The College of Consumer and Family Sciences is now accepting nominations for its annual Inspiring Families and Building Communities Award. This is an honor we established five years ago to recognize a program or collaboration that has improved the well-being of Indiana families.

A shining example is last year’s award winner, the Fathers and Families Resource/Research Center in Indianapolis. The program, which serves more than 300 low-income fathers under the age of 27, helps with parenting classes, job assistance, and education. In 2004, the organization helped successful applicants pass their general educational development tests, enroll in post-secondary or vocational programs, receive health insurance, and find jobs.

We know there are many organizations in our state worthy of this award, and we’d like your help in identifying them. If you know of a program or collaborative effort in your community that is making a positive difference for Indiana families, please let us know by nominating them for the Inspiring Families and Building Communities Award. Nominations will be accepted until March 24, 2006.

We sincerely believe that healthy communities support healthy families, and we hope you will join us in recognizing the organizations that are doing this outstanding work.

Hail Purdue!
Dennis Savaiano
Dean

For award and nomination information, visit the Inspiring Families and Building Communities Web page.

CFS alumni will have the unique opportunity to get a behind-the-scenes look at the Final Four, being hosted by Indianapolis April 1–3. Todd Greenwood, BS ’88, with the Indianapolis Convention & Visitors Association will host the next Boiler Mixer on March 21. Visit the Boiler Mixer Web page.

More than 500,000 Hoosier adults can't get a checking account because of previous financial mismanagement. However, a new CFS Extension program, Get Checking, is providing adults with the money-management skills needed to open a checking account at a participating financial institution. Visit the Get Checking Web site.

In a twist on the popular home-design shows, Boiler Television and University Residences have teamed up to produce UR Home, a Purdue version of shows like Trading Spaces. Just like its Hollywood counterpart, UR Home features two pairs of roommates and two designers. Julie Fiocco and Jo Dean Tipton (at right), both students in consumer sciences and retailing, were designers on the show, which begins airing at the end of February. Read full story and see a schedule of the show’s airtimes.

John Antun, assistant professor in the Department of Retail, Hospitality, and Tourism Management at the University of Tennessee, will speak at the eighth annual Purdue Black Tie Dinner to be held Saturday, April 1 at Purdue. Well known in the hospitality industry, Antun has owned and operated eight restaurants in New York City. The Black Tie Dinner is a student-run event that raises funds for professional learning opportunities for hospitality and tourism management students in the HTM Society. Visit the Black Tie Dinner Web site.

Students in the Purdue Tourism Association and Club Managers Association of America are creating a cookbook to help raise funds for HTM student organizations and they need your help. They are currently accepting recipes for inclusion in the cookbook through Friday, March 31. If you have a favorite, non-copyrighted recipe that you’d like to share, please send it to Erin Morris at eemorris@purdue.edu or Barrett Miller at bpmiller@purdue.edu.

Shelley MacDermid, professor, Department of Child Development and Family Studies, was named a National Council on Family Relations Fellow for 2005. She was nominated by her peers and selected for her history of outstanding contributions to the field of family studies. She is director of the Center for Families and co-director of Purdue’s Military Family Research Institute.

Juline Mills, assistant professor, Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management, received a Best Paper Award at the Annual International Federation of Information and Communications Technologies in Tourism conference, held in Lausanne, Switzerland, in January. Mills co-authored the paper, “The Mutual Designing of Travel Websites: Perceptions of the Visually Impaired,” with Jee-Hee Han, a doctoral student at Purdue studying communication with a concentration in tourism management.

Dennis Savaiano, dean, College of Consumer and Family Sciences, was elected president-elect of the Board on Human Sciences of the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges. The board’s mission is to strengthen human sciences, research, outreach, and teaching in institutions of higher education. The board is comprised of administrators representing scientists and educators at 67 state and land-grant universities from across the United States. Read full story.

A team of hospitality and tourism management students and faculty earned a Best Paper Award at the International Conference on Destination Branding and Marketing for Regional Tourism Development in the Macao Special Administrative Region of China in December. The team members are Liang Tang, master’s student and lead author; Soojin Choi, doctoral student; Alastair Morrison, distinguished professor; and Xinran Lehto, assistant professor. The paper is entitled “A Correspondence Analysis of Web-based Tourism Information about Macao in English and Chinese: Implications for the Destination Marketing and Branding of Macao.”

March 21: Central Indiana Boiler Mixer
April 1: Spring Fashion Show
April 1: HTM Black Tie Dinner
April 7: Felker Series
April 7: CFS Awards Dinner
April 8–9: Spring Fest
April 8–10: Gala Weekend
April 21: Kirksey Lecture Series
May 13: CFS Spring Commencement

If you have a comment or question about a story, or if you would like to unsubscribe from CFS e-News, please contact us at cfsalums@purdue.edu. Thanks for reading!