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Brief Notes
INSIDE ILLINOIS, May 3, 2012 [ Email | Share ]
IN THIS ISSUE: Advanced workshop starts June 6 | Collections for Dump and Run sale begin May 7 | Program offers summer museum passports | 'Visioning' website announced | Annual piano sale is May 3-6 | Summer Studio Theatre announced | Center City Perks mobile app introduced | 'Star Trek' captains to venture into space
Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory
Advanced workshop starts June 6
Faculty and staff members and students who want to make use of materials analysis for their research may attend the Frederick Seitz Material Research Laboratory’s sixth Advanced Materials Characterization Workshop June 6-7 in Room 190 of the Engineering Sciences Building.
This workshop provides a critical, comparative and condensed overview of mainstream analytical techniques for materials characterization with emphasis on practical applications. The workshop will cover many different analytical techniques and include a review of the fundamentals of each technique.
The workshop also will include a vendor show, where industrial scientists will introduce new instrumentation and discuss new applications and technologies. Laboratory tours displaying the main analytical instruments available at the lab will be offered during the workshop.
More information is available online. Space is limited; registration is required. The cost is $65 per person.
Dump and Run
Collections for annual sale begin
Beginning May 7, University YMCA will begin collecting donations for its annual Dump and Run sale, the community garage sale that reduces litter and consumer waste and at the same time provides inexpensive items for purchase prior to the fall semester. The event raises funds for the University YMCA.
May collections will be accepted at the University YMCA and at International Student and Scholar Services in the Student Services Building.
Donations accepted:
- May 7-9: 9 a.m.-4 p.m.
- May 10: 9 a.m.-7 p.m.
- May 11-12: 9 a.m.-4 p.m.
- May 14-18: 9 a.m.-4 p.m.
Donations also will be accepted Aug. 15-18 at the UI Stock Pavilion. The sale will be Aug. 24-25 at the UI Stock Pavilion.
People who volunteer six or more hours may shop during the August pre-sale.
For more information on accepted donations or to volunteer, go to www.universityymca.org/dumpandrun.
Museums at the Crossroads
Program offers summer passports
Imagine traveling through space and time, standing face-to-face with a bearded dragon, hearing a 100-year-old recording of the John Philip Sousa band and tasting honey from around the world. These are just a few of the experiences possible when visiting the 11 museums of Champaign County, including four campus museums. Patrons who visit the museums through Aug. 17 will be rewarded through the Museum at the Crossroads Consortium’s Passport Program.
As their passports become filled with stamps, museum-goers can enter drawings for prizes provided by local businesses. Some participating museums also will have small tokens of appreciation for Passport Program visitors.
Official passports can be obtained at participating Champaign County museums, the Museums at the Crossroads website, and through the Champaign County Convention and Visitors Bureau. Complete rules and instructions on the program also can be found on the consortium’s website. Prize winners will be drawn Aug. 25 at the Urbana Sweetcorn Festival.
Members of the Museums at the Crossroads Consortium and those participating in the Passport Program: the Anita Purves Nature Center, the Champaign County Historical Museum, Chanute Air Museum, Krannert Art Museum, the Museum of the Grand Prairie, Orpheum Children’s Science Museum, Parkland Art Gallery, the Pollinatarium, Sousa Archives and Center for American Music Museum, Spurlock Museum and Staerkel Planetarium.
Office of the Chancellor
‘Visioning’ website announced
Chancellor Phyllis M. Wise recently announced a new website featuring the Visioning Future Excellence at Illinois program. The website archives the activities of the Visioning sessions, features announcements related to the initiative – including the Research University in the World of the Future lecture series – and includes a link to the Visioning survey.
Visitors can learn more about issues that have been raised during the sessions.
School of Music
Annual piano sale is May 3-6
Through the University Piano Loan Program, Samuel Music and Yamaha Corp. of America provide faculty members and students in the School of Music with new pianos. As the end of the academic year approaches, acoustic and digital pianos, along with a large selection of new and used pianos and Clavinova digital pianos, will be for sale.
All instruments will be sold at reduced prices with the Yamaha manufacturer’s warranty included, on a first come, first served basis.
Appointments are required to view the pianos available. Appointments are available at the Music Building between 10 a.m. and 7 p.m. May 3 and 4, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. May 5, and 1 to 6 p.m. May 6. To schedule an appointment, call 888-742-6632 or email univpiano@samuelmusic.com.
Support of this event enables Samuel Music and Yamaha to continue to loan new instruments each year to the UI School of Music.
Krannert Center for the Performing Arts
Summer Studio Theatre announced
Summer Studio Theatre returns to Krannert Center for the Performing Arts with three shows offering an array of theatrical experiences.
The program will be under the direction of UI department of theatre interim head Tom Mitchell.
Two plays will rotate during the month of June: Donald Margulies’ “Shipwrecked! An Entertainment: The Amazing Adventures of Louis de Rougemont (as Told by Himself)” and the musical “Gone Missing.”
“Shipwrecked!” was inspired by the real-life stories of adventurer and publicly humiliated historical figure Louis Rougemont, who claimed to have survived in the outback for 30 years after being shipwrecked. He eventually returned to society, where he told his heroic story and became a celebrity until the story began to unravel.
“Gone Missing,” by investigative theater company The Civilians, was written by Steven Cosson from interviews by the company with music and lyrics by Michael Friedman. The play engages with individuals who have lost everything from jewelry to technology to a black Gucci pump, investigating both how things get lost, and how the impact of that loss can extend far beyond the meaning of the object itself.
In July, “The Diary of Anne Frank” will be presented. The play, by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett and newly adapted by Wendy Kesselman, is a stage adaptation of the 1952 book “The Diary of a Young Girl.” It has become one of the world’s most widely read books and made Anne Frank one of the most renowned and most discussed victims of the Holocaust.
Tickets go on sale May 7. Ticket orders can be submitted by phone, mail, online or by visiting the ticket office. All performances are in the Studio Theatre and begin at 7:30 p.m. with matinees offered Saturdays at 2 p.m. For more information and to order tickets online, go to krannertcenter.com.
Champaign Center Partnership
Center City Perks mobile app introduced
The Champaign Center Partnership has a new mobile app for iPhone and Android mobile devices to link shoppers to downtown, midtown and Campustown businesses. The free app is available in the iTunes app store and the Android Marketplace.
Smartphone users can download the Center City Perks app by searching ”Champaign.” App users can view events, loyalty card offers, discounts and announcements listed by partnership merchant and redeem discounts and offers by scanning a QR code presented by the merchant.
The app offers incentives for local shopping and promotes loyalty to local merchants. Participating merchants can list unlimited “perks,” as well as send out text message notifications to the app users who have “followed” their business. An events page allows users to add downtown, midtown and Campustown events to their personal calendar. A business directory allows users to view walking directions, place a phone call or visit the website of any merchant.
For more information, visit www.champaigncenter.com.
High-altitude balloon launch
‘Star Trek’ captains to venture into space
UI students are counting down to the scheduled launch May 5 of an enterprising project: a high-altitude balloon carrying models of “Star Trek” captains James Kirk and Jean-Luc Picard into space. Their mission: to record 3-D video, to seek out new heights and to boldly go where no action figure has gone before.
In addition to bringing the popular television duo to the brink of the final frontier, the balloon rigging will explore new territory in amateur near-space flight. The capsule will contain action figures, starship models, five cameras, and advanced GPS and amateur radio trackers.
The 40-foot-diameter balloon is expected to climb to 120,000 feet. The UI Astronomical Society will track the rig visually from the ground throughout its expected three-hour journey, marking the first time an amateur flight has been tracked this way.
The flight was orchestrated by Logan Kugler, an entrepreneur and space enthusiast living in California. Kugler funded the project using the crowdsourcing website Kickstarter. He contacted Space for All, an organization founded and led by two UI engineering students that provides equipment and expertise for near-space exploration and high-altitude balloon flight.
The UI Astronomical Society joined the project, working closely with students in Space for All to develop software and devise a video recording setup to film the entire flight in 3-D, while the UI Synton radio club is providing tracking equipment and radio hardware.
The team of about 20 students and Kugler will assemble at the UI Observatory at 8 a.m. on May 5 to travel to the launch site, whose location will be determined by weather.
