Reporter Volume 25, No.28 Commencement Extra

Four UB students will receive special awards during the university's
148th commencement ceremony to be held May 15 in Alumni Arena. 
	Three students will receive Dean's Academic Achievement Awards
recognizing outstanding undergraduate students: Mark E. Burkard,
Dean's Academic Achievement Award from the Faculty of Natural Sciences
and Mathematics; William D. Scott, Dean's Academic Achievement Award
from the Faculty of Arts and Letters; and Thomas E. Sharp, Dean's
Academic Achievement Award from the Faculty of Social Sciencesd . 
	Richard L. Weber will receive the Senior Leadership Award.
	Mark E. Burkard, a senior at UB who studies decompression
sickness in the UB Department of Physiology, will receive his award
from Joseph J. Tufariello, dean of the Faculty of Natural Sciences and
Mathematics
	Burkard, who has a 3.93 grade-point average at UB, will
receive a bachelor of science degree in mathematical physics with a
minor in biology. He will enroll in the fall in the M.D./Ph.D. program
at the University at Rochester.
	He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, the Golden Key National
Honor Society and the Phi Eta Sigma Freshman Honor Society, and a
recipient of the Merck Index Award for Excellence in Organic Chemistry
and the Grace Capen Award for Academic Excellence.
	As senior research assistant to Hugh D. Van Liew, UB professor
of physiology, Burkard models decompression sickness and intravascular
bubbles, and performs statistical analyses of theories of
decompression. He has co-authored five scientific papers with Van
Liew, most recently "Simulation of exchanges of multiple gases in
bubbles in the body" in Respiratory Physiology. 
	William Scott, who will receive his award from Kerry S. Grant,
dean of the Faculty of Arts and Letters, is a double major in English
and philosophy. He has maintained grade-point averages of 3.9 in both
of his majors while taking graduate classes. He has been accepted into
the graduate program of comparative literature at Cornell University,
where he will receive a $12,000 teaching fellowship. Fred See,
associate dean of the Faculty of Arts and Letters, describes Scott's
work as "elegant and profound. He (Scott) has taken an uncommonly
difficult set of courses and done dazzling work in them," See says.
	Thomas Sharp, who will receive his award from Ross D.
MacKinnon, dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, is a member of Phi
Beta Kappa who has a major in philosophy and a minor in political
science. He has an overall grade-point average of 3.966. He will
attend law school at Yale University.
	Sharp entered UB as a Presidential Honors Scholar in 1990. The
UB Department of Philosophy awarded him the Mary C. Whitman
Scholarship for the 1993-94 academic year for being the outstanding
senior philosophy major. In 1993, he was awarded the Elks National
Foundation "Most Valuable Student" Award and received a Grace Capen
Memorial Award for academic excellence.
	Sharp, who has served for two years as vice president of the
UB Undergraduate Philosophy Club, also has served as a student member
of the curriculum committee and the general assembly of the UB
Undergraduate College. He also has been active in activities of the
Presidential Honors Program. From January to May 1993, Sharp worked as
a research intern for the Washington bureau of The Buffalo News. Last
summer, he served as a law clerk in an attorney's office.
	Richard L. Weber, who will receive his award from Robert L.
Palmer, vice president for student affairs, is a member of the English
honors program and the Golden Key National Honor Society. He has a
joint major in English and psychology and an overall grade-point
average is 3.5.
	Weber supervised 150 employees and a $3 million budget during
his term as vice president of Sub-Board I, a UB student-owned, service
organization. He gained practical legal experience by serving as
associate justice of the Student-Wide Judiciary, UB's student
disciplinary review board. During his junior year, Weber was the
president of the Undergraduate Psychology Association.
	Weber spent his first three summer vacations from college in
the Fort Ontario Guard, an interpretive unit that recreates the
drills, ceremonies and daily activities of soldiers on a military post
in the summer of 1868.