Reunions 2005: Honoring Achievement and Celebrating Friendship

Alumni Reunion Weekend 2005 was a hit with hundreds of alumni returning June 10-12 to reconnect with classmates, explore the changing face of the UI campus and Iowa City, and for some, to receive awards recognizing their accomplishments since leaving the university. The UI Alumni Association presented 13 Distinguished Alumni Awards recognizing achievement, service, and dedication to the university. In addition, several colleges and programs honored outstanding alumni, including the College of Engineering, UI Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine, College of Public Health, and the Counseling Psychology Program.

Skorton Testifies Before U.S. Senate Committee On Seashore Break-in

University of Iowa President David Skorton testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works in Washington D.C. May 18 about last year's vandalism of Seashore Hall and Spence Laboratories. Skorton's prepared statement is available for download as a PDF file. More >>
Skorton's Statement: Download now
Office of the President: http://www.uiowa.edu/president/

UI To Provide $12 Million Instrument To Explore Jupiter

University of Iowa space researchers Bill Kurth and Don Gurnett are members of a team recently selected by NASA to carry out the Juno mission to Jupiter scheduled for launch no later than June 30, 2010. Juno will explore the deep interior of Jupiter and its auroras. The focus of the University of Iowa’s participation will be a NASA-funded $12 million radio and plasma wave instrument. More >>
Department of Physics & Astronomy: http://www.physics.uiowa.edu/

UI's Stanley Hydraulics Laboratory Named National Historic Landmark

The University of Iowa College of Engineering's C. Maxwell Stanley Hydraulics Laboratory has been named a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Civil Engineers. More >>
Hydroscience & Engineering: http://www.iihr.uiowa.edu/

UI Committed To Revitalizing African American Studies

Linda Maxson, dean of the University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, said the college will begin this fall the process of revitalizing African American studies and increasing its role on campus. More >>
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences: http://www.clas.uiowa.edu/

Advanced Infant Simulator Arrives, Will Enhance Training

The newest bundle of joy to arrive at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City cries, blinks, and wets like a typical baby. What makes it unique is its ability to train health care professionals in the care of seriously ill infants. More >>
Department of Anesthesia: http://www.anesth.uiowa.edu/portal/
Children’s Hospital of Iowa: http://www.uihealthcare.com/depts/childrenshospitalofiowa/index.html

UI Researchers To Establish Violence, Injury Training Program In Croatia

University of Iowa researchers have received a $750,000, five-year grant to establish a collaborative training program between the University of Iowa College of Public Health and the Stampar School of Public Health in Zagreb, Croatia. More >>
College of Public Health: http://www.public-health.uiowa.edu/

UI Hospitals And Clinics To Receive Organ Donation Award

University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics is among an elite group of U.S. hospitals that will receive a special award in recognition of their success in achieving a high rate of organ donation among potential donors. More >>
UI Health Care: http://www.uihealthcare.com

Iowa Summer Rep Selects “Shakespeare In Hollywood” For July 17 Reading

Iowa Summer Rep, the professional Actors Equity company organized by the University of Iowa Department of Theatre Arts, has selected "Shakespeare in Hollywood" for the July 17 staged reading that will be part of the 2005 festival of comedies by Ken Ludwig. Already on the June 24 through July 24 schedule were productions of Ludwig's "Lend Me a Tenor," "Moon Over Buffalo" and "Postmortem" in the UI Theatre Building. More >>
Department of Theatre Arts: http://www.uiowa.edu/~theatre/

Skorton Subject Of Feature Article
(Chronicle of Higher Education, June 10)

University of Iowa President DAVID SKORTON is the subject of an in-depth feature article. Among other things, the article says "unlike most academics who give up their day jobs when they become college presidents, Dr. Skorton, 55, kept his when he took the reins at Iowa two years ago. A cardiologist by training, he still sees patients with congenital heart disease and genetic disorders twice a month in a university clinic and makes time to take their telephone calls. Even while serving as president, he holds academic appointments in internal medicine, electrical and computer engineering, and biomedical engineering. And despite that background, he actively promotes the arts and humanities." More >>

Gurnett Comments On Voyager 1 Milestone
(New Scientist, May 25)

"VOYAGER 1 has entered the final lap of the race to interstellar space," exults Edward Stone. And this time he is sure that the spacecraft he helped launch nearly 30 years ago has finally reached the very fringes of our solar system. Voyager 1 was supposed to have reached this milestone nearly three years ago but the evidence was inconclusive. Now it has officially crossed the "termination shock," the region where the speed of the solar wind drops abruptly from supersonic to subsonic, and has entered the shell of dense solar wind called the heliosheath that separates our solar system from interstellar space. The Voyager twins, 1 and 2, were launched in 1977 to explore the outer planets. In 1998, Voyager 1 became the most distant spacecraft, overtaking the Jupiter probe Pioneer 10. Then, in November 2003, Stamatios Krimigis of Johns Hopkins University in Laurel, Maryland, reported that Voyager 1 had gone past the termination shock sometime in August 2002 (New Scientist, 8 November 2003, p 12). At the time, the spacecraft was 85 astronomical units from the sun. He still stands by his claim, which was based on estimates of the solar wind speed. But many scientists disagreed because Voyager 1 had not seen a concomitant and significant increase in the sun's magnetic field, a sign that solar particles are slowing down and bunching together at the termination shock. "I do not agree with Krimigis," says DONALD GURNETT of the University of Iowa in Iowa City, a member of the Voyager 1 team. "We should have seen the magnetic field increase and we did not." A version of the story also ran on the Website of SCIENCE MAGAZINE. More >>
About Donald Gurnett: http://www-pw.physics.uiowa.edu/~dag/

UI Math Department Gets Presidential Award
(Digital Divide, May 22)

President Bush recently announced the recipients of the 2004 Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring (PAESMEM) -- a program supported and administered by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Each award includes a $10,000 grant for continued mentoring work. One recipient was the DEPARTMENT OF MATHEMATICS AT UNIVERSITY OF IOWA, the largest single awarder of math doctorates to minorities in the nation. Articulated less than 10 years ago, Iowa's commitment to increasing the numbers of minority graduate students has resulted in a well-crafted recruiting campaign to convince students that the environment is a supportive one. A standing committee has responsibilities from student admissions to monitoring their progress. Alliances with other institutions including, but not restricted to those serving minority students, has resulted in substantial support from external grants and new and continuing collaborations with minority faculty elsewhere. Currently, the department has 21 percent underrepresented minority graduate students. It is ensuring continuity by institutionalizing structures, thereby permitting the growth of a community where organizations work together. More >>
Department of Mathematics: http://www.math.uiowa.edu/

Folsom Comments On Whitman Interview Find
( Boston Globe, May 8)

He's considered one of America's greatest men of verse, but he had simple advice for aspiring scribes: Don't become a poet. It's but one of the tidbits Walt Whitman left in an 1888 interview with the student newspaper at the institution that is now The College of New Jersey. A college junior only recently discovered the interview while working on an English literature paper. New interviews with Whitman are unearthed about once per year, said ED FOLSOM, an English professor at the University of Iowa and editor of the Walt Whitman Quarterly Review. Before his death in 1892, Whitman would invite guests almost every day into his Camden home, and many who left jotted down notes of their talks with the poet, who had gained some notoriety from controversy over his works. Folsom said there may be about 100 known newspaper interviews with Whitman. "They turn up with remarkable regularity, not just the interviews with Whitman, but unpublished letters and other notes of his," Folsom said. Folsom wasn't surprised that The Signal interview includes the advice to avoid poetry. That's because Whitman equated accepted poetry with formal style and convention, Folsom said. A version of the story also ran on the websites of NEWSDAY, PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER and NORTHJERSEY.COM. More >>
About Ed Folsom: http://www.english.uiowa.edu/faculty/folsom/index.html/

Where’s The Justice? Students Examine Political Cruelty

Political science students venture into the moral gray areas inhabited by monsters and victims in professor Al Damico's course examining the politics of cruelty and injustice. More >>

Who Are You? Professor Enlists Alumni In Personality Study

With the help of 400 former students participating in a ten-year study, UI psychology professor David Watson hopes to identify the elusive nature of personality. More >>

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