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News Briefs

Shorter items of interest to the campus community.

11 March 2009

OLLI open house is March 17

OLLI@Berkeley, the campus center for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, describes itself as "an educational program for adults who are learning for the joy of it." Its spring program of lectures, courses, and special events, which runs from March 30 through May 15, will be highlighted at an open house on Tuesday, March 17, at the Berkeley City Club (2315 Durant Ave.). Doors open at 9:30 a.m., and the program starts at 10 a.m. Reservations for the free event may be made online or by phone (642-5254). Course details are online at olli.berkeley.edu.

Visiting scholar to discuss Mexico's drug war March 18

"The New Narco-Cultura," a public lecture by award-winning Latin American journalist and essayist Alma Guillermoprieto, will take place on Wednesday, March 18, from 6 to 7:30 p.m. in the Home Room, International House. She will explore policy decisions that have brought the drug war to the forefront of Mexican politics, as well as cultural responses by Mexican society to drug trafficking and its related violence.

Guillermoprieto was one of two reporters to break the shocking story of the El Salvadoran army's massacre of 900 villagers at El Mozote in 1981. Named by Foreign Policy as one of the 100 most influential public intellectuals in the world, she has covered the Shining Path guerilla organization in Peru, life in Castro's Cuba, the aftermath of Argentina's "Dirty War," and post-Sandinista Nicaragua. Guillermoprieto will be a visiting scholar this spring at the Center for Latin American Studies this spring, which is sponsoring this talk. For information, visit clas.berkeley.edu.

UC seeks applications for information-technology award

The University of California is seeking applications for the Larry L. Sautter Award for Innovation in Information Technology. Named for UC Riverside's former associate vice chancellor for computing and communications, the award is open to faculty and staff from all UC campuses, the UC Office of the President, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Sponsored by the UC Information Technology Leadership Council, the program recognizes innovative deployment of information technology in support of the university's mission.

Application information is online at www.ucop.edu/irc/itlc/sautter/welcome.html. The deadline to submit applications is 5 p.m. on April 27.

The Sautter Award program presents up to three Golden Awards and two Silver Awards, as well as honorable mentions. Award recipients will be announced at the UC Computing Services Conference in Davis, June 16-17.

Botanical Garden events for March and April

Spring has sprung in Strawberry Canyon, and the UC Botanical Garden has scheduled a slew of seasonal events, the first of which takes place this Saturday, March 14: a two-hour Rhododendron walk (10 a.m.-noon) with garden horticulturist Elaine Sedlack. The cost is $12 for members, $15 general.

On Thursday, March 19, garden designers Joe Eck and Wayne Winterrowd will discuss their new book, Our Life in Gardens (Macmillan), from 2-3 p.m. The event is free with admission to the garden, and books will be available for purchase.

Workshops on pine-needle basketry, felting with plant-dyed wool, and coloring Easter eggs with natural dyes are also scheduled over the next several weeks. For details on these and all other garden activities — including the annual Spring Plant Sale, April 24-25 — visit botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu; note that some events require advance reservations.

For the record . . .

In last week's feature about Galaxy, a new exhibit at the Berkeley Art Museum, we misspelled the surname of Hans Hofmann, the artist whose paintings formed the core of the museum's collection when it began in 1963.

In the same feature, we neglected to credit Peg Skorpinski for her photos of BAM curator Lawrence Rinder. We regret the omission.