Columns:: UGA’s Faculty/Staff Newspaper

since 12/15/98

Columns::August 11, 2003

Front Page

A firefighter breaks out windows on the second floor of the library annex to let the smoke out during the fire.

Back to normal

Library faculty and staff are focused on getting operations back to normal before the start of classes in the wake of a July 23 arson fire. A 19-year-old Oglethorpe County resident is in custody, charged with setting the blaze; a motive is not known.
Employees praised the Athens-Clarke County Fire Department and Winterville and Oconee firefighters for confining the fire to a relatively small area in the government documents section of the second floor of the library annex, the nine-story addition to the main library built in the early 1970s. Heavy smoke produced by the fire blanketed the building with a sticky soot residue requiring each of the some 2.2 million volumes in the building to be cleaned individually. Tens of thousands of feet of ductwork and a 135-foot three-elevator shaft have also been painstakingly cleaned.

July flood damages Veterinary Medicine’s pathology department, radiology laboratories

The skies opened over Athens about 10 p.m. on July 1, pouring 5-1/2 inches of rain on already rain-soaked ground.
Muddy rain water backed up from overwhelmed pipes downstream from the College of Veterinary Medicine and plunged through the windows of the basement-level offices and laboratories of the pathology department and the radiology laboratories.
The result: about $2 million worth of damage, the relocation of faculty and staff, and the loss of priceless hours of research.

Convocation marks beginning of academic year

UGA’s 2003-2004 academic year officially begins Aug. 17 with the Opening Convocation, which introduces new students to life at UGA.
The convocation, at 4 p.m. in Stegeman Coliseum, will be just hours before the start of fall semester classes on Aug. 18. The event has been staged annually since 1999 as a way to welcome new students and faculty to the university and to formally get the new year under way.

Show of support: Fund raising sets record in fiscal year 2003

UGA supporters gave the university a record $72.05 million in private gifts and pledges in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2003, a 15 percent increase over last year. It is the first time in UGA history that single-year private giving has exceeded $70 million.
This year’s total is some $9.4 million more than the $62.7 million given in fiscal year 2002, which was also a record and the first time private giving topped $60 million. The total includes 14 gifts of $1 million or more from individuals.

No place like home: University launches its redesigned ‘gateway’ site

Many members of the UGA community were surprised to discover the university’s home page looked different last week. The redesign, which went on line Aug. 3, includes the first several levels of the UGA gateway to the Web at www.uga.edu.

19th-century sorrows on exhibit at Georgia Museum of Art

The ritual of mourning played a significant role in the lives of most Americans, and affected the design of clothing, jewelry and many other decorative arts for generations. “Leaves Have Their Time to Fall”: Reflections of Mourning in 19th-Century Decorative Arts features objects that embody the act of mourning through color, inscribed or embroidered verses, and use of mourning symbols such as weeping willows.

HOUSING EMPLOYEE WINS STUDENT SERVICE AWARD--Ralphel Smith (right) of University Housing received this year’s Lee Anne Seawell Award for Service to Students from Richard Mullendore, vice president for student affairs.

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Beth Roberts: Columns editor, Juliett Dinkins: Columns managing editor,
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