Education

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.

Along with laptops and cell phones, more than 4,000 University at Buffalo students this fall will be packing a piece of gear into their backpacks that may make them feel like they're on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?"

Ten days after 9/11, University at Buffalo structural engineers were at Ground Zero investigating the collapse of the World Trade Center and surrounding buildings. Thus began a new era in anti-terrorism research at UB, whichi now has more than $21 million in active federal and state grants to develop and investigate new methods for combating terrorist threats and attacks

While the victims of Hurricane Katrina have begun to grieve by expressing their anger at the shortcomings of relief efforts intended to help them, they can not yet mourn the losses they have incurred because they themselves are still struggling to survive, says Thomas T. Frantz, a University at Buffalo professor who is an expert on bereavement counseling and grief education.