Academic Affairs Search Narrows

After consulting with a number of constituency groups on campus, Regional Chancellor Karen A. White has invited V. Mark Durand, PhD, and Greg R. Weisenstein, EdD, to return for additional in-depth interviews and discussion. These candidates for the Regional Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs position will be on campus February 25 and 28.

“These candidates emerged with broad-based support from our faculty and staff. The quality and credentials of these fine candidates speaks to the academic evolution of our colleges and campus community,” White said. “I am proud of the search committee’s hard work and the thoughtful deliberation and participation of our faculty and staff.”

V. Mark Durand, PhD

Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences

USF St. Petersburg

Final Interview: Feb. 25, 2005

Greg R. Weisenstein, EdD

Dean of the College of Education, Health, and Human Development

Montana State University, Bozeman, Montana

Final Interview: Feb. 28, 2005

When the candidates return, the itinerary for their follow-up visit comprises meetings with:  

• The Search Committee, Faculty Council, College Councils, and all interested faculty and staff
• The Leadership Team that includes administrators, deans and lead campus representatives for the A&P and USPS councils
• USF President Genshaft and Provost Khator;
• Campus partners such as USGS, Marine Science, NOAA
• USF St. Petersburg Campus Board

Residential Housing is Big Hit

History is in the making this week. This Friday demolition begins for the first residential hall slated for completion Fall 2006.

The first phase, an approximately $18.3 million facility, will offer students apartment-style living and will include 354 beds in a seven-story building. Each floor will have a laundry room and study lounge and there will be a lobby, meeting areas, catering kitchen and courtyard patio on the ground level.

This much-anticipated event will lead us to the groundbreaking ceremony Wednesday, March 30 at 1 pm that will include President Judy Genshaft, Regional Chancellor Karen A. White, St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Baker and other distinguished university and community leaders.

If you have any questions, please call Facilities Planning at 553-4822.

Showcase your Department at Spring Fling

During this year's annual Spring Fling, prospective students are invited to spend a day at our waterfront campus to learn more about our academic excellence. Get involved at the event Monday, March 7 from 10 am to 2 pm to help showcase what our campus has to offer.

During the first day of Spring Fling, coordinated with Student Affairs and led by Director of Prospective Student Outreach, John Vassel targets local high school juniors and seniors who visit local colleges and universities on College Day while sophomores are taking the FCAT.

During the event, prospective students can join the campus community for fun activities including basketball and jousting contests and a barbecue lunch. This is also a chance for them to speak to our students, faculty and staff about USF St. Petersburg has to offer.

Those interested in participating must register for a booth by Thursday, Feb. 25. For more information, please call Solitaire Kelley at 553-4275.

>> See: Spring Fling Booth Sign-up Form (.pdf)

Campus Police Make Their Move

As demolition for residential housing begins this week, the first signs of transition have begun. Last week, the Campus Police Department moved to the ONE building on Fifth Avenue South.

The emergency phone has been relocated to the front wall of the Public Safety Department facing Fifth Avenue South.

For more information about the Campus Police Department, please call John A. Spicuglia at 553-4476 or visit their Web site at www.stpt.usf.edu/police/index.htm.

Research Workshop Highlights Funding Essentials

This spring, the newly-formed St. Petersburg Research Administrators’ Roundtable will offer a series of Research Workshops for the campus community. The first workshop, Friday, Feb. 18 from 9 am until 12 pm, is a two-part information session on how to identify research funding opportunities and an overview of the grant-writing process.

Presented by the Division of Research Resources, the seminar will begin with an introduction by Christopher D’Elia, PhD, associate vice chancellor for research and community partnerships, followed by two presentations.

Research Information Specialist Kevin Hale will present Funding Attack, which will discussing finding funding, guidelines, ways to collaborate and how to promote your research. Rebecca Puig, director of research resources, will discuss The Basics including creating proposals, creating budgets and setting up the award for spending.

Participants are encouraged to bring proposal ideas and funding agency guidelines, as well as any questions or concerns. Refreshments will be served. For information, please contact Pat Butcher at pewhite@stpt.usf.edu or Pat Scott at pscott@stpt.usf.edu.

>> See: Flier (.pdf)

Share Your Thoughts in a Campus-Wide Conversation

To enhance our campus’ ethical culture and encourage more communication, you are invited to participate with Regional Chancellor Karen A. White and the new campus Ombudsman, Deni Elliott, in a Campus-Wide Conversation Monday, Feb. 28 at 9 am at the Williams House.

During the Campus-wide Conversation: Promoting an Ethical Culture, Elliott and White encourage all faculty and staff to discuss how the new Ombudsman Office can best serve our faculty and staff and become an integral component of our campus life. As Elliott develops the office, she said she wanted to make sure its foundation is based on campus needs.

“We want to find ways to promote civility and a community atmosphere to make USF St. Petersburg the best place it can be,” said Elliott, Poynter Jamison Chair in Media Ethics and Press Policy. She currently provides ethical consulting services for a public company in California.

Elliott said there are three purposes to the new office: to serve as a resource office to help people with complaints, to provide resources such as rules and regulations and to look for ways to enhance an ethical culture. Although many corporations and governmental agencies have Ethics Officers or Ombudsmen, Elliott said that our campus is at the forefront in higher education.

To learn more about the Ombudsman Office, faculty and staff are encouraged to view the Ombudsman Office Web site, still under construction, at http://www.stpt.usf.edu/ombudsman/.  

For more information about the Campus-Wide Conversation or about the Ombudsman Office, please contact Elliott at elliott@stpt.usf.edu or 553-4857.

See The Meeting for Black History Month Finale

Although Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X had very different ideas about how to approach a problem, they shared an important goal: they sought to end racism. For Black History Month's closing event, USF St. Petersburg presents a fictional play based on a meeting of these two great minds Wednesday, Feb. 23 at 7 pm in Davis Hall, Room 130.

The Meeting is set in a hotel room in 1965 Harlem and emphasizes the famous leaders’ different views about how to achieve freedom. Writer Jeff Stetson has earned eight NAACP Theatre Image awards for this play.

“This production is important not only to the black community, but to the community as a whole,” said Steve Marshall, interim Multicultural Affairs coordinator. “It is important for people to be aware of history of all kinds.

People need to see how society has progressed and is coming together.”

The Boston-based company, The Grimes Theatre Group has performed The Meeting nationwide starring Wesley Lawrence Taylor as Malcolm X and Michael Green as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

For more information about this and other Black History Month events, please call Marshall at 727-553-4845.

The Effects of Marketplace Discrimination

One of the nation’s foremost experts in multicultural marketing will present - “Consumer Racial Profiling and Other Marketplace Discrimination:  Are Marketers Providing Equal Treatment for Equal Dollars?” - a lecture for Black History Month. The lecture and video presentation is Wednesday, Feb. 23 from 3 to 5 pm in the College of Business, Classroom 2.

For more than 30 years, guest speaker Jerome Williams, F.J. Heyne Centennial Professor in Communication at University of Texas at Austin, has researched consumer marketing and advertising, with an emphasis on multicultural advertising and marketing. Williams has provided expert testimony in court cases on consumer response to advertising strategies and is co-editing a book on diversity in advertising. 

“Professor Williams is one of the leading scholars nationally who has the determination to discuss issues of race and treatment in the marketplace with true conviction,” Ron Hill, PhD, dean of the College of Business said.

Williams, who is among USF St. Petersburg's prominent guest lecturers this year, has been a visiting professor at leading universities in Singapore, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Jamaica and has been featured by national media including CNN, Good Morning America, New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

A wine and cheese reception will follow the lecture. For more information about the lecture or attending the post-event dinner, please contact Richard Smith, assistant professor of economics, at smithrb@stpt.usf.edu or 553-4943.

Library Hosts Three Exhibits This Month

Everyone knows that the Nelson Poynter Memorial Library is the place to go for everything from research journals to the latest books and periodicals. But this month, visit the Nelson Poynter Memorial Library to view three special exhibits:

• Black History Month exhibit featuring significant items from the library’s special collections including a first edition of God’s Trombones, by James Weldon Johnson and a signed edition of Langston Hughes’s The Ways of White Folks from the Ernest Ponder Collection.

• A display of rare titles in Ichthyology – the scientific study of fish – will be displayed to celebrate the new campus partnership with the National Marine Fisheries Services unit being relocated to Bayboro Station. This display will also include natural history from the John C. Briggs Collection.

•  A third display will explain the intricacies of Interlibrary Loan, a service that allows faculty and students to borrow books or receive photocopies from libraries throughout Florida and beyond.

For more information about the library and its services, please visit the Web site at http://www.nelson.usf.edu/mainpage/.

Students Stay Protected on National Condom Day

In addition to being Valentines Day, February 14 is also National Condom Awareness Day. To educate the campus community, Health Educator Sandy Blood collaborated with students to create a display in Davis Lobby for guests to pick up informational packages that included brochures and male and female condoms.

Blood said this day was important to educate students and campus members about safe ways to prevent sexually transmitted diseases and how to use a condom correctly.  Having this type of information readily available for students helps make students feel more comfortable asking questions and getting informed.

For more information about this and similar events, please contact Blood at 553-4114 or blood@stpt.usf.edu.  

Make a Difference at the Special Olympics

The Tampa Bay Special Olympics needs volunteers for score keeping, awards and carnival games Saturday, March 5 from 8:30 am to 1 pm at Lakewood High School.

For more information or to volunteer, please contact Barry McDowell at 553-4990 or mcdowell@stpt.usf.edu.

The USF St. Petersburg Calendar of Events can advertise to faculty, staff, students and the general public. Events may include lectures, conferences, ceremonies, concerts, sporting events, scholarship events, fundraising events and exhibits. 

Submit information at the central news form: http://www.stpt.usf.edu/news/submissions.htm.