March 3, 1999

FYI HomeUniversity of Utah

Legislative report
coming Friday
Look for a report to faculty and staff about the results of the 1999 Legislature to be bulk delivered to campus departments Friday as a special edition of FYI. The legislative session ends Wednesday at midnight. The report will be placed online as soon as it is complete at www.utah.edu/fyi.m

March 23 workshop
will focus on
technology
Faculty are invited to a workshop the afternoon of March 23 that will cover how to use technology-assisted instruction to enhance student learning and provide for discussion of issues raised by electronic instruction. The workshop will begin at 1 p.m. in the Marriott Library Gould Auditorium. No registration is necessary, but participants should RSVP to Jennifer Hwu at ext. 1-6954, hwu@ee.utah.edu.
Breakout session topics include undergraduate programs, copyright, RPT issues, graduate programs, student experiences, and a panel discussion. Also offered for discussion will be a set of posters dealing with real-time laboratory course delivery, courses at other institutions, the Western Governors University, and support services.

Local stations
will share antenna
for digital TV
As part of the coming conversion to digital broadcasting, KUED and KULC have joined with six other Wasatch Front television stations to build and share a 350-foot transmission tower on top of the Oquirrh Mountains. Not only will the consortium save money, the tower will also provide a single target for digital TV viewers whose antennas must be aimed more precisely at the transmitter than is the case with analog television. Apart from sharing the antenna facility, all of the stations will operate as independently from each other as they do now.
Current plans are for KUED to begin digital transmitting (including high definition) in November 2001, somewhat after the local commercial stations, while KULC plans to begin in May 2003. All stations will continue to broadcast an analog signal until 2006, or until 85 percent of the households in the broadcasting area have digital reception equipment. For more information on digital television, visit www.pbs.org/opb/crashcourse.

Reminder...
Bring "gently used" garden tools, plus hammers and garbage bags to the Eccles Broadcast Center Friday March 12, for the Bennion Center/KUER drive to collect tools for use in community service projects.

Staff members who
want to get involved:
UUSAC needs you
In an effort to increase staff input into making University policy, the Staff Advisory Council is playing a greater role in recruiting staff members to particpate on U of U committees. The council would like to hear from staff who would be interested in serving on advisory committees for the bookstore, campus recreation, financial aid, and parking and transportation, or on hearing committees that handle cases of discrimination complaints, parking violations, and staff grievances. If you are interested, contact Jim Cook at jcook@nsc.utah.edu, ext. 1-3436. The Staff Advisory Council will in turn make nominations to the Personnel and Elections Committee. Final appointments are made by the president.
For more information, consult the UUSAC Web site at www.nsc.utah.edu/uusac. For a roster of the various committees, contact Marilyn Lorensen in the Academic Senate office at ext. 1-5203.

Seed grants
support innovation<BR> Fourteen research projects from all over campus received a total of $448,951 in the latest cycle of Incentive Seed Grants. Funded by the U of U Research Foundation, the grants support new, previously unfunded, directions of research that are likely to attract external funding. The next cycle of grant awards will be in July, for which applications will be taken during May. For information on applying, contact the Office of the Vice President for Research, ext. 1-7236.

Web site provides
self-service
accident forms<BR> The forms needed to report liability, automobile, and property claims to Risk and Insurance Management are now available on the World Wide Web. "When there is an incident or accident, you may now either submit the claim via the Web, which will convert it to an e-mail message, or enter the information on the screen, print it on your printer, and fax or mail it to us," says Kristin Phillips, risk coordinator. The forms may be found at www.utah.edu/risk_management, along with a wealth of other information on such topics as safeguarding equipment, rental car insurance, special events insurance, using University vehicles, etc.
The "Vehicle-In Case of Accident" form and "Incident Accident Form" will copy to your PC as an Acrobat file, allowing you to type in the information before you print the form. The other forms, such as the field trip liability waivers, will print directly from your browser, to be filled in my hand.

Utah online library
provides handy
Web reference
Utah's colleges and universities, public schools, and libraries worked together to create an online reference tool that has the familiar convenience of the World Wide Web. It's called "Pioneer: Utah's Online Library." For access, either select "Academic Pioneer" on the Marriott Library Web site, or go directly to http://pioneer-library.org. Pioneer allows you to search local newspapers, some 1,500 other magazines and newspapers, dictionaries, and encyclopedias, plus some academic journals, and databases.
A service of note on Pioneer is "College Sources," which has scanned text of the college catalogs of 6,900 institutions, include the U of U.

Committee will give
faculty input
to development
In keeping with his desire that administrative functions have faculty input, President Bernie Machen has created a Development Oversight Committee. The committee will review the University's fund-raising activities, in such areas as organization, funding, and programming. Membership includes several deans, the president of the Academic Senate, and other faculty members in what will become staggered three-year terms. The senior vice president for Academic Affairs is ex officio chair, and the vice president for Development is also an ex officio member.
At the end of 1998, the Sesquicentennial Campaign had achieved $489 million toward its $500 million goal, with more than a year to go.

Diversity guide
lists campus
resources, services
If you have questions about what's available on campus to assist students who are members of minority groups, women, or people with disabilities, consult the Resource Guide to Diversity Services, which was recently mailed to department heads. The guide will help you refer such students to campus agencies that can help them. For additional copies, contact the Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action, 135 Park Building, ext. 1-8365. The office produced the guide in cooperation with the Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Commission, and the Office of the Associate Vice President for Diversity and Faculty Development

Worth a visit
Fort museum adds
new mural, offers
unique perspective
The Fort Douglas Military Museum recently unveiled a new mural, painted by Don Hague, director emeritus of the Utah Museum of Natural History. The mural depicts the mouth of Red Butte Canyon as it might have appeared prior to 1935, when horse cavalry disappeared from the fort. It serves as a backdrop to a life-size exhibit of horse and rider with all the accouterments of the 1930s, including McClellan saddle, Smokey-Bear hat, and Springfield rifle. Hague was a student of the famous muralist Lynn Fausett, who also has a mural in the museum, depicting the Mormons' first battle with the Utes at Utah Lake in 1850.
Located on the south side of the Parade Ground, the Fort Douglas Museum is worth a visit. Exhibits with uniforms, accouterments, other artifacts, photographs, paintings, and text cover Utah and Mormon history from the military point of view. Included are an account of events at the fort under Colonel Patrick Connor, the "father of Utah mining." Other exhibits give a western perspective through World War II and even Vietnam, with such offerings as a 6-foot model of the USS Salt Lake City, a heavy cruiser that fought in World War II, and lasted until it was scuttled off Bikini Atoll after the first H-bomb explosion. Outside, you'll find a collection of tanks, helicopters, and artillery dating from modern times back to the Civil War.
Although the building technically belongs to the University, the museum will be operated indefinitely under the auspices of the Utah National Guard.

Karate club invites
faculty, staff
The Karate-Do Sports Club invites faculty and staff to join its Tuesday evening practices, either as participants or spectators. Practices are held from 7 to 9 p.m. in a HPER-East racquetball court. Beginners are welcome, and no special equipment is needed, other than loose-fitting clothing. Volunteer instructors from the non-profit Shotokan Karate Association teach the principles of Tskutomu Ohshima, who introduced karate to America in 1955. For information, contact Jay Deuel at ext. 1 3984, or visit www.utah.edu/campusrec/spclub/karate-do.

Management tip
Separate recognition
from pay raises in
no-inflation economy
From "MBO" to "TQM", most management systems emphasize the need for supervisors to frequently recognize good work done by subordinates, and not depend on an annual pay raise as their only form of recognition. This is doubly true as America is finally getting what it wanted: a time of essentially no inflation. Ironically, pay raises that increase buying power seem small when they don't include cost-of-living factors, which American workers see as lack of progress. "People may feel their worth has been diminished," says Richard Curtin, senior associate research scientist at the University of Michigan.
The Feb. 22 Wall Street Journal reports that workers who got 3 percent raises last year (when inflation was 1.6 percent) felt less fulfilled than when they were getting larger raises that were well below the inflation rate. As reporter David Wessel puts it, "A no-inflation economy means workers must get used to raises that look small, but that are worth more than the bigger raises of yesteryear."

Meet Coach Majerus
University Bookstore offers an opportunity to meet Basketball Coach Rick Majerus in the form of a book-signing party, Monday, March 8 from 9 to 11 a.m. Majerus will be signing his new autobiographical work, My Life on a Napkin. The bookstore will give a 20 percent discount on copies of the book the day of the signing.