The Outstanding Sports Facility award recognizes the collaboration between architects and the university staff to create state-of-the-art environments that attract and motivate people to be active.

“RDG Planning & Design has partnered with UF and Charles Perry Partners Inc. to create, build and open a magnificent facility that will impact the UF community for years to come,” said David Bowles, director of the department of recreational sports, also known as RecSports, which operates the center.

In 1988, the NIRSA began presenting the annual Outstanding Sports Facilities awards for creative, innovative designs of new or expanded facilities. Each winner is considered a standard or model by which other collegiate recreational facilities should be measured and from which others can benefit. The association selects and publishes information on these facilities as a resource for campus master planners, recreational sports directors, designers, architects, contractors and recreational sports students.

The Southwest Recreation Center expansion project opened in August 2010 with 40,755 gross square feet of new space and 45,700 gross square feet of renovated space. The new space features a two-story cardio room, administrative office suite and an activity room. The existing space was renovated to create a training center and a student marketing suite. In addition, corridors, activity rooms, locker rooms, a social lounge, restrooms and the weight room were renovated. Digital signage was installed throughout the facility, enhancing the department’s marketing efforts introducing state-of-the-art graphics that are dynamic and interactive along with reducing the amount of paper usage and clutter throughout the building.

“These exceptional facilities continue to prove that campus recreation facilities are more to students than just a place to work out. They are about finding friends and fun that make the college experience memorable,” said Lexi Chaput, chair of the NIRSA committee that oversees the award process.

Any association member institution with construction projects no more than 2 years old, with a facility with more than 20,000 square feet, and with total construction costs (excluding design and land fees) of at least $2 million is eligible for an Outstanding Sports Facility Award. Each facility is evaluated based on the construction project’s correlation to the campus master plan and mission, the relationship between facility design and staffing, innovative use of construction materials or methods, sustainable features and technological benefits for the customer, staff or budget.

In “The Green Leap: A Primer for Conserving Biodiversity in Subdivision Development,” author Mark Hostetler writes for audiences ranging from policy makers and land developers to potential homeowners.

The book offers detailed information about building green developments, but it also can be used to retrofit existing communities.

Part of his aim in writing the book was to help cities and developers avoid potential pitfalls when attempting to conserve biodiversity when land is subdivided, he said. The trick is to address design issues while paying attention to construction and post-construction issues.

For instance, a developer may set aside a common area as a natural preserve. But if there are no management plans for both the built and conserved areas, much can go wrong. During construction, heavy equipment can dramatically impact conserved areas. After construction, a well-meaning landscaper or resident might bring in an invasive plant that takes over, or free-roaming pets may prey upon local wildlife.

Hostetler said he’s happy to see increasing interest from cities, developers and the public in green developments.

“Every time you can build a model green community, it makes it easier for the next person who comes through,” he said. “One thing I’ve learned, it’s not easy. But for all of those steps that have to be taken, it makes the planning process just a little bit easier for the next person.”

The book discusses the dynamic relationship among residents, developers, and policy makers and what each stakeholder must do to build functional green communities. Specific design and management strategies are discussed and topics range from tree and natural area protection to community engagement and wildlife-friendly transportation systems.

The book is published by the University of California Press and available now.

The evening includes dinner, full bar, dancing and abundant entertainment from various UF ensembles and a guest performance by professor emeritus Gary Langford. Tickets can be purchased for $100 at www.arts.ufl.edu or at the door.

Langford retired from the School of Music in 2007 after more than 25 years of teaching and directing UF marching, concert and jazz bands. He has also been a featured artist of the Gainesville Friends of Jazz and directed the Alachua County Youth Orchestra.

UF ensembles such as the UF Jazz Combo, UF Opera Theatre, Pazeni Sauti Africa Choir, UF Piano Studios, Brazilian guitarist Welson Tremura and the Faculty Dance Band will entertain guests throughout the night.
The event is organized by UF Friends of Music and acclaimed event designer Kevin Watson, and sponsored by Fine, Farkash & Parlapiano, PA.

UF Friends of Music first formed to support the College of Fine Arts students and programs in 1974. Special events and membership drives support more than 35 scholarships for students and programming needs for concerts and productions, master classes, travel and other enhancements.

Upcoming programs include opera performances of “Die Fledermaus” this spring; an invitation for the Fightin’ Gator Marching Band to perform in the 2012 Summer Olympics in London; study abroad programs, including the first UF administration of Opera Festival di Roma in Rome; music historians and scholars giving public lectures sponsored by the UF Musicology Colloquium; the 2012 UF International Piano Festival in Gainesville, affiliated with the Chinese-American International Piano Institute; and the “Arts at the Whitney” public performance series at UF’s Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience in St. Augustine.

For more information, call 352-846-1218 or visit http://www.arts.ufl.edu/fom/events.

The program is being co-sponsored by the Bob Graham Center, the UF International Center, and The Isser and Rae Price Library of Judaica Endowment Fund, among others. The event is free and open to the public.

The daughter of two Holocaust survivors, Hass has been noted for her unparalleled reporting and courage in covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As a foreign correspondent, she has literally lived “behind enemy lines” in covering the decade-old conflict between Palestinians and Jews. Hass has lived in Gaza and in the West Bank among Palestinians for years – something unheard of and seen by many as dangerous for a Jewish citizen of Israel.

“In doing so, Hass is celebrated by some Israelis as a national conscience and condemned by others as an ideologue or even a traitor,” the Los Angeles Times wrote in a profile of Hass.

Even at the height of the second intifada – the bloody uprising of Palestinians in 2001 — Hass openly worked as a lone Israeli journalist covering the conflict for Ha’aretz, Israel’s oldest and most liberal daily newspaper.

Describing why she does it, Hass has written that “my desire to live in Gaza stemmed neither from adventurism nor from insanity, but from that dread of being a bystander, from my need to understand, down to the last detail, a world that is, to the best of my political and historical comprehension, a profoundly Israeli creation. To me, Gaza embodies the entire saga of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; it represents the central contradiction of the state of Israel – democracy for some, dispossession for others; it is our exposed nerve.”

Hass is a recipient of the International Press Institute’s World Press Freedom Hero Prize, the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize, the International Women’s Media Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award and numerous other awards. She is the author of “Drinking the Sea at Gaza: Days and Nights in a Land under Siege,” and co-author of “Reporting from Ramallah: An Israeli Journalist in an Occupied Land.”

UF has spent four decades helping document and preserve Nantucket, one of America’s most revered historic communities.

This year marks the 40th anniversary for Preservation Institute: Nantucket, the oldest university-run historic preservation field school in the nation, located on an island 30 miles off the coast of Cape Cod. With its creation, Preservation Institute: Nantucket, or PI:N, filled a gap in opportunities for students to receive hands-on course work in the field and was part of a larger national movement toward historic preservation in the decades to follow.

“Preservation Institute: Nantucket was established at a time when there was a pronounced need for hands-on learning in historic preservation,” said Marty Hylton, director of both PI:N and the College of Design, Construction and Planning’s historic preservation program. “The program played a vital role in helping educate a generation of preservationists and preservation-minded professionals working in allied disciplines.”

Preservation Institute: Nantucket, a hands-on, interdisciplinary program, provides experience in historic preservation from an international perspective while documenting, researching and helping conserve the island’s remarkable heritage. Guest lecturers from public agencies and private organizations introduce topics impacting international cultural heritage conservation.

“The historic preservation field casts a wide net, and PI:N exposes students to many different areas through its activities and guest speakers,” said Chris Berger, 2009 PI:N graduate and architectural historian for Archaeological Consultants Inc., in Sarasota, Fla. “I met so many preservation professionals while at PI:N, from the executive director of an international organization to the director of a local group, from a timber framer to a materials conservator.”

The program was officially established and named at the end of the 1972 season — the first year that the University of Florida offered coursework for credit. For four decades, PI:N has been instrumental in supporting efforts to document and conserve Nantucket’s historic built environment.

“Nantucket is the flagship for historic districts in the U.S.,” said Mark Voigt, administrator for the Nantucket Historic District Commission and a 1987 PI:N graduate. “It’s not the largest, or even the most diverse, but it has a high concentration of pre-civil war and pre-revolutionary war buildings that are still intact. PI:N introduced me to these wonderful historic resources which cemented my desire to work with historic buildings. Without the PI:N program, my understanding of the intricacies of historic buildings would have been woefully incomplete.”

Professor Emeritus F. Blair Reeves, with the help of Turpin Bannister, first president and editor of the Society of Architectural Historians, established historic preservation courses at the University of Florida. Under Reeves’ direction, UF students first worked on Nantucket as part of the Historic American Building Survey (HABS) program. Intellectual and financial support for the early formation of the Preservation Institute: Nantucket came from Walter Beinecke Jr., whose vision and company, Sherburne Associates, played a major role in preserving and shaping the future of Nantucket.

“PI:N is an icon in the world of preservation,” Voigt said. “There are other programs out there that should be commended for what they do, but no program offers what this program does: Nantucket! It’s an original.”

More than 576 participants from institutions all across the nation have attended the Preservation Institute: Nantucket since 1972. Initial participants were primarily architecture and design students. Today, the program reflects the increasingly multifaceted nature of historic preservation with students representing a variety of disciplines including anthropology, archaeology, architecture, building construction, history, interior design, landscape architecture, material science, museum studies, tourism and urban planning.

“PI:N has played a key role in the education of a number of this country’s preservation professionals,” Berger said. “As the preservation movement continues to grow, it’s important that quality programs such as PI:N continue to nurture tomorrow’s preservation leaders.”

The University of Florida and the College of Design, Construction and Planning have a variety of events to celebrate the milestone, including a “40 Years of PI:N Exhibition,” a gala dinner with tribute to Reeves and Beinecke, and a variety of alumni events. More information about PI:N’s 40th anniversary and a complete event list can be found at http://dcp.ufl.edu/historic-preservation/pin/40th. For more information about the program, please visit http://dcp.ufl.edu/historic-preservation.

Elementary, middle and high school students in Florida who receive an A or E grade in science can present their latest report card at the front desk and receive a free value admission to the “Cruisin’ the Fossil Freeway” and “Butterfly Rainforest” exhibits with a paid regular price adult value admission.

Alachua County students receive report cards Feb. 1 and the museum will open the “Cruisin’ the Fossil Freeway” exhibit Feb. 4.

The offer is valid until the next report cards are issued. Students receiving another A or E grade on their next report card would again qualify for the offer through the end of the following grading period.

“ ‘A for Science’ is such a popular program that we decided it should not be limited to just a few counties,” said Jaret Daniels, Florida Museum assistant director of exhibits and public programs. “We want to showcase the importance of science statewide, encourage students to do well in school and reward them for receiving outstanding grades.”

The museum extended the program to include students throughout the state in November 2011.

The Butterfly Rainforest is a 6,400-square-foot, lush, tropical garden with hundreds of living butterflies from around the world, including 60 to 80 different species at any given time.

“Cruisin’ the Fossil Freeway” features 30 fossils, including a complete skeleton cast of Triceratops horridus, the famous three-horned dinosaur, and an Albertosaurus, a ferocious carnivore that lived about 70 million years ago. The fossils complement 19 color prints and five large-scale murals of Troll’s creative artwork, which illustrates imagined scenes from prehistoric times and brings fossils from the museum’s research collection to life. The exhibit also features a paleontology laboratory where visitors may watch museum scientists, volunteers and students prepare and examine actual fossils from the field.

“Cruisin’ the Fossil Freeway” is presented by the Toomey Foundation for the Natural Sciences Inc. and the Florida Museum Associates Board. The exhibit was organized by the Burke Museum at the University of Washington.

Children younger than 12 must be accompanied by an adult. This offer has no cash value and cannot be combined with other offers or discounts.
For more information about this promotion or other museum events, visit www.flmnh.ufl.edu or call 352-846-2000.

The Fort Lauderdale-based foundation’s gift will establish the Lillian S. Wells Fund for Brain Tumor Research, allowing the university to round out its comprehensive brain tumor program by adding a proven basic science research team to work across the full spectrum of basic, translational and clinical sciences.

“Building on the excellence of the department’s clinical and educational programs, we are committed to strengthening its basic and translational research program,” said Dr. David S. Guzick, senior vice president for health affairs and president of the UF&Shands Health System. “Because of the extraordinary vision and compassion of the Wells Foundation, we will be in a position to utilize laboratory discoveries as a basis for new and better treatments for brain tumor patients.”

The relationship between UF’s neurosurgery department and the Wells Foundation dates back 30 years, with philanthropic support that includes a $5 million gift in 2006 to establish the Preston A. Wells Jr. Center for Brain Tumor Therapy. The center, one of the nation’s leading comprehensive brain tumor programs, improved UF’s research endeavors by creating opportunities for patients to participate in clinical trials.

The ideas for clinical trials often come from basic laboratory research, where scientists develop ideas about mechanisms of disease that lead to new therapies or procedures in patients. UF’s department of neurosurgery, part of the Evelyn F. and William L. McKnight Brain Institute, will recruit an internationally recognized brain tumor scientist to lead the research initiative, Guzick said.

“It is exciting to contemplate future achievements by dovetailing the clinical and research elements at the UF College of Medicine,” said Jim Ulmer, a director of the Wells Foundation. “The Lillian S. Wells Foundation is honored to continue its relationship with the College of Medicine.”

In recognition of the gift, the university will request that the UF Board of Trustees name the department the Lillian S. Wells Department of Neurosurgery.

Approximately 20,000 new primary brain tumors are diagnosed each year in the U.S. These are tumors that start within the cranium. More than 200,000 metastatic tumors are diagnosed, which are tumors that begin somewhere else in the body such as lung cancer. Brain tumors are the second leading cause of cancer death in men ages 20 to 29 and the fifth leading cause of cancer death in women ages 20 to 39.

UF’s Wells Center uses a collaborative approach for treating and investigating brain disease, uniting key health care professionals and closely linking elements of patient care with research. The department performs more than 600 brain tumor procedures annually and cared for 4,500 patients last year, making it one of the 10 largest academic neurosurgical services in the country.

“Our department has been able to develop novel surgical approaches to the treatment of brain diseases,” said Dr. William Friedman, neurosurgery department chair. “These include the patented UF radiosurgery system, improved microsurgical anatomical approaches to the brain based on decades of research, and advanced computer-guided neurosurgical techniques.

“Due to the continued generosity of the Wells Foundation, we are now able to bring one of the world’s best brain tumor research groups to UF,” Friedman said. “Our goal, quite simply, is to create the team of scientists and clinicians who can find substantially better treatments for malignant brain tumors.”

The Wells Foundation gift, combined with matching funds from other university sources, launches a $20 million initiative that will have a significant impact on future brain tumor treatments and produce valuable results for the people of Florida and for people around the world, Friedman said.

Events and programs hosted by the Office of Sustainability and various campus and community organizations will provide a comprehensive look at the intersections of the food system with society, economics and the environment.

Food For Thought will kick off Wednesday with a Farm-To-Table Breakfast from 7:30 to 10 a.m. at Gator Corner, giving attendees the opportunity to learn about the many complexities of the system of food production and the reasons behind choosing to eat seasonally and locally.

Other events will include lectures by notable speakers such as Richard Heinberg, Senior Fellow-in-Residence of the Post-Carbon Institute and author of “The End of Growth,” on March 14, and Gerald Nelson of the Food Policy Research Institute on March 29, a Do-It-Yourself Series of interactive events on canning your own food, composting food waste and gardening at home, an open house and spring fling at the Downtown Community Farmers Garden, a Sustainable Sweets Soiree, a food and social justice community forum, a family fun day at the Downtown Seed Library and tours of some local farms.

The Office of Sustainability will partner with the Florida Museum of Natural History to host a screening on of the documentary “Vanishing of the Bees” on Feb. 29 as part of the Cinema Verde Gainesville Environmental Film Festival. The film highlights the importance of honeybees in pollinating fruit and vegetable crops and the impact of colony collapse disorder on the future of agriculture.

“This campaign will provide food for thought for everyone to consider the methods of food production, distribution and consumption and how it affects the sustainability of our communities, natural spaces and health,” said Anna Prizzia, director of the Office of Sustainability. “We’re excited about the many and varied partnerships that have helped make three months of programming possible, and look forward to promoting the opportunities and resources that exist right in our own community.”

UF will celebrate its campuswide Earth Day on April 6 with a Farmer’s Market and Food Fair featuring local farmers, fresh produce and UF departments and student organizations related to food sustainability. The Food For Thought campaign will culminate with the Local Food Challenge on April 26 at Fresh Food Company, a dining hall at UF.

For more information, the full schedule of events and to sign up for weekly “Food For Thought Thursday” email updates visit www.sustainability.ufl.edu/food.

The exhibit features Triceratops and Albertosaurus skeletons, and 30 fossils complement 19 color prints and five large-scale murals created for the book “Cruisin’ the Fossil Freeway,” by Troll and Johnson. Visitors also will be able to observe museum scientists in a paleontology lab preparing fossils collected from the field.

“Most of us think ‘dinosaur’ when we think of fossils, and this exhibit does have dinosaurs,” said Darcie MacMahon, Florida Museum assistant director of exhibits. “But it also focuses on how fossils inform us about important topics including climate change and evolution.”

Other fossils include a giant ammonite, a dinosaur egg from China and a Diplomystus, an extinct fish that lived about 34 million to 56 million years ago.

Opening day activities from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. include the opportunity for visitors to speak with museum paleontologists, meet members of Florida fossil clubs and examine their collections, and take a guided exhibit tour at 10:30 a.m. or 1:30 p.m.

Visitors may also compare their foot with that of a duck-billed dinosaur or check out fossil- and dinosaur-themed materials from the Alachua County Library District bookmobile. Food will be available for purchase from David’s BBQ and the High Springs Orchard and Bakery. Exhibit admission is $5 for adults; $4.50 for Florida residents, seniors and college students; $4 for ages 3-17 and free for museum members.

The exhibit, on display through Sept. 3, is presented by the Toomey Foundation for the Natural Sciences Inc. and the Florida Museum Associates Board. It was organized by the Burke Museum at the University of Washington.

“It’s the prototype for a whole new series of adaptive computing machines that industry leaders can build and develop for their own use,” said Alan George, director of CHREC and professor of electrical and computer engineering at UF.

Awarded annually since 2005, the Schwarzkopf Prize recognizes excellence in National Science Foundation, or NSF, cooperative research centers such as CHREC charged with the mission of fostering collaborative research between industry and universities. Novo-G, the innovation that earned CHREC the prize for 2012, is much faster and more efficient than conventional supercomputers many times its size and cost, and uses far less energy.

“When you’re working with a conventional supercomputer, you have to write each application so that it plays to the fixed nature of the machine’s processing architecture,” George said. “Novo-G turns that around; the machine adapts to handle the problem.”

When programmers write an application for Novo-G, they insert code that tells the machine’s processors how best to arrange themselves to handle most efficiently the problem being proposed. And that leads to big savings in power, money, and time, over what a conventional computer can do, he said.

CHREC partners with a variety of companies like Monsanto, Honeywell, National Instruments, and Intel to help them adapt new technology for their own needs.

“For example, Monsanto has plans to build their own Novo-G type of machine in the future when they are ready to use it for production business processes,” said Herman Lam, associate director of CHREC and associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at UF. “For now, we run experiments for them using their data as part of our ongoing research.”

Novo-G first came online in the summer of 2009 and has doubled its reconfigurable processing capacity annually since that time. The featured devices in Novo-G are Field-Programmable Gate Arrays, or FPGAs, which enable the user to customize and configure the hardware.

The Alexander Schwarzkopf Prize isn’t just about CHREC’s technological achievements with Novo-G, George said. The award also recognizes its success in pushing the relationship between academic research and industry as an NSF center. CHREC is one of about 50 such centers in the U.S.

“This award says that CHREC is exemplary as a national research center making breakthroughs for industry, government, and society at large,” Lam said. “One of the best.”

Lam accepted the award on behalf of CHREC at a national event in Washington, D.C., earlier this month.

Tickets start at $12, and must be purchased in person at either the Phillips Center Box Office or the University Box Office (in the Reitz Student Union).

Performances for this on sale date include, Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis (March 12), Pilobolus Dance Theatre (March 18), Peking Acrobats (March 25), Joffrey Ballet (March 27), “Young Frankenstein” (March 28), STOMP (March 30 and 31) and Straight No Chaser (May 13).

UF students must present a valid Gator1 card. Non-UF students must present a valid student ID (balcony seats only). Each student may only buy one discounted ticket per event. Student tickets are limited and subject to availability.

For more information on performances or ticket prices call 352-392-2787 or visit www.performingarts.ufl.edu.

The new health plan, to be called GatorCare, is expected to be effective January 2013, with open enrollment occurring for most in fall 2012.

When implemented, pending legislative approval for UF employees, the model will result in a consolidated health insurance plan that will encompass all eligible faculty, staff, graduate assistants (on appointments), Health Science Center house staff/residents, and postdoctoral associates at the University of Florida; Shands employees (Gainesville and Jacksonville); and employees of all direct support organizations and affiliates of the university.

“The goal of GatorCare is to improve the health of our employees at lower cost by providing them with easy access to our clinical faculty and facilities, to electronic information about their health records, and to services that emphasize prevention and early intervention,” said Dr. David S. Guzick, senior vice president for health affairs and president of the UF&Shands Health System. “It’s about Gators taking care of Gators.

Our faculty value the privilege of providing health care services to the faculty and staff of the University of Florida and Shands, and wish to do so in a manner that promotes their health, reduces their episodes of illness and creates a high level of satisfaction.”

One of the most important goals of the new model is to be as responsive to employee needs as possible by seeking ways to help improve health care access, health outcomes and quality of life — while keeping health care costs as low and competitive as possible, said Paula Fussell, UF vice president for human resource services. For state employees, such efforts are also mindful of the current uncertain health care benefit landscape and the probability of changes to state employee health plans that could lead to higher costs or reduced benefits for employees, Fussell said.

The project is guided by a governing structure that includes executive sponsors, a project steering committee and various implementation work groups involving many faculty and staff. In addition, feedback was collected during the fall from focus groups involving more than 150 employees from a variety of areas within the university community.

More information, including a list of frequently asked questions, is available at http://www.healthplan.ufl.edu. Regular updates, further details and plan information will be provided as they become available.

Smith was invited to the hearing by U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., chairman of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights.

The hearing, to be held in Tampa, will examine a Florida law that limits the time available for early voting, makes it more difficult for volunteer organizations to register voters and changes the cause for voters to cast provisional ballots.

Smith was selected by U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson’s office to “speak from an academic viewpoint, not an activist’s,” Smith said. Smith was chosen as a witness because of his work on Florida election law and voting behavior.

Smith’s testimony will look at three features of the new law and how they potentially limit voting rights of Floridians.

“The first is early voting. The new Florida law truncates the early voting period from a 14-day window to an eight-day window, and most importantly, it eliminates the final Sunday before Election Day,” Smith said.

“The second area is the impact of the law on voter registration efforts by groups wishing to register voters,” he said. The new law has forced groups such as the League of Women Voters to stop their voter registration efforts because penalties for possible violations are too high, he said.

The third feature deals with provisional ballots, which are required to be cast when a registered voter moves from one county to another, or even within a county. According to Smith, the new law will likely increase the number of provisional ballots that are cast. In the last presidential election, Smith said, a large proportion of provisional ballots were not counted. With the new law, Smith thinks that it is possible that even more provisional ballots will go uncounted.

Smith and Michael Herron, a professor of government at Dartmouth College, matched the voter file from the 2008 general election with the early voting file from that election, identifying trends such as which ethnic, racial, gender, or age groups were more likely to vote early in 2008, and how the new law likely will affect them.

Smith said they found African-American, Hispanic, youth, and first-time voters were much more likely to vote on the Sunday before the election.

The U.S. Senate hearing should bring attention to the impact that voting and election laws like Florida’s will have on citizens, especially with respect to ethnic and racial minorities, Smith said.

This first-of-its-kind event is designed for health, medical, and communication professionals seeking practical, proven insights about how to promote and protect people’s health using digital communication innovations and technologies.

“Information and communication technology is revolutionizing how health content is created, shared, accessed and applied,” said Jay Bernhardt, co-founder of DHCX and director of the UF Center for Digital Health and Wellness. “DHCX is for advanced users of information and communication technologies — and those who want to become advanced users. Attendees will leave the conference bursting with new ideas on how to effectively and efficiently use digital tools to improve health and wellness.”

In keeping with DHCX’s focus on digital health care innovations, the conference will feature speakers with unique and diverse perspectives creating, implementing and evaluating digital initiatives, including:

• Sekou Andrews, motivational poet/strategic presenter and master storyteller: Andrews is the creator of the Sekou Effect, a methodology designed to turn information and data into inspiration in the digital realm and beyond.
• Kathleen Crosby, director of the Office of Health Communication and Education, Center for Tobacco Products, U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Crosby leads the center’s health communication and education campaigns and programs to prevent youth smoking, inspire cessation among smokers and educate stakeholders about FDA product regulation.
• Jonathan Atwood, CEO of Zamzee. Atwood, a serial entrepreneur, leads Zamzee, a technology firm spun off from the world-famous Hope Labs focused on utilizing gaming platforms to get young people and families across America moving.
• Rohit Bhargava, global strategy & marketing, Ogilvy. Bhargava is the best-selling author of “Personality Not Included,” a guide on how to create a more human brand, and the forthcoming author of “Likeanomics.” He has helped develop digital initiatives for some of the world’s largest health companies, including Novartis, Pfizer and Blue Cross Blue Shield.

In addition to experiencing a stellar lineup of speakers, attendees will learn about the latest digital health research. A broad range of organizations and initiatives are scheduled to present on their innovative research and products. One example is Text4Baby, a successful federal public-private partnership designed to reduce infant mortality among moms in vulnerable populations.

To register for the conference, please go to DHCX’s website at http://www.dhcx.org. Keep up with DHCX via Twitter and Facebook.

UF faculty who lead study abroad programs and former study abroad students will be available to share their international experiences. The fair also will feature other universities and institutions that sponsor UF-approved study abroad programs and internships. The Study Abroad Services staff will be available to explain the application process and help students begin the steps to find the right program. A representative from financial affairs will also be on hand to answer questions about financial aid available to students studying abroad.

Approved study abroad programs can count toward degree requirements such as general education and summer study abroad counts toward the nine-hour residency requirement. Students considering study abroad must apply to the International Center in 170 HUB.

Here are the application deadlines: Summer A&C 2012, March 1; Summer B 2012, April 2; and Fall 2012/Academic Year 2013, May 7. Some exchange programs have varying deadlines.

This past year, more than 2,000 students studied abroad. The International Center encourages prospective “Global Gators” to stop by 170 HUB, or visit online at www.abroad.ufic.ufl.edu.