Anthony Grafton, the Henry Putnam Professor of History and Chair of the Council of the Humanities at Princeton, is a cultural historian of Renaissance Europe. His lecture starts at 7:30 p.m. in Ustler Hall Atrium.

Grafton’s interests lie in the history of books and readers, scholarship and education in the west from antiquity to the 19th century, and the history of science from antiquity to the Renaissance. He is the author of more than 10 books and the co-author, editor or translator of many others. Most recently he has published “Worlds Made by Words: Scholarship and Community in the Modern West.”

Grafton has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Balzan Prize for History of the Humanities and the Mellon Foundation’s Distinguished Achievement Award.

His lecture, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by UF’s department of history and the Alexander Grass Chair in Jewish Studies. It’s part of the ongoing series “Faithful Narratives: The Challenge of Religion in History,” supported by the Center for the Humanities in the Public Sphere, the Center for Jewish Studies, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the Christian Study Center of Gainesville, and several other outside institutions.

For more information on this or other lectures, please contact Andrea Sterk at sterk@ufl.edu or Nina Caputo at ncaputo@ufl.edu.

Forecasters currently expect the storm to have little effect on the Gainesville area and plans currently call for UF work activities to remain on a normal schedule. Should the storm’s predicted track change or should forecast conditions for the Gainesville area worsen, new information will be posted on UF’s home page.

UF’s tropical weather update page: http://www.ufl.edu/weather/hurricane/.

In a totalitarian police state, acclaimed writer Katurian is brought in for questioning because his gruesome short stories bear a strong resemblance to a recent string of child murders. After failing to elicit a confession from the writer, the two detectives change the game by revealing that Katurian’s brother, Michal, is also being held in custody. Throughout the play, Katurian narrates several of his stories as he struggles to protect himself, his brother and ultimately the legacy of his work.

Director Alex Hernandez has taken a unique cinematic approach to the piece, focusing on “the forgotten art” of storytelling. Setting the performance within an unusually open atmosphere, Hernandez hopes to place The Pillowman in the context of the other arts it represents.

Show times are Nov. 6 at 7 p.m., Nov. 7 at 1 and 4 p.m., and Nov. 8 at 2 and 7 p.m. The performances are free and open to the public.

Tickets may be reserved through the Florida Players Web site at www.floridaplayers.org. For special accommodations, contact Disability Affairs Cabinet, 72 hours in advance. This production contains adult themes and may not be suitable for children.

Florida Players is a student-run theater company that provides opportunities for students to explore the world of theatre and showcase their talents in doing so. Sponsored by UF Student Government, Florida Players produces plays and musicals throughout each school year and is open to students of all majors. Since its founding in 1932, the organization’s purpose has been to facilitate the acclimation of students into the professional theatre environment. Florida Players offers students opportunities in all aspects of theatre, including direction, design, performance and playwriting, as well as leadership positions. Florida Players also offers master classes led by professional artists in the field, most recently hosting sessions with Tony Award winners Gregory Jbara and Katie Finneran.

Adolphe Sax, the son of a Belgian musical instrument maker, was born on Nov. 6, 1814. His inventions included widespread improvements to many orchestral instruments. He is best known as the inventor of the family of instruments that bears his name.

Friday’s concert will feature a variety of music performed by the saxophone class at UF under the direction of Jonathan Helton, professor of Music. The many faces of the saxophone will be showcased at this concert, from nineteenth-century classical works to Latin jazz. Composers represented on the program include French contemporary artist Ida Gotkovsky, Pulitzer prize-winner Karel Husa, jazz great Paquito D’Rivera, and the great Italian composer Ottorino Respighi. The concert will culminate in a performance by UF All-Saxophone Festival Orchestra — a grand ensemble of 22 saxophones. This ensemble includes six sizes of saxophones from sopranino to bass. The ensemble will conclude the concert performing excerpts from an arrangement of Modest Mussorgsky’s masterpiece, Pictures at an Exhibition.

It works by texting the letters “UF” to the number “90999,” and then confirming a $5 donation to the Florida Opportunity Scholars program. The donation is added to the person’s mobile phone bill or deducted from their prepaid balance.

The Florida Opportunity Scholars program provides funds to UF students who are Florida residents and come from families whose annual family income falls below $40,000. The funds are used to help pay for living expenses, books and supplies while in school. Currently 1,375 UF students benefit from the program.

In October 2008, UF President Bernie Machen announced that UF head football coach Urban Meyer and head men’s basketball coach Billy Donovan would lead a drive to raise $50 million for the program. Since the announcement, $8 million has been raised in gifts and pledges.

These vaccines are in nasal mist form. Pregnant women and people with chronic medical conditions should not receive the nasal spray vaccine. If you have received a nasal spray vaccine for seasonal flu, you should wait one month before getting a nasal spray vaccine for H1N1. Please see the list of medical conditions below for more details.

To receive a vaccine, students must register online at http://shcc.ufl.edu/h1n1/ and select a time slot to receive the vaccine. Fifty spots will be available for every half hour the clinic is open. The vaccines will be administered between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. at the Student Health Care Center’s Infirmary building.

Registration requires a valid Gatorlink account. Students also must print and fill out a medical questionnaire and bring the form to the clinic. Students should also read the Vaccine Information Statement posted on the registration site. Only students who have registered in advance and who present their Gator1 cards at the clinic will be vaccinated.

The ultimate goal is to vaccinate all members of the UF community who wish to be vaccinated.

You should not receive a nasal spray vaccine if you meet any of these criteria:
• Pregnant
• 50 or older
• Have asthma, diabetes, muscle or nerve disorders, heart disease, lung disease, liver or kidney disease, anemia or other blood disorders
• Have contact with a person with a severely compromised immune system
• Use long-term aspirin therapy
• Have Guillain-Barré syndrome
• Have an allergy to eggs, gentamycin, gelatin or arginine or flu vaccine.

For more information contact Kat Lindsey at 352-392-1161, ext. 4300, or e-mail katlin@ufl.edu.

Perri joined the college’s faculty in 1990 and has served as the interim dean since June 2007. A professor in the department of clinical and health psychology, Perri has held several administrative positions in the college including associate dean for research and head of the health psychology division.

“Under the leadership of (nursing dean and associate provost) Kathleen Long, as chair of the search committee, we conducted a vigorous national search for this critical position at the Health Science Center and University of Florida,” said Joseph Glover, provost and senior vice president for academic affairs. “After reviewing an extremely strong field of finalists, the search committee was uniformly supportive of Dr. Perri as the best fit for the next dean of the College of Public Health and Health Professions. I enthusiastically concur.”

Perri’s research findings have had a significant impact on theory, research and clinical care related to behavioral treatment of obesity. He has contributed to more than 120 scientific publications and has served as principal investigator or co-investigator for more than $30 million in research grants and contracts from the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Veterans Affairs and private industry. His current studies involve the development of effective programs for the management of obesity in underserved rural communities. In 2008 Perri received the American Psychological Association’s Samuel M. Turner Award for Distinguished Contributions to Applied Research in Clinical Psychology.

“UF and its health science center will benefit greatly from Dr. Perri as the dean of the College of Public Health and Health Professions,” said Dr. David S. Guzick, senior vice president for health affairs and president of the UF&Shands Health System. “During his tenure as interim dean, Dr. Perri successfully spearheaded the accreditation of the new school of public health within the college. He also stabilized a shaky financial foundation and launched several initiatives to foster collaboration across public health and the health professions disciplines, including the establishment of a funding program for interdisciplinary pilot studies and the founding of the Florida Trauma Rehabilitation Center for Returning Military Personnel.”

Perri is a diplomate of the American Board of Professional Psychology and a fellow of the American Psychological Association, the Society of Behavioral Medicine and the Obesity Society. He was recently appointed associate editor of the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, the leading peer-reviewed journal in the field of clinical psychology.

Perri earned his doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of Missouri – Columbia. Before arriving at UF he served on the faculty at the University of Rochester, Indiana University and Fairleigh Dickinson University.

“I am honored and excited about the opportunity this appointment presents,” Perri said. “The college has accomplished a tremendous amount over the past five years. We are now at the starting point to go on to more significant achievements through our collaborative efforts in education, research and service.”

This concert will feature Andrea Centazzo, composer, percussionist, and multimedia artist, and University of Florida professor of physics David Reitze, head of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory Scientific Collaboration.

Reitze will open the program with a brief presentation aimed at the general public highlighting gravitational waves and what they reveal about the most violent events in the universe, such as the Big Bang, neutron stars and collisions of black holes. He’ll also explain how the gravitational wave observatory, known by its acronym LIGO, home to the world’s most sensitive laser interferometer, may detect gravitational waves. Centazzo will then perform his “Einstein’s Cosmic Messengers,” the multimedia concert. The presentation blends music and sounds played live with images and animations inspired by LIGO’s facilities, the universe, and Einstein’s genius and obsessions.

“Einstein’s Cosmic Messengers” is a wonderful blend of science, art, and music. It brings together one of the boldest and most precise astrophysics experiments ever developed — LIGO — with the musical and artistic interpretative powers of Andrea Centazzo,” says Reitze. “I hope that people will come away with a sense of the quest for gravitational waves as the dawn of a new type of astronomy.”

Free and open to the public, the concert is set for 8 p.m. Sunday in the Rion Ballroom of the Reitz Student Union. It is co-sponsored by the UF LIGO research group, the UF department of physics and the National Science Foundation.

For more information on Centazzo and his music, go to www.andreacentazzo.com. For more information on the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, go to www.ligo.org.

The gift, made through the Harris Foundation, will establish an endowment fund to support early stage, innovative research projects in the field of computer science and engineering. Areas of research may include mobile communications, high-performance computing and medical informatics.

“We’re very fortunate to be part of Harris Corporation’s leadership initiative in education and research,” said UF President Bernie Machen. “Their commitment to UF and their recognition of the importance of a healthy and diverse state economy demonstrates an optimistic strategic view of the future, and we share that view with Harris.”

In recognition of the Harris gift, UF will create the Harris Gateway to Learning and Innovation in the College of Engineering, housed in the current Computer and Information Sciences building. A portion of the gift will fund the renovation of the third floor of the building to make way for this new facility.

“The Harris Gateway is aptly named in that it will provide a ‘door’ to many benefits,” said Howard L. Lance, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Harris. “It will support the ¬¬¬recruitment and development of outstanding faculty, enhance industry partnerships, create a dynamic educational model and play a key role in recruiting outstanding students to UF.”

Harris Corporation has had a longtime partnership with the University of Florida and currently employs 850 of its graduates.

“The Harris gift is an example of how leadership, partnership and innovation can mutually benefit two dynamic organizations, and in turn, benefit industry and the nation’s economy,” said Cammy Abernathy, dean of the College of Engineering. “It is also a fitting tribute to the launch of the college’s celebration of its 100th anniversary.”

The renovated space in the Computer and Information Sciences building will foster an “intellectual collision,” according to Abernathy. More than 1,100 students, 40 faculty and many visitors from industry frequent the building on a routine basis. The Harris Gateway creates a comfortable, conducive environment for the interaction of these individuals.

Work on the renovation is scheduled to begin in spring 2010.

Eight minutes and two seconds elapsed from the time a University Police Department dispatcher sent the text message until the last batch of messages left Blackboard Connect, the text message service provider. A total of 61,475 text messages was sent.

University officials said prior to the test that anything less than 10 minutes would be acceptable.

“We are very pleased with the success of today’s test,” said Ed Miller, president of Blackboard Connect. “The results affirm the reliable performance record Blackboard Connect has established in sending over 1 billion messages to date, and we look forward to applying that experience serving the University of Florida’s mass notification needs in the future.”

Friday’s test was conducted after university and Blackboard officials determined the results of Wednesday’s test were not consistent with the expectations of the text messaging system.

The next UF Alert test will be conducted during the spring semester and will include text messages as well as mass e-mails, UF home page postings, media notifications and Facebook and Twitter posts.

Students, faculty and staff are encouraged to update their emergency contact information in MyUFL. Updates can be made at MyUFL, then by clicking on My Account and Update Emergency Contact. Everyone is encouraged to add the five-digit number “23177” to his or her cell phone contact list and name it “UFAlert.” This will assist in identifying future, authorized UF text messages on your mobile phone.

If you don’t receive a text message but have previously entered your information in MyUFL, text “SUBSCRIBE UFAlert” to 23177, and registered UF subscribers will receive a text message indicating their cell number is in the system.

The emergency text messaging system is used only in cases where a threat is confirmed and has the potential to affect the entire campus. In the event of an emergency or disaster affecting campus, the UF Homepage is the official source of UF emergency-related information.

A research team at The Ohio State University conducted a national survey of agricultural education department chairs to rank the top-10 departments. UF’s Department of Agricultural Education and Communication was listed as No. 1 by 25 percent of the respondents, and nearly half listed the UF department as one of the top two.

Respondents cited the faculty, graduate program and research program as the department’s outstanding features.

Kirby Barrick, dean of UF’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, said he was pleased by the ranking. “We are very proud of the accomplishments of the faculty and students. Our doctoral program in agricultural education is less than 10 years old, so this recognition of the graduate and research programs is especially noteworthy,” he said.

Department Chairman Ed Osborne attributed the strong showing to a faculty filled with prolific researchers who undertake high-profile leadership posts in their academic fields. “Our faculty is outstanding, they’re highly visible on a national level, well respected and some of the most prolific researchers around,” he said.

The department has worked to strengthen its graduate program in the last decade, and students’ visibility on the national scene is another key to the department’s success, he said.

Texas A&M University and The Ohio State University ranked second and third, respectively, in the study. The study’s results were presented in May at the annual conference of the American Association for Agricultural Education in Louisville, Ky.

UF’s Department of Agricultural Education and Communication is part of the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences and offers undergraduate through doctoral degree programs, including an online master’s degree program for agriscience teachers and extension educators.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Architects and staff members from two architectural firms will visit the University of Florida campus next week to start the master planning process for the future of the Reitz Student Union.

Gould Evans Architects of Tampa will work with WTW Architects of Pittsburgh, Pa., to learn how the 42-year-old building can better serve current and future needs of students. WTW has extensive experience planning and designing student unions across the country.

The initial phase of the process will include focus groups, surveys and interviews. After summarizing, analyzing and testing the information, the architects will develop a conceptual design for a renovated or expanded student union. Input will be sought from students, faculty, and staff. The planning process should be completed in February 2010.

The architects will conduct the first round of sessions Monday through Thursday. Most sessions will be held in the Matthews Suite on the fourth floor of the Reitz Student Union. Open sessions for students will be held from 7 to 8 p.m. Nov. 3 and from 1 to 2 p.m. Nov. 5. The architects will return to campus in early December and January to continue the information gathering and clarification process.

The original union constructed in 1967 has seen many additions as the university has grown, including the two-story Grand Ballroom in 2002, and the UF Bookstore, Welcome Center and parking garage complex, which opened in 2003.

For more information, contact Eddie Daniels, executive director of the Reitz Student Union, at 352-392-1643, or edaniels@union.ufl.edu

More information also may be found at www.union.ufl.edu.

A test message will be sent to students, faculty and staff via only text messaging during normal business hours on Friday. There will be no e-mail or postings on the UF homepage, UF Facebook page or UF Twitter accounts.

Officials with Blackboard Connect, the company that manages the university’s text messaging service, said they have already enhanced the software to improve Wednesday’s less than optimal response time and are prepared to make Friday’s test a success.

“It is critical for the University of Florida to quickly reach students and staff,” said Ed Miller, president of Blackboard Connect. “We are committed to thoroughly test the service with University of Florida and optimize it to ensure the fastest performance possible. Yesterday’s test was a benchmark from which we expect to provide significant improvement.”

Students, faculty and staff are encouraged to update their emergency contact information in MyUFL. Updates can be made at MyUFL, then by clicking on My Account and Update Emergency Contact. Everyone is encouraged to add the five-digit number “23177” to his or her cell phone contact list and name it “UFAlert.” This will assist in identifying future, authorized UF text messages on your mobile phone.

If you don’t receive a text message but have previously entered your information in MyUFL, text “SUBSCRIBE UFAlert” to 23177, and registered UF subscribers will receive a text message indicating their cell number is in the system.

The emergency text messaging system is used only in cases where a threat is confirmed and has the potential to affect the entire campus. In the event of an emergency or disaster affecting campus, the UF Homepage is the official source of UF emergency-related information.