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The Vice Minister of Education for the People's Republic of China will visit the University of Colorado at Boulder campus Wednesday as the United States and China embark on a joint Internet-based language education project with the help of a CU-Boulder expert. Zhang Xinsheng will tour the CU-Boulder campus and visit the university's Center for Spoken Language Research, the Anderson Language Technology Center and the College of Engineering's Integrated Teaching and Learning Lab.

Base Line Middle School students who participated in a cooperative program this spring to study the Tony-award winning play "Copenhagen" will receive awards for their play-based projects in a special ceremony at the school on June 3. The award ceremony for the students, and their teachers, will be at 1:30 p.m. at Base Line Middle School, 700 20th St. in Boulder. Student projects were in one of four categories including performance, 3-D art, visual art and writing.

Friends and colleagues of Quigg Newton will gather on the University of Colorado at Boulder campus Friday, May 30, to remember the life of the former CU president and mayor of Denver who died April 4. Current CU President Elizabeth Hoffman, CU-Boulder Chancellor Richard Bynny and former CU Health Sciences Center Chancellor Dr. Bernard Nelson will be among the speakers at an 11 a.m. public memorial in the Old Main Chapel. A reception at the Koenig Alumni Center will follow. Parking is available in the Euclid Avenue Autopark.

Astronaut Jim Voss will give the commencement address on Friday, May 9, during the University of Colorado at Boulder spring commencement ceremony. The ceremony, which is free and open to the public, will begin at 8:30 a.m. in Folsom Stadium, where 4,943 degrees will be conferred. Guests are asked not to bring large purses or bags to the ceremony, and people entering the stadium may be subject to search.

A cool, wet spring is keeping the wildfire hazard to a minimum in many parts of Colorado. But, according to a CU-Boulder wildfire expert, it would only take a few weeks of hot, dry weather to create a potentially dangerous fire season. "The really critical time period is June," said Tom Veblen, a professor of geography at CU-Boulder who studies the history of wildfires in the West. "It just takes a few weeks of really dry weather, high temperatures and, most importantly, wind."

The Center for Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado at Boulder has selected five journalists as Ted Scripps Fellows in Environmental Journalism for 2003-04. The new fellows are Jeff Young, news bureau chief for West Virginia Public Broadcasting in Charleston, W. Va.; Vicki Monks, multi-media freelancer from Santa Fe, N.M.; Kim McGuire, environment reporter for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in Little Rock; Alex Markels, freelance journalist from Minturn, Colo.; and Eric Frankowski, assistant city editor for the Longmont (Colo.) Daily Times-Call.

Astronomers led by the University of Colorado and Carnegie Observatories have shown that a miniature galaxy less than one-hundredth the size of the Milky Way is ejecting large quantities of gas and energy into huge regions of intergalactic space.

The University of Colorado at Boulder received high marks from the U.S. Department of Labor, Denver District of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs in a recent evaluation of the university's equal employment policies and practices.

Facilities operators at the University of Colorado at Boulder will conduct tests on steam boilers at the Williams Village housing complex June 9-13. The system is being tested to ensure provision of steam for the new student housing apartment complex, according to Derrick Watson, project coordinator. The building is scheduled to open for occupancy in August. The procedure is expected to produce a large steam cloud and noise that will be noticeable to the surrounding community. The steam vapor contains distilled water, which poses no environmental hazard.

While most University of Colorado students have completed the semester and moved on to summer jobs and internships, students participating in the Integrated Teaching and Learning Program's "Fellows in the Classroom" project are still hard at work teaching engineering to elementary students in local schools.