Campus design

Mina Amundsen, university planner for Cornell since 2002, will lecture on "Creating a Unified Campus Environment," Sept. 2 at 12:20 p.m. in Kaufmann Auditorium, Goldwin Smith Hall.

Amundsen oversees physical and master planning for Cornell's Ithaca campus, and planning associated with specific areas and projects, landscape, transportation and utilities issues. She represents the university on community planning matters and is actively engaged in campus-community initiatives on regional development and land conservation.

Global Lens

Cornell Cinema is giving foreign film lovers a sampling of new world cinema, with three Ithaca premieres from the Global Lens 2011 film series.

From Uruguay, "A Useful Life," about the final days of Montevideo's Cinemateca Uruguaya and the man who kept it running for the past 25 years, screens Sept. 3.

On Sept. 8 and 10, "The Light Thief," Kyrgyzstan's official entry to the 2010 Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film, follows the acts of a kind electrician (played by writer-director Aktan Arym Kubat) while showing the monopolization of resources and dying traditions in the developing post-Soviet world.

Editor Jafar Panahi ("This is Not a Film") and director Mohammad Rasoulof ("Goodbye") were both sentenced to six years in prison in December 2010 by the Iranian government, which did not prevent them from smuggling their latest films into France to show them at the Cannes Film Festival. Their emotional allegorical tale from 2009, "The White Meadows," screens at Cornell Sept. 15, 17 and 19, and is co-sponsored with the Iranian Student Organization.

The series is co-presented with the Global Film Initiative, begun in 2003 as a progressive forum for the art of cinema, bringing otherwise buried film perspectives to a wider audience. Its archive of 75 films from 30 nations continues to grow, with nine new films added this year, including the three screening at Cornell. Information: http://www.globafilm.org.

Devonian dance

Celebrate the last days of the Museum of the Earth's summer exhibition with a party, "Dancing through the Devonian," Sept. 2, 7:30- 9:30 p.m. at the museum, 1259 Trumansburg Road (Route 96), Ithaca. The exhibition "Cruisin' the Fossil Freeway," on display at the museum through Sept. 5, is based on the book by artist Ray Troll and paleontologist Kirk Johnson, recounting a 5,000-mile fossil-hunting road trip through the American West in 2007.

The dance party will feature music with DJ Emma from Hits 103.3 FM, and food and a cash bar provided by Joe's Restaurant. Tickets are $10 general, $7 for members, and include one free drink. Information: http://www.museumofthearth.org/danceparty.

Campus Club

The Cornell Campus Club invites women in the Cornell community to a Fall Coffee, Sept. 8, 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m., at the Clarion University Hotel, 1 Sheraton Drive. Women employees, graduate students, alumnae, retirees, visiting scholars or wives/partners/family members can become members for 2011-12 and sign up for any of 23 social and educational activity groups.

Activities include hiking and cross-country skiing, book discussion, birding, gourmet cooking and dining, gardening, quilting and bridge. The club holds three social events and six programs each year. Information: http://www.campusclub.cornell.edu.

Free jazz

Canadian jazz pianist and composer John Stetch will present an evening of free improvisation, Sept. 9 at 8 p.m. in Barnes Hall, in two approximately 30-minute sets. The first set, "Seeds of Improvisation," will be short pieces based on brief pre-written suggestions (such as "D Major," "pointillist," "minor and dark," "East European," etc.). After a short intermission, he'll present "Spontaneous Improvisation." The concert is free and open to the public.

Stetch teaches at Cornell and Ithaca College. He has appeared across Canada, the United States, Japan, Europe, the Ukraine, Brazil and Israel and has performed and recorded with many jazz greats including Rufus Reid, Charlie Haden and Branford Marsalis. He has 11 albums under his own name, five Canadian Juno Award nominations and won the Montreal International Jazz Festival Prix du Jazz. One reviewer hailed Stetch as "one of the most brilliant and underrated jazz pianists working today. In a perfect world he would be more famous than Wynton Marsalis."

He is frequently heard on the CBC and on such NPR programs as Marian McPartland's "Piano Jazz" and "Weekend Edition." In addition to recent commissions for the CBC Radio Orchestra and Borealis String Quartet, he is collaborating with classical and world musicians. His new album of 12 original trio compositions, "Fabled States," was released in August.

Play guitar

Group folk guitar lessons return to Willard Straight Hall Sept. 12, with instructor Phil Shapiro. With eight one-hour lessons on Monday evenings in the WSH International Lounge, anyone can learn to play or gain tips and new techniques to improve their playing. Lessons are open to the public.

A class for beginners meets at 7 p.m., and the intermediate class is at 8 p.m., for those with some experience. The course is sponsored by the Student Union Board and costs $60, payable at the first lesson. Information: Phil Shapiro, 607-844,4535, pds10@cornell.edu or http://www.shapiroandshore.com/guitarclass.html.