Campus Health offering shots in time for late-Oct. flu season

With flu season approaching, the UA will offer flu shots at several locations this year.

Campus Health Service offers flu shots for students, benefits-eligible employees and community members.

The cost for benefits-eligible UA employees is $7. All others pay $10. Campus Health is open Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and closed between noon and 1 p.m.

Also, UA Life and Work Connections will be offering worksite flu shots at several locations starting Monday, Oct. 21.

A schedule will be posted after Monday, Oct. 14, at the UA Life and Work Connections Web site as soon as exact times and locations are determined.

The schedule can be accessed at http://lifework.arizona.edu/wellness/flu.htm.

Health care providers recommend that individuals wait until the end of October to get a flu shot so it protects for the peak of the flu season, which is January to February.

Foundation gifts anthropology department record $2M pledge

The anthropology department has announced that they will receive a record $2 million donation, the largest individual donation ever given to the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences.

The pledge was made from the Salus Mundi Foundation, which is headed by A. Richard Diebold Jr., a former professor in the anthropology department from 1974 to 1992.

The anthropology department will establish an endowment in the amount of $1.8 million at the UA Foundation for student fellowships and to aid in faculty recruitment and retention, in part through the establishment and partial support of Foci of Excellence. The additional $200,000 will benefit student and faculty travel, promote staff development and maintain and update computer technology and information resources.

Though the UA's anthropology department is consistently rated among the best in the nation, it is consistently unsuccessful in drawing the top five or six potential graduate admissions candidates, due generally to the inability to match the financial incentives offered by peer institutions.

"We are thrilled and extremely grateful to Richard Diebold and the Salus Mundi Foundation for this generous pledge," said John Olsen, head of the anthropology department. "With the current budget situation, it is difficult to attract and retain the best students and faculty. This $2 million donation will allow us to continue to be one of the top anthropology departments in the country."

Berkeley astronomer to lecture on chances of Îexoplanet' life

An astronomer who in June co-discovered the first solar system like our own and was a part of the discovery of the 100th planet outside our solar system will lecture next month on the possibilities of extra-terrestrial life.

Geoffrey W. Marcy of the University of California Berkeley, was a co-discoverer of an extra-solar planet, or "exoplanet," in 1996.

He and his colleagues have discovered more than 50 planets using a method that Marcy developed. The technique measures how much a star is affected by an unseen planet.

Last month, Marcy along with British, Australian and American collaborators announced they had detected the 100th known exoplanet, using the Anglo-Australian Telescope in New South Wales, Australia.

The lecture, "The Prospects for Planets and Life in the Universe" will take place on Nov. 1 in Room 120 of the Integrated Learning Center. It is free and open to the public.