Thurtene

And they're off! A pack of runners takes off from the starting line at the 15th annual Thurtene 5K Road Race. View in full

Thurtene Carnival moving to Athletic Complex lot

Thurtene Carnival is going home. Because of the construction on the east side of the Hilltop Campus, the oldest student-run charitable carnival in the United States is moving to its original home on the parking areas adjacent to the Athletic Complex and Anheuser-Busch Hall.

Thurtene Carnival, April 13-14, is celebrating its 68th year as an important part of the University community. Full story

Phillips wins poetry award

Phillips

Sharing his knowledge Internationally renowned actor, singer, director and all-around performance artist Rinde Eckert led School of Art freshmen and sophomores through a narrative work-shop March 25 in Bixby Hall. View in full

Moods do matter
Study ties mental abilities to interaction of emotion, cognitive skills

In a study of how human emotional states influence higher mental abilities, University cognitive neuroscientists have shown that watching even just 10 minutes of classic horror films or prime-time television comedies can have a significant short-term influence on areas of the brain critical for reasoning, intelligence and other types of higher cognition.

"To have the best mental performance and the most efficient pattern of brain activity, you need a match between the type of mood you are in and the type of task you are doing," said Jeremy Gray, Ph.D., a research scientist in the Department of Psychology in Arts & Sciences and lead author of the study. "This is one of the first studies to really show that performance and brain activity are a product of an equal partnership or marriage between our emotional states and higher cognition."
Full story

NanoSIMS; Ion microprobe opens doors for possibilities

If you ever wanted to see stardust up close, here's your chance.

There's a new, first-of-its-kind ion microprobe in the Laboratory for Space Sciences in Arts & Sciences. And the researchers there are so proud of the $2 million instrument -- which measures the isotopes of interstellar grains at a size range (less than or equal to 500 atoms) never seen before -- that they want to show it and the resulting research off to the University community. Full story

Seligman decides LRAP issue

The introduction of the School of Law's Loan Repayment Assistance Program (LRAP), originally covered earlier this year in the Record (Jan. 18, Page 1), has generated an ongoing debate over the implementation of the program in relation to the military.

Over the past week, local and national media have been covering this debate and its recent conclusion. Joel Seligman, J.D., dean and the Ethan A.H. Shepley University Professor at the School of Law, has written a letter to the law school community that describes the process, the discussions and the outcome in greater detail. The full text of the letter follows. Full story