CU payloads aboard Glory Mission
CU has two payloads onboard NASA’s Glory Mission, a Taurus XL rocket that launched Feb. 23.
The first, an instrument called the Total Irradiance Monitor, or TIM, will point directly toward the sun to measure both short- and long-term fluctuations in the sun’s energy output. These variations can influence long-term climate change on Earth, and this instrument is the most accurate ever made to study the energy output from the sun.
The second is a tiny satellite, about the size of a Rubik’s cube, which will be ejected from the rocket at about 400 miles in altitude to orbit the Earth and study new space communications techniques. This satellite was built by about 100 CU students, most of whom are undergraduates.
Law students heading to India
How’s this for an alternative spring break? Fifteen CU law students are traveling to India to study family law in March.
The trip, organized by the CU School of Law’s Juvenile and Family Law Program, will be a hands-on clinical application of the curriculum students have been studying. Students will be traveling March 17–24.
They will spend those days visiting non-governmental offices and social organizations in India, and then prepare a research paper comparing U.S. and Indian laws on sex trafficking, child abuse, women’s rights and domestic violence.
“It is both fascinating and gratifying to observe the students using the tools they have learned in law school, and the specific knowledge they have gained … in this entirely new context,” Associate Professor Clare Huntington said in a press release. “I am confident the comparative experience will make the students better lawyers because they have a more nuanced understanding of different legal approaches to similar problems.”
Power smackdown
CU dorms are competing in a “Power Smackdown,” this month in an effort to reduce energy use.
Baker and Libby halls are the competitors, and so far they have reduced energy consumption by more than 1,700 kilowatt-hours compared with February’s numbers last year. The reduction is due in part to a trade-in of all incandescent light bulbs for compact fluorescent light bulbs, which are 75 percent more efficient, as well as increased awareness of power-stealing appliances and habits.
CU’s Environmental Center organized the Smackdown in an effort to contribute to state and campus goals of reducing energy use by 20 percent by 2012.
Author Beckerman to speak March 14
Gal Beckerman, winner of the 2010 National Jewish Book Award, will be at CU March 14 for the launch of the Boulder Action for Soviet Jewry’s “Oral History Project.” The event will be held at 7:30 p.m. in the Flatirons room in the Center for Community on campus.
Beckerman wrote When They Come For Us We’ll Be Gone: The Epic Struggle to Save Soviet Jewry. Professor David Shneer, director of the Program in Jewish Studies, will also be at the event, giving an introduction to the Oral History Project. There will be a reception after the event, where several of the Soviet Jews who resettled in the U.S. will be available to speak about their experiences.
RSVPs are required as space is limited. More information is available at www.colorado.edu/jewishstudies or by calling 303-492-7143.
