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David Budd, associate professor of geological sciences, and Daniel Connors, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, are the recipients of CU-Boulder's Big 12 Faculty Fellowships for spring 2001. The selections were announced by Ofelia Miramontes, associate vice chancellor of diversity and equity.

Fiske Planetarium at the University of Colorado at Boulder will hold Astronomy Day activities including sunspot viewing, guided tours of the planetarium and a matinee starshow called "Follow the Drinking Gourd," on Saturday, April 28, from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Astronomy Day is an annual event celebrated at planetariums and astronomy clubs around the world that is meant to bring astronomy to the public.

James Oliver Horton, professor of American Studies and history at George Washington University, will lecture on "Exploring the Racial Frontiers of Public History" on Wednesday, May 2, at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Horton, who is also director of the Afro-American Communities Project of the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institution, will address the efforts of historians to present America's racial past to the American public at historical sites.

Jared Polis, the former owner of bluemountain.com, the highly successful online greeting card service, will speak at the CU-Boulder College of Business on April 25. The popular Web site was sold to Excite@Home in 1999 for $780 million.

Seven out of 10 college students overestimate the amount of alcohol consumed by their peers, according to a recent study by Education Development Center Inc., one of the world's leading nonprofit education and health organizations. Students incorrectly perceive that their peers consume a mean of 9.01 alcoholic drinks per week when they actually consume 4.73 drinks, according to the study. The study also found that students believe their peers consume a mean of 6.54 drinks when they party, while the actual number of drinks consumed is 3.35.

William Toor, mayor of Boulder and director of the CU Environmental Center, will present the next seminar in the university's Earth Systems Engineering Initiative on Wednesday, April 25. "Sustainability and Cities" will be presented from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the Coors Events/Conference Center, room 4. The seminar, which is free and open to the public, will address the steps that cities can take to reduce emission of greenhouse gases and to create more sustainable buildings. The seminar will focus on the experience in Boulder and on current policy debates.

The University of Colorado Friends of the Libraries will present a lecture on "A Century of Alcohol in Boulder" on Wednesday, May 2, at 7 p.m. in room 150 of the Eaton Humanities Building on the CU-Boulder campus. The talk will be given by Bob Maust, a research associate at CU-Boulder and project director of the A Matter of Degree program, which addresses drinking problems on campus. In his work, Maust collaborates with the Harvard School of Public Health and the American Medical Association to research and reduce alcohol abuse among university students.

Editors: Ryan Neil Owen's roommate, Kody Busch, is willing to answer questions related to the upcoming memorial and can be reached at (303) 442-0234. A memorial service for Ryan "Neil" Owen, of Lake Charles, La., a University of Colorado at Boulder student who died unexpectedly April 3, is being held Saturday, April 21, from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. in Eaton Humanities Building room 150. Owen, 23, who was known as Neil to friends and family, was a senior at CU-Boulder majoring in film studies. He was born on Dec. 31, 1977 in Landsthul, Germany.

Eight faculty members have received awards from the Implementation of Multicultural Perspectives and Approaches in Research and Teaching program at the University of Colorado at Boulder for 2001, according to Ofelia Miramontes, associate vice chancellor of diversity and equity. The goal of the IMPART program is to further develop a campus environment that supports and encourages gender, ethnic and cultural diversity in approaches to scholarly work and teaching.

Four tiny University of Colorado at Boulder experiments will be lofted by a large helium balloon from Windsor, Colo., to a height of about 17 miles before drifting back to earth on the eastern plains via parachute on Saturday, April 21.