Ethical eating course

Faculty, staff and community members are invited to participate (along with undergraduate students) in the Religious Studies course 10/10A Ethical Eating. Offered during the winter 2007 quarter, the class will meet from 12:10 p.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays from Jan. 4 through March 13 in the Wyatt Theatre.

Religious studies professors Naomi Janowitz and Allison Coudert will teach the course, which will examine issues raised in the 2006 Campus Book Project based on Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma.

Staff and community members who want to audit Ethical Eating should e-mail gjhart@ucdavis.edu. There is no cost to those auditing the course, and no course credit will be awarded to them.

For details, contact Janowitz at nhjanowitz@ucdavis.edu or Coudert at apcoudert@ucdavis.edu.

Seeking old catalogs

Maybe you have them sitting on a shelf. Maybe they are in a box stuffed in the corner of your office. Wherever they may be, the university registrar is asking you to take a look for old UC Davis catalogs. They are needed for a centennial project in which the registrar aims to create an electronic record of every catalog the school has published in its 100 years, through 2008-09. The registrar's office has all the catalogs from 1994-95 to date. Before that, the office needs 1993-94, 1965-66, 1964-65, 1962-63, 1960-61 and everything from 1957-58 and earlier. People with the missing volumes need not give them up; they can be scanned and returned.

To offer old catalogs, contact Randall Larson-Maynard, senior editor and curriculum coordinator in the registrar's office: (530) 752-6141, rllarsonmaynard@ucdavis.edu.

Beneficiary designation

For almost three years now, UC employees have had a choice in how they record the names of their beneficiaries for retirement, savings and insurance plans. This could be done in paper form or by computer.

But come Jan. 1, all beneficiary designations must be made by computer. Any paper beneficiary designation forms filed prior to 2004 will be obsolete after Dec. 31 and will not be retained. So, if you have not converted from paper to computer, you must do so by Jan. 1, or your beneficiary information will go away.

For retirement and insurance plans, the beneficiary-naming system is part of the At Your Service Web site: http://atyourservice.ucop.edu. Click on "Sign in to My Accounts" near the upper right-hand corner, sign in, look for the section header "About (your name)," then click on "My Beneficiaries."

To name beneficiaries for retirement savings plans, which include defined contribution, 403(b) and 457(b), contact Fidelity Investments Tax-Exempt Services Co., or FITSCo., at http://netbenefits.fidelity.com or (866) 682-7787.

Frontiers set for debut

UC Davis' new Frontiers program is set to debut in January on UCTV. The first program covers two topics: art and ethnic politics, with Professor Malaquias Montoya; and avian influenza, with Christian Sandrock and Walter Hudson of the UC Davis Health System. The schedule includes presentations at 1 a.m. Jan. 8, 7 a.m. Jan. 9, 2 p.m. Jan. 10, 6 and 9 p.m. Jan. 11, 10 a.m. and 11 p.m. Jan. 12, 4 a.m. Jan. 13, and 5 and 8 p.m. Jan. 14.