[texhax] beamer problem: parentheses in left footer

[Fehd, Ronald J. (CDC/CCHIS/NCHM)]

I suggest that you use either 
the TeX token \relax which means 'do nothing' gracefully
\author{\relax}

or the LaTeX strut: \hspace{0pt} or \hspace{1pt} 
\author{\hspace{0pt}}

Ron Fehd the macro maven

Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2006 08:02:01 -0400
From: Robert M Dorazio <bob_dorazio at usgs.gov>
Subject: [texhax] beamer problem:  parentheses in left footer
I'm using the Boadilla theme with Beamer.  The Boadilla theme creates a
footer with left, center, and right footers:

Left footer:  contains names and institutes of authors Center footer:
contains title of presentation Right footer:  contains date of
presentation

My problem is that if I omit the names and institutes of authors, or
even just substitute blank spaces for these, Beamer places a set of
parentheses in the left footer.  Here is my LaTeX source:

\documentclass[11pt]{beamer}
\usetheme{Boadilla}

\title[title abbrev]{Here's the full title}

\begin{document}

\begin{frame}
\frametitle{title of slide}
\end{frame}

\end{document}


Is there a way to eliminate the parentheses?