Due to a lapse in appropriated funding and the government’s failure to put a continuing resolution into place for fiscal year 2014, the federal government began a partial shutdown, at 12 a.m. Tuesday, Oct.1, 2013.Absent specific direction from sponsors, UNH is following the guidance sponsors already provided in their published contingency plans as well as the Office of Management and Budget Memorandum for the heads of executive departments and agencies on planning for agency operations during a potential lapse in appropriations.    

The rest of this document outlines our current expectations for continuing sponsored research work at UNH. 

How will the lack of appropriations impact my...

New England’s food vision is the subject of the next Science Café in Portsmouth, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2013, at the Portsmouth Brewery. UNH chief sustainability officer Tom Kelly and nutrition professor Joanne Burke, both involved in creating a sustainable food system for the region, are the speakers. 

The Science Café, hosted by UNH faculty member Cameron Wake, provides a unique opportunity for Seacoast residents to feed their minds with contemporary science in the relaxed atmosphere of a pub. The discussions, which are free and open to all, are in the Portsmouth Brewery’s Jimmy LaPanza Lounge from 6 to 8 pm. Doors open at 5 p.m. for food and drinks.  

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Story contributed by Carmen Garcia de la Rasilla, associate professor of Spanish

Who said that imaginary places exist only on the pages of books? Don Quixote demonstrates that on any road one may find giants disguised as windmills, fantastic medieval castles or strange caves where our past, although buried, is still alive. Travel and imagination, if they're different things, are the two key ingredients to live out the fantastic and the wonderful and even the impossible.

With this quixotic formula in mind, a group of UNH students and I set out to travel in Spain last spring. We visited some of that land's most important cultural enclaves spanning from prehistory to the present, engaged in direct contact with masterpieces of art and literature, and attended a number of wonderful concerts and performances.

An extensive analysis of New Hampshire child support guidelines by UNH has resulted in a substantial change in how child support is calculated in the Granite State. 

The UNH researchers recommended that the state adopt the income shares model for calculating child support. The idea behind the income shares model is that a child should receive the same amount of financial support had the family remained intact. Under the new formula, the incomes of each parent are combined to determine the total amount that would have been spent on the child, and each parent’s contribution toward child support is allotted based on that joint income figure. 

Previously, one parent was assessed a percentage of his or her income to provide to the other parent, regardless of the other parent’s income, even if the parent receiving the child support actually made more than the parent providing the support. 

The new child support guidelines went into effect July 1, 2013....

Health Services has been awarded national accreditation for the fifth consecutive time by the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care (AAAHC). Status as an accredited organization means UNH Health Services has met nationally recognized standards for the provision of accreditation providing the highest quality of care to its patients/clients as determined by an independent, external process of evaluation. Not all ambulatory health care organizations seek accreditation; not all that undergo the rigorous on-site survey process are granted accreditation. The accreditation runs for three years. 

“The process of meeting the accreditation standards is a team effort that helps make all of us at Health Services accountable to our students, staff, and faculty,” said Kevin Charles, assistant vice president for student and academic services and executive director of Health Services. “Accreditation provides an important set of objective standards for a health program to...

The UNH Lodging Executives Sentiment Index (LESI) surged to 78.1 in August 2013 from 65.8 in July 2013, fueled by strong business conditions and a more positive employment outlook.

“These results represent lodging executives’ strong and positive sentiments of the present general business conditions for their properties, which increased 8.7 on the sentiment scale, combined with a strong sentiment about general business conditions 12 months in the future, which increased by 16.0,” said Nelson Barber, associate professor of hospitality management, who manages the index. 

“This robust increase in sentiment was also evident at a recent lodging conference where attendees all stated a near unanimous sense of confidence in the current and future state of the hotel industry,” Barber said. 

Forty-four percent of lodging executives indicated current business conditions were good, an increase from 26 percent last period, while 56 percent indicated conditions were...