Starting graduate school can be an unsettling experience, combining long hours of often solitary work with the challenge of finding one's place on a new campus and in a new city. That's why the Indiana University Graduate School in Bloomington created the Emissaries for Graduate Student Diversity program, in which veteran graduate students provide advice, encouragement and mentoring to newcomers.

Indiana University announced that 18 entering freshmen and two current IU students will join more than 420 others who have been named Wells Scholars since the first class enrolled in 1990. The scholarship, created in honor of the late IU Chancellor Herman B Wells, ranks among the most competitive and prestigious awards offered by any American university.

Indiana University Bloomington has become a member of the National GEM Consortium, an organization that for more than 30 years has helped underrepresented minority students enroll and succeed in graduate-level higher education.

Chemistry and math majors now have a more efficient path to earning both a master's degree in education and teacher licensure under a new agreement between the Indiana University College of Arts and Sciences and the School of Education.

Werner Sollors, one of the foremost Americanists today, will present two lectures at Indiana University Bloomington next week. The Henry B. and Anne M. Cabot Professor of English and professor of African and African American studies from Harvard University, Sollors will speak on "African American Intellectuals and Europe between the Two World Wars" on Jan. 20 (Tuesday) and "'Heil, Johnny': Billy Wilder's A Foreign Affair or The Denazification of Erika von Schlütow" on Jan. 22 (Thursday). Both lectures are scheduled for 7:30 p.m. in Chemistry 122.

Family and friends of a 75-year-old California grandmother beaten and kidnapped from her home last week might have known of the crime within moments if a device patented by an IU researcher had been in use. If Sandy Vinge had been using The Portal Monitor, developed by Indiana University professor L. Jean Camp, when kidnapped from her home, photographs taken at the victim's front door step would have been forwarded instantaneously to a pre-selected group of her closest friends and family members.

Classicist James O'Donnell, provost at Georgetown University, will lecture on "Two Hundred Years Is a Long Time (for a historian), or, What Should Historians Write About?" on Tuesday, Oct. 28, and "Ten Years Is a Long Time (on the Internet), or, What Will Cyberspace Make of the Humanities?" on Thursday, Oct. 30, as part of the William T. Patten Lecture Series. Both lectures will take place in Ballantine Hall room 109 at 7:30 p.m., at Indiana University Bloomington.

Thomas Schelling, the 2005 Nobel Laureate in Economics and Distinguished University Professor Emeritus of Economics and Public Affairs from the University of Maryland, will discuss "Managing Nuclear Proliferation" on Tuesday, Sept. 23 and "Managing the Greenhouse Problem" on Thursday, Sept. 25, kicking off this year's William T. Patten Lecture Series at Indiana University Bloomington.

A study published in the May/June issue of Health Affairs reports on the first randomized trial providing a scientifically valid look at what one might expect from chronic disease management programs that serve low-income individuals. The study result provides good news for state Medicaid leaders struggling to meet the needs of individuals with chronic conditions and also suggests that some disease management efforts, even among relatively low-risk patients, may be an effective strategy.

As the French poet Jean de La Fontaine once opined, "All roads lead to Rome." Well, they also all evolve according to a universal mechanism, irrespective of cultural and historical differences. Such are the research findings of an Indiana University School of Informatics professor and a French academic colleague, published recently by Physical Review Letters.

The first four people in the nation to earn a doctorate in Philanthropic Studies will soon graduate from the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University's Ph.D. program, center officials announced today (May 9).

Indiana University School of Journalism graduate student Tian Ming has won a national student video contest for his entry describing his experiences with U.S. higher education as a Chinese national.

The National Institutes of Health has given $1.2 million to Indiana University researchers to build the ultimate international epidemic research tool. Principle investigators Katy Börner, Steven J. Sherman and Alessandro Vespignani will oversee the project, EpiC, which they hope will make the sharing and re-using of epidemics datasets and algorithms as easy as sharing videos via YouTube.

A total of 16,049 graduates will be eligible for degrees from Indiana University during May commencement ceremonies at eight campuses. IU commencement week begins in Bloomington on May 3 (Saturday) and concludes at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne on May 14 (Wednesday).

New research from Indiana University and Yale suggests that college-age men confuse friendly non-verbal cues with cues for sexual interest because the men have a less discerning eye than women -- but their female peers aren't far behind.

Byron Gipson has always been a "science kid," participating in science fairs as a youngster and then conducting research in biochemistry, molecular and marine biology, molecular genetics, and cancer at universities in Mississippi, Nebraska and Indiana. Gipson brings this love of science and a "ferocious curiosity" inherited from his mother back to Indiana University, where he began studying this semester as the first Adam W. Herbert Graduate Fellow.

Faculty awards for outstanding teaching, research and service to Indiana University will be presented on 2008 Founders Day, Sunday (March 30) at 4:30 p.m. during an invitation-only event for the award recipients and their family and friends, in Alumni Hall, Indiana Memorial Union.

Recipients of the Outstanding Junior Faculty Award at Indiana University Bloomington this year are Candy Gunther Brown in the Department of Religious Studies, Tony H. Grubesic in Department of Geography, Scott Michaels in the Department of Biology, Ethan Michelson in the Departments of Sociology and East Asian Languages and Cultures, Sima Setayeshgar in the Department of Physics, and Chen Yu in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences.

Indiana University will celebrate 2008 Founders Day on Sunday (March 30) at 2 p.m. in Assembly Hall. In a ceremony honoring the university's beginning in 1820 and its academic mission today, the achievements of IU Bloomington's top students will be recognized. IU's Jenna Sherry, a 2008 Marshall Scholar, will speak on behalf of her fellow students.