Napolitano says she may support a tuition hike

All three state universities will be safe from further budget cuts, according to a budget proposal announced by Gov. Janet Napolitano yesterday.

The announcement comes only a day after President Pete Likins and Provost George Davis announced possible plans to cut 16 departments on campus.

"We would like to think that there's a broad understanding that the university has been cut so deeply, that deeper cuts are so harmful to the students that we are serving," Davis said. [Read article]

Six-day detainment puts teacher's life on hold until deportation hearing

On Dec. 13, students in Jamal Tabatabai's Persian class arrived on time to take their final, but their instructor never brought it ÷ he never even came.

Earlier that morning, Tabatabai, a former UA

instructor, went to the Immigration and Naturalization Services office to register as a part of a new national security program established after Sept. 11. [Read article]

With an enrollment increase of more than1,000 students this semester, departments are struggling to accommodate students amid course cuts.

Many departments have been forced to increase class sizes and web-based classes to deal with this semester's influx. Yet some students are still left without full schedules.

"I know a lot of people who are stuck with like seven units," said undecided freshman Amy Zetah. [Read article]

Martin Luther King Jr. is often remembered most for his dream of one day seeing all races unite. For the past 15 years, a large gathering of students at UA help make that dream come true.

The Martin Luther King Jr. march is open to all members of the UA community who wish to participate.

"It's real important because it's part of history, not just black history," said Korandus Armstead, a family studies junior. "Martin Luther King said that all people should live together in harmony. It would be a shame if only black people were there; that would be contradictory to everything he said." [Read article]

Sometimes the roof of the architecture building is the only place Jeff Leven can finish his projects.

The fourth-year architecture student often refuses to use the available booth to spray-mount his projects because the space is uncomfortable and dirty.

When he moves to the hallways, there's a different problem.

"It smells bad and (the spray) is really bad for you," Leven said.

Those problems are minimized on the roof. But Leven would still prefer not to work there. [Read article]

Students using shared computer keyboards and phone receivers could find themselves vulnerable to the flu.

Over the next few weeks, nurses at Campus Health Services expect to see more students coming in with the flu after returning from winter break travels.

Many people catch the flu from breathing in "droplets" in the air from the coughing or sneezing of people who have the flu.

Traveling in closed quarters with a large group of people on an airplane is often a way the flu spreads, said Lisette LeCorgne, a nurse practitioner at Campus Health, meaning many students could have brought it back to campus with them. [Read article]

Accounting junior wants you to spit in his face so he can knock you out, but not at the bookstore

WILDCAT: Where do you work?

URMAN: The bookstore.

WILDCAT: How's that?

URMAN: It sucks.

WILDCAT: What was the strangest thing someone did to you today?

URMAN: Spit in my face.

WILDCAT: You must not have responded well to that.

URMAN: No I didn't like that. But I'm just kidding. No one spit in my face. But I wish someone had spit in my face. [Read article]

College of Education staff buys shoes for children

Thanks to a group of classified staff employees in the College of Education, 70 children received new shoes for Christmas.

The college's Staff Advisory Council, a small organization made up largely of administrative support staff, raised $1400 through bake sales, raffles, bottled water sales, and donations.

Staff Advisory Council members took the $1,400 and met with 70 students on Dec. 9 for a shoe-shopping spree.

Free admission to Flandrau Center for CatCard holders

The Flandrau Science Center now offers free admission to its exhibit halls and regularly scheduled planetarium shows to all current CatCard holders, which includes all UA faculty, staff and students.

CatCard holders are also eligible to sign up for discounts in Flandrau's June Patterson Science Store.

The 16-inch telescope at Flandrau continues to be open free to the public on Wednesday through Saturday nights from dusk until 10 p.m., weather permitting.

Flandrau Science Center is located on the northeast corner of University Boulevard and Cherry Avenue.

UA alumnus works outside International Space Station

Don Pettit went on a spacewalk outside the International Space Station yesterday.

Pettit and Expedition Six Commander Ken Bowersox spent more than seven hours working outside the space station.

Bowersox and Pettit worked on the station's newest truss segment that was delivered in November. They deployed a radiator and carried out other work to prepare components for future assembly flights.

Pettit graduated from UA in 1983 with a doctorate in chemical engineering.

Pettit was a staff scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory from 1984 until 1996 when NASA selected him for astronaut training.

UA Astronomers win 2003 Pierce Prize, Weber Award

Arizona Steward Observatory astronomers have been awarded 2003 Newton Lacy Pierce Prize and the 2003 Joseph Weber Award for astronomical instrumentation.

Assistant professor of astronomy, Xiaohui Fan, has won the Newton Lacy Pierce Prize for 2003 "for his systematic discovery of high redshift quasars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey," he wrote in a citation.

"The quasars are the best probe to date of the epoch of the formation of the first objects in the universe; their discovery enabled identification of the end of the epoch of re-ionization," he said.

Fan headed the Sloan Digital Sky Survey team that announced the discovery of three of the four oldest known quasars at last week's AAS annual meeting in Seattle.

Sundance Students

University of Southern California ö A film produced by students at the University of Southern California will be shown at the Sundance Film Festival this week.

The film's writer-director-producer, Brandon Sonnier, teamed up with four friends who had started their own production company to create "The Beat."

Sonnier, a junior majoring in cinema-television production, produced the film with four friends, three of whom attend USC.

Missing Mail

Boston University ö Boston University Police Department detectives are continuing an investigation into campus mail theft after receiving numerous complaints of missing mail at locations throughout campus over the past six months, BUPD Sgt. Jack St. Hilaire said Tuesday.

BUPD detectives are working with the United States Postal Police on the matter, he said.

Indications are that problems within the U.S. Postal Service, rather than the BU mail delivery system, have caused the missing mail, St. Hilaire said.

State Song Mandate

University of Kentucky ö Senator Ted Buford introduced a bill in the Kentucky senate that would require the University of Kentucky band to play the state song during home games "in venues in Fayette County that hold 15,000 or more patrons."

The bill also requires the American and Kentucky flags to be displayed during home games.