Twenty-five Indiana undergraduate students are serving as Advocates for Community Engagement liaisons for the 2008-09 academic year between local nonprofit agencies in Bloomington and IU service-learning courses.

Meredith West, recipient of this year's Tracy M. Sonneborn Award, will lecture on "Observing Birds Observing Birds" on Friday, Nov. 14 at 4 p.m. in Indiana University's Alumni Hall, with a reception immediately following in the Federal Room, both in the Indiana Memorial Union. The lecture is free and open to the public.

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.

Students considering a career in law can learn first-hand what law schools are truly interested in at the IU Law School Fair, Monday, Oct. 6. The fair, scheduled from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Indiana Memorial Union (IMU) Alumni Hall, will feature more than 104 law school representatives -- more than half of the nation's total law schools -- on hand to meet one-on-one with students and answer questions about tropics ranging from grades to personal statement to financial aid needs. The fair is free and open to the general public.

IU Bloomington selects faculty members with distinguished leadership ability to participate in the Academic Leadership Program (ALP), sponsored by the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) -- a consortium of the 11 universities of the Big Ten conference plus the University of Chicago.

The 2008-09 Horizons of Knowledge Lecture series kicks off Wednesday, September 24 with "A Warsaw Story: Polish-Jewish Relations in the First World War" by Robert Blobaum from West Virginia University. The lecture will be at 5:00 p.m. in the Indiana Memorial Union (IMU) Faculty Room of the University Club. Sponsors of the talk are the Robert A. and Sandra S. Borns Jewish Studies Program, Polish Studies Center, Department of History and Russian and East European Institute.

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.

Four Indiana University Bloomington faculty members have been awarded a $150,000 grant to develop a model interdisciplinary approach that prepares graduate students to be reflective practitioners who base their teaching on appropriate learning theory and revise it based on evidence of student learning.

Indiana University's Meredith West, graduate adviser, ombudsman and professor of psychological and brain sciences, and Eliot R. Smith, professor of psychology and cognitive science in the College of Arts and Sciences, along with John Mikesell, director of the Master of Public Affairs Program and professor in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs, have been named Chancellor's Professors.

Chancellor's Professor of History, Michael Bess, will speak about "The Virtues of Selfishness as a Teacher" in the first lecture of the new Indiana University Chancellor's Professors' Distinguished Masters Invited Lecture Series on Monday, (April 7) at 4 p.m. in the Moot Court Room of the IU Law School. There will be a reception following the lecture in the Federal Room at the Indiana Memorial Union.

Professor Gillian Beer, King Edward VII Professor of English Literature and President of Clare Hall (ret.), University of Cambridge, will present two Patten lectures at Indiana University. The first, "Darwin and the Consciousness of Others," is scheduled for Tuesday (April 8) and the second, "Darwin's 'filthy heraldries': Why Did Darwin's Theories Cause Scandal?" for Thursday (April 10). Both lectures will be held in Rawles Hall, Room 100 at 7:30 p.m., and are free and open to the public.

Upsetting and sometimes tragic events that occur locally, nationally and internationally can leave educators to cope not only with their own emotions, but also those of their students. A workshop to prepare them for managing the emotional aftermath of such events, when day-to-day teaching and learning is put aside, is being offered at IU Bloomington.

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.

The Office of the Dean of Faculties and Vice Provost for Academic Affairs at Indiana University has announced the winners of the 2008 Fran Snygg Grant for Artistic Collaboration and the Fran Snygg Endowment Fund. The awards honor the memory of Professor Fran Snygg, the founder of ArtsWeek, an annual showcase for the arts on the IU Bloomington campus and in the Bloomington area. Snygg guided the event through its first 10 years and was a prime force in supporting the talented artists at IU and in the Bloomington community.

Students considering a career in health care can learn about far more than just the familiar roles of "doctor" and "nurse" at Indiana University Bloomington's Health Programs Fair on February 27. The fair will feature more than 100 health care representatives on hand to meet with students and answer questions about educational and career opportunities.

Martha Nussbaum, a philosopher and influential intellectual from the University of Chicago Law School, will present two Indiana University Patten lectures, titled "Constitutions and Capabilities: History of an Idea" (Tuesday, Feb. 12) and "Capabilities and Today's Supreme Court" (Thursday, Feb. 14). Both lectures will be in the Chemistry Building, room 122 at 7:30 p.m., and are free and open to the public.

IU Bloomington faculty members Glenn Gass and John Gibson, both of the Jacobs School of Music, and Maresa Murray of the School of Health, Physical Education, and Recreation have each been awarded an $8,000 Summer Instructional Development Fellowship for 2008 through the Office of Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculties to develop specialized and innovative courses.

Three new multidisciplinary ventures have been selected by the Office of Academic Affairs and the Dean of the Faculties to receive funding for this academic year. Proposals were received from a broad range of inter-coordinated departments and schools demonstrating innovative and intellectually stimulating projects.

W. Claude Baker Jr., Chancellor's Professor of Music Composition at Indiana University, will deliver the Sonneborn Award Lecture,"The Composer as Resident: The Role of the Composer in the Community," Thursday (Sept. 27), at 4 p.m. in Auer Hall. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Every year Indiana University selects several faculty members with distinguished leadership ability to participate in the Academic Leadership Program, sponsored by the Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC). IU Fellows for the 2007-08 academic year include Matt Auer, School of Public and Environmental Affairs; Barbara Bichelmeyer, Instructional Systems Technology, School of Education; Hannah Buxbaum, School of Law, Tom Gieryn, Department of Sociology; and Genevieve Manset Williamson, School of Education.

The following is a report from Indiana University President Adam W. Herbert to the IU Board of Trustees.

The Indiana University Board of Trustees voted in favor of two new building projects today, including a life sciences research building in Bloomington.

Subject to the approval of the Indiana University Board of Trustees, Jeanne Sept will be named the 13th dean of the faculties at IU Bloomington. Her appointment will begin on Aug. 1.

IU Bloomington political scientist Henry Hale will join several scholars who have been keeping close tabs on the current Russian election cycle to discuss that country's democratic future at a workshop in Bloomington on Feb. 28-29.