Featured Articles

WiSys supports faculty-student Warfarin research

Faculty, staff sign Clean Commute Initiative

Campus community invited to attend strategic planning charrettes Sept. 18-20, 24

New 2007 faculty/academic staff appointments, recent promotions and grants of tenure

Board of Regents hears growth initiative update

Faculty Art Show to feature professors' works

Bill of Rights to be Constitution Day topic

Alumnus teaches in Indonesia on Fulbright grant

WiSys supports faculty-student Warfarin research

Dr. David Lewis

Dr. David Lewis, UW-Eau Claire professor of chemistry, has received a $65,000 grant that will allow him, with the help of several students, to work in collaboration with a researcher at Marshfield Clinic on the development of new derivatives of the drug Warfarin.

The grant represents a partnership between the UW System and WiSys Technology Foundation Inc. to support projects with the potential to be a source of intellectual property and revenue in the future. As an inter-institutional research collaboration, the project also involves a $22,000 UW-Eau Claire campus investment.

The current WiSys grant will run for one year, with the potential for a second, but Lewis plans to seek additional support from the National Institutes of Health, so he believes this could become a long-term project.

"That means there will be the potential for many UW-Eau Claire chemistry students to be involved in this work in the coming years," Lewis said. Full story.

Faculty, staff sign Clean Commute Initiative

Several UW-Eau Claire faculty members presented a signed Clean Commute Initiative Sept. 4 to Chancellor Levin-Stankevich and University Senate President Martin Wood. Pictured, clockwise from bottom left, are Wood, Doug Faulkner, Paul Kaldjian and Levin-Stankevich. (Photo by Rick Mickelson, LTS)

Close to 200 faculty and staff members at UW-Eau Claire have signed a Clean Commute Initiative pledging to model healthful and environmentally friendly behavior by biking, walking, Rollerblading, carpooling, or using public transportation as much as possible when traveling to and from campus.

The signed initiative was delivered Sept. 4 to Chancellor Brian Levin-Stankevich and Martin Wood, University Senate president and professor of English, by Bob Eierman, professor of chemistry; Doug Faulkner, associate professor of geography; Paul Wagner, associate professor of computer science; Crispin Pierce, assistant professor and program coordinator of environmental and public health; and Paul Kaldjian, associate professor of geography. Many other faculty and staff members also were involved in preparing the documents and gathering signatures on campus.

Read the initiative and the memorandum presented to Levin-Stankevich and Wood.

Campus community invited to attend
strategic planning charrettes Sept. 18-20, 24

The next phase in the ongoing strategic planning process at UW-Eau Claire will include a series of charrettes — collaborative sessions at which university faculty, staff and students can learn more about proposed strategic planning ideas and submit their own ideas — Sept. 18-20 and 24 in Davies Center.

Representatives from each of the six strategic planning work groups will be on hand at the charrettes to explain and answer questions about the groups' proposals. Faculty, staff and students who attend a charrette should prepare by reading the proposals, available on the strategic planning Web site, said MJ Brukhardt, special assistant to the chancellor for strategic planning. Charrette participants also will be invited to write their ideas and comments regarding the work group proposals on posters set up in the meeting room. For more information about the process, read "What's a Charrette and Why Attend One?"

New 2007 faculty/academic staff appointments, recent promotions and grants of tenure
Click here to find out who's new on campus among faculty and academic staff. Also see faculty and academic staff promotions and tenure designations.

Board of Regents hears growth initiative update
The UW System Board of Regents heard from top university officials Sept. 6 that they have received strong support for the system's proposed growth intiatives. During the first day of the board's two-day September meeting in Madison, Board of Regents President Mark Bradley and UW System President Kevin Reilly also discussed with regents the process for creating a strategic plan for moving forward with the intiatives.

On Sept. 7, the board presented the regents' 15th annual Teaching Excellence Awards to Diane Reddy, professor of psychology at UW-Milwaukee; Lois Smith, professor of marketing at UW-Whitewater; and the department of civil and environmental engineering at UW-Platteville. The regents also heard a progress report on the work of the President's 2007 Commission on University Security from UW System Executive Senior Vice President (and UW-Eau Claire Chancellor Emeritus) Donald Mash.

For more information on the regents' September meeting, see the Day 1 and Day 2 news summaries on the UW System Web site.

Faculty Art Show to feature professors' works
UW-Eau Claire faculty artists Michael Christopherson and Steven Terwilliger are the featured artists in the 2007 Faculty Art Show, to open Thursday, Sept. 13, with an opening reception in the Foster Art Gallery from 7:30-9 p.m. The show runs through Oct. 4.

Christopherson, recently selected as recipient of UW-Eau Claire's Max Schoenfeld Distinguished Professorship award, will show four large abstract sculptures created in 2006. The works are wall reliefs made of pine and acrylic paint. Each uses the circle as the dominant element in the design of the sculpture. Terwilliger, chair of the department of art & design, will show three pieces: one digital photographic work and two mixed media pieces involving sculptural installation and video. Full story.

Bill of Rights to be Constitution Day topic
UW-Eau Claire will celebrate Constitution Day, the anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Constitution at the Philadelphia Convention, with a presentation by Dr. Michael Fine, professor of political science. "Can the Bill of Rights Save Us from a Tyrannical Executive?" will begin at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Sept. 17, in Schofield Auditorium.

To read more about Constitution Day or read the U.S. Constitution, visit the Constitution Day Web site. For more information about UW-Eau Claire's 2007 Constitution Day program, contact Dr. Rodd Freitag, associate professor and chair of the department of political science, at 715-836-5044 or freitard@uwec.edu.

Alumnus teaches in Indonesia on Fulbright grant

John Zanetti is surrounded by his students in West Kalimantan, Indonesia, where he is teaching with the support of a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship. (Contributed photo)

John Maxim Zanetti II, a 2006 UW-Eau Claire political science graduate, is in West Kalimantan (formerly known as Borneo), Indonesia, where he recently began working with high school students and various grassroots groups to solve community problems with the support of a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship.

Zanetti is one of two recent UW-Eau Claire graduates to receive prestigious Fulbright grants this year. Erin House, a May 2007 UW-Eau Claire German graduate, also was awarded a Fulbright grant to attend the University of Leipzig in Leipzig, Germany, for 2007-08.

Zanetti, from Minneapolis, just recently found out he was one of 10 ETAs who are being placed at Islamic boarding schools and Islamic public high schools. He was placed at SMA Muhammadiyah 1 in Pontianak, West Kalimantan, Indonesia. In addition to teaching English, Zanetti has designed a project with a community focus that the Fulbright U.S. Student Program is now emphasizing. Full story.

University Bulletin
Published weekly during the fall and spring semesters by the UW-Eau Claire News Bureau. News items and notices should be sent to the News Bureau, Schofield 201, by 10 a.m. Monday for publication in the following week’s issue. E-mail submissions to Julie Poquette at poquetjm@uwec.edu are encouraged. Faculty/staff news items are published on a space-available basis.