What would it mean to offer technology support without barriers? Providing assistance anytime, anywhere, on any device? I serve on a University-wide IT committee on technology support issues and these are the tough questions we are trying to tackle.

Congratulations to the following civil service/bargaining unit employees who are celebrating milestone work anniversaries this year. Thank you for your service to the University and CLA!

Sean Burns (CLA-OIT): 20 years
Robert Wozniak (CLA-OIT): 20 years
Mary Wilcox (Economics): 25 years
Catherine Bach (Economics): 30 years
Mary Hildre (School of Statistics): 30 years
Daniel Pinkerton (Center for Austrian Studies): 30 years
Bonnie Williams (Geography): 30 years
John Easton (CLA-OIT): 35 years
Kerry Mc Indoo (French and Italian): 35 years
Margery Pickering (Psychology): 35 years
Lonna Riedinger (Student Services): 35 years
Beatrice Dehler (Communication Studies): 40 years
Charlene Hayes (Institute for Global Studies): 40 years
Linda Springer (Psychology): 40 years

Immigration History Research Center's Digitizing Immigrant Letters project team is the recipient of the 2011 Philip M. Hamer and Elizabeth Hamer Kegan Award, given by the Society of American Archivists. IHRC undertook "outstanding efforts in promoting the knowledge and use of documentation of the immigrant experience through the Digitizing Immigrant Letters Project." The award recognizes institutions, project teams or individual archivists for increasing public awareness of archival documents for educational, instructional or other purposes.

Associate Professor Bruno Chaouat (French & Italian) has published L'Ombre pour la proie: petites apocalypses de la vie quotidienne [Grasping at Substance: Little Everyday Apocalypses] (Presses Universitaires du Septentrion).

Assistant Professor Mary Franklin-Brown (French & Italian) has published Reading the World in the Century of Encyclopedias (University of Chicago Press).

Associate Professor Scott D. Lipscomb (Music) is serving on a research team as program evaluator for a three-year, $450,000 grant from the National Science Foundation entitled "Computational Thinking Through Computing and Music." The team's goal is to reinforce musical and computational learning through a team-teaching model, designing collaborative workshops involving pairs of faculty - one from music, one from computer science. Read more

Grad student Hollie Nyseth Brehm (Sociology) has been awarded this year's Dunn Peace Research Scholarship to support her dissertation research on genocide in Bosnia. She was also awarded the Midwest Sociological Society Dissertation Grant.

Graduate student Julia Corwin (Geography) received a Judd Fellowship to conduct research in India this summer. She will investigate how policies and plans pertaining to solid waste management intersect with and affect community-based, informal, and marginalized waste labor, and the contradictory dynamics of urban waste policies and practices in Delhi, India. In particular, she wishes to explore how Delhi's formal waste management system and the informal waste sector affect and respond to each other, with an emphasis on unraveling the politics surrounding the marginalization of informal waste labor and their attendant effects on landfill diversion rates. Read more

Graduate student Emily Springer received a Social Science Research Council Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship, a highly competitive fellowship which supports mid-stage graduate students in formulating effective doctoral dissertation research proposals that contribute to the development of interdisciplinary fields of study in the humanities and social sciences. She will be working on her proposal about women and development in Tanzanian agriculture.

Graduate student Rachel Gibson (French & Italian) has been awarded an International Dissertation Research Fellowship for 2012 by the Social Science Research Council, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Rachel will be doing research at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (Paris), and at the Biblioteca Marciana (Venice). Rachel's research project is entitled "Negotiating Space and Self in the Medieval Mediterranean: The Construction of Mercantile Identity in Franco-Italian Literature." She is one of 77 awardees, selected from a total of 1,148 submitted applications from graduate students at 128 universities. Rachel has also accepted a two-year term on the Graduate Student Committee of the Medieval Academy.

Graduate student Tracy Rutler was awarded a Fulbright Research Fellowship to study in France next year. Her project is called, "Family Remains: The Politics of Legacy in Eighteenth-Century French Literature." Her dissertation is on images of orphans, bastards, and abandoned children.

Graduate student Anna Rosensweig (French & Italian) was awarded a Hella Mears Summer Fellowship.

Professor David Samuels (Political Science) has been named a Distinguished McKnight Professor. The goal of this program is to recognize and reward the University of Minnesota's most outstanding mid-career faculty. Recipients hold the title for as long as they remain at the university. The grant associated with the professorship consists of $100,000 to be expended over five years. Read more

Lecturer Stephen Smith (Classical and Near Eastern Studies), Professor Valerie Tiberius (Philosophy), and Professor Rob Warren (Sociology) are CLA's winners of the 2012 COGS Outstanding Faculty Award. The COGS Outstanding Faculty Award was established in 2010 and is the only award where graduate students nominate faculty they feel have gone above and beyond in their work with graduate students, and a panel of students selects the winners. A reception to recognize the winners will be on May 8th at 4:30 p.m. in the Mississippi Room in Coffman Union.

Associate Professor and Chair Carl Flink (Theatre Arts & Dance) has received the City Pages Best Choreographer recognition in their "Best of the Twin Cities" issue.

Elaine Tarone (Professor of Second Language Studies, Director of CARLA) will be the new Associate Editor for Perspectives at The Modern Language Journal.

Associate Professor Giancarlo Casale (History) has received a year-long residential fellowship from the Harvard Center for Italian Renaissance Studies in Florence.

Associate Professor Ronald Krebs (Political Science) received a Fulbright Award from the United States-Israel Educational Foundation.

Associate Professor Sarah Chambers (History) received an NEH Faculty Fellowship for 2012-13.

Director Barbara Frey (Human Rights Program) received a Fulbright-Robles award to carry out teaching and research in Mexico from January to May 2013. She will be teaching a seminar on Human Rights Advocacy at FLACSO-Mexico (Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales/ Latin American Academy of Social Sciences) in Mexico City. She will also conduct research on the roles and perceptions of civil society organizations regarding human rights protection in the context of major criminal justice reforms.

Associate Professor and Chair Louis Mendoza's (Chicano Studies) book Conversations Across Our America: Talking About Immigration and the Latinoization of the United States (University of Texas) will be published in June. You may recall that Louis undertook a 8,500-mile bike ride around the perimeter of the U.S. in 2007, and this book is a collection of the conversations about the Latinoization of the U.S. he had with people along the way. Read more

While most researchers have interacted with the Institutional Review Board (IRB) successfully at least once, few can say they fully understand what does and does not require IRB approval, and how to ensure one's research is approved quickly. There are many good resources available to help researchers with this important process, and in CLA-OIT we have worked closely with the IRB to document the processes of our research services to simplify and clarify the process.

The CLA Commencement Committee would like to invite and encourage you to join in the celebration of our students' achievement by volunteering for the spring commencement ceremonies on Sunday, May 13th in Mariucci Arena.

The commencement ceremony is the culmination of our students', our own, and our colleagues' hard work, and representation of CLA advisers, counselors, and administrators at this important event demonstrates our commitment to CLA undergraduates and their families.

Professor Edward Schiappa (Communication Studies) will spend the 2012-2013 academic year as a Visiting Professor at M.I.T. in the Comparative Media Studies and Writing/Humanistic Studies programs.

Professor Julie Schumacher (English) publishes her fifth novel for younger readers, The Unbearable Book Club for Unsinkable Girls, (Delacorte) in May.

Teaching specialist Barbara Kierig (Music/voice) was chosen as the 2012 Teacher of the Year by the Thursday Musical Competition in honor of her dedication and service to their organization. She was celebrated at the winners' recital/award ceremony on Thursday, March 29 at the Bloomington Arts Center.

Graduate student Wenjie Liao (Sociology) received a Doctoral Dissertation grant from the National Science Foundation. Wenjie will use this funding to complete a survey on law and collective memory in Chengdu, China. She will be conducting the survey and follow-up interviews this summer.

Graduate student Chunying Xie (Economics) has received the 2012 CURA Dissertation Fellowship. Her project "Dynamic Pricing and Congestion Pricing: The case of the MNPass Program" is cited for having the potential to make a significant contribution to the understanding of traffic management and the estimation of consumer demand of High Occupancy Toll lanes.

Graduate student Jesse Izzo (History), has received a Fulbright grant to work in Israel for the academic year 2012-2013. He'll be at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem working with Professor Reuven Amitai-Preiss on Mamluk/Mongol/Crusader relations in late 13th C. Syria.

The Dance program was recognized at the American College Dance Festival Association North Central Regional Conference this month. The student company, which performed Carl Flink's "Lost Lullabies," was selected to go to the National College Dance Festival May 24 - 27, at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. In addition, student choreographer Orlando Hunter's work "Mutiny," which he also performed, was selected for the Regional Conference Gala concert presented on April 1 in Madison, Wis.

In collaboration with my colleagues in other colleges and University offices, I recently helped write the following "Call to Action" to the IT community. I share it with you today so that you can see our rapidly changing technology world is not only having an impact on students, faculty, and staff, but it is presenting an enormous challenge to those who provide IT support and services. I welcome your thoughts and perspective on these issues.

By Mary Hicks, Director of External Relations

Last year we received a stunning $14 million gift from the estate of Charles and Myrtle Stroud to endow scholarships in CLA; by all accounts a windfall for our students. But it made me wonder, with this sudden infusion of scholarship money, what would be the impact on students with financial need?

Professor Matthew Lefebvre (Theatre Arts & Dance) will receive the TDF/Irene Sharaff Young Master Award on May 4 in New York City. Founded in 1993, the awards pay tribute to the art of costume design and honor legendary designer Irene Sharaff, who designed numerous Broadway productions, including the original stagings of Lady in the Dark, West Side Story, The King and I, Juno, Sweet Charity, Funny Girl, Candide and Jerome Robbins' Broadway.

Professor Clarence Morgan (Art), will receive the Pennsylvania Academy of Arts (PAFA) Distinguished Alumni Award for 2012. This award is given to PAFA alumni who have gone on to significant careers as practicing artists and arts professionals. Clarence received his four-year certificate-diploma from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1975 and will be honored at PAFA's 2012 commencement ceremony. Jeffrey Carr, Dean of the School of Art stated in his letter, "The committee is impressed with your career as a distinguished educator who has also had an exceptionally solid career as an artist. Your career and accomplishments will inspire our graduating class, who all aspire to having lives as fine artists."

Professor Jennifer Pierce (American Studies) will receive the Outstanding Contributions to Postbaccalaureate, Graduate, and Professional Education Award.

Associate Professor Kathryn Pearson (Political Science) will receive the Morse-Alumni Award for outstanding contributions to undergraduate education.

Assistant Professor Timothy Johnson (Political Science) will receive the John Tate Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Advising.

Assistant Professor Alexander Fiterstein's (Music) new album of works by Ronn Yedidia titled Impromptu, Nocturne & World Dance for clarinet and piano was recently released on Naxos American Classics. Listen to Impromptu, Nocturne & World Dance on the Naxos website.

Assistant Professor Laura Sindberg's (Music) book Just Good Teaching: Comprehensive Musicianship through Performance in Theory and Practice was recently published by R&L Education. According to their website, "The Comprehensive Musicianship through Performance (CMP) model will help you plan instruction for school ensembles that promotes a holistic form of music learning and will allow you to use your creativity, passion, and vision." Read more.

The Ojibwe People's Dictionary, a project of the Department of American Indian Studies, is the University's entrant into the regional C. Peter Magrath University Community Engagement Awards competition. The project was selected, "because of the robust partnership between Ojibwe elders and the University of Minnesota, the ways in which this project is advancing engaged scholarship, and the potential that this dictionary has for serving as a model for documenting other languages and cultures." The winner of the regional competition will advance to compete for the national award.