Â鶹ÒùÔº

University of Colorado at Boulder Associate Professor Daniel Jurafsky has been named a 2002 winner of the MacArthur Fellowship, commonly known as the "genius grant." Jurafsky, an associate professor of linguistics and computer science, is the sixth CU-Boulder faculty member to win the prestigious award from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation of Chicago. Jurafsky, 39, was one of 24 recipients of the 2002 "no-strings attached" funding. He will receive $500,000.

Patricia Nelson Limerick, the nationally renowned history and environmental studies professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, spoke at a White House symposium organized by First Lady Laura Bush on "Women of the West: The Literary Legacy of Women in the American West." Limerick presented the Sept. 17 keynote address on three authors: Willa Cather, Edna Ferber and Laura Ingalls Wilder. Her audience of about 150 people in the White House included First Lady Laura Bush, Lynne Cheney, Joyce Rumsfeld and Pam Houston, author of "Cowboys Are My Weakness."

The first University of Colorado at Boulder Leadership Conference for CU-Boulder students will be held Sept. 28 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the Glenn Miller Ballroom at the University Memorial Center. It is free and open to all students. The conference is organized by Student Renaissance Leadership and will be organized according to the following topics: diversity and women in leadership, leadership in community, personal leadership and global leadership.

A group of students from the University of Colorado at Boulder has designed a unique concept to observe dust grains in space that they hope to fly on NASA's mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt, a collection of ancient, icy objects located beyond Neptune.

Census information confirming a robust fall 2002 enrollment at the University of Colorado at Boulder offers positive news for campus efforts to improve retention and the numbers of graduate, international and transfer students. Nevertheless, CU-Boulder officials hope to limit future overall growth through a proposal called "Quality for Colorado," now under consideration by the state, which would reduce the campus's budgetary dependence on enrollment growth.

The College of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Colorado at Boulder will celebrate the grand opening and dedication of its new Discovery Learning Center on October 18. The $16.5 million addition to the Engineering Center Complex at Colorado Avenue and Regent Drive will be home to 11 top engineering research groups that actively involve undergraduates in current research along with graduate students, faculty, and industry or government partners.

The Cultural Events Board of the University of Colorado at Boulder's student government will host a talk by former U.S. Ambassador Dennis B. Ross in the fall semester. The talk is the second in a two-part series focusing on the Middle East hosted by the University of Colorado Student Union's Cultural Events Board, or CEB. Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, was the first speaker featured in the series and appeared on campus Sept. 14.

Note to Editors: Carolyn Rose Gimian, who resides in Canada, can be reached at her Boulder hotel starting Sept. 18 at (303) 443-3850. The life and work of Edward Rose, co-founder and first director of the University of Colorado at Boulder's Institute of Behavioral Science, will be remembered at events on campus Sept. 21 and 22. Rose spent 33 years at CU-Boulder as a sociology professor, department chair, researcher and director. He died on June 8, five days after his 93rd birthday.

A select group of University of Colorado at Boulder students dedicated to being responsible citizens and catalysts for ethical civic engagement and positive social change have been chosen as the initial class of 20 Puksta scholars. The scholars will each receive a $4,500 scholarship to be used on a variety of projects, many of which will have a community service orientation. They also will work closely with members of the CU-Boulder faculty and staff on their ethical and civic development projects.

Distinguished Professor Charles Wilkinson of the University of Colorado at Boulder School of Law will kick off the 2002-03 Chancellor's Community Lecture Series on Sept. 30 with a talk on "The Rise of Modern Indian Nations: Tribal Action Since World War II." The event is the first of eight public lectures to be presented by CU-Boulder faculty on the theme of "Healing the West: Remedy, Repair, Restoration, Mitigation." The series is sponsored by the CU-Boulder Office of the Chancellor, the CU-Boulder Center of the American West and the Colorado Chautauqua Association.