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Local students were among the 4,943 students who received degrees May 9 during spring commencement ceremonies on the University of Colorado at Boulder campus.

Dick and Jean Engebretson donated $1 million to the CU-Boulder Leeds School of Business today to support various initiatives. Dick Engebretson earned his MBA in 1972 from the school and today he is the executive vice president of dmg world media, an international exhibition and publishing company. Jean Engebretson graduated with her master's degree in education in 1976. The gift was announced at the MBA graduation ceremony on May 9.

University of Colorado at Boulder English Professor Jeffrey Robinson has won the university's highest teaching and research honor, the Hazel Barnes Prize, for his work in the area of Romantic literature and poetics. Robinson holds degrees from Harvard University, the University of Chicago and Brandeis University. He said his Hazel Barnes Prize, which carries a $20,000 award, is recognition of his 32-year career at CU-Boulder.

Students in the Minority Arts and Sciences Program at the University of Colorado at Boulder have completed a project with the Colorado Historical Society on a new historical roadside marker. The signs will be installed later this month near mile marker 39 on the south side of the road in Boulder Canyon. The exact date is pending.

The conflicting opinions of Western water resource stakeholders are the centerpiece of a unique new summer course at the University of Colorado at Boulder. As part of "Western Issues: Science, Policy and Public Perception," students will meet with competing interests in the fight for control of the West's most precious resource. The students will then attempt to create solutions to water-related conflicts.

University of Colorado at Boulder electrical engineering department senior Jennifer Michels was chosen as Colorado's student employee of the year by the Colorado Commission of Higher Education for her work in the space sciences. Michels is employed by the Colorado Space Grant Consortium, headquartered at CU-Boulder, which includes 15 colleges, universities and institutions. Made up primarily of undergraduate students, the consortium is sponsored by NASA to design, build, test and fly space experiments.

For the second consecutive year, students in the jazz studies program at the University of Colorado at Boulder's College of Music have won three Down Beat Magazine Student Music Awards. CU-Boulder Jazz Ensemble I, a big band under the direction of Professor John Davis, was honored for outstanding performance. Pianist Andy Nevala won for his unique arrangement of the jazz standard "Autumn Leaves," and vibraphonist Greg Harris was cited for outstanding performance on his own original composition, "Switch." Nevala and Harris are students of Assistant Professor Chip Stephens.

The CU-Boulder Friends of the Libraries will present a talk by local mystery writer Stephanie Kane at the 11th annual Just Desserts event on Friday, May 16. The event will begin at 7 p.m. in the Fleming Law Building on the CU-Boulder campus. It is free and open to the public. A dessert reception will precede the program.

People who plan to attend the University of Colorado at Boulder commencement ceremony May 9 at 8:30 a.m. in Folsom Stadium will join a crowd of about 20,000 and should plan an early arrival. The majority of available parking for the ceremony will be in Lot 436 on Regent Drive, just south of Colorado Avenue. Close-in parking and drop-off for those who have difficulty walking will be along Colorado Avenue south of the stadium. People who want to use the drop-off area should do so before the student procession, which begins at 8 a.m.

Two University of Colorado at Boulder faculty members have been elected to the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the only Coloradans to receive the honor this year. Elected to the nation's oldest learned society were Charles DePuy, professor emeritus of chemistry and biochemistry, and Robert F. Nagel, the Ira C. Rothgerber Jr. professor of constitutional law. They are among only 16 CU-Boulder faculty members to have been elected members of the academy.