Next Reporter is July 25
The next summer issue of the Reporter will be published July 25. The publication of regular issues for the fall semester will resume Aug. 29. Away from campus this summer? Stay in touch by reading the Reporter online at www.buffalo.edu/reporter.

Waldrop receives Hartford award
A UB social work researcher has received a prestigious award to explore, in collaboration with Hospice Buffalo, the psychosocial factors that contribute to delayed hospice care for terminally ill older adults.

Deborah Waldrop, assistant professor in the School of Social Work, has been selected as a Hartford Faculty Scholar, a national award designed to improve the well-being of older adults. Waldrop, one of only 10 recipients of the award for 2002, will use it to strengthen the practice of geriatric social work in Western New York.

Waldrop will study how the psychosocial issues—emotions, communication skills and relationships—cloud understanding of terminal illness and become barriers to seeking hospice care at the end of life. Both nationally and locally, "late" or "delayed" referrals often are made to a hospice within only the last week or two of a patient's life, although hospice care is available for at least six months of a terminal illness.

A specialist in geriatric social work, Waldrop will receive $100,000 in funding over two years to enhance geriatric social-work education at the School of Social Work, to develop university-community partnerships in geriatric education and service, and to conduct a community agency-based research project.

Bök takes Griffin Prize
Canadian conceptual and sound poet Christian Bök, a postdoctoral fellow in the Poetics Program, has been named one of two winners of the second annual Griffin Poetry Prize, Canada's most prestigious literary prize and a major international literary award.

The competition, sponsored by Canada's Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry, offers a cash award of $80,000 Canadian, making it one of the most substantial poetry prizes in the world. The award is shared by two winners, one a Canadian writer and the other from outside Canada.

Bök received the prize for his book "Eunoia" (Coach House Books, 2001). The international winner, American poet Alice Notley, won for her book "Disobedience."

Paroski to head Alumni Association
Margaret W. Paroski, a 1980 graduate of the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, has been elected to serve a one-year term as president of the UB Alumni Association.

Paroski is senior associate dean for academic affairs in the UB medical school.

Other officers elected for the 2002-03 year are Jennifer B. Wozniak, MBA '96, B.A. '92, assistant vice president for risk management for M& T Bank,, president-elect; Charles C. Swanekamp,, J.D. '79, MBA '80, partner with Jaeckle, Fleischmann & Mugel, second vice president, and Thomas A. Palmer, J.D. '75, MBA '71, managing partner with Jaeckle, Fleischmann & Mugel, vice president of finance.

UB license plates are now available
UB alumni and supporters who reside in New York State now can show their "UB pride" with new custom license plates that have been approved by the State Department of Motor Vehicles.

The colorful blue-and-white design features an interlocking UB logo.

The passenger version includes three numbers ranging from 100 to 999, followed by the letters BUF, and a UB tagline across the bottom. The commercial version features four numbers and two letters, with the word "commercial" as the tagline.

Both the personalized and standard versions of the UB custom license plate will help support the university's official alumni efforts in New York State. Alumni Association members contribute $5 as part of their discounted $39.50 initial cost of the standard UB plate; non-members contribute $10 as part of their $44.50 fee. The annual renewal fee for the standard version is $25.

A personalized UB plate with a choice of up to six characters may be purchased for an initial cost of $68 for Alumni Association members; the initial cost for non-members is $73. The annual renewal fee for the personalized version is $50. All custom plate fees are in addition to the vehicle registration fees.

UB custom plates may be ordered by calling 1-800-BUILD-UB from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Meeting set to solicit feedback for NCAA certification process
A meeting will be held at 1 p.m. July 9 in the Jeannette Martin Room, 567 Capen Hall, North Campus, to solicit feedback from the campus community on UB's draft self-study report that is part of the university's NCAA certification program.

The report is available for review on the Division of Athletics' Web site at www.ubathletics.buffalo.edu/certification/.

Once input is received from the campus community, a final self-study report will to go the NCAA in late August, with a peer review team from the NCAA expected to come to campus in November. UB should receive a decision about its certification status—either certified, certified with conditions or not certified—in early 2003.

The purpose of the certification program, which began at UB last Oct. 1, is to help ensure the integrity of the institution's athletics operations. Institutions must show every 10 years that they meet certain standards set by the NCAA. Specific areas covered in the institution's self-study—the NCAA's "operating principles" that place a "measuring stick" by which all Division I members are measured—are academic and fiscal integrity, governance and rules compliance, equity, student-athlete welfare and sportsmanship.

Workshop applies earthquake engineering to WTC
Structural engineers from the Multidisciplinary Center for Earthquake Engineering Research (MCEER), headquartered at UB, gathered in New York City on Monday and Tuesday to discuss how earthquake-engineering practices and blast-resistant designs can be used to create "terror-resistant" buildings.

Their analysis was part of a two-day workshop, "Lessons from the World Trade Center Terrorist Attack: Management of Complex Civil Emergencies & Terrorism-Resistant Civil Engineering Design," organized by MCEER, in collaboration with the National Research Council (NRC) and CUNY's Institute for Civil Infrastructure Systems (ICIS). Funding for the workshop came from the National Science Foundation.

The workshop also featured commentary from social scientists and public-policy makers who discussed improvement of emergency response to complex disasters like the World Trade Center attack.

"The engineering and emergency-response issues encountered following Sept. 11 closely parallel those expected to follow a damaging earthquake in a highly populated U.S. urban center," says workshop co-organizer Michel Bruneau, MCEER deputy director and professor in the Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

"One of the objectives of the workshop was to see whether earthquake-engineering technologies can be married to existing technologies to achieve enhanced performance of buildings in the event of terrorist attacks," he adds.

Bruneau was joined at the workshop by UB colleagues George Lee, director of MCEER and Samuel P. Capen Professor of Engineering; Andrei Reinhorn, professor of civil, structural and environmental engineering and co-director of the university's Structural Engineering and Earthquake Simulation Laboratory; Andrew Whittaker, associate professor in the Earthquake Simulation Laboratory, and Michael Constantinou, professor and chair of civil, structural and environmental engineering and co-director of the Structural Engineering and Earthquake Simulation Laboratory.

Lee, Bruneau, Whittaker and Reinhorn were members of an MCEER investigative team that visited Ground Zero 10 days after the terrorist attack to assess damage to buildings surrounding the WTC. Their analysis was discussed at the workshop and has been published in a MCEER special report, "Engineering and Organizational Issues Related to the World Trade Center Terrorist Attack: Overview of Damage to Buildings Near Ground Zero."

Helfer to attend Nobel meeting
Derrick Helfer, a doctoral student in inorganic chemistry, will become the first UB student to attend the annual meeting of Nobel Laureates in Lindau, Germany, when he attends the 52nd convening of the group early next month.

Since 1951, top young researchers from around the world have gathered in Lindau to engage in open and informal meetings with Nobel Laureates in the areas of chemistry, physics and physiology/medicine. The meetings rotate by discipline each year. The 2002 event will focus on chemistry, with this year's laureates lecturing on chemistry-related topics of their choice in the morning and students and laureates participating in informal discussions in the afternoons.

"It will be a humbling experience to meet some of the most distinguished scientists in the world, most of whom I have only read about," says Helfer, who received the Student Award from the American Institute of Chemists Foundation in recognition of the quality of work he achieved in chemistry as an undergraduate at Thiel College in Greenville, Pa., where he received a bachelor's degree in 2000.

He was nominated to attend the meeting by Jim Atwood, professor and chair of the UB Department of Chemistry, and David Cadenhead, professor of chemistry.

Program in law, applied economics set
UB will offer a graduate level program in law and applied economics, beginning with the Fall 2002 semester.

A collaborative effort between the Law School and the Department of Economics in the College of Arts and Sciences, the program reduces curricular overlap and will allow students to complete both a J.D. degree and a master of arts degree in economics in three to three and a half years, a shorter time period than if the degrees were pursued separately.

This collaborative program will emphasize complementary courses involving legal issues and analytical and computational tools in economics, and is designed for students who plan to pursue careers in legal cases involving commercial matters, regulation of utilities, patents, international trade, medical malpractice, wrongful death claims, interstate commerce regulations and violations of anti-trust laws.

UB, Niagara Hospice join in pharmacy care
Niagara Hospice and the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences have formed a partnership, believed to be only the second of its kind in the United States, that will place both institutions at the forefront of research and instruction in hospice and palliative care.

Under the agreement, Niagara Hospice will provide a residency to a pharmacist who also will be a clinical instructor at UB, and perform research and supervise UB pharmacy students during clinical rotations at its facility on Sunset Drive in the Town of Lockport.

"Niagara Hospice and UB are participating in a progressive program that attempts to meet hospice needs on the horizon, before they occur," said Robert Wahler, UB clinical assistant professor of pharmacy. Niagara Hospice will cover the costs of the residency program, while UB will assist with the research.

"We're hoping this becomes a model that will be replicated nationally. The inclusion of a resident pharmacist in the patient's care plan will be a tremendous resource to both the clinical caregivers and the patient. This clinical exposure to hospice and palliative care will afford the resident invaluable experience in pain management and end-of-life health care services," added John Lomeo, CEO of Niagara Hospice.

Wahler and Lomeo point out that the role of the pharmacist has become increasingly more important in hospice and palliative care.

Patients will not be the only beneficiaries in this partnership, as UB pharmacy students will work in the clinical environment with the resident pharmacist and hospice caregivers. The yearlong program is scheduled to begin in July.

Creative Craft Center to offer workshops
The Creative Craft Center, now located in 29 Harriman Hall, South Campus, is offering summer workshops beginning the week of July 8.

Workshops are scheduled in photography, knitting and crocheting, drawing, Brazilian embroidery, watercolor and creative kids.

For further information, a schedule or a map, call 829-3536.

Great Lakes become classroom
The Great Lakes and its tributaries became a classroom for 10 students enrolled in the Great Lakes Summer Institute that was hosted earlier this month by UB and Buffalo State College.

Working alongside researchers from UB's Great Lakes Program and the Great Lakes Center at Buffalo State, the students tested water quality in Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, and in the Buffalo and Niagara rivers, which flow into the Erie and Ontario lakes, respectively.

The students were from UB, Buffalo State, SUNY Fredonia and Ryerson University of Toronto—member institutions of the New York Great Lakes Research Consortium, headquartered at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. Another student was a physical/environmental scientist for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Their work will contribute to ongoing research on the ecological health of the Great Lakes, and the students earned college credit for their participation.

Aboard the research vessel Aquarius on Lake Ontario during the first two days of the institute, the students sampled sediment and measured water temperature near the Niagara River Bar region, located near the point where the Niagara River empties into the lake.

"The Niagara River accounts for more than 80 percent of the inflow into Lake Ontario," explains Joseph Atkinson, UB professor of civil, structural and environmental engineering and director of the Great Lakes Program. "It's important to understand the river's water quality because it plays such a dominant role in the development of the lake."

Last week, the students embarked on the Buffalo River. Their findings will aid a new study of sewer and watershed runoff in a section of the river labeled an "area of concern" by the U.S.-Canadian International Joint Commission, which monitors the quality of waters that lie along or flow across the two nations.

To be undertaken in the fall by UB and Buffalo State, the study is funded by a $125,000 grant from the Great Lakes National Program Office of the EPA.

"Contaminants from past industrial activity have lodged in sediment beds within the river," Atkinson says. "We're investigating what harm might occur to the river and lake if these contaminants are disrupted by boat travel or weather."

Atkinson adds that the students' field research was supplemented by classroom lectures on environmental chemistry, water-quality modeling and source pollution.

African educators visit UB
For the third consecutive year, the English Language Institute (ELI) is conducting a summer institute for educators from sub-Saharan countries designed to strengthen English-as-a-Foreign Language (EFL) programs in secondary schools in the participants' home countries.

Sixteen participants from Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Guinea, Madagascar, Mali, Mozambique, Niger, Rwanda, and Senegal are taking part in the six-week program, which began June 3 and will run through July 14. It is being coordinated by Janice A. Nersinger, ELI director of overseas and customized programs.

Funded by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs in the U.S. State Department, the institute attempts to enhance participants' management and organizational skills; familiarize them with email and the Internet; broaden their understanding of U.S. institutions and culture, and assist them in identifying, analyzing and solving the practical problems in administering EFL programs in their home countries.

Instruction is provided by faculty members from the ELI and the departments of Learning and Instruction, and Educational Leadership and Policy, and the program in American Studies, as well as by staff from the Office of the Vice Provost for International Education.

Grant to create computer lab, training program
Students and faculty members from UB will collaborate with a local agency to establish a computer lab and training program on Buffalo's East Side, thanks to a $25,000 grant from the Verizon Foundation.

The Dominion Computer Training Program, administered by Dominion Charities Inc., will provide computer literacy and Internet access and training for senior citizens, adults and youths in Buffalo's Emslie neighborhood and the Ellicott District in general.

"Through this program, the university has the opportunity to use its resources and students to help foster change in one of the city's impoverished neighborhoods," said Patricia Carter, clinical assistant professor in the Center for Urban Studies in the School of Architecture and Planning.

The computer lab, located in the annex building of the Church of God in Christ at 360 Genesee St., will be equipped with approximately 25 Internet-accessible computers available for public use.

Approximately 40 undergraduate students and two graduate assistants from Carter's spring-semester class, "PD 360—Environmental Design Workshop II," evaluated the information needs of the community and created a neighborhood Web page. In the process, UB students gained experience using Web-based tutorials and other graphic-design programs.