Editorials

Public can view project environmental review 

A Draft Environmental Impact Report for the Northeast Quadrant Science and Safety Projects is now available for public review. A public hearing on the report will be held July 9 at 105 North Gate Hall at 7 p.m. 

Outdated and seismically unsafe Stanley Hall and Davis Hall North are slated to be replaced with new buildings to house interdisciplinary research facilities, according to a UC Berkeley Office of Physical and Environmental Planning press release.  

The projects will also include construction of a new low-rise structure north of Soda Hall, seismic reinforcement of the Naval Architecture Building, and removal of recreational facilities at the top of the Lower Hearst Parking Structure to make way for more parking. 

The DEIR finds significant “unavoidable” impacts – construction noise and loss of recreation facilities – that will result from the approximately 325,000 square feet of developed space that NEQSS projects will create.  

The Draft EIR is available at the UC Berkeley Physical and Environmental Planning Office in Room 300, 1936 University Avenue, or at the Berkeley Public Library downtown branch at 2121 Allston Way.  

James Joyce Conference and Festival begins July 2 

The weeklong 2001 James Joyce Conference and Festival will officially begin at 9 a.m. on July 2.  

This year’s event is sponsored by the UC Berkeley English Department and the Irish Arts Foundation, and takes place primarily at UC Berkeley’s Clark Kerr campus. James Joyce conferences have occurred around the world annually since 1962, making them the longest running academic conferences devoted to a single author.  

Joyce’s works (Ulysses, Finnegans Wake, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Dubliners) have an international following of readers who claim his writing is life-transforming, according to a UC Berkeley Department of English press release. The conference theme this year is “Extreme Joyce/Reading on the Edge” and will explore Joyce’s revolutionary literary style and the ways in which it challenges readers. 

The conference and festival provide an opportunity for those who are not familiar with Joyce, or have found his works too difficult or intimidating, to learn more about the author.  

Drop-in panels will take place all day July 2, 3, 5 and 6, with topics ranging from “Ulysses in Overview” to “Geopolitical Joyce: Some Joycean Border-Crossings.” The conference is $25 per day for the general public and $15 per day for students and will take place at 2601 Warring Street. 

The festival portion of the week will begin at 8 p.m. on July 2 with Leopold’s Fancy giving a free performance of Irish music at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave.  

On July 3 at 7:30 p.m. dramatic interpretations of Joyce’s work will be performed at the Krutch Theater on the Clark Kerr Campus, also free and open to the public. 

For more information about the conference, call the Irish Arts Foundation at 642-2754. 

Berkeley resident  

earns high school award 

Adam Stern of Berkeley has received an Excellence Award for academic achievement during his junior year at Hyde School in Bath, Maine. Hyde is a character-based school which emphasizes attitude and effort more highly than aptitude and talent, according to a Hyde School press release. The growing school now includes a campus in Woodstock, Connecticut and the Hyde Leadership Public Charter School in Washington, D.C.