UB in the News

An article in the Lakeland Ledger on a drug being used off-label to treat hot flashes quotes Thomas J. Guttuso, Jr., who said, "It does not interact with any other medications, which is very unique, so doctors don't have to worry about other drugs a patient might be taking. Also, gabapentin is not metabolized, so it has no effect on the liver. It's fully excreted in the urine."

Alex Halavais is interviewed in a Q&A in The Washington Post on using blogs in the classroom. "I wanted students to read each other's work and not get pulled off into threads. Threaded discussions are great for some things, but they tend to easily take separate tangents. Second, I wanted out discussions to be very public. This can be done with a discussion board, but...a blog worked better...."

An article in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review on the success of the television show "My Name Is Earl," which revolves around a lowlife and petty thief determined to fix his karma by making amends with all those he's wronged, quotes Philips Stevens, associate professor of anthropology.

An article in the Fresno Bee on high-end items for babies and toddlers quotes Arun Jain, professor and chair of marketing, who said "Parents sometimes feel guilty. They are compensating, psychologically, for not spending as much time with the children."

UB Distinguished Professor William E. Pelham, Jr., internationally recognized expert on attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), says medications are used too frequently at unnecessarily high doses and for too long to treat children with the disorder in an article distributed by United Press International.

In a New York Times article on drugs that relieve hot flashes in postmenopausal women, Thomas J. Guttuso, Jr., M.D., assistant professor of neurology in the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, discusses a soon-to-be-published study on the drug gabapentin.

A story on pornography as an academic subject in TIME magazine cites UB's "Cyberporn and Society" class, with quotes from UB assistant professor of communication Alex Halavais, who teaches the course, from W. David Penniman, dean of the School of Informatics, and from UB student Matthew Schwartz and his parents.

Makau Mutua, professor in the Law School who teaches international law and directs the Law School's Center for Human Rights, authored an op-ed in the Boston Globe on the political consequences of U.S. policy regarding the Hamas government.

An article in The Washington Post about overanxious "helicopter" parents who just can't let go and the effect their over-involvement has on their children quotes Donald Pollock, associate professor and chair of anthropology, who said "It was just about 20 years ago that we started seeing those yellow 'Baby on Board' signs in cars, which arguably had little to do with safety and a lot to do with publicly announcing one's new status as a parent. I imagine that parents who displayed those 'Baby on Board' signs are the ones who are now intruding themselves into the college experience of those poor babies 18 years later."

An article in USA Today on Advanced Placement courses and concerns over whether they really prepare high school students for college courses quotes D. Bruce Johnstone, University Professor of Higher and Comparative Education, who said "There is something about a good undergraduate general education that can't be easily replicated by a terrific high school course."