May 23, 2002
Peer Portfolio
FOOTBALL U: The National Football League has drafted Michigan State University to help prepare training manuals for youth and high school football coaches. Two faculty members at MSU are already busy gathering information on the psychological considerations of coaching. The manual they help produce will include 29 short essays that will be written by faculty members and graduate students from MSU’s Institute for the Study of Youth Sports. The essays will cover everything from developing a coaching philosophy to dealing with parents, communicating effectively, helping athletes deal with competitive stress and building self-confidence and self-esteem.
“The idea is to prepare better coaches,” John Powell, one of the faculty working on the project, said. “If you help to develop better coaches, kids will maintain their interest in the sport. This will be much better for the kids in the long run, and the NFL will be able to keep its fan base.”
PARTNER BENEFITS: University of California regents approved a measure recently that will extend a set of retirement benefits like those offered to married employees to eligible domestic partners. Employees who are members of the UC Retirement Plan (UCRP) and their qualified domestic partners and family members will now be able to receive two types of death-related retirement benefits. Pre-retirement survivor income will be paid to an eligible domestic partner, eligible children or eligible parent if the UCRP member dies while employed at the institution. Post-retirement survivor continuance income will be paid to an eligible domestic partner, eligible children or eligible parent if the UCRP member dies after leaving the institution.
The move was praised by the UC’s chair of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex Association. “For many of us, the idea of not being able to pass on our hard-earned retirement benefits has been a very real concern,” Shane Snowdon said. “We are deeply grateful to the university for the increased financial peace of mind this gives us and our families.”
ADULT PIONEERS: The University of Virginia recently granted its first three Bachelor of Interdisciplinary Studies degrees. The part-time degree program opened in the fall of 1999 and offers evening and weekend classes in six subject areas. The three graduates of the program for nontraditional students were all women.
CITIZENS ARREST: The University of Illinois recently encouraged young visitors to the College of Agricultural Consumer and Environmental Studies Open House to arrest non-native plants. Those who sent an invasive plant to the slammer were designated Junior Plant Deputies. The event was part of an Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant exhibit called “Arrest That Invader!”
Peer Portfolio is a look at what’s news on the campuses of the UW’s peer institutions.
