UNH Manchester will host a traditional Chinese Moon Festival on Thursday, Sept. 27 from 6-7:30 p.m. in the college’s third floor auditorium. The event will include an ensemble of traditional Chinese celebration, including making Chinese lanterns and lantern riddles, a gourd pipe show, a chorus of Chinese love songs, a sample of Beijing Opera and some traditional games.

The Moon Festival (simplified Chinese: 中秋节; traditional Chinese: 中秋節), is also known as the Mid-Autumn Festival Moon Festival, Moon Cake Festival, and Zhongqiu Festival.

The celebration honors the goddess, Chang’e, who stole the elixir of immortality and fled to the moon. She is known as the Moon Goddess of Immortality.

Today, the popular lunar harvest festival is celebrated...

At the 15^th annual harvest festival at the Child Study and Development Center (CSDC) last Thursday (Sept. 20), UNH’s youngest students of agriculture celebrated fall with parents, teachers, and friends. Between mule-drawn wagon rides, scavenger hunts, homemade snacks, and face-painting, the junior farmers picked from the community learning garden, eagerly sharing the fruits (and vegetables) of their labors.  

The community learning garden is part of the CSDC’s Growing a Green Generation Project supported by a grant from the HNH Foundation and previously by the Anna and Raymond Tuttle Environmental Horticulture Endowment through COLSA. The collaboration with horticulturalists and students includes a gardening curriculum and community outreach activities.

 ...

By Sonia Scherr and Lynnette Hentges 

Imagine that certain individuals could receive big tax breaks based solely on a characteristic that has nothing to do with their earnings or expenses. What’s more, individuals with this characteristic would, overall, have a lower cost of living than the general population. And the number of people with this characteristic would be growing quickly, so their preferential treatment at tax time would lead to billions in lost revenue nationwide.  

Actually, this scenario isn’t hypothetical. Older Americans receive income tax preferences – often significant ones – from every state and from the federal government. UNH professor of economics Karen Conway has been studying these tax breaks for the elderly. She wants to know how and why they arose, who benefits the most, how much they cost, their effect on the labor force, and whether they function as politicians claim they do....

Through a series of facilitated meetings, the mail services team created proposals to develop efficiencies and cost savings strategies that reflect the general trends in the mailing industry. The volume of paper mail has steadily and significantly decreased in the electronic age.   

The proposal to discontinue delivery service to outlying entities has been implemented (with the buy-in of the customer) and is projected to save $8,000 this year. Other staffing and process related strategies have also been implemented. 

The major initiative remaining is the proposal to reduce campus mail deliveries to 76 campus buildings to three days a week: Monday, Wednesday and Friday. We reached out to the campus community to solicit feedback and received 38 responses, many of them positive and supportive. The 18 individuals with concerns were contacted personally, and most of them were resolved quickly. The others are in the process of being resolved.  ...

By Alan Schulte

Driving along the New England Seacoast in mid-summer, there is likely no more iconic symbol you will find on your journey through the salty seaports than the North American Lobster. Greenish-red, snappy-clawed, and googly-eyed, the highly caricatured lobster, or Homarus americanus, is considered a staple at seaside restaurants and summertime gatherings. However, Win Watson, professor of zoology in the Department of Biological Sciences, has revealed a deeper dimension to this tasty crustacean.

Through years of study and close interaction with...

A new project from the UNH Institute on Disability (IOD) will address health disparities for individuals with disabilities in New Hampshire. The project, entitled “New Hampshire Disability and Public Health,” is funded by a three-year, $900,000 grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

Data collected by the 2010 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System and the American Community Survey indicate that New Hampshire residents with disabilities experience greater health risks (such as higher rates of smoking, physical inactivity, and obesity), lower rates of health screenings (such as mammography), and more common self-reports of poor health than the general population. Health disparities like these compromise the quality of life for people with disabilities and result in a significant proportion of the state’s total health care expenditures.

In collaboration with the New Hampshire Division of Public Health Services, the NH Disability and Public...

From the Scottish Highlands to streets of New York City, the Department of Theatre & Dance plans an ambitious and memorable 2012-2013 season. 

Most notably is the spotlight shown on up and coming undergraduate playwrights. Sponsored and conceived of by alum, Mike O’Malley ’88, The John C. Edwards Undergraduate Prize Plays pays homage to O’Malley’s mentor, Professor Emeritus John C. Edwards, and provides UNH undergraduate students the opportunity to create their own works for the main stage. The winning plays, selected by a committee including both O’Malley and Edwards, will be featured in the final slot of the season, April 17-21, 2013.  

As a continuation of the programs started last year by Cultural Stages: The Woodward Drama and Dance Initiative, the department will bring back master percussionist and dancer Theo Martey of Ghana to teach a master class in African dance during the fall semester. Martey will create an original work, performed by the...