The PresRelease is my own little page where I can share items of interest, celebration, or concern with my University colleagues. It's my hope to update things here every few days. If you'd like to get in touch with me, I invite you to email me at this address: president@uconn.edu.
I might use one of your emails for a future posting.
Registration
Schedule
What is open on the Storrs campus during the Alumni Weekend?
Husky alums will be all over the Storrs campus the weekend of June 5-6. New features of this year’s Alumni Weekend are:
Special Events for the Class of 1959. All alumni are welcome to attend!
Kid-friendly! Suitable for alumni and their families.
Class of 1959, do you remember:
Nash Metropolitan
Ike and Dick
WHUS Radio (who is this?)
Al Cooper
Jonathan IV
Congratulations to UConn grad students Amanda Wendt and Jonathan Winterstein who received Fulbright Scholarships to continue their studies and research abroad this coming year. Winterstein, a doctoral student in materials science & engineering, will carry out research for nine months at the Austrian Centre for Electron Microscopy and Nanoanalysis – an institute renowned for its high quality electron spectroscopy and microscopy. The Centre is associated with the Technical University of Graz. Amanda Wendt, a doctoral student in ecology and evolutionary biology in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, will continue her research on bats and their role in the regeneration of tropical forests in Costa Rica. You can read more about Amanda’s and Jonathan’s research projects in the UConn Advance.
Amanda Wendt 
tent bats
Jonathan Winterstein 
cerium oxide
A bit of history: The Fulbright legislation was established in 1946, slipping through the Senate without any debate. The program was an amendment to legislation that originally allowed participants to pursue academic exchange funded by the sale of surplus war material, reparations and foreign loan repayment to the United States. Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas sponsored the amendment – he was a four-year starting Razorback football player and a Rhodes Scholar. President Truman signed the Act on August 1, 1946.
HST signing with Sen. Fulbright (center)
The final legislative underpinnings of the Fulbright academic exchange program came with the Mutual Educational and Cultural Exchange Act of 1961, which is also known as the Fulbright-Hays Act (Senator Fulbright introduced it in the Senate and Representative Wayne Hays of Ohio, in the House). This law is still the basic charter for all U.S. Government sponsored educational and cultural exchanges. Source. “The exchange program is the thing that reconciles me to all the difficulties of political life,” Fulbright commented. “It’s the only activity that gives me some hope that the human race won’t commit suicide, though I still wouldn’t count on it.” The New Yorker, May 10, 1958.
Congratulations to Professor Robert Birge, The Harold S. Schwenk, Sr., Distinguished Chair in Chemistry. He was selected to receive the 2009 Connecticut Medal of Science, the state’s highest award for scientists. The award was presented at the annual meeting of the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering in Windsor Locks on May 20.
Professor Birge is known for his basic research on protein structure and function and in biomolecular electronics. He has written widely about the molecular basis of vision and his research has far-reaching implications for the development of molecular electronic devices. His ultimate goal is to make a computer with true artificial intelligence. He typically works with scientists from other fields, including physicists and biologists. For example, Professor Birge worked with researchers at UConn’s Institute of Materials Science to establish a Center for Nanobionics, which has given UConn and the state a competitive advantage in an economically important field.
He has just launched a startup company on the UConn campus that will eventually manufacture an artificial retinal implant for humans. You can read more about his research and career in the UConn new release and an article in the May 22 Hartford Courant.
Rupert Brooke (1887-1915)
If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is forever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam;
A body of England’s, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.
Brooke, of course, wrote about England but the sentiments apply equally to our own Memorial Day.
Many residents of the UConn community fondly remember the Nutmeg Summer Playhouse. Founded in 1949, summer theater productions in this series were extremely popular, playing to sell-out crowds from Storrs and neighboring towns year after year. In 2003 major budget reductions at the state level forced the closing of the Nutmeg Summer Series. But we’ve managed to bring it back this summer, with our great thanks to some private donors for their support, and we plan to continue and expand the Series next year and beyond.
The musical Crowns by Regina Taylor will be presented June 11-21 on the Jorgensen stage. The production is co-produced by our Connecticut Repertory Theatre in collaboration with Indiana Repertory Theatre and Syracuse Stage. It will feature a full professional cast and professional musicians who will perform the show in Indianapolis and Syracuse before arriving in Storrs June 11. So they should be well-rehearsed and energetic. Here’s the schedule:
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Tickets can be purchased by calling 860-486-4226 or online (after March 30) at www.crt.uconn.edu. Subscriber discounts are available only by phone. Please call or visit the box office for specific show dates and times because performance schedules vary and are subject to change. Weeknight evening performances start at 7:30 p.m. Weekend evening performances start at 8 p.m. Matinee performances start at 2 p.m.
Maybe I’ll see you there!
