The Johns Hopkins Gazette: December 10, 2001
December 10, 2001
VOL. 31, NO. 14

  

In Brief

Johns Hopkins Gazette Online Edition

Next week's 'Gazette' will be last before the holidays

The Dec. 17 Gazette will be the last published before the holidays; the next issue will appear Jan. 7, 2002.

Calendar items for events scheduled from Dec. 17 through Jan. 7 should be submitted by Tuesday, Dec. 11, to gazette@jhu.edu or by fax to 410-516-5251.


Community Conversation to look at civil liberties after 9/11

Addressing issues raised by the events of Sept. 11, the third in the series of Hopkins Community Conversations will take place today, Dec. 10, at Homewood.

Vivian Berger, the Nash Professor of Law at Columbia University, will speak on "Civil Liberties in Uncivil Times." The talk will take place from 4 to 6 p.m. in 100 Mudd Hall. A reception will follow. For more information, call 410-516-6158.


Vietnamese deputy prime minister to speak at SAIS

Nguyen Tan Dung, the permanent deputy prime minister of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, will speak at the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at 5 p.m. today, Dec. 10.

Dung is the highest-ranking Vietnamese government official to visit the United States since the end of the Vietnam War. His lecture topic will be "Renovation in Vietnam and Vietnam-U.S. Relations."

Dung is leading a delegation of Vietnamese government ministers and 60 members of the Vietnamese business community on a two-day visit to Washington. The visit follows the recent ratification of the Vietnam-U.S. Bilateral Trade Agreement.

Dung will speak in Vietnamese, and consecutive interpretation will be provided.

The event, which is open to the public, will be held in the Kenney Auditorium of the Nitze Building. Non-SAIS affiliates should RSVP by calling 202-663-5837 or e-mailing wshishak@jhu.edu.


TIMED atmospheric spacecraft is successfully launched

NASA's TIMED spacecraft--en route to explore one of the last frontiers in Earth's atmosphere--successfully launched on Dec. 7 at 7:07 a.m. PST, aboard a Delta II rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.

Designed and built for NASA by the Applied Physics Laboratory, the 1,294-pound spacecraft was placed into its 388-mile circular orbit, inclined 74.1 degrees from the equator, 2 hours and 5 minutes after launch. TIMED, which shared the launch vehicle with the Jason-1 spacecraft, was the second of the two spacecraft to be jettisoned from the Delta II rocket. After making initial contact with the ground station in Kiruna, Sweden, 3 hours and 2 minutes after liftoff, TIMED's APL-based Mission Operations Center reported the solar arrays deployed and began providing power to the spacecraft.

TIMED is the first mission in NASA's Solar Terrestrial Probes Program, part of the agency's initiative to lower mission costs and provide more frequent systematic studies of the sun-Earth system.

"This is a terrific beginning for the Solar Terrestrial Probes Program," says Stamatios "Tom" Krimigis, head of APL's Space Department. "We're very excited about working with the broader science community and our colleagues at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center as we begin to explore this uncharted region of our atmosphere."

The TIMED mission is sponsored by NASA's Office of Space Science in Washington, D.C., and managed by the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center's Solar Terrestrial Probes Program Office, Greenbelt, Md. APL operates the spacecraft, leads the project's science effort and manages the mission's Science Data Center for NASA.


Downtown at Noon event offers sounds of the holidays

The sounds of the holiday season will come to the Downtown Center on Tuesday, Dec. 11, with a concert by the Brass Menagerie quintet, which is associated with the Peabody Ragtime Ensemble. The free Downtown at Noon event, scheduled for noon to 1 p.m. in the Berman Auditorium, will include a mix of seasonal standards, old favorites and new selections. Attendees may bring their lunch.


Food service provider seeks donations for needy

As part of Caring Cans, a nationwide philanthropic event hosted by Sodexho Campus Services, the food service provider's Hopkins group is currently sponsoring a food drive to benefit the area's needy. Faculty, staff and students are invited to bring nonperishable food donations to any of the Sodexho-run facilities on the Homewood campus.

"So many individuals and families across America go hungry during this time of the year. In many instances, shelters and kitchens are being depleted faster than they can be replenished," says John Gallagher, marketing director for Sodexho Campus Services at Hopkins. "Caring Cans is a tremendous program that provides much-needed supplies. I'm excited and happy we can help."

Nonperishable food items such as canned goods and dry cereal may be dropped into Caring Cans bins at Wolman Station, Terrace Court Cafe, MegaBytes, the Depot, the Jay Store and the Marketplace at Levering during regular operating hours.


Moravia Park shelving facility remains closed

The Moravia Park Shelving Facility remains closed while plans proceed for shoring up the roof. The university is working with engineers and contractors to schedule and complete the work as quickly as possible. Preliminary estimates indicate that the work could be completed within three months. Efforts also continue to identify long-term alternatives for off-campus shelving.

The Interlibrary Services Department continues to borrow materials requested from Moravia Park from other libraries. During November, 609 "Moravia requests" were processed through Interlibrary Services. Turnaround time for these materials averaged seven to nine days, in contrast to the average 24-hour turnaround time for Moravia requests that users experienced prior to the temporary closing.

Library staff now have limited access to the facility, and weekly runs are scheduled to retrieve materials needed for course reserves, materials unique to JHU and non-JHU materials that are shelved in the facility.


GO TO DECEMBER 10, 2001 TABLE OF CONTENTS.
GO TO THE GAZETTE HOME PAGE.