The Great Books Reading Group tentative schedule:

• Jan. 27: Darwin Loves You: Natural Selection and the Re-enchantment of the World, by George Levine
• Feb. 24: Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier
• March 24: The Demon-Haunted World, by Carl Sagan
• April 21: Faust Part 1, by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• May 19: Book to be determined

Everyone is welcome; refreshments will be served. The books are available in the University of St. Thomas Bookstore. Look for the Great Books poster near the customer service desk.

For more information or to make requests or comments, e-mail Dr. Thomas Tommet.

Undergraduates with I.D. will be able to purchase $5 tickets to the 7 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 6, Orchestra Hall performance. Buses also will be provided; details will be made available with ticket purchase.

The discount is available to undergraduates only because it was subsidized by St. Thomas Activities and Recreation and the Undergraduate Student Government, which are funded by undergraduate student activity fees.

Faculty, staff, graduate students, alumni, parents, neighbors and friends of the university may purchase tickets to the 4  or 7 p.m. performances by visiting the Orchestra Hall Web site. Seats are $15 plus a nominal Orchestra Hall transaction fee. The concert is open to adults and to children over 6.

Expect talented performances from the Alma Andina Chilean Band, Hayor Bibimma Dance Crew, Four Corners Band and two of UST’s own entertainers. To make the evening more exciting, guests will witness GMSA’s twist of the Dating Game. The spinoff of the ’70s TV game show will feature contestants from different countries and cultural backgrounds.

In addition to the performances, Culture Fest will feature a special presentation by the Study Abroad office and a display of the winners of the Study Abroad Photo Contest.

The two-hour program will begin at 6 p.m. in the OEC auditorium. Food will be served at the end of the show. The first 200 students will receive a free Culture Fest T-shirt.

This event is organized in collaboration with STAR, HANA and the Eastern European Club. For more information, contact Ajay George, (651) 962-6447, or visit the GMSA Web site.

Action items subject to the early deadlines include:

• All electronic time sheets must be submitted in Murphy to your supervisors for approval by noon Monday, Nov. 23.
• All paper time sheets must be received in Payroll by noon Monday, Nov. 23.
• Time clock correction sheets and vacation requests for the Stromberg time clock system must be turned in to the time clock administrators by 8 a.m. Monday, Nov. 23.
• All electronic approvals must be done in Murphy and Stromberg by 5 p.m. Monday, Nov. 23.
• All new Student Employment Forms must be submitted and approved by Friday, Nov. 20.

Pay items received after the deadlines printed above will not be processed on the Dec. 4 paycheck. They will be processed on the following payday, Dec. 18.

All central university technology resources may be affected while necessary servers are replaced, upgrades are installed and routine maintenance is conducted. Although the work is targeted at specific components of the central systems, the following UST resources may experience intermittent interruptions between 6 a.m and noon Sunday, Nov. 22:

• E-mail
• BlackBerry Enterprise Service (BES)
• Exchange ActivSync (EAS)
• MailMarshal
• Lyris
• Blackboard
• UST Web
• Collage
• RFS
• Banner
• Optix
• R25 and Event Viewer
• Courseweb
• ReportNet
• Appworx
• Cognos
• Murphy Online
• NetID
• Breeze / Adobe Connect
• Library databases

IRT hopes that this scheduled outage will result in minimal, if any, inconvenience and will communicate additional updates as needed.

Questions? Contact the IRT Tech Desk, (651) 962-6230.

The interns will act as staff to the members of the United Nations Mission of the Holy See and perform responsibilities such as monitoring the actions of U.N. bodies and representing the Holy See in various meetings.

One internship will run from Sept. 1, 2010, to the end of December 2010, the period that the Security Council is in session. The other internship will run from Sept. 1, 2010, to the end of July 2011. Each internship will include room and board at the Vatican Mission and a stipend of $800 per month. Interns must live at the Mission; accommodation is for a single person only. Students may apply regardless of academic major, subject to the qualifications listed below.

All students filling this internship should:

• Be a senior, graduate student or recent graduate of St. Thomas;
• Have a strong academic record;
• Have a demonstrated knowledge of and interest in international politics, economics or law;
• Be of good moral character and an informed and committed Catholic.

Selection process

Applications must be completed by Feb. 8, 2010, for both internships. Applicants should submit a 500- to 1,000-word letter expressing interest in the position and highlighting qualifications. Each applicant should provide copies of academic transcripts and also arrange for three letters of recommendation, including at least two from St. Thomas faculty members.

Send all application materials to Dr. Susan Alexander, Mail #AQU 102.

Selection of the interns will be made by a committee of faculty and administrators at the university. Finalists will be announced by March 2. All finalists should expect to be interviewed by the selection committee and by Migliore.

 She also reports that St. Thomas expects to receive its first shipment of the H1N1 vaccine shortly. When it arrives, the Student Health Service will make the announcement in Bulletin Today and on the university’s Pandemic Web site. This is St. Thomas’ designated site for sharing flu-related announcements to students, staff and faculty.

Initially, the vaccine only will be given to individuals in certain groups, such as pregnant women, health-care workers who have direct contact with patients, and children and adolescents with certain medical conditions.

More details about those groups are in McDermott’s weekly report on the Pandemic Web site.

Action items subject to the early deadlines include:

• All electronic time sheets must be submitted in Murphy to your supervisors for approval by noon Monday, Nov. 23.
• All paper time sheets must be received in Payroll by noon Monday, Nov. 23.
• Time clock correction sheets and vacation requests for the Stromberg time clock system must be turned in to the time clock administrators by 8 a.m. Monday, Nov. 23.
• All electronic approvals must be done in Murphy and Stromberg by 5 p.m. Monday, Nov. 23.
• All new Student Employment Forms must be submitted and approved by Friday, Nov. 20.
• All non-base-comp Web pages must be submitted by Friday, Nov. 20.
• All employee action forms, including new employee, transfers and terminations, must be submitted by Friday, Nov. 20.
• All other employment change requests must received by Human Resources by Friday, Nov. 20.
• All insurance and annuity change requests must be turned in to the Benefits Department by Friday, Nov. 20.
• All direct deposit and payroll deduction forms must be turned in to the Payroll Department by Friday, Nov. 20.
• All payroll check mailing-address changes must be completed in Murphy Online by Friday, Nov. 20.

Pay items received after the deadlines printed above will not be processed on the Dec. 4 paycheck. They will be processed on the following payday, Dec. 18.

Dr. Ellen Kennedy

Dr. Ellen Kennedy, a former St. Thomas faculty member who is now director of the Minnesota Genocide Intervention Network, will speak on campus Monday, Nov. 23, to raise awareness about the crisis in Darfur.

The event will be held from 7 to 8:30 p.m. in the O’Shaughnessy Educational Center auditorium. Its purpose is to help inform the St. Thomas community about the ongoing genocide in Darfur and to brainstorm ways to help the Sudanese people.

This event is free and open to the public. Free T-shirts will be given to those who attend. The event is presented by Hana, STAND and STAR .

The performance is 7:30 p.m. Balcony tickets are $26. This opportunity is open to students, faculty and staff, but only a limited number of tickets are available.

“In the Heights” tells the universal story of a vibrant community in Manhattan’s Washington Heights – a place where the windows are always open and the breeze carries the rhythm of three generations of music. It’s a community on the brink of change, full of hopes, dreams and pressures, where the biggest struggles can be deciding which traditions to take with you and which to leave behind.

Box Office and Expeditions is located in the lower level of Murray-Herrick Campus Center.