Berkeleyan

News Briefs

11 July 2007

Detours in place for users of West Crescent entry

The entrance to campus onto West Crescent at the intersection of Oxford Street and University Avenue is scheduled to be closed to vehicle traffic from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. through Friday, July 13, to allow for work on underground utilities. All vehicles except buses and shuttles will be detoured to the campus entrance at Oxford and Center streets. AC Transit buses and campus shuttles will be allowed to pass through the work area, as will any emergency vehicles. Westbound vehicles coming from the central campus will need to turn left at the West Gate and use the southern part of the Crescent to get to Oxford Street. The road will be opened to all vehicles after 5 p.m.

Additional closures of one lane of West Crescent adjacent to the construction site are expected the week of July 16. Vehicles will be able to use the road but will have to share a lane; there may be some delay to allow all users to safely share the road.

Carnegie Scholars Program invites research proposals

Nominations are now open for the 2008 Carnegie Scholars Program, which awards grants of up to $100,000 to research themes relating to Islam and the modern world. Two Berkeley faculty members in anthropology, Saba Mahmood and Charles Hirschkind, received the maximum award last year.

Proposals must contain a brief prospectus (1,000 words maximum) describing the project, as well as a timeframe, completion schedule, and one or two lines detailing budget requirements; a curriculum vitae of no more than 15 pages should also be provided.

Proposals must be forwarded electronically by Aug. 3 to the Academic Senate Faculty Awards Committee, via Diane Sprouse (dsprouse@berkeley.edu).

For information on the Carnegie Scholars program, visit www.carnegie.org/sub/program/scholars.html.

Mediator joins Staff Ombuds Office

Sara Thacker, a certified mediator and instructor at Georgetown University, joins the Staff Ombuds Office this week as the campus's new associate ombudsperson.

Thacker holds a J.D. degree from the University of Iowa and an LL.M. in conflict resolution from Georgetown. She has taught mediation, negotiation, multi-party dispute resolution, and related topics at Georgetown for the past four years, and has mediated workplace disputes at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the D.C. Department of Human Rights.

The Staff Ombuds Office offers a range of services to non-academic staff, from informal, confidential advice to classes and workshops. The office, located at 2350 Bowditch St., can be reached at 642-7823.

To learn more about the Ombuds Office - or to view a newly published report on its activities from 2004-06 - visit its website at staffombuds.berkeley.edu.

Assess your health risk, double your money

Thanks to a matching program from Recreational Sports, campus employees with Health Net, Pacific Care, or Blue Cross health insurance can earn $50 to $100 in RSF dollars by taking an online health-risk assessment (HRA).

As an incentive for employees to learn more about their health and identify specific health risks, the medical plans are offering cards and certificates worth from $25 (Health Net and Pacific Care) to $50 (Blue Cross) redeemable at Rec Sports, which will then double the amount. (Kaiser members are also being encouraged to take the HRA, though the only incentive is the value of the assessment itself.) Membership in Rec Sports is not required.

RSF dollars can be used to pay for any Rec Sports membership or service, from massage sessions to windsurfing lessons. For more information, or to take the quiz, go to calbears.berkeley.edu.

Mid-week meditation at Tang

An ongoing meditation group meets at noontime each Wednesday in 3110 Tang Center. The session begins at 12:10 p.m. with a brief reading from Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life by Thich Nhat Hanh, followed by a 30-minute silent meditation. All are welcome.

For more information, contact ckojina@berkeley.edu or beil@berkeley.edu.

For the record . . .

In our June 7 issue, we misprinted the web address of the Career Compass website developed by Human Resources. The correct URL is careercompass.berkeley.edu.

Also in that issue, we misstated the faculty affiliation of the late Emma Lehmer, who died at age 100 on May 7. She was not, in fact, a "longtime member of the mathematics faculty" - UC's anti-nepotism policy prohibited her from teaching so long as her husband, Dick Lehmer, was on the faculty. She did, however, collaborate extensively with him for 63 years prior to his death in 1991.