Final issue of semester
This week's issue is the Reporter's final issue of the spring semester. Summer issues will be published on June 27 and July 25. Publication of the newspaper for the fall semester will resume Aug. 29.

Granger honored as "health care hero"
Carl Granger, professor and chair-emeritus of the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, received the Lifetime Achievement Award last month at the third Annual Health Care Heroes Breakfast sponsored by Business First.

Granger was honored for his role in developing the Functional Independence Measure, or FIM™, an easy-to-use rehabilitation-assessment tool that allows trained personnel to assign a numerical value—the FIM rating—to a patient's ability to function, based on performance of 18 physical and mental tasks that represent a basic daily routine of personal-care activities.

The federal Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), formerly called the Health Care Financing Administration, recently selected the FIM™ as the assessment instrument to be used by rehabilitation hospitals to document requests for prospective payment for rehabilitation treatment.

In conjunction with the FIM™, Granger established a non-profit business, the Uniform Data System for Medical Rehabilitation to provide reports and store the data for their FIM™ users. That database now holds information on more than 4 million patients, comprising the largest database of medical rehabilitation-treatment outcomes in the world.

Jayaraman named chair of CSE
Bharat Jayaraman, professor and interim chair of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, has been named department chair for a three-year term.

A UB faculty member since 1989 and coordinator of The Language Research Group (LRG) at UB, Jayaraman's research focuses on programming languages and software systems, with a special emphasis on languages that support high-level, declarative and visual modeling of complex systems. He is pursuing research projects with UB colleagues and students in the areas of object-oriented modeling, constraint-based design, interactive program visualization and domain-specific languages for applications in engineering and organizational modeling. This work has been funded by the National Science Foundation and the Xerox Foundation.

REV-UP volunteers to be honored
The Emeritus Center and Human Resource Services will host the 12th annual Retired Employee Volunteers—University Program (REV-UP) Recognition Program, to be held at 2 p.m. Tuesday in the South Lounge of Goodyear Hall, South Campus.

Eighty-seven members of the Emeritus Center will be recognized for more than 3,100 hours of community service during the past year.

Since its inception in 1990, REV-UP members have contributed more than 36,000 hours of volunteer service to the university.

Treatment offered for PMS symptoms
The BioBehavioral Program is offering free treatment for women with severe PMS or PMDD.

The treatment is a drug that currently is marketed in Europe as a contraceptive and has shown in preliminary studies to provide relief for severe PMS symptoms.

In addition to the treatment, participants will receive free medical, clinical and laboratory evaluations for severe PMS. They will be compensated for their time.

To qualify, participants must be between the ages of 18-40 and not taking oral contraceptives.

For more information, call 898-5089.

Shulman to receive Hyman L. Levin Award
Lawrence Shulman, dean of the School of Social Work, will receive the 2002 Hyman L. Levin Professional Award for Outstanding Professional Service of the Mental Health Association of Erie County, Inc.

The award will be presented at the association's 41st Mental Health Association annual meeting on May 22.

The award is presented in recognition of individual dedication to the furtherance of mental health in the community, and an exceptionally high degree of humanitarian devotion and use of professional skills to help those with mental illness as individuals and members of the community.

Shulman was nominated for "his vision, energy and commitment (that) has inspired students, faculty and administration to achieve all that they are capable of being."

Comments sought on Lee Road master plan, draft ESI
The university is soliciting comments from members of the UB community on the master plan and draft environmental impact statement (EIS) for the Lee Road development project.

Both documents can be viewed at http://www.ub-housing.buffalo.edu/leeroad.shtml. Comments on the draft EIS should be submitted on or before May 22; master plan comments are welcome at any time.

The ambitious plan would turn the relatively untouched stretch of land along Lee Road between the Ellicott Complex and the Student Union into a "college town center." The proposed town center would be a 52-acre urban corridor of retail shops, housing, campus amenities and student services located along the shoreline of Lake LaSalle, adjoining Ellicott with the academic spine. The development would be accessed by an expanded Lee Road that could extend north of the James J. Audubon Parkway and south to Putnam Way.

The master plan was developed by Stieglitz Snyder Architecture through a stakeholder-based process. The process included a needs assessment, analysis of site conditions, conceptual design alternatives and plan recommendations.

The draft EIS was prepared by Environmental Design and Research, P.C.

The Lee Road project is being developed in response to a need identified by the university, selected stakeholders, and the existing student population to create an enhanced campus experience through the attraction of a larger on-campus student population, the creation of a campus atmosphere and community, the promotion of social gathering opportunities and the establishment of convenient retail and service-oriented facilities within the campus property, says Dennis Black, vice president for student affairs.

Another critical objective of the master plan, Black says, was to develop a safe, convenient pedestrian connection between Ellicott and the spine. Other goals of the project include enhancing the student-life opportunities and quality of the student-life experience, he says, adding that the university maintains that in addition to campus and program improvements, increasing the population of students who reside on campus would serve to create a more cohesive campus community.

Concrete canoe places second
"General Lee," the concrete canoe designed and built by UB civil engineering students, placed second overall in the American Society of Civil Engineers/Master Builder's Regional Upstate New York Competition, held recently in Syracuse.

The team also won first place in the men's endurance race.

UB's performance was the best it's had at the regional level in several years, notes team member Jean M. Balent.

The team from Rochester Institute of Technology took the overall first-place prize. Clarkson University was third.

UB engineering students each year participate in the annual competition sponsored by ASCE and Master Builders, where civil engineering students design and build a canoe entirely of concrete. The teams must submit a technical report, perform an oral presentation and answer questions from a panel of professional engineers, build a 10' x 10' x 10' display, and compete in five races—men's and women's sprints, co-ed sprint, and men's and women's endurance.

Each school is required to develop a theme for its boat, with the UB team naming its canoe "General Lee" as part of a "Dukes of Hazzard" theme.

Rooney to be honored by PSS
Barbara J. Rooney, assistant director in the Office of Admissions, will receive the Professional Staff Senate's Outstanding Service Award at the PSS's annual awards luncheon, to be held from noon to 2 p.m. Wednesday in the Center for Tomorrow, North Campus.

The recipient of the SUNY Chancellor's Award for Professional Service also will be honored at that time. SUNY had not announced the winners of the Chancellor's Awards as of Reporter press time.

Rooney, a UB professional staff member since 1990, is a quiet, yet effective leader in the workplace and an empathetic provider of various community service efforts, says her nominator, Jennifer Hess, assistant director for external relations in the Office of Admissions.

"As the assistant director for processing in the Office of Admissions, she oversees and manages the highly efficient movement of nearly 20,000 freshman and transfer applications and ensures timely coordination for review. These processes directly influence our aggressive recruitment and enrollment initiatives, targets and yields," Hess wrote in her nominating letter.

Rooney is a member of the Intercollegiate Athletics Board (IAB), the primary oversight body for intercollegiate athletics.

"This service ties in nicely to her experience as a former UB athlete, the athletic liaison for the Office of Admissions and to her longtime love and support for women's athletics," Hess wrote.

Rooney also is a member of the Educational Advisory Board and Home School Association at Sts. Peter and Paul School in Williamsville, and serves as treasurer for a local scouting group.

UB to hold conference on post-genomic research
Western New York scientists working in the areas of genomics, proteomics and bioinformatics will share their findings and innovations at the first Buffalo-Niagara Post-Genomic Research Conference on Wednesday.

Sponsored by the Office of the Vice President for Research at UB, the conference will be held from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. in 105 Harriman Hall, South Campus. It will be followed by a reception.

Presenters will include geneticists, pharmaceutical scientists, computer scientists, biologists, chemists and physiologists from UB, Roswell Park Cancer Institute and Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute. Post-genomic research refers to research in the life sciences resulting from the mapping of the human genome.

Speakers will discuss their results and innovations, including the best ways to design experiments in the post-genomic era, new computational approaches to managing the data such experiments generate and new techniques to speed the identification of promising compounds, such as a genomics-based, high-throughput, drug-discovery system.

The keynote speaker will be Gregg Morin, vice president of MDS Proteomics, one of the leading companies in the field that is bridging the gap between genomics and drug discovery.

"This is a critical time for post-genomic research in Western New York," said Kenneth Tramposch, associate vice president for research at UB and one of the conference organizers.

"A lot of excellent post-genomic research is going on in Western New York, but it tends to stay hidden in the laboratories of individual scientists," he noted.

"This conference will provide an opportunity for the area's leading researchers from all three institutions involved in the Buffalo Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics, as well as people from local life sciences companies, to interact and to share ideas with each other."

Tramposch expects to make the conference an annual event.

While the conference will be free, those planning to participate must register by completing the online registration form at http://www.specialevents.buffalo.edu/postgenomics, or by calling Joseph Cusker at 645-3321.

Alexander quartet to perform
Following in the footsteps of such renowned string quartets as the Juilliard, Emerson, Cleveland and Budapest, the Alexander String Quartet will perform the three concerts comprising the second half of the 46th annual Beethoven String Quartet Cycle on May 30-June 1 in Slee Concert Hall, North Campus.

Concerts will begin each night at 8 p.m. The programs for the series, the only one of its kind in the world:

• May 30th: Quartet in F minor, Op. 95 ("Serioso"); Quartet in B-flat Major, Op. 18, No. 6, and Quartet in A minor, Op. 132
• May 31: Quartet in A major, Op. 18, No. 5 and Quartet in B-flat Major, Op. 130
• June 1: Quartet in C minor, Op. 18, No. 4, Quartet in F Major, Op. 135 and Quartet in E minor, Op. 59, No. 2

The UB performances by the Alexander String Quartet will be the last with first violinist Ge-Fang Yang, who will leave the quartet after a 10-year tenure that saw, among other triumphs, the ensemble's recordings of the complete Beethoven String Quartets and multiple U.S. and European tours. Zakarias Grafilo will succeed Yang at the conclusion of the quartet's 2001-2002 season this summer.

Since 1981, the Alexander String Quartet—comprised of Yang and Frederick Lifsitz, violins; Paul Yarbrough, viola, and Sandy Wilson, cello—has performed in the major music capitals of four continents, securing its standing among the premiere ensembles of its kind.

Its international career was assured in 1985, when it won both First Prize and Audience Prize at the London International Competition.

Widely admired for its interpretations of Beethoven and Bartók, the quartet also has established itself as an important advocate of new music through more than 25 commissions and numerous premiere performances.

In 1999, BMG Classics released the quartet's nine-CD set of the Beethoven cycle on its Arte Nova label to tremendous critical acclaim. The quartet also has recorded works of Mozart, Brahms, Dvor‡k and others on the Foghorn label.

At home in San Francisco, quartet members have a major artistic presence, serving as Ensemble-in-Residence of San Francisco Performances and as directors of the Morrison Chamber Music Center in the College of Creative Arts at San Francisco State University. Recognized as innovative educators, the quartet also serves as the resident ensemble of Baruch College, Allegheny College and St. Lawrence University.

Tickets for each concert of the second half of the Beethoven String Quartet Cycle are priced at $12 for the general public and $9 for UB faculty, staff, alumni and senior citizens, and $5 for students. Tickets can be obtained between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Friday at the Slee Hall box office, between noon and 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday at the Center for the Arts box office, or at all Ticketmaster outlets.

Department of Art names award winners
Fourteen students in the Department of Art have received 2001-02 departmental awards for their work.

George Jorgensen, Clifford Borress, Joseph Brittain and Linda Beth Flack, all juniors in the Department of Art, were selected to receive the Rumsey Award.

Established through the generosity of Buffalo painter Evelyn Rumsey Lord, the award is to be used for travel for artistic and personal enrichment or for tuition assistance for a summer studio art program outside of UB.

Flack also is the recipient of the Sally Hoskins Potenza Memorial Scholarship. The scholarship was established by the family of Sally Hoskins Potenza, a painter and graduate student in the Department of Art at the time of her early death.

In addition, Flack was selected to receive a Morrison Scholarship, established by Louis Morrison and his family to assist talented art majors in the completion of their degree.

Other Morrison Scholarship winners are Maria Sanchez, a junior in the illustration program; Scott Walker, a senior in the photography BFA program; Heather Feeney, a junior in the communication design BFA program; Richard Lang, a junior in the photography BFA program, and Alexander Morse, a junior in the Communication Design Program.

Morse also has received the Dennis Domkowski Memorial Scholarship, awarded to juniors who show excellent potential for design.

Sarah Brill, a junior in the painting concentration, was selected to receive the Philip C. and Virginia Cuthbert Elliott Painting Scholarship for outstanding ability and interest in the area of artistic painting. The cash award is based on the ability and overall merit of the student.

Priya Patel, a junior in the communication design program, is this year's recipient of the Julius Bloom Memorial Scholarship for excellence in typographic study.

Amy Chapman, a senior in the painting concentration, is the recipient of the Eugene L. Gaier Printmaking Awards established two years ago by Gaier, UB professor emeritus who has had a long-time interest in the arts.

Julie Homa, a sophomore in the sculpture program, is the recipient of the Eugene L. Gaier Excellence in Drawing Award.

James Halloran, a freshman in the painting concentration, received the Carl E. and Virginia W. Sentz Memorial Award.