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UAlbany Welcomes Students, Offers New Programs

Contact: Lisa James Goldsberry (518) 437-4980

ALBANY, N.Y. (August 27, 2004) -- Carrying boxes of computers, notebooks, and CD players, University at Albany dorm students today began to arrive for the Monday, August 30 start of the fall 2004 semester. Among the changes they will encounter on campus are new academic programs, new faculty, improvements in several campus buildings, and expanded parking.

In addition to 31 new full-time faculty, UAlbany students will be offered several new courses and expanded programs. The College of Arts and Sciences offers two new journalism courses, �Public Affairs Reporting� and �Broadcast Journalism,� as part of a continuing effort to give students the most contemporary training in reporting, writing and analysis, and to push toward instituting the region's first major in journalism.

The College of Arts and Sciences will offer a special graduate readings course in German and the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy will launch a new certificate in public security, which includes course work on terrorism.

UAlbany�s Science Research in the High School, an outreach program which gives high school students in nearly 150 high schools throughout the state the opportunity to conduct their own research, is formally launching a Scientist-in-Residence program.

Improvements have been made to the physical plant as well. The Parking and Mass Transit Office has moved to a new location near the Chemistry building. The old parking management facility was demolished over the summer to make way for Podium West, a new parking lot for students, faculty and staff that will add some 216 spaces.

Other projects include the re-opening of Oneida Hall on Indian Quad after substantial renovation, completion of work on 10 more classrooms in the Humanities building and three lecture center rooms, and renovations to the first floor of Milne Hall on the downtown campus.

The class of 2008 was drawn from about 17,000 applicants. The University will enroll about 2,060 students for fall 2004, and admitted about 150 fewer than fall 2003, facilitating its move toward higher selectivity. Included among them are more than 200 high-achieving Presidential and Frederick Douglass Scholars, as well as two National Merit Finalists. They bring with them a high school GPA average of 90.7, up from 90.1 last year, and mean combined SAT scores of 1166, 150 points higher than the national average. Twenty-one percent of this class ranked in the top 10 percent of their high school graduating class.

 


The University at Albany's broad mission of excellence in undergraduate and graduate education, research and public service engages 17,000 diverse students in nine degree-granting schools and colleges. For more information about this internationally ranked institution, visit www.albany.edu. For UAlbany's extensive roster of faculty experts, visit www.albany.edu/news/experts.htm.