Final tallies won't be made for another week, but Fall 2001 enrollment should be at or near record levels. UW-Green Bay will likely surpass 5,500 in headcount enrollment and 4,500 in full-time equivalent (FTE) enrollment. Any FTE count above 4,500 would be a record. Steve Neiheisel, assistant dean for enrollment services, says much-better-than-expected retention of continuing students is behind the increase: "Most of these are students who were freshmen or sophomores last year. Students who've come in the last two years are staying at higher rates."

Incidentally, the what-looks-to-be-a-record FTE enrollment is occurring despite significant effort by UW-Green Bay to manage the situation in the face of retention-rate increases and continuing heavy demand. Admissions officials halted new-freshman admissions last February, the second-earliest closing on record, and followed that with an early announcement limiting transfers. Additional steps were taken last week to address late registrations for the current semester.

More news from opening week: UW-Green Bay's 900-member freshman class ranks among the institution's best ever in terms of gradepoint average and other measures of quality. The average high school gpa of 3.33 on a 4.0 scale is believed to be a new high. The class will include at least 23 valedictorians and 12 salutatorians, and almost one in five of the new students graduated in the top ten percent of their high school classes. "On many measures, this group of new freshmen may be stronger than any class in the University's history," says Deborah Furlong, director of institutional research. She says the trends represent "continuations of steady improvements that we have seen over the last five years or so."

Crews applying the finishing touches to Mary Ann Cofrin Hall have an interesting dilemma in installing the Phoenix Window, one of the building's signature decorative features. It is believed the job would best be handled by a crane situated at ground level in the "campus green." The problem? There's no easy heavy-equipment access to that area now that construction is all but complete. The answer? Use a "big crane" to lower a "small crane" to the work area. Watch for action by mid-week if all goes well.

Professors Regan Gurung, Human Development, and Aeron Haynie, Humanistic Studies, have been selected as Wisconsin Teaching Fellows. The program is sponsored by the UW System Office of Professional and Instructional Development (OPID, formerly UTIC), to give teachers with two to six years experience in the classroom an opportunity for intensive inquiry into teaching and learning. The program involves attendance at "faculty college" in the spring, a one-week summer institute, and other meetings throughout the year. Faculty members apply for the experience and are recommended by the campus Faculty Development Council. OPID makes the final choices. UW-Green Bay was the only campus with two Teaching Fellow selections.

Prof. Fergus Hughes, Human Development, is the first from UW-Green Bay selected as a Wisconsin Teaching Scholar, a new OPID program aimed at mid-career faculty. Its stated purpose: "to bring together some of the best teacher-scholars in the UW System for extended study" and the outcome for participants will include a major revision of a course. Hughes is one of 15 individuals chosen from across the System for the pilot program.

President Zhiping Wang will lead an eight-member delegation from Gansu University of Technology, People's Republic of China, to UW-Green Bay on Tuesday and Wednesday (September 11 and 12), to learn about UW-Green Bay and explore the possibility of exchanges between the two institutions. The visit is expected to result in a memorandum between the two institutions stating their intention to continue exploring the possibility of student and/or faculty exchanges. Prof. Weiping Liu, Business Administration, is helping to facilitate the visit.

The delegation visiting UW-Green By this week from Gansu University includes officials from varied disciplines and colleges. Delegation members are Youngqing Liu, principal, and Pinghuan Wang, vice principal, both of the International Economy and Management College; Yanpeng Zhu, principal of the Civil Engineering College; Xiaohong Hao, vice principal and professor of the Electronic and Information Engineering College; Shurong Yu, principal of the Petrochemical Engineering College; Wenjiang Lu, head of the Teaching Affairs Section; and Li Ye, head of the Foreign Affairs Office.

Members of the campus community will have an opportunity to learn about a Chinese university when President Zhiping Wang speaks at 2 p.m. Wednesday (Sept. 12) on "Gansu University of Technology and Its Role in the Development of China's West." The event in the Christie Theater also provides the chance to meet Dr. Wang and others from Gansu University who are visiting UW-Green Bay this week.

The Board of Regents Physical Planning and Funding Committee voted last week to approve the design report for the remodel and expansion of the Laboratory Sciences Building. The approval of the preliminary design sends the project, budgeted at $17,915,000, to the State Building Commission. Approval at that level would allow final drawings to be completed and construction to begin in July 2002. The project remodels approximately 74,700 square feet, leaving only the greenhouse untouched, and constructs a 26,200-sq. ft., four-story addition. Instructional labs will be larger and better arranged, new research labs will be created, and all science facilities will finally be located in the same building. Also, look for a new glass-enclosed entrance to the building.

A UW-Green Bay project was held up as a model for future UW System construction activity during the Regents meeting last week. The physical planning committee reviewed and approved new physical planning principles that incorporate elements of sustainable design. System architect Jeff Kosloske and DFD division head Bill Kind used Mary Ann Cofrin Hall as an example of some of these principles during the discussion.

The UW System Board of Regents, as expected, voted last week to approve UW-Green Bay's request for an agreement that will result in ground being broken this fall for the first of three new 120-bed housing units here. Still needed is approval by the State Building Commission, which should meet later this month.

The UW System Board of Regents made it official Friday at the monthly meeting in Madison, passing a resolution of appreciation to Gov. McCallum and the Legislature for their work on the 2001-02 budget and funding of the UW System. Along with the standard collection of "whereases" and the finishing "therefore be it resolved," the proclamation offered thanks for a budget that makes "important new investments in Wisconsin's high-growth future, a future in which the UW System will play a central role."

The Board of Regents presented three Teaching Excellence Awards at last week's meeting in Madison. This year's honorees were Gary Gilmore, professor and director of Community Health Programs, UW-La Crosse and UW-Extension; Cyrena Pondrom, professor of English at UW-Madison; and the department of English at UW-Oshkosh. Recipients are selected from among nominees forwarded by each UW System institution. Each winner will receive $5,000 for professional development purposes.

Prof. Dr. Rolf-Dieter Postlep, president of the University of Kassel, Germany, with which UW-Green Bay has had a long exchange relationship, is a visitor to UW-Green Bay today (Monday, September 10). President Postlep, along with his wife, Marion, arrived in Green Bay on Saturday. He was scheduled to meet with academic administrators and sit in on an advanced German class. The couple had lunch with the modern language faculty on Sunday. President Postlep is interested in the organization and governing structures of U.S. universities and university cooperation with local businesses and industries. His area of specialty is economic policy. The University of Kassel and UW-Green Bay have had an exchange agreement since the early 1980s and it has been among the most active, says international education coordinator Chad Goeden. Students Jantje Heumann, Nadine Hohmann and Stefan Zindel from Kassel are attending UW-Green Bay this semester. Wisconsin and the state of Hesse, where Kassel is located, have a state-to-state exchange agreement.

Join Ann Deprey, Sally Mancoske, Joyce Salisbury and others who drop in now and then for Tone-and-Tighten stretching and floor exercises (not aerobics) and lots of good talk. "We meet every Tuesday and Thursday from 12:15-1:00 in the room next to the pool. You just need a sports center membership. Drop in and give it a try!"

Find any foul-ups, omissions or material errors in the 2001-2002 UW-Green Bay Phone Directory? Didn't think so — it is solid, solid work. In the unlikely event, however, that someone has, we'll publish an addendum with additions, subtractions and corrections in the very near future. Call ext. 2626 in the communications office to forward your changes.

This week the LOG resumes its more-or-less regular schedule of weekly Monday distribution. Sometimes we'll send it out on Friday afternoon, sometimes Monday evening, but from here on out we'll do our best to get it to your Outlook mailbox during business hours Monday.

"The White Flag of Surrender" is the title of a multimedia installation that opens the UW-Green Bay art gallery season with a reception from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. Thursday (Sept. 13) in the Lawton Gallery in Theatre Hall. Artists David Dunlap and Travis Freeman, Iowa City, Iowa, will give a gallery talk at 5 p.m. The installation, created on the site, will represent a "conversation" between the two artists using drawings, paintings, photographs, books, found objects, and other items. They'll construct a "teahouse" in which the conversation can be shared with others. The exhibit will continue through Oct. 20. Gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.

Prof. David Dolan, Natural and Applied Sciences, has received a $36,230 grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Great Lakes National Program Office for a project that will update an environmental database. The project,"Lake Erie Total Phosphorus Loads, 1996-2000," will assess the status of and collect and organize phosphorus data from the U.S. and Canada, make estimates of phosphorus loading, and assess the feasibility of extending the approach to the other Great Lakes. Also, UW-Green Bay Environmental Science students working on the project will learn to conduct load estimation studies. Dolan says mean annual total phosphorus loading is one of the best developed indicators of progress in achieving Great Lakes water quality, but because of budget cuts in the mid-1990s, no load estimates are available for any Great Lake after 1995. The project continues through January 15, 2002.

Prof. Don Dimmel of the Institute of Paper Science at Georgia Tech will be a guest on campus next Wednesday, Sept. 19. He'll meet with any interested students for lunch (UW-Green Bay's John Katers is coordinating the schedule) and offer an open public lecture at 1 p.m. in Room 241 of the Lab Sciences building. His topic is "Chemical Pulp Production Environmental Issues." Issues related to bleaching, pulp yield, and progress toward a more odorless pulping process will be addressed. The presentation is intended for a general audience, meaning that wood component structures and reactions will be presented in a simplified manner.

The Weidner Center has announced a new date for November's concert by pop artist Don McLean. Because of a scheduling change related to McLean's tour, it made sense to move back the performance three days, to Sunday evening, Nov. 4. Call ext. 2217 for ticket information.

All employees are required by law to report knowledge of sexual assaults on campus. The Wisconsin law states "...any person employed at an institution or center who witnesses a sexual assault on campus or receives a report from a student enrolled in the institution or center that the student has been sexually assaulted shall report to the dean of students of the institution..." This does not mean that you have to violate any confidences or provide names. It does mean that incidents are to be reported to the Dean of Students, ext. 2152.

Reminder: Tickets go on sale Monday (Sept. 10) for the Caribbean Luncheon scheduled for Friday, Oct. 5, from noon to 1:15 p.m. in the University Union. The cost is $6.75 for students, $8 for faculty & staff, and $9.25 for community guests. Tickets are available at the University Union Information Center.

Prof. Troy Abel, Public and Environmental Affairs, is recently returned from the American Political Science Association where he presented a paper co-authored with Mark Stephan from Washington State University. The paper, "Tools of environmental justice: transitions to participatory policy?" is based on research supported in party by the Environmental Protection Agency and National Science Foundation's joint program "Decision making and Valuation for the Environment." The study explored the reconciliation of science and democracy in efforts to achieve environmental justice, and the difficulties inherent in public debate of complex, highly technical issues. The authors concluded that future environmental justice programs should strike more of a balance between highly technical efforts that tend to marginalize ordinary citizens with "civically-minded" capacity-building programs.

Prof. Dechang Chen, Natural and Applied Sciences, is co-author of the piece "Asymptotic Analysis of Some Expert Fusion Methods" in the June 2001 edition of Pattern Recognition Letters.

Prof. Regan Gurung, Human Development, has just had accepted for publication in Psychological Review — with colleagues from UCLA, Syracuse, and Penn State — the article "Sex differences in biobehavioral responses to threat."

Prof. Weiping Liu, Business Administration, has a paper entitled "Effects of Debt Service Capacity Indicators' Volatility on Sovereign's Debt Service Capacity" in Multinational Business Review, 9/2.

LOG ONline is prepared for University of Wisconsin-Green Bay faculty and staff by the Office of Marketing and University Communication. Employees may submit a Brief, a Publication, a news item, an announcement, or offer feedback; call ext. 2527 or e-mail us at Log@uwgb.edu.