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The University of Colorado at Boulder has contracted with Earl McLaughlin, president of Boulder Tomorrow, to work as a community relations consultant on a special project designed to study university/community dialogue on issues of mutual concern. McLaughlin will serve as an arm of the Community Advisory Committee on a six-month assignment. He is charged with helping the campus gather information about community concerns, issues and perceptions and assessing the flow of information to citizens about university activities.

CU-Boulder students are invited to participate in an organ and tissue donor registry drive at the University Memorial Center Jan. 28-31. Students will have the opportunity to learn more about organ and tissue donation and test their knowledge in order to win a RIDE snowboard. Donor Alliance Inc., a federally designated organ procurement organization serving Colorado and Wyoming, will sponsor the organ and tissue donor registry drive, which is the first drive held at CU-Boulder.

CU-Boulder's Peer Mentor Program for International Students is a student-based volunteer group of more than 30 that helps new international students become more familiar with the CU-Boulder campus. The idea of a "buddy program" for new students originated in 1995 and led to a grant from the Cooperative Grants Program of the Association of International Educators for the Peer Mentor Program for International Students.

A team of aerospace engineering sciences students at the University of Colorado at Boulder has been selected as one of six finalists in NASA's MarsPort Engineering Design Student Competition to design a deployable greenhouse that could help support astronauts on a long-term mission to Mars. Teams from Cornell University, Olin College of Engineering, St. Louis University, University of Central Florida and University of Florida also were selected as finalists from among 21 proposals.

Although international students attending college in the United States are expected to face greater difficulty securing student visas this year, applications from international students applying to the University of Colorado at Boulder are up 18 percent as of early January.

Editors: Reporters and photographers are invited to attend JC Ancell's retirement party from 2:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. today in the East Glenn Miller Ballroom of the University Memorial Center. A ceremony featuring several speakers will begin at 3:30 p.m. When asked what he plans to do with his retirement after 34 years at CU-Boulder's University Memorial Center, JC Ancell said he's going to ride his Harley from coast to coast -- then do it again.

University of Washington water expert Dennis Lettenmaier will speak on Jan. 25 on the evolution of hydrological models for long-range stream flow forecasting and their potential for assessing climate change on western U. S. water resources. Free and open to the public, the 4 p.m. talk, "Implications of Hydrologic Variability and Change for Western Water Management," will be held in the auditorium of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences. The CIRES auditorium is room 338 in the CIRES building on the University of Colorado at Boulder campus.

Reverend Tommie Lee Watkins, Jr., a gay activist and ordained minister, will be the guest speaker for a Black Awareness Month event at the University of Colorado at Boulder on Feb. 4 at 7 p.m. in the Eaton Humanities Building, room 1B50. Watkins, 26, was a U.S. Naval Academy midshipman who was discharged under the military's "Don't ask, don't tell" policy in 1997. Following the dismissal he defeated a lawsuit filed by the academy to recover his $90,000 scholarship.

University of Colorado at Boulder physics Professor John Taylor, also known as the original "Mr. Wizard," will electrify the audience during the Jan. 26 CU Wizards show "Shocking Facts About Electricity." The free hour-long show will begin at 9:30 a.m. in Duane Physics room G1B30 on the Boulder campus.

Professor Ian Hodder of Stanford University, one of the world's experts on archaeological theory, will speak at the University of Colorado at Boulder Jan. 26 on the archaeology and artwork of a renowned 9,000-year-old site in Turkey. Sponsored by the CU-Boulder anthropology department and funded by a department alumnus, the Seventh Annual Distinguished Archaeology Lecture will be held at 6 p.m. in room 270 of the Hale Science Building. The free public event will be followed by a question-and-answer session with the audience.