PUBLICATIONS Inside Illinois Vol. 25, No. 6, Sept. 15, 2005

brief notes

Click photo to enlarge B. Joseph White

16th UI president
Campus invited to installation of B. Joseph White
B. Joseph White will be installed as the 16th president of the UI at 2 p.m. Sept. 22 in a ceremony at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts.

Students, faculty and staff members and alumni from all three UI campuses are invited to the installation ceremony and reception.
“A formal installation of the new president early in the academic year affords us an opportunity to reflect upon and celebrate the University of Illinois’ place in our state, the nation and the world,” said Michele Thompson, secretary of the UI Board of Trustees and chair of the inauguration steering committee.

Thompson said the ceremony would be a traditional but low-key event preceding the 70th annual meeting of the UI Foundation, the university’s private fundraising entity. The installation ceremony will be followed by a reception in the Krannert Center lobby and – weather permitting – on the outdoor patio. Thompson said the UI Foundation and the UI Alumni Association are hosts of the event.

A live broadcast of the installation ceremony will be carried to audiences at the university campuses in Chicago and Springfield and it will be shown on UI-7 in Champaign-Urbana. In addition, WILL-AM (580) will broadcast the ceremony live.

White, 58, was named UI president last November and took office on Jan. 31. A Detroit native raised in Kalamazoo, Mich., White spent nearly three decades affiliated with the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, where he received his doctorate in business administration. He also served there as interim president, dean of the business school and as a faculty member. White earned a bachelor’s degree in international economics from Georgetown University and a master’s degree in business administration from Harvard University.

Among White’s priorities since taking office has been the development of a 10-year strategic plan for the university.

Wall to Wall Guitar Festival
Local festival to feature world’s guitarists

By Liz deAvila
UI News Bureau intern

Click photo to enlarge Tim Brooks, 'America's Guitar in 20th-century Pop Culture,' 2 p.m. Sept. 29 at Sousa Archives and Center for American Music

The Krannert Center for Performing Arts is tuning up for its Wall to Wall Guitar Festival – the first local festival to shine a spotlight on one of the world’s most recognizable instruments.

The four-day event, set for Sept. 29 through Oct. 2, will feature more than 30 nationally known and local artists performing mostly under one roof at the Krannert Center. Throughout the festival, the versatility of the guitar will be showcased in mainstage concerts, lobby performances, workshops and other events by performers representing a diverse range of styles and genres – from blues and jazz to classical, country, folk and rock.

The festival kicks off at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 29 in Krannert Center’s Tryon Festival Theater with “The Traveling Blues,” a program featuring the Grammy Award-winning group Taj Mahal, Mamadou Diabate and Rory Block. The festival continues with concert programs aimed at everyone from the slide-guitar enthusiast – with “Masters of the Slide Guitar” – to family audiences – with Dan Zanes and Friends in “A Family Jam.” One-of-a-kind shows, such as “Guitar Around the Globe” and “Celebrating Six-String Jazz,” are among the other distinctive types of acts on the Wall to Wall program.

Click photo to enlarge Dan Zanes and Friends, ' A Family Jam,' 10:30 a.m. Oct. 1 at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts

Many of the festival’s performers will be featured in podcasts – radio-style shows – delivered over the Internet to personal computers – that can be downloaded to iPods or similar portable data devices. Podcasts will be available courtesy of the event’s national sponsor, Apple Computer, on iTunes and at the festival Web site, WalltoWallguitar.com. A special podcast feature will be AskEliot, an invitation to the public to submit questions for classical guitarist Eliot Fisk.

A number of other activities are planned in conjunction with the festival, including a vintage instrument display at Techline, a Champaign furniture store at 24 E. Green St.; Garage Band and Logic software workshops, presented by Apple Computer, in Krannert Center’s Foellinger Great Hall; and an exhibition of photographs at the Krannert Art Museum by festival artist Andy Summers, guitarist with the internationally known rock band “The Police.”

Other events include a lecture and book-signing by Tim Brookes, author of “Rich Man, Poor Man: America’s Guitar in 20th-century Pop Culture Performance,” at the UI’s Sousa Archives and Center for American Music; and a guitar workshop with Merle Haggard’s guitarist, Redd Volkaert, and country artist Cindy Cashdollar at Corson Music, 71 E. University Ave., Urbana.

Also planned is an on-site stop – near Krannert Center’s main entrance – by the John Lennon Educational Tour Bus, a non-profit, state-of-the-art mobile recording and video production studio equipped with musical instruments, computers, recording equipment and video-production gear. The bus will be open to the public at various times throughout the festival, and according to Krannert Center’s public information director, Tammey Kikta, a select group of local students also will get a hands-on opportunity to use its equipment to write and record an original song and film a music video of the process.

More information about the festival is available on the Web at walltowallguitar.com.

David C. Baum Lecture
Religion’s effect on medical decisions
A noted First Amendment scholar and former deputy solicitor general of the United States will present the David C. Baum Memorial Lecture at 4 p.m. Oct. 5 in the Max L. Rowe Auditorium at the UI College of Law. R. Kent Greenawalt, a professor in the Columbia University School of Law, will discuss “Objections in Conscience to Medical Procedures: Does Religion Make a Difference?”

Greenawalt’s presentation will center on religion and its impact on medical decisions by parents, children, doctors and nurses. Greenawalt has lectured and written extensively on the treatment of religion in American society. His latest book, “Does God Belong in Public Schools?” (Princeton University Press, 2005), illustrates his interest and expertise in First Amendment issues. His main interests are in constitutional law and jurisprudence, with special emphasis on church and state, freedom of speech, civil disobedience and criminal responsibility. He holds the title of University Professor at Columbia.

The presentation is part of the David C. Baum Memorial Lecture Series on Civil Liberties and Civil Rights, an endowed biannual lecture series named in memory of a UI College of Law professor. This event is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Dave Johnson at 244-4014 or djhnsn1@uiuc.edu.

Electronic Directory to change
Some fields will be restricted or deleted
Information provided by the UI’s electronic directory will soon change. As a result, some information provided by faculty and staff members will be deleted.

Beginning Oct. 14, information posted in the following fields in the electronic directory will be locked: office location, hours, project, public key, family, birthday, high school, colleges. Although this information will remain visible in the electronic directory, faculty and staff members will not be able to edit the information. On Oct. 31 these fields will be permanently deleted.

Anyone who wants to continue to offer this information publicly is encouraged to post it on a Web page. Faculty and staff members can create Web pages through CITES NetFiles. More information about NetFiles can be found at www.cites.uiuc.edu/netfiles/.

The “other_address” and “other_phone” fields will still be available and could be used for some of
the information that now occupies the “office_location” filed. To edit your electronic directory
entry, go to www-apps.cites.uiuc.edu/ede/. Questions or comments about this policy change can be sent to cites@uiuc.edu.

Faculty/Staff Assistance Program
Crisis helpline now available
In addition to current non-emergency mental health services such as short-term counseling, consultations, educational presentations and self-help materials, the Faculty/Staff Assistance Program is now offering a 24-hour emergency crisis line.

The 24-hour crisis line is intended to assist UI employees and family members with mental health emergencies. The line can be reached at 244-7739. Staff members from the Faculty/Staff Assistance Program will answer calls from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays, and the Mental Health Center of Champaign County will respond during other times, including weekends and holidays.

In addition, the Faculty/Staff Assistance Program continues to offer workshop training to help supervisors identify troubled employees. Workshops, scheduled from 9 a.m.- noon in Conference Room 350-B of Edward Madigan Lab, will be Oct. 27, Nov. 15 and Dec. 8. Training will focus on identifying troubled employees, documenting job performance and referring employees to the Faculty/Staff Assistance Program. Online registration is available at www.admin.uiuc.edu/fsap (click on “supervisors” on the left side of the page). For more information, contact Tracie Hediger at 244-5312 or hediger@uiuc.edu.

Fire Safety Week
Activities to promote campus fire safety
In response to Congress’s legislation designating September as Fire Safety Month, UI and the cities of Champaign and Urbana are sponsoring Fire Safety Week, Sept. 19 – 25, with many educational activities planned.

Activities will include the second UI Fire Factor Academy that will provide basic training on safety and prevention to 50 representatives from private certified housing and university dormitories. Also, firefighters and fire-safety professionals will offer fire-extinguisher training sessions from 10 a.m. to noon Sept. 21 to the first 100 students, faculty or staff members to sign up. Finally, fire-safety professionals from Facilities and Services and the Champaign and Urbana fire departments will be available to conduct fire-safety education presentations to groups.

For more information about Fire Safety Week, to make arrangements to attend one of the open fire-extinguisher training sessions or to request a speaker for a group, contact Alan Otto at 333-9711 or ao2359@uiuc.edu.

Spurlock Museum
Shadow puppet performance is Oct. 1
The Spurlock Museum will host a shadow puppet performance by Balinese master puppeteer I Nyoman Sumandhi. Sumandhi performs wayang kulit (why-yahng koo-lit), a form of theater in which flat, intricately carved leather puppets jump to life as shadows on a large cloth screen. He will be accompanied by his sons, musicians I Wayan Sutartha and I Made Roberto.
The performance will be from 7 to 10 p.m. Oct. 1 in the museum’s Campbell Lobby. Tickets are $5 and can be reserved by calling 333-2360.

The performance is presented in conjunction with the exhibit “Visions of the Unseen: Picturing Balinese Ceremony and Myth,” which is co-sponsored by the Atius-Sachem leadership honoraries. The exhibit also is supported by the Spurlock Museum Guild and the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency.

Beginning Sept. 25, the Spurlock Museum will be open from noon to 4 p.m. on Sundays. For more information about exhibits and events, visit www.spurlock.uiuc.edu.

‘Reaching New Heights’
Staff employee Expo is Sept. 19
The Staff Employee Expo 2005 will be 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sept. 19 in Illini Union Rooms A, B and C. “Reaching New Heights” is this year’s theme with presentations and information booths on various campus units and services for staff employees. Those providing information at this year’s expo include: Benefits Center, Campus Recreation, Child Care Resource Service, CITES, Civil Service Employees and Dependent Scholarship Program, Claims Management, Division of Research Safety, Eastern Illinois University, Equal Opportunity and Access, Facilities and Services, Faculty/Staff Assistance Program, Parkland College, Personnel Services, Psychological Services Center, Public Safety, State Universities Retirement System, Training for Business Professionals, UI Employees Credit Union and the Women’s Club.

The event has been designated as an approved event; staff members may be released from work for up to one hour to attend with appropriate supervisory approval. Door prizes and gifts will be given away. You need not be present to win, but must register in person. The UI Employees Credit Union will provide refreshments.

The event is sponsored by the Staff Advisory Council and the Personnel Services Office.

Sundance Channel
Professor featured in documentary
UI professor Robert Anderson is featured in “Within A Play,” a documentary that will be broadcast on the Sundance Channel at 7:10 p.m. Sept. 17 and at 8 a.m. on Sept. 28.

Anderson co-produced the 80-minute documentary with business partner Wayne Pyle, with whom he also co-founded the American Shakespeare Theater Company, an international touring theater, in 2000.

The documentary follows the company’s cast and crew as it tours its contemporary production of “Hamlet” in Taiwan in 2000. Anderson served as the production’s stage director. For two months, filmmaker Mark P. Ring captured on film the traveling troupe’s personal impressions of life on the road in a foreign country as they encountered half-finished theaters, wild dogs and monkey bites, political unrest, cultural differences and much more.

More information about the documentary is available on the Web at www.sundancechannel.com.

Nature-culture and ‘unbuilt’ Wright homes
New I space exhibitions announced
The complex interplay between nature and culture in Illinois and “unbuilt” Frank Lloyd Wright homes will be featured in two separate exhibitions through Oct. 22 at I space, the Chicago gallery of the UI.

• “Urban, Rural, Wild” presents new work by several artists who use installation, film and participatory media to explore the historical and contemporary relationships between metropolitan Chicago and downstate Illinois. Curated by Sarah Kanouse and Nicholas Brown, the show – part exhibition, part investigative platform – includes gallery installations, talks, off-site events, a resource center and a film series.
  
  Participating artists include Brian Dortman, Nance Klehm, A. Laurie Palmer, Michael Piazza and Frances Whitehead; members of the collective Free Walking and Stockyard Institute, an organization of artists and teens; and experimental filmmaker Thomas Comerford. Also connected to the exhibition is “In the Weather,” a booklet and Web site featuring dozens of Chicago walking tours, and the “bikecartinfoshop,” a mobile library stocked with books, zines and brochures.
  
  “I talk,” a conversation with “Urban, Rural, Wild” artists and curators, is scheduled at 3 p.m. on Oct. 1 at the gallery.
  
  More information about the show and related events is on the Web at www.walkinginplace.org/ispace.
  
• “Prelude to the Prairie Style: Eight Models of Unbuilt Houses by Frank Lloyd Wright 1892-1901” includes models built by students of Paul Kruty, a professor of architecture at the UI’s Urbana-Champaign campus.
  

The I space gallery is located at 230 W. Superior St., Chicago. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Krannert Art Museum
Special events augment exhibitions
In addition to its regular exhibition schedule, the Krannert Art Museum will host a number of new and continuing series of events this fall. New progamming includes:

• SPEAK (Song, Poetry, Expression, Art and Knowledge) Café. Billed as an open-mic public space for hip-hop and Black Power, it is a student-run collaboration with the African-American Studies and Research Program. SPEAK Café will take place from 7-9 p.m. on the third Thursday of the month through November.
  
• “Sudden Sound Concerts,” a concert series organized by Jason Finkelman, featuring improvisational music and avant-garde jazz. The next concert, at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 27 will feature the “Denis Colin Trio,” a Paris-based progressive, world chamber jazz ensemble.
  
• In its second year, “A Call to Arts: Open Critiques” is a returning invitation to performance, visual and literary artists to present their work and participate in critiques at locations throughout Champaign County. Co-sponsored by Krannert Art Museum and 40 North/88 West, the critiques are scheduled at 7 p.m. on the third Wednesday of each month. The next critique will be Sept. 21 at Krannert Art Museum.
  

Also back on the calendar this fall:

• The Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities Film Series. All films in this year’s series will be based on the theme “belief.” The first film, “Pleasantville,” will be screened at 5:30 p.m. Sept. 22 in the museum’s auditorium. More information on the IPRH film series is available at www.iprh.uiuc.edu.
  
• Second Sunday Gallery Tours, in conjunction with WILL-FM Second Sunday Concerts. Gallery tours begin at 1 p.m., with concerts following at 2 p.m. The next gallery tour, on Oct. 9, will be led by curators Bernard Cesarone and Maria Silva and will focus on the exhibition “Altars for the Dead, Vows of the Living/Altares para los muertos, votos de los vivos.” The concert will feature music by Ian Hobson and musicians from Sinfonia da Camera.
  
• Collection in Context Lectures, hosted by Marcel Franciscono, professor emeritus of art history, and sponsored by the Krannert Art Museum Council. The focus of the talks will be “Art Nouveau in Design and Architecture.” The next lecture, at noon Sept. 26, will be on “High Art Nouveau in Belgium and France: Victor Horta, Henry van de Velde and Hector Guimard.”

Also new this fall, the museum will be open until 9 p.m. on Thursdays but will no longer have extended hours on Wednesdays.

More information about museum hours, exhibitions and events is available on the Web at www.kam.uiuc.edu.

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