News Releases

Respected historian and technology gadfly David F. Noble, 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, on Jan. 28 will present the second in a series of lectures sponsored by Critical and Cultural Studies in Information Technology (CCSIT), a UB interdisciplinary graduate initiative.

A UB graduate and his wife have donated $25,000 to UB's Graduate School of Education to establish the Willower Family Lecture Series.

Following widespread positive reaction to its November 1999 report, "State of the Region: Performance Indicators for the Buffalo-Niagara Region," the UB 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.

Moog Inc. has given $125,000 to UB for a graduate fellowship in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS).

Hospitals looking to join a health-care network can expect to attain operating margins 12 percent higher if they join a network with financial risk-sharing arrangements rather than a network without such arrangements, a UB study of hospitals in New York State has shown.

Three local college and university presidents 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 UB North Campus.

To refer to Susan Cole, chair of the UB Department of Classics, as a "pigaholic" is extreme, but when it comes to the hog heaven that was ancient Greece, she can wax rhapsodic on the subject of Hellenic porkers. On Jan. 31, Cole, associate professor of classics and a noted humanities scholar, will focus on the ups and downs of Greco swine-life in a lecture called "Pigs for the Gods and Pork for the Table: Dining Out in the Ancient Greek City."

Despite the terror of "Jim Crow" and the backlash of white plantation owners, African Americans had managed to accumulate nearly 15 million acres of land by 1910. Today, that number has declined to less than 1 million acres. Although their numbers have decreased significantly, there are still a handful of black farmers who continue to hold onto their family farms.

In its first year of operation, the UB Business Alliance has received a "Project of the Year" award from a national organization, boosted its royalty income and the numbers of inventions disclosed and made significant changes in its incubator facility, making it easier for start-ups to rent space. The UB Business Alliance will mark these and other accomplishments at an anniversary celebration to be held Jan. 26 in the Center for the Arts.

When they first arrive on campus, college freshmen are deluged with orientation packets and publications. But after the first few weeks, that deluge dries up, often leaving students' questions unanswered. The University at Buffalo has figured out how to keep information flowing to freshmen -- but not flooding them -- through the development of MyUB, an online portal for freshmen that actually grows with the student.