Reward for information on rapist boosted
Local and University police departments have increased to $20,000 the reward offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of a serial rapist in the area.

Authorities have forensically linked the assailant to attacks on six women, several of them University students, since 1997. The serial rapist has struck at least twice in the last nine months, and police are investigating other incidents in which he may have been involved.

Police said the suspect is a black male with a medium to dark complexion, 6 feet tall with a somewhat athletic build, in his mid-20s to late 30s.

The University Police Department joined the city of Charlottesville and Albemarle County in contributing $5,000 each to the original award of $5,000, which the Jefferson Area Crime Stoppers has posted. Anyone with information should call Crime Stoppers at 977-4000 or the Charlottesville Police Department at 970-3280.

TJ award nominations sought
The Thomas Jefferson Award Committee is soliciting nominations for this year’s honor, to be presented at Fall Convocation Oct. 31. The Thomas Jefferson Award, considered the highest honor given to a member of the University community, is given to a member of the faculty, administration or staff who has exemplified in character, work and influence the principles and ideals of Thomas Jefferson.

Nominations with supporting data, including a resume and letters of support, should be sent to committee chairman Jahan Ramazani, c/o Leake Cottage, P. O. Box 400139 by 5 p.m. Sept. 26.

Last year’s winner was James F. Childress, professor of Religious Studies.

Casteen appoints two to head diversity commission
Angela Davis and Michael Smith will serve as co-chairs of President John T. Casteen III’s Commission on Diversity and Equity.

Davis, who joined the English department in 1975, became associate dean overseeing the student Residence Life Program in 1996 and has been involved in activities to further diversity at the University for years.

Smith, the Thomas C. Sorensen Professor of Political and Social Thought, directs the interdisciplinary program in the same area and focuses on ethics, human rights and international affairs in his research and teaching. He was chairman of the Faculty Senate last year.

“Angela Davis and Michael Smith appreciate the importance of the commission’s charge to the University and understand the process necessary to advance diversity and equity on Grounds. I am grateful to them for their willingness to serve in this way and know of no others whose scholarship, work with students and public service have so well prepared them to do so,” said Casteen.

The commission is almost complete, and Casteen said he expects the group to meet in the next month.

Three top posts filled
Three new vice provosts have been appointed at U.Va. J. Milton Adams, professor of biomedical engineering and associate dean for academic programs in the School of Engineering and Applied Science, will assume the duties of vice provost for academic programs in September. Gertrude Fraser, associate professor of anthropology, will become vice provost for faculty advancement in January. Also in January, Leigh Grossman, professor of pediatrics and chief of the division of pediatric infectious diseases, will take over as vice provost for international affairs.

U.Va. offices move downtown
Several offices have moved off Grounds to West Main Street: the Virginia Film Festival and three Curry School of Education programs. Their new location is above Quest Bookshop at 617 W. Main Street.
The Curry programs include the Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening, the TEMPO reading workshops and the Reading First initiative. PALS was housed in Republic Plaza.

Computer alert!
ITC continues to battle security threats, viruses and worms and reminds faculty, staff and students to practice safe computing:

1. Run Windows Update and Norton LiveUpdate to make sure your system has the latest critical updates and virus definitions.

2. Don’t open e-mail attachments without knowing who sent them and what they contain.

3. Go to http://asbru.itc.virginia.edu to see if your machine is listed as compromised or at-risk and what to do about it.

4. See http://www.itc.virginia.edu/desktop/virus/ for the latest advice.

PVCC discount offered
In a new agreement with Piedmont Virginia Community College, U.Va.’s Human Resources Division of Training is offering a 10 percent tuition discount to all full-time U.Va employees for non-credit courses offered by PVCC. Courses are listed at http://www.pvcc.edu/cftwd/, or call 961-5354 for a brochure.

U.Va employees must register in person at PVCC Room 617, with a valid U.Va. employee picture ID card. Employees who need an ID should call 924-4508.

In memoriam

• Louis T. Rader, 91, died Aug. 13 in Glenville, N.Y. He was an electrical engineering professor and department head from 1969 to 1976. He taught in the Darden School until ’82.

• Alison Heath, 64, retired Health Evaluation Sciences business manager, died Aug. 14.

ACC Expands to 11
The Atlantic Coast Conference ended a long, closely scrutinized expansion process on July 1 when it formally introduced Virginia Tech and the University of Miami as the conference’s 10th and 11th members, effective in the 2004-05 academic year.

The conference presidents had voted earlier to open membership negotiations with Miami, Syracuse and Boston College. However, a series of conference calls failed to secure the seven votes from the nine member schools to extend formal invitations. U.Va. President John T. Casteen III then led a successful effort to invite Virginia Tech, along with Miami, with backing from Virginia Gov. Mark Warner and Attorney General Jerry Kilgore.

Still unresolved is a breach-of-contract lawsuit filed against the ACC and the University of Miami by the Big East conference. Virginia Tech and Miami will end their affiliations with the Big East after the current academic year.
The expansion is the fourth since the ACC’s founding. U.Va. was invited to join six months after the league was formed in 1952. Georgia Tech joined in 1978 and Florida State in 1991.

“Both Miami and Virginia Tech are institutionally, academically, athletically and geographically compatible with our current members,” said ACC commissioner John Swofford. “In short, they both fit.”

Curry School professor Carolyn Callahan, U.Va.’s faculty athletic representative, welcomed the new additions. “The ACC and its member institutions, old and new, are, after all, about both quality educational programs and opportunities for creating the most competitive athletics environments that we can.
“Our charge now is to work toward ensuring that the ACC continues to be a league based on academy excellence, mutual respect and sportsmanship as they coexist with keen athletic competition.”

O’Connor Named Baseball Coach
Brian O’Connor, associate head baseball coach at the University of Notre Dame for the last two years and a member of the Irish coaching staff for the last nine years, was introduced as the University’s new head baseball coach July 8.

O’Connor —the 2001 national assistant coach of the year, as selected by the American Baseball Coaches Association and Baseball America magazine — worked with Notre Dame’s pitchers and was the program’s recruiting coordinator from 1995-2002.

O’Connor, 32, is a 1993 graduate of Creighton University. He replaces Dennis Womack, who retired in June after 23 years as head coach. Womack is now an assistant athletic director in the U.Va. athletic department.

Construction Causes Football Parking Shuffle
Fans who customarily park in the lots adjacent to University Hall for U.Va. football games will find spaces there harder to come by this fall, due to construction of the new John Paul Jones Arena.

There are some alternatives, particularly for the first four home games of the season, after which the new Ivy/Emmet parking facility is expected to be ready for the final two home games in November.

The Hospital South Garage generally has about 400 available spaces on game days, said Rebecca White, director of Parking and Transportation. Admission is $10 per game, but season passes for the six-game home schedule can be purchased for $36.

Spaces are less expensive and more plentiful downtown, where shuttle buses ferry fans to the stadium ($2 per round-trip). Game-day parking in the city garages on Market and Water streets is $3 per car for the first four home games, but will be free for the last two.

Anne Kinney wins NEH grant
Anne Behnke Kinney, associate professor of Chinese and director of the East Asia Center, has received a three-year grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities for a collaborative research project. The $190,000 grant, with an additional $20,000 in matching funds, will enable her to work with U.Va.’s Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities, where she is a fellow, and with the computer science department and Alderman Library. The project involves translating an ancient Chinese text, “Traditions of Exemplary Women,” and creating a bilingual-multimedia Internet resource for scholars.

Turner named to CDC committee
Dr. James Turner, executive director of Student Health, has been named the liaison representative for the American College Health Association to the Centers for Disease Control advisory committee on immunization practices. Turner will represent the needs of colleges, universities and their respective students nationwide.

Notable
Awards and Achievements of faculty and staff

• Associate professor Farzaneh Milani has been appointed to Gov. Mark Warner’s Council on the Status of Women. Milani is director of the Studies in Women and Gender Program and teaches Persian in the department of Asian and Middle Eastern languages and cultures.

• Cheryl Gomez, director of utilities at Facilities Management, won the Region Two Energy Engineer of the Year Award from the Association of Energy Engineers, an honor she also received in 1997.

• Lillian BeVier, John S. Shannon Distinguished Professor of Law, has been named a visiting scholar this fall at the new National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.

• Christopher D. Ingersoll, Joe H. Gieck Professor of Sports Medicine, has been named the next editor-in-chief of the Journal of Athletic Training.

PIN changes help ISIS security
The online Integrated Student Information System has been updated, with the four-character personal identification number being replaced by a nine-character password, which should be harder to break into and thus improve security.
Other features added to ISIS allow students, advisers and other faculty to view student transcripts and access students’ degree audit forms, which detail the requirements needed to complete a given major.
See ISIS at https://mercury.itc.virginia.edu/isis

Drop in for the Medical Center Hour
The Medical Center Hour explores current, often controversial, topics in ethics, law, culture, public policy, religion and spirituality, science research and the arts as these topics relate to health.

The fall schedule begins with Dr. Arnold P. Gold, president of the Arnold P. Gold Foundation, and Dr. Leigh Grossman, a U.Va. pediatrics professor, discussing “Humanism in Medicine: The Home Visit” Sept. 10.

Upcoming talks include:

• Sept. 17, John C. Jeffries Jr., dean of U.Va.’s Law School, discussing implications for professional schools of the U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding affirmative action in recent cases involving the U. of Michigan;

• Oct. 1, Inez Okrent, author and parent/suicide survivor, and Russ Federman, director of U.Va.’s Counseling and Psychological Services, will discuss “Difficult Dilemmas: Depression and Suicide Among University Students”;

• Oct. 8, Paul Steven Miller, commissioner of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, will speak on “Genetic Discrimination.” His talk is co-presented with the Institute for Practical Ethics and Public Life.

Open to the public, Medical Center Hours are held Wednesdays, 12:30
-1:30 p.m., in the Jordan Conference Center Auditorium. Info.: http://www.healthsystem.virginia.edu/internet/him/mchfall2003.cfm

Notable
Awards and achievements of faculty and staff

• Kathleen Fletcher, a geriatric nurse practitioner and administrator of senior services for the Health System, has been appointed by Gov. Mark Warner to serve on the state Board of Nursing Home Administrators.

• Dr. George Beller, chief of the division of cardiology and professor of cardiology and internal medicine, has been named editor-in-chief of the Journal of Nuclear Cardiology. He will assume the post in 2004.

• Dr. William Brady, associate professor of emergency medicine and clinical internal medicine at the Health System, has been awarded the American College of Emergency Physicians 2003 Emergency Medicine National Teaching Award. The award supports emergency medicine faculty in their efforts in academic advancement, and the academic development of the specialty.

• Dr. Pamela Ross, assistant professor of clinical emergency medicine and pediatrics and division head of pediatric emergency medicine at the Health System, has been appointed president of the Virginia chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians.

• Dr. Hilary Sanfey, U.Va. associate professor of surgery, received the 2003 ASE Outstanding Teacher Award by the Association for Surgical Education.

• Dr. Sabina Braithwaite, assistant professor of emergency medicine at the Health System, was the recipient of the Citizen Lawmaker Award for 2003. Virginia Del. Rob Bell presented the award.

• Hailan Hu has won a postdoctoral fellowship from the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation and will work at U.Va. with Julius J. Zhu, assistant professor of pharmacology who researches cell signaling. The foundation awarded three-year fellowships to 16 young scientists at major research centers across the country.

U.Va. leads trial for ovarian cancer drug
Doctors at the U.Va. Health System are primary investigators for a national clinical research study involving an experimental treatment that shows promise in delaying or preventing the relapse of ovarian cancer in women who achieve remission after surgery and chemotherapy.

Two identical studies are being conducted simultaneously by gynecologic cancer specialists at U.Va. and the University of California-Los Angeles. The pivotal, confirmatory Phase III trial involves a new antibody called OvaRex that is thought to work by stimulating the body’s immune system to recognize ovarian cancer cells as foreign invaders, then attack them.

Drivers with type-1 diabetes report increased incidence of mishaps
Drivers with type-1 diabetes reported higher numbers of driving mishaps, according to a multicenter study led by U.Va. Health System researchers and published in the August edition of Diabetes Care.

Hypoglycemia occurs when blood glucose levels drop too low to properly fuel the body. If blood sugar levels continue to fall, brain and nervous system functions may be impaired, and diabetics may experience confusion, blurred vision, mood changes, weakness and poor coordination.

Surveyed anonymously, drivers with type-1 diabetes reported significantly more crashes, moving violations and hypoglycemic episodes than did patients with type-2 diabetes. The type-2 diabetes group had driving mishap rates similar to nondiabetics.

“This research does not set out to restrict diabetic drivers, but instead provides information that physicians can use to talk with their patients about hypoglycemia and driving,” said the study’s principal investigator, Daniel Cox, professor of psychiatric medicine.

Landscape architects receive national recognition
University landscape architect Mary V. Hughes and associate professor Elizabeth K. Meyer have been chosen by the American Society of Landscape Architects to become members of the Council of Fellows. Of the estimated 30,000 landscape architects working in the United States, fewer than 600 have been honored as ASLA Fellows.

Landscape architecture professor Warren Byrd also was recognized for excellence in landscape design. Byrd and the Charlottesville-based Nelson Byrd Landscape Architects received an ASLA 2003 Design Merit Award for Watercolor Cerulean Park in Florida.

ASLA, founded in 1899, is the national professional association for landscape architects. The group will confer honors at its annual meeting Oct. 30–Nov. 3 in New Orleans.

Architecture faculty and students win awards
Several members of the Architecture School garnered awards from the Virginia Society of the American Institute of Architects’ INFORM magazine. Refurbishments to U.Va.’s Campbell Hall were among the works recognized in the most recent issue.

Assistant professor of architecture Timothy Stenson was recognized in the professional category with two awards: best in show, the top prize of the competition, for his Campbell Hall entrance/gallery design and a merit award, jointly shared with woodshop manager David Williams, for a plywood furniture project.

Students in the graduate-level Shure Studio from the fall semester of 2002, led by Charles Wolf of Dean-Wolf Architects, were honored with the top student design award for the Campbell Hall terrace and graduate lounge.
Professor of landscape architecture Warren T. Byrd Jr.’s firm, Nelson-Byrd Landscape Architects, also received two merit awards for its design work.

Supervisors: how to support your employees
Supervisors can be better managers by supporting their employees’ professional development.

Employee Career Services offers free workshops where staff can explore their personal interests, abilities and career options; think strategically about their career plan and develop goals; and act to achieve their career goals.
The Human Resources program also has a workshop for supervisors on the coaching concept for the workplace. This workshop is designed for supervisors and managers to discuss their ideas and techniques for employee motivation while learning about the career development process.

“For Supervisors” will be held Oct. 3.
Upcoming workshops for employees include:
“Write-On: How to Write Great U.Va. Applications”– Sept. 9
“Choices: Creating a Structured Career Plan” – Sept. 18
“Making Impressions: Creating Great Cover Letters and Portfolios” – Sept. 26  
Workshops are held at 2400 Old Ivy Road. Register for fall workshops by calling 243-5998 or using the Oracle training self-service.

See the ECS Web site at http://www.hrs.virginia.edu/career.html
Musicians wanted for municipal band
Members of the University community are invited to audition for openings in the Charlottesville Municipal Band.

The band currently has openings for intermediate and advanced woodwind, brass and percussion performers. Rehearsals are Tuesdays from 8 to 10 p.m. in the Municipal Arts Center, on Fifth Street Extended near the Willoughby Shopping Center.

The band, directed by James Simmons, rehearses 48 weeks during the year and presents a series of eight to 10 programs annually.
For information about auditions or the band in general, call the information line at 295-9850, contact Simmons at 293-4185 or visit the band’s Web site, www.charlottesvillemunicipalband.org

Pillow talk
Sleep — poets write about it or the lack of it (see U.Va. English professor Lisa Russ Spaar’s anthology, “Acquainted with the Night”), scientists study it (U.Va. Health System has a sleep disorders center) and many people don’t get enough of it. The Faculty and Employee Assistance Program devotes its current newsletter to that part of our lives.

“Insomnia is not related to how much sleep we get or how quickly we fall asleep but by the quality of sleep we get,” says FEAP counselor Rebecca Mason in her newsletter article. Added stress in daily life can disturb our nights. For techniques on overcoming sleeplessness and getting more rest, call Denese Straughn at 243-2643 or e-mail dds4e@virginia.edu for an electronic copy of “Sleep We Need.”

Rendez-vous in France
This fall’s travel opportunity for U.Va. employees features a trip to Paris, with the option of hitting the Riviera beaches first.

The Paris voyage will span six nights, Nov. 8-15, and will cost $899, while the French Riviera pretour will depart Nov. 2 and cost an additional $499. The charges include air transportation from Washington, six nights at a first-class hotel, baggage handling and daily continental breakfast.

International departure taxes and customs fees are not covered.
The travel program is open to current and retired faculty and staff and their guests. Volunteers and others who work at U.Va. are also eligible to participate. For reservations and other information, contact Jackie Cooke at 4-4430 or jmc8e@virginia.edu.

Berlin and Dresden will be the destinations of the spring tour, March 6-13.

Student health mindful of SARS risk
Although cases of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome have dropped, health officials continue to urge travelers from SARS-affected areas to monitor themselves for symptoms. The Department of Student Health is prepared to evaluate and care for students who develop SARS-like symptoms, which include a fever greater than 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit (38 Celsius), or respiratory symptoms of cough, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing.

More details are available on the Student Health Web site at: http://www.virginia.edu/studenthealth/. Students also may call the Student Health SARS hotline at 924-5362, or 972-7004 after hours for further evaluation.

Faculty or staff (nonstudents) with concerns about SARS exposure are encouraged to contact Employee Health for Medical Center employees at 924-2013, or Occupational Health for University, Health Services Foundation, School of Medicine, School of Nursing and Health Science Library Employees at 951-4655.