of offering enrichment programs, is fulfilling those needs for hundreds of people in Central Illinois.

Just like people who develop cancer, animals with cancer have a variety of treatment options that can help them live longer, more comfortable lives. "We can always do something to improve their quality of life," said Jenny Rose, a veterinary technician in the oncology department of the Veterinary Medicine Teaching Hospital. "If we can't get rid of the cancer, we sure want to help them live with it the best we can." To help get that message of hope across to pet owners and veterinarians who refer oncology patients to the hospital, three years ago Rose developed an annual calendar featuring pictures of the hospital's oncology patients along with stories written by their owners. Rose, who joined the UI's staff 11 years ago, earned an associate's degree in veterinary technology from Parkland College in 1997.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - The four state scientific surveys - the Illinois State Geological Survey, the Illinois Natural History Survey, the Illinois Waste Management and Research Center, and the Illinois State Water Survey - have become part of the U. of I.'s Urbana campus, under a measure signed Monday by Gov. Rod Blagojevich. The surveys will be organized as a new unit, the Institute for Natural Sciences and Sustainability, under the university's auspices in Fiscal Year 2009, which began Tuesday.

By Sharita Forrest, Assistant Editor 217-244-1072; slforres@illinois.edu

A new salary-based parking rate system will begin July 1. The new rate structure will be calculated on 0.7 percent of each permit holder's annual base salary. The system also caps rates at a maximum of $40 per month for FY2009.

Paula Allen-Meares, dean of the School of Social Work at the University of Michigan, has been selected as the next chancellor of UIC, pending formal approval by the UI Board of Trustees.

Ravishankar "Ravi" Iyer, the George and Ann Fisher Distinguished Professor of Engineering and director of the Coordinated Science Laboratory, has been chosen to serve as interim vice chancellor for research for the UI, pending approval of the UI Board of Trustees.

Sports fans that don't recognize Linda Friedemann's face may recognize her voice. "I have the reputation of being fairly loud in the stands at ballgames," Friedemann said. "I'm one of those moms that makes sure that the officials are calling the game correctly." And when she's not cheering the Unity Rockets sports teams on to victory, Friedemann, a secretary at the Career Center, helps aspiring doctors, lawyers, dentists and other students achieve their goals by coordinating their letters of recommendation for professional schools. Friedemann began her career with the UI as Extra Help in December 1998 and was hired as a full-time, regular employee shortly thereafter.

A safety program in Facilities and Services under the direction of maintenance director Carl Wegel encourages workers to help prevent injuries and falls on the job and at home. The program, the Employee Protection Process, promotes awareness of ergonomics, behavioral safety, fitness and risk-management decision-making. The EPP's principles are applicable to every worker, whether his or her job consists of strenuous physical labor or office work. Through the Division of Safety and Compliance, Occupational Safety and Health, the EPP is now available to all campus units.

Faculty and staff members in campus units that need to archive sensitive data such as Social Security numbers, credit-card numbers and grades will have the opportunity to undergo a training program later this year. The campus Security Office is creating a Working with Sensitive Data program that will be offered in the late summer or early fall. The 90-minute sessions will instruct faculty and staff members who are authorized to handle sensitive data on how to safely maintain the information.

A preliminary fiscal year 2009 operating budget for the UI with a 1.5 percent salary increase was presented to the UI Board of Trustees at its May 22 meeting at UIC.

University trustees approved an additional $3.4 million for Global Campus as administrators said they expect a marketing campaign and partnerships with community colleges to put the online degree program in “fast growth mode.”

By Sharita Forrest, Assistant Editor 217-244-1072; slforres@illinois.edu

Sheila C. Johnson, UI alumna, entrepreneur, philanthropist, musician and longtime patron of the arts, is donating $4 million to endow two chairs in the UI School of Music.

Mary Sproat, an office assistant for the Master of Business Administration program in the College of Business, has a passion for all forms of art, but especially for designing rooms. And Sproat is sharing her passion with other women in the community by volunteering with the Center for Women In Transition, a shelter for homeless women and their children in Champaign. Sproat began working at the UI as Extra Help in 2003 and, in 2004, was hired as a full-time staff member with the MBA program.

The UI's Urbana campus has a new address. E-mail address, that is. Since May 13, students and faculty and staff members have been able to use NetID@illinois.edu e-mail addresses. As part of the branding initiative aimed at standardizing the Urbana campus's identity as "Illinois," the campus is transitioning to the www.illinois.edu Web domain. The first step in that process is establishing new addresses for Urbana campus e-mail users.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has established a goal of reducing the energy consumption of existing buildings by 10 percent over the next three years and has established a five-year target of rolling back usage to 1990 standards, consistent with the Kyoto Protocol.

A hit CBS TV show is benefiting from UI research and expertise. Amy Young, a Web and database developer at the Materials Computation Center, also is a script consultant for the show "Numb3rs," which draws about 11 million viewers each week.

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"Baking is absolutely my passion," said Doris Alford, a test-kitchen cook in Bevier Café and a lab assistant in the department of food science and human nutrition. Alford's zeal for life in the kitchen also has earned her a third - unofficial - title from her colleagues: the crazy pastry chef. A mid-life career changer, Alford turned her favorite pastime into her profession after doing office work for two decades. Alford shares her passion by mentoring two students from University High School, whose recent culinary explorations have included Buche de Noel (a sponge cake filled with butter cream), apple pies, baked Alaska, soufflés and cannolis. Alford started at the UI as extra help in January 2007 and became a permanent employee in September.

The Urbana-Champaign Senate met April 28 and discussed proposed changes in the structure of the University Library and the services it provides. Paula Kaufman, university librarian and dean of libraries, discussed some of the suggestions contained in a recent report and invited members of the Urbana campus community to provide input. Working groups are being formed to assist with planning and implementing recommendations contained in the report, but no final decisions have been made, Kaufman said.