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University of Colorado at Boulder doctoral student Jennifer Kugel is one of 13 students from around the nation selected to receive the Harold M. Weintraub Graduate Student Award in 2001. Sponsored by the Basic Sciences Division of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, the award is given to top students at or near the completion of their studies in the biological sciences.

The Office of Diversity and Equity at the University of Colorado at Boulder awarded seven faculty, staff and students the 2001 Equity and Excellence Award last week at the 16th Annual Equity and Excellence Awards Banquet and Graduation Ceremony. Two awards of distinction also were presented in the graduate and undergraduate student categories.

Recent discoveries about the universe and its evolution will be the topic of "The Big Bang," a live show at the University of Colorado at Boulder's Fiske Planetarium on Friday, May 18, and Tuesday, May 22, at 7:30 p.m. CU-Boulder Professor Andrew Hamilton will take the planetarium audience on a trip back in time to learn about the "big bang" and how the Milky Way and its stars were formed. The term big bang refers to the theory that the universe began at a single point in space and has been expanding ever since.

Four University of Colorado at Boulder students are recipients of the second annual Western American Writing Awards presented by the Center of the American West. Each of the students received $350 at an awards banquet on April 25. CU-Boulder professors from eight academic departments and three colleges judged the entries. The judges had such difficulty in deciding among the 94 entries that they also awarded three honorable mention awards of $25 each.

Three finalists for the position of director of the Wardenburg Health Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder are scheduled for campus interviews, according to Gary Chadwick, chair of the search committee. The finalists are Robert Cranny, Wardenburg's interim director, Dennis Garcia, associate director of Health and Wellness Services at Washington State University and Tom Jacobsen, interim and associate director of student health at Arizona State University.

Jim Collins, an internationally renowned business researcher and author, will give the commencement address at the spring ceremony on Friday, May 11, at 9:30 a.m. in Folsom Stadium. Collins, who grew up in Boulder, founded a management laboratory in Boulder in 1995 where he conducts multi-year research projects and works with executives from the corporate and social sectors. His research focuses primarily on the traits of effective leadership and how good companies can become great ones.

The University of Colorado at Boulder will confer 4,043 degrees on Friday, May 11, and invest its 20th president, Elizabeth Hoffman, during the spring commencement ceremony. Commencement will begin at 9:30 a.m. in Folsom Stadium, regardless of the weather, and will last about an hour and a half.

More CU-Boulder business students study abroad through campus-sponsored programs than students in any other major or field of study, according to the Study Abroad Office. During the 1999-2000 academic year, 98 business majors - or approximately 20 percent of all CU students who studied abroad - participated in a CU-sponsored study abroad program.

Anne Flint Anne Flint will receive a bachelor's degree in history at CU-Boulder on May 11, after a 30-year effort that included five schools, a cross-country move and the birth of a son. Flint, 48, started school with the notion of becoming a professor, but that goal changed as life went on, she said. Never losing sight of her ultimate goal, however, she has chipped away at it bit by bit.

The University of Colorado at Boulder School of Law will hold its 20th Annual Alumni Awards Banquet on May 5 at the Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities. The ceremony, which will honor alumni for "distinguished achievement," begins with dinner at 5:30 p.m. followed by the presentation of awards an hour later. Dean Hal Bruff will open the program and Don P. Brown, Jr. ('89), chair of the Law Alumni Board, will be the master of ceremonies. Folllowing are this year's recipients: