TOM BIVINS attended and officiated at the USA National Karate-do Federation (USA-NKF) National Tournament in Colorado Springs in July. Bivins is a certified official with the organization, which is a member of the U.S.Olympic Committee and is the recognized organizing body for karate in the United States. The USA-NKF's parent organization, the World Karate Federation, is responsible for introducing karate into the Olymipics. The event drew 3,300 contestants from all over the United States. Bivins attended three days of officiating and judged for an additional three full days of competition. In addition, he took third place in the masters division (45 and older).

LAUREN KESSLER is at work on a new book, the biography of larger-than-life pioneering aviator Pancho Barnes. She and writing comrade/husband Tom Hager, MA '81, co-taught "A Literary Approach to Telling True Stories" at the Haystack Program for the Arts this summer. Kessler will be a featured panelist at NW Bookfest in Seattle in October. Ann Maxwell spent the summer consulting with the College of Education. Maxwell helped to plan a communications strategy for their graduate program at the master's level and their fifth-year secondary program.

STEVE PONDER was selected to participate in the 1997 summer Instructional Technology Short Course, coordinated by the UO'sTeaching Effectiveness Program. The program, from Aug. 4-15, encourage application of new technologies into education. Ponder hadattended an earlier instructional technology program at Oregon State University in 1994, which was sponsored by the state Chancellor's Office. That conference led to the creation of the first home page for a class in the School, J202 Information Gathering. A historical research paper, "The Press and Presidential Failure: Herbert Hoover and the Professionalization of Washington, D.C., Correspondents," has been accepted for presentation at the annual convention of the American Journalism Historians Association, which meets in October at Mobile, Ala. A related paper presented to the same conference last year, "That Delightful Relationship: Presidents and White House Correspondents in the 1920s, was a co-winner of the association's best paper award. It will be published shortly in the association's journal, American Journalism 14 (No. 2, spring 1997): 100-17.

JOHN RUSSIAL presented a paper on digital imaging at the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication convention in Chicago. Wayne Wanta was co-author. Russial also moderated a panel on "New Structures for Delivering News," spoke at a pre-convention session on internet journalism and attended a day-long seminar for directors of high school minority workshops sponsored by the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund.

BILL RYAN has been working as a creativity consultant to COSMIX-USWEB, a large web/on-line agency in Seattle. COSMIX serves such clients as National Geographic, REI, Ride and Asia-Pacific.

AL STAVITSKY began work as associate dean during summer term (see story, page 3). He attended the Freedom Forum Leadership Institute for Journalism Education Administrators in San Francisco in June. He presented "Media Ethics in the Infotainment Age" for the UO Office of Legislative and Community Relations' "Explore Oregon" program in June. Stavitsky also served as a consultant to Minneapolis-based Public Radio International, working as journalistic evaluator for PRI's global news program 'The World,' a joint production with the British Broadcasting Corporation and WGBH, Boston. He conducted research with Tim Gleason on the changing First Amendment status of public broadcasting. Stavitsky served as a judge for the children's writing competition at the Lane County Fair, and served as moderator for the City Club of Eugene panel on the future of television.

This summer, LESLIE STEEVES attended the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication convention in Chicago and presented on a panel entitled: "Women and Development Communication: Revisiting Crucial Issues." Steeves' first book, Gender Violence and the Press: The St. Kitzito Story, was published this summer by Ohio University Press (see left). Steeves has traveled to Africa twice on Fulbright grants and was in Kenya on a Fulbright when the crime occurred at St. Kizito Mixed Secondary School in Meru District, Kenya. Nineteen girls were murdered, and over seventy were raped or gang-raped by their male colleagues at the school. Steeves studied all stories published in three Nairobi daily newspapers and a weekly Kenyan newsmagazine for the year following the crime and examined a sample of international reports.

JIM UPSHAW soon will be at the helm of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication's Radio-Television Journalism division; he was elected division vice chair and chair-elect at the journalism educators' convention in Chicago this summer. Jim presented a case study of how new managers changed TV newscasts at one station. He's part of a team of broadcast professionals at universities whose work on newscast content has gained national publicity this year.

WAYNE WANTA was elected chair of the Teaching Standards Committee at the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) convention. The committee oversees teaching activities for the various divisions of AEJMC. Also at the AEJMC convention, Wanta presented three papers, moderated a research session and served as a discussant on three other sessions. Wanta presented a paper at the World Association for Public Opinion Research convention in Edinburgh, Scotland. The paper, co-authored with Professor Jim Lemert and graduate student Tien-Tsung Lee, dealt with results from a survey conducted after the January, 1996, mail balloting election in Oregon. The study examines non-voters who reported in the survey that they had actually voted.

JANET WASKO presented a paper entitled "Hollywood's Labor Force in the 1990s" at the International Communication Association conference in Montreal in May. Wasko was recently appointed to the editorial board of Screening the Past, a new on-line film history journal and the Board of Advisors of the Media Ownership Project, a research and education project dedicated to gathering and distributing information about growing media concentration, organized by the Media Education Foundation.

After an early summer getaway to Yosemite National Park, MICK WESTRICK spent his summer upgrading the School's Sullivan Reporting lab and Ballmer Graphics lab, as well as volunteering for two local community events. He coordinated vaudeville entertainment at the Oregon Country Fair in Veneta, and served on the steering committee and as event coordinator for the 5th Avenue Stage at the Eugene Celebration.