Briefly

Welcome, students!
UB will welcome new and returning students to campus with a variety of activities this weekend. A chicken barbecue and picnic for new students, families and guests will be held from 5-7 p.m. tomorrow in the Student Union Courtyard on the North Campus.

UB's new marching band, "The Thunder of the East," will debut at the picnic, which is free for students who attended orientation and $7 for other guests. UB's all-female a capella group, The UB Royal Pitches and the all-male a capella group, The Buffalo Chips, will perform from 7:30-9:15 p.m. in the Student Union Theatre. Weekend events include a bonfire and luau Saturday from 7 p.m. until midnight in the field next to the UB Bookstore on the North Campus, tours and an outdoor evening movie.

Freschi to step down as architecture dean
Bruno Freschi has announced he will retire as dean of the School of Architecture and Planning when he returns from a one-year sabbatical.

Freschi will return to UB as a faculty member, but will relocate to Washington, D.C., to work at a branch office of Cannon Design, a Grand Island architectural firm, where he is a design principal.

Former Provost Thomas E. Headrick will serve as interim dean until Freschi's replacement is found after a national search.

Freschi has served as dean of the architecture school since 1989. While at UB, he has been instrumental in the restoration of the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Darwin Martin House, and codeveloped an alternative design, the so-called signature bridge, to replace the current Peace Bridge.

Hay named associate provost for research
John Hay, chair of the Department of Microbiology, has been named associate provost for research by Provost David J. Triggle. The appointment is for an initial two-year period. Hay will assume his new duties immediately on a 50-percent basis and will maintain his other administrative and research activities. Hay was a professor and vice chair of the Department of Microbiology, F. Edward Hebert School of Medicine, Uniformed Services University, in Bethesda, Md., before coming to UB. He became Grant T. Fisher Chair and professor in the Department of Microbiology in the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences in 1992.

Founding coordinator of the Center for Microbial Pathogenesis, he is a principal investigator for a $1 million grant from the Lucille P. Markey Charitable Trust allowing expansion of the center's investigations into infectious diseases. He holds a $3 million NIH grant to study chickenpox and shingles.

Five named to Blue and White Club board
Five new members have joined the board of directors of the Blue and White Club for three-year terms.

The Blue and White Club holds annual fund-raising campaigns to provide scholarships for UB student-athletes. It also engages in activities to enhance the visibility and reputation of the Division of Athletics.

The new members on the 28-member board are Frank Berrafato, B.S., '83, owner of Mississippi Mudds, Berrafato's Char-pit and Antique World; Richard Friend, B.S., '68, supervisory compliance officer for the National Labor Relations Board; Steve Ulmer, co-owner of Davis-Ulmer Sprinkler Co.; George Voskerchian, Western New York district representative for the Griffin Pipe Products Corp. and past president of the UB Alumni Association, and Marshall Wood, director of regional medical sales and marketing at Vital Systems, Inc.

Author of "Physics of Star Trek" to speak
Lawrence M. Krauss, author of "The Physics of Star Trek," "Beyond Star Trek," "Fear of Physics" and numerous other books and articles on physics and astronomy, will deliver the annual Moti L. Rustgi Memorial Lecture at UB.

His presentation, "The Physics of Star Trek," will be held at 4:30 p.m. Sept. 9 in Room 225 of the Natural Sciences and Mathematics Building on the North Campus. The talk will be free and open to the public. Krauss, who viewed hundreds of episodes of the popular series while writing his "Star Trek" books, will discuss the plausible and not-so-plausible technical aspects of the programs.

The lecture honors the late Moti Rustgi, who was director of graduate studies for the UB Department of Physics in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Ambrose Swasey Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland and a fellow of the American Physical Society, Krauss is active in the emerging field of particle astrophysics, which explores the cosmological implication of ideas concerning fundamental interactions and astrophysical and cosmological constraints on particle physics.

Donald Roberts elected president of UB Alumni Association
Donald C. Roberts, who received a bachelor of arts degree in 1993 from UB, has been elected to a one-year term as president of the UB Alumni Association.

A Kenmore resident, Roberts is an insurance executive with Northwoods Corp./Potter, Harris & Scherrer in Williamsville. He returned to UB to earn a bachelor's degree after earning an associate's degree in 1964.

The Roberts family's association with UB extends to four generations. Donald's grandfather, Jay G. Roberts, and father, Myron Roberts, both graduated from the School of Dental Medicine, in 1905 and 1930, respectively. His son, Donald C. (Charlie) Roberts, received his law degree from UB in 1997.

Other officers recently elected for 1999-2000 are David J. Saleh of Corfu, J.D. '78, B.S. '75, an attorney with the Batavia firm of Oshlag and Saleh, president-elect; Richard L. Friend of Williamsville, M.B.A. '70, B.S. '68, a supervisory compliance officer with the National Labor Relations Board, vice president for athletics; Margaret W. Paroski of Buffalo, M.D. '80, medical director of the Erie County Medical Center, vice president for constituent relations; Karen K. Noonan of East Amherst, Ph.D. '86, M.A. '66, B.A. '65, a retired UB administrator, vice president for finance; Robert A. Evans of Clarence, M.B.A. '71, B.S. '63, a management consultant, vice president for membership and marketing, and Jennifer B. Wisniewski of Buffalo, M.B.A. '96, B.A. '92, a senior market analyst for M&T Bank, vice president for student relations.

Newly elected to a two-year term on the board of directors are Nicole A. Gavigan of Amherst, Ed.M. '97, B.A. '93; Charles C. Swanekamp of East Amherst, J.D. '79, M.B.A. '80; Alan R. Mollot of Williamsville, B.S. '65;

Thomas A. Palmer of Williamsville, J.D. '75, M.B.A. '71; Priscilla A. McNeal of Buffalo, M.A. '83, B.S. '78, and Tara L. Germano of Rochester, B.S. '88.

New members of the executive committee are Evans; Wisniewski; Louis M. Cacciato of Williamsville, J.D. '64, B.A. '61, and Burton Notarius of East Amherst, M.B.A. '67, B.S. '65.

Student engineers win contest for 'clean environment' project
A group of chemical-engineering majors from UB has won a regional design competition for developing an apparatus and procedure to purify and recycle a solvent used in the rubber industry.

The student team, made up of 15 undergraduates from the Department of Chemical Engineering who are part of the UB student chapter of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), will go on to compete in the national competition in October.

The contest, sponsored by the AIChE, required students to "design, build and operate an apparatus that demonstrates how chemical-engineering principles can be applied to pollution prevention and/or environmental cleanup." The students developed an apparatus and technique for purifying and recycling methyl ethyl ketone, a substance used as a solvent in the rubber industry.

Mark Swihart, assistant professor of chemical engineering and faculty advisor to the UB student chapter of AIChE, explained that the students designed a commercial scale unit for the solvent recycling and then calculated how it would benefit a company. "Their economic analysis showed that a small rubber company that uses only 15 gallons of solvent per week would save more than $70,000 and use about 20,000 gallons less solvent over a 10-year period by implementing their solvent-recycling system," he said.

The project team leaders are seniors Tracey Blaszak, Gilbert Doucet, Jessica Tworek and Paul Trillizio.

Presentation with Internet videoconferencing succeeds
How long will it be before you can participate in a videoconference or "visit" with an overseas client without leaving your desk? If a recent experiment at UB is any indication, it could be much sooner than many people think.

"It worked beautifully," said Nancy Campbell-Heider, associate professor of nursing, of the demonstration in which UB staff brought high-quality videoconferencing and streaming video to the desktop over the Internet.

The success has major implications for health-care delivery in remote areas and for distance learning, especially within the next few years when Internet2, with its huge bandwidth capacity, is up and running.

The purpose of the experiment was practical: UB nursing faculty wanted to tap into and broadcast an evaluation of a student working with a patient in a clinical setting for a conference presentation in California about the use of videoconferencing to remotely evaluate students. But the usual videoconferencing linkup using telephone lines was not available at the conference site.

So UB information-technology staff decided to use the Internet, an extremely attractive-if technically challenging-option. The interactive session was transmitted to desktop viewers at UB and throughout the clinical site at Erie County Medical Center over an Internet conference "bridge" at Ohio State University.

The experiment taxed the resources of UB staff and faculty. Right up until airtime, staff members were working to fix technical glitches. Peter Jorgensen, senior programmer analyst, literally was slicing into cables with a knife to remedy a problem that was interfering with video transmission. In the meantime, James Whitlock, associate director of computing services who was coordinating controls from Maine, where he was on vacation, was making plans to fly equipment to Buffalo, if necessary. Luckily, with four minutes left until scheduled airtime, Jorgensen found and fixed the problem.

College surveys rate UB programs highly
UB ranked high in two recent national surveys rating the country's finest colleges. The U.S. News and World Report "1999 College Guide" rated UB as one of the best 120 private and public universities in the country.

The UB School of Management ranked highest among SUNY undergraduate business programs, according to the U.S. News and World Report survey, which ranked UB's program 60th among accredited business programs nationwide.

The survey also rated UB's undergraduate engineering program among the best of research universities nationwide. The program placed 62nd among doctoral-granting institutions.

The Princeton Review's "Best College for You-2000" commended SUNY campuses and stated that UB offers an "excellent education in just about anything. Engineering, business and pre-med are the major draws, but other disciplines-especially communication and the liberal arts and sciences-also offer competitive programs, and the library, research and recreational facilities are all very impressive."

UB forms Dean's Council for College of Arts and Sciences
The College of Arts and Sciences has formed a Dean's Council to offer guidance to the college on such issues as technology in education, career planning and development.

Kerry S. Grant, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, says he has asked distinguished alumni and community volunteers to serve on this inaugural council. Grant believes this advisory council comes at a critical time, as the college deals with its new educational paradigms, related costs and fund-raising ideas for handling increased costs and scholarship needs.

Ashok G. Kaveeshwar, Ph.D., '69, is chairing the council. Kaveeshwar is vice-president of Raytheon.

Other council members are Warren T. Colville, executive vice president of The Buffalo News; James J. Eberl, B.A. '38, Ph.D. '41, retired executive at Scott Paper; Ken Fuchs, M.A. '69, Ph.D. '74, senior vice president of Prudential Securities; Barry Glick, Ph.D., director of Navigation Technologies, Inc.; Marguerite E. Hambleton, B.A. '81, Ph.D. '95, president and CEO of AAA-Central and Western New York, and Peter Hare, Ph.D., SUNY Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Philosophy.

Also, Marsha S. Henderson, B.A. '53, president KeyBank-Western New York District; Ronald G. Herdman, B.A. '73, retired executive of Exxon; George S. Hoffman, B.A. '66, owner and chairman of Cleveland Crunch Professional Soccer Team; Patrick Kennedy, B.A. '78, president Cell Port Lab Inc.; Edward J. Kikta, B.A. '70, Ph.D. '78, analytical sciences manager at FMC Corp., and Gordon F. Martin, M.B.A. '71, managing director of CIBC Oppenheimer.

Also, Robert G. Morris, B.A. '67, senior investment director of Lord Abbett & Co.; Allen Pinkus, B.A. '65, Ph.D. '70, a partner in ADONIX Transcomm; Robert G. Raymond, B.A. '67, J.D. '71, chief counsel of British Petroleum American, Inc.; John D. Reinhold, B.A. '82, senior vice president with Solomon Smith Barney, and Ronald M. Schreiber, B.A. '75, chairman of Reciprocal.

Also, Bendy K. So, B.A. '73, a plastic surgeon; John N. Walsh III, chairman & CEO of Walsh Duffield Co.; J. Parke Wright IV, managing director of J.P. Wright Co.; Ellen Yost Lafili, J.D. '83, attorney and partner with Griffith & Yost, and Jon Younger, B.A. '73, Ph.D., senior managing director of Novations Group.

Alumni Association offers new services to university community
The Alumni Association is offering several new services to members of the university community.

They are:
- Online Alumni Directory. Faculty, staff and students can communicate with alumni conveniently through the new Online Community at UB's Alumni Center at http://www.alumni.buffalo.edu/directory/email.html. Thousands of UB graduates have posted their email addresses at this site, which is searchable by current name, former name and class year, and will soon be accessible by school/discipline.

- Discounted Books. The Alumni Association has partnered with Barnes and Noble online to offer discounted books and other products to raise money for the association. Any purchases made online from a link on the Alumni Center homepage http://www.alumni.buffalo.edu will be credited to the Alumni Association, which will receives a 5 percent commission.

- Stovroff & Potter Partnership Advantage. Members of the UB community who live in or are moving to any state in the U.S. can receive national assistance with all the details of a home sale, finding a new home, a vast array of personal and corporate relocation services and rental assistance through Stovroff & Potter's network of premier real estate affiliates. At the close of any transaction that is a result of this new Partnership Advantage Program, Stovroff & Potter will donate $100 to UB's J. Scott Fleming Merit Award Scholarship Fund in the name of the UB community member making the transaction. Any one interested in participating should contact the Stovroff & Potter Relocation Services Office at 689-8182 or (800) 327-4799 and refer to the UB Alumni Association Partnership Advantage program. Further information is available at http://www.alumni.buffalo.edu/perks_relocation.html that links to the Relocation Services homepage.

UB Today sets September schedule
Interviews with Marianne Sullivan, director of the Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership and the new Family Business Center, both in the UB School of Management; university energy officer Walter Simpson, and Mark Flynn, director of UB's new marching band, will highlight Adelphia Cable's "UB Today" program in September.

The half-hour offering, hosted each month by William J. Evitts, director of alumni relations, and Judith Schwendler, assistant director, features people, projects and programs at the university.

The program can be viewed at 6:30 p.m. Sundays on Adelphia Communications Channel 18 International, Channel 21 in the City of Buffalo and Channel 10 in Lancaster, Clarence, Orchard Park, Lockport and Elma, and at 9 p.m. Mondays on Channel 18 International.

Vena receives medal from Jagiellonian University in Poland
John E. Vena, professor and associate chair of the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine in the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, has received the Medicina Cracoviensis 2000 Medal for fostering continuing programs on environmental medicine and epidemiology between UB and Jagiellonian University in Poland.

Vena, director of the Research Program in Environmental and Occupational Health at UB, received the medal commemorating the 600th anniversary of Jagiellonian University and its medical faculty during a conference on epidemiology in a changing Europe held recently in Krakow, Poland. Vena chaired the conference's program committee, as well as a session on the failures and achievements of epidemiology in improving the health of specific populations.

Most of his current research focuses on the impact of pollutants on disease and disorders in exposed human populations. He is a member of the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology, the Society for Epidemiologic Research and the American Public Health Association.

Craft center sets early-fall workshops
The Creative Craft Center, 120 Fillmore, Ellicott Complex, will offer early fall workshops, beginning the week of Sept. 13.

Workshops are scheduled in basic and intermediate pottery, basic photography, nature photography, night photography, basic and advanced color photography, Western New York photography, aerial photography, knitting and crocheting, weaving, quilting, Brazilian embroidery, basic drawing, beginning and advanced stained glass, jewelry construction, pottery for teens (ages 11-16), basic drawing for teens (ages 11-16), pottery for children (ages 6-10) and mixed media for children (ages 6-10).

Workshops will run from 7-10 p.m. one night a week for six weeks. Fees are $30 for UB students and $60 for others.

Classes in pottery for children ($50), mixed media for children ($55) and basic drawing for teens ($60) will be held on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to noon. Pottery for teens ($60) will be held on Saturdays from 1-3 p.m. The fee covers six weeks of classes.

For more information, a schedule and a map, call 645-2434 from 1-5 p.m. Monday-Friday or 7-10 p.m. Monday-Thursday. Visit the center's Web site at http://www.student-life.buffalo.edu/su/creative.html.