Millionaire
Next Door Tops USA Today List
The Millionaire Next Door, a book co-authored
by University at Albany Marketing Professor William Danko, has been included
in USA Today’s “Top 30 Business Books of 2001.” The list is based
on the newspaper’s best-selling books from January through early November.
Written in 1996, The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America’s Wealthy is a research-based book about wealth in America. It identifies seven common denominators that appear again and again among those who have accumulated wealth. For instance, many millionaires shop for bargain cars, pay only a tiny fraction of their wealth in income tax, raise children who are often unaware of their family’s wealth until they are adults and reject big-spending lifestyles.
The New York Times, Business Week, Publishers Weekly, The Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times have ranked it as a best seller.
For more information about Danko or The Millionaire Next Door, visit http://www.albany.edu/business/faculty/danko.htm.
Research
Assistants to Vote on Representation
A recent decision by the National Labor Relations Board
(NLRB) has cleared the way for an election on the issue of union representation
of certain graduate research assistants (GRAs) who conduct research
on sponsored programs administered by the State University Research
Foundation.
Eligible GRAs at the University are expected to vote on April 17 to decide whether they want to be represented by the Communication Workers of America, Local 1104 (CWA).
CWA petitioned the NLRB in January for the right to represent GRAs at the University, arguing that they are primarily employees and not students. At subsequent hearings conducted by the NLRB to consider the petition, the Research Foundation argued that GRAs are students who are primarily engaged in research in support of their academic studies and therefore are not employees under the provisions of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).
Until recently the NLRB has consistently ruled that collective bargaining is not available to students who are primarily engaged in academic activities to further their educational goals. The NLRB’s rationale was that academic activities do not constitute employment for purposes of the NLRA. However, in two recent decisions, the NLRB extended collective bargaining rights to some students who perform services for the benefit of their university, such as teaching.
On March 13 an NLRB hearing officer ruled that the GRAs at UAlbany are employees for purposes of the NRLA, and are eligible to vote on whether they want to be represented by CWA. Similar decisions have been handed down against Brown and Columbia Universities. Like Brown and Columbia, the Research Foundation will appeal the decision.
Pending the appeal, the Research Foundation must allow the NLRB to conduct an election on the issue of representation. The results of the election, however, will be withheld until after the Research Foundation’s appeal is decided. The location of the polling places for the scheduled April 17 election will be announced shortly. The outcome of the election will be determined on the basis of a simple majority of the number of votes cast, not of the number of eligible voters.
State funded teaching assistants (TAs) and graduate assistants (GAs) at the University already are represented by CWA.
Library
Lecture April 11 at Page Hall
Experts on history and biography will discuss “The Art of Creating
New York State Public Policy” on April 11 from 4:30 to 6 p.m. at Page
Hall at the University’s downtown campus.
Moderator is Betty H. Winfield, author of FDR and the News Media. Winfield is working on a book about Harry Truman.
Panel members include Paul Grondahl, Robert A. Slayton, and Richard Norton Smith.
Grondahl is the author of Mayor Corning: Albany Icon, Albany Enigma and is now working on Theodore Roosevelt: The Making of a President. A feature writer for the Albany Times Union, Grondahl earned a master’s degree in English literature from UAlbany in 1984.
Slayton is the author of Empire Statesman: The Rise and Redemption of Al Smith as well as other major works on public and urban policy. A native of New York, Slayton teaches at Chapman University in California.
Smith is the author of Thomas E. Dewey and His Times. An historian, he appears regularly on “The News Hour with Jim Lehrer.”
The April 11 program, the first of its kind presented by the University Libraries, is sponsored by the Libraries, by Friends of the Libraries, and by the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy.
UAlbany
In The News
By Lisa James Goldsberry
The March 2 issue of New Scientist magazine featured research conducted by Caro-Beth Stewart of the biology department. The article, “A Big Hand for the Little Guys,” focused on her study about how sperm may explain the differences between chimps and humans. The research shows that tiny changes in these little cells may have made all the difference to our evolution.
The March 18 edition of Broadcasting and Cable magazine included a profile of UAlbany alum Tony Vinciquerra (B.A. ’77). “Bread-and-Butter Guy: Vinciquerra Came Up Through the Heart of Broadcasting,” focused on how he distinguished himself by selling ad time. It also stated that he put himself through college selling radio ads at WRW-AM/FM, which no longer exists. Vinciquerra is now chief operating officer for Hearst-Argyle Television.
A March 20 distribution of The Associated Press wire featured information from a report done by the UAlbany-affiliated Rockefeller Insti-tute of Government. The article, “Study: States Trying to Hold the Fiscal Line in the Face of Recession, Sept. 11,” noted most states will have trouble finding the revenues to balance their books for 2002, and most are facing projected revenue shortfalls for fiscal 2003. The article cited the findings in the report and also quoted Nicholas Jenny, a senior policy analyst with the Rockefeller Institute.
The March 23 issue of the New Orleans Times-Picayune featured Allen Ballard of the history and Africana studies departments. “Race Relations 101 is Topic of the Day: Literary Event Sends Writers to Schools” focused on the Writers in the Schools program at Marion Abramson High School in east New Orleans. Ballard read excerpts from his book, Where I’m Bound, a story of African-American soldiers who fought for the North in the Civil War. He also drew on his experiences living in Russia, telling the students that Aleksandr Pushkin, a Russian poet of the 1880s, was a black man who set the pace for modern Russian literature.
