Hull receives award
Elaine M. Hull, professor of psychology, has received a $602,759 Independent Scientist Award from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), an arm of the National Institutes of Health.

The five-year grant will allow Hull to expand her research of hormone and neurotransmitter interactions in the brain.

The Independent Scientist Award is given to highly regarded scientists in their early-to-mid careers who hold independent, peer-reviewed research support. Recipients are eligible to reapply for one additional five-year grant. Hull concurrently holds a $1,102,150 research grant from NIMH.

Hull has been investigating neural control of sexual behavior-using the rat as an animal model-for nearly two decades and has published widely in this field. She has focused primarily on the neurotransmitters dopamine and serotonin and, among other findings, has located brain sites in which the former stimulates and the later inhibits male sexual response.

Glenn to open DSS
Former U.S. senator and astronaut John Glenn will kick off the 2000-01 Distinguished Speakers Series with a lecture at 8 p.m. Oct. 11 in Alumni Arena on the North Campus.

The Distinguished Speakers Series is presented by UB and the Don Davis Auto World Lectureship Fund. Series sponsor is the Student Association. The Division of Student Affairs is sponsoring the Glenn lecture.

The series will continue with lectures by best-selling author Mary Higgins Clark on Nov. 16, basketball broadcaster Dick Vitale on Dec. 5 and Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin on April 26.

Glenn became a national hero in 1962 when he climbed into the tiny Mercury space capsule, was launched into space and circled the Earth three times.

Glenn left NASA for a career in the private sector as an international executive in the cola industry.

He re-entered public life in 1974 when he was elected to the U.S. Senate. He served for 24 years for his home state of Ohio.

He returned to space in 1998, becoming-at age 77-the oldest man ever to fly in space.

He currently heads the John Glenn Institute for Public Service and Public Policy at the Ohio State University.

For ticket information to the Glenn lecture and the rest of the Distinguished Speakers Series, contact the Center for the Arts box office at 645-ARTS.

Liturgy to open academic year
The annual Convocation and Liturgy of the Holy Spirit to mark the opening of the academic year will be held at 11:30 a.m. Sunday in St. Joseph's University Church, 3269 Main St.

Two members of the UB community will be honored during the liturgy. Robert J. Wagner, senior vice president, will receive the Newman Award. Andrea Costantino, director of student unions and activities, will receive the UB Alumni Award.

Faculty and staff members, administrators, students and family members may march in the academic procession. Academic garb is encouraged.

Those wishing to march should call 636-7495.

Alum funds minority student fellowship
A retired General Electric vice president has matched money with his former employer to provide a $20,000 fellowship for School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS).

Henry Stone, who received a degree in mechanical engineering in 1949, asked that his gift be used to benefit a graduate student in engineering who is a member of a minority group or an immigrant like himself.

"I wanted to help someone get an education, so I put UB on my gift list," said Stone.

"As part of one of its first graduating classes in engineering, it just makes me feel good to see that UB is growing," he noted, "and so proud that the engineering school is becoming nationally recognized."

Hashim Muhammad, selected as the Henry Stone Graduate Assistant, said he is grateful to Stone for helping him continue his education. Muhammad, from a family of nine in Harlem, is working on his master's degree in civil engineering with a concentration in structural engineering and construction management. His goal is to own a firm that both designs and builds structures.

Mark Karwan, dean of the SEAS, noted that Muhammad "now can focus on his studies without the added financial pressures of a two-year graduate program.

"A scholarship like this enhances our opportunities for a more economically diverse student population while at the same time strengthening our bonds between students and alumni," Karwan added.

RIA scientist to focus research on effects of couples therapy
A scientist with the Research Institute on Addictions (RIA) has embarked on the first comprehensive examination of the multidimensional effects of couples therapy with married or cohabiting individuals who misuse drugs other than alcohol.

The study by William Fals-Stewart, who recently joined RIA as a senior research scientist, is funded by a $2 million grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).

Fals-Stewart says that couples therapy involves working with issues that play a part in the relationship between a man and woman: the individual satisfaction of the two partners, violence that may be occurring between them and the basic stability of the relationship itself.

"This project will look at drug-using behavior and the adjustment of the partners in the relationship as a means of treating a drug-abuse problem," he says. Previous studies have only looked at couples with an alcohol problem.

"Behavioral couples therapy (BCT) will be employed with more traditional, individually based interventions with some participants in the study," Fals-Stewart explains. "With other drug-abusing patients and their partners, an equally intensive, individual-based treatment and intensive psychoeducational approach will be used."

One of the secondary goals of the study is to determine whether use of BCT is more cost-beneficial and cost-effective than the other treatments provided.

Fals-Stewart joined RIA from Old Dominion University. A clinical psychologist, his research interests include marital and family therapy with drug-abusing patients, long-term outcomes of substance-abuse treatment and psychological and neuropsychological assessments with drug-abusing patients.

He received a bachelor's degree from Cornell University and a master's degree in experimental psychology from Cortland State College. He completed a second master's degree and a doctorate in clinical psychology from the California School of Professional Psychology in San Diego.

Expert on spinal-cord injury to give J. Warren Perry Lecture
Barbara Bregman, professor and chair of the Department of Neuroscience at Georgetown University Medical Center, will discuss "Regeneration and Recovery of Function After Spinal Cord Injury" at the 12th annual J. Warren Perry Lecture, sponsored by the School of Health Related Professions.

The lecture, named for the founding dean of the School of Health Related Professions from 1966 until his retirement in 1977, will be held at 4 p.m. Oct. 6 in the Screening Room in the Center for the Arts on the North Campus. It is free and open to the public.

Bregman, who serves on the scientific advisory board for the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation, for the past 20 years has conducted basic research in spinal-cord regeneration that has brought her international recognition.

After earning a bachelor's degree in physical therapy from Russell Sage College, Bregman received a master's degree in anatomy from Howard University and a doctorate in anatomy from the Medical College of Pennsylvania. She has been at Georgetown University School of Medicine since 1988.

The long-range goal of her Georgetown laboratory is to identify the requirements of developing mature central-nervous-system neurons for survival and regeneration after injury, and to identify ways to enhance regeneration and recovery of function after spinal-cord injury at birth through maturity.

She is principal investigator on two National Institutes for Health (NIH) research grants: one studying central-nervous-system regeneration in neonatal and adult mammals that has been active since 1983, and a second, studying recovery and function after spinal-cord injury, that has been active since 1989.

She also is principal investigator on a grant from the International Spinal Research Trust in Great Britain to study cellular and molecular mechanisms of collateral sprouting and axonal regeneration after acute and chronic spinal-cord injury.

Distance-learning talk set
The first UB Distance Learning Brown Bag talk of the semester will be held from noon to 1 p.m. Tuesday in 200-G Baldy Hall on the North Campus.

Barbara Rittner, associate professor of social work, and Steve Sturman, instructional support technician in the Office of the Vice Provost for Educational Technology, will speak on "Using Digital Video and Power Point to Enhance a Distance Learning Environment." The pair will provide an overview of the teaching objectives and benefits of using digital-video and power-point technologies, as well as a look at the process used to create the course content.

For further details on the brown bag series or to suggest a future topic or presentation contact Lisa Stephens at 645-6522 or stephens@buffalo.edu, or Steve Sturman at sturman@acsu.buffalo.edu.

Film screening set
A screening of "The Yards," a film produced and distributed by Miramax Films, the nationally renowned champion of independent and alternative cinema co-founded by one-time UB student Harvey Weinstein, will be held at 3 p.m. Tuesday in the Center for the Arts Screening Room.

Screening of the film, directed by James Gray and starring Mark Wahlberg, Joaquin Phoenix, Charlize Theron, Faye Dunaway, Ellen Burstyn and James Caan, is open to the public.

Weinstein, the Miramax Films co-chairman who got his start in the entertainment industry 30 years ago by promoting rock concerts at UB, will receive an honorary SUNY Doctorate of Humane Letters from UB at a luncheon on Tuesday.

The luncheon will be preceded by a lecture by Weinstein at 11 a.m. in the Center for the Arts Screening Room. The lecture will be open to the public.

PSS to meet Sept. 28
The Professional Staff Senate will hold its first general membership meeting of the academic year at 3 p.m. Sept. 28 in the Center for Tomorrow on the North Campus.

Provost Elizabeth Capaldi will speak.

For further information, call the PSS office at 645-2003.

Career session aimed at plugging local "brain drain"
The Office of Career Planning and Placement has announced a program to help local human-resource professionals increase their success in recruiting college students.

The program, "Recruiting the 21st Century Student," will be held from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday in the Student Union on the North Campus.

It will feature panel presentations by local college and university career-services offices and graduating college students, as well as a best-practices panel of recruiters and a presentation, "I am Buffalo Niagara," by a representative of the Buffalo Niagara Enterprise. The program will conclude with a networking reception with students.

Daniel J. Ryan, director of career planning and placement, called the effort "a major step toward plugging the local 'brain drain.'"

Zodiaque to present fall concert "Ripples"
The Department of Theatre and Dance will present "Ripples," the fall concert of the Zodiaque Dance Company, Oct. 12-15 and 19-22 in the Drama Theatre in the Center for the Arts on the North Campus.

Performances will be held at 8 p.m. on weekdays and Saturdays, and at 2 p.m. on Sundays.

"Ripples," "an evening of creative energy that ripples and radiates the landscape upon which we move," will feature pieces choreographed by faculty members in the Department of Theatre and Dance, as well as guest choreographer Susan E. Anderson, director of dance at the University of South Carolina.

Tickets. at $10 for the general public and $5 for UB students, are available in the Center for the Arts box office from noon to 6 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays, and at all Ticketmaster locations.

For more information, call 645-ARTS.

Pain specialist to deliver Bullough lecture
Ada K. Jacox, professor and associate dean for research at Wayne State University College of Nursing, will discuss "The Impact of Clinical Practice Guidelines on Patient Outcomes and Cost" at the Fourth Annual Bonnie Bullough Lecture, to be held at 4:30 p.m. Oct. 5 in the Center for Tomorrow on the North Campus.

The lecture, named for the late dean of the UB School of Nursing, is designed for interested nursing professionals. It is free and open to the public, but reservations are required. They may be made by calling 829-2533 before Sept. 28.

Jacox is noted within the health-care professions for her research in pain management. She has held several grants from the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research on this issue, and was co-chair of the panel that developed practice guidelines for management of cancer pain. Those guidelines were released in 1994.

She is a member of the board of directors of the American Pain Society-chairing its clinical guidelines committee since 1995-and is an author of several clinical guidelines on pain management in specific age groups. She also sits on the board of directors of the Michigan Cancer Pain Initiative.

She is co-investigator on a $3.5 million National Institutes of Health grant to study health of older African Americans.

Jacox holds a bachelor's degree in nursing education from Columbia University, a master's degree in child-psychiatric nursing from Wayne State University and a doctorate in sociology from Case Western Reserve University.

A prolific author, Jacox has had four books named "Book of the Year" by the American Journal of Nursing and has published many articles in refereed journals.