Your daily dose of news, notes and links from around Kansas University.

• KU’s Monarch Watch program has developed what I think is a rather interesting way to make money.

I know the popular monarch butterfly education, tagging and advocacy program at KU is often strapped for cash. One of the program’s more inventive ways to raise money is by setting up a couple of links on part of the program’s website.

The links take visitors to the bookseller amazon.com and endless.com, which is Amazon’s shoe and handbag-selling online counterpart. Monarch Watch gets to keep a small referral fee for each item purchased on the site after a shopper clicks through from the program’s website.

The effort has been in place since February 2009, and hasn’t attracted a wide following yet, but it’s picking up steam. In that time, the project has only generated $2,935.51 for the program, but last month alone raised $444.12 for the program.

Granted, it’s obviously a big holiday shopping month, but it was up significantly over the $250 raised in 2009.

Monarch Watch tracks the earnings on its blog each month. And they appear to be looking up overall.

• The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching has designated KU as a Community Engagement Classified institution.

It is one of 115 schools to earn the honor in 2010, along with Kansas State University.

The designation recognizes universities for programs that reach out to public communities — both local and beyond. Classification requires a detailed application that lists projects and centers that support the university’s surrounding communities.

In order to be selected, institutions had to “provide descriptions and examples of institutionalized practices of community engagement that showed alignment among mission, culture, leadership, resources and practices,” according to the Carnegie Foundation.

KU joins the 196 other institutions that had already earned classification in the voluntary process in 2006 and 2008.

• The (Bloomington, Ill.) Pantagraph newspaper wrote a very nice send-off for its local university’s departing athletic director.

Praising Sheahon Zenger’s fundraising, athletics success and focus on academics and service, it sounded like they weren’t too happy to see him go.

Here’s the rest of the story.

• OK, so I didn’t hear from Nicole yesterday. That’s fine. It’s winter break. She’s probably relaxing on a beach somewhere, far, far away from wireless Internet. Someone suggested I keep pointing out people at random until someone hits me back with a Heard on the Hill tip. I think that would just be silly. But if Rob Hileman, “administrative associate sr.” at the Life Span Institute, or anyone else for that matter wants to e-mail me at ahyland@ljworld.com, I wouldn’t mind at all.