After losing top-flight faculty members last year to other universities, administrators have decided it is time to ask the Legislature to invest $15 million to help keep key faculty members from migrating to other schools for better salaries.

The UA needs $54 million to bring the average salary to the 50th percentile nationally, but the $15 million request is what administrators think would be feasible to ask from the state, which faces another deficit this year, said Greg Fahey, UA lobbyist. [Read article]

ASUA will support tuition proposal, asks for gradual increase

Seven months before tuition will be set, UA student lobbyists are just about ready to release their tuition proposal to support any hike recommended by President Peter Likins.

J.P. Benedict, student lobbyist and president of the Associated Students of the University of Arizona, said he will support Likins' tuition proposal this year, but will ask that administrators spread the hike out over two to three years so that students do not have to pay for it all at once. [Read article]

About 400 people gathered on the UA Mall yesterday for the official unveiling of the "Border Dynamics" sculpture on display in front of the Student Union Memorial Center.

The sculpture, created by artists Alberto Morackis and Guadalupe Serrano, is intended to promote awareness and discussion of issues along the United States' border with Mexico.

The music of a mariachi band filled the air and the U.S., Mexico, Arizona and UA flags flew side by side in the breeze at the [Read article]

Union worker Betty Baker dies at 72

Betty Baker, a longtime employee of the Student Union Memorial Center who was close to a countless number of students and fellow staff members, died over the weekend at the age of 72.

Baker served food and lifted the spirits at the student union for more than 20 years, starting at the Terrace Dining Room in 1980 and then moving over to the Fiddlee Fig 10 years later. [Read article]

Freshman likes surreal literature, thinks Salvador Dali is pretty cool for being so abstract

Wildcat: My name's Nathan and you're On the Spot. I just saw you checking yourself out in the glass there. What's going on?

(Delay)

Wildcat: Don't deny it.

Hancock: No, no, no, no.

Wildcat: I saw you.

Hancock: Just making sure my hair is

parted right. [Read article]

Top Schools in Federal Research-and-Development Costs, 2001

University of Arizona: $199,484,000

Johns Hopkins University*: $879,741,000

University of Washington: $435,103,000

University of Michigan: $396,117,000

Stanford University: $384,468,000

University of Pennsylvania: $351,996,000

University of California at San Diego: $343,276,000

Columbia University: $317,928,000

University of California at Los Angeles: $312,858,000 [Read article]

Things you always never wanted to know

· To boost attendance, the St. Louis Browns of the American League signed up a dwarf in the 1951 season. Eddie Gaedel was 3 feet 7 inches tall, and wore a uniform numbered 1/8. He went to bat only once, in a game against the Detroit Tigers, and walked on four pitches. Dwarves are now banned by the major leagues. The Browns that year also hired a team psychiatrist. The next year, they moved to Baltimore. [Read article]