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Mark your calendars and pull out your picnic baskets because the University of Colorado at Boulder is hosting "Picnic on the Quad," July 8, beginning at 3 p.m. in the historic Norlin Quadrangle. Free activities at the picnic will continue into the evening and include live music, hands-on science workshops for kids, ice-skating and ice cream, sidewalk chalk art projects and special visits from CU-BoulderÂ’s Ralphie the buffalo and Will Shakespeare himself.

Margaret Murnane, a professor of physics at the University of Colorado at Boulder, is the winner of a $500,000 MacArthur Fellowship sometimes known as the "genius grant." She is the fourth CU-Boulder faculty member to receive the prestigious award from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation of Chicago. Murnane was one of 25 recipients of this year's awards.

Nearly 100 underrepresented rural and minority high school students from Denver, Boulder and St. Vrain Valley schools will get the chance to be engineering students at CU-Boulder June 21-24 through an expansion of the popular Success Institute.

A University of Colorado at Boulder researcher has been awarded a prestigious postdoctoral fellowship from The Cancer Fund of the Damon Runyon-Walter Winchell Foundation of New York.

High school students from throughout Colorado will participate in CU-BoulderÂ’s Business Leadership Program June 11-17, sponsored by the College of Business and local corporations. The free program offers 30 outstanding minority students the opportunity to get a head start on their college careers.

Katy Garmany will present her final live astronomy show at Fiske Planetarium June 16 ending a nine-year stay as director of the planetarium and Sommers-Bausch Observatory at the University of Colorado at Boulder and 26 years on campus. In July, Garmany will begin a new position at Columbia UniversityÂ’s Biosphere 2 astronomy program in Tucson, Ariz., where she will be one of three full-time faculty teaching a variety of astronomy courses and supervising observation projects for a class of about 25 students.

The CU Parents Association at the University of Colorado at Boulder will host a series of orientation barbecues for parents of incoming students in June and July at the University Club. The barbecues coincide with orientation sessions for new freshmen and transfer students and provide opportunities for new CU-Boulder parents to become acquainted with the associationÂ’s board members, the office of parent relations and staff from student affairs programs and services. The sessions also provide a time to meet and greet parents from around the world.

ItÂ’s a good idea that just got better. The College of Engineering and Applied Science at CU-Boulder is expanding its popular High School Honors Institute to reach middle school students interested in careers in math and science. The college is collaborating with the St. Vrain Valley School District on a pilot program that will bring 24 seventh and eighth grade students to the campus for a two-day residential program, June 15-16. Organizers hope to be able to open the program to other school districts for participation in future years.

Ever wonder what it would feel like to be sucked into a black hole? Selected children will have the chance to fall into an artificial black hole, build a man that stretches to many times his normal size and participate in other activities at the Saturday, June 17, CU Wizards show on "Black Holes." Associate Professor Andrew Hamilton of the astrophysical and planetary sciences department will demonstrate the concepts of black holes in CU-Boulder's Fiske Planetarium at 9:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m.

Succeeding as a performer in the music industry takes more than technical skills sharpened and finely tuned at traditional music schools like the College of Music at the University of Colorado at Boulder. It takes entrepreneurship.