FSU competed, won
Spring has been a banner season for FSU:
· The College of Law Mock Trial Team won first place in the National
Mock Trial Team Competition sponsored by the Criminal Justice Section of
the American Bar Association, knocking out Harvard. What's more, team member
Ronetta Lewis brought home the prize for "Best Trial Advocate."
Judges said FSU and the next-best team, Widener (Pennsylvania), were the
best they had ever seen.
· The School of Music's master of music program was named one of the
best in the nation in the latest "U.S. News & World Report"
survey of graduate schools. The music school, one of the largest and most
comprehensive nationally, tied with three others at 12th place and was fourth
among public university programs.
· The Debate Team finished fifth at the Cross-Examination Debate Association's
tournament, the "World Series" of college forensics. FSU has been
in the top five seven times in 11 years.
· FSU's affirmative action program has been nominated for an Exemplary
Voluntary Efforts (EVE) Award, to be presented Sept. 19 in Washington, D.C.,
by the U.S. Department of Labor. The honor goes to federal contractors who
have shown innovative efforts to increase job opportunities for minorities,
women, people with disabilities, disabled veterans and Vietnam veterans.
· An FSU junior majoring in mathematics and physics has won a prestigious
Goldwater scholarship, which will help pay for his senior year. The award
went to 264 undergraduates studying mathematics, science and engineering.
Gabriel Bouch of Winter Springs, a juggler in the Flying High Circus with
a 4.0 grade-point-average, disproved a conjecture of a well-known mathematician,
then showed what would have to happen for the theory to be true.
· The FSU film school hit a grand slam at the Houston Worldfest Film
Festival, taking first, second and third prizes in the student film competition.
Cool Breeze and Buzz won the gold, Squeegee won the silver, and Paper Sculpture
won the bronze. Each award is accompanied by a $1,000 product grant from
Eastman Kodak Corp.
Yeltsin honors Thagard
Norman E. Thagard, former NASA astronaut and newly appointed holder of the
Bernard F. Sliger Eminent Scholar Chair in Engineering, received a medal
from Russian President Boris Yeltsin April 12 at the Kremlin.
Thagard, who teaches engineering at FSU, was honored along with the crews
of Mir 18, 19 and 20 on "Cosmonauts Day," the 35th anniversary
of the first flight of cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.
Thagard (B.S. '65, M.S. '66) was the first American launched into space
aboard a Russian rocket.
He holds the U.S. record for the longest space mission with his 115-day
flight on Mir 18 last year.
Thagard holds faculty rank and is director of college relations for the
joint FAMU-FSU engineering school.
Grads give bricks
The Class of '96 wants to leave its mark on the FSU campus.
As their class gift, the students are sponsoring a project to restore the
historic Westcott Circle. For a gift of $100 or more, a brick will be inscribed
with the name of a member of the Class of 1996 and placed on the circular
drive around the Westcott fountain.
For more information on the project, call Fred Maglione, FSU Student Affairs,
at (904) 644-9501.
Muhlenfeld to head Sweet Briar College
Elisabeth S. Muhlenfeld, dean of undergraduate studies at FSU, will become
the ninth president of Sweet Briar College Aug. 19.
Muhlenfeld has been at Florida State since 1978, as assistant, associate,
and full professor of English, director of graduate and undergraduate studies,
and associate chairman of the Department of English. In 1987, she became
dean of undergraduate studies.
She is married to Laurin A. Wollan Jr., a professor in the FSU School of
Criminology and Criminal Justice.