“That one is very disorienting,” says Kyu-ho Ahn, handing a visitor eyewear designed to simulate what it’s like to have macular degeneration. The low-vision goggles only allow vision at the outer edges of the eyes, forcing the wearer to turn their body sideways to view reading material, a store aisle, a bus doorway, or a large room, making daily navigation anything but simple.

“Landscape Thinking,” a special symposium honoring University of Oregon landscape architecture Professor Emeritus Kenneth Helphand on his retirement from forty years of teaching, will be held Saturday, May 25, from 8:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. at the UO Ford Alumni Center, 1720 E. 13th Avenue, Eugene. The event will help fund an endowment for a lecture series named in honor of Helphand. The deadline to reserve tickets is May 15.

University of Oregon Professor Robert Ribe recently coauthored an article in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The article focuses on how cultural and aesthetic experiences factor in when applying ecosystem services to policy- and decision-analysis. The global Millennium Ecosystem Assessment advocated this method of decision-making, which has been adopted by the European Union, Australia, the U.S.

Sculptor and educator Mark Sponenburgh died December 6, 2012, at his home on the Oregon Coast. He was 94. He taught at the University of Oregon School of Architecture and Allied Arts from 1946 to 1957. Sponenburgh was devoted to the study and practice of the arts with special focus on sculpture and art history. He established an endowment fund in 1997 at the UO Foundation to support a lectureship on the history and aesthetics of sculpture and for a graduate student research award.

Terry R. Myers will deliver the Fowler Lecture at 6 p.m. January 17 on the University of Oregon campus, 177 Lawrence Hall, 1190 Franklin Boulevard, Eugene. Myers’ lecture, “Painting’s Unfinished Business,” is made possible by the George and Matilda Fowler Endowment Fund.