NEWS

CBS correspondent Chen cancels talk at UNC

CBS News correspondent Joie Chen has canceled her speech at UNC that was scheduled for Thursday (March 20). Chen notified her UNC host, the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, on Monday that she cannot keep her commitment because of new assignments related to the increased possibility of war in Iraq.

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Images of Arabs in English literature to be topic of visiting professor’s lecture

Dr. Wagdi Zeid, a playwright and professor of English at Cairo University, will discuss "Images of the Other: Arabs and Islam in English Literature" at UNC on Monday (March 24). The free public lecture will be at 7:30 p.m. in the Tate-Turner-Kuralt Auditorium on Pittsboro Street.

Zeid, currently a distinguished fellow at Georgia State University’s Middle East Center, is a former cultural attache to the Egyptian Embassy in Washington, D.C. Three of his plays, "The New Odyssey," "Winter Dreams" and "The Last Pharoah," have been performed in the United States.

While at UNC, Zeid will meet with students and speak in two classes, one in dramatic art and one in history. His visit will be sponsored by UNC’s James M. Johnston Center for Undergraduate Excellence, English department and University Center for International Studies. For more information, call Dr. Sarah Shields at 843-5797 or 962-8078.

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113 schools, districts, to recruit at March 26 education job fair

Schools and school districts from across North Carolina will recruit teachers and other professionals at an education job fair March 26 at UNC. Districts from other East Coast states also will be among the 113 recruiters.

The fair, from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in Carmichael Auditorium, will be free and open to everyone, said Holly Linam of University Career Services. Her office will sponsor the fair with the UNC School of Education. Job seekers need only bring resumes.

Their greatest need is for teachers, she said, but some also will look for counselors, social workers, librarians and speech pathologists. For names and locations of recruiters participating, visit http://careers.unc.edu and click the job fair listing. For more information, contact Linam at 962-7885 or linam@email.unc.edu.

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Human costs of war to be topic of artistic expressions March 30

A variety of UNC student and faculty performers will express their reactions to the prospect of war through their respective art forms in a free public program March 30. Arts Carolina, the umbrella organization for the arts at UNC, and the campus arts community will present the program at 7 p.m. at University United Methodist Church, 150 E. Franklin St.

"Performance for Humanity," a collection of responses to the threat of war with Iraq, will include poetry readings and instrumental, choral and dramatic performances, said Amy Brannock, Arts Carolina director.

"The program will present artistic expressions to recognize and affirm the dignity of humankind and to express sympathy for the human and personal toll associated with war," she said. "Turbulent times evoke the power of the arts to express fear, grief and outrage, as well as to inspire healing and reconciliation,"

Performers will represent UNC’s departments of music, dramatic art and communication studies, other departments and the intellectual life program of the James M. Johnston Center for Undergraduate Excellence.

Students will perform scenes from works including Shakespeare’s "Merchant of Venice," Eve Ensler’s "Necessary Targets" and Anna Deveare Smith’s "Twilight: Los Angeles." Music faculty members Thomas Otten, Brooks de Wetter-Smith and Tonu Kalam will perform works by Debussy, Hindemith and others. A student string ensemble and the UNC Glee Clubs will perform. Speakers from different age groups will read poems in their native languages: English, Arabic, Russian, Czech, Farsi, Spanish and Chinese.

David Hammond, artistic director of PlayMakers Repertory Company, will open the program and communication studies professor D. Soyini Madison will close. For more information, contact Amy Brannock at (919) 843-7555 or artsunc@email.unc.edu or Brooks de Wetter-Smith at (919) 962-2340 or brooks@email.unc.edu.

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UNC community invited to seminar on changes in science over time

CHAPEL HILL – How scientific knowledge has changed, from the times of Copernicus and Columbus to the human genome project, will be the topic of a seminar April 2 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Students, faculty and guest lecturers from six of UNC’s first-year seminars and from the honors program will conduct the free public seminar, "History, Science and Mind: Changing Views of Scientific Knowledge." The discussions will be from 6-9 p.m. in the banquet hall of the Morehead Building off East Franklin Street.

Guest speakers will include Keith Pickering, an editor for the Journal of the History of Astronomy; George Saliba, professor of Arabic and Islamic science at Columbia University; and Andrew Berry, an evolutionary geneticist at Harvard University’s Museum of Comparative Zoology.

Participants will be encouraged to attend another free public event on April 21, a lecture by Robert Park, author of "Voodoo Science." The talk, set for 7 p.m. in Carroll Hall Auditorium, will supplement a first-year seminar being taught by chemistry professor Dr. Ed Samulski, "You Don’t Have to Be a Rocket Scientist."

First-year seminars are classes of no more than 20 students each, taught by accomplished senior faculty. The courses focus on active learning and are designed to develop critical thinking, writing and speaking skills. For more information, call 966-5110.

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Contact: L.J. Toler, (919) 962-8589