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Students from the University of Colorado at Â鶹ӰԺ, Arizona State University and New Mexico State University are teaming up in a unique space project to design, build and fly three identical satellites in formation.

For centuries people have attempted to prove the existence of planets circling distant stars. On Friday, June 22, at 8 p.m. the Fiske Planetarium at the University of Colorado at Â鶹ӰԺ will explore the topic. "Searching for Distant Worlds," a pre-recorded program, will examine recent discoveries of unknown planets around far away stars, and explain why it is so difficult to find these distant objects. Sommers-Bausch Observatory will be open for telescope viewing immediately following the show at Fiske.

Twenty-one undergraduate students in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Colorado at Â鶹ӰԺ have received the prestigious Jacob Van Ek Award for outstanding academic achievement and contributions to the university and Â鶹ӰԺ communities. The award includes a $400 prize. The recipients were honored May 10 along with faculty members they named as mentors. The award was established in 1973 to honor Jacob Van Ek, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at CU-Â鶹ӰԺ from 1929 to 1959. Van Ek died in 1994 at the age of 97.

Â鶹ӰԺ 50 underrepresented students primarily from Montbello High School in Denver and Hinkley High School in Aurora will attend a four-day College Summit program at the University of Colorado at Â鶹ӰԺ June 21-24 to help them apply for college admission during the next school year. The program is aimed at helping students who might not otherwise have the confidence to apply, even though they have the interest and the ability to attend and succeed in college. Students in the program are usually first-generation college students from low-income families.

University of Colorado at Â鶹ӰԺ Associate Professor Fred Anderson recently received two prestigious awards for his book "Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766." In early May Anderson received both the 2001 Francis Parkman Prize of the Society of American Historians and the Mark Lynton History Prize, which is part of the Lukas Prize Project established in 1998 to honor the best in American nonfiction writing.

The University of Colorado at Â鶹ӰԺ received a large boost from NASA last week, including $9.5 million to design and build an instrument for a mission to Mercury and $450,000 to refine a proposal to head up an unmanned Pluto mission. Daniel Baker, director of CU's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, was named a science team member for NASA's MESSENGER mission to Mercury, slated for launch in March 2004. Expected to arrive at Mercury in 2009, the $256 million Messenger mission was given the green light by NASA on June 7 to fly.

The University of Colorado at Â鶹ӰԺ will welcome almost 5,000 newly admitted freshman students along with their parents to two-day orientation programs starting June 14 and ending Aug. 23. All of the orientation sessions in June and July are for students admitted to the College of Arts and Sciences or the College of Business and Administration.

The University of Colorado at Â鶹ӰԺ will begin removing six structures in the Grandview Terrace area on June 18th, CU facilities management officials said today. Jeff Lipton, executive director of Facilities Management, said none of the first six buildings received offers for relocation.

The CU Parents Association at the University of Colorado at Â鶹ӰԺ will host a series of orientation dinners for parents of incoming students in June and July at the University Club. The dinners coincide with orientation sessions for new freshmen and transfer students and provide opportunities for new CU-Â鶹ӰԺ parents to become acquainted with the association's board members, the Office of Parent Relations and staff from student affairs programs and services.

The University of Colorado at Â鶹ӰԺ plans to continue its efforts to reduce high-risk drinking when the five-year grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation expires, university officials said. The $860,000 grant is currently scheduled to expire in August.