KALAMAZOO–A fund-raising event that allows area residents to find out what their old books are worth will be held at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 13, in the Meader Rare Book Room of Western Michigan University’s Waldo Library.

The “Antique Book Road Show” program will include a talk and book appraisal by Dr. James Best, a noted book dealer and appraiser. The event is being sponsored by the Friends of the University Libraries, which strengthens and supports the activities of WMU’s libraries.

Best’s talk on “How Much Are Old Books Worth?” will address topics such as what determines the value of books and where to buy and sell books.

Admission to the event is free for Friends of the University Libraries members. The admission fee of $5 for students and $10 for adults will count as an annual membership in the organization. Registration by Monday, March 10, and an additional fee are required for book appraisals. The appraisal fee is $5, and individuals may not have more than two titles appraised.

Best is a professor emeritus of political science at Kent State University who became a book dealer in 1978 and retired from teaching in 2001. His business primarily deals in illustrated works and those related to 19th-century travel and exploration, handwritten manuscript materials, and old and rare books from the 19th century and earlier.

During his academic career, Best wrote a bibliography and guide to the history of American Illustration as well as many articles on local government, Congress, the American presidency and American illustration. He has conducted numerous insurance-related appraisals, most recently completing one involving more than 3,000 manuscript items donated to the Oberlin University Library.

Go to www.wmich.edu/library/friends for registration information. Those with questions should contact Kathy Gerow at lib-friends@wmich.edu or 387-5202.

Media contact: Jeanne Baron, (269) 387-8400, jeanne.baron@wmich.edu

KALAMAZOO–A chemistry professor who won a $1 million prize for discovering a simple and inexpensive means of filtering potentially deadly arsenic from well water is coming to Western Michigan University.

Dr. Abul Hussam, a George Mason University chemistry professor and winner of the 2007 Grainger Challenge Prize for Sustainability, will speak from 11 a.m. to noon Thursday, March 13, in Room 1120 of Schneider Hall, home of the Haworth College of Business. His talk, part of the business college’s Global Lecture Series, is titled “Appropriate Technology: Making a Difference in People’s Lives.”

Hussam’s finding is credited with preventing serious health problems in hundreds of thousands of people in his native Bangladesh and could help millions of others around the world. He came to the United States in 1978 as a college teaching assistant and earned his citizenship and a doctoral degree in analytical chemistry.

Hassam has devoted much of his career to finding a simple solution to a very large problem accidentally caused when international aid agencies funded widespread well digging in Bangladesh and eastern India. The wells brought fresh groundwater to the surface for millions of subsistence farmers, who for many years had been drinking from unsanitary ponds and mudholes. But the agencies didn’t realize that groundwater in the region has some of the highest concentrations of naturally occurring arsenic in the world.

The wells sharply reduced the spread of infectious diseases, but also brought about an epidemic of arsenic-related skin ailments and even fatal cancers of the lungs, bladder and kidneys over time. Hassam’s family had two of the now infamous shallow wells, but did not become ill.

The Grainger Prize is administered by the National Academy of Engineering.

Media contact: Mark Schwerin, (269) 387-8400, mark.schwerin@wmich.edu

KALAMAZOO–Environmentalist Majora Carter will speak on sustainable energy solutions at an event sponsored by Western Michigan University at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 13, at the Kalamazoo Radisson Plaza Hotel and Suites.

The event, dubbed the Green Gala, is free and open to the public and will feature Carter’s address, live music, snacks and posters of environmental initiatives in Kalamazoo.

Hailing from the South Bronx in New York City, Carter travels the world in pursuit of resources to improve the quality of life in her environmentally challenged community. She founded Sustainable South Bronx in 2001, and her efforts helped secure more than $20 million for the South Bronx Greenway project, which will begin construction this year.

She also has created riverfront parks and green roofs, dramatically increased the number of trees in the South Bronx, worked to remove an underused expressway in favor of positive economic development and successfully implemented one of the nation’s first urban green collar job training efforts–the Bronx Environmental Stewardship Training program.

She earned the prestigious John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, New York University’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Award for Humanitarian Service, and the National Audubon Society’s Rachel Carson Award. She sits on New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s Energy and Environment Transition Team as well as the Clinton Global Initiative’s Poverty Alleviation Panel.

Her speech is sponsored by Campus Concerns Committee, Honors Student Association, Students for a Sustainable Earth and the Western Student Association. For more information, contact Travis Meier at t3meier@wmich.edu or (248) 895-8771.

Media contact: Deanne Molinari, (269) 387-8400, deanne.molinari@wmich.edu

KALAMAZOO–Western Michigan University student organization Merchandising Opportunities Design Association will hold model auditions Friday, March 14, from 4 to 7 p.m. in 3303 Kohrman Hall.

Women age 18 or older are welcome to audition, there is no application fee, and all applicants should bring high heels. MODA filled its need for male models at an earlier audition. Models should be prepared to stay for the entire audition, 4 to 7 p.m. Upon arrival, applicants will have their measurements and photos taken.

Chosen models will participate in a two-day fashion event April 11-12 sponsored by MODA. All modeling positions are unpaid volunteer opportunities.

Models must be available at these dates and times

Thursday, March 20, 7 to 9 p.m.
Monday, March 24, 7 to 9 p.m.
Thursday, April 10, 7 p.m. to TBA
Friday, April 11, All day
Saturday, April 12, All day

Questions may be sent to Brittney Dudeck at brittneymodapr@aol.com.

Media contact: Thom Myers, (269) 387-8400, thom.myers@wmich.edu

KALAMAZOO–The Young Concert Artists Series at Western Michigan University concludes its spring season with a performance by award-winning Chinese pianist Chu-Fang Huang. The program begins at 3 p.m. Sunday, March 9, in the Dalton Center Recital Hall, and will feature works by Scarlatti, Schumann, Ravel and Chinese composer Chu Wang-Hua.

All seating is general admission. Tickets are $10 and $5 for students and senior citizens. They may be purchased at the door or in advance through the Miller Auditorium Ticket Office at (269) 387-2300 or toll free (800) 228-9858.

Huang also will give a briefer performance at 1 p.m. Monday, March 10, in the Dalton Center Recital Hall as part of the School of Music’s Convocation Series. Intended primarily for the WMU campus community, the Convocation Series is open to the public free of charge.

Huang’s extensive orchestral and recital appearances throughout the U.S. and abroad have elicited enthusiastic responses from audiences and critics alike. The Birmingham News declared of one of her recent performances: “Clarity, poise, lucid phrasing and dead-on technique were in abundance at the electrically charged recital.”

In addition to winning the 2006 Young Concert Artists International Auditions, Huang claimed the Paul A. Fish Memorial Prize, Slomovic Orchestra Soloist Prize, Embassy Series Prize, Lied Center of Kansas Prize, Mortimer Levitt Piano Chair of YCA, and Mortimer Levitt Career Development Award for Women Artists.

The young musician made her Lincoln Center debut at Alice Tully Hall in November 2005 and recently took the stage at Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall in New York. She’s performed internationally at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Klavier Festival in Germany, the Sydney Opera House in Australia, and the Beijing Zhong-shang Concert Hall and Liao-ning Grand Opera House in China.

Huang began playing the piano when she was just 7 years old, and received a full scholarship to the Shenyang Music Conservatory’s pre-college division at the age of 12. She made her U.S. debut in the La Jolla Music Society’s Prodigy Series when she was 15. She received a bachelor’s degree in music from the Curtis Institute of Music and a master’s degree from the Juilliard School, where she is currently pursuing postgraduate studies.

The Young Concert Artists Series is sponsored by the Donald P. Bullock Music Performance Institute in collaboration with the Irving S. Gilmore Foundation. For the past two decades, the series has introduced the Kalamazoo community to young classical musicians on their way to achieving international prominence.

Media contact: Kevin West, (269) 387-4678, kevin.west@wmich.edu

KALAMAZOO–Western Michigan University dance students present their annual Winter Concert of Dance Friday and Saturday, Feb. 8-9, in Chenery Auditorium. Performances begin at 8 p.m. Friday and 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday.

The program features Antony Tudor’s “Dark Elegies,” staged by Willy Shives, assistant ballet master and lead dancer with the Joffrey Ballet, and “Strict Love,” choreographed by Doug Varone and staged by Eddie Taketa, both of Doug Varone and Dancers. The repertoire also includes works choreographed by WMU Department of Dance faculty members Carolyn Pavlik, Tony Calucci and Rhonda Cinotto; undergraduate dance students Marissa Staniec and Jessie Cosentino; and WMU alumna Kristen Legg.

Admission to the Winter Concert of Dance is $16; $12 for senior citizens, WMU faculty and staff, and Partners in Dance members; and $8 for students. All seating is reserved. Tickets are available in advance by calling the Miller Auditorium Ticket Office at (269) 387-2300 or (800) 228-9858, or at the door before each performance.

Chenery Auditorium is located at the corner of Westnedge Avenue and Vine Street in Kalamazoo.

KALAMAZOO–Deborah Amos, foreign correspondent for National Public Radio and ABC News, will give a public lecture at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 5, in Shaw Theatre at Western Michigan University.

Admission is $5 for the general public and free to students and faculty of WMU and Davenport and Kalamazoo colleges. A valid ID from one of the three schools is required.

An award-winning correspondent who covers Iraq for NPR News, Amos will speak on the U.S. conflict in Iraq in her presentation, “Iraq: No Exit in Sight.”

Her visit to Kalamazoo is part of the World Affairs Council of Western Michigan’s Great Decisions Foreign Policy Lecture Series and is sponsored by the World Affairs Council, WMU’s Haenicke Institute for Global Education and Kalamazoo College.

Deborah Amos

Amos covers Iraq for NPR News, and her reports can be heard on NPR’s award-winning “Morning Edition,” “All Things Considered” and “Weekend Edition.” She has returned to work with NPR after a decade in television news, including ABC’s “Nightline” and “World News Tonight” and the PBS programs “NOW with Bill Moyers” and “Frontline.”

Prior to her work with ABC News, Amos spent 16 years with NPR, where she was most recently the London bureau chief. Previously she was based in Amman, Jordan, as an NPR foreign correspondent.

She has won several awards, including an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Award and a Breakthru Award, and widespread recognition for her coverage of the Gulf War in 1991. She spent 1991-92 as a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, and she is the author of “Lines in the Sand: Desert Storm and the Remaking of the Arab World,” published in 1992.

She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Amos joined NPR in 1977, where she was first a director and then a producer for “Weekend All Things Considered” until 1979, after which she worked on documentaries until 1985. In 1982, she received the Prix Italia, the Ohio State Award, and a duPont-Columbia Award for “Father Cares: The Last of Jonestown;” and in 1984 she received a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for “Refugees.”

Amos began her career after receiving a degree in broadcasting from the University of Florida at Gainesville.

Great Decisions Foreign Policy Lecture Series

Amos’ visit is the first of three programs in Kalamazoo sponsored by the World Affairs Council. Later this month there will be panel discussions on Russia’s future and global philanthropy.

Feb. 19–”Putin’s Long Shadow: Russia’s Future,” a panel discussion in the Fetzer Center’s Kirsch Auditorium

Feb. 26–”Philanthropy: Does This New Global Player have the Power to Make a Global Difference?” a panel discussion in Stetson Chapel at Kalamazoo College

For more information, contact the World Affairs Council’s Dixie Anderson at world@iserv.net or (616) 776-1721.

Well this was a rare weekend as it started with a snow day that aren’t seen too often here at western. What a great way to wake up on Friday morning with a announcement in your e-mail syaing that classes have been canceled. Noramlly I hear the plows in the mornng, and that is how I judge when I have to get up. But Friday I had my alarm clock go off befor the plows, so I knew that something was up.

Anyway the snow provided a great weekend for recovery and relaxing, since the majority of campus is experiencing come type of illness.

Most of us students took the day off as an opportunity to enjoy the snow in one way or another. I personally took the afternoon with my friendds and went to the local ski resort for the day. Many others went sled riding and other great activities for the day.

I don’t see any of these enjoyable days in the near future, as the rain has moved in and started to melt the snow. Oh well I will be hopeful that another is going to come soon.

- Abe

We totally had a snow day on Friday and it was amazing!! None of my roommates had class, but I got to skip out on math class…kind of a bummer, but cool anyways. My roommate and I tried making a snowman…but that didn’t work out so well. haha. The snow was too fluffy…you can see for yourself how bad the poor guy turned out:

Too bad my roommate cut me out of the pic. haha. That’s all for now! See ya.

- Sheila

I’m so excited…I just finished the polished version of my resume for the career fair on February 7th. The career fair has over 160 companies that will come in looking for possible careers or internships and I’m really excited because I’ve never been to a career fair before…hopefully I’ll get called back for an interview *fingers crossed*. I still have to make a references list, so I have to call some of my previous employers to get information from them. On Tuesday night, I went to a presentation put on by the SBMA (Sales and Business Marking Association) where they brought in some speakers from Eli Lilly (a pharmaceutical company) to go through the interview process and to help students become better prepared for an interview. That really helped me a LOT…I feel much more confident about the career fair. yay! I have a math project to do…so I’ll be talking to you later!

- Sheila