Spectrum - Volume 21 Issue 07 October 8, 1998 - BULLETINS

A non-profit publication of the Office of the University Relations of Virginia Tech,
including The Conductor , a special section of the Spectrum printed 4 times a year

BULLETINS

Spectrum Volume 21 Issue 07 - October 8, 1998

International Scholars Symposium scheduled
The Office of International Research and Development, the University Office of International Programs, the Cranwell International Center, and the Department of Human Nutrition, Foods, and Exercise are co-sponsoring an International Scholars Symposium on Friday, Oct. 16. Faculty members and graduate students will give 15-minute presentations on their work abroad. The symposium will take place from 9 to 11:45 a.m. at the Cranwell Center before an international World Food Day telecast at noon. A simple meal will be served for which donations will be accepted. For more information, contact William Barbeau at 1-6785 or by e-mail at barbeau@vt.edu.

Program brings expertise into residence halls

Most students are used to interacting with faculty members in the classroom, but rarely in the residence halls. But Residential and Dining Programs hopes to increase this interaction through the new Faculty Associates Program, which encourages faculty members to share their expertise and skills outside the classroom.
Faculty and staff members were asked to submit a list of topics that they would be comfortable speaking about in the residence halls. They responded by offering expertise in areas ranging from investment strategies and time management to sexual-assault prevention and communications. This information was compiled into a comprehensive list that is being distributed on line at http://www.rdp.vt.edu/fa . Resident advisors and other student organizations can utilize this pool of speakers to participate in hall meetings or other organized in hall events.
"The Faculty Associates program is an example of the collaborative efforts of Student Affairs and the academic community as well as the recognition of the fact that a substantial amount of learning occurs outside of the classroom," said Gerry Kowalski, director of residence education for Residential and Dining Programs. "It provides our resident advisors with a group of interested faculty and staff members who have already demonstrated a desire to make the entire university a classroom."
Graduate School Fair set for October 14
Students who are considering graduate school will have an opportunity to visit with representatives of graduate programs from more than 70 universities and professional schools during the Graduate School Fair on Wednesday, Oct. 14, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. in Squires Commonwealth Ballroom.
The program is sponsored by the Graduate Student Assembly to give Virginia Tech students and others the opportunity to learn more about graduate and professional schools.
Graduate schools that will be present include: American University, College of William and Mary, Eastern Virginia Medical School, George Mason University, Loyola College, Old Dominion University, Radford University, the University of Maryland, the University of South Carolina, the University of Tennessee, Virginia Commonwealth University, Virginia Tech, and Wake Forest.
Business school representatives from Drexel, George Washington University, Miami University of Ohio, Southern Methodist University, Univeristy of New Hampshire, and the University of North Carolina will be present, as well.
About 20 law schools will be represented, including the Appalachian School of Law, U.Va., Washington & Lee, Wake Forest, Widener University, William and Mary, Pennsylvania State University, George Washington, George Mason, Temple, and Tulane.
Medical/health programs represented will be Virginia Commonwealth University-Medical College of Virginia, George Washington Medical School, the Johns Hopkins schools of Nursing and of Public Health, Ohio College of Podiatric Medicine, Pacific Graduate School of Psychology, Pennsylvania College of Optometry, Universidad Audonoma de Guadalajara, University of Georgia - Pharmacy, and West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine.
Other programs that will provide information during the Graduate School Fair are the Kaplan Educational Center, Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary, and Columbia Biblical Seminary.
For more information, contact the Virginia Tech Graduate Student Assembly at 1-7919.
Teaching students with hidden disabilities is topic
On Thursday, Oct. 8, Susan Angle and Jane Warner of the Dean of Students Office, will present an interactive workshop titled Teaching Students with Hidden Disabilities . It will focus on legal issues, student characteristics, the creation of a conducive classroom climate, and ways to accommodate students with hidden disabilities without re-vamping major teaching styles. This workshop will take place from 3-5 p.m. in the Hillcrest dining room. To pre-register or for more information, call 1-6995.
Presentation skills seminar offered
On October 15, from 9-11:30 a.m., Margaret Hable, CEUT's faculty-development consultant, will share information on presentation skills. This session will focus on audience rapport, body language, voice tone and inflection, presentation structure, learning environment, question techniques, audiovisual materials, and processing activities. Participants will gain readily applicable knowledge that can assist them in becoming an effective presenter whose presentations are effective. This workshop will take place in Hillcrest dining room. Pre-register by contacting CEUT at 1-6995.
CEUT faculty study groups meeting set
CEUT's newly formed faculty study groups will be having an organizational meeting on Thursday, Oct. 15, from 4-6 p.m. in Hillcrest dining room. At an informational meeting held on September 17, four new faculty study groups were formed. Topics for study include active learning, freshman level issues, and learning strategies.
Chamber Music Series continues
The University Chamber Music Series (UCM) continues its Feel Winds, See Keys, Touch Strings, Hear Voices series with "Chamber Music Breathes." Performances are Saturday, Oct. 10, at 8 p.m., and Sunday, Oct. 11, at 3 p.m. in Squires Recital Salon. This concert is the second of four performances of the UCM series, highlighting wind instruments such as the flute, oboe, clarinet, trumpet, and many more.
This concert features musical selections which are not well known and are therefore typically left out of a performance. Composers include: Ottorino Respighi, famous for Pines of Rome composition; Charles Koechlin, who studied under Claude Debussy; and two French composers, Henri Tomasi and Eugene Bozza.
Respighi's lesser-known composition, Suite Della Tabacchiera will be the first selection of the concert. Other selections performed in the concert include Henri Tomasiís, Printemps pour Sextour a Vent , which translated means "Awakening of the Birds," and Eugene Bozzaís Quatre Movements pour Septour a Vent , translated means Four Movements for Seven Winds.
Tickets are $10 general admission and $7 students/seniors. For ticket reservations, call the UUSA Ticket Office at 1-5615. For more information regarding the concert, Tickets will be available at the door one hour before the performance; however, seating is limited.
Service-learning courses planned
The Service-Learning Center is preparing for the Spring 1999 semester. Faculty members who are considering a service-learning option for a course should contact Michele James-Deramo ( deramo@vt.edu ) to register their course. Course-registration forms are also available on the faculty page of the center's web site at http://www.majbill.vt.edu/sl/index.html . The center is accepting course registration forms through October 23.
Foreign languages to host conference
The Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at Virginia Tech will host the 48th Annual Mountain Interstate Foreign Language Conference (MIFLC) October 8-10 at the Donaldson Brown Hotel and Conference Center.
More than 200 presentations from scholars, teachers, writers, editors, translators, and administrative officials from throughout the United States and abroad have been scheduled for the three-day convention. Papers will highlight the contributions of women writers, current trends in literary criticism, the impact of new pedagogical theories on the teaching of foreign languages, and the creation and implementation of Web-based courses in French, German, and Spanish.
Among the several dozen sessions and panel discussions at the October meeting are five sessions that examine the impact of women writers on French, German, Latin American, and Spanish novels; two sessions on French and Spanish films; and several others that deal with such varied topics as psychological awareness in the autobiographical novel, the thrills and pitfalls of literary translation, and literary reactions to the Spanish-American War.
Three workshops are scheduled for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. The first deals with chat rooms and on-line materials. The second one presents ways to use distance-learning technologies to supervise student teachers; and the last one discusses national standards for K-12 and higher education. The complete program is available on-line at http://www.fll.vt.edu/miflc98/program.html .
The Friday banquet will close with a keynote address by literary critic Enrico Mario Santí of Georgetown University. The address is on the topic "The Wilde Dreyfus Disaster: The Sense of a Cultural Ending." Robert Bates, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, will welcome participants and introduce Santí. Music will be provided by the Polovetsi String Quartet.
For more information, call 1-5361.
Reporter will discuss Nash
On Thursday, Oct. 8, Sylvia Nasar, a business and financial reporter with the New York Times, will present A Beautiful Mind: The Life of John F. Nash, Jr., at 7 p.m. in 136 Norris.
Nasar is the author of the critically acclaimed book of the same titlle, published by Simon and Schuster in June 1998. Nash, a native of Bluefield, W. Va., was a brilliant mathematician and game theorist whose 1950 doctoral dissertation at Princeton became a cornerstone of modern economic theory and won him the Nobel Prize in 1994. After a promising early career, he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in 1960 and disappeared from public view for nearly three decades. He spent many of those years living with family in Roanoke, where his sister still resides. In the late 80s he began to recover his sanity and his ability to do creative work; now nearly seventy years of age, Nash has resumed his scholarly career and is living and working in Princeton, New Jersey.
Nasar's lecture will be accessible to a general audience, and will deal with the life and work of John Nash. Her talk will describe the significance of Nash's life and work, and will touch on issues related to mathematics, economics, mental health and mental illness, and the conduct of science during the Cold War era. She will also describe how she, as a reporter, became interested in Nash's story and how she carried out the research and writing for this remarkable biography.
English Language Institute offers class
The English Language Institute, a unit of the Division of Continuing Education, will offer a full schedule of English language classes beginning Tuesday, Oct. 20, for international students, scholars, and members of the community. Classes will include pronunciation, conversation and culture, composition and grammar, vocabulary, English for business and management, and preparation for the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL). Classes cover all levels of proficiency.
Placement and registration will be held Monday, Oct. 19, beginning at 9 a.m. at 620 North Main St., Room 205 in Blacksburg. New full-time students should bring their passport, I-20 form, and health insurance card.
Most classes meet weekdays through December 18, with a holiday November 21 to 29. Each class has a tuition fee. Classes with low enrollment will be canceled. Late registrations are accepted with the student paying weekly tuition plus a service charge.
For more information, contact Judith Snoke, director of the Virginia Tech Language Institute, at 1-6963 or e-mail her at eslsnoke@vt.edu . Application forms for F-1 student visas can be obtained by contacting Snoke or by visiting the institute's homepage at http://www.vt.edu:10021/E/eslsnoke/homepage.html .
Speaker will discuss China
The Virginia Tech Urban Affairs and Planning Speaker Series and the Center for Housing Research are sponsoring a presentation on "The Dynamics of Urban Growth in China" by Weiping Wu on
Monday, Oct. 12, 4:30-6 p.m. in 114 Architecture Annex. Wu, formerly with the World Bank, is assistant professor of urban affairs and planning at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Slovenian professor to speak on systems
"Applied Systems Thinking vs. Systems Theories," a lecture by Matjaz Mulej, professor of Innovation and Systems Theory at the University of Maribor in Slovenia, will be presented on Monday, Nov. 2, at 4:30 p.m. in the rear auditorium of the Donaldson Brown Center.
Mulej will contrast informal methods designed to master complexity by creative cooperation with several pairings of systems theory (deterministic or probabilistic, disciplinary or interdisciplinary, and descriptive or future impact oriented). He will also compare western and far-eastern theories about systems, and will show how all can be combined to enhance holism and creativity in finding solutions to complex everyday problems in the socio-environmental context.
Mulej is a leading international authority on systems applications and is the author or co-editor of more than 35 books published in 24 countries, including Self Transformation of the Forgotten Four-Fifths , co-authored with Virginia Tech's Bob Dyck, a professor in the Department of Urban Affairs and Planning.
The presentation is sponsored by the Department of Urban Affairs and Planning. For more information, contact Bob Dyck at 1-6042 or by email at bobdyck@vt.edu.
Spring on-line class list being prepared
VTOnline is preparing our list of classes for both the spring and summer sessions of 1999. Input is being sought. VTOnline is the first point of contact for students on-campus and around the world who are interested in taking Tech's on-line classes. Other services include on-line registration for distance learners, and advertising for the online classes. Anyone interested in teaching or who is scheduled to teach an on-line class in spring or summer 1999 should contact the VTOnline office at vto@vt.edu or 1-7614.