The university's new international faculty database now has more than 300 listings, says Nicole Ranganath, campus opportunities officer in University Outreach and International Programs. Her office launched the database in November; the Web address is uoip.ucdavis.edu/internationalfaculty. "We are continuing to target faculty in international disciplines, and we're also trying to launch an effort to let students and staff know that the database is a useful tool to learn more about the international expertise of our faculty," Ranganath said. Faculty members who input their international backgrounds are eligible to win gift certificates to the campus bookstore. November's winner was Henry Spiller of the Department of Music and December's winner was Barbara Chapman of the Department of Neurobiology, Physiology and Behavior. ...

Junior receiver Tony Kays, whose school-record 93 receptions were the most in the NCAA Division I-AA rankings, was named recipient Jan. 22 of the Jerry Norris Award as the UC Davis football team's most inspirational and valuable player for the 2005 season, headlining several team honors at the Aggies' annual banquet Jan. 22 at Freeborn Hall. Led by head coach Bob Biggs, UC Davis finished the 2005 campaign with a 6-5 overall record and tied for the Great West Football Conference championship with a 4-1 mark. Besides the league title, the season was highlighted by a monumental 20-17 upset at Stanford on Sept. 17. ...

Pamela Houston's 2005 novel, Sight Hound, has just been released in paperback by publisher W.W. Norton. The book is about a woman, Rae, and her dog, Dante, a wolfhound who teaches "his human" that love is stronger than fear. Houston, the director of the Creative Writing program at UC Davis, said she will "be on tour these next couple of months with the soft cover, though not quite so relentlessly as last year." Check out the dates and places of Houston's appearance at pamhouston.net. For her Northern California fans, Houston's next book reading is March 16 at the City Lights bookstore in San Francisco.. ...

The suspense fluttered to an end on Jan. 26 when entomologist Art Shapiro captured the first cabbage butterfly (Pieris rapae) of the year in West Sacramento, Yolo County. He gets to buy himself a pitcher of beer for the 28th out of 34 years — that is the deal he's made with himself. "I arrived at 1 p.m. sharp, saw the bug coming straight at me and got it on the first swing at 1:06 p.m., and the rest, as they say, is history." ...

Findlay McIntosh has an exhibition on display through Feb. 10 at the Craft Center Gallery. A bronze sculpture instructor at the center, McIntosh came to the Craft Center in the early '90s while getting his bachelor and master's degrees in religious history at UC Davis. He helped to create the center's small foundry and also took a drawing class from Wayne Theibaud. Both experiences proved fateful, as McIntosh is now an art teacher at Christian Brothers High School in Sacramento. He was initially hired as a religious history instructor, but his talent, background and inclination landed him in his current niche. ...

Jamal Abedi of the UC Davis School of Education said at a recent conference in Sacramento that the number of English-learner students is increasing rapidly, especially in California. One-third, or 1.5 million, of the nation's English learner children are in the state's K-12 school system. "There are major factors affecting the fairness of both instruction and assessment of language-minority children," said the Abedi, who also chaired the conference. ...

The last day for the West Davis Neighbors to petition the California Supreme Court to hear their case against the campus's planned West Village was Jan. 17. The group did not file an appeal with the court, and so the lawsuit will not go forward. ...

Mark Ravenhill, one of Britain's most acclaimed young playwrights, is in residence at the UC Davis Theatre & Dance Department this fall under the auspices of the Granada Artist-in-Residence program, which brings internationally known artists to campus each quarter to teach and create a performance work. Ravenhill will teach playwriting and direct a double bill of new plays: his own play School (originally titled Citizenship) and American writer Julia Jarcho's Nursery, winner of the 2000 Young Playwrights Festival National Playwrighting Competition.