Grain & Chaff

Suggested reading

Interim Chancellor Marcellette G. Williams outlined her reasons for opposing the unionization efforts of resident assistants in a commentary published in the Chronicle of Higher Education (April 26). Williams reiterated the administration's position that unionization of undergraduates is "incompatible with our responsibility to provide a high-quality, educational experience, irreconcilable with our responsibility for sound management of the campus, and extraordinarily bad policy."

Continuing care

The six living former deans and directors of the School of Nursing have agreed to serve as honorary chairs of the school's 50th anniversary celebration to be held in October 2003. They include Lillian R. Goodman (1970-72), Mary Gilmore Helming (1972-74), Ruth A. Smith (1978-86), E. Ann Sheridan (1986-88), Melanie C. Dreher (1988-96) and Brenda E. Millette (1996-98). Two other former School of Nursing heads, founding dean Mary A. Maher and Ira Trail, are deceased. The former deans and directors were invited to serve as honorary chairs of the celebration by Eileen Breslin, dean of the School of Nursing, the 50th Anniversary Planning Committee, and the School of Nursing Alumni Board.

Cyber crime-fighting

Scott F. Conti, network operations manager at the Office of Information Technologies, spoke on "Network Forensics - a View from the Inside" at the April 26 meeting of the New England Chapter of the High Technology Crime Investigation Association (HTCIA). The organization's mission is to encourage, aid and effect the voluntary interchange of data, information, ideas and knowledge about methods, processes and techniques relating to investigations and security in advanced technologies among its membership. The group's membership includes investigators, corporate security officers and law enforcement personnel from across New England who investigate high-technology crime and cyberterrorism.

Talk the talk

When the University switched over to biweekly payroll several weeks, the one thing missing from the information blitz was a quick and easy way to remember which Fridays have paychecks attached. As usual, some staff have coined a new buzz phrase to describe those fortnightly paydays: "Big Fridays." Even though it sounds a bit like a state lottery game, it has potential to catch on ... By the way, this week ends with a "little Friday."

From the Elbow room

Retirement hasn't diminished the stature of Peter Elbow in the field of English. The professor emeritus and former director of the Writing Program recently received the James R. Squire Award from the National Council of Teachers of English "for his transforming influence and lasting intellectual contribution to the English Profession." It was only the sixth time the award has been bestowed since its inception in 1967.

Meanwhile, Elbow's book, "Everyone Can Write: Essays Toward a Hopeful Theory of Writing and Teaching Writing," won the James N. Britton Award from the Conference on English Education. The book was published two years ago by Oxford University Press. And just to top things off, the Utah State University Press has just published "Writing With Elbow," a collection of essays exploring his work.

The collection's title is an allusion to two of Elbow's works, "Writing Without Teachers" and "Writing With Power." English professor Charles Moran is one of the editors of "Writing With Elbow," which includes an essay by English Department chair Anne Herrington.

Philosophy on tour

Philosophy professor Fred Feldman is scheduled to give four separate invited lectures in Europe during late May. Feldman will kick off a new series on moral philosophy at Oxford University on May 20 when he speaks on "Attitudinal Hedonism and the Shape of a Life."

The following day, Feldman will address the prestigious Moral Sciences Club of Cambridge University. Founded in the late 1800s, the club has been the site of seminal papers in 20th-century philosophy by G.E. Moore, Bertrand Rus-sell and Ludwig Wittgenstein, among others. Feldman's paper is entitled "What is Hedonism?"

Feldman then travels to the University of Copenhagen to present on attitudinal hedonism on May 23 and completes his tour with a discussion of the nature of hedonism at the University of Lund in Sweden May 24.