The Weidner Center is offering UW-Green Bay faculty and staff a $10 savings on tickets to Phantom of the Opera for selected shows for the remainder of the run, through Oct. 23. The offer is valid for Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evening performances on all "full-view seats." Regular-price tickets range from $46 to $68. The $10-off deal is limited to six tickets per faculty or staff member; you must buy at the ticket window with University ID. The discount does not apply to previously purchased tickets.

Both houses of the Legislature voted late Wednesday to send the 1999-2001 state budget to the governor for final approval. Gov. Thompson has said he wants to complete his review and sign the long-overdue budget into law within two weeks. He has also said he is leaning toward vetoes he says will address the projected "structural deficit" of some $400 million in the second year of the biennium. The budget as it exists now is reported to include a total of $100 million in new funding for the UW System, including support for a student tuition freeze for the next academic year.

UW-Green Bay is the site of a town meeting Thursday (Oct. 14) on planning, public policy and growth in Brown County. The session takes place at 7 p.m. in the Christie Theatre. The event ties in with the ambitious TV-5 and Green Bay Press-Gazette series "Growing Pains: The Suburbanization of Brown County." The meeting on campus is arranged by the Center for Public Affairs, directed by Denise Scheberle, PEA. Panelists will include officials and citizens interviewed for the series. Students in the Transportation and the City course led by David Littig, PEA, made photographs documenting examples of good and bad planning and will display their work and be available to discuss the project. A public opinion survey assessing attitudes toward growth and livability was conducted by Peter Smith, BUA, and students in an advanced marketing research methods course.

The latest statistics on student loan default rates have UW-Green Bay near the bottom -- or is it the top? --of Wisconsin schools. Whichever, it's good news. The 1997 default rate for former students here was about 2 percent, closely behind Madison, Point and Platteville at the head of the list. Only Milwaukee, Parkside and Superior had higher rates than the statewide average of 5.4 percent, and all UW schools were well below the national average of 8.8 percent. Nationwide, default rates on government student loans are at their lowest level since federal government tracking began a decade ago.

UW System President Katharine Lyall hopes to fill the position of vice president for finance by early 2000, finding a successor to Marcia Bromberg, who leaves the System effective Dec. 1. Bromberg has been the UW's chief financial officer since December 1996. She will become CFO of the new Nellie Mae Foundation in Boston, which has nearly $400 million in assets targeting PK-16 educational quality for underserved populations throughout New England. A UW System news release said that while salary is confidential in the new position, Bromberg indicated her compensation will be competitive and considerably above her UW salary of $118,000 annually.

The campus is host to hundreds of important visitors on Monday (Oct. 11) with the first of four Campus Preview Days scheduled this semester by the Office of Admissions and Orientation. Many faculty and staff members assist with the day-long program of presentations and tours for prospective students and their parents. If you have a reader rack or display board in a high-traffic area, you might update it. The Admissions Office notes that Preview Day participation remains the single best indicator for a high school prospect's eventual enrollment at UW-Green Bay.

"Gifts in kind" to UW-Green Bay and other UW System institutions over the last year were listed in a report to the UW System Regents this month. Among the donations listed here were EKG measuring equipment, to Human Biology from St. Vincent Hospital; a gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer, from Fort James to NAS; and two gas chromatographs, two data analysis systems and other items from STS Consultants to NAS.

Former Phoenix basketball star Chari Nordgaard has signed a two-month contract to play for Sporting Athens in Greece. She left last week in preparation for her first game Oct. 9. Nordgaard completed her eligibility last spring as the program's leading scorer. She achieved both athletic and academic all-America honors for her 22.5 scoring average and 3.87 gradepoint average. She still plans to complete her bachelor's degree in Public Administration next spring. "Having the chance to play basketball for a living is exciting and I am looking forward to the opportunity," Nordgaard said. "What a great place to go to work."

Faculty and staff members interested in weekly Bible study are invited to join a new group now being formed. Contact Terri Adsit for more information.

The tenth annual Give-A-Kid-A-Book Campaign invites support from UW-Green Bay faculty and staff. Most of the books are distributed as holiday gifts through organizations such as the Salvation Army; others reach children through community programs to promote reading year-round. Bring your donations (new, unwrapped, hardcover or paperback books for babies through age 12) to Sherry Rasmussen, Outreach and Extension, WH 480, by Thursday, Dec. 9. If you'd like the program to choose the books for you, make checks payable to "Friends of Brown County Library: Give-A-Kid-A-Book." Questions or suggestions? Call Sherry at ext. 2164.

Stand! Education, a book of readings with selected articles relating to current trends and issues in education, is the work of Education faculty members Margaret A. Laughlin and Sandra M. Stokes, PS. The book is newly published by CourseWise Publishers. Accompanying the text is a "passport" enabling students to access web sites identified by the authors.

Patricia Terry, NAS, has an article, "Catalytic Dehydrogenation of Cyclohexane Using Coated Silica Oxide Ceramic Membranes," accepted for publication in the November issue of The Journal of Porous Materials. Co-authors were Marc Anderson and Isabel Tejedor of the Water Chemistry Program at UW -Madison.

Kevin Roeder, Social Work, is author of an article, "Perceptions of HIV Service Providers in Seventeen Northeast Wisconsin Counties," in the Summer 1999 edition of Wisconsin HIV/AIDS Update. The research examined perceptions of health care and human service workers about HIV-specific community services available to persons living with HIV disease in rural Wisconsin. Roeder carried out the project through his role as chair of the Northeast Wisconsin Ryan White Consortium, working in collaboration with the St. Norbert College Survey Center.

Aeron Haynie, HUS, is co-editor of a book, Mary Elizabeth Braddon in Context, due out in December from the State University of New York Press. Haynie also wrote the introduction and contributed a chapter, "'An idle handle that was never turned and a lazy rope so rotten': The Decay of the Country Estate." It's the first collection of critical essays on Braddon, a popular early-Victorian to turn-of-the-century writer.

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