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UAlbany in the News
by Lisa James Goldsberry (May 6, 2004)
� The April 2004 issue of Governing
Magazine featured quotes and research by Wendy
S. Becker of the Department of Management in the School
of Business. �Evidence of Failure� discussed how public
crime labs, overwhelmed by a flood of DNA evidence,
are performing poorly. According to the article, as
investigators rely more on DNA for solving crimes, crime
labs are overloaded. The average testing turnaround,
from the time a piece of DNA evidence comes into the
lab to the release of results, is more than six months.
The article mentioned a national survey of forensic
science lab directors, performed by Becker, which found
that, as more cases are dumped on lab workers, the pressure
to finish cases too quickly increases. �Staffing problems
are systemic and pervasive, and impact the quality of
labs and outcomes and effectiveness,� Becker was quoted
as saying.
� An April 9 story sent on the Associated
Press wire featured quotes by Marjorie Pryse,
chair of the Department of Women�s Studies. �Greenville
Native Helps Lead Changing Culture at The Citadel� focused
on Viann Bolick, the second highest-ranking officer
on campus and the first woman to serve on the honor
court at the school that did not accept women until
eight years ago. In the article, Pryse said that while
admitting women immediately altered the school�s look,
changing the culture takes a lot more time, especially
since it�s a military institution. �To move from Shannon
Faulkner to 116 women cadets� represents �some real
change,� Pryse was quoted as saying.
� The April 8 edition of The Washington
Post featured quotes from Eloise Briere, professor
of French studies. �The Fictional Reality of Edwidge
Danticat�s Haiti� was a profile of the Haitian-born
author of The Dew Breaker.
According to the article, Danticat is emerging as a
major American literary force. Her first novel, Breath,
Eyes, Memory, was chosen for Oprah Winfrey�s
influential book club in 1998 and another, The
Farming of Bones, won an American Book Award
in 1999. Briere was quoted as saying Danticat�s work
is not only about Haiti, it is Haiti. �And her writing
is socially conscious. Conscious of the forces at work
in Haiti, and her work is also very new American. She
is conscious of the forces at work in the Haitian communities
here,� Briere said.
� Leonard A. Slade Jr., professor and chair of the
Department of Africana Studies, was invited by Essence
magazine to publish his poetry in the May issue. Slade,
the author of numerous books of poetry, wrote �For Our
Mothers.� Slade earned a Ph.D. from the University of
Illinois. His areas of expertise are in black literature,
poetry, creative writing, 19th century American literature,
and English composition and rhetoric.
� The April 18 issue of The New
York Times featured information from the Sourcebook
of Criminal Justice Statistics 2002, compiled
by the Hindelang Criminal Justice Research Center. �The
Way We Live Now: No Politics Are Local� discussed how
divisive issues such as pornography and same-sex marriage
are being argued in ever-widening jurisdictions. According
to the article, two moral orders that worked fine in
isolation � human rights and traditional values � are
locked in a struggle thanks to the Internet and the
pressures of politics. �And it is in the national arena
that it will be decided which of those orders emerges
as the new uniform morality,� the article says.
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