Author William Kennedy’s Roscoe Opening to Rave Reviews
By Greta Petry
Pulitzer Prize-winning author William Kennedy’s eighth novel [and seventh in the Albany cycle], Roscoe (Viking, $24.95), is a hit with literary critics.

Thomas Mallon, in the The Atlantic Monthly, proclaims it “William Kennedy’s Greatest Game - Roscoe has a lyricism and a gusto rarely achieved in serious American novels about politics.”

Ward Just, reviewing the novel for The New York Times Book Review, writes, “. . . I think it’s a beaut, deadly serious high comedy propelled by soaring flights of linguistic legerdemain.” James Sullivan of the San Francisco Chronicle notes, “In the writer William Kennedy, Mario Cuomo once said, Albany has found its Homer.” In The Baltimore Sun, Laura Demanski writes, “William Kennedy’s eighth novel, Roscoe, carves out a peculiar literary terrain between bareknuckled realism and nostalgic fantasia.”

The main character, Roscoe Owen Conway, is a power in the Albany Democratic machine circa 1945. Roscoe himself is either fictional or a composite of real-life characters, a man of excess haunted by the desire to leave his entangled life of political skullduggery and fraud, even as he is mesmerized by its intricacies and risks. One wonders if -- like the birds he watches at the cockfights, pecking each other to bits until one of them is dead -- Roscoe is hopelessly locked into a comic-tragic life of fraud and deceit from which he can’t escape.

Kennedy’s attention to painstaking detail creates a realistic Albany of the era, from the scenery on the streets to the meticulous descriptions of the clothes that people wear. The innocent daytime activities of shops opening on the street mask the underbelly of the city’s night life, where houses of prostitution thrive with the party’s protection, and lying, cheating, and stealing are the rule rather than the exception.

Kennedy’s masterful use of dialogue and the plot are captivating in and of themselves. But as Mallon points out, parallels can be drawn between several of the characters in Roscoe and real-life legends in Albany politics, which makes for even more intriguing reading. Mallon writes that longtime Albany party boss Dan O’-Connell becomes the fictional Patsy McCall. McCall’s right hand is Elisha Fitzgibbon. “Elisha’s flesh-and-blood basis is Edwin Corning, once a major holder in the Ludlum Steel Company.” Elisha’s son Alex, is “Albany’s new ‘soldier-boy’ mayor.” And Alex, “a rich man’s son with a common man’s heart,” evokes the image of the late Erastus Corning, mayor of Albany from 1942 to 1983.

The world that Kennedy recreates is, of necessity, a man’s world, where Roscoe and his cronies are larger than life, with unrestrained appetites for action and avarice. And yet, I wanted to know more about what made female character Veronica Fitzgibbons tick. Wife of Elisha, she was also the unattainable love of Roscoe’s life. Throughout the book, Kennedy dangles before the reader the hope that Roscoe and Veronica will get together.

As famous as he is, Kennedy is always gracious enough to mention his connection to the New York State Writers Institute, based at UAlbany, where he is a member of the faculty. In a recent Q. and A. with the San Francisco Chronicle, the author notes that he recently returned from Cuba.

“I run the New York State Writers Institute here and we’re planning to bring a small film festival to Albany. I was looking at films that are likely candidates. A bunch of writers and their wives went down with me - Frank McCourt, Michael Ondaatje, Russell Banks, my son, two newspaper editors. Cuba’s a fascinating place. I may write about it down the road,” Kennedy said.

He also puts in a plug for his beloved Albany. “This is a very livable city, and it’s getting to be more and more so. The downtown has made a real comeback. It’s a real literary city now. It’s doing fine, and it needs no defense.”

Impact of 9/11 on UAlbany Students Assessed
By Carol Olechowski
Last September, millions of people watched as television broadcast, live, the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. Now, a survey of nearly 500 UAlbany undergraduates by Center for Stress and Anxiety Disorders Director Edward B. Blanchard and graduate student Eric Kuhn, B.A. ’91, indicates that the mass “vicarious witnessing” of the events had a tremendous psychic impact on the students -- and that impact is likely to be reflected in the general population.

Blanchard said, “I don’t think many people who work with trauma would have believed that vicarious witnessing - not being there in person and seeing it happen, but watching an event on TV - could have such a great emotional impact. Most of us have seen wrecked cars and plane crashes on TV, but people, by and large, don’t seem to have a major psychic reaction to what they see on television. This episode was different. It was an attack on America, and it changed our world view and our perception of how safe life is in New York.”

“There are two reactions to trauma,” he explained. Acute Stress Disorder occurs when an individual is victimized by an event - such as a violent physical assault, a kidnapping, a hostage situation, or an automobile accident - that poses the possibility of death or serious injury to oneself or to another human being. That event, in turn, triggers feelings of fearfulness, helplessness, or horror that cause the individual to relive the trauma repeatedly through nightmares, flashbacks, and hallucinations. The ASD sufferer has difficulty sleeping and may be irritable, unable to concentrate, easily startled, overly watchful, and restless. In addition, the individual may avoid thoughts, conversations, activities, locations, and people that bring the event to mind. ASD symptoms appear - and generally resolve themselves - within four weeks of the trauma.

Symptoms that persist beyond four weeks, however, indicate Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. PTSD, which can “show up a month or more after an incident,” may afflict the sufferer for a lifetime.

His work with automobile accident survivors made Blanchard curious about the possible psychic effects of the terrorist attacks. He and his protégé “thought about what we had heard and seen September 11, and we decided to do a survey of undergraduates here. We were interested in things that might predict ASD and PTSD.” Blanchard and Kuhn designed a survey that queried respondents about the number of hours they had spent with media, including television, in the week after September 11; whether they had personally known victims of the World Trade Center collapse, and if so, how many. Other items on the questionnaire included whether the respondent had spoken with victims or witnesses, ever visited the trade center, or attended memorial services in the 14 days after the attacks.

Survey participants were also asked the proximity of their homes to the WTC. The responses for this question ranged from the five boroughs of New York City proper, through the near and far suburbs, and “all other counties” both within and outside the State of New York.

Working with a few other students, Kuhn, a third-year student from Durham, N.Y., administered the survey to about 500 students primarily from the Introduction to Psychology courses, which mandate “participation in a certain number of research studies”; “a few random participants” were involved, as well. The gender breakdown “was almost equal,” observed Blanchard. “I had expected that we would end up with more females than males, so I’m very pleased it came out this way.”

Kuhn, a former research technician at the National Center for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Research in Boston, collected and analyzed the data. Of the more than 250 males sampled, 65, or 25.5 percent, displayed ASD symptoms in the two weeks after the terrorist attacks. Of the 230-plus female respondents, 101, or 43.7 percent, reported ASD symptoms. In all, 166 undergraduates, or 34.2 percent of those surveyed, were found to be suffering from symptoms associated with the short-term stress disorder, with women accounting for three out of every five afflicted by the disorder.

Blanchard was “surprised,” however, at the PTSD results. Although nearly twice as many women as men had ASD, 29 men and 29 women were found to have PTSD symptoms six to ten weeks following the attacks. “I would have expected a gender difference there,” he commented, explaining that several years ago, a random survey of 8,000 U.S. adults indicated that women are about twice as likely as men to suffer from PTSD.

“What is notable about this,” Blanchard continued, “is that data from motor vehicle accidents show that 60 to 75 percent of these survivors who have ASD wind up with PTSD within six months. The fact that we’re finding a much lower rate may be just a difference in the nature of the trauma.”

Analysis of the UAlbany survey data also revealed that respondents who come from areas closer to Ground Zero were more prone to suffer from symptoms of both ASD and PTSD than those who live farther away.

The survey is being expanded to include information compiled at North Dakota State University, Augusta State University in Georgia, and Mary Washington College in Virginia. Through former students, all three have connections with UAlbany. Mary Washington, the CSAD director pointed out, “is about 50 miles south of the Pentagon. It’s pretty close and has psychic ties to the site of the attack.” Input from the other two institutions will offer insight into the reactions of people farther away from the Pentagon. The data from the UAlbany survey can then be compared with the results of the other study, which are expected this winter.

“What I plan to do is go back to our Introduction to Psychology classes next September or October to see what percentage of people are still having trouble. Ideally, we’d go back to the same students, but we don’t have information that identifies them. But that’s OK, because the students next fall will be very compatible to the respondents to this survey,” said Blanchard, who intends to publish the findings.

A year from now, he added, “we expect to see less [ASD and PTSD]. From what we know about PTSD, there’s a remission curve that demonstrates that, over time, people get over these symptoms.”

For students still troubled by September 11, the University at Albany offers a number of resources, Blanchard noted, including Middle Earth Peer Assistance (442-5800) and the Psychological Services Center (442-4900). Staff can turn to the University’s Employee Assistance Program (442-5483) for help.

Said Blanchard: “Before September 11, you would have had a debate as to whether watching something traumatic happen to somebody else on television was enough to make a person symptomatic. As far as I’m concerned, our data would no longer question that. September 11 was a defining day for many people, just as people of earlier generations remember John F. Kennedy’s assassination or the bombing of Pearl Harbor.”

Kathy Turek Named to Head IFW
Kathy Turek has been named by Provost Carlos Santiago as the new chair of the Initiatives For Women (IFW) Steering Committee. She succeeds Carol Bullard, who served as chair for the last two and a half years. Under Bullard’s outstanding leadership, IFW developed innovative programs and new major sources of funding. The Avon-IFW Life Impact Scholarship program was realized with funding from Avon Products Foundation to bring 10 nontraditional women transfer students of superior academic potential and great financial need to the UAlbany campus to complete their four-year degrees. The Ford Foundation approved an $80,000 challenge grant, which will be used to establish an endowment fund to support women in the physical sciences. IFW realized four new endowed funds during Bullard’s tenure and also received its first bequest intention. Bullard was responsible for leading IFW to maturation as a fundraising organization to the benefit of all campus women.

Turek is the associate director in the Center for Excellence in Teaching & Learning and an affiliate faculty member in the Department of Women’s Studies. She is an active member of the women’s community, having served on numerous IFW subcommittees as well as the Women’s Concerns Committee and the Council of Women’s Groups. Her work promoting women and technology, which has spanned her 23-year career at the University, includes Turek’s founding and chairing of the Women and Technology Subcommittee of the Women’s Concerns Committee. She created the Women’s Concerns Committee listserv (WCC-L), providing a venue for women to discuss areas of common interest via e-mail, and established the first Web sites for the Women’s Community, Department of Women’s Studies, and Initiatives For Women. In 1994, Turek won the President’s Award and the Chancellor’s Medallion for Excellence in Professional Service. She also received the Bread and Roses Award in 1997 for her extraordinary contributions on behalf of gender equity and enhanced quality of life for women at the University.

Initiatives For Women was launched in 1993 under the leadership of Gloria DeSole with the singular mission of enriching educational and career opportunities for women students, faculty, and staff at the University. Since 1993, IFW has made more than 200 awards to deserving campus women, making a critical difference in their lives by helping them to achieve their dreams and goals.

Turek has indicated her intention to continue this record of achievement. She plans to meet the Ford challenge of raising $160,000 for the IFW endowment funds by, in part, establishing a new Women and Technology Endowed Fund used to support University women (students, faculty, and staff) pursuing studies or advancement in a computer technology field.

Now functioning under the Academic Affairs office, IFW is an all-volunteer organization comprised of campus faculty, administrators, and staff, as well as members of corporations and the community. The members enthusiastically contribute their time and skills to promote opportunities for women. If you have questions about Initiatives For Women, would like to volunteer your time, or make a donation, please contact the new chair at 437-3916 or send an e-mail to ifw@albany.edu.

Home Page/ Front Page/ Campus News/ Features/ Sports/ Date Book