'U.S. News' rankings for 2001 put Hopkins at No. 15

The Johns Hopkins University is ranked 15th, tied with Brown, in this year's U.S. News & World Report survey of "America's Best Colleges." A change in methodology caused the university, positioned No. 7 last year, to slip in the rankings, according to the magazine.

This year, figures on research spending were logarithmically adjusted according to the ratio of undergraduate to graduate students.

"One consequence was that a small number of institutions that are strong in the sciences and had moved up significantly in the rankings last year, including the California Institute of Technology and Johns Hopkins University, slipped back," the magazine writes.

Princeton secured this year's top spot, followed by Harvard and Yale, tied for second. CalTech, ranked No. 1 in 2000, and MIT round out the top five.

Telecom services, technology to be demonstrated at fair

Video conferencing, voice messaging and cellular services will be among the topics demonstrated and discussed at the Sept. 14 Telecom Fair to be held from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Sherwood Room of Homewood's Levering Hall. The event, sponsored by Hopkins ITS Telecommunications Services, is intended to provide information on the JHU phone system's full range of capabilities and show the latest in technology.

Elizabeth Rodier, director of Telecommunications Services, said Telecom Fair will help to answer such questions as "Why do I have trouble transferring a call?" and "How can I set up a corporate calling card account?"

Attendees can sign up to win prizes of a 2.46GHz cordless phone and prepaid long-distance calling cards. Representatives of AT&T, CellularOne, Lucent Technologies, Sprint PCS and Verizon also will be on hand to discuss their products and services.

JAVA-related topics are first up in Cyber Tech Seminar Series

A Java Technology Day will kick off this year's Cyber Tech Seminar Series on Monday, Sept. 11, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., in the Kossiakoff Center of the Applied Physics Laboratory. The event is free and open to the public.

Experts will speak on a variety of Java-related topics and participate in a moderated technical panel discussion. APL's Marty Hall will host the seminar and serve as moderator of the panel discussion.

The six guest speakers and their topics are Ken Arnold of Sun Microsystems, "Jini Architecture for Distributed Computing"; Greg Bollella of Sun Microsystems, "Real-Time for Java"; Joseph Fung of BlueFlame (formerly PCSI Inc.), "Java and Wireless Technologies"; Susanne Hupfer of Mirror Worlds Technologies and Yale University, "Jini & JavaSpaces Technology"; Gary McGraw of Reliable Software Technologies, "Java Security Meets Smart Cards"; Doug Tidwell of IBM, "Java and XML Technologies."

For more details, logon to www.jhuapl.edu/cybertech/cybertechII.htm.

To attend Java Technology Day, e-mail cybertechweb@jhuapl.edu.

University session on writing op-eds is now offered online

Anyone at Hopkins who has ever considered writing an opinion piece for a newspaper can now check out an online op-ed writing seminar that offers insights and tips for writing and submitting successful pieces.

This one-hour session is a video Webcast of a workshop that took place June 6 at the School of Public Health and features guest speakers from The Sun. More than 60 professors, researchers and staff attended this session; the online version is restricted to Hopkins-affiliated students, staff and faculty through a secure server.

If you are interested in learning ways to improve your chances of getting published, follow this link: www.jhu.edu/news_info/restrict.

If you have any problems viewing it, contact Glenn Small at 410-516-6094 or by e-mail at glenn@jhu.edu.

A crash course in college planning for parents/guardians of teens

Is your child's college future on your mind? To help parents and guardians of teens, the Office of Worklife Programs is offering a workshop titled "College Planning for Your Middle- and High-School Students."

Paul White, assistant dean of admissions for the School of Medicine and former director of Undergraduate Admissions at Homewood, will provide information on scholarship search tips, college admission criteria, PSAT and SAT testing, financial aid and what to expect from school counselors.

The workshop will be held from noon to 1 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 12, on the East Baltimore campus, and at the same time on Thurs., Sept. 14, at Homewood. For more information, call 410-516-6605.

Novelist William Gass to give Turnbull Memorial Lecture

William Gass, novelist, short story writer, essayist and critic, is this year's Percy Turnbull Memorial lecturer. His talk, sponsored by The Writing Seminars, will examine the life and works of German poet Ranier Maria Rilke and will take place at 5 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 11, in 111 Mergenthaler Hall, Homewood.

Gass' most recent book, Reading Rilke: Reflections on the Problems of Translation, was published last year. Among his other published works are the novels Omensetter's Luck and The Tunnel and a short story collection, In the Heart of the Heart of the Country. Founded in 1891, the Percy Turnbull Memorial Lecture is the oldest surviving endowed lectureship at Hopkins.

The talk is free and open to the public.

SPSBE offers degree in organizational counseling

In a new collaboration between SPSBE's graduate divisions of Education and of Business and Management, a new master of science in organizational counseling program is being launched to provide counselors with the business skills they now need as corporations and government agencies increasingly require their services.

The 45-credit program combines counseling theory with human resources expertise. It prepares counselors to offer direct human services and counseling in the workplace, addressing such issues as leadership training, executive coaching, diversity, stress, violence and other concerns related to organizational development and employee assistance, explains Dean Ralph Fessler of SPSBE.

"Students in organizational counseling and in organizational behavior have some of the same objectives," Fessler says. "Both are interested in providing services that maximize a healthy and productive work environment."

Students will enroll in courses in both the Department of Counseling and Human Services and the Department of Management. The specialized organizational course work will be offered in an online format, supplemented by monthly weekend classes.