Summer Latin classes offer 'immersion', 8 units

The Classics department is offering students this summer an opportunity to satisfy their four-semester language requirement in 10 weeks.

The first summer-session Latin class will encompass the first and second semesters of Latin, while the second session allows the student to reach fourth semester proficiency.

"This is a unique program for learning a language," said Cynthia White, assistant professor of classics. "People from all over the country attended last year."

Gary Gongwer, mathematics senior, said he took the intensive Latin class last summer because "Old manuscripts about math and science are written in Latin and I wanted to be able to relate with the people who wrote them."

Gongwer, who is now fluent in Latin, said "It's a total immersion of the language. I absorbed more than I thought I would."

The six-unit classes are Monday through Friday and last for 31/2 hours, with three hours of homework a day, said White.

The instructors meet with students in informal atmospheres and after class, and there is an instructor on call 24 hours a day.

"It's an exhilarating experience to learn a language this way. About 85 percent of the students who completed the course went on to take Latin in the fall," White said.

Former Washington editor given Zenger award for journalism

The UA Journalism Department presented the 42nd John Peter and Anna Catherine Zenger award for outstanding journalism and excellence in upholding the freedom of the press.

Ben Bagdikian, a former assistant managing editor and ombudsman for the Washington Post, was nominated by a committee that included the UA Journalism Department and former award winners. Bagdikian was chosen from a nationwide ballot of 400 editors.

The award is named after John Zenger, a Colonial era journalist who resisted censorship by the British government.

Zenger, an American printer, was acquitted of seditious libel charges when it was established for the first time that truth was a legal defense for printing negative information about the government.

Bagdikian is a Guggenheim Fellow recipient and is professor emeritus at the University of California at Berkeley, where he was a dean of the graduate school of journalism.

He is the author of "In the Midst of Plenty," "The Media Monopoly" and his autobiography, "Double Vision: Reflections on My Heritage."

Bagdikian, who is currently in France, was unavailable for comment. He will accept the award May 1 at the annual journalism department awards banquet.

UA architecture student receives Hunter Fellowship

A UA landscape architecture student is one of five students in the nation to receive the Hunter Fellowship.

Penny Batelli, landscape architecture senior, will use the fellowship to complete a 160-hour internship at Carl Kominsky's landscape company, and will attend industry functions and trade shows in the Southwest. She will also go to training seminars on designing irrigations systems.

Batelli said, "Since I have attended seminars and industry distributor meetings, I've gotten a perspective on the inside of the irrigation industry ... It's amazing how big it is."

Students were selected on the basis of work experience, faculty recommendations and career objectives.

"The Hunter Fellowship Program is an alliance between business and academia to provide career-enhancement opportunities for promising students," said Lynda Wightmen, Hunter education manager and fellowship program coordinator.

Batelle is planning to complete her graduate degree at the UA, specializing in the construction of gardens used for healing and meditation. The gardens use a variety of plants and special architectural designs.

"Healing and meditation gardens and landscapes have positive effects on people," she said, "such as in hospital settings where patients who view gardens heal faster."

Computer science selects new UA department head

Undergraduate education and faculty growth are top priorities of the computer science department, the new head said yesterday.

Larry Peterson, a UA computer science professor, was appointed the new department head April 1 by College of Science Dean Eugene Levy.

Levy appointed Peterson following a recommendation from a committee made up of seven faculty members and one student.

Peterson's responsibilities as department head include planning and administrating the department's academic and research programs.

"More attention will go to the undergraduate program, making it more relevant," he said.

In order to do this, Peterson said, the material in prerequisite classes needs to be organized differently.

This reorganization will allow computer science majors and minors to take some of the more interesting upper-division classes sooner than they can now, he said.

He said he wants to increase the faculty of the computer science department from 13 to 16 members.

Peterson was the only candidate in a university-wide search that ended last semester. Peter Downey, another computer science professor, temporarily filled the position since May while the department searched for a permanent head.