brief notes

‘Petals & Paintings’

Museum benefit is April 11-13

The UI Krannert Art Museum Council will host its 16th annual “Petals & Paintings” benefit April 11-13 in support of the museum’s upcoming exhibitions and related educational programming.

Champaign florist Rick Orr, is guest curator of the event, an exhibition of floral arrangements created by regional floral designers, in response to works of art selected by Orr from the museum’s permanent collection.

The exhibition will open with a reception at the museum from 6-8 .m. April 11. Guests will view the floral displays as they enjoy hors d’oeuvres, wine and music. An original work of art by Champaign artist Sandra Hynds will be awarded through a raffle. (The winner is not required to be present to win.) The evening will include a silent auction with a variety of gift items.

Tickets for the opening reception may be purchased for $55 for museum members and $65 for non-museum members. For more information about the event or reservations, call 244-0516. Reservations are due April 4, however, limited tickets will be available at the door. Any questions can be directed to Diane Schumacher at schumach@uiuc.edu.

The exhibition may be viewed from 9 a.m.- 5 p.m. April 12 and from noon-5 p.m. April 13. Docent-led tours will be available on April 12 beginning at 10 a.m.

Photos of the silent auction items are available on the council’s Web site, www.kamcouncil.org.

College of Communications

‘Hamlet’ to open Ebertfest

Kenneth Branagh’s “Hamlet,” in 70mm, will open the 10th annual Roger Ebert’s Film Festival, otherwise known as Ebertfest, coming April 23-27 to Champaign and the UI campus. The 1996 production is billed as the only uncut, full-length film of Shakespeare’s masterpiece.

Also scheduled is the Alloy Orchestra, a favorite of past festivals, which will return to perform its original score for the 1927 silent gangster film “Underworld.”

The other films selected for the festival should be posted soon on the festival Web site: www.ebertfest.com.

Tickets for individual films will go on sale April 4 through the theater box office; phone 356-9063; fax: 356-5729. The price will be $10 each for regular admission and $8 each for students and senior citizens.

Additional updates on the festival – including guests, panel discussions and other events – also will be posted on the site over the next few weeks, according to festival organizers.

Ebert is a Pulitzer Prize-winning critic for the Chicago Sun-Times and co-hosts “Ebert & Roeper,” a weekly televised movie-review program. He also is a 1964 Illinois journalism graduate and adjunct professor.

Ebert selects films for the festival that he feels have been overlooked in some way, generally by critics, distributors or audiences. Guests connected with the selected films are invited to attend, and many appear on stage for informal discussions after the screenings.

Prior to last year’s festival, those discussions were always with Ebert, who also introduced each film. As a result of throat cancer surgery and related health issues, he had to pass those duties last year to his wife, Chaz, and festival director Nate Kohn.

Chaz Ebert and Kohn will again share those onstage roles this year, but Roger will play a larger role with the help of assistive technology, according to festival organizers.

Now titled “Roger Ebert’s Film Festival,” “overlooked” has been removed from the title since the festival itself is no longer overlooked, according to Ebert. The 1,000 festival passes, covering all 12-14 screenings, went on sale Nov. 1 and sold out within three weeks.

All of the featured films will be screened, as usual, in the 1,500-seat Virginia Theatre in downtown Champaign, with other events on the UI campus. The festival is presented by the College of Communications.

Edible Books Festival

Edible book art on display April 1

Bibliophiles, book artists and food lovers will gather April 1 to celebrate the book arts and the (literal) ingestion of culture. Participants create edible books that are exhibited, documented and then consumed. Photographs of all entries will appear on the festival’s gallery Web site. The festival is open to anyone in the UI and Champaign-Urbana community. The event begins with a public viewing at 11:30 a.m., introductions and judges’ commentary at 12:15 p.m. and the eating of books at 12:45 p.m. Prizes will be awarded in categories of culinary merit, literary artistic merit, people’s choice and “Meet a Hero at Your Library,” which is this year’s theme.

This year’s festival is co-sponsored by the University YMCA as part of the “Know Your University” series and by the Champaign Public Library.

For more information and to enter, visit www.library.uiuc.edu/ediblebooks.

Dodge ball tournament

Proceeds benefit crisis nursery

Crisis Nursery and the UI American Medical Student Association will host the second annual dodge ball tournament April 5 in the CRCE gym. All proceeds will benefit the Crisis Nursery. Doors open at 9:45 a.m. The first game will begin at 11 a.m. Participants must be 18 or older.

To register and for fee information, contact Jana at 337-2731 or visit www.crisisnursery.net.

‘Ecologies of Consumption’

Sustainability workshop is April 4

Patrick Vargas and Diana Mincyte, both of the department of advertising, are organizing a workshop, “Ecologies of Consumption: Markets, Sustainability and Consumer Culture.” The workshop is from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. April 4 in the Heritage Room of the ACES Library, and will be followed by a reception. This event will foster connections among scholars from different disciplines whose research focuses on topics including, but not limited to, sustainability and consumption, green consumer culture, public participation in environmental decision making, environment and consumer health, and environmental advocacy and education.

The organizers are particularly interested in developing an ongoing dialogue on environmental communications as a field of inquiry and practice that builds connections between the academic community and the general public. The workshop seeks to create a forum for the scholars and students whose work impacts environment around the globe and on the UI campus.

Library

Blueprints, drawings now online

The “Illinois Built Environment” collection provides for the first time a view of select original documents used to shape the Urbana campus. Items include hand sketches of campus plans, original trace and linen drawings of many of the central Quadrangle buildings, four separate proposed sketches for the original library, known as Altgeld Hall, and watercolor renderings for the display of the Alma Mater and many buildings. Many are reflective of design trends of the times and inform the educated eye about building materials and the use of various construction techniques. The collection will grow over time as additional items are released for public use. View the images online at http://images.library.uiuc.edu/projects/blueprints.

International economic development

Lecture addresses cutting world poverty

Kandeh K. Yumkella will deliver a public lecture on April 2 at the Alice Campbell Alumni Center. Yumkella’s lecture, “Achieving the Millennium Development Goals in a Changing Global ‘Climate,’ ” will address what is being done to help the world’s poorest countries, particularly those in Africa, to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of cutting world poverty in half by 2015. He will chair a session at the U.N. on this same topic on April 1.

The UI Alumni Association and the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences will co-host a continental breakfast reception at 8:30 a.m. in the first-floor Richmond Gallery, followed by the lecture from 9-10 a.m. in the first floor ballroom. Advance registration is requested at www.uiuc.edu/goto/yumkella.

Currently serving as director-general of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, Yumkella is the former minister of trade, industry and state enterprises for his native country, Sierra Leone. With more than 20 years of experience in international economic development, he is recognized internationally for his leadership of initiatives to stimulate sustainable growth in the developing world, reduce poverty and improve health, and promote the rational use of resources.

Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities

‘Rupture’ is theme of conference

The Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities will host its 10th annual conference on the topic of “Rupture.” The conference, free and open to the public, will take place March 27-28 at the Levis Faculty Center. Conference events will include a keynote address by W.J.T. Mitchell, professor of English and of art history at the University of Chicago; presentations by program faculty members and graduate school fellows; panel discussions devoted to the first 10 years of the program and the role of an interdisciplinary humanities center in the university.

The conference opens at 1 p.m. March 27 with two panels that will look back at the first decade of the program and forward at the exciting possibilities for interdisciplinary exchange in the program’s next 10 years.

The keynote address will begin at 7:30 p.m. and is titled “Cloning Terror: The War of Images, 9-11 to Abu Ghraib.”

The conference continues March 28 with three panel discussions. “War and Postwar” begins at 10:15 a.m., “Social Ruptures, Past and Present” begins at 1:30 p.m., and “Rupturing the Arts” is scheduled for 3:15 p.m.

More information is online at www.iprh.uiuc.edu.

YWCA

Race Against Racism is April 26

The YWCA of the UI will host its third annual Race Against Racism from 10 a.m.-noon April 26 at Crystal Lake Park in Urbana. The race supports the National YWCA Day of Commitment to the elimination of racism. This event was established to help local associations and communities reaffirm their support for the goal of eliminating racism. The race is a fundraising event for the YWCA of the UI. The race/walk will be a 5K route through Crystal Lake Park. 

For registration information, call 344-0721 or e-mail info@ywcauofi.org. Pre-register by April 20 for T-shirt size and discounted individual and group prices. Registration and check in is 8:30-9:30 a.m and registration for individuals closes 9:30 a.m. day of race. Race times are 10 a.m. for the 5K Run and 10:10 a.m. for the 5K walk.

Statement of Economic Interests

Deadline to submit forms is April 24

The Office of the Secretary of State sent notification letters and forms to UI employees required to file a Statement of Economic Interests under the Illinois Governmental Ethics Act on or around March 17. 

All completed Statements of Economic Interests must be submitted to the UI Ethics Office by April 24 for review.  The Ethics Officer will review and forward all completed Statements of Economic Interests received by April 24 to the Office of the Secretary of State by the May 1 deadline.

Send by U.S. mail to University Ethics Office, Human Resources Building, Room 20, One University Plaza, Springfield, IL 62703-5407. Do not send by campus mail.

Employees with questions about the criteria for filing may call the ethics help line at 866-758-2146 or consult the information contained on the University Office of Human Resources Web Page at https://nessie.uihr.uillinois.edu (click on Policies/Labor) or the University Ethics Office Web Page at http://ethics.uillinois.edu/.

Questions about the Illinois Governmental Ethics Act should be directed to the Office of the Secretary of State at 217-782-7017.

Lifetime contributions recognized

Calder to be honored March 28

Professor William M. Calder III, the William Abbot Oldfather Professor of the classics and comparative literature at the UI, will be recognized for his lifelong contributions to the study of the classics and the history of classical scholarship March 28.

The event, which is free and open to the public, will be from 3-6 p.m. in Plym Auditorium, Temple Hoyne Buell Hall.

Mortimer H. Chambers, emeritus professor of ancient history at the University of California at Los Angeles, will deliver the keynote address, “William M. Calder III and the History of Classical Scholarship.”

Calder, who received a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1958, joined the UI faculty in 1988 after teaching at Columbia University and the University of Colorado-Boulder. The event is co-sponsored by the Humboldt Foundation, the American Friends of the Humboldt Foundation, the UI Center for Advanced Study and the department of the classics.

The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation is a non-profit foundation established by the Federal Republic of Germany for the promotion of international research cooperation. It enables highly qualified scholars not resident in Germany to do extended periods of research in Germany and promotes the ensuing academic contacts.

Veterinary Heritage Collection

Display details Vet Med history

The public is invited to explore the history of the veterinary medicine profession by visiting the Dr. Walter E. Zuschlag/Veterinary Heritage Collection at the UI College of Veterinary Medicine. On display on the second floor of the Basic Sciences Building, the collection is open to the public from 8 a.m.- 5 p.m. on regular university business days.

The UI College of Veterinary Medicine and the Illinois State Veterinary Medical Association opened the collection in October 2007.

The state of Illinois played a prominent role in the development of the veterinary profession nationally. Items on display explain societal forces that led to the closure of two prominent veterinary colleges located in Chicago around the beginning of the 20th century. The UI College of Veterinary Medicine was established in the 1940s after the agricultural industry lobbied the Legislature.

The collection includes more than 30 cabinets featuring artifacts from the earliest days of the veterinary profession. Syringes on display date from the Civil War era. An exhibit on veterinary pharmacology contains medicines from the quack doctors of the late 19th century. Numerous surgical implements show how animal surgery has evolved from primitive beginnings.

Zuschlag was a small-animal veterinarian who practiced for many years in the Chicago area and who was an avid collector of veterinary history. After his death, his family and many other donors made the collection possible.

YWCA

Dinner honors black women

The YWCA of the UI will host its 22nd annual Black Women’s Achievement Dinner from 6-9 p.m. April 5 at the Holiday Inn, Urbana.

The dinner celebrates the unique achievements of African-American women from campus and the community. 

Tickets are sold in advance until March 28. Tickets are $45 per person; a table of eight may be purchased at a 5 percent discount. For more information, call the YWCA at 344-0721 or e-mail info@ywcauofi.org.

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