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Environmental artist Betsy Damon will give a free public lecture Feb.12, at 7:30 p.m. at the University of Colorado at Â鶹ӰԺ as part of the Fine Arts department's Visiting Artist Program. The talk will be in the Sibell Wolle Fine Arts building, room N141. Damon's large-scale environmental projects focus on waterway pollution and its impact on the survival of the planet. She has used water as the central theme for her work since 1985.

Jim Martin, a former senior attorney at Environmental Defense and staff member for Sen. Tim Wirth, has been appointed director of the Natural Resources Law Center at the CU-Â鶹ӰԺ School of Law. He took over duties in early January, following a national search. Martin replaces Gary Bryner, who stepped down as director last spring to pursue fieldwork for NRLC as a staff member in Utah.

Editors: Go to http://www.colorado.edu/studentgroups/bsa for a complete schedule of events. The University of Colorado at Â鶹ӰԺ will offer a variety of events in February in honor of Black Awareness Month. Event coordinators hope to provide opportunities for people in the university and local communities to expand their understanding of African American life and history.

The Artist Series will host two educational events with the Trinity Irish Dance Company on Wednesday, Feb. 6, before the company's performance in Macky Auditorium that evening. A lecture-demonstration will be held at Creekside Elementary School, 3740 Martin Dr. in Â鶹ӰԺ, and a master class for CU students will be at the Charlotte York Irey Studios in the University Theatre Building on the CU-Â鶹ӰԺ campus. Both events will begin at 10 a.m. and will feature dancers and musicians from the company.

Valentine's Day is a romantic time for many couples; a time when people express their love and emotions. But, according to a Christian Science Monitor estimate, there also are 80 million Americans who will be single on Valentine's Day. While many singles are indeed happy, some are not. Last year the Monitor reported 14 percent of women in America sent themselves flowers on Feb. 14, an indication they may suffer from what CU-Â鶹ӰԺ counselor Sharon Campbell calls the unspoken Valentine's Day slogan; "We must be coupled in order to be happy."

Editors note: Lorrie Shepard will be available on Monday afternoon for comment on the results of the 10th grade mathematics CSAP study. A University of Colorado at Â鶹ӰԺ study of the content and difficulty of the 10th-grade mathematics CSAP test commissioned by the Denver Area School Superintendents Council found that 31 percent of the questions asked are not taught until after 10th-grade geometry, which may unfairly handicap a large segment of 10th-grade test takers.

CU-Â鶹ӰԺ Leeds School of Business Associate Professor Tom Dean has been elected chair of the entrepreneurship division at the Academy of Management. The Academy of Management is the world's premier organization of management academics and is dedicated to spreading knowledge about management and organizations. Membership in the academy is comprised of scholars from colleges, universities and research institutions as well as practitioners from business, government and not-for-profit organizations. It has 12,000 members in 77 countries.

The myths, astronomical phenomena and constellations of the sky in the Southern Hemisphere will be explored in the live astronomy show "Southern Skies" at the University of Colorado at Â鶹ӰԺ's Fiske Planetarium on Friday, Feb. 8, and Tuesday, Feb. 12, at 7:30 p.m.

Dennis Stanford, chair of the anthropology department at the Smithsonian Institution, will speak on his controversial suggestion that the "Solutrean Culture" from Europe may well have been among the original colonizers of the Americas. Sponsored by the CU-Â鶹ӰԺ anthropology department and funded by a department alumnus, the Ninth Annual Distinguished Archaeology Lecture will be held at 7 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 31, in room 270 of the Hale Science building. The free public event will be followed by a question-and-answer session with the audience.

Del Brinkman, dean of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Colorado at Â鶹ӰԺ, announced his resignation to journalism faculty members this week. In a letter to faculty dated Jan. 23, Brinkman cited health and family considerations as the reasons for his resignation.