February 23, 1995: Vol26n28: FACULTY & STAFF BILLBOARD Prof donates Rolls Royce to Greater Buffalo Opera Company Umberto Albanese, clinical assistant professor of ophthalmology, has donated a 1978 Silver Shadow Rolls Royce valued at $27,000 to the Greater Buffalo Opera Company. The elegant automobile, which has been used to chauffeur famous opera personalities around town, will be used to raise funds for the opera company, with the car to be raffled off and the winner to be selected at the 1996 Opera Ball. Albanese is co-founder and president of the Greater Buffalo Opera Guild, the company's principal source of private funds. Last June, he was honored by Opera Guilds International for his contributions to the rising popularity of opera in the community. Byrd is director of Health Sciences Library Gary D. Byrd, newly-named director of the Health Sciences Library, began work at UB Jan. 12. Byrd comes to UB from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he had been assistant director for finance, planning and research at the Health Sciences Library, a part-time position he held while pursuing his doctorate in Information and Library Science. Byrd was associate director at UNC-Chapel Hill from 1983-89 with an intervening stint as acting director in 1986. He served as project coordinator for the Council on Library Resources Collaborative Information Resources Development Project for libraries in the Research Triangle: North Carolina State, Duke, and UNC-Chapel Hill. He was chief librarian at the University of Missouri at Kansas City Health Sciences Library from 1976-83. Byrd holds a bachelor's degree in English from Rutgers, a master's in English from the University of Virginia, the M.A.L.S. from the University of Minnesota and is completing his writing for the Ph.D. in Information and Library Science from UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a Distinguished Member of the Academy of Health Information Professionals. Dauber to head English Department Kenneth M. Dauber, professor of American literature at UB, has been named chair of the UB English Department for a three-year term. He was appointed based upon the recommendation of the faculty of the English Department, which, at 51 members, is the largest department in the UB Faculty of Arts and Letters. Dauber, who joined the UB faculty in 1970, has primarily taught early- and mid-19th-century American literature on the graduate and undergraduate levels. Since 1992 he has served as director of graduate studies in the Department of English and serves as a member of several department committees. A member of the UB Faculty Senate, he serves on the Faculty of Arts and Letters' Undergraduate Curriculum Committee and Graduate Divisional Committee. He is the author of "The Idea of Authorship in America: Democratic Poetics from Franklin to Melville" (University of Wisconsin Press, 1990) and "Rediscovering Hawthorne" (Princeton University Press, 1977). Dauber is preparing a series of linked essays relating the relationship between democratic and sacred poetics to literary authority. Dauber is a member of a number of professional organizations including the Modern Language Association, the Northeast Modern Language Association, the American Literature Association, the American Studies Association and the International Association of American Studies. He coordinated the 1991-92 Northeast Modern Language Association Conference, held in Buffalo. A 1967 graduate of Columbia College, he holds master's and doctoral degrees in English from Princeton University. A member of Phi Beta Kappa, he taught briefly at Yale University. SUNY announces 1995 Scharps Competition "Computers, Privacy and Free Speech" is the subject of the 1995 Benjamin and David Scharps Competition, which awards a cash prize of $1,000 and a commemorative plaque to the SUNY junior who writes the best legal essay of up to 3,000 words on the topic. The Scharps Competition has continued to challenge State University students with important issues of our time. The Scharps Prize is made possible by a bequest from the will of Hannah S. Hirschhorn and is open to all SUNY juniors at any SUNY campus who are considering law school as part of their future plans. The submission deadline for the competition is April 10, 1995. Interested members of the junior class should contact Shelley Frederick, Assistant to the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education at UB. Call 645-2991 for more details. The winner will be announced in May of 1995. Researching family tree is alumni luncheon topic Researching the "family tree" will be the topic of a UB Alumni Association luncheon lecture, to be held at noon on Tues- day, March 14, in the Center for Tomorrow. Genealogist Betty Keehn, who teaches a credit-free course on genealogy at UB, will instruct participants in how to start looking for their "roots." The cost of the luncheon and lecture is $10. Registration deadline is March 10. For additional information, call the Office of Alumni Relations at 829-2608. Receives grant to study monkeys in Puerto Rico Barbara DeVinney, a doctoral student in the Department of Anthropology at UB, has received a research grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research to continue her studies of rhesus monkeys in Puerto Rico. The $7,800 grant will support her research at the Caribbean Primate Research Center in Cayo Santiago, Puerto Rico, where she is studying sibling-social relationships in free-ranging rhesus monkeys. She has been conducting the study of 36 one-year-old monkeys since January 1994. The purpose of the research is to document the infants' and mothers' responses to the arrival of new siblings. DeVinney will return to Buffalo in July to conduct data analysis and write her dissertation. Carol M. Berman, UB professor of anthropology, is her advisor. Berman also studies the mother-infant relationship of rhesus monkeys at Cayo Santiago. DeVinney received her bachelor's degree from Wake Forest University and her master's degree in physical anthropology from UB. UB to offer graduate tax certificate program The Institute for Tax Studies in the UB School of Management will offer a Graduate Tax Certificate Program the week of April 17 through the week of June 26. The program is designed to provide comprehensive tax instruction through a series of four courses to be held on the North Campus: Tax Practice and Procedure; State Taxation on Corporations; Transactions Between Corporations and Shareholders; U.S. Taxation of Foreign Operations. Courses, which meet one evening each week, are taught by qualified tax practitioners from the legal and accounting professions. A certificate will be awarded upon completion. The Institute for Tax Studies is registered with the New York State Board of Public Accountancy as official sponsor of continuing education courses for CPAs. The Graduate Tax Certificate Program is recognized by the Internal Revenue Service as a qualified sponsor of continuing education programs for individuals enrolled to practice before the IRS. Those interested in attending must register by March 21 to receive a syllabus and an assignment to be completed before the first class meets. For more information, contact the Institute for Tax Studies office at 645-3200.