News & Notes

IBM, University Create Supercomputing Facility

International Business Machines and the University have established a state-of-the-art supercomputing research facility to support the University’s semiconductor research and development programs and workforce training initiatives.

The facility, which is located at the University’s Center for Advanced Thin Film Technology, houses a $875,000 high-performance IBM RS/6000 SP supercomputer system. The supercomputer provides critically needed computing power for University researchers as they confront the challenges associated with the development of new generations of computer chips. Its primary role is to perform advanced modeling work to assess and predict the performance of novel interconnect architectures. Funding for the supercomputer was provided equally by an IBM Shared University Resources grant and University at Albany matching funds.

Stanley Fink Internship Established

With the support of a $100,000 grant from the Bell Atlantic Foundation, the University has established a legislative internship in memory of the late Stanley Fink, who served as Speaker of the New York State Assembly from 1979 to 1986.

Funds to support the $5,000, full-semester internship will be generated from an endowment in memory of Fink, who was also a former senior executive with Bell Atlantic (NYNEX) Corp.

The University has offered internship programs for undergraduate students in both the public and private sectors for many years. Each year, between 60 and 70 undergraduates participate in such programs with New York’s Assembly and Senate.

Art Museum Re-creates "The Happy Room"

The work of internationally acclaimed printmaker and book artist William Schade, M.F.A.’71, will be featured in an exhibit opening at the University Art Museum Sept. 26. Schade’s books, prints and mixed-media installations are filled with fanciful animals. The exhibition, which runs through Nov. 14, will include "The Happy Room," a re-creation of an actual room in Schade’s house in Williamstown, Mass.

Albany Names New Deans

The University has announced the appointments of four deans.

Katharine H. Briar-Lawson, an experienced academic administrator and national expert on family preservation, child and family policy and other social work issues, will become dean of the School of Social Welfare on Jan. 1, 2000. She comes to the University from the Graduate School of Social Work at the University of Utah, where she was associate dean for research and doctoral studies. Lynn Videka-Sherman, who has served as dean since 1989, will return to teaching and direct the Center for Human Services Research at the School of Social Welfare.

Sue R. Faerman, a faculty member at the University’s Nelson A. Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy since 1987, became the University’s new dean of undergraduate studies Sept. 1. She will oversee advisement services, academic support services, the General Education program, and the Presidential Scholars program. She succeeds John Pipkin, who returns to his faculty position in the Department of Geography and Planning.

Richard A. Highfield, associate dean at Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management, is the new dean of the School of Business. Highfield, who assumed the post August 1, succeeds retiring Dean Donald D. Bourque, who served for five years. At Cornell, Highfield oversaw the Johnson School’s M.B.A. program and taught courses in macroeconomics, international trade and business forecasting.

Veteran criminologist Dennis P. Rosenbaum, widely recognized for his research on community crime prevention, became dean of the School of Criminal Justice Sept. 1. Rosenbaum, who succeeds David Bayley, has served for the past 13 years as a faculty member and administrator at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Most recently, he headed the criminal justice department there. Bayley, who will remain on the faculty, has begun a major research project on international criminal justice.

DEA Chief Joins Faculty

Thomas A. Constantine, M.A.’71, the former administrator of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, has joined the University as a public service professor in the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy. Constantine, 60, who retired as DEA chief last July, is developing a continuous learning initiative for professionals in the criminal justice system. He will also lecture, mentor graduate students, help with internships, and serve on thesis committees. Before going to Washington, Constantine was the superintendent of the New York State Police.

Albany Wins NSF Grant To Train Science Teachers

The National Science Foundation has awarded the University at Albany a grant of more than $1.3 million for training high school teachers to teach science research courses.

Project Director and Professor Daniel Wulff of the Department of Biological Sciences said the grant will be used to train 280 high school teachers over a five-year period to teach a unique science research course.

"We are delighted with the NSF approval of this grant, because it will allow a major expansion of this unique Science Research course to all parts of New York State and to selected locations in the Midwest, Far West, and South," said Wulff. The grant follows a previous $400,000 NSF grant to the University that allowed 90 New York State teachers to be trained from 1996-1998.

Awards and Honors

• Marlene Belfort, a research biologist in the School of Public Health, has been named a member of the National Academy of Sciences, one of the highest honors for a research scientist. Belfort, who is also director of the Division of Genetic Disorders in the Department of Health’s Wadsworth Center, is one of only 133 women among the academy’s 1,825 members.
• James Tedeschi, a member of the Psychology Department since 1970, has received a Fulbright grant to conduct research and lecture in the summer of 2000 at the Otto Friedrich University in Bamberg, Germany and also at the Institut fuer Psychologie, Lehrstuhl fuer Sozialpsychologie, Friedrich Schiller Universitaet in Jena.
• Ronald Bosco, a professor of English, and Shirley J. Jones, a professor of social work, have been named Collins Fellows, the University’s highest award for service and commitment. The award is named for the late Evan R. Collins, who served the University as president from 1949 to 1969.
• The University has the 15th best graduate program in library science in the country, according to a U.S. News & World Report survey of deans, program directors, and faculty at the 48 accredited programs in the country. Albany’s School of Information Science and Policy, which is part of the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy, ranked 15th in a three-way tie with the University of North Texas and the University of South Carolina, Columbia.
• Criminal justice Professor Graeme Newman has been awarded the rank of distinguished teaching professor by the SUNY Board of Trustees. Newman, who joined the faculty in 1972, teaches a wide variety of courses that are demanding yet routinely oversubscribed.
• Judy Genshaft, provost and vice president for academic affairs, is the recipient of the "Woman of Excellence—Public Sector Award" from the Albany-Colonie Chamber of Commerce. Genshaft, who joined the University in 1992 as dean of the School of Education, was recognized for her innovative thinking and ability to create partnerships that reach across campus and community boundaries.
• English Professor Warren Ginsberg, a leading authority on Middle English and medieval Italian literature, has received a Guggenheim Fellowship to support research on a book about the 14th-century English writer William Chaucer.

Time Salutes Harvey Milk

Harvey Milk, A.B.’51, who became the first openly gay elected official of any large city, has made Time magazine’s list of "most influential people of the century." Milk, who was from Bay Shore on Long Island, attended Albany on the G.I. Bill. He was a member of Kappa Beta fraternity and served as the sports editor of the State College News, predecessor to the Albany Student Press. Milk later moved to San Francisco and became a gay rights pioneer, winning a seat on the city Board of Supervisors in 1977. He was assassinated a year later by former board member Dan White.

Merlin Hathaway Scholarship Recipients

Scholar-athletes Brian Campe, left, a defensive tackle from Rochester, and Ben Kelcey, a running back from Buffalo, have been named recipients of the Merlin W. Hathaway Memorial Scholarship. Campe has a 3.45 grade point average and is majoring in business administration, while Kelcey has a 3.6 GPA and is majoring in mathematics. Both football players are seniors. The scholarship was established by Eleanor Hathaway, M.S.’48, center, in memory of her husband, Merlin, M.S.’46, who guided the University’s athletics program from 1944 to 1976. Mrs. Hathaway was a member of the School of Education faculty and the student affairs staff.

Sports in Brief

• Steve Checksfield, Xiomara Davila Diaz and Kelly Poynton are the University at Albany’s 1998-99 male and female athletes of the year. Checksfield, a first-team Football Gazette Division II non-scholarship tight end, led the Great Danes to a conference championship in football and was a first-team All-New England Collegiate Conference outfielder in baseball. Davila Diaz, the athlete of the meet at both the ECAC Division II and NECC indoor track championships, and Poynton, a two-time all-conference softball pitcher with 40 career victories, shared the top female athlete award.
• Tom Alexander and Amy DiMicco have earned All-America recognition in men’s and women’s lacrosse. Alexander, a senior defenseman, was named to the USILA Division II All-America squad for the third consecutive year. DiMicco, a midfielder who established the school’s freshman single-season scoring record, was a second-team selection on the Brine/IWLCA national team.
• In softball, Albany won the ECAC Division II championship and set a single-season record with a 33-14 mark. Kelly Poynton, who posted a 15-4 record with a 1.41 earned run average last spring, was voted the tournament’s most valuable player.
• ECAC Merit Medals were awarded to Ben Wright, Kelly Paolino and Janna Johnston as the University’s top senior male and female student-athletes in 1998-99. Wright, a cross country and track and field runner, had a 3.79 cumulative grade point average in business administration. Paolino, the fourth 1,000-point scorer in the history of women’s basketball, and Johnston, the school-record holder in the heptathlon and pentathlon, were the women’s co-recipients. Paolino had a 3.58 in psychology, while Johnston earned a 3.49 in mathematics.
• Liz Peck has been named to the GTE/CoSIDA Academic All-America College Division Fall-Winter At-Large Team for the second straight year. Peck, a three-time All-American in field hockey, was voted to the national second team with a 3.94 GPA as a graduate student.