February 16, 2006
ETC: Campus news & notes
FLYING HIGH: When Pioneers of Aviation appears on public television, someone familiar to UW people will be front and center. Ran Hennes, former director and currently associate of the Honors Program will be a “talking head.” According to the program’s creator, Bill Winship, Hennes will be to the program what Shelby Foote was to Ken Burns’ The Civil War. “The scope of history he has at his fingertips is amazing,” Winship said. “In fact, his handling of the Cold War is one of the finest commentaries on that period I’ve ever seen on TV.”
Pioneers of Aviation covers the exploits of Boeing founder William Boeing, James McDonnell and Donald Douglas of McDonnell Douglas Corporation (now merged with Boeing) and James “Dutch” Kindleberger of North American Aviation.
Said Hennes of his participation, “It was fun and hard work (and somewhat humbling, trying to deliver the kind of performance Winship wanted — quite different from teaching, where I get to decide on the story I want to tell and how to tell it).”
KBTC Public Television will broadcast Pioneers of Aviation at 6 p.m. Thursday, March 2. The three-hour program will repeat at 2 p.m. Saturday, March 4, 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 7 and 2 p.m. Sunday, March 12. KCTS-9 has not yet scheduled its broadcast.
COMPUTER FELLOWS: The Association for Computer Machinery has named Thomas Anderson and Daniel Weld in the Department of Computer Science & Engineering ACM Fellows. The two are among 34 researchers worldwide given the honor; 15 profs have now won the award while at the UW. Anderson, who joined the UW in 1997, was named a fellow for contributions in distributed systems and computer networks. Weld, a member of the department since 1988, won for contributions to planning algorithms. ACM is a worldwide educational and scientific society of computing educators, researchers and professionals that seeks to promote dialogue and collaboration to address challenges in the field.
DISTRICT DARLING: Theresa Doherty, assistant vice president for regional affairs, was presented with the first annual Greg Nickels Award for Economic Development by the University District Business Improvement Area. The award honors Doherty’s long-term involvement with the chamber efforts to revitalize the district. Among the projects she’s been involved with are the Storefront Studio that has helped businesses spruce up storefronts, the redesign of the traffic median on Campus Parkway in front of Schmitz Hall and an ongoing marketing effort for the U District.
GUINNESS RECORD: Aquatic and Fishery Science Professor Ted Pietsch has found a place in the Guinness Book of World Records. Pietsch recently disputed a claim by some other researchers that they had found the world’s smallest fish and vertebrate known. Turns out their specimen was big compared to one Pietsch had studied, the mature adult male Photocorynus spiniceps, a kind of anglerfish, which is between .24 and .29 inches long. When the dispute came out in newspapers, the Guinness Book editors sat up and took notice; editors contacted Pietsch to make sure they had accurate records on his fish.
TOP COP: Former UW Police Chief Michael Shanahan is being honored by the International Association of Chiefs of Police by having an award named after him. The Chief Mike Shanahan Award for Excellence in Public-Private Cooperation will be given to full service law enforcement agencies and private security organizations that work together to solve local problems in a way that increases public safety. Shanahan served as chief of the UW Police Department for 24 years before retiring in 1995. During that time he served as co-chair of the IACP’s Private Sector Liaison Committee, focusing on solutions to critical public-private sector issues.
BOOKS & BASKETS: Fans at the UW-Stanford men’s basketball game on Feb. 23 are encouraged to bring new children’s books with them. UW members of Mortar Board will be collecting the books and passing them on to Page Ahead, an organization that provides new books and promotes reading activities for at-risk children and their families. Mortar Board is a UW senior honor society committed to promoting scholarship, leadership and service.
GRAMMY GREAT: Pulitzer Prize-winning School of Music alumnus William Bolcom, a distinguished composer and pianist who received the UW’s Alumnus Summa Laude Dignatus Award in 2003, won the Best Classical Contemporary Composition Grammy for Bolcom: Songs of Innocence and of Experience, The album also won 2006 Grammies for Best Classical Album and Best Choral Performance.
BOOKIN’ IT: When all UW is reading a common book next year, they’ll have the chance to meet both the book’s author and its subject. Tracy Kidder wrote about Paul Farmer in Mountains Beyond Mountains, and both have agreed to visit campus to engage students, faculty and staff in discussing the book.
INTERNATIONAL LEADER: L. Lincoln Johnson, director of Student Activities & Union Facilities (HUB & South Campus Center), has been elected president-elect by the membership of the Association of College Unions International. He takes the office at their annual conference in March, and becomes president in March 2007.
ANTHRO ACCESS: Two articles by faculty in the UW Anthropology Department are popular with colleagues nationwide. “Introduction to ‘Moral Economies,’ State Spaces, and Categorical Violence,” by K. Sivaramakrishnan was the number one article accessed in the Anthrosource database last year, while “The Story Catches You and You Fall Down: Tragedy, Ethnography, and ‘’Cultural Competence,” by Janelle Taylor was number four.
RAINY RIDES: When the Transportation Office offered faculty, staff and students the chance to “Ride in the Rain” in January, they weren’t kidding. There were 11.65 inches of rain during the month, 6.52 inches above normal. But that didn’t discourage participants in the annual campus bicycling competition. There were 805 total riders, and of those, 546 reported 20 or more one-way trips and qualified to attend the awards luncheon. There were 91,372 total commute miles on 20,439 trips. Here are the stats for the winners:
Most Commute Miles
Team: Hydrophilic I (capt. Jack Herndon); Team Average (280.33 miles)
Individual: Michael Haselman (480)
Individual on team: Steve Bird (805)
Most Commute Trips
Team: Wheels of Fire (capt. Jennifer O’Brien) Team Average (47.25 one-way trips between home and campus)
Individual: Jack Hildebrandt (62)
Individual on team: Kole Kantner (62)
Commute Trips in the Rain
Team: Evans Policy Pedalers (capt. Kole Kantner) Team Average (24.5 wet trips)
Individual: Jack Hildebrandt (43)
Individual on Team: Kole Kantner (46)
Team with Most New Bike Commuters
SMA Rules I, (capt. Tyler Davis) eight new bike commuters
