Finnish or not, here we come...
(7/21/2008) This weekend (July 23 to 27), the University of Minnesota, Duluth is celebrating "FinnFest 2008" with a textile exhibition and a ceremony to award Tarja Halonen, president of Finland, with an honorary degree. Proceeds from the festival support scholarships for UMD students of Finnish heritage.

Educational benefits of social networking sites
(7/9/2008) When you hear about children and Web sites such as Facebook and MySpace, you might think of forums for risky behavior and wasting time. But University of Minnesota researcher Christine Greenhow has discovered that there are concrete intellectual benefits of social networking on the World Wide Web.

Blank walls do not talk
(7/1/2008) Since 1934, the Weisman or its predecessor, Northrop Auditorium's Little Gallery, has encouraged faculty, staff, and students to rent original artwork and print reproductions--artwork that might otherwise sit in the Weisman's basement. More than 800 pieces are in circulation and about 300 framed, ready-to-hang original artworks are available for rent at the Weisman store, including prints, one-of-a-kind watercolor and oil paintings, and photographs.

Cheering the hero and booing the bad guys
(6/20/2008) Vaudeville-style theatre rules on the Minnesota Centennial Showboat. This summer, The Count of Monte Cristo and eight crowd-pleasing olios mark the showboat's 50th anniversary season.

Outdoor summer fun at the U
(6/17/2008) There's a million things to do at the UMTC campus this summer, but you'll never have time for that many. In the spirit of the season, why not stick to the outdoors? This list of outdoor summer suggestions will help get you started.

Upper Great Lakes fish boil
(6/11/2008) The fish boil--boiling fish, potatoes, and onions together in a large pot--is the Great Lakes' answer to the New England clambake. The University of Minnesota Sea Grant has some tips to help you prepare this tasty tradition.

Language program opens university study to international students
(6/11/2008) The Minnesota English Language Program at the College of Continuing Education works with foreign universities, schools, and businesses to tailor intensive courses for specific groups of students.

Split Rock Arts Program celebrates 25 years
(6/3/2008) 2008 marks the 25th anniversary of the College of Continuing Education's Split Rock Arts Program, a nationally respected series of summer workshops in writing and the arts.

The poetics of cinema
(6/3/2008) Hisham Bizri, U professor of film, creates his own films, which he calls "visual poems," that create a balance between technical skill and visceral intuition to reflect his Arab/Muslim upbringing and his Anglo/American culture.

Of trees and anniversaries
(6/2/2008) The Minnesota Landscape Arboretum's summer exhibit, "Treeology," is a playful tribute to trees. It is also the cornerstone of the Arboretum's yearlong celebration of two anniversaries--the centennial of the Horticultural Research Center and 50 years as a public display garden.

Art of the New Deal
(5/23/2008) The work of more than 60 Great Depression-era artists is the subject of the Weisman Art Museum's new exhibition, "By the People, for the People: New Deal Art at the Weisman," which runs through July 27.

A very expensive tape measure
(5/14/2008) A body scanner in the Department of Design, Housing, and Apparel has opened doors for the University of Minnesota to conduct cutting-edge research and change the way apparel is designed.

Iron Man takes physics for a ride
(5/2/2008) As Iron Man soars at the box office, the U's James Kakalios ponders the physics of the superhero's suit--and says another U professor is making one of its features a reality.

Musical sights
(4/30/2008) A picture may be worth a thousand words. But for students in the University of Minnesota's College of Liberal Arts music classes, they are also worth a thousand notes.

Book reviews spring 2008
(4/25/2008) Gayla Marty reviews The Florist's Daughter, The Truth About Garden Remedies, and Earthworms of the Great Lakes in this Spring 2008 edition of Book Reviews.

The art and the artist
(4/23/2008) Arnold Newman photographed many of the icons of 20th-century art, science, and politics, including John F. Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe, and Georgia O'Keeffe. Earlier this year, Newman's son, Eric, a neuroscience professor at the U, approached the Weisman Art Museum to donate 40 of his late father's famous portraits.

Ruby red slippers and Yellow Brick Road, with a twist
(4/16/2008) The University Theatre and Dance explores the universal themes of courage, intelligence, love, and the importance of home in its version of "The Wiz," a 1975 Broadway musical adapted from L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

In search of the perfect human
(3/17/2008) Through May 4, the U's Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and the Science Museum of Minnesota are sponsoring an exhibit, "Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race," and a series of public lectures that explore eugenics and the Holocaust.

Summer fun for youth
(2/19/2008) The University of Minnesota offers and hosts one of the most comprehensive line-ups of summer camps for youth in Minnesota.

New chances to hear Holocaust memorial oratorio
(2/12/2008) The Holocaust memorial oratorio To Be Certain of the Dawn, composed by U grad Stephen Paulus with text by U professor Michael Dennis Browne, gets new performances and a recording.

Studio arts on memory lane
(2/6/2008) Artwork from University of Minnesota, Morris, studio art faculty--those who have made contributions to the studio art program over the past 47 years--is on exhibit through Friday, March 14, in the Humanities Fine Arts Gallery on the Morris campus.

Pastry chefs, born and bread
(2/1/2008) In their new book, Zoë François and U adjunct professor Jeff Hertzberg show us how to bring such things as boules, rye bread, brioche, bagels, and apricot pastries into our daily lives in less time than the average American spends taking a shower.

Maps of the body
(1/22/2008) The U's Owen H. Wangensteen Historical Library of Biology and Medicine has in its collection hundreds of anatomical atlases dating from the 1400s to the 20th century. The collection reveals not only medical ideas about the body, but also the philosophies of the anatomists and the times they lived in.

Bridging languages, bridging cultures
(1/9/2008) Pui-Fong Kan, a University of Minnesota Ph.D. candidate, is studying the relationship between language acquisition and culture, especially in bilingual children.

Delving deeper
(1/8/2008) The U's the Borchert Map Library--with its more than 350,000 sheet maps, 9,600 atlases, and 415,000 aerial photos--is the place to go for the histories of towns, neighborhoods, and individual properties, as well as for information about wetlands, lakes, and streams that have been altered or destroyed by urban growth.

Book reviews winter 2008
(1/4/2008) Three books with connections to the U, on notable historical moments, trolley days, and weird Minnesota.

Garden of Iron Mirrors reflects past and present
(12/21/2007) The new Education Sciences Building on the Twin Cities campus is a window into the past and present, whether you're inside looking through its many windows or outside admiring the banks of the Mississippi through the Garden of Iron Mirrors public sculpture.

Behind the scenes and on stage
(12/14/2007) He's been in the theatre business for 30 years but his ideas are still attention grabbing and fresh. U professor Michael Sommers was recently named a USA Ford Fellow for his work behind the scenes and on stage.

A day for music makers
(12/11/2007) Since 2005, the University has hosted a daylong instrumental conducting symposium for band conductors and music educators. Creativity, collaboration, and personal renewal is the goal.

Jack be nimble
(12/5/2007) Jack Zipes recently won an award for his book, Why Fairy Tales Stick. The University professor of German has a way of not only motivating children to question the traditional stories they've been told but challenging conventional wisdom about the role of folklore in our lives.

Show me the Moebius
(11/30/2007) How do you turn a plane inside out? One of the hottest videos on YouTube, produced by University of Minnesota mathematicians Douglas Arnold and Jonathan Rogness, transforms math into a visual treat.

Extreme film
(11/30/2007) University of Minnesota, Duluth alumnus J.J. Kelley is an environmental educator, an extreme adventurer, and as of September 2007, a production coordinator at National Geographic Television.

Art without reservation
(11/30/2007) A new exhibit at the Weisman Art Museum, which features Native American artists from west of the Mississippi, blends traditional materials or styles with the contemporary, creating a new kind of showcase of Native art.

Beyond blue eyes
(11/21/2007) With few children available for domestic adoption in Scandinavia, couples are turning to Asia or Central and South America. U professor Monika Zagar's research focuses on the new generation of Nordic citizens--a group that doesn't look anything like its predecessors.

Putting America on the map
(11/20/2007) The U's James Ford Bell Library has a 1507 Waldseemüller map--the first drawing to portray the world as a globe and also the first to label the "New World" as "America."

New information on Wikipedia
(11/16/2007) Some ongoing University of Minnesota research has revealed some interesting facts about Wikipedia that may fly in the face of some commonly held perceptions and perhaps misconceptions. A relatively small number of people are making the bulk of the contributions to the site, and for the most part, Wikipedia is very resistant to vandalism.

Astrid at 100
(11/9/2007) On Wednesday, November 14, the U will host a conference on Sweden's best known writer, Astrid Lindgren, creator of Pippi Longstocking.

The revolution will be digitized
(11/7/2007) Since 1997, the Visual Resources Center on the Twin Cities campus has transformed more than 50,000 of the art history department's approximately 300,000 slides into high-resolution digital images. The center is also training graduate students to digitize and catalog images from 18 other College of Liberal Arts disciplines.

Crossing the lines
(11/6/2007) Scholars from all walks of academia will put their heads together and their ideas in print, thanks to a grant to the U from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Food for thought--and conversation
(10/10/2007) The College of Continuing Education's Headliners series on the Twin Cities campus in St. Paul has spawned the "Roseville Headliners Salon," a group that gathers for potluck, conversation, and to attend the monthly event.

China in transition
(10/9/2007) U lecturer Seth Werner discusses how "Made in China" is giving way to "Made by China" at the recent Weisman Art Museum "China Now at Noon" event. The free lunchtime series is held in conjunction with the museum's current "Documenting China" photo exhibit.

Building makes him happy
(9/28/2007) R. Justin Stewart is the first University of Minnesota student to win the International Sculpture Center's Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture award. His winning piece is featured in a magazine and New Jersey exhibit.

Going beyond their comfort zone
(9/25/2007) Photographers aren't exhibiting photos, ceramic artists aren't showing vessels, and sculptors aren't displaying hand-carved statues. Instead, the current Nash Gallery exhibit captures the creativity of 25 art faculty working outside their usual media. "Out of the Comfort Zone" runs through October 4.

A Feast of Love on the big screen
(9/25/2007) University of Minnesota visiting professor Charles Baxter's novel The Feast of Love has been adapted into a motion picture. The film, directed by three-time Oscar winner Robert Benton and starring Academy Award winner Morgan Freeman, opens September 28.

SPANing the globe
(9/13/2007) U alum John Lindstrom donated to the SPAN program to help deepen a student's study abroad experience.

Book reviews fall 2007
(9/13/2007) Three books by University faculty and students, an illustrated history of Latino Minnesota, an insider's view of Soviet math, and a novel that inspired a new movie.

Creating a community
(9/11/2007) The University is hosting six listening sessions in September to gather ideas and input for a new community being planned at the University of Minnesota Outreach, Research, and Education (UMore) Park in Dakota County, which includes 5,000 acres of land owned by the University.

Big Ten Network kicks off coverage
(8/30/2007) The Big Ten Network (BTN)-a first-of-its-kind partnership between the 11 Big Ten universities and a major television provider--launched on August 30, giving conference supporters unprecedented access to Big Ten sporting events.

Hercules: University artist and blood donor
(8/21/2007) "Moneighs" by Hercules, the Belgian gelding blood donor for University equine patients, will be auctioned off at the Equine Center opening October 15.

U grad composes tribute song
(8/16/2007) Two days after the I-35W bridge collapsed, U grad Phil Thompson made a trip to the Mississippi River for a view of the scene. That evening, the acclaimed pianist composed "Final Ride Home," a compelling tribute to the victims of the tragedy, their families, and volunteers.