May 29, 2008
Peer portfolio
BLOODHOUNDS: The University of California-Davis School of Veterninary Medicine has opened a community-based blood donor program — for dogs.
The program is part of the university’s Animal Blood Bank, the largest such program west of the Mississippi, according to the campus newspaper, Dateline. About 1,200 pet and law enforcement dogs will be screened in the coming year to create a group of 200 to 400 regular donors. Plans are to eventually establish a mobile blood bank that could travel to dogs show and similar events.
GO, VICTORS? Ann Arbor has the Wolverines and Dearborn has the Wolves — now the University of Michigan‘s Flint campus wants a mascot, too, according to the campus newspaper, The Record.
The top three choices from an early April vote are The Victors, the Stones and Flash, with the Victors, er, victorious in the voting. Most students are excited about the idea says the university’s coordinator of student activities. “We’ve had some mixed e-mails about identifying ourselves as anything other than the Wolverines, but overall the response has been positive.”
The U-M Flint Student Athletics department will next form a commission to seek support from the administration before bringing a mascot proposal to the Board of Regents.
SECURE ID: The University of Wisconsin at Madison is phasing out the use of Social Security numbers on faculty and staff photo ID cards in an effort to protect the personal data of the campus community.
About 8,000 faculty and staff still have the old cards despite being reminded several times to trade them in for new cards. The university invalidated those cards on April 15 and sent letters to cardholders telling how they can get their free replacements.
COVETED TITLE: James Moeser, chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the institution’s ninth chancellor, will retire on June 30. After a year’s research leave, he said, he will return to Carolina with what he has called “the most exalted title this University can confer on an individual — professor.”
DANCING WITH THE SCHOLARS: The University of Missouri-Columbia has a new way for its faculty and staff to keep healthy — ballroom dancing. “People just need to come. They don’t have to have any experience, and they don’t have to have a partner,” the staffer organizing the program told the university newspaper, Mizzou Weekly. Sessions are twice a month, held on campus, and cost $2 each.
SALAD DAYS: Salad is no further away these days than the Plant and Environmental Sciences for the campus community at the University of California, Davis. The institution has had a student-run edible garden for some time, but now there is the larger PES Salad Bowl Garden. “The idea is to get food closer to where people interact,” said a graduate student helping spearhead the project. They even surveyed the community to learn which garden vegetables were preferred. Peas won, followed by cilantro, spinach and carrots.
Peer Portfolio is a periodic column featuring activities at the UW’s peer institutions.
