Carbondale Calendars and Events
Edwardsville Calendars and Events
East St. Louis Calendars and Events

Two women with extensive teaching, research and administrative experience are the finalists for the position of chancellor at SIUC.  The Chancellor Search Committee identified the finalists during an announcement reception Nov. 2 in Morris Library’s John C. Guyon Auditorium. They are:

• Rita Cheng, provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, a doctoral research university with an enrollment of 29,000. She visited campus Nov. 4 – 6.
• Barbara Couture, senior vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, a doctoral research university with an enrollment of 24,100. She will visit SIUC Nov. 8-10.

Thomas C. Britton, associate professor of law in the SIU School of Law and co-chair of the committee, expects the committee to make a final recommendation to SIU President Glenn Poshard by mid-November.

As one of the nation’s notable moot court events, winning the Southern Illinois University School of Law’s annual National Health Law Moot Court Competition is a significant achievement. But the two-day event’s primary focus remains providing law students the opportunity to enhance their written and oral appellate advocacy skills while addressing legal aspects involved with some of the nation’s daunting health care issues. The 18th annual competition is Friday, Nov. 6, and Saturday, Nov. 7, in SIUC Hiram H. Lesar Law Building. Students representing 22 law schools will participate this year. More information on the event is available at http://www.law.siu.edu/healthlawmootcourt/.  Sixteen teams advance to begin Saturday’s competition. The top two teams meet in the finals at 4 p.m. in the law school courtroom.

The SIUE School of Pharmacy has been awarded — along with the Saint Louis University Department of Pharmacology and Physiology — a $974,024 National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant to study ways of relieving chronic pain through new approaches in treating neuroinflammation. Funding for the NIH grant was made possible in part by federal stimulus funding through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. William Neumann, an assistant professor of medicinal chemistry in the SIUE School of Pharmacy, and Professor Daniela Salvemini, an associate professor of pharmacological and physiological science at the SLU School of Medicine, are the project’s principal researchers who will be studying how “peroxynitrite” (produced in the body in inflammatory settings) can actually cause chronic pain when the body produces too much of the chemical. Studies have shown chronic pain is a global problem but in the United States alone one third of Americans suffer from it. However, about 30 percent of those chronic pain sufferers report that drugs now available on the market do not help the problem.

SIUC is poised to write the next chapter in the saga that began on May 8.  And, as was the case in the days and weeks following the devastating windstorm, volunteers will play a key role in the ongoing restoration efforts.  SIUC officials, relying on input from a focus group, developed a plan to plant 200 trees in mowed areas around campus in a single day -- Friday, Nov. 13.  All the holes will be ready, and trees, fresh dirt and tools will be at each location.  The key ingredient will be volunteers.  Plant and Service Operations and Student Development are working together to coordinate the efforts of volunteers, who will work in two-hour shifts.  Registered Student Organizations, and individual faculty and staff members -- along with members of the community at large -- interested in volunteering should call the Student Development office at 453-5714 by 4 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 10.  Several students joined Chancellor Samuel Goldman Nov. 6 to jump-start the restoration effort by planting three trees near Wheeler Hall.

Donna Margolis is going Disney, but don’t look for her in a Mouseketeer costume.  Actually, Margolis, assistant dean of the College of Business at SIUC, is a new member of the prestigious Disney College Program National Advisory Board. Her recent appointment is for a three-year term. The board members serve as liaisons between the Disney Co. and the universities and colleges it recruits from.  During the past 29 years, thousands of college students from around the world have participated in the Disney College Program at the Florida and California facilities, earning income while acquiring valuable, hands-on experience within their fields of study.  SIUC’s partnership with Disney is not new. The College of Business and Disney sponsored the “Student Experience Committee” in 2007, bringing Disney management to SIUC for a student services forum and sending committee members to Chicago to participate in a Disney Institute conference.

Illinois Department of Human Rights Director Rocco Claps visited the SIUE campus, making his first stop in the state to highlight a law that protects students from sexual harassment. About 25 staff, faculty and students turned out for the director's visit to find out more about legislation that Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn Governor signed into public act on Aug. 18. Claps discussed a new measure that requires universities and institutions of higher learning to display posters explaining sexual harassment laws and policies in prominent and accessible areas for all students. The notice explains what sexual harassment is and what students can do about it. The director was joined by Paul Pitts, assistant chancellor for Institutional Compliance, at SIUE in the Morris University Center Meridian Ballroom pre-function area. The amendment to the Illinois Human Rights Act calls for colleges, universities and institutions of higher learning to display posters in common areas, such as residence halls, administration buildings, student unions, cafeterias and libraries. College campuses also can satisfy the posting requirement by providing each student an electronic copy of the sexual harassment laws and policies at the time that registration materials are emailed. Illinois higher education institutions affected by this law must be in compliance on or prior to Nov. 17, 2009.

The School of Art and Design welcomes triple-threat artist Roger Shimomura to Southern Illinois University Carbondale.  Shimomura specializes in painting, prints and theater. He presents a free lecture beginning at 7 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 9, in the University Museum Auditorium and a free performance workshop beginning at 1 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 10, in the Surplus Gallery in the Glove Factory at 432 S. Washington Ave., Carbondale.  Shimomura’s work, by his own description, addresses sociopolitical issues faced by Asian Americans. He takes inspiration, he said, from diaries kept by his late grandmother, an immigrant. The diaries cover more than 50 years of her life.

A man recognized globally for his visualization expertise in the field of architecture is coming to Southern Illinois University Carbondale.  Lon Grohs will present “Telling the Future: The Story Behind Architectural Visualization” at 7 p.m. Nov. 12 in the John C. Guyon Auditorium at Morris Library. The free lecture, funded by the Student Fine Arts Activity Fee, is open to the public.  Grohs is creative director and a principal in the firm Neoscape, based in Boston. One of the world’s leading architectural visualization studios, Neoscape also has offices in New York and the United Kingdom. Grohs leads the company’s visualization teams in shaping the vision of projects while pushing technological, creative and artistic limits with the goal of creating the most beautiful and impactful designs possible.

Three faculty members in the SIUE School of Education and four fellows from the SIUE Piasa Bluffs Writing Project have formed a research partnership with Stanford University's Design-Thinking School. Thanks to an SIUE School of Education grant, Associate Professor Susan Breck, Assistant Professor Ralph Cordova and Associate Professor Ann Taylor, all from the SIUE Department of Curriculum and Instruction — as well as the Piasa Bluffs fellows: Jacqueline Green, Patricia Swank and Renee Greenlee — attended a research meeting at Stanford. The goal of the partnership is to bring design-thinking into SIUE classrooms, Cordova said. Cordova described design-thinking as teachers “moving away from just designing the ‘ideal lesson plan,’ to viewing ourselves as creating multiple iterations of an ideal lesson plan.  It involves the belief that the best lesson plan is not developed in a vacuum in one sitting out of the mind of one person. Rather, when we learn to develop creative confidence in ourselves as thinkers,” Cordova said, “(we) engage with others ... in a creative collaboration using multiple perspectives to solve problems.” He added: "We have a dynamite teacher education program and talented faculty and students, with the talent to push and innovate teaching and learning far into the 21st century.”  “Ultimately, the lessons learned from the (Design-Thinking) School's success urge us to consider re-thinking how we collaborate with our students, faculty and industry partners in the larger community.  We are developing a research partnership and know that the SIUE community would learn a great deal about design-thinking and how it interfaces with our current School of Education Curriculum and Instruction initiatives,” he said.

A scientist at the SIU School of Medicine in Springfield has been awarded a five-year federal grant from the National Institute of Drug Abuse, a division of the National Institutes of Health, to study a new chronic pain treatment.  The total budget for the grant is $1,404,510.  Louis Premkumar, associate professor of pharmacology, is the principal investigator for the project.  The research will study a new drug, Resiniferatoxin (RTX), as a potential treatment for chronic, debilitating, terminal pain in patients such as those with bone cancer or large mass abdominal cancer where other drugs are not effective.  Currently the only treatment for patients with chronic pain is morphine which has severe side effects.  RTX is administered directly into the spinal cord to treat chronic pain.

The No. 3 football Salukis hit the road to take on No. 9 South Dakota State at 1 p.m. Nov 7 in a game that has playoff implications.  The Dawgs allowed only 90 yards of total offense in a 33-0 shutout victory over Indiana State on Oct. 31 for their 12th-straight Missouri Valley Football Conference.  The Salukis are 7-1 overall and a perfect 6-0 in conference play.  A win against South Dakota State would give SIUC an automatic berth in the FCS playoffs.  The final regular season home game and the last game in McAndrew Stadium is Saturday, Nov. 14 against Missouri State.  Kick-off is 2 p.m.

In his sixth annual address to the University community, SIUE Chancellor Vaughn Vandegrift delivered a status update of the University’s key goals set in 2004, while also reveling in the national attention SIUE has been attracting in the past few years. He pointed out that for the first time this year, U.S.News & World Report ranked SIUE nationally among 77 “up and coming schools firmly focused on improving the job they’re doing today.” In his report, Material Progress Toward National Recognition, Vandegrift presented encouraging news regarding SIUE and its future. He spoke in the Morris University Center Meridian Ballroom on campus to about 400 members of the University community and guests. He said the University is now viewed as a first-choice, first-tier institution by its peers and was recognized nationally in 2006 by the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) for its Senior Assignment program. The AAC&U called SIUE’s program an effective tool in gauging the comprehensiveness of academic offerings. Senior Assignment is required for all seniors at SIUE to demonstrate their degree of general education knowledge, as well as knowledge within their disciplines prior to graduation. In addition to the AAC&U, the program has been recognized by U.S. News for the past three years as a model for other institutions across the nation. In addition, Vandegrift pointed out, U.S. News has ranked SIUE in the top 15 public universities in the Midwest-Master’s category for the fourth consecutive year and also is ranked in the top one-third of all public and private Midwestern universities by the magazine. In his report, Vandegrift also examined the University’s progress on the three initial goals set in October 2004, which include aligning the University’s enrollment management program to attract a student population that is characteristic of a premier Metropolitan University; positioning the University as a premier Metropolitan University in the marketplace of ideas by establishing a brand in the higher education community; and developing the University’s resource base.