University Planning Committee will meet today There will be a University Planning Committee meeting at 11 a.m. on Monday, May 18, in the Library Board Room, 8th Floor. Faculty promotions, tenure for 2009-10 announced On Friday, May 15, the ASU Board of Trustees approved the recommendations of the following faculty members for tenure and/or promotion for the 2009-2010 academic year. Those tenured and promoted will be designated with an asterisk, and their promotional rank listed. For a complete list, see the NewsPage release. Academic reassignments of duty approved Jeff Bailey, assistant library director, has been named interim dean of the Dean B. Ellis Library. Dr. Greg Meeks, formerly assistant chair, Teacher Education, has been named interim coordinator for the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE). Dr. Finnicum, Mathis present poster at national convention Dr. Paul Finnicum and Mitch Mathis, both Health, Physical Education, and Sport Sciences,  provided a poster presentation at the recently concluded 2009 American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance National Convention and Exposition in Tampa, Fla. Their poster, titled, "'Freesources' for Courses: The Best Things in Life are Free," described open source software that is free to use. As more and more instructors provide online support for in-class courses or provide totally online courses, these "freesources" are valuable productivity tools that allow instructors to prepare and provide materials for class use. The poster was co-authored by Tom Finnicum, Oklahoma State University; John Green, Texas A and M University; David Williams, University of Arkansas; and Jeff Zeiger, Alternative Fuels Institute. The benefits of using open source software include better quality, higher reliability, more flexibility, and an end to vendor lock-in which makes a customer dependent on a vendor for products and services and unable to use another vendor without substantial switching costs. The applications range from Open Office which provide teachers with software similar to Microsoft Office; Paint.net, a substitute for Adobe Photoshop; Windows Media Encoder 9, providing great screen capture functionality at no cost; comparable to Tegrity; and TinyPDF, a great utility for creating Adobe pdfs. In addition, other software programs that aid in the production and provision of course materials include: sound recording software (Audacity) and podcasting software (Juice).   Vaneta Harvey is bake-off Grand Champion Congratulations to Vaneta Harvey, Disability Services, who was named Grand Champion of the Student Affairs bake-off competition held last week in conjunction with the Student Affairs Staff Picnic. Harvey took the top prize for her entry – Chocolate Cheesecake with Chocolate-Covered Strawberries. As first-place winners in the individual categories, Harvey (center), Lori Gould, and Dr. Lonnie Williams each were awarded a $20 gift card from Target. Harvey also took possession of the Grand Champion trophy to display until next year’s picnic when she will present it to the winner of  next year's bake-off. Back to the top