The enrollment of the African American students at UNT beginning in 1954 will be commemorated with the third annual Celebration of Desegregation march at 10 a.m. Oct. 4. The marchers will begin gathering at 9 a.m.at the Martin Luther King Jr. Recreation Center, 1300 Wilson St.

The UNT Phi Gamma chapter of Omega Psi Phi, Multicultural Center and the Trailblazers alumni association, which is comprised of the university’s pioneering African American students, will host the march in honor of those first students. The first African American students were not allowed to live on campus and the group will march a path similar to routes taken by the students to class each day.

The march ends in the One O’Clock Lounge in the University Union. A ceremony will follow the march in the One O’Clock Lounge. The program will include speaker Joel Bennet, founding president of the Phi Gamma chapter, the university’s first African American fraternity, and performances by the UNT Gospel Choir and saxophonist Perry Richardson.

For more information, contact Haskel Harvey, event organizer, at 832-875-1418 or hjh0027@unt.edu.

UNT student Harvey, who previously has participated in the march, says that walking along the same path as the original students “makes you appreciate the sacrifices that they made.” He adds, “It makes you want to take full advantage of the opportunities that you have. It’s very rewarding for us to pay tribute to them and recognize their struggle during that period.”  Harvey says that the march is not just geared toward African Americans. “We’re bridging the gap between all nationalities. This is a unifying experience and makes you more culturally aware and more culturally diverse.”

Photos of the event will be taken by UNT’s Division of University Relations, Communications and Marketing. To receive a photo, contact Buddy Price at buddy.price@unt.edu or 940-565-2943 or Monique Bird at monique.bird@unt.edu or 940-369-7017.

Go to the Extended Entry to learn more about the first African American students at UNT.

Asian-American poet Li-Young Lee, right, will present a free reading from 8 to 10 p.m. Oct. 8 in the Gateway Center, Ballroom. The reading is part of the Department of English’s Visiting Writers Series and will feature readings from Lee’s poetry, including his new book, Behind My Eyes.

A question-and-answer session with Lee will precede the reading at 3:30 p.m. Oct. 8 in Auditorium Building, Room 212. Both events are free and open to the public.

The reading is also part of UNT’s inaugural One Book, One Community program, a year-long program designed to engage the community in a discussion and exploration of the history, politics and other implications of immigration, while critically analyzing selected text for its literary and social value. 

Corey Marks, associate professor of English, says that Lee is an important American poet who is “well known for giving powerful and enthralling readings.”

“He has been invited first and foremost to campus because of his terrific work,” says Marks, “but also because of the ways in which his writing and life experience relate to One Book, One Community’s overarching theme of immigration.”

Born in Indonesia, Lee came to the United States at age 7 with his Chinese parents. Through his poetry, he is able to draw upon his life experience as an immigrant.

Congratulations to these randomly-selected winners in last week’s InHouse Fun Fact, concert and sports ticket   giveaways.

• Lindsey K. Fields, academic counselor, College of Arts and Sciences
• Inez Loche, administrative services officer, College of Business Administration Student Services
• Anna West, administrative support, Computing and Information Technology Center
• Beth Terry, accountant, Purchasing and Payment Services
• Lynde Methne, administrative assistant, Facilities
• Lisa Ayala, accountant, Payroll
• Tara Roby, service representative, Eagle Student Services Center
• Shaun Stoehr, student employment coordinator, Career Center

Win free stuff; read InHouse, the electronic newsletter that is always online and is regularly updated with news about events and strategic activities at UNT. The formatted version is e-mailed to faculty and staff each week, usually on Wednesdays.

InHouse photos and graphics should be clearly visible in your Outlook e-mail. If you cannot see photos and graphics, be sure to set the View to HTML to see the newsletter’s color and photos. If you have difficulty, ask your department’s system administrator for assistance. Click on headlines, which link to continuously updated postings, to find the complete article on inhouse.unt.edu.

The newsletter includes opportunities to win a UNT T-shirt gift pack, free tickets to concerts, sports and other campus activities. Tickets and prizes are generously provided by event sponsors and departments. Winners are randomly selected from all e-mail responses.

Baby, below,  the second UNT albino squirrel, was taken by a red tailed hawk in August 2006 near the University Union. Each year, the UNT Libraries celebrate an un-official UNT Albino Squirrel Day. On what day does this celebration and commemoration  take place?

A. Aug. 21

B. Aug. 1

C. Aug. 31

D. Aug.15

The correct answer is A. The UNT Libraries celebrate each Aug. 21 as the Un-official UNT Albino Squirrel Day. Aug. 21, 2006 was the day that Baby was taken by the red tailed hawk near the University Union.

Although it seems logical that albinos would have a survival disadvantage, some studies suggest that albino animals may not be as conspicuous to other predators as they are to us. Predators such as hawks, for example, may rely on a search image for prey that primarily involves shape and movement. The color of the prey may make little difference, as long as the prey looks and acts like a food item.

To win a free UNT Albino Squirrel gift pack, send an e-mail with the words “Albino Squirrel” in the subject line to inhouse@unt.edu  by 5 p.m. Oct. 3. Two winners will be selected at random from all e-mails received.

Calendars for the 2008-09 year featuring UNT’s albino squirrel are now on sale for $16.24 per calendar including tax. In addition to the calendars, the Willis Library Cyber Café also sells other albino squirrel memorabilia including: an albino squirrel cameo tie tack/lapel button for $3; a campaign style albino squirrel cameo button for $1; and a new campaign style albino squirrel vote button for $1 (items are subject to state sales tax).

Due to popular demand, UNT Libraries will offer four unique campaign style buttons each year so that students, alumni and friends may collect them all.

All profits from the albino squirrel memorabilia and calendars support the UNT Libraries’ Staff Scholarship Fund.  Contact Melody Kelly, 940-565-3023

For albino offspring to occur both parents must carry the recessive gene. Some researchers working with mammals estimate that true albinos occur in about one in 10,000 births.

Because all of the UNT albino squirrels were/are male, the number of squirrels carrying the recessive gene at UNT will be higher.

The latest Albino Squirrel “Baby’s Baby”, left, was likely born in February 2007 and was first photographed in April 2007 at Maple Hall.

Events around campus will raise funds for the 2008 State Employees Charitable Campaign scheduled Oct. 1-31. Information and associated paperwork will be made available to departments, faculty and staff. A campaign kickoff lunch Sept. 25 allowed campus and state campaign officials to explain the campaign's goal to department leaders. The campaign gives employees an opportunity to make tax-deductible donations to more than 400 nonprofit programs. Right, campaign leaders Delois Spearman, administrative assistant, College of Publc Affairs and Community Service, and Kimberley Taylor, Housing. Learn more about the campaign. (Photos by Michael Clements)

Organizations that benefit from the annual State Employees Charitable Campaign will provide information at displays on Library Mall from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Oct. 1 during the campaign’s annual kickoff picnic.

The organizations are among more than 400 nonprofit groups in North Texas and around the state that benefit from the campaign, which begins Oct. 1 and concludes Oct. 31. Participating groups include:

• Information Family Resource Center of North Texas
• Children's Advocacy Center of Denton County
• Denton County Friends of the Family
• Denton Christian Preschool
• AIDS Services of North Texas
• Communities in Schools of North Texas
• Feral Cat Rescue Group
• Day Stay for Adults
• Community Shares of Texas
• Caring for Children Foundation
• CASA of Denton
• Texas Teen Summit - an agency of the Black United Fund of Texas
• United Way of Denton County

The picnic, hosted by President Gretchen M. Bataille, will feature music and lunch for $5, with $2 of the cost donated to the campaign. The campaign gives employees an opportunity to make tax-deductible donations to charitable programs.The campaign was created by legislation for Texas state agency and higher education employees.

Peyton Foster Roden, left, Regents professor of finance, and Hillary Talatzko, right, assistant program coordinator for the Consortium for Distance Education and Rehabilitation, chair the 2008 campaign. Both discussed campaign activities and goals at a Sept. 25 meeting for UNT campaign coordinators. In 2007, UNT raised more than $189,000.

The annual State Employee Charitable Campaign begins with a picnic hosted by President Gretchen M. Bataille on Oct. 1. The picnic will be from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on Library Mall, and will feature music and a $5 box lunch, with $2 of the price donated to the campaign.

The campaign gives employees an opportunity to make tax-deductible donations to charitable programs. There are more than 400 programs to choose from, such as Community Shares of Texas, Black United Fund of Texas Charities, Christian Community Charities and Neighbor to Nation. Organizations that benefit from the campaign will have information booths and displays on Library Mall during the picnic.

A benefit golf tournament is scheduled Oct. 20. Deadline for sponsorship opportunities for the UNT Microsoft 9th Annual State Employee Charitable Campaign Golf Tournament is Sept. 30. Sponsorship opportunities begin at $150 for the tournament, to be held at Oakmont Country Club in Corinth. Contact Sue Delmark, director of recreational sports, at 940-565-2275. 

The State Employees Charitable Campaign, known as SECC, is the only campaign created by legislation for state agency and higher education employees in Texas. Learn more at www.secctexas.org/.

Peyton Foster Roden, Regents professor of finance, and Hillary Talatzko, assistant program coordinator for the Consortium for Distance Education and Rehabilitation, chair the 2008 campaign.

In 2007, UNT exceeded its goal of $160,000 by almost $30,000, raising more than $189,000. 

Faculty and staff will receive campaign information by Oct.1. Employees can participate by giving as little as $2 per month in the form of a payroll deduction or a one-time gift of as little as $2. Campaign information will include the list of charitable programs.

Faculty and staff will receive campaign information by Oct.1. Employees can participate by giving as little as $2 per month in the form of a payroll deduction or a one-time gift of as little as $2. Campaign information will include the list of charitable programs. Deadline to return contribution information is Oct. 31.

Judea Pearl,left, father of slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, will speak Oct. 20 as part of Daniel Pearl World Music Days, events honoring the reporter and musician who was kidnapped and killed in Pakistan in 2002.

The College of Music is dedicating all of its concerts during the month of October -- more than 100 in all -- to Daniel Pearl World Music Days, a network of concerts across the globe to promote tolerance and humanity through music. Daniel Pearl World Music Days was started in 2002 by the Daniel Pearl Foundation, a California-based nonprofit, and since then, more than 60 countries have participated.

Judea Pearl’s free speech, "Carving a Dialogue between Muslims and Jews," will begin at 6:30 p.m. Oct. 20 in the University Union, Lyceum. A question-and-answer session and book signing will be after the speech.

“An event such as this allows us to tap into the healing power of music,” says Jennifer Lane, right, associate professor of music and organizer of Daniel Pearl World Music Days activities at UNT. “I had participated in Daniel Pearl World Music Days from 2003 to 2005 at Stanford University, where I used to teach and where Daniel Pearl was an alumnus, so I was excited to help coordinate this month long effort for UNT. This effort raises awareness about the importance of tolerance and understanding, and it allows us to reflect on the unique vitality of music in promoting harmony and peace.”

Go to the Extended Entry for more events.

Groundbreaking ceremonies are scheduled for 2:30 p.m. Oct. 4 for the $33.2 million Life Sciences Complex.

The complex and groundbreaking will be one block east of Chestnut Street and Avenue C.

The four-story, 87,000-square-foot building is expected to open in 2010 and will house developmental physiology and genetics, biochemistry, molecular biology and plant science.

The building, rendering, left, will have a rooftop greenhouse, an atrium space serving as the main entrance for the complex and research labs that will help attract top-quality faculty. The Life Sciences Complex will replace Masters Hall, which was demolished earlier this year. 

UNT officials at the ceremony will be President Gretchen M. Bataille; Jeff Kline, student body president; Vish Prasad, vice president for research and economic development; Warren Burggren, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences; and Art Goven, chair of biological sciences, along with staff and faculty, alumni and donors.

Homecoming 2008 is scheduled Oct. 23-25 with reunions, a parade, football and plenty of opportunities for UNT alumni, friends and family to get together.

This year’s theme, “Vote Mean Green Nation,” was selected by the Homecoming steering committee in keeping with the presidential election campaign, says Karen Selby, director of development for the Department of Advancement. 

Here is information about the weekend’s events; find more details at www.unt.edu/homecoming.

Oct. 23
Talons 50th Anniversary, 6:30 p.m., Athletics Center. Talons, UNT’s spirit and service organization, celebrate the group’s 50th anniversary with food and a video celebrating Talons history. The event is open to all Talons and Talons alumni. The event will be on the patio overlooking the bonfire. The event is free, but participants will need to RSVP to Michael Maher at michael.mann@unt.edu.

Oct. 24
• Golden Eagles Reunion - Class of '58, 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m., University Union, Silver Eagle Suite. Tickets are $15. Alumni who graduated in 1958 celebrate their 50th anniversary.
• Spirit March, 7 p.m., begins at Fraternity Row on Maple Street and proceeds to the bonfire site at Eagle Point (adjacent to the former Radisson Hotel). Anyone is welcome to join in the walk.
• Bonfire and Yell Contest, 8:15 p.m., Eagle Point. Join in one of UNT’s oldest traditions, the lighting of the bonfire. Enjoy fireworks and the student yell contest.

Oct. 25
• Fun Run, 8 a.m., UNT campus. The annual Fun Run is sponsored by Recreational Sports and is open to students and members of the Pohl Recreation Center. Sign up at the Pohl Recreation Center front office. Registration is free and will be Oct.6 -Oct. 24. T-shirts will be awarded to winners. The run is 2.5 miles around UNT campus. Call 940-565-2275.
• Athletic Hall of Fame Breakfast, 8:30 a.m., Gateway Center, Ballroom. The breakfast is open to the public, but tickets must be purchased in advance. Tickets are $15. Contact Mark Naylor at 940-369-8627. Rick Villarreal, director of athletics, and President Gretchen M. Bataille will speak. Four inductees and the 1988 men’s basketball team will be honored.
• Green Jacket Reunion, 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m., Hurley Administration Building, invitation-only. The Green Jackets were a prominent spirit/pep group that was founded in the 1920s and disbanded in the 1980s. The group re-formed in 2006. 
• Floyd Graham Society, 11 a.m.-2 p.m., University Union, Silver Eagle Suite. Reservations are $30 and include lunch. Lloyd Graham was a popular music professor at UNT for 47 years. This event will include Talons reunion classes from the 1930s, '40s and '50s, dancing and big band music.

• Parade, 1 p.m., begins at Welch and Hickory. The route continues on Hickory and around Denton town square. At Oak Street it will proceed back to Welch, turn left on Welch and go to Hickory (going the wrong way on Hickory through campus) and then go left on North Texas Boulevard to Highland Street. After the parade, organizations and parade members are encouraged to recycle items on their floats as part of the We Mean Green program.

• Mean Green Village events include pre-game tailgating; Brave Combo concert, 3:30 p.m.; Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science reunion, 3:30 p.m.; Class Reunion '85, 1-5:30 p.m. 

• Homecoming Football Game, 6 p.m., Fouts Field. The Mean Green play Sun Belt Conference opponent Troy University. Come early, wear green, be loud, stay late. Find ticket information at www.meangreensports.com.

Learn about Ugandan bark cloth in a three-event activity, Renewing Material and the Handmade: The Story of Ugandan Bark Cloth, Oct. 4, 5 and 7.

Events include hands-on art activities, a panel discussion and a lecture sponsored by the College of Visual Arts and Design. The events are part of research by Lesli Robertson, adjunct professor of fibers, in Uganda. Bark cloth is created by the Buganda people from the bark of mutuba trees. Right, bark cloth in Kanabulemu, Uganda. Events include:

Let’s Art Talk: A Global Art Workshop for Families
• 10 a.m. to noon Oct. 4
• South Dallas Cultural Center, 3400 S. Fitzhugh Ave., Dallas

Create a talking mural, practice printmaking on bark cloth, make recycled jewelry and more in this workshop for children and parents, presented by visiting Ugandan artist Fred Mutebi and the UNT student chapter of the National Art Education Association. The hands-on art activities will introduce bark cloth and Ugandan material culture to the community. Space is limited. Call 214-939-2787 for reservations.

Panel Discussion
• 1:30 p.m. Oct. 5
• UNT Art Building Room 223
Printmaker Fred Mutebi and designer and art historian Venny Nakazibwe, both from Uganda, join Robertson and  Andy DeCaen, assistant professor, for a discussion about the challenges and successes of using bark cloth in the studio.

Lecture by Fred Mutebi
• 7:30 p.m. Oct. 7
• The Center for the Visual Arts, 400 E. Hickory St.
Mutebi, left, talks about his artwork, involvement in Ugandan material culture and Let Art Talk, the education organization he founded in Kampala in 2007.
 
The events are part of the Fine Arts Series, a 105-year-old UNT tradition. The series includes entertainment, fine and contemporary music and arts on campus and around North Texas. Find a schedule of 2008-09 Fine Arts Series events. 
 

Monetary donations in the form of check or money order will be accepted in Chilton 238C on Mondays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The American Humanics Student Association, the Department of Political Science and the American Democracy Project are collecting school supplies and clothing for students and teachers in Afghanistan.

The drive is part of Operation Care, which connects Afghan teachers and students with school supplies and family necessities.

Sponsors hope to raise $5,000 and 500 backpacks filled with supplies by Oct. 29. Donations can be delivered to Chilton Hall, Room 390; Wooten Hall, Room 125; and the Volunteer Center, University Union, Room 324.

An exhibit of digital photographs taken by Afghan children will be displayed in the One O’Clock Lounge Oct. 28-29 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Afghan handicrafts will also be sold.. The drive will conclude with a visit from Lt. Gen. John Bradley, a retired commander of the Air Force Reserves, who previously coordinated collections of supplies for Afghan villagers. Bradley is expected to speak on Oct. 29.

Contact Kimi King, associate professor of political science, at kimi.king@unt.edu.

See Extended Entry for a list of needed supplies.

Events are scheduled around campus to raise funds for the 2008 State Employees Charitable Campaign. The campaign gives employees an opportunity to make tax-deductible donations to more than 400 programs in Denton and around the state. Learn more about the campaign. 

Here is a list of planned activities; watch InHouse for more information as events are finalized. And ask your department supervisor what’s happening in your office or division. Pot luck lunches, crafts shows and many intra-department events also will support the campaign.

Oct. 1
The annual State Employee Charitable Campaign begins with a picnic hosted by President Gretchen M. Bataille on Oct. 1. The picnic will be from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on Library Mall, and will feature music and a $5 box lunch, with $2 of the price donated to the campaign. Organizations that benefit from the campaign will have information booths and displays on the mall during the picnic. Left, a display at the 2007 kickoff picnic.

Oct. 9
Purchasing and Payment Services will hold a Silent Auction Bake Sale in the University Services Building.

Oct. 15
Popcorn and soft drink sale will be from 10:45 a.m. to 12:15 p.m., first floor entrance, College of Business Administration building.

Oct. 20
The UNT Microsoft 9th Annual State Employee Charitable Campaign Golf Tournament is Oct. 20. Deadline is Sept. 30 for sponsorship opportunities, which begin at $150. The tournament will be at Oakmont Country Club in Corinth. Contact Sue Delmark, director of recreational sports, 940-565-2275.

Oct. 28
Pumpkin carving judging beginning at 9 a.m., near the outside wall of the Union Gallery on the third level of the University Union. Carved pumpkins must be turned in by 9 a.m. Voters may pick a favorite by leaving coins by entries until 3 p.m. Winners will be announced by 4 p.m.

About seven billion tons of man-made carbon dioxide escape into the Earth’s atmosphere every year, contributing to global warming, scientists say. Storing the greenhouse gas underground has emerged in recent years as a potential and promising solution in the fight against global warming.

But is it safe? Four professors, with a $717,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, hope to find out using computer modeling and simulation. By simulating and modeling the chemical reactions that occur when CO2 is injected underground, UNT scientists can speed up a process that would take eons in nature.

The four researchers are:

• Angela Wilson, associate professor of chemistry and the grant’s principal investigator
• Tom Cundari, Regents professor of chemistry
• Jincheng Du, assistant professor in materials science and engineering
• Sandra Boetcher, assistant professor in mechanical and energy engineering

“Policy makers are going to have to make some very big decisions in the next decade on global warming,” says Tom Cundari, a Regents professor of chemistry and one of the lead investigators. “We’re basically going to use computers to act like a time machine and speed up those chemical reactions to determine how the CO2 will react with water and minerals.”

A large portion of CO2 emissions in the United States and across the world comes from power plants that burn coal, natural gas and oil. That CO2 could be captured and pumped below ground, either in depleted oil and gas wells or in deep saline reservoirs. This issue is of particular interest in Texas, which has an abundance of oil and gas wells.

UNT researchers will study the physical and chemical changes that the presence of CO2 could cause to the geological formations in which it is stored.

As an installation commander for the 1st Cavalry Division in Baghdad, Robert Klein, left, spent a year managing a 54-person security force with five tactical vehicles that guarded a 70-square-foot mile area. He also directed the activities of an advanced trauma medical aid station, provided oversight to a dining facility and managed all operational aspects for a military complex consisting of 83 buildings.

Although he recently left the Army after eight years of service, most at Fort Hood, Klein says his experiences as an infantry officer in a combat zone made him decide to again serve the military someday -- as a psychologist.

Klein began coursework this fall in UNT’s doctoral degree program in clinical psychology, with the goal of becoming a researcher and practitioner for a military combat unit. He is attending UNT via the Montgomery GI Bill and the Armed Services’ Health Professions Scholarship Program.

He says he chose UNT for his doctoral degree partly for the university’s proximity to North Texas Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Dallas, and for the Department of Psychology’s faculty members. He hopes to work with Kenneth Sewell, UNT’s associate vice president of research and economic development and a professor of psychology who is known for his post-traumatic stress disorder research with combat veterans.

“The faculty in the UNT psychology program have diverse interests, and learning from all of them is important because when you’re a clinical psychologist for a military unit, you’re a jack-of-all-trades,” he says.

“I knew that I could see what psychologists from civilian backgrounds don’t see because I have combat experience and first-hand knowledge of military culture,” says Klein, who assisted in managing a 16,000 soldier unit as deputy chief of operations, and managed his own 2,000 soldier unit as chief of rear operations at Fort Hood.

Congratulations to these randomly-selected winners in last week’s InHouse Fun Fact and music giveaways.

• Miriam Sheehan, administrative assistant, Texas Municipal Clerks
• Rachel McMullen, assistant director, Athletics
• Debbie Kutsky, senior assistant to the dean, College of Education
• Adam Silva, ID assistant, ID Systems
• Jackie Thames, computer support specialist, College of Public Affairs and Community Service
• Arlinda Marie Arriaga, NT Daily, Journalism Department
• Paula Arreguin, library specialist, UNT Libraries
• Mark Coomes, Facilities
• Rebekah Moreno, financial aid counselor 
• Denise Philpot, doctoral student/teaching assistant, Department of Management
• Philippe Becerra, academic advisor, College of Education

Win free stuff; read InHouse, the electronic newsletter that is always online and is regularly updated with news about events and strategic activities at UNT. The formatted version is e-mailed to faculty and staff each week, usually on Wednesdays.

InHouse photos and graphics should be clearly visible in your Outlook e-mail. If you cannot see photos and graphics, be sure to set the View to HTML to see the newsletter’s color and photos. If you have difficulty, ask your department’s system administrator for assistance. Click on headlines, which link to continuously updated postings, to find the complete article on http://inhouse.unt.edu.

The newsletter includes opportunities to win a UNT T-shirt gift pack, free tickets to concerts, sports and other campus activities.Tickets and prizes are generously provided by event sponsors and departments. Winners are randomly selected from all responses.

Raymond J. Clay Jr. is a professor of accounting in the College of Business Administration, who is particularly happy when his students see the relevance in auditing. And when he’s with his grandchildren.

What is your title and department?
I am a faculty member for the Department of Accounting in the College of Business Administration.

How long have you been at UNT?
I have worked at UNT for 25 years.

Your educational background?
I received both my bachelor of science and master of science in accounting from Northern Illinois University, and my doctor of business administration in accounting from the University of Kentucky. I am also a certified public accountant licensed in Texas and Indiana.

What is your past experience?
I taught at Indiana State University from 1968 to 1971 and at Texas Tech University from 1974 to 1980. Then I have worked on the audit staff of Price Waterhouse & Co. in Chicago, Ill., and as the director of professional development for Union Pacific Corporation in Omaha, Ne.

Do you have an area of interest or research?
Auditing and professional ethics.

What do you like most about teaching?
I thoroughly enjoy the interaction with the students. Students bring a great deal of enthusiasm to the classroom; however, that enthusiasm is only directed to the subject matter if the professor makes the classroom experience enlightening and relevant to the student. I truly enjoy the challenge of making the subject of auditing come alive to a group of people who have no experience with the subject.

How do you define success?
Success is feeling good about who I am, and being proud of what I do.

How do you spend your free time?
I have three grandchildren who dazzle me on a consistent basis. I spend as much time with them as my schedule, and their parents, will allow. My wife, Dr. Joan Marie Clay, who is a professor in the hospitality management, and I travel a great deal. We enjoy new places and new experiences, and love to travel with family and friends.

Do you have a favorite expression?
The harder I work the luckier I get.

Do you have a favorite season?
I like them all equally! I equate the joy of a season with the events I participate in during that season. Thus, as I have favorite events that occur during every season, I like all the seasons for different reasons. For example, in the spring, I watch my grandchildren play soccer. In the summer, I play golf, travel with my wife and do some consulting. In the fall and winter, I watch my grandson play ice hockey.

Is there an accomplishment that you are especially proud of?
Doing whatever it was I did to impress my wife enough to make her want to marry me.

What was your first job?
Operating a postage meter machine at a mail order company in Chicago.

How about a favorite restaurant?
Gino’s East in Chicago.

(Interview by Elizabeth Knighten, student assistant, University Relations, Communications and Marketing)

The Club at Gateway Center, which is operated by UNT’s School of Merchandising and Hospitality Management program, will open again for the Fall 2008 dining season on Sept. 29. When did the fine-dining laboratory officially open at the Gateway location?

A. Fall 2002

B. Fall 2000

C. Fall 2001

D. Spring 2001

The correct answer is B. The Club at Gateway Center opened in Fall 2000 when the hospitality management program relocated from the Club College Inn, to the state-of -the-art facility located in the Gateway building. The original Club College Inn successfully operated for 14 years previously to the relocation to the Gateway Center building.

To win a pair of free lunch tickets to The Club at Gateway Center, send an e-mail with the word “Club” in the subject line to inhouse@unt.edu by 5 p.m. Sept. 26. The winners will be selected at random from all e-mails received.

Operations

For a limited time each semester, The club opens to the public for lunch on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday.  Download the semester's menu.

Season Tickets
A special discount of 10 percent is given to all season ticket holders. For $56.70 guests may buy a book of nine tickets which may be used in any combination and for any meal each season. Students are required to sell these tickets books as part of their marketing training each semester.

If you would like to purchase a ticket book for the current or upcoming season, please e-mail GatewayClub@unt.edu, and a student will contact you when tickets are available.

Seating Times
Seating is available for lunch from 11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m,.. Reservations are recommended and will be held for 15 minutes.

Groups
The Club is a great casual setting for birthday or business luncheons and can easily accommodate large parties. Seating is limited. To ensure availability, reservations are recommended at least one week prior.

Parking
Free parking is available in Fouts Field across from Gateway Center. Obtain parking permits at the visitor booth in front of the Gateway Center.

Price
Lunch includes an appetizer, entree, dessert and beverage for $7 per person. Cash, checks and UNT IDOs are accepted.

Professors in four colleges were named regents professors this year. The promotions went into effect on Sept. 1. The new regents professors are:

• Bruce Bond, professor of English
• Mary Karen Clardy, professor of music
• Ana Cleveland, professor of library and information sciences
• Thomas Cundari, professor of chemistry
• Steven Friedson, professor of music
• Mary Harris, professor of teacher education and administration
• Gerald Knezek, professor of learning technologies
• T. David Mason, professor of political science
• Adam Wodnicki, professor of music

The Board of Regents awards the designation of regents professor to provide recognition and salary support to a tenured full professor who has performed outstanding teaching, research and service to the university, and who has achieved a high level of national and international recognition. Candidates are first nominated by their department, and those names are submitted to the department dean for approval. A Regents Professor Selection and Review Committee, chaired by John Booth, Regents Professor of political science, reviews the nominations and this committee makes recommendations to the provost and vice president for academic affairs for approval. The provost submits nominations to the president who then, with the concurrence of the chancellor, recommends the nominations to the Board of Regents. Regents professors must devote at least one-half of their teaching effort to appropriate introductory-level courses. The promotion includes a $ 5,500 bonus each year to the regent professors’ salary. Currently, there are 62 regents professors at the university.

The One O’Clock Lab Band will present music from the Maynard Ferguson Music Library for the first time since acquiring the historic collection in August.

Dreaming of Birdland: The UNT One O’Clock Lab Band’s Tribute to Maynard Ferguson will be performed at 7:30 p.m. and 10 p.m. Oct. 17 at McDavid Studio, adjacent to Bass Performance Hall, 301 E. 5th St., Fort Worth. Tickets are $30 at www.basshall.com.

To win a free pair of tickets to the 10 p.m. concert, send an e-mail to inhouse@unt.edu with "Maynard Ferguson" in the subject line by 5 p.m. Sept. 26. The winner will be selected at random from all responses. The winner must show identification to get these tickets at the Bass Hall Will Call window.

“In many cases, it will be the first time this music has been performed since Maynard’s groups performed it in the late 1950s and early 1960s,” says Steve Wiest, interim director of the UNT One O’Clock Lab Band and a member of Ferguson’s band from 1981 to 1986. “Back then, this music was considered ‘cutting edge’ and super-exciting. Today, it still feels the same and has stood the test of time that defines any great work of art.” Ferguson, above, died in 2006.

Guest artists include former One O’Clock Lab Band members trumpeter Craig Johnson of New York, trumpeter Pete DeSiena of Los Angeles and drummer Stockton Helbing, who was Ferguson’s final musical director.

The 400-piece Maynard Ferguson Music Library, acquired by UNT with the help of a donation, arrived on campus in August. The Maynard Ferguson Music Library covers Ferguson's career from the mid-1950s until his death and features works by influential composers and arrangers in modern jazz history. The library complements the UNT jazz program's collection, which also includes the Stan Kenton Collection. Kenton, a famed jazz orchestra leader, gave UNT a collection of arrangements in 1962 and bequeathed the remainder of his collection to UNT in 1979.

Displays, music and dancing celebrated Hispanic Heritage Month on Sept. 17. Unofficial enrollment tallies show a 9.2 percent increase in Hispanic student enrollment. Hispanic students comprise 12 percent of UNT’s 34,795 member student body. Left, Mexican dancers performed on Library Mall. Below, students celebrated politics and  Puerto Rico. (Photos by Michael Clements).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

UNT celebrated Constitution Day Sept. 17 with a lecture by federal Judge Catharina Haynes,right, of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Constitution Day commemorates the day in 1787 when 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia gathered at what is now Independence Hall to review the new Constitution of the United States of America. Thirty-nine of 55 delegates signed the document. From left, Kimi King, associate professor of political science, Judge Carmen Rivera-Worley of Denton's 16th District Court, Judge Haynes and President Gretchen M. Bataille. (Photos by Jonathan Reynolds)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

President Gretchen M. Bataille, left, and Provost Wendy Wilkins, below, greet emeritus faculty members at a luncheon Sept. 11. The gathering allowed emeritus and retired faculty to learn about activities on campus, and UNT's mission as a public, student-centered research university. Emeritus faculty member Robert Rogers, right, welcomed attendees. (Photos by Michael Clements)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

State Sen.Craig Estes, left, met with President Gretchen M. Bataille and UNT representatives on Aug. 25. Estes, a native of Wichita Falls, represents District 30 in the Texas Legislature. The district includes northern Denton County, plus northeastern Collin County and 15 West Texas counties. The 81st Texas Legislature convenes Jan. 13 in Austin. (Photo by Angilee Wilkerson)

 

 

 

 

 

Donations are needed for student-athletes from Lamar University who were stranded in the Dallas-Fort Worth region when Hurricane Ike hit the Lamar campus in Beaumont. The students are staying in the gym at Mean Green Village until Lamar is able to reopen.

The students are in need of books, magazines, games, cards and basic toiletry items, such as shampoo, toothpaste and tooth brushes. If you would like to help, you can deliver donations to two locations in the University Union: the information desk on Level 3 and The Syndicate on Level 1; or donations can be dropped off at the Athletic Center in Mean Green Village.

Lamar’s women’s soccer, men’s and women’s cross country, women’s tennis and men’s and women’s golf teams were all in the region to compete when the storm hit the coast. The Lamar campus is without power and no date has been set for classes to resume. While at UNT the students will have full access to the UNT campus, including athletic facilities, so that they can continue to train.

The Dallas Symphony Association is offering $10 tickets for best seats available to UNT faculty and staff for the Dallas Symphony’s world premiere performance of Steven Stucky’s August 4, 1964. Concerts are Sept. 18-21 in the  Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center, 2301 Flora St., Dallas.

Learn more about the performance at http://dallassymphony.com/Ticket/ProductionDetail.aspx?perf=7496&selected=466

Call Hillary Coyle, group sales representative, at  214-871-4092 by 5 pm Sept. 18 to attend the 8 p.m. concert on Sept. 18, or by 5 p.m. Sept. 19 to attend the Sept. 19, 20 and 21 concerts. Tickets will be at Will Call at the Meyerson Center.

Performances start at 8 p.m. Sept. 18, 19 and 20; and at 2:30 p.m. Sept. 21. A Performance Prelude with the composer and librettist begins an hour before the concert. The concert is 70 minutes long and will be conducted by Jaap van Zweden. 
 

Denise Perry Simmons will join UNT Sept. 19 as leader of the newly installed Research Development Team, which will work to heighten UNT’s national and international visibility as a top research institution.

Simmons comes from the Cancer Center at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey, where she has served as the director of clinical cancer research for the past three years. Before that, she worked for five years as a research fellow at the National Cancer Institute, which is part of the National Institutes of Health. Simmons received a doctorate in biological sciences from the University of Texas at Austin.

“Dr. Simmons brings an impressive wealth of experience and knowledge to UNT,” says Vish Prasad, vice president for research and economic development. “She is exactly what the university needs to encourage and strengthen the innovative research already being done here.”

Simmons’ responsibilities will include increasing extramural research funding and developing university-wide initiatives to advance faculty research, creativity and innovations through proposal development. She will also assist in writing, reviewing and editing proposals for major research projects and will develop and present grant-writing workshops and seminars.

Simmons will lend her experience with the National Institutes of Health and will help increase the university’s funding from NIH, as well as from other federal agencies, including the national Science Foundation and the U.S. Defense, Energy and Education departments.

With more than 30 years of experience in research, Simmons has also worked for the University of Texas-Austin, University of Texas Medical School and University of Chicago. She has developed seven drug design patents and has received professional and service awards from the American Society of Clinical Oncology and the National Institute of Health.

Simmons’ hire is the latest in a string of news about the university’s ongoing commitment to increase and emphasize research. Go to the Extended Entry for more news about research.

Jerry White, 1997 Nobel Peace Prize winner and author, spoke to a packed room in the University Union on Sept. 4. White was the fall EncoUNTers speaker. White is a leader in the International Campaign to Ban Landmines; he signed copies of his book I Will Not Be Broken after his lecture. The UNT-International event was made possible by the World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth. Left, Earl Gibbons, vice provost for international education. Right, President Gretchen M. Bataille, Provost Wendy Wilkins, White and Jim Falk, president of The World Affairs Council. (Photos by Jonathan Reynolds) 

 

Congratulations to these randomly-selected winners in last week’s InHouse Fun Fact giveaways.

• Kerry Stanhope, administrative assistant, Student Health and Wellness Center
• Heather Guerrero, computer support specialist, Student Development and Enrollment Management
• Ronnie Seay, production control specialist, Computing and Technology Center, Discovery Park

Win stuff; read InHouse, the electronic newsletter that is always online and is regularly updated with news about events and strategic activities at UNT. The formatted version is e-mailed to faculty and staff each week, usually on Wednesdays.

InHouse photos and graphics should be clearly visible in your Outlook e-mail. If you cannot see photos and graphics, be sure to set the View to HTML to see the newsletter’s color and photos. If you have difficulty, ask your department’s system administrator for assistance. Click on headlines, which link to continuously updated postings, to find the complete article on http://inhouse.unt.edu.

The newsletter includes opportunities to win a UNT T-shirt gift pack, free tickets to concerts, sports and other campus activities. Tickets and prizes are generously provided by event sponsors and departments. Winners are randomly selected from all e-mail responses.

Three concerts in the Murchison Performing Arts Center, Winspear Performance Hall are scheduled Sept. 23, 24 and 25. Concerts include:

• Choralfest,  8 p.m., Sept. 23

• Chamber Orchestra, 8 p.m., Sept. 24

• Wind Symphony , 7:30 p.m., Sept. 25

Tickets to each event are free for UNT students with a valid student ID, $8 for all other students and senior citizens and $10 for the general public.

To win a pair of tickets to one concert, send an e-mail to inhouse@unt.edu  by 5  p.m. Sept. 19 with the concert of your choice in the subject line: “Choralfest,” “Chamber Orchestra” or “Wind Symphony." Winners are selected at random from all responses.

Find a calendar of all concerts and events sponsored by the College of Music.

A four-year grant has been awarded for about $800,000 to  enable the university to reach out to rural Texans, through distributed learning, who lack access to training opportunities in special education programs. In Spring 2009, the university will offer a master’s degree program in special education, with an emphasis in autism which will complement the university’s existing on-campus master’s degree in special education with a specialization in autism intervention. The degree can be earned entirely through distributed learning methods.

The grant is from the U.S. Department of Educationand the program is known as Project DART (Distributed Education for Autism Personnel in Rural Texas).

The program will be open to individuals with a four-year degree in any discipline of education, or individuals who are currently working within a school district. Twenty-five top students from rural Texas will be accepted on scholarship each year. The first group of students will enter the program in the spring of 2009; applications will be accepted starting next month.

“In Texas, the incidence rate of autism has dramatically increased. In 2003, 11,940 Texas children were identified as having autism, with the numbers steadily increasing through the years,” says Smita Mehta, associate professor in special education and the project’s principal investigator.

For more information on this program e-mail Mehta or call 940-565-7168; e-mail Debbie Farr or call 940-891-6766.

“We need to reach the teachers of these children and make sure that they use evidence-based practices for maximum educational effect. This urgency has made it necessary for us to provide a distributed including distance education option for individuals who do not have access to universities in metropolitan areas.”

Approximately, 65 percent of the grant money will go toward the financial support of the students; whereas, the other 35 percent will go toward the development of courses and other instructional technologies. The university’s Center for Learning Enhancement, Assessment, and Redesign (CLEAR) will help create the necessary instructional tools for the program.

The program also will incorporate a substantial field experience component with the groups of 25 students coming to Denton each summer to collaborate and work with students with autism in the Denton ISD’s extended school year program.

Kevin Callahan and Bertina Combes, both associate professors in the Department of Educational Psychology, are the project’s co-directors, and they will collaborate with Mehta on the grant administration.

Project DART will complement the work of the recently announced Autism Spectrum Disorder interdisciplinary research cluster. The cluster is intended to improve the quality of life for those affected by autism by researching and developing tools for behavioral and education interventions.

Trapper Pace, left, director of student activities, didn’t know what to expect when he volunteered for the Student Success Mentor program last year. He found that his mentor role was important and helpful to his assigned Emerald Eagle Scholar first-year student.

“No doubt, the ability for physical presence in a student’s life from an administrator or faculty member is important to the holistic development of the student. It shows them that there truly is a support system, and if an obstacle or challenge presents itself, then there is someplace to turn,” Pace says.

During the 2007-08 school year, the Student Success Mentor program recruited 166 faculty and staff mentors to help the inaugural class of Emerald Eagle Scholars make their way through their first year of college.

Mentors are encouraged to connect with each assigned mentee with a face-to-face visit, by e-mail and by phone. Pace says, “We would meet at least twice a month. There would be impromptu meetings in the halls of the union or out in the library mall area. I would stop by where she worked to check on her and make sure that things were going well. The most valuable meetings were those that were not scheduled.”

For more information on the program call, 940-891-6770 or e-mail Tonya Riley.

An effort is made to pair the mentees with faculty or staff that have knowledge of the mentee’s major interest area of study. There were also 128 peer mentors who were instrumental in the program and also assigned based on common academic interests with the mentees.

Rebecca Dickstein, right, professor of biological sciences, was one of the faculty mentors who met with her mentee two to four times a week.

“I’m a professor in her major department. I was able to help her with specific chemistry questions and questions about what courses to take, and when to take them, as well as questions relating to course content in a specific class,” says Dickstein. “I didn’t know the answers to all of her questions. However, I was usually able to find out to whom I needed to go to answer her questions.”

Nandika D’Souza, left, associate professor of materials science and engineering, is developing biocoatings for military products, including military-grade Meals Ready-to-Eat (MREs) with funding from the Natick Solider Research, Development and Engineering Center (NSRDE). 

Countless soldiers can recount tales of subsisting on MREs, or Meals Ready-to-Eat. These rations might not equal dining in style, but they are vital to keeping American troops nourished in the field.

Unfortunately, the environmental impact of MREs is substantial, with the rations producing 14,000 tons of packaging waste each year.

“This [research] is an important step as we aim to create even stronger, more efficient, cost-effective and environmentally friendly products,” says D'Souza, who also is the director of the university’s Polymer Mechanical and Rheology Laboratory.

D’Souza is in the third year of her three-year grant from the NSRDEC, which is part of the U.S. Department of Defense’s Lightweight and Compostable Military Packaging initiative. D’Souza received $120,000 worth of funding for the project.

“Annually, there are more than 40 million MREs procured by the military with about 14,000 tons of MRE packaging waste each year,” says NSRDEC investigator Jo Ann Ratto. “D'Souza's expertise and innovation in polymer nanocomposites first led us to work with her on MRE food packaging.”

The military has stated that its goal is to have biodegradable and compostable MRE fiberboard containers that are lighter but still meet performance requirements.

D’Souza expects to complete the project in the spring of 2009. She and her team have already proven that they can make completely water-proof and compostable paper, and they also have done six months of shelf live testing. D’Souza believes that the packaging will maintain its structure and properties for at least a year in storage.

The team is now entering its final stages of testing. They are building a composting station on campus to test the rate of decomposition for the materials. D’Souza says that the packaging should decompose in as little as a month, and that it might only take a few weeks.

This grant is D’Souza’s second from the NSRDEC. She also has a three-year grant to develop biodegradable packaging foams that could be disposed of in the ocean. The research is in conjunction with the U.S. Navy’s Waste Reduction Afloat Protects the Seas (WRAPS) program. 

UNT has implemented a scholarship program for its first-year biology, biochemistry, and chemistry students in an effort to retain and graduate more students in the sciences.

The program, titled FOCUS (Fostering Outstanding Cohorts in Undergraduate Sciences) was developed by Diana Mason, left, associate professor of chemistry, and Lee Hughes, right, assistant professor of biology, and will be supported by a five-year, $600,000 grant from the National Science Foundation.

“Retention is a critical issue nationally within the sciences, and a lack of financial support is often the primary factor in a student leaving a science program,” says Hughes.

The program will accept 24 students each year based on financial need, with top consideration going to students who belong to a population that is underrepresented at universities and first-generation students.The students will receive between $1,000 and $7,000 per year depending on their level of need, for their first two years of study. Students will be able to apply for the program during the spring of 2009, and the first group of students will enter the program in the fall of 2009.

For more information on the FOCUS scholarship program, contact at Hughes at 940-565-4137 or lhughes@unt.edu or Mason at 940-565-2491 or dmason@unt.edu.

The students will be encouraged to travel through their core science classes as a group, with seats being reserved for FOCUS scholarship students in sections of required courses. Hughes and Mason also are working with UNT’s Housing Department to involve FOCUS students with the REAL (Residents Engaged in Academic Living) community for biology majors. The community aspects of the program are intended to foster a support system among the involved students, and further increase retention.

Mean Green athletes are busy this time of year. Student-athletes are walking the course and hitting the field. They are in action on the courts and on the pitch. Which team competes on an area known as a pitch?

A. Chess team
B. Soccer team
C. Football team
D. Squash team

The correct answer is B, the soccer team. A pitch is a field. A pitch, a word with origins in British and Australian English, is any outdoor area designated for a specific activity. So you could say that Fouts Field is a pitch for Mean Green football. Lovelace Field is a pitch for softball. And Library Mall is a pitch for hanging out.

The soccer team has earned a 6-1 record this year, including a dramatic overtime win over Oklahoma University. The team’s next home games are 7 p.m. Oct. 3 versus Florida Atlantic and 1 p.m. Oct. 5 versus Florida International. Since 1995, the team has won 181 games, the 14th most in the nation, and it earned conference titles in 2001, 2004 and 2005.

The team will play in Denton Oct. 17, 19, 24, 26 and 31, before hosting the Sun Belt Conference tournament Nov. 5-6. The games on  Oct. 24 (7 p.m. versus Middle Tennessee) and Oct. 26 (1 p.m. versus Western Kentucky) are part of Homecoming weekend festivities. Find a schedule of Homecoming events.

To win a pair of tickets to any Mean Green home soccer game, send an e-mail to inhouse@unt.edu  by 5 p.m. Sept. 19 with “Pitch" in the subject line. Winners are selected at random from all responses.

To win a free UNT T-shirt gift pack, perfect for wearing on any campus pitch and for hanging out, send an e-mail to inhouse@unt.edu  by 5 p.m. Sept. 19 with “Hang Out” in the subject line. Winners are selected at random from all responses.

Find schedules and news about all Mean Green sports and student athletes. 

(That's Kendall Juett, above, who scored two goals Sept. 12 to help the Mean Green beat East Tennessee State. Photo by Rick Yeatts for UNT Athletics.)
 

A test of the Eagle Alert system will be activated between noon and 1 p.m.Wednesday, Sept .17. Following the Eagle Alert system test, there will be a test of the alert system’s university building phone network. The building phone network test will begin about one hour after the Eagle Alert system test.

Eagle Alert is tested once every fall and spring semester by sending test messages to the university community. All university building lines will automatically receive the test, but an individual must register with the system to receive the Eagle Alert test, and all actual alert messages. To register: log on to my.unt.edu. Click on Eagle Alert and follow the instructions to make sure your phone contact information is current and correct.

Eagle Alert and the university building phone network allow UNT administrators to quickly contact the campus community by phone. The alert system will be used to make the university community aware of any situation affecting the safety and well being of people on and around the UNT campus. The system sends recorded voice messages to land-line and cell phones, of faculty, staff and students who have registered their contact information with the system. Text or SMS (Short Message Service) messages will be sent to registered cell phones numbers by user permission.

The university building phone network allows administrators an option to give specific notification to certain areas of campus. Eagle Alert will be used for situations determined by the university president or chief of police, including:

• Severe weather alerts such as tornado warnings affecting the campus
• Campus closings because of inclement weather
• Public safety emergencies such as chemical spills, fires or violence

When a decision is made to close the university, UNT will notify the campus community with an Eagle Alert; provide the information to campus telephone operators; post a message to the university web site; send campus e-mails; and inform news media.

If the university is closed for more than one day, community members should check the UNT web site for the latest information. The university also will provide the information to campus telephone operators, as well as the news media.

Faculty and staff members are asked to remind students to update their information, so that they may be included in this important campus safety service.

UNT enrollment reached another all-time high of 34,795 students -- an increase of 1.5 percent, or 527 students -- according to the unofficial headcount on the 2008 Fall census date. Enrollment is determined on the 12th class day, which was Sept. 8.

This is the eighth consecutive year UNT has posted a new all-time high enrollment. The university's enrollment surpassed 30,000 students for the first time in 2002. 

Hispanic enrollment is 12 percent of the student population and black enrollment is 12.8 percent of the total population. Hispanic enrollment increased 9.2 percent, Asian enrollment climbed 7.0 percent, African American enrollment increased 2.7 percent, new transfer student enrollment rose 5.2 percent and international student enrollment rose 8.4 percent. Numbers are unofficial until the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board verifies enrollment later in the fall.

Until the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board verifies enrollment numbers and makes them official later in the fall, all enrollment statistics are unofficial, 12th class day numbers.

"Enrollment increases are important because Texas needs a strong, well-educated work force. UNT is committed to ensuring that each student earns a degree because the point of going to college is to graduate, not simply to enroll," President Gretchen M. Bataille says. "We are making a concerted effort to educate our students about the benefits of graduating on time, in four years when possible.”

The increased numbers of minority students are significant for UNT to continue to be among the leaders in Texas in the state’s Closing The Gaps effort, which is designed to help ensure the Texas work force keeps pace with the demands of our economy. Another major indicator is UNT’s increase in the number of graduates year to year. UNT’s graduating student numbers increased by 5 percent over last year.

To underscore its commitment to supporting first-generation students, students from underrepresented populations and students from low-income families, Bataille recently signed the College Board’s CollegeKeys Compact. UNT was the first college or university in the Dallas-Fort Worth region to sign the compact.

"UNT has long been committed to ensuring a higher education is available to every bright student who wants to work to earn one," Bataille says. "Joining the CollegeKeys compact is simply another way that we will be able to keep top-quality higher education within reach of all students."

See Extended Entry for enrollment figures for UNT Dallas Campus.

President Gretchen M. Bataille will join a select group of university and college presidents and higher education advocates today (Sept. 15) for the launch meeting of the inaugural The Chronicle of Higher Education/New York Times Higher Education Cabinet. The cabinet is a new advisory group of forward-thinking higher education leaders who will examine higher education issues and shape public discourse.

Bataille said her invitation to join the cabinet is an important recognition of UNT’s status as a dynamic, innovative institution. UNT, Texas’ fourth-largest university, is the only Texas college or university to be represented in the cabinet.

“As state and federal funding continue to shrink and the demands of educating students in today’s modern world grow even more intensive, colleges and universities are doing more with less,” Bataille says. “Being a part of the cabinet will give UNT opportunities to glean lessons from challenges other universities face while adding our voice to the conversation and helping to shape the nation’s thinking on how to improve higher education.”

The Higher Education Cabinet members will have an ongoing dialogue to explore challenges facing institutions and to exchange ideas and information. They also will take part in online forums centered on different topics throughout the year and will meet in person once a year.

The cabinet will hold its launch meeting at The New York Times headquarters and will discuss how institutions should finance themselves, educate students in a rapidly changing world, compete globally and be accountable.

Bataille is one of 76 presidents and association leaders who were asked to serve in the inaugural cabinet. The cabinet founders chose innovative leaders from four-year private and public institutions — both large and small — and associations from around the nation.

“We wanted to bring together leading thinkers we’d met over the years who would bring diverse viewpoints from many different parts of the country,” saysJeff Selingo, spokesman for the Higher Education Cabinet and editor at The Chronicle of Higher Education. “There was a need to bring together a group of presidents from all different types of four-year institutions because our belief was that there was not a venue for them to share ideas in a small group setting.”

Bataille also serves on the board of directors of the American Council on Education, which is dedicated to helping colleges and universities anticipate and address current and future educational challenges. Bataille is the only representative from a Texas college or university on the ACE board.

Under her leadership, UNT is expanding its strengths in science and technology, complementing the university’s already nationally recognized foundation of excellence in music and the arts, as well as its tradition of educating school teachers and administrators.

The Higher Education Cabinet is collaboration between The Chronicle of Higher Education, a leading industry publication that tracks issues and trends in higher education, and The New York Times, the largest seven-day newspaper in the United States.

(Editor's Note: Evacuees are expected to arrive by bus at UNT by mid-afternoon Sept. 12. Learn how to help Hurricane Ike evacuees.)

If needed, UNT will host a Red Cross shelter on campus for individuals fleeing Hurricane Ike, the second major storm this month to approach the Gulf Coast. Hurricane Gustav sent almost 200 residents of the New Orleans and southern Louisiana area to the UNT Coliseum Sept. 1. A total of 283 students from 20 organizations, left, helped prepare the UNT Coliseum for those evacuees, most of whom spent three days on campus. 

Hurricane Ike, which caused the death of 11 people in Haiti and blasted Cuba on Sept. 8 and 9, is headed for the Corpus Christi area in South Texas. Individuals escaping the storm may again be headed to the North Texas region, which also is expected to endure heavy rains and high winds as the storm moves through the state this weekend.

The Coliseum will be set up today to receive evacuees brought to the area via bus. Evacuees who drove themselves will be housed in another location. At this point, UNT has not been asked to open the shelter but the university is working with the Red Cross to prepare the Coliseum.

The Dallas Red Cross Dallas will provide free Shelter Boot Camps for anyone interested in learning how to volunteer to assist hurricane evacuees. The trainings will be held from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sept. 12 and 13 at the Red Cross Dallas headquarters at 4800 Harry Hines Blvd. Training prepares individuals for assisting individuals and families in disaster relief. To volunteer with the Red Cross, call 214-678-4800 or visit www.redcrossdallas.org/ and select your local chapter to download a volunteer application.

Most recent reports show that Ike has veered away from southern Louisiana, where the Mean Green football team is scheduled to play Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge at 7 p.m. Sept. 13.

Track Hurricane Ike and find information about staying safe.
 

Calendar s for the 2008-09 year featuring UNT’s albino squirrel are now on sale. The  cost is $16.24 per calendar including tax. The calendar offers twelve one-dollar coupons for the Willis Library Cyber Café, new photos and art work featuring all three of our albino squirrels, along with the history and legend of UNT’s albino squirrel.

In addition to the calendars, the Willis Library Cyber Café also sells other albino squirrel memorabilia including:

• an albino squirrel cameo tie tack/lapel button ... $3
• a campaign style albino squirrel cameo button... $1
• a new campaign style albino squirrel vote button... $1
  (items are subject to state sales tax)

Due to popular demand, UNT Libraries will offer 4 unique campaign style buttons each year so that students, alumni and friends may collect them all.

All profits from the albino squirrel memorabilia and calendars support the UNT Libraries’ Staff Scholarship Fund.

For information on the UNT Libraries’ Albino Squirrel project, contact Melody Kelly, 940-565-3023

Sandra Terrell, left, dean of the Robert B. Toulouse School of Graduate Studies, has been named vice provost for academic outreach.

“We are very pleased that Dr. Terrell has accepted this position," Wendy K. Wilkins, provost and vice president for academic affairs, says. "The vice provost for academic outreach is responsible for helping the Office of the Provost be more responsive to community needs in a wide variety of ways. Sandy has a wealth of experience in higher education and will bring a new dimension of expertise to our office.”

In addition to representing UNT outside the university, Terrell will support the university in seeking and identifying new avenues for collaboration, particularly with the UNT Health Science Center of Fort Worth and the UNT Dallas Campus. She also will develop proposals for alliances, consortiums and memorandums of understanding between UNT and other universities or agencies. Terrell will begin serving in her new position Jan. 1. Finley Graves, dean of the College of Business Administration, will chair the search committee for a new dean of the graduate school.

Terrell also will represent the university and/or academic affairs on external boards, committees, and/or councils such as the Federation of North Texas Area Universities and the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.

Terrell, who holds a doctoral degree in speech-language pathology from the University of Pittsburgh, was named dean of the Toulouse School of Graduate Studies in 2004, after serving as interim dean since 2003. Previously, she served as associate dean of the Toulouse graduate school from 1993 to 2003. She joined the faculty of the Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences in 1979 and is an expert in language development and language disorders in children; sociolinguistics with an emphasis on African American English dialect; and communication differences and disorders among culturally and ethnically diverse populations.

Donations to aid people dealing with Hurricane Ike may be made at several locations around campus.

The Division of Student Development has set up donation drop-off locations at the Dean of Students Office, University Union, room 320, Pohl Recreation Center and Discovery Park’s Center for Student Development, room G140.

These items will be accepted:
•    diapers
•    baby wipes
•    baby ointment
•    baby lotion
•    baby shampoo
•    new pacifiers
•    new baby bottles
•    feminine hygiene products
•    adult incontinence products such as Depends
•    crosswords, word find puzzles, books, coloring books, crayons
•    pre-paid gas cards

If evacuees are housed on campus, the Pohl Recreation Center will staff recreation activities from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m. and from 2 to 4 p.m Sept. 12-14 in the Men’s/Bahnsen Gym.

Volunteers are needed to answer phones at the United Way of Denton County and to assist with donations at the Salvation Army shelter.

The United Way is operating the Hurricane Helpline in anticipation of the arrival of evacuees from the Texas Gulf Coast. Hurricane Ike is expected to hit the Galveston area later today, Sept. 12, and on Sept. 13.

Phone volunteers are needed at the United Way office Sept. 12, Sept. 15 and Sept. 16 from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

Volunteers also are needed to help accept, lift and load material donations at the donation drop-off site at the Salvation Army Shelter, 1508 E. McKinney, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sept. 12, and from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sept. 13-14.

To volunteer for any amount of time or on any day, call Leah Jordan at 940-566-5851.

Parade through 19th-century fashions of high society in “The Promenade of Style: The Caralee Biery Smith Collection,” presented by the Texas Fashion Collection.

The free exhibition of 19th-century fashions from vintage clothing collector Caralee Biery Smith will be on display Sept. 26 through Dec. 19 at UNT’s Fashion on Main at Universities Center at Dallas, 1901 Main St. in Dallas. An opening reception will be from 4 to 6 p.m. Sept. 25.

Clothing -- including the details of design, textiles and fabric -- conveyed a person’s social status in the 19th century, Walker says. The exhibition of clothing from the 1830s to 1890s highlights past fashions and provides lessons about social history, from a time when people would dress in their finest for a promenade down Main Street to show off the latest fashions.

Smith, of Fort Worth, has collected vintage clothing since she bought her first items at a farm auction in 1985, she says. Since then, she has developed a vintage clothing business and an appraisal business.

“I never dreamed it would turn into this,” Smith says. “It’s a very enjoyable and rewarding business, and this exhibition at UNT’s Fashion on Main is a wonderful validation of my work and belief in the industry.”

“Caralee Smith has been a friend and supporter of the Texas Fashion Collection for more than 15 years,” says Myra Walker, director and curator of the Texas Fashion Collection at UNT. “We are thrilled that she is willing to share her wonderful examples of 19th-century fashion with the public. This exhibition will enlighten visitors about fashion history and the importance of creating a permanent fashion museum in Dallas.”

About Fashion on Main
UNT opened Fashion on Main at the Universities Center at Dallas in September 2006 as the first permanent exhibition space dedicated solely to the Texas Fashion Collection, considered one of the most important historic fashion collections in the nation. The collection is part of the College of Visual Arts and Design.

About the Texas Fashion Collection
The collection began in 1938 when Stanley and Edward Marcus preserved examples of top designers' works in honor of their aunt Carrie Marcus Neiman, a co-founder of the Neiman Marcus store. The Carrie Marcus Neiman Foundation maintained the collection after her death in 1953, and the Dallas Fashion Group took over in the 1960s at the Apparel Mart. The collection, then known as the Dallas Museum of Fashion, came to the UNT campus in 1972 and was later renamed the Texas Fashion Collection. It has grown from 3,000 items to more than 15,000 historic items today.

(Photo, day dress of yellow silk, circa 1898. Courtesy of Caralee Biery Smith, photo by Andrea Hoback)

The College of Visual Arts and Design needs help to create a comprehensive inventory of university artworks that are displayed, installed and stored on campus.

If you have university artwork in your work space or building, the college asks you to provide basic information about each piece of art. The information will help the college take inventory of the collection, decide on its focus and promote the collection to the public.

Find an inventory form or contact UNT Art Gallery Director Tracee Robertson at 940-565-4005 or tracee.robertson@unt.edu.

There are now two ways to donate your old cell phone to Recycle to Eradicate Poverty, a program that helps fund The Chiapas Project through recycling harmful electronic waste. In addition to the existing depository boxes (labeled The Chiapas Project) around campus, plastic self-mailing bags are available at various cash registers as part of the program’s “One Million Cell Phone Challenge” that kicked off this summer. The program hopes to recycle 1 million cell phones.

UNT was the first university in the nation to partner with The Chiapas Project when President Gretchen M. Bataille helped introduce the program to the university with Dallas businesswoman and founder of the project, Lucy Billingsley. Since beginning in the partnership, the university has raised $4,000 for The Chiapas Project, says Brian R. Weinberg, director of Recycle to Eradicate Poverty.

Every year, millions of cell phones are thrown into the nation’s landfills, putting toxic chemicals into the earth, taking up valuable space and wasting resources. One cell phone containing at least eight toxic elements, including arsenic, mercury and cadmium and can pollute up to 35,000 gallons of water. But with each donated cell phone, Recycle to Eradicate Poverty can raise up to $2 to $5 on average in microfinance loans for The Chiapas Project while preserving the environment.

“Through this grassroots effort at UNT, recycling one million cell phones will save 350 trillion gallons of our water and 100,000 people’s lives will be affected with microfinance,” he says.

Bags are available near the cash registers at:
• Campus Chat
• Cornerstore (Level Two in the University Union by Jazzman’s Cafe)
• Discovery Park
• Café a la Carte in Wooten Hall.

For added convenience, the program will also mail bags to your home: go to www.Onemillioncellphones.com. Used ink jet cartridges are still accepted at the depository boxes. 

Charles Cambridge, left, an enrolled member of the Navajo tribe and an American Indian culture expert, will be featured speaker for the College of Public Affairs and Community Service 7th annual Fall Forum Sept. 23.

Cambridge will discuss “The Myth of the American Indian: Realities, Fictions, and Stereotypes” at 11 a.m. in the University Union, Silver Eagle Suite, with a discussion to follow. Cambridge will give a second talk at 7 p.m. in the University Union, Lyceum; a reception will follow. Both presentations are free and open to the public.

The college selected Cambridge as the forum speaker to highlight the inaugural year of  One Book, One Community, a year-long program that focuses on a chosen theme, and a book that illustrates that theme. This year students were asked to read Barbara Kingsolver's The Bean Trees and consider the theme of “American Identity in an Age of Immigration: Beyond the Melting Pot.”

Kingsolver's novel by Kingsolver relates the experiences of a young woman who moves from her childhood home in rural Kentucky to a new life in Arizona. She befriends a family of Guatemalan immigrants and becomes the caregiver to a 3-year Cherokee child.

“The treatment of the Cherokee character in The Bean Trees brings up a number of myths about Native American culture,” says Linda Holloway, associate dean of the college. “We believe that Dr. Cambridge will challenge students to think differently and dialogue openly about the theme of American identity as it relates to American Indians.”

Cambridge is a faculty member in the Department of Anthropology at Metropolitan State College at Denver. He was previously employed by the U.S. Department of Interior’s Office of Federal Acknowledgment. He has conducted research on AIDS and its spread among American Indian populations and its impact upon the cultural traditions of American Indian Tribes. He is a founding member of Engineers Without Borders and is also a member of the Finance Committee of the American Anthropological Association.

Cambridge conceptualized and received international recognition for his experiments in appropriate technology and traditional architectural designs through his “Colorado Solar Hogan Project” at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Hogans are the primary traditional homes of the Navajo people. He and the project’s architect received international awards and recognition for the groundbreaking cultural and technological concepts.

The College of Business Administration will host its second Integrity Week, Sept. 22-26. The week-long event will provide information about the role of ethics in business and feature giveaways and guest speakers. The college hosted its first Integrity Week in Fall 2006. Integrity Week will also launch the COBA's annual Distinguished Lecture Series.

To win a free Integrity Week T-shirt or an Integrity Week backpack, send an e-mail to inhouse@unt.edu  with "Integrity" in the subject line by 5 p.m. Sept. 12. To learn more about  Integrity Week, contact Julie Willems-Espinoza at 940-369-8442.

During Integrity Week, each of the college’s five departments will host a speaker from the community who will act as a “professor for the day.” The speakers will give presentations to students during their regularly scheduled class time in the COBA and discuss the role that integrity plays in their particular field.

Professor for the day speaker schedule:

• Sept 23, 9:30 a.m. - Marketing: James Geiser, Director of Marketing, Chesapeake Energy, will speak to Foundations of Marketing Practice
• Sept. 23, 11 a.m.-Finance, Insurance, Real Estate and Law: Elmer Murphey III, Attorney, Strasburger & Price LLP, will speak to Legal & Ethical Environment of Business
• Sept. 24, 11 a.m.-Accounting: Troy Johnson, Director of Internal Controls and SOX 404 Compliance, Fluor Corporation, will speak to Accounting Principles I
• Sept. 25, 9:30 a.m. - Information Technology and Decision Sciences: Alan Kravitz, U.S. Regional Manager of IT Operations, Research in Motion (Blackberry), will speak to Basic Information Systems
• Sept. 25, 9:30 a.m. - Management: Dave Dolan, Sr. Vice President for Workplace Investing, Fidelity Investments, will speak to Business Ethics & Social Responsibility

The week will culminate, Sept. 26, with the first speaker in the Distinguished Lecture Series, Brig. Gen. Jesse R. Cross, left, who will discuss the significance of integrity in the U.S. Military and its correlation to business ethics. The lecture will be held 10-11:30 a.m., University Union, Silver Eagle Suite C. Cross is the commanding general of the U.S. Army Quartermaster Center and School in Fort Lee, Va. He is a graduate of West Texas State University in Canyon, Texas.

The college’s Distinguished Lecture Series features three speakers each semester. The next speaker will be Jon Daniels, general manager of the Texas Rangers, on Oct. 10. The final speaker will be Mike Blevins, executive vice president and chief nuclear officer for Luminant (a subsidiary of Energy Future Holdings, aka TXU) on Nov. 7.

The new Emerald Eagle Scholar class that joined UNT this fall is a diverse group of talented students. What characteristic describes the class of 2012?

A. 2-1 ratio, females to males
B. 2-1 ratio, males to females
C. All scholars are under age 21
D. All scholars are native Texans

The correct answer is A: 2-1 ratio females to males. On Sept. 3, a reception welcomed the second class of Emerald Eagle Scholars to campus. The Emerald Eagle Scholars program is a student-success initiative launched by President Gretchen M. Bataille with fundraising events during her 2007 inauguration. Left, Emerald Eagle Scholars Jaazlynne McGill, left, and Cindy Daniel, class of 2011.

To win a free UNT T-shirt gift pack, send an e-mail with the words “Emerald Eagle Scholars” in the subject line to InHouse@unt.edu by 5 p.m. Sept. 12. The winner will be selected at random from all e-mails received.

The program is one of about 30 in the nation and the leading program of its kind in Texas. The program gives academically talented students with high financial need the opportunity to attend college and earn bachelor’s degrees without accumulating a large debt.

The Student Success-Mentoring Program offers mentors to incoming freshmen and provides support to those students who may be experiencing college for the first time. Through the program, students enhance their first-year university experience with a built-in network where they feel comfortable to ask questions and understand the resources UNT has to offer. Photo, left to right, Carolyn Cunningham, director of financial aid; Harris Martin, Emerald Eagle Scholar class of 2011; Bataille; Jesus Romo, Emerald Eagle Scholar class of 2012.

Learn more about the program's first year and how to be a mentor.

Congratulations to these randomly-selected winners from the Sept. 3 InHouse giveaways and Fun Fact.

• Karen Anderson, assistant professor, Department of Communication Studies – We Mean Green water bottle and T-shirt gift pack
• Elizabeth Hinkle-Turner, manager, Student Computing Services – We Mean Green water bottle and T-shirt gift pack
• Alana Presley, program coordinator, Elm Fork Education Center – T-shirt gift pack
• Adrianne Robertson, accountant I, Purchasing and Payment Services – T-shirt gift pack
• Joey Saxon, director, Purchasing and Payment Services- We Mean Green water bottle and T-shirt gift pack
• Charles Vincent, special assistant, sustainability, Business Services –  We Mean Green water bottle and T-shirt gift pack

Win stuff; read InHouse, the electronic newsletter that is always online and is regularly updated with news about events and strategic activities at UNT. The formatted version is e-mailed to faculty and staff each week, usually on Wednesdays.

InHouse photos and graphics should be clearly visible in your Outlook e-mail. If you cannot see photos and graphics, be sure to set the View to HTML to see the newsletter’s color and photos. If you have difficulty, ask your department’s system administrator for assistance. Click on headlines, which link to continuously updated postings, to find the complete article on http://inhouse.unt.edu.

The newsletter includes opportunities to win a UNT T-shirt gift pack, free tickets to concerts, sports and other campus activities. Tickets and prizes are generously provided by event sponsors and departments. Winners are randomly selected from all e-mail responses.

Athletics Department officials burned the loan note, literally, on the Mean Green Athletic Center building on Sept. 6.The event cleared the way to kick off a campaign to build a new football stadium.From left, Board of Regents chair Gayle Strange, President Gretchen M. Bataille and Athletics Director Rick Villarreal. (Photo courtesy of Athletics and  Rick Yeatts)

 

 

UNT will invest at least $25 million in collaborative research in a sweeping effort to strengthen the state’s economy, bolster research and develop technology vital to addressing today’s most pressing needs.

The investment begins this year with the development of six collaborative research clusters and the recruitment of world-renowned faculty. The clusters will enhance and expand the innovative research already underway at UNT by bringing together faculty from across colleges and disciplines to work together, exchange ideas and explore solutions.

Read President Bataille's address.

As the main thrust of the plan, the university expects to hire several new faculty members for each cluster. Many of the new faculty hires will be senior level researchers with national and international reputations.

"UNT is well-known for its excellence in the arts. Through this investment, we will expand our research excellence and raise our reputation as a public research university that competes at the top-level in everything we do,” said President Gretchen M. Bataille, above, who publicly announced the investment plan Sept. 9 during the university’s annual convocation. Below, faculty and staff listen at the University Union. About 640 faculty and staff attended, including those watching by closed-circuit TV at UNT Dallas and Discovery Park

Among the clusters’ wide-ranging and high-profile initiatives will be:

• discovering more effective ways to treat conditions such as autism, cancer and heart disease
• developing more durable jet engines
• investigating molecular plant signals that could lead to innovations impacting many different industries and needs
• exploring new ways to support and improve environmental sustainability.

UNT’s first six clusters capitalize on the national reputation and expertise of researchers in several important areas.

• Bio/Nano Photonics will explore how light can be used in extremely small dimensions to develop new nano-devices with applications in medicine, communications, energy and a number of other fields. This cluster builds upon the expertise of 15 faculty members from nine departments including some from the UNT Health Science Center at Fort Worth.

• Materials Modeling will produce predictive tools for creating next generation materials that will help scientists reduce greenhouse gas in the environment, develop better jet engines and discover new therapies for serious battlefield injuries. The cluster includes 11 faculty members from three departments and will expand UNT’s national leadership role in computational chemistry to other research areas.

• Developmental Physiology and Genetics will explore developmental biology at the molecular, cellular and physiological levels, which will contribute to scientific advances for human conditions, such as tissue trauma, clotting disorders and heart disease. This cluster will build upon the established expertise of six UNT faculty members in different areas of life sciences and will collaborate with UNT Health Science Center at Fort Worth researchers.

• Signaling Mechanisms in Plants will study the molecular signals of plants that control growth, crop yield, defense against pathogens and responses to stress. Advances in understanding of plant metabolism have stimulated new technologies in agriculture, human nutrition and medicine. The cluster will include seven UNT faculty members across two departments who are recognized as national leaders in this field and will work closely with the Noble Foundation (Ardmore, Okla.), a leading research group in this field.

• Autism Spectrum Disorders will expand field-based research and training programs in education, behavior analysis and learning technologies for autism, which affects one percent of children, or about 800,000 children each year in the United States alone. Currently, 17 faculty members across eight departments have made innovations in applied autism research.

• Advanced Research in Technology and the Arts will investigate the ways advances in sensor technologies and other engineering innovations can change and enhance the production and delivery of art. The cluster will expand the work being done at the nationally-acclaimed Center for Experimental Music and Intermedia, and 15 faculty members across seven disciplines now contribute to this area.

In addition, two areas of interdisciplinary research will receive seed funding to encourage further development: Human Health and Sustainable Environment, which will research how environmental risks accumulate and affect health; and Multi-Scale Damage, Lifetime Prediction and Design of Materials, which will study damage caused by aging in various physical materials in hopes of creating new, more resilient materials for aerospace applications, automobiles and prosthetic devices.

Also, as part of the plan, UNT will create a new multi-institutional research center focused on immigrant studies.

See the Extended Entry to learn how the clusters were identified.

President Gretchen M. Bataille presented three awards at Fall Convocation today, Sept. 9, which is the ceremonial beginning of the academic year. About 640 faculty and staff attended convocation, including those watching by closed circuit TV from the Dallas Campus and Discovery Park.

Bataille recognized two individuals, one center and an association with awards. Award recipients were chosen based on recommendations by two separate committees, one chaired by Linda Holloway, associate dean of the College of Public Affairs and Community Service, and one chaired by James Meernik, chair of the Department of Political Science. Both committees were made up of faculty, staff and students.

The awards presented during Convocation were:

• Community Award: Gloria Cox, dean of the Honors College  and associate professor of political science

• Special Recognition Award: Parent Association

• President’s Award: Peggy Bell Hendrickson, assistant director of International Admissions

• President’s Award: faculty and staff of the Center for Play Therapy 

The Community Award was presented to Gloria Cox, left, dean of the Honors College, for her work getting the Honors College started, her involvement in the Chiapas Project, the "I Have a Dream" Foundation, and the National Student Exchange Program, among many other projects that have helped undergraduate students at UNT and others in the North Texas community.

The Special Recognition Award was presented to the community members of the Parent Association for the outstanding services for the university that they have performed in relation to the university’s strategic plan to focus on student-centered education and the Parent Association’s efforts to enhance the university’s institutional reputation, community engagement, and advancement. The award was accepted by LeeAnn Winkler, right, president of the Parent Association.

The association’s contributions include:

• In 2008, they awarded $29,000 in scholarships to 40 students. This was made possible by a portion of association dues that support a scholarship fund.

• Association volunteers give countless hours to the university to help to create a sense of community and a welcoming environment for both students and their family members.

The President’s Award was also presented to staff member Peggy Bell Hendrickson, left, assistant director of International Admissions, who serves on national and international boards and committees. Hendrickson is passionate about the mission to foster international experiences for UNT students and bring students from other cultures to UNT. She is recognized for her commitment to increase student awareness of global and international issues.

Hendrickson’s service recognitions and contributions include:

• Member of NAFSA: Association of International Educators and NAFSA Trainer Corps 

• Credentials Editor of the international NAFSA newsletter

• An officer of the Association of Metroplex International Educators

• A published author of articles, web training, and book chapters through NAFSA, AACRAO, and private companies

• Has presented her work at local, state, regional, and national conferences on international education and research

The President's Award was presented to the faculty and staff of Center for Play Therapy for the national and international reputation it has earned for its innovative and effective program. UNT is recognized by mental health professionals as having the largest play therapy training program in the world.

• The center responded to a request following the destruction of the World Trade Center by sending a team of play therapists consisting of 10 doctoral students headed by Sue Bratton, above right of Bataille, associate professor of counseling and higher education, to help the traumatized children affected by the tragedy.

• Faculty and graduate students have published more research studies in professionally referred journals than all other universities combined.

• In 2007, the Association for Play Therapy made the decision to use UNT's Center for Play Therapy as a national model for developing similar centers across the United States.

Almost 100 new faculty members joined UNT at the start of the 2008-09 academic year. The group’s credentials total nearly 250 degrees, authorship of nearly 60 books and147 chapters, 11 patents and 139 film credits or exhibitions. The new faculty members represent $28.9 million in grant funding among them. The 94 new faculty members include:

College of Arts and Sciences
Michael Allen, assistant professor, Department of Biological Sciences
Jeff A. Johnson, assistant professor, Department of Biological Sciences
Robby A. Petros, assistant professor, Department of Chemistry
W. Justin Youngblood, assistant professor, Department of Chemistry
Louie Petit, lecturer, Department of Communication Studies
Claudia Queen, assistant professor, Department of Dance and Theatre
Jose Martinez, assistant professor, Department of Economics
Kevin Curran, assistant professor, Department of English
Bonita Friedman, assistant professor, Department of English
Evan Horowitz, assistant professor, Department of English
Kristen A. Keckler, lecturer, Department of English
April Nixon Kendra, lecturer, Department of English
Erin Friess Pavlak, assistant professor, Department of English
Chrisophe Chaguinian, assistant professor, Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures
Will Derusha, associate professor, Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures
Samuel Manickam, assistant professor, Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures
Donny Aaron Vigil, assistant professor, Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures
Chetan Tiwari, assistant professor, Department of Geography
Michael V. Leggiere, assistant professor, Department of History
Edward Duke Richey, assistant professor, Department of History
Heather Huggett, lecturer, Department of Linguistics and Technical Communication
Sibylle Schroll, assistant professor, Department of Mathematics
Sarah Fredericks, assistant professor, Department of Philosophy and Religion Studies
Usha Philipose, assistant professor, Department of Physics
Ohad Shemmer, assistant professor, Department of Physics
Marijke Breuning, professor, Department of Political Science
Cullen S. Hendrix, assistant professor, Department of Political Science
Paul R. Hensel, associate professor, Department of Political Science
John T. Ishiyama, professor, Department of Political Science
Valerie Martinez-Ebers, professor, Department of Political Science
Janida Rice, lecturer, Department of Psychology
John M. Ruiz, assistant professor, Department of Psychology
Carol Cornsilk, lecturer, Department of Radio, Television, and Film
James Martin, lecturer, Department of Radio, Television, and Film
Ernest J. Moore, professor and chair, Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences

College of Business Administration
R. Cameron Cockrell, assistant professor, Department of Accounting
Gene Elrod, senior lecturer, Department of Accounting
Louis A. (Dutch) Fayard, assistant professor, Department of Accounting
Patsy L. Lee, senior lecturer, Department of Accounting
Teresa Lightner, associate professor, Department of Accounting
Jesse C. Robertson, assistant professor, Department of Accounting
Yi "Ian" Liu, assistant professor, Department of Finance, Insurance, Real Estate, and Law
Tomas Mantecon, assistant professor, Department of Finance, Insurance, Real Estate, and Law
Elizabeth J. Muniz, instructional assistant professor, Department of Management - UNT Dallas
Divesh Ojha, assistant professor, Department of Management

College of Education
Beverly L. Bower, professor, Department of Counseling and Higher Education
Pu-Shih "Daniel" Chen, assistant professor, Department of Counseling and Higher Education
Judith Enriquez, assistant professor, Department of Learning Technologies
Amy Fann, assistant professor, Department of Counseling and Higher Education
Wendy Middlemiss, associate professor, Department of Educational Psychology
Judy Sexton, lecturer, Department of Kinesiology, Health Promotion, and Recreation
Jakob L. Vingren, assistant professor, Department of Kinesiology, Health Promotion, and Recreation
Kim F. Nimon, assistant professor, Department of Learning Technologies
Jerry R. Thomas, dean, College of Education and Department of Kinesiology, Health Promotion, and Recreation

College of Engineering
Oluwayami B. Adamo, lecturer, Department of Electrical Engineering
Kamesh Namuduri, associate professor, Department of Electrical Engineering
Haifeng "Harry" Zhang, assistant professor, Department of Engineering Technology
Zhenhua Huang, visiting assistant professor, Department of Engineering Technology
Afrin Naz, assistant professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering
Costas Tsatsoulis, dean, College of Engineering and Department of Computer Science and Engineering

College of Music
David Itkin, professor, Division of Conducting and Ensembles
Bradford C. Leali, assistant professor, Division of Jazz Studies
Ana Ruth Alonso Minutti, assistant professor, Division of Music, History, Theory and Ethnomusicology

College of Public Affairs and Community Service
Scott Belshaw, lecturer, Department of Criminal Justice
Gretchen Choe, instructional assistant professor, Department of Criminal Justice - UNT Dallas
Eric Coleman, instructional assistant professor, Department of Criminal Justice - UNT Dallas
Arrick L. Jackson, associate professor, Department of Criminal Justice
Otto Elmer Polk, lecturer, Department of Criminal Justice
Adam Trahan, assistant professor, Department of Criminal Justice
Brian K. Collins, associate professor, Department of Public Administration
Lauralee Thompson, instructional assistant professor, Department of Sociology - UNT Dallas

College of Visual Arts and Design
Terry Barret, Visiting Professor Department of Art Education/Art History
Jeffrey L. Broome, assistant professor, Department of Art Education/Art History
Christi O. Egeland, lecturer, Department of Design
Michele Wong Kung Fong, assistant professor, Department of Design
Mary Lamb, visiting assistant professor, Department of Studio

School of Merchandising and Hospitality Management
Katherine Annette Burnsed, assistant professor, Division of Merchandising
Ms. Jiyoung Kim, assistant professor, Division of Merchandising
Ms. Sanjukta Pookulangara, assistant professor, Division of Merchandising
Ms. Hyewon Youn, assistant professor, Division of Hospitality Management

College of Arts and Sciences and College of Education
Vidalina Trevino, lecturer, Teach North Texas

Neil Slater retired in August after 27 years as director of the internationally renowned One O’Clock Lab Band. Slater joined the College of Music in 1981, making him the third director of the One O’Clock Lab Band in the jazz program’s 61-year history. A pianist and former member of the Stan Kenton Orchestra-In-Residence program, he has recorded and performed with such artists as Frank Strozier, Dave Weckl, Mel Lewis, Lew Anderson, Sal Salvadore and Joe Morello. He ended his UNT career with a three-week tour of major European jazz festivals in July, mirroring his first European tour with the band in 1982.

What is your title at UNT?
Professor and chair of jazz studies

What was one of your favorite memories with the One O’Clock Lab Band?
There are many memories, but one of the favorite memories of the recent tour would be seeing all those people in the audience — the sea of faces who looked like they were really thrilled to see us. We were really well-received wherever we were in all different countries.

What was your biggest accomplishment on the recent tour?
We have the ability to enjoy ourselves, but it always comes down to playing the gig and performing. It’s serious business. We do the best we can, no matter what.

How do you define success?
To be consistently good in performances. I never went out there and thought, “We’ll get through this.” I always thought, “This will be a great performance.”

Why did you decide to take the band on the tour of Europe this summer?
We’ve been talking about it for quite some time actually. My very first year was the last time we did the major jazz festivals in Europe, and we usually get a lot of interest from students when we’re over there. It’s great recruiting, which is really important to our program.

What do you consider one of your greatest accomplishments?
When I first came here, we did mostly what were called dance band jobs, playing at country clubs and playing music that we didn’t love that much, but doing it very well, of course. It was a professional kind of situation. But it was my goal to play more jazz concerts and have the band be excited to do that. That is what the students wanted.

How do you feel telling a student that he or she earned a coveted spot in the One O’Clock Lab Band?
It’s great because I can see this kid has arrived or improved. It’s a thrill for me and the other teachers also. Everybody who works on our faculty is outstanding.

What do you plan to do in your retirement?
I’m going to write music for a couple of publishing companies. Writing music will be the main thing, and I’ll also travel.

Do you have a favorite One O’Clock Lab Band recording?
I’ve been asked that before, but I’ve never had a bad recording. No. I like them all.

(Interview by Ellen Rosseti, UNT News Promotions)

Three UNT alumni are featured in a segment of KERA's Nowhere But Texas 2, co-produced by a fourth UNT alumna. Nowhere But Texas 2 uses archival footage and current interviews to tell the stories of Texas communities, the people and the circumstances that give them a special place in Texas history.

Nowhere But Texas 2 airs at 7 p.m. Sept. 9 on KERA-TV. The program will rebroadcast at 11:30 a.m. Sept. 13.

The segment tells the story of the Mighty Mites, a high school football team from the Masonic Home and School in Fort Worth who, under coach Rusty Russell, changed the way high school football was played in the 1920s and 1930s.

In 1932, the Mighty Mites tied with Corsicana for the state championship. Though they lost on penetrations giving the state title to Corsicana, these underdogs established themselves as the toughest team in the league, lifting people's spirits in the midst of the Great Depression. 

Featured alumni are:

• Doug Lord played football under Russell in the early 1940s. He graduated from the Masonic Home in 1944 and received his bachelors and masters degrees in business from North Texas State College.
• Bruce Riddle, at right, was 4 years old when he went to live at the Masonic Home about a decade after the stunning 1932 season. After graduating in 1956 he earned a bachelor of business administration degree from North Texas State University.
• C.B. Sealey also played as a Mighty Mite on the very successful 1940 team. After graduating in 1941 he finished his education at North Texas State College and Texas Christian University.

A fourth UNT connection is Therese Powell, co-producer of Nowhere But Texas 2, who earned a master's degree in radio television and film.

UNT is proud to recognize these individuals for their years of service to UNT. These individuals, along with previous month’s honored employees, will be recognized during Staff Appreciation week in October. For more information, contact Kristina Randolph, administrative services officer in Human Resources at 940-565-4363.

Here are employees who reached an employment milestone in September:

40 Years of Service
Donald Holm Kobe, right, professor, Physics
Tommie Collins Lawhon, left, professor, Educational Psychology

35 Years of Service
Rudy Ray Seward, professor, Sociology
Joan Charlene Groom, associate professor, Music History, Theory and Ethnology

30 Years of Service
Cathy J. Wilkinson, senior assistant to the dean, Public Affairs and Community Service
Philip J. Lewis, professor, Music - instrumental studies
J. Lynn Johnson, professor, Management

25 Years of Service
Vern L. Kagarice, professor, Music - instrumental studies
Gerald Knezek, professor, Learning Technologies
Gopala Ganesh, professor, Marketing
Elizabeth M. Bator, associate professor, Mathematics

20 Years of Service
Jannon Lou Fuchs, professor, Biology
Harris D. Schwark, associate professor, Biology
Dale Elgert Yeatts, chair, Sociology
Charles Steven Cole, professor, Finance, Insurance, Real Estate Law
Michelle D. Wircenski, professor, Learning Technologies
Randall E. Schumacker, professor, Educational Psychology
Barbara Ann Heffley, programmer analyst, Computing and Information Technology Center
William Eugene Acree Jr., professor, Chemistry
Pamela Sue Johns, administrative assistant, Chemistry
Paul Marshall, professor, Chemistry
Charlotte Elizabeth Spencer, food service supervisor, Kerr Hall Dining Services
Celia Jan Williamson, deputy provost and dean of undergraduate studies, Provost and Academic Affairs

See Extended Entry for 15, 10 and five years of service

UNT will partner with Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kan., and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to build a diverse workforce that can meet the country’s environmental demands.

Under a memorandum of understanding signed Sept. 5, the groups pledged to work together to increase the number of American Indian students pursuing professional careers in environmental fields, including policy, economics and science.

“This new partnership expands the long tradition our university has had in working with the EPA to find solutions to some of our nation’s most pressing environmental and societal problems,” President Gretchen M. Bataille says. “It also provides American Indian students with the opportunity to further their commitment to environmental research and education, which is critical for sustainability within tribal culture.” Haskell President Linda Sue Warner and EPA Regional Administrator Richard E. Greene also signed the memorandum. Above, from left, Bataille, Warner and Greene celebrate the agreement.

The agreement establishes a track for graduates of Haskell to continue graduate studies in environmental sciences at UNT, where they will have the opportunity to earn master’s and doctoral degrees. EPA will provide guidance on student employment and volunteer programs, collaboration on research opportunities, lectures and seminars on environmental issues and outreach to local, tribal, national and international communities.

Haskell is one of only two federally-owned and operated schools in the United States dedicated to higher education of American Indians, according to the Bureau of Indian Education. The university enrolls about 1,000 students each semester.

The Division of Advancement, teaming up with Dallas-based online fundraising company Pursuant Group, is launching a new program Sept. 4, the “Six Degrees of UNT” to connect with alumni, supporters and friends. Operating on the six degrees of separation principle, the program is built on a series of e-mails over a six-week time period. In the Sept. 4 e-mail, UNT will make its first contact with constituents via e-mail invitation, asking them to forward the invitation to former classmates, faculty, staff and supporters.

The program does not solicit donations or payment for any purpose, only a request to each invitee to provide current contact information through subsequent e-mails. Upon completion, the Pursuant Group will assemble the data and provide it to Advancement for its contributor relations database. The new data will not be shared with any person or entity other than UNT and will be available to authorized faculty and staff in January 2009.

“Our challenge is to find efficient, productive ways to communicate with our constituents,” says Randy Simmans, director of advancement communications and public relations. “We all hear that the world is getting smaller in this age of technology. It is also moving much more quickly. People are on the move, physically and electronically.”

The e-mails include a feedback option for questions as well as giving e-mail recipients the ability to opt out of receiving the Six Degrees of UNT e-mails at any stage of the program. Contact Simmans, 940-565-4921 or rsimmans@unt.edu.

Through this process, the university hopes to attain more reliable and efficient means to contact the more than 190,000 people in its contributor relations database. This, in turn, can save the university time and money, from returned, undeliverable print mail and dead-end e-mail addresses.

(Editor's Note: Sept. 8 is the deadline to take advantage of this benefit for Fall 2008.)

If you’ve been pondering getting additional education or earning a degree, consider taking advantage of UNT’s educational scholarship benefit.

UNT offers the benefit for certain faculty and staff and their dependents, and for retirees. The benefit pays tuition mandated by the UNT System Board of Regents and mandated fees for eligible individuals affiliated with UNT, UNT Health Science Center at Fort Worth, UNT Foundation, the Professional Development Institute or the UNT Alumni Association.

Some additional fees are not included, but the reduced cost is a substantial benefit, says Terri Miller, assistant director of Student Accounting. See the policy at www.unt.edu/policy/UNT_Policy/volume2/2_2_14.html.

Participants must meet employment and retirement plan enrollment guidelines, not have outstanding debt with UNT and meet academic requirements for class enrollment. About 500 people take advantage of the scholarship benefit each semester.

Applications must be submitted by the twelfth class day of the semester.

Find an application at http://essc.unt.edu/saucs/saucsforms.htm or contact Student Accounting and University Cashiering Services at 940-565-3225 or http://essc.unt.edu/saucs/.

Awards were presented to outstanding employees and departments at the President’s Staff Sack Lunch Aug. 14. President Gretchen M. Bataille answered questions involving the use of the Radisson Hotel property and other campus construction, enrollment goals, parking and plans for a new football stadium. 

Employees received these awards:
• Outstanding Employee, Academic Affairs -- Liz Assad, far left 
• Outstanding Employee, Finance and Administration -- Jared Farish, left 
• Outstanding Employee, Student Development -- Mike Flores, right
• Outstanding Department, Student Services – College of Visual Arts – Nancy Kelly, Jennifer Grund, Iva Zimmerman,  Marian O’Rourke-Kaplan, Jerry Aul and Lana Gee, below. Not pictured are Debbie Shifflett and Susanne Coffey.
• Outstanding Department, Office of New Student Programs -- Kent Marshall, Melissa McGuire, Mildred Bynum and  Laurel Dube, below. (Photos by Mike Woodruff)

Outstanding Department, Office of New Student Programs -- Mildred Bynum, Laurel Dube Kent Marshall and Melissa McGuire

Outstanding Department, Student Services, College of Visual Arts and Design: from left, Jennifer Grund, Iva Zimmerman, Nancy Kelly, Marian O’rourke-Kaplan, Jerry Aul and Lana Gee

 

With Hurricane Gustav headed to the Gulf Coast, UNT stepped up and offered space for evacuees as it did when Katrina and Rita came ashore three years earlier.

On Aug. 31, President Gretchen M. Bataille assembled a meeting that included a range of departments to plan for arrival of evacuees Sept. 1. UNT Risk Management, UNT Police, Coliseum, Traffic and Transportation, Telecom, Computer Information and Technology Center, University Relations, Communications and Marketing and housing worked with the Red Cross and Denton emergency management officials to ensure a smooth transition of the Coliseum from a basketball stadium to an evacuee center.

To ready the Coliseum, the basketball flooring had to be removed and cots set up so that each evacuee would have sleeping space. A call for volunteers went out across campus, and at 10 p.m., members of the men’s and women’s track team, softball team and football team arrived to begin unloading Red Cross trucks and staging supplies for distribution. At about 2 a.m. Sept. 1, students representing 20 campus organizations began arriving to help. Working with Red Cross volunteers, UNT students and staff taped a grid pattern across the Coliseum floor to allow for the required 40 square feet of space for each cot and then moved in the 205 cots. Above, students and volunteers prepare for evacuees.

A total of 283 UNT students volunteered to get the Coliseum ready by 6 a.m. Sept.1. Four buses of evacuees arrived Sept. 1, in the afternoon. A total of 131 evacuees used UNT facilities. Most returned to their homes Sept. 3, and the shelter closed Sept. 4. Luis Tapia, left, UNT emergency management planning coordinator, meets with Bataille and U.S. Rep. Michael Burgess, who came to the campus Sept. 2.

Aside from the athletic teams, organizations that were represented by volunteers during the pre-dawn Sept. 1 set up included: Residence Hall Association, full-time staff from Housing, Center for Student Rights and Responsibilities, New Student Programs, Resident Assistants, Alpha Tau Omega , Delta Sigma Phi, Kappa Alpha Order, Lambda Chi Alpha, Phi Kappa Sigma, Sigma Chi, Sigma Phi Epsilon, Theta Chi, Alpha Kappa Alpha, Alpha Phi Alpha, Delta Sigma Theta, Kappa Alpha Psi, Omega Psi Phi, Phi Beta Sigma, Sigma Gamma Rho, Zeta Phi Beta and Talons.

Volunteers are still needed to work in the warehouse to process donations and in the United Way office to answer phones for information and referrals. Please contact the United Way office at 940-566-2688 or e-mail community@unitedwaydenton.org to register as a LIVE UNITED volunteer.

If you wish to make a donation, the United Way of Denton County is accepting cash and check donations to their Disaster Relief Fund. These donations will be used to support local agencies identified as providing services for the evacuees. Go to www.unitedwaydenton.org.

(Learn how UNT helped Hurricane Katrina and Rita evacuees, and how Bataille and Athletics officials Cinnamon Sheffield and Rick Villarreal helped with recovery efforts in New Orleans.)

UNT will launch its We Mean Green initiative, a university-wide public awareness campaign to discuss and promote sustainability events and opportunities, Oct. 10-11.

The initiative is expected to generate a sense of responsibility and excitement about reducing, reusing and recycling. 

“Living green has long permeated the UNT experience, and our campus has for years made environmentally responsible choices in the way we conduct our business,” President Gretchen M. Bataille says. “Branding those campuswide choices with our We Mean Green campaign will remind us all about the depth of the impact we each have on the future.”

We Mean Green kicks off with a free public conference from 3 to 9 p.m. Oct. 10 and continues from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Oct. 11.

Oct. 10 is the welcome night with sustainability workshops hosted by UNT students and faculty. Oct. 11 is power day with presentations from private and public groups and highlights of UNT research in solar systems, bioenergy and carbon emissions.

The conference is sponsored by the North Texas Energy & Environment Club. The campaign also will promote UNT’s new eco-friendly filtered water system. Free reusable water bottles will be provided across campus to replace disposable, plastic ones.

In addition, a We Mean Green committee of students, staff and faculty will publicize wide-ranging environmental efforts and activities, from recycling programs in residence halls to efforts to make buildings more energy efficient.

This effort grew out of a marketing class project. Thomas La Point, professor of biological sciences, coined the term “We Mean Green” in Spring 2008 when speaking with students of  Francisco Guzman, assistant professor of marketing and logistics, who were developing branding campaigns about UNT’s green commitment to sustainability.

Actions taken or in progress:

• UNT reduced its carbon footprint by a half-billion pounds in the past 10 years, saving more than $12 million in energy costs.
• A bio-diesel fuel generator that will convert cooking oil from campus cafeterias into diesel fuel for university vehicles — for about $1 a gallon — will be purchased this fall.
• Facilities will replace its gasoline-powered cars with electric vehicles, with eight new electric vehicles taking the road this fall.
• In 2007, 363 tons of paper and cardboard were recycled. In 2008, that number is likely to hit 369 tons.
• Each week, 12,000 to 14,000 plastic bottles are recycled. Each month, 300 pounds of aluminum cans are recycled.
• UNT became the first large public university in Texas to sign the American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment, a growing nationwide initiative of college and university presidents and chancellors dedicated to counteracting climate change by taking steps to make their campuses climate neutral.
• UNT is the first university in the nation to partner with The Chiapas Project — a nonprofit organization designed to help improve the lives of women and families in some of the world’s poorest countries — by recycling cell phones and printer cartridges, which would normally clog landfills.
  

As part of the universitywide We Mean Green sustainability efforts, faculty, staff and students will soon be able to refill their water bottles at filtered water refill stations across campus.

Business services installed water filters on water fountains in each of the residence halls last spring as part of Go Green, an environmental stewardship campaign. Facilities are installing three other stations on each floor of the Administration Building, as well as test stations on the first floor of the General Academic Building and the University Services Building.

The campus initiative is to not only reduce the large amounts of bottled water used on campus, but is an opportunity to evaluate personal environmental stewardship.

“It’s an easy way to get behind the issue and look at our own usage on a personal level,” says Charles Vincent, housing special assistant for sustainability.

The refill stations will be identified with We Mean Green signage and the fountains will have a filler neck for convenient bottle refilling. Reusable water bottles have been handed out at different events.

To win a free We Mean Green water bottle and a UNT T-shirt gift pack, send an e-mail to InHouse at inhouse@unt.edu with “Water Bottle” in the subject line by 5 p.m. Sept. 5. Winners will be selected at random from all e-mail responses.

The We Mean Green refillable bottles can be ordered from Printing Services, says Jimmy Friend, director of Printing Services.

See the Extended Entry to learn more about water use on campus.

The threat of one hurricane has just left the North Texas region only to be replaced by another. What hurricane will hit Denton Sept. 6?

A. Hannah
B. Ida
C. Golden
D. Justine

The correct answer is C. The Golden Hurricanes of the University of Tulsa will play UNT at the home game opener at 6 p.m. Sept. 6. The Hurricanes won their first game Aug. 30 against the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Four of six wins for the Mean Green against Tulsa have been at Fouts Field.

Come early, wear green, be loud, stay late at Fouts Field Saturday. Parking will be available in designated lots beginning at 8 a.m., Be sure not to park in lots 19 and 20 if you do not have the proper football parkng pass, since towing will be enforced.

The game will be televised in the Dallas and Fort Worth area on TX 21 and can be heard on Mean Green Radio Network which includes campus station KNTU. Purchase your tickets online at MeanGreenSports.com; by phone 940-565-2527; 1-800-UNT-2366; by e-mail; or by fax to 940-565-2664.

To win a free UNT T-shirt gift pack, send an e-mail with the word “Hurricane” in the subject line to inhouse@unt.edu  by 5 p.m. Sept. 5. The winner will be selected at random from all e-mails received.

Congratulations to these randomly-selected winners in the Aug. 27 InHouse Fun Fact who will receive a UNT T-shirt gift pack.

• Lisa Whitby, academic advisor, College of Arts and Sciences
• Sherene Long, purchasing card administrator, Purchasing and Payment Services
• Kayle Godinez, director of student accounting

Win stuff; read InHouse, the electronic newsletter that is always online and is regularly updated with news about events and strategic activities at UNT. The formatted version is e-mailed to faculty and staff each week, usually on Wednesdays.

InHouse photos and graphics should be clearly visible in your Outlook e-mail. If you cannot see photos and graphics, be sure to set the View to HTML to see the newsletter’s color and photos. If you have difficulty, ask your department’s system administrator for assistance. Click on headlines, which link to continuously updated postings, to find the complete article on http://inhouse.unt.edu.

The newsletter includes opportunities to win a UNT T-shirt gift pack, free tickets to concerts, sports and other campus activities. Tickets and prizes are generously provided by event sponsors and departments. Winners are randomly selected from all e-mail responses.

Our hearts go out to all victims of Hurricane Gustav as they await an opportunity to return to their homes. The UNT community always has stepped up when help is needed, and the work done by UNT staff and student volunteers over the weekend is to be commended. If you want to help victims of Gustav, here are some ways to offer your support. Right, UNT volunteers prepared the Coliseum for those evacuating the Gulf Coast to avoid Hurricane Gustav.

Ways to donate

If you want to donate supplies or cash, the United Way of Denton County is accepting cash and check donations to their Disaster Relief Fund. These donations will be used to support local agencies identified as providing services for the evacuees. Cash or check donations will be accepted at these locations:

United Way of Denton County
625 Dallas Drive, Suite 525
Denton, Texas 76205
Information and Referral
940-566-2688

On Sept. 17, the signing of the U.S. Constitution will be commemorated with a free lecture, Does the Constitution Still Matter? by federal Judge Catharina Haynes, left, of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. The lecture is at 4 p.m., University Union, Lyceum. A reception will follow in the Lyceum Gallery from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m.

Other Constitution Day events include a debate and a banner provided by the political science department in the free speech area on the east side of the Union from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Sept. 16 and 17. Students can obtain a copy of the Constitution and debate whether they themselves would have signed the document. Students may sign the banner Would You Sign the Constitution? to indicate their support or disapproval.

For more information, e-mail Kimi King, associate professor of political science, right, or call 940-565-2276

The holiday was created in 2004 with the passage of an amendment by U.S. Sen. Robert Byrd to an appropriations bill. The date, Sept. 17 was previously known only as Citizenship Day, which was signed into law by President Harry S. Truman in 1952. The holiday recognized those who had become U.S. citizens during the previous year.

While the expanded Constitution Day and Citizenship Day mandates that all publicly funded educational institutions provide educational programs on the history of the American constitution, the holiday does not give federal employees time off from work.

(Editor's Note: Find the survey at  http://iracc.unt.edu/cgi-bin/qwebcorporate.dll?idx=A9QFGU).

Human Resources will conduct an online survey to assess training needs beginning Sept. 2. The survey will remain online for two weeks through Sept. 16. The survey should take no more than 15 minutes to complete. A link to the survey will be sent to all staff and faculty via an Administrative Announcement on Sept. 2.

“Have you ever looked around and thought that your team really needs to be trained on a particular topic,” asks Shaureece Park, human resources manager. “This is your chance to let us know. We need input from every staff and faculty member and this is your chance to help us develop an outstanding training program. The program will be designed to help staff and faculty master the skills necessary to be successful in their current job and future opportunities at UNT.”

Human Resources also will hold focus groups after the survey has closed to get more detailed information about training issues. Faculty and staff may volunteer to participate in the focus groups when completing the survey. “If you have an area of expertise that you would be willing to share with staff and faculty, please indicate that on the survey as well,” says Park.

Survey reminders and links will be published in the Sept. 3 and Sept. 10 e-mail issues of InHouse. “We look forward to partnering with you in developing a great program for the UNT community,” says Park.

Rick Nader, a program manager for the National Science Foundation, joined UNT Sept. 2 as a director of research development. An additional director of research development will join UNT as soon as possible, says Vish Prasad, vice president of research.

Nader is part of the university’s ongoing commitment to increase and emphasize research and heighten UNT’s national and international visibility. Nader’s appointment follows the announcement that Harold Strong, formerly the leader of Texas A&M’s research park, has joined UNT as director of Discovery Park and technology transfer. 

Nader’s duties will include developing university-wide initiatives to advance faculty research, creativity and innovations through proposal development in education, humanities, social services and arts. He will work with faculty and research administrators in competitive development of funding and will assist in writing, reviewing and editing proposals for government agencies, foundations and non-profit organizations.

Nader will also develop and present grant writing workshops and seminars for faculty.

Nader has spent the past three years at the National Science Foundation’s Office of International Science and Engineering, where he oversaw a $16 million portfolio across a broad spectrum of NSF-funded projects in China. Nader has served on review panels and has obtained funding from both the U.S. and foreign government agencies and private foundations.

Beginning Sept. 6 and on each home football game day, special event parking guidelines will be enforced by official parking staff in Parking Lot 19, next to Santa Fe Square and Traditions Hall, and Lot 20, surrounding Fouts Field.

Get up early on game days. If vehicles in these two lots are not moved by 8 a.m., they will be towed at owners’ expense. Parking lots will be reserved for fans and supporters who have paid for game day parking.

Cost for towing is $125. Owners can make payment and pick up arrangements at the parking office, which will be open on game days from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., or until all towed vehicles are retrieved, whichever comes first.
For those who have a valid parking permit and normally park in those lots, parking options on game days include parking in any other parking lot on campus, at campus parking meters for no charge or at lots 3 and 4 at Discovery Park after 5 p.m. weekdays and anytime on weekends. The UNT shuttle service operates between these lots and the main campus.

For more information, visit www.unt.edu/transit, or call the Parking Office at 940-565-3020. With the exception of Lots 19 and 20, vehicles may park in any UNT ‘P’, ‘R’, ‘D’ or ‘A’ parking spaces, without a permit, on prohibited Saturday game days – unless signage on a particular lot states parking permits are enforced 24 hours a day. Regular parking in Lots 19 and 20 resumes at 7 a.m. Sunday after games.

Home football game dates are: 

• Sept. 6 – Tulsa
• Oct. 4 – Florida International
• Oct. 11 – Louisiana-Lafayette: Family Weekend
• Oct. 25 – Troy: Homecoming
• Nov. 29 – Arkansas State

Learn more about the team and each game by attending Head Coach Todd Dodge's, left, weekly briefing, which also is broadcast on KNTU.

 

 

The new College Optical Express, opening Sept. 15 in the Student Health and Wellness Center, will offer a wide range of eye care and eyewear services focusing exclusively on the UNT community. A grand opening is scheduled for Oct. 1.

College Optical Express is a VIOPSYS (Vision Operating System) Certified location, which ensures the latest technology is used when it comes to patient management and product ordering.

Faculty and staff only need to show a UNT ID to use the vision center’s services. In the future, they may obtain a vision benefits card.

The vision center will be located on the first floor of the Student Health and Wellnees Center and will be open 9 a.m. - 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, and occasionally from 9 a.m. - 1 p.m. on Saturday. During the summer months, the center may operate on a reduced schedule. In addition, patients may acces www.collegeopticalexpress.com to re-order contact lenses or other eyewear needs.

College Optical Express will provide UNT students, faculty and staff with the following:

• Comprehensive eye exams
• Selective eye care treatment
• Eyeglass lenses and frames
• On-site laboratory, with same or next day service
• Eyeglass repairs and adjustments
• Contact lenses
• Designer sunglasses
• Sports and safety glasses
• Eyewear accessories
• LASIK surgery screenings and referrals

David Baptiste will serve as the center’s therapeutic optometrist. He is trained to diagnose signs of ocular, neurological and systemic health problems and treat vision disorders. Baptiste is able to treat eye diseases, eye injuries, prescribe medicine and perform other procedures such as eye foreign body removal. He also has eight years of experience in LASIK pre- and post-operative patient management.

Baptiste received his undergraduate degree from Xavier University in New Orleans and his doctor of optometry degree from the Pennsylvania College of Optometry. He is licensed by the Texas Optometry Board.

Giovanni Feroce, founder and chief executive officer of College Optical Express Franchise Company Inc., says: “I am very appreciative that UNT has decided to offer the best eyewear and eye care services to its university family. Our full-service retail optical shop has been serving college campuses since 1993. We bring expanded health services which in and of itself is a great benefit to students.”

Grant money equaling almost a half a million dollars will benefit 133 students for use toward tuition and other school expenses. UNT students will receive $449,175, almost half of TG’s Texas allotment of $1 million. The money, awarded from the TG Foundation’s Charley Wootan Grant program, is to be used during the 2008-09 academic year.

Students will receive between $1,000 and $4,245 dollars to use toward tuition and other school expenses. TG also provides an additional $1 million for students outside of Texas.

"We sent out two e-mail blasts, and the UNT students took full advantage of the opportunity,” said Carolyn Cunningham, right, director of financial aid. “Grant money is especially desirable since it is not usually based on merit, and it does not have to be paid back.”

For more information, contact Cunningham or visit student financial aid and scholarships.

The Charley Wootan Grant Program was established by the TG Foundation in 2000 to honor Charley V. Wootan, a former chair of the TG Board of Directors. In previous years the foundation distributed the Wootan money in the form of block grants to the schools; however, in 2008 the grants were given to individual students on a first-come, first-serve basis.

In previous years, the university received only $10,000 worth of Wootan Grant money, which the office of financial aid would then distribute among individual students. TG’s decision to distribute funds directly to students, instead of to home institutions, meant almost 50 times more funding for UNT students this year. The awards are for one year of study, but students can reapply each year.

Created by the Texas Legislature in 1979, TG is a public, nonprofit Corporation that administers the Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP).

UNT’s Office of Financial Aid and Scholarships and the Office for Nationally Competitive Scholarships help students secure millions of dollars in financial aid each year. In fact, UNT was one of the first institutions in the nation to open an office exclusively dedicated to the procurement of nationally competitive scholarships.

Sept. 1, 2008

UNT, in cooperation with the American Red Cross, Denton County and the City of Denton, is providing shelter in the Coliseum for people evacuated from the Gulf Coast ahead of Hurricane Gustav. Find information about Gustav.

The shelter, which is being managed by the Red Cross, is housing only persons bused from the locations along the Gulf Coast. Persons who evacuated by themselves are asked to contact the Evacuee Hotline at 940-349-4270 to register and to obtain information about resources.

Because much of the Coliseum is in use as a shelter, access to the building is limited. Only students who have classes in the Coliseum, UNT staff and Red Cross volunteers should be entering the building during the duration of the shelter’s operation. Above and below, UNT volunteers help prepare the coliseum for evacuees.

If you wish to volunteer with the Red Cross, call 214-678-4800 or visit www.redcrossdallas.org/ to select your local chapter and download a volunteer application. 

Trained volunteers will be needed to help support the Red Cross shelter management team, though placement at the UNT shelter is not guaranteed.

Donations of supplies and clothing should be made to the Red Cross, not taken to the Coliseum.  If you wish to make a monetary donation to support the evacuees, please contact the United Way of Denton at www.unitedwaydenton.org.

Storm evacuees will have access to campus so please make them feel welcome.

A Shelter Boot Camp training class and background check will be from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sept. 2 at the City of Denton Central Fire Station, 332 E. Hickory. Call 940-349-8840.