PUBLICATIONS Inside Illinois Vol. 27, No. 2, July 19, 2007

brief notes

WILL radio
Documentary takes listeners beyond the Great Wall
Ten UI journalism students in Nancy Benson’s international reporting class will take listeners inside China with a two-hour documentary, “China: Beyond the Great Wall,” to be broadcast at 5 p.m. July 28 on WILL-AM (580).

The students climbed the Great Wall, walked along Shanghai’s Bund and visited the Forbidden City. But the students’ primary mission in China was gathering information for radio stories on how the Chinese economy and culture reach and touch Central Illinois. WILL-AM (580) news director Tom Rogers, who accompanied the students to China with Benson and is doing final editing on the documentary, said the students went beyond tourist spots to report stories that took an unvarnished look at the country that is preparing to host the Olympics in 2008.

The student journalists adapted well to reporting in a country where they didn’t speak the language and transportation was a challenge, he said. “These students had a lot of previous experience, although this was the first shot at foreign reporting for most of them,” he said. Although one student reporter was told by a source that her journalistic activities had been monitored by the government, the students found more openness than they expected.

Benson, a professor and a veteran of foreign reporting, said she and the students were surprised to get as much cooperation as they did from all levels of society. “We didn’t think we would be able to get much official comment from the government,” she said. But several students were able to interview government officials on subjects such as air pollution and environmental problems.

Language was the most difficult barrier for the students, Benson said. The students were assisted by untrained Chinese student translators, who summarized instead of translating every comment. “You miss a lot of the subtle meaning if you just hear a summary,” she said.

For a list of the students and their topics, go to www.will.uiuc.edu. You can read a first-person account of the students’ trip by reading their blog on the WILL Web page.

I space exhibition
Grad students exhibit art in Chicago
Work by UI art and design graduate students is on view through Aug. 11 at I space, the Chicago gallery of the UI’s Urbana campus

The exhibition titled “Dookie” features work by Master of Fine Arts degree candidates Jennifer Astwood, Nisa Blackmon, Brian Collier, Aaron Dugger, Rashelle Roos, Gary Schott, Rick Valentin and Angela Waarala.

Organized by UI art and design professor Deke Weaver, the show and its title refer to excess of all kinds present in our culture.

According to Weaver, the student art assembled ranges from Roos’ “golden monstrosities” and Astwood’s “holy molten kitsch(y)” plates (in both cases, sculpture) to Waarala’s “spelunking expedition through the bowels of the human psyche” (video).

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

UI Assembly Hall
Broadway series shows announced
This year’s News-Gazette Broadway Series includes Broadway’s biggest and brightest touring productions.

This year’s series includes “Gypsy,” Sept. 20; “Annie,” Oct. 8; “Hairspray,” Nov. 29; “The Producers,” March 29; and “Evita,” April 23.

As an added benefit, series subscribers will have an advance chance to purchase tickets to “The Blue Man Group” before they go on sale to the general public. “The Blue Man Group” will perform its new show, “How To Be A Megastar Tour 2.1 Live,” at 8 p.m. Oct. 13.

Current News-Gazette Broadway Series subscribers have until July 20 to renew their same seats. Orders from persons interested in becoming a News-Gazette Broadway Series subscriber will be accepted starting July 25. There is no deadline to become a new series subscriber. Series tickets may be ordered through the first performance. Tickets for the individual shows in the News-Gazette Broadway Series will go on sale Aug. 24.

For more information, go to www.uofiassemblyhall.com or contact the box office at 333-5000 for a brochure.

CITES software WebStore
MATLAB now available for free
MATLAB, a high-level language and interactive environment that enables the user to perform computationally intensive tasks faster than with traditional programming languages such as C, C++ and Fortran, is now available for free from Campus Information Technologies and Educational Services’ software WebStore at http://webstore.uiuc.edu.

Thanks to a coalition of 14 department contributors, MATLAB and the 18 toolboxes are available to all UI campus users at no cost.

Previously, network access to MATLAB was available on WebStore for $20 and the standalone version for $50. Department contributors have agreed to increase their annual contributions, which eliminates the distribution cost for network access to MATLAB and reduces the standalone version to $25 per license.

In addition to MATLAB, faculty and staff members may browse more than 100 other software titles available on WebStore. E-mail questions to webstore@uiuc.edu.

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