News briefs

Campus News

INTERNATIONALLY RECOGNIZED DR. TEMPLE GRANDIN TO SPEAK ON AUTISM – Dr. Temple Grandin, a leading animal behaviorist, designer of livestock
handling facilities and leading advocate for autistic people, will be
speaking on autism and animal behavior in a two-part symposium series
Thursday, Feb. 12 at the UVU Sorensen Student Center.

The first of the two lectures, titled “Autism, Animal Behavior and
Design,” will take place from noon to 12:50 p.m. on Center Stage in
the Sorensen Student Center. The second, titled “Living with
Autism,” will be held later that evening from 7-8 p.m. at the same
location. Both events are free and open to the public.

“UVU is very pleased to welcome Dr. Temple Grandin,” said Dr.
Daniel Fairbanks, UVU professor and associate dean of the College of
Science & Health. “As someone who has personally struggled with the
limitations of autism to become a professor at a prestigious university,
she is a tremendous inspiration to the community of people with
autism.”

Dr. Grandin is currently a professor of animal science at Colorado
State University. She is also autistic, and has published two books on
the subject including “Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of
Autism to Decode Animal Behavior.” Dr. Grandin’s professional
training as an animal scientist and her history as a person with autism
have made her perhaps the single most influential person in her field in
terms of how animals are treated in the North American livestock
industry.

BANNER AND UVLINK UNAVAILABILITY – Banner, UVLink and related services will be unavailable from 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 11 to 6 a.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 17. This downtime is needed to perform a major upgrade to these systems.

During this upgrade the following systems and services will down: Banner and UVLink which includes admissions, registration and student records, financial aid and scholarships, employee and financial records, personal information changes such as passwords and PINs, reports and processes and UVLink email. Other systems which rely on Banner data or UVLink for authentication may also be affected.

Blackboard will be available during this time through direct links from the UVlink login page. Questions or concerns about this upgrade should be directed to [email protected].

UVU STUDENT TO SPEAK ABOUT RECEIVING UTAH’S PUBLIC RELATIONS STUDENT OF THE YEAR AWARD – The UVU Public Relations Association (PRA) has invited UVU’s own Britnee Nguyen to speak Wednesday, Feb. 11 at 6:30 p.m. in CS 401.

Nguyen is the winner of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) – Greater Salt Lake Chapter’s Public Relations Student of the Year. She was chosen out of more than 40 applicants. She will be discussing her experience from the preparation to the live day-long competition in front of Salt Lake City’s PR firm directors. Nguyen is a UVU student majoring in Communications with an emphasis in Public Relations.

To learn more about UVU PRA and to sign up for updates go to www.uvupra.wordpress.com.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN’S BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION – In celebration of Abraham Lincoln’s 200th birthday celebration, Provo city is holding a special event on Feb. 12 at 7 p.m. in the Provo City Library’s Ballroom. The event is free and open to the public.

The keynote speaker will be Matt Holland, assistant professor of political science at BYU. Readings will also be given by Utah County public officials and musical numbers by Gesilson and the Mapleton Chorale. Displays of rare Lincoln documents will be shown as well as a local Lincoln look-alike.

National News

MYSPACE GETS RID OF SEX OFFENDERS – The social networking site has deleted the MySpace accounts of nearly 90,000 registered sex offenders in response to a subpoena. Last year, the parent company of MySpace, News Corporation, agreed to set stricter security standards after the site was criticized by two state attorneys for not doing a good enough job in protecting minors from child sexual predators. However, according to MSNBC, the figure is 40,000 more than the list of registered sex offenders submitted by MySpace to authorities last year.

RINGLING BROS. FACE CRUELTY ALLEGATIONS – Animal rights activists have charged Ringling Brothers allegations of the trainers chaining elephants together for nearly seventy hours at a time and abuse them with long, hooked pole. The circus giant has denied the allegations saying that it has never been cited for animal cruelty. Michelle Pardo, a lawyer for Ringling Brothers also noted that the elephants are healthy and alert and that the circus regularly passes their federal, state, and local inspections.