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Women's History Month 2008 at SIUC celebrates the heritage and history of womankind with a full slate of March activities.  "Her-Story in the Making" is the theme and the coming weeks offer luncheons and benefits, memorable performances and a women's safety class, a health and beauty expo and much more in celebration of womanhood and the contributions of women.  Kicking off the festivities is the V Day Festival and silent auction.  SIUC students, faculty and members of the community at large will display their dramatic talents performing Eve Ensler's award-winning play "The Vagina Monologues.”  It's the eighth annual SIUC performance of the play first performed off-Broadway by Ensler more than a decade ago.  The presentation explores the wide-ranging experiences of women through the eyes of ladies of differing ages and experiences.  For more information, contact Women's Studies at (618)453-5141 or Student Development-Multicultural Programs and Services at (618)453-5714, visit the office on the third floor of the Student Center or look online at www.stddev.siu.edu.

Beginning March 3 SIUE will offer students and employees the opportunity to register their cell phones as part of a new campus-wide “e-Lert” program through a wireless emergency notification system.  The alert system will be used in the case of an ongoing emergency on campus, such as a hostile intruder or tornado warnings and/or sightings.  Emergency notifications will include events that present a serious, significant disruption to the campus community and pose an immediate danger to life, health and University property.  Snow closures will be included in the alerts; however, no non-emergency text messages other than testing will be allowed.  Those registering on any given day will be updated into the system overnight.  E-mail messages will be sent to all 13,500 SIUE students and to more than 2,300 employees, directing them to a Web site (www.siue.edu/e-lert) where they will be able to register a cell phone number if they have an active e-ID and a password.

Beginning with the summer 2008 semester, students at SIUC have the option of including a Native American Studies minor in their course of study.  The University approved the minor, setting up a core of required courses from the anthropology and history departments supplemented by courses in English and sociology and from the School of Art and Design.  The interdisciplinary minor is 18 credit hours, including six hours of required core courses, and 12 hours of electives.  The required courses are upper division undergraduate anthropology courses focusing on Native Americans in South America, Mesoamerica, the Andes or the Southwest.  Electives include such courses as Latin American Popular Culture, Mayan Texts, Native American Verbal Art, Pre-Columbian Art, Folklore and Mythology, Race and Ethnic Relations in the United States and Native and Contemporary Native American Art classes.  A full description of the minor will appear in the summer 2008 catalog.

The Southwestern Illinois Entrepreneurship Center at SIUE will host Protecting Intellectual Property Rights Seminars from 6-7:30 p.m. Wednesdays, March 19 and April 9, in the Mississippi Room on the second floor of SIUE’s Morris University Center.  The fee is $10 per person for each of the two-part series.  Individuals may attend one or both events.  The first seminar, Introduction to Intellectual Property, is a basic introductory seminar, while the second seminar, Basics of Licensing, addresses legal issues.

There's a siren coming to SIUC- the enchanting jazz singer Sony Holland.  Holland fronts the SIUC faculty premier jazz act, the New Arts Jazztet, in a concert beginning at 7:30 p.m. on March 5 at McLeod Theater in the Communications Building.  Tickets are $10 for the general public, $5 for SIUC students with proper identification.  Tickets are available through the McLeod Box Office.  Box office hours are noon to 5:30 p.m. on weekdays and also one hour before each performance.  Call the box office at (618)453-3001 to order tickets.  Holland is an established star in her home-base of San Francisco, playing such venues as Yoshi's (both in San Francisco and Oakland) and the Sunday Jazz Brunch Series held at the Legion Café of the Legion of Honor, part of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.  She commands sell-out performances at the Jazz and Blues Company in Carmel and 'Frisco's Jazz at Pearl's, to name a few.  Holland's recent tour schedule includes several Asian destinations, including a three-month stint in the Sirroco in Bangkok, a posh restaurant and jazz club atop one of Thailand's tallest skyscrapers, and dates in Tokyo and Hong Kong.

A group of SIUE Housing staff and SIUE students, and architects from Mackey Mitchell Architects of St. Louis have created their vision of the residence hall of the future.  Their design was voted the People’s Choice Award in the second phase of a three-phase competition conducted by the Association of College & University Housing Officers—International (ACUHO-I).  It was the second time that the SIUE-Mackey Mitchell design concept captured the imagination of attendees for the People’s Choice Award.  The SIUE concept focuses on the “block and neighborhood” of a residence hall community, defined by the interaction of the students and the relationship between public and private spaces, and how those concepts foster social and academic activity.

Just 1.5 points.  That's the slim margin that kept SIUC's Cyber Defense Team from taking the top spot at the recent state competition.  SIUC took second place for Illinois at the Indiana/Illinois Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition last month at Fort Wayne, Ind., behind DePaul University.  The eight-member SIUC spent many hours since October preparing for the collegiate exercise in security defense and protection of information technology infrastructure and networks.  The "Security Dawgs" represent the SIUC School of Information Systems and Applied Technologies within the College of Applied Sciences and Arts.  Each team begins the collegiate competition with identical functioning networks, each having vulnerabilities and each fighting off challenges and attacks including viruses, service denials and other problems while completing business "injects," similar to the assignments they would have in the real information technology world.  How well they complete their assignments and keep their systems running while fighting off technological attacks and protecting against vulnerabilities determines their score.

Award-winning composer-folksinger Arlo Guthrie — who appeared four times at SIUE’s Mississippi River Festival (MRF) — will make his triumphant return to the University in a 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 5, concert on campus.  Solo Reunion Tour — Together At Last is part of SIUE’s 2007-08 Arts & Issues series in the Morris University Center’s Meridian Ballroom and also is part of the University’s year-long 50th Anniversary Celebration.  Guthrie’s appearance is being sponsored by the SIUE Alumni Association.  Throughout his career, Guthrie has furthered the legacy of his father, the legendary folksinger Woody Guthrie, but with a more modern sound in American string traditions.

Three SIUC faculty members are among the 52 in the state to receive awards from the Illinois Arts Council for 2008.  Pinckney Benedict, a professor of creative writing in the English department, and David Rush, a playwriting professor in the theater department, both received Artist Fellowships, a $7,000 grant.  Jacinda Townsend, assistant professor of creative writing in the English department, won a $700 finalist award.  The Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, named in total 38 fellowship winners and 14 finalist awards for 2008, handing out $266,000 and $9,800 in grants, respectively.  The grants recognize outstanding work and commitment within the arts, according to IAC descriptions of the grants.  The Artist Fellowships Program recognizes 12 artistic disciplines.  The IAC funds fellowships in a rotating cycle.  This year, the program focused on choreography, crafts, ethnic and folk arts, media arts and new performance forms as well as prose writing and playwriting.  There were 496 applicants total.  Juries for each discipline select the fellowship and finalist winners.

A grant worth $134,075 to the SIUE Department of Curriculum and Instruction will be used to educate teachers from across the nation about Abraham Lincoln and his influence in shaping modern America.  The project, Abraham Lincoln and the Forging of Modern America, is being organized by the principal grant writer, Caroline Pryor, assistant professor of curriculum and instruction, and the project’s co-director, Susan Breck, associate professor of curriculum and instruction.  Both are SIUE faculty members in the School of Education.  Funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, “Landmarks of American History and Culture: Workshops for Schoolteachers” will take place in two, one-week sessions: June 22-27 and July 20-25.

Dr. Kathy Bottum, assistant professor of internal medicine and psychiatry at the SIU School of Medicine, is the first recipient of SIU's Clinician Scientist Research Award.  Her proposal, "Mechanisms of Resistance to Exitotoxicity in Suprachiasmatic Nucleus," is a study of a group of neurons in the brain which may provide clues to a new treatment for stroke.  The award was created as a method to enhance research at SIU.  Dr. Bradley Schwartz, associate professor of urology, has received the first Concept Development Award from SIU for his research project, "A New Stone Retrieval Device and Laser Resistant Material."  The project goal is to develop a new basket-like device designed to better remove kidney stones.  The award was created to support the development and marketing of new medical technologies at SIU.

Mark your calendars for the second annual Saluki Expo and Brunch at the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament on Saturday, March 8, in St. Louis.  The event is set for 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the newly renovated Hilton at the Ballpark.  The cost is $20 per person, $10 for members of the SIU Alumni Association and $5 for students.  The marketing department of SIUC's College of Business and Administration, the SIUC Department of Marketing External Advisory Board and the SIU Alumni Association are sponsoring the event, which will feature booths by University departments, SIUC-affiliated organizations and businesses including Anheuser-Busch, Federated Insurance, Delta Dental, Pinch Penny Pub and River Radio, to name a few.  The event showcases SIUC colleges and departments, highlights businesses that support the University and includes a brunch so participants can mingle.  During the expo, participants will also be treated to a Saluki Nation "Pep Rally" featuring SIU President Glenn Poshard, SIUC Chancellor Fernando Treviño and SIU Athletic Director Mario Moccia, SIU cheerleaders, mascots and a pep band.

SIUE Women's Soccer Coach Lynda Bowers, the 2007 Great Lakes Valley Conference's Coach of the Year, has announced she will not return to the Cougar sidelines for the 2008 season.  Bowers informed SIUE Director of Athletics Brad Hewitt that she was resigning effective at the end of her current contract in order to pursue other opportunities outside of coaching.

The Salukis' regular-season finale against Illinois State is sold-out for the general public.  Less than 600 student tickets remain.  Saturday's game tips off at 7:30 p.m., and the winner will claim the coveted No. 2 seed in next week's Missouri Valley Conference Tournament.  The loser will have the No. 3 seed.  In addition to being Senior Day at SIU Arena, Saluki Athletics will honor its 2008 Hall of Fame class during halftime.  The class includes Erin Campbell, Cornell Craig, Chris Gally, Bart Scott and Scott Waltemate.  The sell out is SIU's fourth of the season.  The other three were Indiana, Butler and Creighton.