PresRelease

Elie Wiesel, Nobel Laureate, Holocaust survivor and human rights activist, will speak on “Building a Moral Society” this Tuesday, September 29 at UConn’s Dodd Center, marking the 30th anniversary of the Center for Judaic Studies and Contemporary Jewish Life in our College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.  The talk also honors the establishment last year of the Doris and Simon Konover Chair of Judaic Studies, held by sociologist Arnold Dashefsky, who is director of the Judaic Studies Center.  Simon Konover, himself a Holocaust survivor, will introduce Elie Wiesel.

Wiesel was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986.  He has also won the U.S. Congressional Gold Medal (1985) and the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1992).  He has published over 50 books, his first being Night, about his time in Nazi concentration camps.

The lecture will be held in the von der Mehden Recital Hall on the Storrs campus on Tuesday, September 29, from 4pm – 5:30pm.  There is no admission charge, but rsvp’s have reached capacity and there is a waiting list.  To be added to the wait list or for further information regarding this event, please contact:
University Events, (860) 486-1038, rsvp@uconn.edu

UConn has a green roof.  I’m not talking about the dark green metal roofs on Towers Residence Halls.

On September 2, members of the EcoHusky student group and the student chapter of the Soil and Water Conservation Society, along with residents from UConn’s new environmental learning community, EcoHouse, carried 334 modules of plants from the area in front of the BioPhysics Building to the adjacent plaza on the Gant Complex. They then assembled the two foot by four foot plastic trays into a design created by John Alexopoulos, an associate professor of landscape architecture, to make a Green Roof garden on the roof of the Physics wing of the Gant Complex.  It’s a pleasant, rooftop park accessible to anyone who wants to sit outside.

But it’s more than just a rooftop garden.  The Green Roof will reduce storm water runoff and improve water quality by retaining and filtering rainwater.  Additional benefits include reductions in heating and cooling costs for the building and a lessening of the “heat island” effect common in urban areas.  Professor John Clausen in the College of Agriculture is closely involved in the project. There’s an online news story about it on NBC Connecticut, WFSB and also UConn Today.

The project is supported by a $50,000 grant from the Environmental Protection Agency and the state Department of Environmental Protection. Park benches were purchased through the Green Campus Fund at the UConn Foundation.  It’s the culmination of a student-led initiative of the UConn Soil and Water Conservation Society.

Dan Henderson

Third-year UConn med student Dan Henderson from Cheshire, CT is the new “Next Top Doc” at the American Medical Student Association.  He won the competition at the AMSA convention.  You can read a full report at UConn Today.  His interest in emergency medicine proved to be the deciding factor.

Dan is currently completing a one-year fellowship with AMSA as a Health Justice Fellow. He’s working full-time in Washington, D.C., in a position he describes as “a community organizer for medical students.” Henderson will return for his fourth year at the UConn School of Medicine next May.  You can read more about him on the AMSA staff page.

I’ve been known to watch the TV show ‘House’ on occasion.  Are we looking forward to “Henderson”?

Dean Choi
Connecticut House Majority Leader Denise Merrill has appointed UConn’s Dean of Engineering Mun Choi to the State of Connecticut Renewable Energy Investment Board (also known as the “Clean Energy Fund”). His service begins immediately and coterminous with Rep. Merrill’s tenure as House Majority Leader.

Dean Choi has a lot going on. The School of Engineering recently captured four U.S. Department of Education grants aimed at enhancing the nation’s technological competitiveness. The three-year grants were made under the agency’s Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need (GAANN) program. The grant support, paired with additional matching funds, totals nearly $1 million per year and will support approximately 30 to 35 graduate students annually.

“It’s actually very simple…”

I used to be involved in engineering, too, on the Illinois Central. But that was several years ago.

UConn grad student Kathryn Theiss is among twenty graduate students in environmental studies chosen from universities in California and New England to receive this year’s Switzer Fellowship from the Robert & Patricia Switzer Foundation, one of the nation’s most prestigious awards for early‐career environmental leaders.  The award will help fund Kathryn’s doctoral research in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.  Her research has taken her to Madagascar six times and involves local stakeholders in the creation of conservation strategies for the native orchids. To gain a complete understanding of the threats to the native orchids, Kathryn combines field techniques such as demographic measurements and reproductive studies with genetic techniques in the lab. She is also involved in surveying orchid sellers in Madagascar to assess the economic incentives for harvesting orchids.
Erasanthe henrici
Before coming to UConn, Kathryn earned a B.A. at Willamette University in French and Biology where she studied abroad for a semester in Madagascar.  She also worked as a research intern at the Chicago Botanic Garden monitoring rare plants, including two species of federally threatened orchids, around the Midwest.
You can read more about Kathryn’s work in a recent CLAS web post.  Here’s a photo of Kathryn with some of her fellow researchers on one of her recent visits to Madagascar.

Working with orchids in Madagascar isn’t all fun and games.  UConn Professor Kent Holsinger commented on the political situation in Madagascar – and how it has been hindering Kathryn’s visits – in a March 2009 entry on his blog Uncommon Ground.