Briefly Noted

Pitt Hosting Lecture by Sallie Hughes

Sallie Hughes, author of Newsrooms in Conflict: Journalism and the Democratization of Mexico (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2006), will deliver a lecture at Pitt about changes in the Mexican media during that country’s transformation to democracy, at noon today in 4130 Posvar Hall. Hughes received the Goldsmith Research Award from the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy at Harvard University for research used in the preparation of this book.

Hughes is an assistant professor of journalism and photography at the University of Miami. Prior to receiving her Ph.D. in Latin American Studies from Tulane University in 2001, she worked as a reporter; her articles were published in The Miami Herald and The Washington Post, among other publications.

The event is sponsored by Pitt’s Center for Latin American Studies (CLAS) and the University of Pittsburgh Press. For more information, contact CLAS at 412-648-7392 or clas@ucis.pitt.edu.
—Amanda Leff

Pitt Seven-Week Course Will Foster Research Entrepreneurship

The University’s Office of the Provost and Office of Technology Management, in conjunction with the Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business and its Center for Executive Education, are hosting a seven-week course titled “Academic Entrepreneurship: The Business of Commercial Innovation.”

Designed to foster the development of research into commercially viable innovations, the course begins Oct.16. It will be held every Monday through Nov. 20, 6-9 p.m., in 528 Alumni Hall. The program will culminate Dec. 1, with an all-day program, including an innovation-application workshop, graduation ceremony, and reception.

The course will expose research faculty and their graduate assistants to the environment of entrepreneurship and commercial innovation. The course will show how academic entrepreneurship can lead to a better understanding of market challenges and solutions, marketability, collaboration, and—ultimately—successful technology transfer.

The course begins with the root of entrepreneurship—idea conception—and extends through lateral thinking techniques, intellectual property protection and licensing, early-stage market research, strategic people-network development, and marketing and communications packaging. Instructors will encourage application of solid business principles to the attendee’s own innovation ideas.

Participants’ course fees will be paid for by Pitt’s Office of the Provost. To register, contact Dan Bates at 412-624-4474 or dbates@provost.pitt.edu.
—Mary Zangrilli

University Sponsoring America on the Move Walk

Pitt will again host America on the Move in Pittsburgh in an effort to get Pittsburghers up and moving. The second in a series, this free event will take place, rain or shine, at noon Oct. 11, beginning and ending at the Schenley Plaza Tent in Oakland.

The walk is expected to take 20-25 minutes. The first 1,000 participants will receive free America on the Move in Pittsburgh long-sleeved T-shirts.

Pitt Chancellor Mark Nordenberg and UPMC Health Plan President Diane Holder will address participants prior to the walk. It will begin at 12:15 p.m., led by Leslie Sansone, “In-Home Walking” program originator and owner of Studio Fitness in New Castle, and Jennifer Antkowiak, formerly with KDKA-TV and now executive director of promotions, marketing, and multimedia for Sansone.

Pittsburghers can register for America on the Move at www.americaonthemove.org or by calling 1-888-553-8762.
UPMC Health Plan members can receive additional benefits for participating. These individuals should enter the code “UPMC” as the Group Registration Code on the registration pages, and then enter the UPMC Health Plan ID number from their health plan card when prompted.

For more information, contact the director of America on the Move in Pittsburgh, John M. Jakicic, chair of Pitt’s Department of Health and Physical Activity, at 412-488-4182 or jjakicic@pitt.edu.
—Audra Sorman

Oct. 12 Nordenberg Lecture To Focus on “Autonomy And Profoundly Mentally Disabled Persons”

Norman L. Cantor, professor of law emeritus and Nathan Jacobs Distinguished Scholar at Rutgers University School of Law, Newark, will deliver the annual Mark A. Nordenberg Lecture in Law and Psychiatry at noon Oct. 12 in the Barco Law Building’s Teplitz Memorial Courtroom.

Cantor’s free public lecture is titled “Autonomy and Profoundly Mentally Disabled Persons.”

Cantor, who joined Rutgers faculty in 1970 and became professor emeritus in 2005, taught in such diverse areas as constitutional law, labor law, contracts, and bioethics. He has written three books: Making Medical Decisions for the Profoundly Mentally Disabled (The MIT Press, 2005), Advance Directives and the Pursuit of Death with Dignity (Indiana University Press, 1993), and Legal Frontiers of Death and Dying (Indiana University Press, 1987).

The lecture, named after Pitt Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg, former dean of the law school, is approved by the Pennsylvania Continuing Legal Education (CLE) Board for one hour of substantive CLE credit. For more information, contact Matt Moon at 412-648-1320 or mmoon@law.pitt.edu or visit www.law.pitt.edu/academics/cle.php.
—Audra Sorman

Pitt Festival Will Screen Turkmen, Kazakh Films

Pitt’s Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, Center for Russian and East European Studies, and Film Studies Program will present “Cine-stan: Turkmen and Kazakh Films,” a festival of contemporary films from Turkmenistan, all of which are U.S. premiers, Oct. 12-26.

As part of the festival, Martha Brill Olcott, a senior associate with the Russian and Eurasian Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C., will give a talk titled “Central Asia: Strategic Ally or Security Risk?” at 4:30 p.m. Nov. 2 in 4130 Posvar Hall.

“Filmmaking in Turkmenistan has been virtually banned since Saparmurat Niyazov consolidated power after the collapse of the Soviet Union,” said Vladimir Padunov, associate director of Pitt’s Film Studies Program. “All filmmakers fled the country in the years leading up to 1997, the year the last feature film was made at Turkmen Film Studios and also the year that Niyazov built a new highway where the film studio once stood.”

The films featured in the festival range from Khodjakuli Narliev’s Daughter-in-Law (1971), in which a woman waits in the Turkmen desert dreaming of her missing husband, a pilot in the Soviet Air Force during WWII, to Murad Aliev’s Aura, a polemic dramatization of the narcotics business in Central Asia.

All films will be shown at 8 p.m. in Bellefield Hall’s screening room. Admission is free.

Screening dates, the films, and their directors follow:
Oct. 12—Daughter-in-Law (1971), directed by Khodjakuli Narliev;
Oct. 13—Mankurt (1990), directed by Khodjakuli Narliev;
Oct. 19—The Education of a Man (1982), directed by Usman Saparov and Iazgeldy Seidov;
Oct. 20—The Son (1989), directed by Khalmamed Kakabaev; and
Oct. 26—Short films: Aura (1987), directed by Murad Aliev (which was shelved and later destroyed in Turkmenistan); Summer Heat (1988), directed by Darezhan Omirbaev; and Toro (1986), directed by Talgat Temenov.

For more information, visit: www.pitt.edu/~filmst/events/TurkmenFilmSeries/index.htm.
—Mary Zangrilli

Tomorrow Is Deadline for Registering to Vote Nov. 7

Tomorrow at 5 p.m. is the deadline for new voters to register to vote in the Nov. 7 general election.

Individuals who have never registered before, who have changed names or addresses since registering, or who wish to change political party affiliation must submit voter registration forms to the Allegheny County Board of Elections at 604 County Office Building, 542 Forbes Ave., Pittsburgh 15219; 412-350-4510.

Forms for voter registration are available at Pitt’s Office of Community and Governmental Relations (710 Alumni Hall) as well as at state driver’s license centers, state liquor stores, libraries, municipal buildings, post offices, some banks, and the Board of Elections. Forms may be obtained online at www.dos.state.pa.us.

Applications for absentee ballots for the Nov. 7 general election must be received by the county Board of Elections by Nov. 3 at 5 p.m.