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The University of Colorado at Boulder's highest faculty recognition for teaching and research, the Hazel Barnes Prize, has been awarded to biology professor and Presidential Teaching Scholar Alexander Cruz. Cruz will receive an engraved University Medal and a $20,000 cash award, the largest single faculty award funded by CU-Boulder. He will be recognized at the spring commencement ceremony May 12 and a reception in his honor will be held during the fall 2006 semester.

New teacher curriculum guides and resource kits promoting awareness of the Boulder County watershed, developed in a joint effort led by the University of Colorado at Boulder, are being distributed to local school districts and private schools in April.

Fifteen outstanding members of the University of Colorado at Boulder community will be honored May 10 during the CU-Boulder Alumni Association's 76th Annual Alumni Awards Ceremony. The award recipients will be recognized at 7 p.m. in the Old Main Chapel on the Boulder campus. The public is welcome to attend the free event.

Kenneth Foote, professor of geography at the University of Colorado at Boulder, has been elected president of the National Council for Geographic Education. Foote previously served as vice president of research and external relations for the organization from 2002 to 2005 and will serve as president through 2006. Founded in 1915, the National Council for Geographic Education works to enhance the status and quality of geography teaching and learning in the United States.

Students at the University of Colorado at Boulder will celebrate Engineering Days with several offbeat but instructive activities April 12 through April 14. Hosted by the University of Colorado Engineering Council, Engineering Days is an annual celebration of the engineering profession and a chance for students to apply their engineering skills in creative ways. Events will begin Wednesday with a free doughnut give-away and demonstration of equipment by the Boulder Fire Department on the west side of the Engineering Center from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m.

Views of Saturn's stunning ring system from above by the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft now orbiting the planet indicate the prominent A ring contains more debris than once thought, according to a new University of Colorado at Boulder study.

Keith R. Molenaar, assistant professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, has been awarded a Fulbright Scholar grant to lecture and conduct research at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, in Santiago, Chile during the 2006-2007 academic year, according to the United States Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.

Two prominent former secretaries of the interior, Stewart Udall and James Watt, will meet in a public event for the first time April 20 to discuss land management issues with University of Colorado at Boulder Professor Patricia Limerick. The public conversation will be held at 7 p.m. in the University Memorial Center's Glenn Miller ballroom on the CU-Boulder campus. The event is free and open to the public.

The basic ideas of quantum mechanics will be discussed during a Saturday Physics Series talk April 15 at the University of Colorado at Boulder. John Cumalat, professor and chair of physics at CU-Boulder, will present his talk on "Physics at the Energy Frontier" at 2 p.m. in Duane Physics room G1B30. The presentation is free and open to the public and is intended for high school students, teachers and adults.

University of Colorado at Boulder Professor Leslie Leinwand has been named a Howard Hughes Medical Institute professor, a prestigious undergraduate education honor that carries a four-year, $1 million grant.