Online Giving to UI in 2005 Tops $1 Million

University of Iowa supporters have embraced the Internet Age, donating more than $1 million in online gifts through the UI Foundation website in a single calendar year for the first time. The UI is in elite company, among fewer than a dozen colleges and universities nationwide to have reached the $1 million milestone online. It's not too late to add to this impressive total before the end of the tax year and the UI's $1 billion "Good. Better. Best. Iowa" campaign. Read More >>

Give A Gift: http://www.givetoiowa.org/2005gfeb

UI, ISU Program Helps Iowa Engineering and Tech Businesses Grow

A pair of graduation ceremonies this month will celebrate a unique collaboration among the University of Iowa, Iowa State University and Iowa's businesses that rewards not just the students but the entire state. The reward for the 19 students who have completed the Dual Degree Program are an MBA degree from the University of Iowa's Tippie School of Management and a Master of Engineering in Systems Engineering from Iowa State University. The reward for Iowa is a new crop of business leaders cross-trained in engineering and business administration that can help the state's businesses grow. Read More >>

Tippie School Of Management: http://www.biz.uiowa.edu/mba/

UI's Gurnett Finds 'Lumpy' Ionosphere, Glimpses Of Mars Subsurface

University of Iowa space physicist Don Gurnett and his UI colleagues report that a scientific instrument aboard the European Space Agency's (ESA) Mars Express spacecraft is working perfectly and that its data have so far revealed that Mars' ionosphere — part of the upper atmosphere — is very lumpy and complex, and that the instrument can "see" hidden craters and thick layers of ice beneath the planet's surface. Read More >>

Department of Physics & Astronomy: http://www.physics.uiowa.edu/
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences: http://www.clas.uiowa.edu/

UI Alumni Association commits $100,000 To UI Old Capitol Museum

The University of Iowa Alumni Association has made a $100,000 gift for the Old Capitol Museum that will help the UI renew a 150-year-old Iowa landmark as an educational resource for future generations. The Alumni Association's gift for Old Capitol Museum, made through the University of Iowa Foundation, will assist the UI in a $2 million fund-raising initiative to benefit what many consider to be the state's most cherished symbol-and the heart and soul of the University of Iowa. Read More >>

Old Capitol Museum: http://www.uiowa.edu/~oldcap/

UI Provost Appoints Writing University Task Force

University of Iowa Executive Vice President and Provost Michael J. Hogan has appointed a task force to study and recommend ways to build on the UI's longstanding reputation as the nation's premiere "writing university." The task force, composed of faculty and staff from a wide range of UI writing programs, is co-chaired by Pat Cain, the vice provost, and by and Christopher Merrill, director of the International Writing Program. The group will explore ways to create synergies among the many writing-focused units on campus. Read More >>

The Writing University Archive: http://iwp.info-science.uiowa.edu/cgi-bin/library

$10 Million NIH Grant Renewal Funds UI Lung Imaging Research

The Iowa Comprehensive Lung Imaging Center and its multidisciplinary research team have received a five-year, $10 million grant renewal from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Read More >>

Carver College of Medicine: http://www.medicine.uiowa.edu/
College of Engineering: http://www.engineering.uiowa.edu/
IIHR – Hydroscience & Engineering: http://www.iihr.uiowa.edu/

U.S. Swine Workers At Increased Risk Of Infection With Swine Influenza Virus

People with work exposure to pigs, such as farmers, veterinarians and meat processing workers, are at heightened risk of contracting swine influenza, according to researchers in the UI College of Public Health. Read More >>

College of Public Health: http://www.public-health.uiowa.edu/

Iowa Baby Is World's Youngest Robotic Surgery Patient

Surgeons in Children's Hospital of Iowa at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics recently repaired a serious birth defect called duodenal atresia in a one-day old Iowa girl, making her the first patient to have this type of defect corrected with a robotic surgical system as a neonate, and the youngest person to ever receive robotic surgery of any kind anywhere in the world. Read More >>

UI Hospitals & Clinics – DaVinci Surgical System: http://www.uihealthcare.com/depts/med/surgery/davinci/index.html

Janet Reno Headlines Events Connected To 'Exonerated' In Hancher

The Jan. 24-25 University of Iowa performances of "The Exonerated," a play that focuses on Death-Row inmates cleared by new evidence, has prompted Hancher Auditorium and the University Lecture Committee to collaborate on three days of free, public events preceding the performances in Hancher. Among other events, former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno will address the death penalty and judicial reform in the Lecture Committee's annual Distinguished Lecture. Read More >>

Hancher Auditorium: http://www.hancher.uiowa.edu/

Weber Says Grant Will Preserve Salmon
(Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Dec. 5)

Environmental researchers at the University of Iowa have received an additional $6.7 million to study and improve the coexistence of salmon and hydroelectric dams in the Pacific Northwest. The grant was provided by the Public Utility District No. 2 of Grant County, Wash., to study salmon habitat on the Columbia River. Since 1990, the district has given researchers at the University of Iowa's College of Engineering about $25 million. LARRY WEBER, director of the university's IIHR-Hydroscience & Engineering, said the additional money will be used to develop bypass systems for the Priest River Dam. Many salmon are killed in the harsh environment inside the dams or by the high levels of nitrogen absorbed as the river mixes with air after passing through the spillway gates. A version of this story also appeared Dec. 5 on the website of KGW, a television station in Oregon. Read More >>

College of Engineering: http://www.engineering.uiowa.edu/
IIHR – Hydroscience & Engineering: http://www.iihr.uiowa.edu/

Robinson's "Gilead" Wins Award
(Sacramento Bee, Dec. 5)

MARILYNNE ROBINSON's highly acclaimed novel "Gilead," which won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, has been awarded the 2006 Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Religion. The prize, awarded by the Grawemeyer Foundation at the University of Louisville, was announced Thursday. It's the first time a novel has won the award, foundation officials said in a news release. The novel was selected among 53 nominations. The Grawemeyer religion prize, started in 1985, is given jointly by the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary and the University of Louisville. Robinson, who lives in Iowa City, is an instructor at the University of Iowa's Writers' Workshop. Read More >>

Pulitzer Prize Winners With UI Ties: http://www.iowalum.com/pulitzer/pulitzerwinners.html

Achepohl Collection Featured At Art Institute
(Chicago Sun-Times, Dec. 2)

When the Chicago-born artist KEITH ACHEPOHL looks at a potential addition to the impressive collection of African pottery he's been amassing over the past 30 years, he spends little time pondering what it might reveal about its cultural context. What he wants to know, mainly, is whether it's beautiful. Over the years, the pots have chattered away, and more than 125 of these terracotta masterpieces will be on display in a new exhibition, "For Hearth and Altar: African Ceramics from the Keith Achepohl Collection," opening Saturday at the Art Institute of Chicago. A distinctive feature of Achepohl's holdings — about half of which he's donating to the Art Institute, single-handedly establishing the largest museum collection of traditional African pottery in the world — is that he chose them primarily for their appeal to the eye: the elegance of their shapes, the intricate decorations and variegated patinas of their surfaces. "I have a lot of friends in the African Studies world, and most of them seem to talk about the anthropology of the work but not as much about its aesthetics," says Achepohl, a retired art professor at the University of Iowa whose prints and watercolors are on display at the Elmhurst Art Museum through Jan. 15. "You can give me all the background information you want, but if the piece can't speak for itself as art, it's not as much of value to me. I think all of these speak for themselves as beautiful objects." Read More >>

Museum of Art: http://www.uiowa.edu/uima/

Redlawsk Comments On Scandal, Voters
(San Jose Mercury News, Dec. 2)

In what would be an audacious abuse of that nexus of money, power and influence, two defense contractors now stand accused of bribing Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, R-Calif. — a power on the House Defense Appropriations subcommittee — in exchange for top feed at the Pentagon trough. Cunningham resigned from Congress this week after pleading guilty to accepting $2.4 million in bribes, including a Rolls-Royce and a $7,200 antique Louis-Philippe commode. That case and other high-profile corruption investigations under way have enormous implications for next year's congressional elections. The out-of-power party blasting incumbents as corrupt isn't a new tactic. Rep. Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., played a similar card in 1992, citing widespread House Bank overdrafts by Democratic lawmakers as evidence that they were arrogant and out of touch. His party gained 10 seats in the House of Representatives even as Democrat Bill Clinton won the presidency. But whether Democrats can play off today's ethical mess as successfully is uncertain. "The difference between today and then is today's scandals right now don't come down to the individual district level," said DAVID REDLAWSK, a political scientist at the University of Iowa who's studied the effect of political corruption on voters' decisions. "While Democrats can say 'look at these corrupt Republicans,' individuals still give their own representatives a lot of support until they see a reason not to." Versions of this Knight Ridder article also appeared Dec. 2 on the web sites of the MONTEREY HERALD, SAN LUIS OBISPO TRIBUNE and CONTRA COSTA TIMES in California, PIONEER PRESS in Minnesota, CHARLOTEE (N.C.) OBSERVER, COLUMBUS (Ga.) LEDGER-ENQUIRER, KENTUCKY.com, CENTRE DAILY TIMES in Pennsylvania, DULUTH (Minn.) NEWS TRIBUNE, MYRTLE BEACH (S.C.) SUN NEWS, BILOXI (Miss.) SUN HERALD, MACON (Ga.) TELEGRAPH, KANSAS CITY STAR, BRADENTON (Fla.) HERALD, GRAND FORKS (N.D.) HERALD, THE STATE in South Carolina, and FORT WAYNE (Ind.) NEWS SENTINEL. Read More >>

Department of Political Science: http://www.polisci.uiowa.edu/

To Stop A Killer

Almost a century since the Spanish Flu killed up to 100 million people worldwide, the next influenza pandemic is long overdue. A pioneering alumnus knows too well the growing threat from a deadly species-hopping virus. Read More >>

Kinnick Press Box Demolition

The final stage of the University of Iowa's $86.5 million Kinnick Stadium renovation project began Saturday, Dec. 3 with the demolition of the old press box. Controlled Demolition, Inc. (CDI), of Phoenix, Maryland, used small steel-severing charges to undercut the steel structure holding the press box up. The chosen method was safer and less time-consuming than sending workers up into the structure to take it apart, said Jane Meyer, senior associate athletics director. Read More >>

Watch the demolition >>

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