Education

Mark Ashwill, Ph.D., director of the World Languages Program at the University at Buffalo, has had a long love affair with Vietnam, a country that he says is "pulsating with energy and steeped in dreams." He has written a detailed and very well-received book about his "second country" that the American Library Association rates as "highly recommended."

The University at Buffalo's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the schools of engineering at the State University of New York (SUNY) university centers at Stony Brook and Binghamton together are creating the world's first fully online bachelor's-degree program in electrical engineering.

Only 11 percent of students surveyed at two universities in New York State have formally declared their intentions to become organ or tissue donors, a study conducted by researchers at the University at Buffalo has found.

A study by education researchers at the University at Buffalo shows that students who spend several years in smaller-sized classes during the elementary grades -- especially those from lower-income families -- have a greater likelihood of graduating from high school.

With the current school year drawing to a close, countless families soon will be confronted with what many of them will consider devastating news: Their child's teacher will recommend that he repeat the same grade next year. The best way to react, says a University at Buffalo expert on retention and transition for elementary school students, is for these parents to focus on helping their child understand the recommendation is for their good.

David L. Dunn, M.D., Ph.D., Jay Phillips Professor and chair of the nationally prominent Department of Surgery at the University of Minnesota and University of Minnesota Hospitals, has been appointed vice president for health sciences at the University at Buffalo by UB President John B. Simpson.

Christopher G. Barrick, Ph.D. '99, of Amherst, has been elected president of the alumni association of the University at Buffalo's Graduate School of Education.

Just in time for the world celebration of physics and its most famous practitioner, Albert Einstein, the University at Buffalo is enjoying a banner year in the discipline. This semester, the total number of physics majors at UB has jumped to 73, an impressive 82.5 per cent increase over January 2002, when there were just 40.

The premise: Teams of budding young entrepreneurs pit their skills and savvy against one another in an attempt to win praise and reward from an accomplished marketing pro. Sound familiar? No, it's not the latest episode of Donald Trump's hit reality-TV show "The Apprentice." It's a new three-credit course, called "The Marketers," modeled after the TV show and offered this semester at the University at Buffalo.

In a run-down section of city street in Niagara Falls, N.Y. -- flanked by abandoned homes and across from a shuttered hospital -- a dilapidated old dormitory for nurses is getting a new start as transitional housing for homeless women and their children. The building's rehabilitation is being made possible, in large measure, by the efforts of University at Buffalo law students attracted to an unglamorous, roll-up-your-sleeves niche of law practice known as affordable housing.