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Frank Barnes, distinguished professor of electrical engineering at the University of Colorado at Boulder, on Feb. 24 will receive the National Academy of Engineering's top educational honor, a $500,000 award recognizing innovation in engineering and technology education. The Bernard M. Gordon Prize honors Barnes "for pioneering an Interdisciplinary Telecommunications Program that produces leaders who bridge engineering, social science and public policy" and will be presented at a dinner in Washington, D.C.

The annual University of Colorado at Boulder Off-Campus Housing Fair will be held Wednesday, March 3, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the University Memorial Center's Glenn Miller Ballroom. The event allows students, faculty and staff to collect information on housing opportunities from a variety of property management companies and landlords, according to Susan Stafford, director of the Student Organizations Finance Office of the University of Colorado Student Union.

Different views on affirmative action policies and practices will be presented by representatives from several University of Colorado at Boulder organizations in a public forum on March 3. The event, "Affirmative Action at CU-Boulder: Moving From Debate to Dialogue," begins at 5:30 p.m. in University Memorial Center room 235. The forum is a collaborative venture between the CU Dialogue Network, the Access to Education Alliance, the College Republicans and the Underrepresented Student Group Council.

Editors: Photographers and reporters are welcome to attend the lecture or lab sessions but are asked to contact CU-Boulder Community Relations in advance at (303) 492-8384 to arrange. More than 120 science enthusiasts in ninth through 12th grade will visit the University of Colorado at Boulder for a first-hand look at a major research university on Thursday, Feb. 26. The young scientists, all members of the Colorado Wyoming Junior Academy of Science, will hear presentations from some of the campus's leading scientists and visit CU-Boulder research facilities.

After more than a year of development and testing, the University of Colorado at Boulder's student Web portal project, CUConnect, is up and running and is set to make CU-Boulder students' lives easier. Designed as a home base for students to conduct their university business, the portal is available to all CU-Boulder students currently enrolled in classes. They can log into CUConnect on the Web at https://cuconnect.colorado.edu .

The topic of war will be examined through a wide range of human and artistic experiences in different cultures and eras during the colloquium "War" to be held at the University of Colorado at Boulder March 4-6. Presented by the Center for Humanities and the Arts at CU-Boulder, the colloquium is free and open to the public. It will be held in the Center for British and Irish Studies on the fifth floor of Norlin Library on the CU-Boulder campus.

The University of Colorado at Boulder's news Web site was awarded a gold medal for "excellence in multimedia" by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, District VI, during its January conference held in Denver. The Office of News Services and the Office of Web Communications at CU-Boulder launched the revamped CU news Web site in summer 2003 at http://www.colorado.edu/news/ . CU-Boulder also won two silver medals and a bronze medal at the January conference.

University of Colorado at Boulder faculty, staff, students and administrators will be volunteer readers in the St. Vrain and Boulder Valley school districts as part of Read Across America Day on Tuesday, March 2. The National Education Association established the event in 1998 to encourage children and adults across the country to emphasize reading. The event is timed to coincide with the birthday of famed children's author Dr. Seuss, who would have turned 100 this year.

Two engineering professors at the University of Colorado at Boulder have been elected to the National Academy of Engineering, joining 13 other faculty from the campus who have been elected since the academy's formation in 1962. George H. Born, professor of aerospace engineering sciences, and Kaspar J. Willam, professor of civil engineering, were among 76 new members of the academy announced Feb. 13.

Navajo star and constellation myths, including the story of the creation of stars, will be explored during a live astronomy show at Fiske Planetarium in March on the campus of the University of Colorado at Boulder. John Stocke, a CU-Boulder professor of astrophysical and planetary sciences, will present "Navajo Skies" at Fiske Planetarium on Thursday, March 4, and Friday, March 5, at 7:30 p.m.