News briefs

17 September 2002 |

British Studies Center set to open its doors next year
A new Center for British Studies will be created at Berkeley, thanks to an endowment of more than $2 million from the Robert Kirk Underhill Trust. The center, which officially opens in Sept. 2003, will provide a platform for one of the largest and most distinguished group of scholars studying British culture, society, and history — spread across the arts, humanities, social sciences, and professional schools — in the United States.

The center’s objectives will be to strengthen Berkeley’s intellectual and institutional ties to Britain, to develop new interdisciplinary research agendas for the study of Britain, and to support graduate and undergraduate research in British Studies.

The multidisciplinary center will be housed within the Institute of European Studies, with the support of the Institute for Governmental Studies, under the Division of International and Area Studies. The director will be Professor James Vernon of the history department.

For information, visit ies.berkeley.edu or contact Gia White Forbes at 642-4555.

New guide lists campus resources for graduate student parents
For the 460 to 860 Berkeley graduate students with children, the Graduate Division has published a new guide, “Families Matter,” listing campus resources designed to help graduate-student parents meet their family care obligations while pursing their academic goals.

“Our research group has found that the major predictor of why graduate student women are not well represented in the professoriate is motherhood,” says Mary Ann Mason, dean of the Graduate Division. “We need to support our student parents, or we will lose some of our best and brightest minds.”

Subtitled “A Quick Guide for Graduate Student Parents,” the brochure includes information on financial aid, health insurance, housing for students with families, campus childcare options and other programs and services, as well as academic policies affecting student parents.

For copies of the guide, call 642-5472.

Anonymous HIV testing resumes after summer suspension
Free, drop-in, anonymous HIV-antibody testing is available for faculty, staff, and students from 5 p.m. to 6:45 p.m. on Thursdays at the Tang Center. The test is oral; no blood is drawn. Results are available in one week. Space is limited.

The service is provided jointly by University Health Services and the City of Berkeley HIV/AIDS Program. Confidential testing is also provided when indicated as part of medical care at University Health Services.

For information, call 642-7202.

Support available for faculty service-learning initiatives
Berkeley’s Service-Learning Research and Development Center is launching two new scholarships — the Junior Faculty Fellows Program and Instructional Minigrant Program — to support faculty members interested in utilizing service-learning.

Under the Faculty Fellows Program, three junior faculty members who want to incorporate service-learning work into their scholarship portfolios will be awarded $1,500 and receive advice and mentorship from a senior faculty member.

The minigrants, to be offered next spring, provide assistance of up to $2,500 to support professors who want to integrate community-service activities into the academic curriculum.

For information, e-mail janepo@uclink.berkeley.edu or call 643-0513.