UAlbany joins the America East Conference

"I think the athletic program can go into that conference and compete. Everyone has a lot to look forward to. Someday we’re all going to be turning on the television and watching the Great Danes play in the NCAA Tournament, and that’s going to be great.”

Charlie Voelker, WOFX Radio
and UAlbany alumnus

Athletes on 17 of UAlbany’s 19 intercollegiate varsity teams will have the opportunity to compete for conference and NCAA championships beginning this fall when the University joins the America East Conference. The University, which had been seeking a conference affiliation since it moved to NCAA Division I in September 1999, accepted an invitation to become a member of America East earlier this year.

America East, now in its 13th year, includes Boston University, University of Delaware, Drexel University, University of Hartford, Hofstra University, University of Maine, University of New Hampshire, Northeastern University, Towson University and University of Vermont. The University at Stony Brook was also accepted as a conference member with UAlbany.

“The America East Conference membership and the University at Albany have similar missions. These institutions have high academic standards, operate their athletic departments with integrity and demonstrated quality, and value the student-athlete as a whole person. We look forward to a long and productive partnership,” University President Karen Hitchcock said.

Athletics Director Lee McElroy, who spearheaded the conference search, said affiliation represents a major step forward for the entire UAlbany athletics program. “With America East Conference membership, the University’s goals and aspirations for intercollegiate athletics are now clearly defined. Our student-athletes and coaches will have an opportunity to compete for both conference and NCAA championships. America East will also provide increased visibility for athletics and strengthen our identity with the University’s students, alumni, faculty and friends.”

America East sponsors 21 conference championships for men and women. Admission to NCAA championships can be earned in baseball, men’s and women’s basketball, field hockey, men’s golf, men’s and women’s lacrosse, men’s and women’s soccer, softball, men’s and women’s tennis and volleyball. In addition, student-athletes compete as individuals for NCAA events in cross country, swimming and diving and track and field.

UAlbany sponsors eight men’s teams, including baseball, basketball, cross country, indoor track, lacrosse, outdoor track, soccer, and football (Division I-AA). The 11 women’s teams are basketball, cross country, field hockey, golf, indoor track, lacrosse, outdoor track, soccer, softball, tennis and volleyball. Football will continue its association with the Northeast Conference, and is committed through 2002. Women’s golf will compete as an independent.

Master Plan: Life Sciences Building Takes Shape

A new life sciences building, the centerpiece of the University’s master plan, is now under construction at the east end of the academic podium. The $78 million facility is designed to launch a new era in scientific research at UAlbany by providing state-of-the-art space to support collaborative, cutting-edge research.

With 180,000 square feet of space, the life sciences building is scheduled for completion in 2005. Located adjacent to the current Biology Building, it will provide the strategic foundation for growing the University’s research enterprise and opportunities for graduate education, especially in the areas of biology and genomics.

UAlbany's new life sciences building, under construction at the east end of the academic podium, will house 39 research groups from a a spectrum of disciplines.

The building, which is deliberately designed with flexible generic laboratory space, will ultimately house 39 research groups from a variety of life science disciplines, rather than serving as a home for any particular department. Researchers from departments such as psychology, biology and chemistry, who are working in areas related to the life sciences, will share the building.

Many core technologies that are critical for supporting research across the spectrum of disciplines will be located in the building. These include imaging, tissue culture, x-ray crystallography, bioinformatics and molecular modeling, a greenhouse, and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy.

One highlight of the building will be a 3,000-square-foot module that will house three principal investigators and a fermentation facility, funded by a $619,855 grant from the National Institutes of Health. The fermentation facility will allow researchers to grow the yeast and bacterial cells that are needed to purify individual enzymes and protein complexes on a large scale. State funds will cover $65 million of the overall $78 million cost of the project, and the University is planning a campaign to raise the remainder. The University is seeking additional federal support, such as the NIH grant, to finance specialized facilities in the building, and will also be seeking support from corporate sponsors and individuals.

Northland Associates of Syracuse is the contractor for the building and The Hillier Group of New York City is the architect.

Awards and Honors

ichard Alba and John Logan have been named distinguished professors by the State University of New York (SUNY) Board of Trustees. The designation is the highest rank a SUNY educator can achieve and is above that of full professor. Both faculty members have joint appointments in the Department of Sociology and the Department of Public Administration and Policy at UAlbany.

Alba, founding director of UAlbany’s highly regarded Center for Social and Demograph-ic Analysis, focuses his re-search on race/-ethnicity and international migration, both in the U.S. and Germany, where he has twice been a Fulbright scholar. Logan serves as director of the University’s Lewis Mumford Center for Comparative Urban and Regional Research. His work on ethnic and immigrant populations draws on his expertise in the quantitative analysis of large demographic data sets.

Albany biologist Paulette McCormick, recently awarded a $1.5 million National Institutes of Health grant for cancer research, has received a joint appointment with the Stratton Veterans Administration Medical Center in Albany as its director of cancer genetics. McCormick will supervise joint cancer research programs between the center and the University, conducting her work at UAlbany’s East Campus facilities.

arson Carr, associate vice president for academic affairs and director of UAlbany’s Educational Opportunity Program, is one of the first individuals to be honored with the newly established Governor’s Tribute to African American Leaders of Excellence in State Service Award. Since joining UAlbany in 1985, Carr has doubled the EOP graduation rate to above 50 percent, giving the University one of the highest rates among the 50 EOP programs in the State University of New York system.

niversity at Albany psychologists M. Dolores Cimini and Daniel A. Trujillo of the Middle Earth Peer Assistance Program received a U.S. Depart-ment of Edu-cation award early this year for their work in developing and implementing a nationally recognized model program to prevent alcohol and drug abuse.

rofessor of anthropology Dean Falk has been elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advance-ment of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest federation of scientists. Falk is an expert on primate and human brain evolution, neuroanatomy and hominid paleontology.

rofessor Audrey Champagne, who holds joint appointments in the departments of Chemistry and Educa-tional Theory and Practice, has been elected chairwoman of the Educational Section of the American Asso-ciation for the Advancement of Science. She has been an AAAS fellow for the past two decades.

UAlbany to Create Northeastern Hub for Jewish Studies

The University will create a Center for Jewish Studies that is intended to establish the campus as a hub for Jewish studies for the entire State University of New York system and for public higher education in the Northeast.

The center’s opening, targeted for the spring of 2002, is expected to draw Tel Aviv University President and former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Itamar Rabinovich as a speaker.

A Jewish Studies Advisory Board, made up of community leaders and scholars in Jewish studies, has been formed to lead the project. Mark A. Raider, chair of the Department of Judaic Studies, said that the advisory board has raised an initial $50,000, including a $25,000 challenge grant from philanthropist Marty Silverman of New York City, to launch the project.

Grants and Awards

The University will strengthen its Korean studies program with a $135,000 grant from the Korean Foundation to establish an assistant professorship. The grant will allow the University to add a third-year language course, plus classes in culture, economics and history. Twenty percent of UAlbany’s record international student population is Korean.

Ten nontraditional women transfer students with high academic potential but limited financial resources will have the opportunity to attend the University this fall under a $100,000 grant from Avon Products Foundation. The two-year grant will pay for tuition and other educational expenses for women transferring from regional community colleges. The Life Impact Scholarship grant will be administered by UAlbany’s Initiatives for Women program.

The School of Education has received a $600,000 award from the National Science Foundation to examine the way schools and teachers balance a local effort to improve science teaching and learning with state assessments and standards. Improved science education in the high schools leads ultimately to better qualified students at the University level and a better prepared work force after college.

The award is a supplement to an earlier $2.5 million NSF-funded project that is supporting professional development for grade K-8 science teachers working in a collaboration between four local school districts — Schenectady, Bethlehem, Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake and Watervliet — and UAlbany.

Sweet Associates Inc. of Albany received the 2000 Award of Merit for an institutional project from New York Construction News for construction of the science library at UAlbany. The McGraw-Hill publication’s Best of 2000 Awards recognize creative solutions to challenging projects.

UAlbany in the News

Sociologist John Logan was quoted in a number of national media outlets seeking interpretation of the latest U.S. Census figures, including The Christian Science Monitor, Washington Post, New York Times and USA Today. Logan, director of the University’s Lewis Mumford Center for Comparative Urban and Regional Research, said his research suggests that, while America is becoming more ethnically diverse, it is also as segregated as ever.

Sociologist Thor Bjarnason was featured in The New York Times as co-author of a major international study on teen tobacco, drug and alcohol use. The findings, released at a meeting of the World Health Organization in Stockholm, suggest that cigarette smoking and alcohol use are less prevalent among 10th grade students in the United States than in almost all European countries.

Time magazine profiled alumna Catherine Bertini, head of the World Food Programme, in its Feb. 19 issue, noting that she majored in political science at the University. (Bertini is featured in this issue of UAlbany magazine)

David O. Carpenter, M.D., of UAlbany’s School of Public Health will be featured on a Discovery Health Channel broadcast on June 15. “Toxic Legacies” focuses on the work of anthropologist Elizabeth Guillette, who studied the effects of pesticides on the children of Yaqui Indian farmers in Mexico. Carpenter, well known for researching the effects of lead and PCBs on children, comments on problems related to exposure to such contaminants.

The Los Angeles Times quoted Terence Thornberry of the School of Criminal Justice in a feature on school violence. Thornberry suggested that, to address the problem, policymakers need to move “away from what they may be comfortable with and toward systematically implementing programs” that work.

Reporter Celeste Ford of WABC-TV, New York, filmed Harry Wood, UAlbany’s director of Undergraduate Admissions and Recruitment, for a segment on what colleges look for in prospective freshmen. “The transcript is critical,” said Wood. “What courses the students take, how they’ve performed . . .and how they performed in relation to other students in the school.”

Quote, Unquote

“I consider this the start of a very strong partnership. There’s a lot the federal government can do.”

U.S. Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y., new chairman of the House Science Committee. Boehlert toured the University at Albany’s Center for Environmental Sciences and Technology Management, which houses a number of high-tech research ventures and is now planning a $55 million expansion.

What’s In A Number?

The 923 international students enrolled at the University this year represent a new record. The number exceeds last year’s record by 34 students. Graduate students outnumber undergraduates by nearly three to one, with 83 countries represented.

Catherine Herman Is Associate VP For University Relations, Marketing

Catherine J. Herman is the University’s new associate vice president for University Relations and Marketing. Herman worked previously as a speechwriter and public affairs assistant to the state health commissioner and as communications director for the Albany Law School.

She is responsible for university-wide marketing and communications strategies, as well as serving as UAlbany’s chief media spokesperson.