June 3, 2004
Peer Portfolio
KENTUCKY HEALTH: The University of Kentucky will open a College of Public Health, its Board of Trustees voted on May 4. The move will convert the university’s School of Public Health, formerly part of its College of Medicine, to covert to college status.
The new college will include the U of K’s departments of behavioral health, biostatistics, epidemiology, health services management, preventative medicine and environmental health as well as its graduate school for gerontology and its doctoral program.
The college, created with existing budgets rather than new resources, will help the UK continue training students to focus on the increase of chronic diseases in Kentucky and nationwide, administrators say, as well as injuries, toxins, bioterrorism and emergency preparedness.
GLBT RIGHTS AT U-MICH: Greater efforts are needed to make gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender individuals more comfortable on the campus of the University of Michigan, according to a recent report by a task force at that university.
The task force, which included faculty, staff, students, alumni and community members, issued 18 recommendations to improve the safety and comfort of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender members of the campus community. These include amending university bylaws and creating new policies to protect against discrimination over gender identity, increasing awareness of such issues through education, expanding public health efforts and ensuring the availability of unisex restrooms on campus.
NAME CANCELS GAME: The University of Iowa canceled a baseball game with Bradley University of Illinois this month (May) because that school’s team name, The Braves bears reference to Native Americans. The cancellation was decided in February, in keeping with the U of I’s policy against allowing in its athletic facilities any team with a name or mascot of Native American origin.
But the university’s newspaper, the Daily Iowan, reported that the U of I’s own team name, The Hawkeyes, also has Indian origins, and dates back to the days of James Fenimore Cooper’s novel, The Last of the Mohicans.
The story was picked up by World Net Daily, an Internet news service out of Grants Pass, Ore., whose recent editorials include titles such as “Go ahead: Post the 10 Commandments” and “How U.S. colleges brainwash our youth.”
SOAR SCOPE: An 18-year astronomical dream came true for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in April with the dedication of the Southern Astrophysical Research (or SOAR) telescope. But it’s not in Chapel Hill; it’s on Cerro Pachon, Chile, at an altitude of 8,775 feet above sea level.
The telescope, first planned in 1986, was paid for by a $32 million public-private partnership among the U.S. National Optical Astronomy Observatory, the Ministry of Science of Brazil, Michigan State University and the University of Carolina.
But use of the SOAR scope will not be limited to its Chilean location alone — through new remote-access technology, faculty and students will be able to scan the skies from the Chapel Hill campus.
With a state-of-the art ability to switch settings and tools in mere seconds rather than many hours (it takes older telescopes many hours to do that), the SOAR telescope is expected to begin operations late this year.
