Top Stories
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Kiplinger's ranks Bucknell among best values
Bucknell is the 11th best value in private liberal arts colleges, according to the April edition of Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine, which is now available on newsstands. [full story]
"Our rankings spotlight schools with strong academics, attractive prices and generous financial aid," the magazine said.
Bucknell rose eight spots from 19th in last year's rankings. With an enrollment of 3,550 students, it is the largest institution in the top 50.
During this academic year, Bucknell has been ranked No. 7 among the best liberal arts colleges by Washington Monthly magazine, 30th in U.S. News & World Report, and sixth on the Peace Corps’ top 25 list of small colleges and universities producing Peace Corps volunteers.
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Alum takes home Academy Award
Bucknell computer science alumnus Bill Westenhofer '90 took home an Academy Award for best visual effects on "The Golden Compass," an elaborate fantasy film based on a series of popular novels. [full story]
Westenhofer, who served as the visual effects supervisor on the film, accepted his Oscar during the Feb. 24 national telecast along with his effects team.
An animator who also supervised visual effects for "Babe: Pig in the City," Westenhofer was nominated previously for an Oscar in 2005 for his work on "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe."
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Speakers, films highlight Bucknell-Burma celebration
A world-renowned human rights pioneer, a documentary filmmaker, and a top Asian studies scholar will visit Bucknell this semester as part of the series "Historic Relationship, Contemporary Challenge: The Burma-Bucknell Connection at 150 Years and Why It Matters Today." [full story]
The University’s rich and historic relationship with the people of Burma began in 1858 with the enrollment of Maung Shaw Loo, the first Burma native to study in the United States.
The Burma-Bucknell events will include a talk by longtime human rights advocate Jack Healey on Thursday, March 20, 7 p.m., in Trout Auditorium. Healey, who is executive director of The Freedom Campaign, founder of Human Rights Action Center, and former executive director of Amnesty International-USA, will address the struggle for human rights around the world through the lens of current events in Burma. Please check the full schedule for details on related events, including films and an exhibit.
"Bucknell has a unique responsibility by virtue of its historic affiliation with Burma to draw attention in appropriate ways to the challenges now facing the people of Myanmar," Bucknell President Brian C. Mitchell said. "As a liberal arts community, we uphold the belief in the pursuit of truth and understanding in a free environment."
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Ehrenreich, Pitts to speak at Bucknell Forum
Best-selling author and noted columnist Barbara Ehrenreich will give the talk "Working for Change: Citizenship and Class in America," at 7:30 p.m. Monday, March 17, at the Weis Center for the Performing Arts. [full story]
The talk, which is part of the national speaker series "The Bucknell Forum: The Citizen & Politics in America," is free and open to the public but tickets are required. Students, faculty, and staff may reserve up to four tickets per person at Forum Tickets beginning March 4; the public may request tickets on March 11. Please consult the website for details.
Ehrenreich is the best-selling author of Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America and Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream, as well as eight other nonfiction books. A columnist for Time magazine from 1991 to 1997 and a regular contributor to The Progressive, she has received numerous grants and awards, including a Ford Foundation Award for Humanistic Perspectives on Contemporary Society and a Guggenheim Fellowship.
The next event in the series will be a talk by Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts, who will speak at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, March 24, in Trout Auditorium. His talk is titled "America’s Second Black President: Race, Politics & Obama."
Since 1994, millions of newspaper readers twice a week have sought out Pitts’ rich and resonant commentary on pop culture, social issues, and family life. Awarded the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for commentary, Pitts was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1992. In 1997, he took first place for commentary in newspapers with a circulation of more than 300,000 in the American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors' Ninth Annual Writing Awards competition. In 2001, he received the American Society of Newspaper Editors prestigious ASNE Award for Commentary Writing and was named Feature of the Year Columnist by Editor and Publisher magazine. In 2002, the National Society of Newspaper Columnists awarded Pitts its inaugural Columnist of the Year award.
The Bucknell Forum is a national speakers series focused on major issues in the 2008 presidential election, notably those at the forefront of today's national discourse.
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Professor receives $520,000 NSF Career Award
Tim Raymond ‘97, an assistant professor of chemical engineering, was recently granted a 5-year, $520,000 National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Award. NSF grants the prestigious awards to support faculty who excel at integrating teaching and research. [full story]
Raymond will study aerosol-water interactions in the atmosphere. He plans to use the grant to buy several new pieces of equipment that will greatly expand his research capabilities. One piece, called a cloud condensation nucleus chamber, will allow him to create clouds in the laboratory. Only a few dozen such machines exist worldwide. Understanding cloud formation is vital for creating accurate models of climate change.
Raymond’s work also has applications for pharmaceutical companies, which need to know how aerosols, in the form of drugs that can be inhaled, will interact with water vapor in the respiratory tract.
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Closson Buck, Mills receive PCA fellowships
Paula Closson Buck, assistant professor of English, and Dan Mills, curator of the Samek Art Gallery, have been named recipients of Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowships. [full story]
Closson Buck and Mills are two of only 74 in the Commonwealth to receive Individual Creative Artists Fellowships recognizing their artistic excellence in the fields of literature (poetry) and visual arts (painting) respectively.
Closson Buck, a widely published poet who teaches creative writing, also is the editor of West Branch, a biannual journal of contemporary writing published at the University.
Mills, an accomplished painter, has curated numerous exhibitions that have traveled throughout the United States.
The goal of the PCA competition is to encourage and enable outstanding Pennsylvania artists of all backgrounds to perform their work and display it to the public. The council annually awards fellowships of $5,000 and $10,000.
