King to attend SUNY Faculty Senate meeting
New SUNY Chancellor Robert L. King will attend the SUNY University Faculty Senate's 124th Plenary Meeting, which will be held today through Saturday in the University Inn and Conference Center, 2401 N. Forest Road, Amherst.

The meetings of the University Faculty Senate are open to observers.

Sessions will be held from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. tomorrow and 9 a.m. to noon on Saturday. King is scheduled to attend a noon luncheon Friday, then participate in an early-afternoon session from 1-2:30 p.m. featuring reports and discussions with invited SUNY trustees.

The Saturday morning session will include a panel discussion on science, technology and economic development.

Rosenthal to edit rural health journal
Thomas C. Rosenthal, professor and chair of the Department of Family Medicine in the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, has been named editor of The Journal of Rural Health, the peer-reviewed publication of the National Rural Health Association (NRHA). His appointment will be effective April 1.

A longtime contributor to the journal, Rosenthal has served on the publication's editorial board since 1997.

He plans to broaden the journal's audience and impact by expanding its traditional focus on health-services research to include more articles on clinical and social issues of rural health.

A special section of the journal will publish the proceedings of a national conference co-sponsored by UB to be held in February on rural-based, graduate-medical education, an area of special interest to Rosenthal.

UCI recognized
Buffalo Mayor Anthony Masiello today will receive an award from the U.S. Conference of Mayors recognizing the city's partnership with the Fannie Mae Corp. as part of the work of UB's University Community Initiative.

UCI has begun a housing, acquisition, rehabilitation and resale program in the University Heights neighborhood. UB and Fannie Mae are funding the three-house pilot program.

The project is one of several projects of UCI, a partnership led by UB, the City of Buffalo and the towns of Amhest, Tonawanda and Cheektowaga to stabilize, rebuild and revitalize the neighborhoods surrounding the South Campus.

Psychiatrists to speak at "UB at Sunrise"
Carlos and Michele Pato, the internationally known husband-and-wife team of psychiatrists at UB whose research focuses on the role of genetics in certain mental disorders, will speak at the "UB at Sunrise" breakfast series, to be held from 7:30-9 a.m. Feb. 8 in the Center for Tomorrow on the North Campus.

Research by the Patos concentrates on identifying a gene or genes linked to schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, also known as manic depressive disorder. Their work could lead to improved diagnosis and treatment for these disorders, which affect millions of people worldwide.

Tickets for the program, which includes a full breakfast, are $12 for UB Alumni Association members and $15 for all others. For information and reservations, call 829-2608.

The UB at Sunrise community breakfast series is presented by the Alumni Association and supported by the offices of University Development, News Services, Publications and Public Services and Urban Affairs.

Higher ed breakfast set
President William R. Greiner and his colleagues at Canisius and Niagara County Community colleges will discuss the direction, goals and future of higher education locally, regionally and nationally in a session of the Breakfast Seminar Series of Higher Educators to be held at 8:30 a.m. Feb. 18 in the Center for Tomorrow on the North Campus.

Joining Greiner will be the Rev. Vincent M. Cooke, S.J., president of Canisius College, and Antonette Cleveland, president of Niagara County Community College.

Tickets are $10 for full-time employees and $5 for student. The deadline is Feb. 10. For information or reservation forms, call 645-3167.

The breakfast seminar series, presented by the Higher Education Program in the UB Graduate School of Education and supported by the Western New York Consortium of college and university presidents, features speakers on current topics in higher education.

Brown-bag concert to open February music schedule
A casual, noontime concert on Tuesday featuring flutist Cheryl Gobbetti-Hoffman and the UB Percussion Ensemble will open the February concert schedule presented by the Department of Music.

The concert, part of the music department's free Brown Bag Series, will be held at noon in the Slee Hall Lobby. It will feature Suite en concert, a piece by Jolivet, performed by Gobbetti-Hoffman and the percussion ensemble, as well as other fun and funky contemporary flute and percussion offerings.

The Cassatt String Quartet, the Slee Quartet-in-Residence, will present the fourth concert of the Beethoven cycle at 8 p.m. Feb. 11 in Slee. The program will include "Serioso" Quartet in F minor, Op. 95, which has won the Cassatt high critical acclaim.

Recitals by faculty members Jon Nelson, trumpet, and Susan Fancher, saxophone, will feature world-premiere performances of pieces by UB graduate composers.

Nelson, who will perform at 8 p.m. Feb. 12 in Slee, will highlight Stephen Barber's Gran Calavera Electrica for trumpet, piano, organ and two percussionists. The concert, which also will feature Helena Bugallo, piano, and Jonathan Golove, cello, will present Trio No. 3 for trumpet, cello and piano by graduate student Emil Harnas.

The concert by Fancher, to be held at 8 p.m. Feb. 22 in Slee, will feature music by Giacinto Scelsi, Ben Johnson and John Anthony Lennon. It also will provide a venue for work specifically written for Fancher, a member of the Amherst Saxophone Quartet, by Mark Engebretson, Keith Carpenter and graduate student Aaron Cassidy (Asphyxia).

The month's concert schedule will conclude Feb. 25 with the second Annual Choral and Organ Extravaganza!, the fourth concert in the Organ Recital Series. To be held at 8 p.m. in Slee, the program will feature the Choir of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, James Bigham, organist and choirmaster; St. Paul's Cathedral Choir of Men and Boys, Dale Adelmann, organist and choirmaster, and Westminster Choir, Westminster Presbyterian Church, Thomas Swan, organist and choirmaster.

Tickets to all concerts may be obtained at the Slee box office between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and at the Center for the Arts box office from noon to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday.

Technology gadfly Noble to speak
Respected historian and technology gadfly David F. Noble is a controversial and outspoken critic of attempts to "automatize higher education" by setting up extensive distance-learning systems and "online universities" that he says are no more than diploma mills. Tomorrow, Noble will present the second in a series of lectures sponsored by Critical and Cultural Studies in Information Technology (CCSIT), a UB interdisciplinary graduate initiative.

The talk will take place at 4 p.m. in 280 Park Hall on the North Campus. It will be free of charge and open to the public. A reception will precede the lecture at 3:30 p.m.

Noble is professor of history at Toronto's York University and co-founder of the National Coalition for Universities in the Public Interest. He is well-known as a critical analyst of educational technologies and as the author of the book "The Religion of Technology." His recent-and notorious-journal series, "Digital Diploma Mills," continues to provoke much debate in the world of higher education.

"All discussion of distance education these days invariably turns into a discussion of technology, an endless meditation on the wonders of computer-mediated instruction," Noble says. He claims, however, that neither the technology cult nor those who buy into it are prone to acknowledge the many problems associated with its application to the task of providing a university education.

Hank Bromley, CCSIT co-founder and assistant professor in the Graduate School of Education, describes the lecture series as one that presents different ways of assessing information technologies in order that we better understand their complex effects on a culture and its institutions, systems and people.

"We want to provoke discussion and debate," he says, "which Noble tends to do."

Noble points out: "The public has been told that technology is a bold departure from tradition, a signal step toward a preordained and radically transformed higher educational future.

"Online universities, distance-education programs and the like (are) now identified with this revolution in technology and have assumed the aura of innovation and the appearance of the revolution itself."

That untested assumption has provoked the production of ill-conceived and unnecessary information-technology programs in higher education, according to Noble.

"Recent surveys of the instructional use of information technology in higher education clearly indicate that (it has resulted in) no significant gains in either productivity improvement or pedagogical enhancement," he claims.

He adds that, despite the futurist hype, the online university of 2000 "is nothing more than an updated version of the correspondence school."

UB Institute to hold workshop on State of Region report
Following widespread positive reaction to its November 1999 report, "State of the Region: Performance Indicators for the Buffalo-Niagara Region," the Institute for Local Governance and Regional Growth will hold a conference Feb. 3 dedicated to examining the report's findings and encouraging area players and partnerships to develop specific strategies for regional change.

The conference will be held from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. in the Buffalo Convention Center.

The program will include morning and afternoon sessions dedicated specifically to the 11 subject areas of the report-economy, education, environment, equity, government, health, human services, planning and land use, public safety, regional assets, and technology and information. The agenda also will include plenary sessions in which the institute will provide updates on State of the Region efforts to date and invite comments from participants.

The focus of the event, says institute Director John B. Sheffer, II, is to identify local and regional organizations and coalitions to take the lead on performance improvements in the 11 State of the Region subject areas.

"Our watchword for the State of the Region project has been that 'You can't manage what you can't measure,'" says Sheffer. "The report itself offered assessments of regional performance on a range of measures, as well as proposed performance goals and some action steps to help achieve them.

"The next step-which is what this conference is about-is finding ways to manage what we've measured and to make our measurements even better. We are asking leaders and organizations throughout the Buffalo-Niagara region to commit to take action and move toward these goals."

The 275-page State of the Region report resulted from a year-long consultative process involving more than 200 leaders from the eight counties of Western New York, as well as Southern Ontario. The volume presents 98 baseline measures, or indicators, of regional quality of life across its 11 key subject areas. Each indicator also proposes goals and action steps for improving regional performance.

Copies of the report may be ordered by calling the institute at 829-3777. An online version is also available at http://regional-institute.buffalo.edu/sotr.

For more detailed information about the Feb. 3 conference program, call 829-3777.

CityNet 2 to be topic of brown-bag lunch
CityNet 2, a new initiative to provide interactive video and high-speed Internet access to more than 200 schools and agencies in Western New York, will be discussed at a brown-bag lunch scheduled for noon today in 120 Clemens Hall.

Donald J. Jacobs, director of the Center for Applied Technologies in Education (CATE) at UB, will speak.

The lunch is sponsored by Millard Fillmore College and the UB Distance Learning Faculty Staff Interest Group.

For more information, contact Lisa Stephen at 645-6347.

Manes, Philharmonic to present Mozart
The Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra will perform "An Evening of Mozart" at 8 p.m. Saturday in Slee Concert Hall.

The program, which will feature Yong-yan Hu as guest conductor and UB faculty member Stephen Manes as pianist, will include Overture to Don Giovanni, Piano Concerto No. 9 and Symphony No. 41 "Jupiter."

Tickets for faculty and staff members are $12 and may be obtained by calling 645-2921.

"Virtual education" to be examined
"Virtual Universities: Online and On-target?" will be the topic of a live, satellite presentation to be held from 2-5 p.m. Feb. 3 in 120 Clemens Hall.

Presented by Millard Fillmore College and the Faculty Senate, the presentation will examine the mission of virtual universities and how they are changing the face of higher education and the future of teaching and learning at a distance.

The session will be the third satellite downlink in the "Internet Issues in Higher Education" series sponsored by MFC.

Reservations may be made by calling MFC at 829-3131.

CFA to present Wimzie's House-Live
"Happy Birthday Wimzie" will be performed at 7 p.m. Feb. 4 in the Mainstage Theater in the Center for the Arts on the North Campus as part of the Center's Family Adventure Series.

"Happy Birthday Wimzie" is an original musical, live theatrical production based on CINAR Corporation's award-winning television series "Wimzie's House" that airs daily on PBS.

Tickets are $14 for adults and $12 for children ages 12 and under. Special Treatseats ticket discounts are available at Target stores. Tickets also are available at the CFA Box Office.