Contents for Dec. 5, 1997-Jan. 22, 1998

• A continuous turnover of students in the Providence public school system is one of the most striking findings of a study on the City of Providence from 1987 to 1997, said James W. McNally of Brown's Population Studies and Training Center and director of the project "Counting on Ourselves." Data from the study will be made available to the public for their own research about Providence.

• As part of the RISD Museum's new outreach program to families, Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School (MLK) and Brown have joined forces to create a mosaic. Actually, the big mosaic will include 14 little mosaics, each made through the collaboration of a Brown student in Professor Richard Fishman's freshman art class, and a third-, fourth- or fifth-grader from MLK. Read how the project is progressing toward its February 1998 debut.

• The University's Community Director program, just finishing its first semester, provides a support network in first-year dorms and even offers some students a taste of family life.

• "I like when something challenges me," says Ilona Domanska of Poland, who is attending Brown through the Resumed Undergraduate Education Program. "I like conquering my fears. ... My parents are afraid I'm never going to come back. ... But they're proud of me, that I'm pursuing my goals. It takes a lot of guts to do this."

• Working under an Undergraduate Teaching and Research Assistantship, Dan Margalit has designed a highly interactive web page for Math 35 and Physics 21 that appears to extend learning and strengthen communications.

• Graduate student Janice Okoomian, who is writing a dissertation about the way the body is used to define female identity in conjunction with race or ethnicity in narratives of origin, has carved out part of a chapter for Star Trek. "Science fiction has a tradition of playing with notions of identity - it doesn't have to be limited to physical bodies," she notes.

• "Celebration of Community: Differences in Harmony," a four-day series Jan. 20-23, will take a look at Brown's diversity and celebrate Martin Luther King's vision. The workshops are open to any Brown employee willing to attend all four sessions. Applications are due Dec. 12.

• Use of aspirin by doctors to treat heart attacks is on the rise, but a new study indicates that as late as 1994, physicians delivered the drug late or not at all to many emergency room patients eventually diagnosed as having suffered heart attacks.

• The December issue of NewsBytes, the monthly newsletter from CIS.

• LAST WORD: Education reform is not an "either/or" proposition, writes Bil Johnson, a clinical professor of social studies/history education at Brown.