Education

If there is a common thread that runs through the many facets of Joseph A. Gardella's professional life, it's advocacy. A professor of chemistry at the University at Buffalo, Gardella advocates for the right of children to learn science, for the right of college students to have access to the best science education, for the right of disabled students to fulfill their highest potential, for the right of women and minority faculty members to experience advancement opportunities and for the rights of citizens to fully understand the environmental science that affects their neighborhoods and their health.

The University at Buffalo ranks 11th among 2,700 U.S. accredited universities in international student enrollment, according to an annual report on international academic mobility released yesterday by the Institute of International Education.

The new class of students at the University at Buffalo Law School may be more diverse in background and experience than any in recent memory. Of the 247 first-year students enrolled this fall at the UB Law School, about half possess the prototypical law-school student portfolio, but many come to the school from wide-ranging paths that have taken them all over the world.

With energy costs throughout the nation hitting record highs and no relief in sight, the University at Buffalo is, for the second time in its history, embarking on a major, campus-wide, comprehensive energy-conservation project.

Academic Management Systems (AMS), a software-development company located in the University at Buffalo Technology Incubator, has released CourseEval3, a Web-based evaluation tool. This new version of its well-established software provides colleges and universities with the ability to set up a wide variety of course, faculty and other assessment activities online.

Researchers in the University at Buffalo Graduate School of Education have been awarded a five-year, $6 million grant to implement their pre-kindergarten mathematics curriculum in more than 120 classrooms and establish UB as a national leader in bringing new educational programs to full scale.

From Oct. 20-23, more than 30 scholars from Taiwan, China and North America will converge on the University at Buffalo and Albright-Knox art galleries to examine, in their global contexts, the historical and aesthetic significance of the so-called "Great Wall," along with many other Chinese boundaries, both physical and metaphorical.

A University at Buffalo pharmacy professor is using the hit TV reality show "The Apprentice" -- and its famous "You're fired" endings -- to help his students become more likely to hear the words "You're hired" upon graduation.

When University at Buffalo planetary volcanologist Tracy Gregg mentioned at a recent geology conference that the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library was this fall exhibiting an original edition of the world's first geologic map, audience members were captivated.

Aug. 29., the day that Hurricane Katrina barreled ashore on the Gulf Coast, also was the first day of class for Geology 428/528, "Preventing Geologic Disasters," at the University at Buffalo. Even though he had already prepared a semester's worth of historical examples, Michael F. Sheridan, Ph.D., UB professor of geology, decided that day to ditch much of it and to focus, instead, on Katrina as the harshest of case studies.