Campus Notes

The Michigan Student Assembly’s Environmental Issues
Commission will sponsor a panel on urban sprawl today at 7:30 p.m.
in the Michigan Union Ballroom. The title of the discussion is
“Sprawled Out.” The panelists will discuss the fight
against urban sprawl statewide and locally.

Panelists will include Mayor John Hieftje, City Council member
Jean Carlberg, history Prof. Matt Lassiter, law Prof. Rick Hills
and Conan Smith, land programs director of the Michigan
Environmental Council and chair of the Cool Cities Task Force.
Co-sponsors include Students for Public Interest Research Group in
Michigan and the Urban Issues Collaborative.

Forum will address war on terrorism

Victor Bernson, legislative counsel for U.S. Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and Special Operator Michael McGann, who
recently returned from Afghanistan, will speak today at 8 p.m. in
the Michigan Room of the Michigan League.

The event, sponsored by the University of Michigan Foundation
for the Defense of Democracies, is part of an open forum on the war
on terrorism. Bernson and McGann will discuss the U.S. strategy in
fighting terrorism and give first-hand perspectives on operations.
A question-and-answer session will follow the forum.

Physics department to host Nobel laureate speaker

Nobel Prize winner Robert Laughlin will speak tomorrow at 4:15
p.m. in room 1324 of East Hall. Presented by the Department of
Physics, the event is part of the fourth annual Ford Motor Co.
Distinguished Lecture in Physics. The title of Laughlin’s
speech is “The Emergent Age.”

Laughlin is the physics Nobel laureate at Stanford University.
He won the Nobel Prize in 1998 for his discovery of a new form of
quantum fluid related to the fluids that occur in superconductivity
and in liquid helium.

Australian prof to discuss 10 rules of city
sustainability

Murdoch University city policy Prof. and Australian Peter Newman
will speak as part of the Third Annual Peter M. Wege Lecture
tomorrow at 4 p.m. in the Lydia Mendelssohn Theater. The title of
the lecture is “Cities as Sustainable Ecosystems.”

The lecture focuses on the United Nations Environment
Program’s 10 principles of how to build more sustainable
cities. The principles are further explained in Newman’s
recently published book, which uses case studies from around the
world.

Activist will lecture on challenge of animal rights

Author Tom Regan will lecture on animal rights at 7 p.m.
tomorrow in the Michigan League Ballroom. Michigan State University
Prof. David Favre from the Animal Legal and Historical Center will
introduce Regan. The Michigan Animal Rights Society is hosting the
event. A book signing will follow the lecture.

Regan is a professor emeritus of philosophy at North Carolina
State University. His most recent book, “Empty Cages: Facing
the Challenge of Animal Rights” has been nominated for a
Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award.

Campus, state groups celebrate Earth Day

Fifteen campus and state groups will speak about environmental
problems and their solutions tomorrow from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the
Diag as part of National Earth Day and as part of Earth Week at the
University. The event will include raffle drawings and food.

Conference to examine history of Armenian church

The Armenian Studies Program will host a three-day international
conference on the history of the Church of Armenia, beginning at 9
a.m. Thursday in the School of Education’s Schorling
Auditorium on East University Street.

On the same day, Oxford University Prof. Robert Thomson will
give the keynote lecture at 7 p.m. in the Michigan Union Ballroom.
Thomson will speak about the Armenian tradition of biblical
commentary. This event is also the fifth event in the Michigan
Lectures in Early Judaism and Christianity series.

 

—Compiled by Daily Staff Reporter Mona Rafeeq