Public workshops eye connections...

The city, campus and Davis Downtown Business Association will co-sponsor a June 29 open house to present concepts for improving connections between UC Davis and downtown Davis. Campus community members are invited.

The event is set for 7-9 p.m. in the Teen Center Basement, at 303 Third St. Concepts to be presented include:

• Improvements to the First and A streets intersection;
• Bicycle and pedestrian improvements along First Street;
• Shuttle concepts between downtown and campus arts and visitor venues; and
• Campus-to-downtown pedestrian corridor improvements.

Additional information and maps of the concepts can be found at http://cityofdavis.org. Under the "What's New" section, there is a link for "Concepts to Improve Connections Between UC Davis and Downtown Davis."

HArCS interim dean post extended

The campus is extending its national search for a dean of the Division of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies into the 2005-06 academic year.

Patricia Turner, who has served as interim dean for the past year, will continue until the search is completed. Fred Wood will continue as interim vice provost for undergraduate studies in place of Turner.

"We are grateful to both of them for agreeing to remain in these roles," said Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef. "Their efforts will allow us to extend the dean's search knowing that both the division and undergraduate studies will have strong leadership until the search is successfully concluded."

The search is ongoing to replace Elizabeth Langland, the dean of HArCS for five years, who left last summer for a position as provost of the State University of New York at Purchase. HArCS includes 270 full-time faculty, 60 lecturers, 2,100 undergraduate students and 360 graduate students. For more, see http://chancellor.ucdavis.edu/resource/recruit/deanharcs.cfm.

'Healthy' nominations sought

The campus community has been invited to nominate books for the 2006 annual Campus Community Book Project related to the theme "healthy food."

Books that take a thought-provoking look at topics including obesity, nutrition, genetically modified organisms, the culture of foods, disparities in availability of healthy food and health care will be considered.

An additional consideration for a recommended title is the possibility that the book's author would be available to speak on campus.

Any published work that is still in print in paperback is eligible. Send nominations to Karen Roth in the Office of Campus Community Relations (kmroth@ucdavis.edu), with the book title, author and a short explanation of why the book would make a worthy selection. The council will begin reviewing nominations in July, and recommendations are requested by June 30. As nominations are made, they will be posted at http://occr.ucdavis.edu/bookproject.html.