University Museum grand opening set for Feb. 28

An ROTC uniform from the 1920s, a beanie freshman students were once required to wear and a 1940s varsity-letter sweater are among the artifacts that will be displayed at Ohio State's University Museum after the grand opening ceremony from 5 to 6:30 p.m. Feb. 28 in University Hall.

Executive Vice President and Provost Edward J. Ray, University Archivist Raimund Goerler and Ohio Stater Jason Cervenec will give remarks before the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

The exhibit will showcase artifacts and photographs of student groups and events that would have been popular on campus from the 1900s to the 1940s. Photographs of homecoming parades and a variety of other events will be displayed, as well as a fraternity pin from the early 1900s, a residence hall gavel and wood cuts used by The Lantern.

The Ohio Staters Inc., a nonprofit faculty, staff and student organization dedicated to community and campus service, developed the University Museum. Since 1996, the organization has designed the room in University Hall, searched for items to display and raised money to fund the project. Ohio Staters Cervenec, George Wang and Heather Tsavaris are the project chairs for the University Museum.

"The museum will be the only place on campus that showcases the history of the student experience at Ohio State," said Tsavaris.

The museum was created as a space to display artifacts that ordinarily would be inaccessible to the public. Its purpose is to increase awareness of the University's history and traditions. Exhibits will focus on themes related to students, including materials from student organizations, residence halls, social movements and cultural perspectives.

Bill Wahl, former director of the Parent Association and adviser to the Ohio Staters, first conceived the idea for the University Museum. Wahl said that when he oversaw University tours as the director of community and visitor relations, many people inquired about the history of various traditions and buildings. He discovered that a wealth of information and artifacts had been unavailable to the public. When he became adviser for the Ohio Staters, he suggested the University Museum as one of the organization's projects.

"I realized that there was this great tradition and history at Ohio State," Wahl said. "I thought it would be great if students, faculty and staff could learn more about it."

Many sponsors contributed to this project, including Ohio State University Archives, Kellogg Cabinets, University Security Services, College of Humanities, Alumni Association and Physical Facilities.

OIT to improve e-mail accessibility

The Office of Information Technology will reverse the University's open mail relay policy on its SMTP servers to improve University e-mail accessibility beginning at 7 a.m. Feb. 27. Open mail relays are SMTP servers that accept e-mail from anywhere on the Internet and send it on to other Internet mail addresses.

The change affects about 7,000 campus e-mail users who relay e-mail from such Internet Service Providers as Road Runner, AT&T, AOL or Microsoft Network through University SMTP servers, such as OIT's smtp.service.ohio-state.edu; those users will have to update their e-mail software.

Details and other information about how to change e-mail configurations are on the Web at www.net.ohio-state.edu/openrelay/.

TechPartners seminar explores seed funds

Robert J. O'Brien, general partner, and Peter G. Kleinhenz, principal, of CID Equity Partners are the guest speakers scheduled for the OSU TechPartners Seminar set for 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. March 8 at the Longaberger Alumni House.

The presentation will discuss CID Equity Partners' $35 million seed fund, a partnership dedicated to providing seed financing to businesses arising from university research and entrepreneurial endeavors in the Midwest.

The box lunch program is free and open to the public. The reservation deadline is March 6.

For details or reservations, call 292-1315 or visit the Web at http://techpartners.osu.edu/tp_news.html#2.

Women's Club event features Battenberg

Tom Battenberg, professor emeritus of the School of Music, founder of the OSU Jazz Sextet and leader of the award winning Jazz Ensemble, will deliver "A Brief History of Jazz" during the March meeting of the University Women's Club. The lunch meeting will be held March 5 at the Faculty Club. Lunch is served at 11:30 a.m.; the program begins at 12:30 p.m.

For reservations, call 451-5632 by Feb. 26. For details, contact 848-3117 or naylor.2@osu.edu.

Conference center open house is Feb. 23

Fisher College is hosting an open house from noon to 6 p.m. Feb. 23 on the third floor of the Pfahl Executive Conference Center. The event will showcase facilities available at the conference center, and introduce meeting planners to the possibilities that will be available when the Inn at Fisher College is completed in spring of 2002. Refreshments will be served.

For details, contact Stefanie Trout at 247-6401.

Rosenberg to deliver Burnham Lecture

Charles Rosenberg, professor of the history of science at Harvard University, will present the first John C. Burnham Lecture in Medical History at 4 p.m. March 1 at the Medical Heritage Center in the Prior Health Sciences Library at Ohio State.

Rosenberg, leading historian of American medicine and author of The Cholera Years, will speak on "Contested Boundaries: Behavior, Disease, and Diagnosis." The lecture series is sponsored by the Department of History and the Medical Heritage Center.

For details, contact 293-3737 or crawford.1@osu.edu.

Schmeidl to discuss gender perspective

Susanne Schmeidl, sociologist with the Swiss Peace Foundation, will present "Gender, Early Warning, and Conflict Prevention" from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. March 1 in the Mershon Center. The event is sponsored by the Ohio State Women in Development, the Mershon Center and the Department of Sociology.

Schmeidl will discuss the benefits of a gender perspective such as that found in the field of international relations. A reception will follow the talk.

For details, contact Cathy Rakowski at 292-6447 or rakowski.1@osu.edu.

Medical Center offers caregiver classes

The Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute is sponsoring a "Prepared Family Caregiver Course" from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. March 6, 13 and 20 at the Medical Center's Battelle campus. The free three-session class is designed for family and friends who are caregivers for someone who has cancer.

Oncology care professionals will lead all group activities, and participants will receive a free copy of The Home Care Guide for Cancer. For details, contact Michelle Gailiun at 293-6054 or gailiun.1@osu.edu.

Nominations open for women's council

Nominations for potential members of the President's Council on Women's Issues will be accepted until March 1. The council will be made up of 20 student, staff and faculty members; eight will be named by President Kirwan and 12 will be selected from a campus-wide nomination process.

For more information about the council, see the Feb. 8 onCampus.

To make a nomination, contact The Women's Place at 292-3960 or visit the Web at http://womensplace.osu.edu.

Statistics hosts weekly seminar

An Environmental Data Seminar organized by the Program in Spatial Statistics and Environmental Sciences is meeting throughout winter quarter from noon to 1:30 p.m. on Wednesdays in 724 Math Tower.

Upcoming guest speakers are Brian Slater, School of Natural Resources, "Precision Agriculture: Harvesting Data on the Farm" on Feb. 28, and Bill Mitsch, School of Natural Resources and Olentangy River Wetland Research Park, "A Whole-Ecosystem, Long-term Wetland Experiment" on March 7.

RSVP to sses@stat.ohio-state.edu. For details, visit the Web at www.stat.ohio-state.edu/~sses.

Lecture to explore Lake Erie shipwrecks

Charles E. Herdendorf will present "Exploring Ohio's Maritime History through Lake Erie Shipwrecks" March 1 at the Friends of Stone Laboratory and the Ohio Sea Grant College Program's Third Annual Winter Program and Reception. The free, public event will be held from 7 to 9 p.m. in the Fawcett Center.

Herdendorf will discuss the history that lies submerged beneath the waters of Lake Erie, exciting developments at the Lake Erie Shipwreck Center in Vermilion, and educational opportunities at Stone Laboratory on Gibraltar Island, Put-in-Bay.

For details or to RSVP, contact the Ohio Sea Grant office at 292-8949 or cordi.2@osu.edu by Feb. 26.

Odden to deliver Humanities lecture

David Odden, professor of linguistics, will present "Languages and Universals" at the College of Humanities' fifth Inaugural Lecture of the year at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 27 in the Faculty Club. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Much research in contemporary linguistics is grounded in the assumption of "universal grammar," whose central idea is that there are properties universal to all human languages. Odden will explore different understandings of the concept "linguistic universal," and how we come to know what these universals might be.

For details or to RSVP, call 292-1882.

Fonow is OSU-WID luncheon guest

Mary Margaret Fonow will present "Transnational Labor Solidarity in the Age of Globalization: Union Women Respond to NAFTA" from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. March 8 in 311 Denney Hall. The brown-bag lunch is presented by OSU-Women in Development and the Department of Women's Studies.

Fonow, assistant professor of women's studies, is writing a book on women's activism in the United Steelworkers of America and is a member of the University's Labor Advisory Group.

For details, contact Cathy Rakowski at 292-6447 or rakowski.1@osu.edu.

Sixth Inaugural Lecture is March 6

Ileana Rodriguez, professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, will present "From the Politics of Commitment to the Cultures of Entertainment" at 7:30 p.m. March 6 in the Faculty Club. The presentation is the College of Humanities' sixth Inaugural Lecture of the Year.

In the talk, Rodriguez will assert that Latin American literatures, as a field of study in the North American academy, is closely related to the political climate created by the Cuban revolution.

The lecture is free and open to the public. To RSVP, call 292-1882.

Hillel to host lecture by ÔDr. Ruth' Feb. 26

Author and television personality Ruth Westheimer, better known as "Dr. Ruth," will present "Sex in the City, County and Country ... Becoming Sexually Literate" at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 26 at the Ohio State Hillel Foundation. An author of 18 books, Westheimer has taught at Lehman College, Brooklyn College, Columbia University and West Point.

Tickets are $10. For details or ticket reservations, call 294-4797.