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University of Colorado at Â鶹ӰԺ Emeritus Professor Mark Meier, one of the world's leading glaciologists, has been named the winner of the Goldthwait Polar Medal in recognition of his outstanding contributions to polar research. The Goldthwait Polar Medal, which will be presented to Meier at a ceremony in Columbus, Ohio, on Oct. 4, is the Byrd Polar Research Center's most prestigious award.

The University of Colorado at Â鶹ӰԺ's annual fall break is on Oct. 10 and Oct. 11. All campus buildings will remain open during the break. The break was initiated in 2000 to give students a breather during what otherwise would be 12 weeks of continuous classes between Labor Day and Thanksgiving. Student leaders from the University of Colorado Student Union originally proposed the fall break in 1998 as a way to split up the long stretch of full class weeks. Students were pleased in 1999 when the proposal was approved.

The education of CU-Â鶹ӰԺ MBA students entails more than finance and marketing classes. At the Leeds School of Business, giving back to the community is part of the MBA student experience. On the morning of Oct. 4, about 40 MBA students will hold their fall semester community service event and help five organizations in Â鶹ӰԺ. The organizations include the Collage Children's Museum, Community Food Share, the city of Â鶹ӰԺ's Adopt-A-Park program, Flatirons Climbing Council and ReSource 2000.

To improve its connection with Colorado's growing investment community, the CU-Â鶹ӰԺ Leeds School of Business has appointed Michael Stutzer as finance professor and director of the school's Burridge Center for Securities Analysis and Valuation. "Colorado is becoming an emerging center for investments," said Steven Manaster, dean of the Leeds School. "Our goal is to more closely align our school with the region's securities industry. Michael's appointment will help that effort."

The University of Colorado at Â鶹ӰԺ physics department will kick off a new monthly science program on Saturday, Oct. 12, at 2 p.m. in the JILA Auditorium. Senior Instructor Michael Dubson of the physics department will present "Big Telescopes, Spy Satellites and Video Astronomy" as the first lecture in the new program called Saturday Science Series. The monthly shows will present topics similar to the popular CU Wizards series, except that the new series is targeting Colorado high school students, teachers and adults with afternoon lectures.

Richard Rogers, a professor of sociology at the University of Colorado at Â鶹ӰԺ, was a recipient of the 2002 Otis Dudley Duncan Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Social Demography. Rogers, along with coauthors Robert Hummer of the University of Texas at Austin and Charles Nam of Florida State University, wrote "Living and Dying in the USA: Behavioral, Health, and Social Differentials of Adult Mortality." The award was presented over the summer at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association in Chicago.

A search committee has been named to identify finalists for the position of dean of the School of Law at the University of Colorado at Â鶹ӰԺ. Harold Bruff, the current dean, will complete his seventh year in that position in June. Bruff announced his resignation in August, citing his eagerness to resume teaching and writing and to spend more time with his family. He will remain at CU-Â鶹ӰԺ as a law professor.

The Oct. 1 keynote presentation, "Queer Voices on Campus: Results of a 2001 Campus Climate Study" by Sue Rankin, senior diversity planning analyst in the Office of the Provost for Educational Equity at Penn State University, has been postponed due to an illness in her family. Rankin was scheduled to speak at the University of Colorado at Â鶹ӰԺ at 7 p.m. in Duane Physics room G1B20 as part of LGBTQ Awareness Month. Plans are under way to host Rankin at a later date.

Note: Photo scan is CU doctoral student Jim Clawson with Bioserve plant chamber. Researchers from the University of Colorado at Â鶹ӰԺ will be flying several biomedical and agricultural experiments on NASA's space shuttle Atlantis slated for launch Oct. 2, some of which will be transferred to the International Space Station.

The mechanical engineering department at the University of Colorado at Â鶹ӰԺ plans to celebrate its centennial with a yearlong series of events. The discipline has shown a great evolution from the early years of the Industrial Revolution to the present day development of micro- and nano-scale technologies. Likewise, CU-Â鶹ӰԺ's mechanical engineering department, established in 1902, has grown from a small class of nine students to an enrollment of 460 undergraduate and 99 graduate students in 2002.