International Food & Cultural Festival this Sunday

To kick off the annual World Affairs conference, the Scott & Cheryl Morris/International Student Association Food & Cultural Festival will take place this Sunday from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00  p.m. in the Health & Sports Center. This long-standing event will feature booths with food and cultural entertainment and tradition from around the world, representing the diversity of our international student population at UNK. The event is open to the public.

- written in collaboration with Fauneil Meier, Office of International Education

Baldwin Free Enterprise Speaker Rebecca Kousky on Campus April 6

For the past three years, the College of Business and Technology has hosted the Baldwin Free Enterprise Lecture Series. The goal of the series is to invite outstanding scholars in the field of business, industry and finance to UNK for an exchange of ideas regarding entrepreneurship and the free enterprise system.

The spring Baldwin speaker will be Rebecca Kousky founder and Executive Director of NEST. She will speak at 7:00 p.m. on April 6, in Copeland Hall Room 142.

NEST is a non-profit organization based in St. Louis, Missouri. NEST’s mission specifically targets female artists and artisans around the world and seeks to assist them by offering loans with repayment via the goods they produce and by creating a unique line of NEST merchandise as a place for the women to sell their items. Kousky’s lecture will describe her experience as a young entrepreneur, as well as the unique loan configuration to which her organization is committed.

All students, faculty, staff, and community members are invited to attend.

- written in collaboration with Shawn Kaskie, Director of the Center for Rural Research and Development and
Carrie L. Stithem, Assistant to the Director of the Center for Rural Research and Development

CSIS Students Showcase Learning and Prepare for Regional Competition

For the past eight years, the CSIS Artificial Intelligence class has held a robotics competition to showcase the concepts they are learning in the course. The students build their own robots using robotics kits, Vex and Legos NXT, and other parts fabricated to fit their needs. They also write the software that controls the performance of their robots.

In the competition, the robots are randomly paired to accomplish the task of sweeping the robotics basketball court clean of Legos. The 8’ x 4’ court has been built according to the Midwest Instructional Computing Symposium (MICS) competition specifications and is located in the OTOL 117 lab.

This year’s robotics competition will take place Tuesday, March 9th at 9:30 a.m. in OTOL 117. The top placing teams will go on to compete at the regional MICS 2010 robotics competition at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire in April. This is the fourth year UNK students have participated in the competition; last year, one UNK team placed third in the region.

- written in collaboration with Sherri Harms, Chair of the Department of Computer Science and Information Systems

Library - In Brief Online  

New Features on Library Website

Written by Jon Ritterbush, Electronic Resources Librarian
ritterbushjr@unk.edu

The Library is pleased to announce the addition of several new features on its website.

Follow the Library

A new set of icons has been added to the library’s homepage Each of these icons provides a link to the library’s presence in two social networking services, Facebook and Flickr, and a link to all of the RSS feeds produced by the Calvin T. Ryan Library.

Articles and E-Resources

Based on feedback from library users in our November online survey, the page formerly known as “Databases and E-Resources” has received an updated label and look.

This page is now named “Articles and E-Resources” to help users more quickly navigate this pathway to finding journal articles on their research topics.  The layout of this page has also changed to display subjects in a bulleted list (no more drop-down menu!).

Not sure where to start searching for scholarly journal articles? Try one of these "Most Used" databases!

The new layout also highlights five of the most frequently used article databases, chosen for their multisubject coverage and access to thousands of full-text scholarly journal titles.

Track new library materials with RSS feeds

Written by Jon Ritterbush, Electronic Resources Librarian
ritterbushjr@unk.edu

Ever wanted to keep tabs on the latest resources arriving on the shelves or online at the library? The library’s new RSS feed service provides a great way to receive information about the library’s growing collections.

The acronym “RSS” is commonly expanded as “Really Simple Syndication.” It is a standard format for publishing frequently updated lists such as blog entries, news headlines, or status updates as abbreviated “feeds” of information.  By subscribing to an RSS feed, updates are delivered directly to the subscriber’s Web browser, email or feed reading application (tools like My Yahoo!, Google Reader, or Bloglines, just to name a few).

The library home page now includes an RSS icon (see sample icon below) which links to a list of all library-published feeds. Browse feeds that feature all recently added library materials in any format–print, video and online–or browse other feeds by subject and material type. Then subscribe to feeds you want to track on a regular basis!

For more information about RSS and how to “subscribe” to an RSS feed, please see our new Using RSS Feedsguide.

Recognition   

Items to Note for Faculty and Faculty Committees

• Academic Affairs Committee
  The link to the CAP ("Course Approval Process") information is located on the Academic Affairs Committee page. CAP is an electronic approval system that has taken the place of the paper forms for course proposals. The new online system allows department chairs to initiate proposals, which then automatically route to the next levels in the approval process. The entire approval process can be monitored online. **NOTE** The paper process for making changes to programs will continue; the form and instructions for submitting program proposals are available on the Academic Affairs Committee page.
  
  Worksheets for both the creation of new courses and the alteration of existing courses have now been added to the CAP information page. Faculty members may use these worksheets to assist them in gathering the necessary information for department chairs, who are responsible for entering course requests in the system.
  
  The schedule of Academic Affairs deadlines for the 2009-2010 academic year is available on the Academic Affairs Committee page. The page also contains a committee roster and a link to the approved Academic Affairs minutes. Department or program chairs needing to make curricular changes should be aware of these deadlines and instructions.
  
  
• Faculty Handbook
  In a continuing effort to provide faculty with the most current policy information, the Faculty Handbook has been revised and reorganized. The purpose of the handbook is to gather the documents and policies that inform and guide critical decisions, including the Collective Bargaining Agreement (2009-2011).
  
  Please note that the Faculty Handbook is updated in an online version only; refer to the online handbook when looking for the most up-to-date versions of policies, including the new Guidelines for Evaluation, Promotion, and Tenure, which have recently been revised. 
    
  
• Faculty Senate
  To keep faculty informed and in the spirit of shared goverenance, the 2009-2010 Faculty Senate Roster is posted on the Faculty Senate home page. The page also contains links to meeting agendas, meeting minutes of both the Faculty Senate and the Faculty Senate committees, and the Faculty Senate Constitution and Bylaws.
  
  
• General Studies
  Instructions have been posted on the General Studies website regarding the submission of courses  for the new General Studies Program. The course submission page includes information about the portal courses and the capstone courses.
  
  
• Graduate Council
  A webpage has been created for the Graduate Council. It contains information regarding changes to graduate courses or programs, as well as a list of the 2009 Graduate Program Committees and a link to important Graduate Faculty announcements.  
  
  
• WI/CD Committee
  The WI/CD Committee has posted a schedule of deadlines for the spring semester on the WI/CD Committee page. The page also contains instructions for applying for WI or CD designation, as well as a committee roster, agendas, and minutes. These resources are provided for those wishing to offer courses as WI or CD.

Deadlines Approach for Various Opportunities

Calendar of Events within the Academic and Student Affairs Division

Edited by Kim Elliott, Coordinator of Academic Publications

A Publication of the
Office of the Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic and Student Affairs
University of Nebraska at Kearney
905 West 25th Street
Kearney, NE 68849
Phone: (308)865-8209

For questions or submissions,
contact the Coordinator of Academic Publications at 8935 or academicpublications@unk.edu.