UAlbany to Play a Key Role in Pataki’s Redevelopment of Harriman Campus
With University at Albany President Karen R. Hitchcock and other dignitaries at his side, Gov. George Pataki announced on April 3 that the W. Averell Harriman State Office Building campus will be redeveloped into a world-class research and development technology park. The plan will use both public and private sector investment to create millions of square feet of new state-of-the art space and will focus on attracting high- quality, high-tech jobs and generating new opportunities for fast-growing and innovative technology businesses to locate at the park.

“The transformation of the Harriman Campus will provide opportunities for researchers and entrepreneurs to work together right here in the Capital Region, attracting technology businesses and building new industries to create high quality, high-tech jobs for the 21st century,” Pataki said. “This exciting new plan will provide a driving force for investment in the Albany area leading to the development of cutting-edge technologies and innovative new products, while producing exactly the kind of opportunities that will help keep our college graduates right here in upstate New York.”

Pataki said the city of Albany, the University at Albany, and the state are all working together to “move forward and meet the challenges of the 21st century intelligently. And those visions are completely synergistic.” UAlbany is a key player in the Harriman Campus plan.

The high-tech announcement was made in the stately Red Room of the Capitol building, with its stained glass and rich paneling.

Pataki said it makes sense to use state offices, such as those on the almost 50-year-old Harriman Campus, to “revitalize our communities.”

Pataki noted that UAlbany, through the Center for Environmental Sciences and Technology Management (CESTM) and the Life Sciences building under construction, has taken “enormous steps to become a leader in research and development, not just in pure academic research but working with other companies through our Center of Excellence to develop high-tech jobs and research capabilities for the 21st century.”

The governor said that with a roughly $60 million investment from the state, “we can leverage almost a quarter of a million of private research and job development money to expand the Harriman research and development high-tech park.”

The plan paves the way for private investment at the campus to renovate some of the aging facilities and to develop new office space for private tenants. The plan projects a 10- to 20-year build- out that will generate approximately 8,000 new private sector jobs and provide for 1,000 state jobs to remain on the campus in new cost-efficient and environmentally friendly office space. It is expected that the plan will result in significant private sector investment and long-term economic benefits for the larger Capital Region.

Hitchcock said: “The University at Albany is greatly looking forward to playing a key role in the creation of a vibrant research and development technology park on the Harriman Campus in partnership with OGS (the Office of General Services) and ESDC (Empire State Development Corporation). We applaud Governor Pataki’s vision and support for the kinds of University-business relationships which drive high-tech development in the new economy. This redevelopment of the Harriman Campus offers tremendous opportunities to expand, in a major way, the kinds of research and scientific disciplines that will greatly advance the economic vitality of Albany, the Capital Region, and the entire state.”

Hitchcock said Governor Pataki’s Centers of Excellence Program has been a key factor in the resurgence in economic development across the state. The Harriman Campus’s success lies in linking up University at Albany research faculty with colleagues in industry to enhance the practical application of research to business innovations.

“When you co-locate all these people under one roof, you have a new and productive synergy, which equals new discoveries and, ultimately, new businesses and new jobs,” Hitchcock said. “The University at Albany is pleased to be a part of this initiative.”

The campus will target a mix of tenants conducting research in a variety of technology areas.

Businesses working with technology developed at UAlbany or using the many resources available at the University will also be targeted. Collaboration with UAlbany’s students, faculty and research facilities will attract tenants seeking a research park environment in which to conduct business.

In answer to questions from the press, the governor, Albany Mayor Gerald Jennings, Assemblyman Jack McEneny, and OGS Commissioner Kenneth Ringler Jr. said the move will place formerly tax-exempt state property back on the tax rolls. In addition, rather than just open up the property to individual businesses for purchase, the Harriman property will be marketed as a campus in order to attract the types of high-tech businesses that provide higher quality jobs.

Hitchcock explained that startup companies at CESTM and UAlbany’s East Campus ultimately require more space as they become more and more successful. “The Capital Region has companies that need places to continue to grow,” she said.

One recent example of this was the graduation of Cyclics Corp. from the University’s East Campus.

There are nearly 10,000 state employees at the Harriman Campus. The state’s presence on the campus will be gradually scaled back as employees move into new or renovated office space throughout the Capital Region. The Department of Transportation is scheduled to move to Wolf Road in late 2003 and, in early 2005, the Department of Civil Service will relocate to the renovated Alfred E. Smith building in downtown Albany.

Editor’s note: from information provided by the Governor’s press office and staff reports.

UAlbany Incubator Program Graduates Plastics Innovator
By Karl Luntta
Plastics leader Cyclics Corp. has graduated from the University at Albany’s pioneering incubator program. A celebration to mark the achievement was held at UAlbany’s East Campus on April 3.

Cyclics Corp. manufactures Cyclics Resins, a plastics product that relies on unique processing and chemical attributes. The plastics are light, durable, and damage-tolerant, and are recyclable and pollutant-free during the processing phase. The product is used for automobile parts, wind turbine blades, magnets and golf club shafts. Cyclics will move its expanded operation to the Riverside Technology Park in Schenectady.

The East Campus invited the company to join its incubator program in 1999. The program uses a co-location model, where nascent businesses share ideas, technologies, non-proprietary research and state-of-the-art equipment. UAlbany has, to date, graduated eight companies from incubator programs.

Guided by Associate Vice President for Research and Director of Technology Development Eugene Schuler, the East Campus has grown from the site of an abandoned drug manufacturing plant to the central spark of a successful tech revolution. “We put research faculty, academic programs and private research-driven companies right in the same buildings,” Schuler says, “not just on the same campus or in an adjacent technology park. This approach creates a remarkable synergy. Cyclics is a terrific company and has benefited from and contributed significantly to the program. We wish them continued success and are happy to see them remaining in the Capital Region.”

“We’ve been very pleased with our experience on the East Campus,” says Cyclics CEO John Ciovacco. “It’s an ideal environment for a start-up company to get its business moving.”

ASRC: a Gem, Whitman Praises UAlbany’s Center
By Mary Fiess
When U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christie Whitman visited the University last Friday, she had high praise for the research being done at the Atmospheric Sciences Research Center.

The ASRC work, she said, “is the kind of work that will allow us to make the right decisions about how we protect human health and how we best protect the environment.

“I have to tell you that the Atmospheric Sciences Research Center is the gem in the crown of SUNY and, frankly, for the United States,” she said.

Whitman came to campus on Friday to tout the “Clear Skies Initiative” advanced by President Bush as a way to achieve faster, deeper reductions in the top three pollutants that contribute to acid rain: sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and mercury.

“With the mandatory standards that the Clear Skies proposal would put in place, we will see a real improvement not just in acid rain but also in the smog and fine particulate matter. And that translates very directly not just into an impact on the health of the environment but also on the health of individuals,” said Whitman.

“We’re going to be relying very heavily on data that comes from this facility (ASRC) so that we can understand the chemical composition of particulate matter and so we can better determine where it’s coming from and what kinds of remedial efforts need to be taken in order to reduce it,” said Whitman.

The ASRC is conducting a comprehensive study of the causes, makeup and health effects of atmospheric pollutants as part of the EPA’s Particulate Matter “Supersites” Program. The EPA program is designed to characterize pollution in six of the nation’s largest metropolitan areas, and ASRC Director Kenneth Demerjian is principal investigator on the New York City study.

Demerjian’s UAlbany research group and researchers from other universities, private industry, New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation and Department of Health are engaged in comprehensive measurements and analysis of PM2.5 mass, chemical speciation and gaseous precursors at three monitoring sites in New York City and two in upstate New York locations.

The results of the five-year effort, begun in early 2000 and due to end in December of 2004, will be to “fingerprint” the “PM2.5” pollutants - small particles with diameters of 2.5 microns or less - as well as other atmospheric contaminants (so-called precursors) that form particles upon undergoing photochemical reactions. The Demerjian team will then establish the sources of these observed concentrations in terms of those locally generated versus those transported in from as far away as the Buffalo/Toronto and Ohio Valley regions.

The researchers will also provide the data to develop cost-effective mitigation strategies, and assess the impact of recent and future emission reductions in terms of emission-control effectiveness. In addition, they will test, evaluate, and, where warranted, provide tech-transfer of effective new technologies for health-based exposure measurements and air quality model assessments.

Postdoctoral Associate Frank Drewnick gave Whitman a demonstration of one of the tools used in the EPA study - an aerosol mass spectrometer - when Whitman visited one of the ASRC laboratories on Friday.

“I want to congratulate everyone here for the extraordinary work you’re doing and thank you for the information you’re giving us that will allow us to be able to do our job better, based on sound science, and to make the right decisions that have the right impact,” said Whitman.

The EPA Particulate Matter study is but one of the more than 30 current funded research programs ongoing at ASRC, which since 1961 has been dedicated to studying the physical and chemical nature of the atmosphere and its implications for the environment.

Center for Jewish Studies Inauguration April 25
On Thursday, April 25, Itamar Rabinovich, president of Tel Aviv University, chief negotiator with Syria under the late Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin and a former Israeli ambassador to the United States, will come to UAlbany as part of the celebration of the inauguration of the University’s new Center for Jewish Studies. Rabinovich, a faculty member at Tel Aviv University since 1971, is expected to meet with President Karen R. Hitchcock and members of the center’s advisory board. He will speak to faculty, students, and members of the community at a 4 p.m. ceremony in the Campus Center Ballroom, at which President Hitchcock will present him with the Medallion of the University.

The Center for Jewish Studies was established in 2001 to advance UAlbany’s ongoing commitment to overall academic excellence and, in particular, to the field of Jewish studies. A Jewish Studies Advisory Board, comprised of distinguished community leaders and nationally renowned scholars in Jewish studies, provides valuable input regarding both the center’s initiatives and the growth and expansion of the Department of Judaic Studies. Alan P. Goldberg and Carl H. Rosner serve as the board chair and vice-chair, respectively. Mark A. Raider, Ph.D., is the founding director of the center, which extends the reach of Jewish studies at UAlbany and in the SUNY system through new educational initiatives, innovative community-wide programming, scholarly endeavors, and distance learning. Consistent with the University’s mission, the center will also expand the department’s role through graduate coursework, enhanced scholarships, teaching, outreach, and research.

The center’s inaugural celebration will also feature the debut viewing of clips from several films in the Jewish Heritage Video Collection, which the center recently acquired for permanent deposit in the University Libraries with the generous support of Hedy Bagatelle, Class of 1960, a member of the Jewish Studies Advisory Board. Joel Berkowitz, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Judaic Studies, will moderate a discussion of the films, which will be shown in the Campus Center Assembly Hall prior to the inauguration ceremony.

Rabinovich, a noted historian and political scientist, has also served as the chair of the Department of Middle Eastern and African History, director of the Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, dean of Humanities and rector at Tel Aviv University. He has held visiting appointments at Cornell University, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton, the University of Toronto, Carleton University, and the Smithsonian. His research has centered on the modern history of Syria and Lebanon, inter-Arab relations, and Arab-Israeli relations. His most recent books include Waging Peace, The Brink of Peace, and The Road Not Taken.

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