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Every summer as students leave the CU-Â鶹ӰԺ campus for home, hundreds of high school and college students from CU's summer diversity programs take their places in the residence halls and classrooms. This year marks the first time student in all of the summer diversity programs will have the chance to meet one another at the Diversity and Excellence Summer Gathering on July 8 from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. The gathering, which is being held south of the Business College at Observatory Field along Regent Drive, is sponsored by the Office of Diversity and Equity.

Widespread public reaction to the Columbine tragedy has raised questions about the nature of humanity as well as the state of society, according to Donald Weatherley, associate professor of psychology at the University of Colorado at Â鶹ӰԺ. The death of 15 people at Columbine High School in Littleton April 20 was particularly traumatic to people for several reasons, Weatherley said.

The University of Colorado at Â鶹ӰԺ is giving a new twist to the old joke about how many people it takes to change a lightbulb – at the CU campus the serious question is how many lightbulbs are there to change? The answer to that is about to rise significantly with news that the Vice Chancellor for Administration, Paul Tabolt, has approved the budget allocation of $100,000 for new lighting.

Twelve South African Mandela Scholars have arrived at the Economics Institute to undergo 3 months of graduate preparatory training before pursuing master's and doctoral programs in American universities this fall. The highly prestigious Mandela Economics Scholarship Program was established by the U.S.–South African Binational Commission under the leadership of South African President Thabo Mbeki and Vice President Albert Gore.

James Lee Witt, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency in Washington, D.C., will deliver the keynote address at a national workshop in Â鶹ӰԺ on July 11. Witt will speak on the opening day of the 24th annual hazards research and applications workshop hosted by the Natural Hazards Research and Applications Information Center at the University of Colorado at Â鶹ӰԺ.

The Fulbright Scholar Program has awarded grants to three University of Colorado at Â鶹ӰԺ graduate students for research and study abroad during the 1999-2000 academic year. The grants are used to support graduate study and research abroad in a student's academic field or to receive professional training in the creative and performing arts.

Editors: A library of photographs and slides is available from this yearÂ’s trip. Contact Kent Zimmerman 303-492-8484. It just keeps getting better and better Â… thatÂ’s the verdict on CU-Â鶹ӰԺ’s second annual Colorado traveling seminar, which looks set to become a regular fixture on the university calendar. At 6 a.m. on May 17, the Monday after commencement, this road show rolled out of Â鶹ӰԺ taking 20 people on a tour-with-a-difference to southern parts of the state.

Sun Microsystems of Sunnyvale, Calif., has donated $195,000 in major computer equipment to the University of Colorado at Â鶹ӰԺ’s space program that is expected to strengthen CUÂ’s already formidable international role in astrophysics. The donation includes 13 new workstations, two computer servers and two state-of-the-art disk arrays. The Sun equipment will be used by undergraduates, graduate students, postdoctoral students and faculty, said Michael Shull, chair of the astrophysical and planetary sciences department.

From computers and fuel supplies to emergency services and snow plowing, systems at CU-Â鶹ӰԺ are being tested and checked to ensure they can cope with anything the so-called Millennium Bug can throw at them. "Guarded optimism" is the key phrase among the many people contributing to the Y2K contingency plan as the university prepares itself for any possible problems.

Middle school girls who will enter the seventh or eighth grade this fall are invited to attend an Energy Education Workshop offered by the Women in Engineering Program at the University of Colorado at Â鶹ӰԺ.