Thu, Aug 24, 2006
August 24, 2006
VAN BRUNT VISITORS CENTER, 3:30PM
Research to Celebrate MATC Grant
UNL has been awarded a $6.2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation's Research and Innovative Technology Administration designating UNL's Mid-America Transportation Center as a regional University Transportation Center. Faculty, staff and students will hear about the award at a grant celebration at the Van Brunt Visitors Center today, 3:30 pm. For five years we have had a vision of winning this regional university transportation center and now our day has come, said UNL Vice Chancellor for Research Prem Paul. This is an important grant because this center will put us in the driver's seat as the leader in transportation research and education in this region and it will put our faculty, our university and our state at the table where national transportation priorities are set.
The Mid-America Transportation Center is a consortium with UNL as the lead institution and regional partners Kansas State University, University of Kansas, University of Missouri-Rolla and Lincoln University of Missouri. The Nebraska Department of Roads and the Kansas and Missouri Departments of Transportation also are key partners. Laurence Rilett, Keith W. Klaasmeyer Chair in Engineering and Technology in the civil engineering department at UNL, is the center director.
MATC
BUILDING ABBREVIATIONS INDEX
The Long And Short of UNL Buildings
The start of the new school year also can bring confusion with locations for those not familiar with building abbreviations. For help finding your way around campus, a list of City and East Campus building abbreviations and their locations on the UNL campus map are available here.
COMPLETED OVER 300 PROJECTS LAST YEAR
Instrument Shop expertise aids ANDRILL Project
Michael Jensen has no desire to follow his newest research-related creation into the field. For the second time as manager of the Chemistry/Physics and Astronomy Instrument Shop, Jensen has designed and built a device that will play an important role in ANDRILL, the UNL-led geological drilling project based in Antarctica.
Jensen's first ANDRILL build was a shield that successfully protected an ocean current monitor from damage. In response, Richard Levy, co-leader of ANDRILL, contacted Jensen to see if he was interested in a new project.
During their discussion, Levy explained that ANDRILL needed what was basically a super-charged saw that could split rock cores collected from beneath frozen seas. ANDRILL researchers use the cores to study global climate change - half of the core is used for study today, the other half is saved for future research efforts. more...
CHEMISTRY, PHYSICS & ASTRONOMY INSTRUMENT SHOP
MARY RIEPMA ROSS MEDIA ARTS CENTER
Strangers With Candy, The Hotel Show at the Ross
UNL's Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center presents Strangers With Candy, and The Hotel. The Hotel will be showing through August 24, while Strangers With Candy will play through August 31.
Strangers With Candy is a daring leap backwards. A prequel to the critically acclaimed Comedy Central series of the same name, it is the tale of Jerri Blank (Amy Sedaris), a forty-seven year old ex-con, junky whore who decides to return home after thirty-two years as a runaway. When Jerri arrives at her childhood home, she discovers her earlier disappearance has caused her father to slip into a self-induced coma. Moved by guilt, and with hopes of jarring her father from his eternal slumber, Jerri decides to turn her life around by picking it up exactly where she left off - as a high school freshman. She's going to start her life over, only this time she's going to do the wrong things the right way. Once reenrolled in high school, and seeking to find that special thing that will erase thirty-two years of debauchery, Jerri stumbles upon the school sponsored State Science Fair. Convinced that winning the fair will resurrect her father, she signs up, expecting an easy stroll down the road to victory. Not surprisingly, she finds that the path is fraught with the many adolescent problems and temptations that plague all teenagers, but especially this forty-seven year old former boozer, user and loser.
The Hotel marks the directorial debut of Michael Kang, and was produced by Miguel Arteta (The Good Girl, Chuck & Buck). Thirteen-year-old Ernest Chin (Jeffrey Chyau) is the first-generation son in a family of Chinese immigrants; he lives in a sleazy motel run by his hardworking, dour mother (Jade Wu) who discourages his interests in writing and girls. She believes that Ernest needs to appreciate what he has at home, and give up his dreams that threaten nothing but heartache--the viewer infers that this is what became of her own dreams. When a brash, hard-drinking, womanizing young Korean man named Sam (Sung Kang) moves into the motel, Ernest forms an unlikely bond with him, as each finds in the other something he desperately needs. Sam seeks out the fatherless boy, sensing a need for guidance and companionship that mirrors his own. The simple, awkward dialogue of the film is managed winningly by novice actor Chyau, who was recruited from the Bronx High School of Science to play the part of Ernest. The performances by supporting actor Kang, as well as Samantha Futerman, who plays Ernest's precocious love interest, are equally powerful. With beautiful photography and a slow, seductive pace, the film delivers a message about finding beauty in unlikely places, as well as the courage to follow one's dreams.
More information is available at the Ross website.
MRRMAC | STRANGERS WITH CANDY | THE MOTEL
