University at Buffalo - The State University of New York

UB named to community service honor roll

The Corporation for National and Community Service has named UB to the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll for exemplary service efforts and service to America’s communities.

Launched in 2006, the Community Service Honor Roll is the highest federal recognition a school can achieve for its commitment to service-learning and civic engagement. Honorees for the award are chosen based on factors including scope and innovation of service projects, percentage of student participation in service activities, incentives for service and the extent to which the school offers academic service-learning courses.

UB offers several programs and projects in the area of community service, among them free tax preparation by accounting students at the School of Management; the Law School’s Affordable Housing Clinic that partners with developers, lenders and government officials to create housing for elderly, disabled and homeless people; and the UB/Buffalo Public Schools Partnership, which aims to increase the number of Buffalo students ready for and interested in college through an interdisciplinary research-based approach in the areas of capacity building, research and evaluation, academic acceleration and pre-K through 16 education programs.

Sarbanes-Oxley expert to speak

Mary M. Sjoquist of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) will speak at the School of Management on “PCAOB Regulation in a Challenging Global Environment.”

The lecture, which is free and open to the public, will be held at 5 p.m. March 18 in 106 Jacobs Management Center, North Campus.

The PCAOB is a private, nonprofit corporation created by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 to oversee the auditors of public companies. It was created to protect investors and the public interest by promoting informative, fair and independent audit reports.

Sjoquist is special counsel to PCAOB board member Bill Gradison. She works with the board and the staff of the PCAOB in formulating the rules required by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, new and revised auditing standards and other policies affecting registered public accounting firms.

Sjoquist’s visit is sponsored by the Helen and Oscar Sufrin Lectureship in Accounting and Finance, which brings distinguished business professionals to the School of Management to speak in the areas of accounting, finance, financial economics or financial management.

Reuse topic of Climate Talk

“Another Chance: Reuse and Revitalization in the City of Buffalo,” the next session of the spring 2009 UB Green Climate Talks, will take place at 7 p.m. March 19 in the Allen Hall Theater, South Campus.

The panel will include Ed Hogle of Rock Harbor Village and representatives of Buffalo Reuse and PUSH Buffalo. David Torke of Fix Buffalo will serve as moderator.

For more information, contact Jim Simon at 829-3535.

Printmaker’s work on exhibit

“Enrique Chagoya: Adventures and Misadventures, Prints and Multiples 2002-08,” an exhibition of work by Mexican printmaker Enrique Chagoya, is on view through April 26 in the UB Anderson Gallery, One Martha Jackson Place, near Englewood and Kenmore avenues.

The show features approximately 15 of Chagoya’s works published by different presses, including ULAE, Shark's Ink, Segura, Magnolia Press, Hui Press and Trillium.

Chagoya has been actively making prints for more than 25 years, and his work in the medium has become increasingly experimental in terms of scale, mixed technique and even dimension, which is the focus of the current exhibition.

Baird Foundation gift for WBFO tower

The Cameron and Jane Baird Foundation has given an additional $40,000 to WBFO-FM 88.7, UB’s National Public Radio affiliate, to support installation of the station’s new tower and antenna from which it already has begun broadcasting.

The gift follows the foundation’s $20,000 contribution in 2008, and also will be used toward the cost of the tower, designed to improve the quality of WBFO’s signal in Western New York, the Southern Tier and Southern Ontario; to strengthen its signal in downtown Buffalo; and to extend the station’s reach to an additional 50,000 people to the northeast, east and southeast of the station’s current broadcast area.

“We remain committed to furthering the goals of WBFO, an outstanding community resource,” said Barbara Price Baird. “The station has proven itself a highly capable leader in the news, music and entertainment industry. It continues to challenge itself by incorporating the newest technologies in order to continue delivering the finest programming to its ever-growing public radio audience.”

At 443 feet high, the new tower stands 45 percent higher than WBFO’s former tower and allows the station to deliver a significantly stronger signal to more than 1.2 million people now within its broadcast area, according to Carole Smith Petro, associate vice president and WBFO general manager. She added that the station is working to secure additional private funding to supplement the grant that was given by the U.S. Department of Commerce for the project.

WBFO 88.7 FM broadcasts from its main signal in Buffalo and two repeater stations: WUBJ-FM 88.1 in Jamestown and WOLN-FM 91.3 in Olean.