Berkeleyan
News Briefs
27 April 2006
Next week's Berkeleyan is last until June
Our May 4 issue will be the last of the regular semester. We return on June 1 with our coverage of year-end awards and activities, including Commencement Convocation and department graduations.
Comments invited through mid-June on academic-personnel policy proposals
Academic appointees are invited to review and comment on proposed changes and additions to the Academic Personnel Manual (APM). Proposed changes to the policy on Leaves of Absence/Sick Leave (APM 710) provide guidelines for the amount of paid sick leave that may be granted to academic appointees who do not accrue sick leave, as well as on how and when medical information should be requested in support of requests for periods of sick leave. A proposed revision to Leaves of Absence/General (APM 700) adds the concept of "constructive resignation" for faculty who are absent without approval or do not return to assigned duties after an approved leave of absence for non-health reasons.
Another proposed new policy, APM 711, is titled Reasonable Accommodation for Academic Appointees with Disabilities. A proposed policy on Medical Separation (APM 080) outlines the process for a medical separation of academic appointees who have exhausted sick leave and continue to be unable to work for health reasons and for whom reasonable accommodation is not possible.
The proposed policies are online at http://ucop.edu/acadadv/acadpers/apm/rev-700-etc.html; they may also be viewed at the campus Academic Personnel Office in 127 University Hall. For information or to comment, contact Patti Owen in Academic Personnel (Appolicy@berkeley.edu) no later than Friday, June 16.
Annual choreography showcase on stage through Sunday at Zellerbach Playhouse
The UC Berkeley Dance Program's choreography showcase continues through this weekend. The program features a premiere by guest choreographer Reggie Wilson, new and repertory works by guest choreographers Margaret Jenkins and Ellis Wood, and premieres by faculty choreographers Carol Murota and Lisa Wymore. Remaining performances, in Zellerbach Playhouse, are Friday, April 28, and Saturday, April 29, at 8 p.m., as well as a Sunday matinee at 2 p.m.
For information, see theater.berkeley.edu.
Law expert to speak May 3 on 'endangered' middle class
Law scholar Elizabeth Warren will deliver the 2006 Jefferson Lecture - entitled "The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class: Higher Risks, Lower Rewards, and a Shrinking Safety Net" - at 4:10 p.m. on Wednesday, May 3.
A professor at Harvard, Warren is a leading commentator on consumer legal issues and an outspoken critic of the nation's credit economy, which she links to the continuing rise in middle-class bankruptcy. Her books include All Your Worth: The Lifetime Money Plan (2005, co-written with Amelia Warren Tyagi), The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke (2003), and The Fragile Middle Class: Americans in Debt (2000). She is a frequent contributor to The New York Times, Washington Post, National Public Radio's All Things Considered, and The Huffington Post.
The lecture takes place in the Lipman Room in Barrows Hall (8th floor).
May 5 event 'talks back' to photography
An interdisciplinary colloquium on photography and theories of photography, titled "Talking Back to Photography," will be held from 1 to 5 p.m., Friday, May 5, in 142 Dwinelle. The event features scholars Elissa Marder of Emory University on psycho-photography, Molly Nesbit of Vassar College on cameraless photography, and Princeton professor Eduardo Cadava on love and photography. A panel of Berkeley faculty - Anne Wagner (art history), Miryam Sas (comparative literature and film studies), and Linda Williams (film studies) - will respond.
Thursday's Lunch Poems installment features student readers
Lunch Poems' annual student reading takes place on Thursday, May 4, at 12:10 p.m. in the Morrison Library, Doe Library. The event includes winners of a number of campus and off-campus prizes, writers nominated by creative-writing faculty, and student poets from June Jordan's Poetry for the People program. For information, contact Kristen Sbrongna at 642-3671 or poems@library.berkeley.edu.
Faculty panel on 'disengaged' students is available via webcast
Part two of a recent Letters and Science colloquium on engaging "disengaged" students is now available online at webcast.berkeley.edu/events. In it, campus faculty respond to an earlier lecture by Emory University professor Mark Bauerlein (also available on the webcast site) and discuss innovative methods of engaging students in the classroom.