Shane Lopez of the KU School of Business, set to take part in a public event at the Lawrence Arts Center this very evening, worked on a Gallup poll that was featured yesterday by the New York Times.

The poll of about 172,000 people had to do with the "well-being" of Americans by occupation, and per the Times and Gallup it was most notable for how highly teachers ranked on the list, trailing physicians on how they rate the quality of their lives. Lopez is a senior scientist for Gallup as well as a professor of the practice in the business school.

When I talked to him this week about his new book on hope and Lawrence events related to it, he told me he uses his psychology background to help Gallup craft questions and scales to measure concepts like hope and well-being. He doesn't have to handle the mathematical heavy-lifting of coming up with representative samples to poll.

This post also gives me an excuse to include a quote from Lopez that is tremendous but did not fit in my story earlier this week.

He was telling me about how he worked with Stan Lombardo, a KU professor of classics, to help put together an iPhone app that aims to help people become more hopeful with a story alluding to Homer's "The Odyssey." Lombardo, who writes and publicly reads translations of ancient Greek works such as Homer's poetry, is literally a Zen master and has a Wikipedia page.

Anyway, here's what Lopez said when describing Lombardo, whom he also called a "renaissance man": "He's a modern-day Hemingway, without the alcohol and depression."

I'm sure that bit of praise will be printed on the back of Lombardo's next translation.

Lopez's "Making Hope Happen in Our City" event is at 7 p.m. today at the Lawrence Arts Center.

Make hope happen for me by sending those KU news tips to merickson@ljworld.com.

Your weekly update on where folks from KU have popped up in the news around the country:

• The Minnesota Star Tribune cited a study by assistant professor of business Felix Meschke, along with two University of Minnesota researchers, that found companies that make big political donations don't really tend to help their bottom lines. That study has been mentioned in the New York Times and Time magazine, too.

• Chip Taylor, director of KU's Monarch Watch Program, talked with the Washington Post's kids' section about monarch butterflies' annual migration to Mexico and back.

• Stanley Lombardo, a professor of classics, took part in a "Homerathon" at Ave Maria University in Florida, per the Naples Daily News. A Homerathon is a 24-hour reading of all 24 books of Homer's "Iliad," and the translation used was Lombardo's.

• Shane Lopez, a professor of the practice in the KU School of Business, talked with the Gallup Business Journal about his research on the importance of hope in business.

• Phillip Hofstra, a professor of design at KU and the most recent winner of the HOPE teaching award from students, got a mention in this Kansas City Star story about Shea Rush, the son of former KC high school basketball star JaRon Rush (and nephew of former KU star Brandon). Shea, 15, is also Hofstra's grandson, and the story says Hofstra's work has inspired his grandson to consider a career in architecture.

If you spot any KU mentions somewhere out there in the vast expanse of the Internet, feel free to shoot me a link at merickson@ljworld.com. And, please, don't forget to send your KU news tips there, too.