Faculty/academic staff workshops and programs

Associate dean of student development and director of multicultural affairs candidates announced

Input sought for general education program goals

Allied Health Professions

Chemistry

Foundations of Education

Geology

Mathematics

Music and Theatre Arts

Psychology

Sociology

Births and Adoptions

UW-Eau Claire faculty/staff committed to efforts of Eau Claire Human Rights Coalition
Several UW-Eau Claire faculty and staff currently are involved in a newly formed Eau Claire Human Rights Coalition. For the past six years, Cynthia Gray-Mash, foundations of education, has been involved in the founding organizations, Racial Justice Task Force and the Racial Justice Interim Advisory Committee. The coalition brings together people in the greater Eau Claire community who have worked toward human rights issues for at least two decades.

In a 1994 agreement between UW-Eau Claire Chancellor Emeritus Larry Schnack and Eau Claire City Council President Mark Lewis, a University-Community Committee on Racial Diversity was appointed to look at diversity and racism in Eau Claire. That began UW-Eau Claire's involvement, which has continued to the present.

The following people affiliated with UW-Eau Claire are members of the ECHRC: Kimberly Barrett, Office of Student Development and Diversity; Jesse Dixon, Office of Multicultural Affairs; Reiko Clark, Affirmative Action; La Vonne Cornell-Swanson, social work; Nathan Franklin, graduate student; Beth Franklin, UW-Eau Claire alumna; Cynthia Gray-Mash, foundations of education; Marge Hebbring, Gear Up Program; and Charles Vue, Office of Multicultural Affairs. More information and a complete list of ECHRC members can be viewed online.

Faculty/academic staff workshops and programs
The Office of Research and Sponsored Programs announces the following program deadline.
    • The Academic Staff Professional Development Program deadline is June. 1.

Associate dean of student development and director of multicultural affairs candidates announced
Faculty and staff are invited to meet the candidates for the positions of associate dean of student development and director of multicultural affairs in the Office of Student Development and Diversity. Follow online links for interview schedules.

For more information, contact the following committee chairs:
    • Art Lyons, lyonsaj@uwec.edu, chair of associate dean search.
    • Marge Hebbring, hebbrima@uwec.edu, chair of director of multicultural affairs search.

Input sought for general education program goals
More than two decades have passed since the current general education program was established at UW-Eau Claire. The University General Education Committee would like your help in ensuring that the goals of the general education program match the current needs of the university.

Please consider the following questions:
    • What kind of skills, abilities, habits of mind and ways of problem solving do we expect the GE program to develop?
    • How should the GE program relate to the majors?
    • How can the GE program broaden perspectives and create a common knowledge base?
    • How should GE goals be related to baccalaureate goals? Should we have goals for both the baccalaureate and GE?

Listed below are links to institutions that recently participated in a similar goal setting exercise. The information the sites provide may aid in your thinking about goals for UW-Eau Claire’s GE program.

American Association of Colleges and Universities; American Association of Higher Education; Colby-Sawyer College; New York University; Portland State University; and Wagner College.

The deadline for submission of goals to the University General Education Committee is Oct. 15. Please e-mail submissions to Robert Knight, chair of the University General Education Committee, at knightrm@uwec.edu, and copy them to Karen Tallant at tallankm@uwec.edu.

Allied Health Professions
Dale B. Taylor's book "Biomedical Foundations of Music as Therapy" has been designated as the Featured Classic in the May 2004 issue of MMB Music Inc.'s online Therapy Newsletter.

Chemistry
Stephen Drucker, UW-Eau Claire student Emily Gilles; Jaebum Choo, Hanyang University, South Korea; Daniel Autrey, Fayetteville State University/Texas A&M University; and Mohamed Rishard and Jaan Laane, Texas A&M University, recently had their paper titled "Ultraviolet Cavity Ringdown Spectra of 2-Cyclohexen-1-one and Its Potential Energy Function and Structure for the Electronic Ground State” accepted for publication in the Canadian Journal of Chemistry. Gilles is listed as the first author on the paper.

Foundations of Education
Barbara Erdman and Diane Huiras, Jill Labarbera and Ann Salt, graduate students in the library media program, gave a presentation and demonstration titled “Content-Specific Web Site Evaluation” at the spring conference of the Wisconsin Educational Media Association April 18-20 in Madison. The presentation, which also included work by four additional students, was the result of a project completed in the fall semester LMED 608 in which students identified content-specific Web site evaluation criteria and designed ITLS standards-based evaluation forms for teachers in language arts, math, social studies and science.

Rob Reid was a keynote speaker at the Québec Library Association's 72nd Annual Conference May 6-8 at Concordia University in Montréal, Québec, Canada. The presentation was based on Reid's book "Something Funny Happened at the Library," ALA Editions, 2003. Reid recently was elected to the 2006 Newbery Award Committee, a 15-member committee that will read and vote on children's books published in 2005. The Newbery Award is one of the two most prestigious awards given for children's literature published in the United States.

Geology
The following faculty members and students gave presentations at the 2004 Annual Rocky Mountain and Cordilleran Joint Meeting May 3-5 in Boise, Idaho. Colin Shaw and his research students, Ryan Dayton, Christopher Fell, Kari Niss and Kali Pace-Graczyk presented "BASMAP (Basement Age and Structure Map): Prototype GIS Database of Crustal Geology in the Southern Rocky Mountain Region." Student Scott Formolo also co-authored the paper. Phillip Ihinger and his research students, Jim Watkins and Breck Johnson presented "Yellowstone Plumehead Meets Farallon Slab: A Plausible Mechanism During North American Continental Tectonics for 80 MY." Student Jesse Bernhardt also co-authored the paper.

Kent Syverson presented "Origin of Pre-Wisconsinan Glacial Units in Northern Wisconsin Based on Lithologic Characteristics" at the Annual Institute on Lake Superior Geology May 4-9 in Duluth, Minn. The following Geology faculty members also attended the meeting: Nancy Bowers, Karen Havholm, Phillip Ihinger, Colin Shaw and Kent Syverson. In addition, the following Geography and Anthropology faculty members attended the meeting: Harry Jol, Garry Running and Adam Cahow, emeritus. Students enrolled in GEOG 360 (Geomorphology) and GEOG 491 (Quaternary) also attended.

Robert Hooper, J. Brian Mahoney and their research student, Laura Strumness, will present "Contaminant Pathways and Metal Sequestration Patterns in the Lower Coeur d'Alene River Valley, Idaho: Mechanics of Trace Metal Mobility" at the American Geological Union and Canadian Geological Union 2004 Joint Assembly May 17-21 in Montréal, Québec, Canada. In addition, Hooper, Mahoney and their research students, Kelly Plathe and Strumness, will present "Arsenic Metal Speciation in Mine Contaminated Lacustrine Sediment Using TEM/HR-ICPMS and Calibrated Sequential Extraction" at the same meeting.

Mathematics
Jo Ingle presented a workshop titled "Exploring Statistical Topics at PBS Teacher Source" at the 36th Annual Conference of the Wisconsin Mathematics Council May 6-7 in Green Lake.

Music and Theatre Arts
Phil Ostrander was one of three guest conductors for the South Dakota All-State Jazz Band May 6-8 at Northern State University in Aberdeen, S.D. Sixty-three students from 23 high schools participated.

Psychology
David Jewett and colleagues Allen Levine, UW-Eau Claire graduate James Cleary, Catherine Kotz and Charles Billington from the University of Minnesota and Minneapolis Veterans Affairs Medical Center had their paper titled “Our Journey with Neuropeptide Y: Effects on Ingestive Behaviors and Energy Expenditure” in the March 2004 issue of the journal Peptides, Vol. 25, pages 505-510. Jewett, UW-Eau Claire students Lisa Nackers and Daniel Hehli, and UW-Eau Claire graduate Mikhail Koffarnus presented research at the 2004 Experimental Biology meeting of the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics April 17-21 in Washington, D.C. Other co-authors on the project included UW-Eau Claire students Timothy Lefever, Constance Cameron and Lacey Eveland, and research collaborators from the University of Minnesota/Minneapolis VA Medical Center.

Sociology
Tarique Niazi had his article titled “Rural Poverty and the Green Revolution” published in the Journal of Peasant Studies, London, U.K., Vol. 31, No. 2, pages 242-260. The article discusses the political economy of the agrarian change driven by the Green Revolution and documents the social impact of the revolution on tenurial security, rural household income and employment generation.

Births and Adoptions
Congratulations to Alexandre Dossin, music and theatre arts, and his wife, Maria, on the birth of son Victor Alexander on May 15. Victor joins big sister Sophia.