UAlbany in the News

by Lisa James Goldsberry (May 6, 2004)

� The April 2004 issue of Governing Magazine featured quotes and research by Wendy S. Becker of the Department of Management in the School of Business. �Evidence of Failure� discussed how public crime labs, overwhelmed by a flood of DNA evidence, are performing poorly. According to the article, as investigators rely more on DNA for solving crimes, crime labs are overloaded. The average testing turnaround, from the time a piece of DNA evidence comes into the lab to the release of results, is more than six months. The article mentioned a national survey of forensic science lab directors, performed by Becker, which found that, as more cases are dumped on lab workers, the pressure to finish cases too quickly increases. �Staffing problems are systemic and pervasive, and impact the quality of labs and outcomes and effectiveness,� Becker was quoted as saying.

� An April 9 story sent on the Associated Press wire featured quotes by Marjorie Pryse, chair of the Department of Women�s Studies. �Greenville Native Helps Lead Changing Culture at The Citadel� focused on Viann Bolick, the second highest-ranking officer on campus and the first woman to serve on the honor court at the school that did not accept women until eight years ago. In the article, Pryse said that while admitting women immediately altered the school�s look, changing the culture takes a lot more time, especially since it�s a military institution. �To move from Shannon Faulkner to 116 women cadets� represents �some real change,� Pryse was quoted as saying.

� The April 8 edition of The Washington Post featured quotes from Eloise Briere, professor of French studies. �The Fictional Reality of Edwidge Danticat�s Haiti� was a profile of the Haitian-born author of The Dew Breaker. According to the article, Danticat is emerging as a major American literary force. Her first novel, Breath, Eyes, Memory, was chosen for Oprah Winfrey�s influential book club in 1998 and another, The Farming of Bones, won an American Book Award in 1999. Briere was quoted as saying Danticat�s work is not only about Haiti, it is Haiti. �And her writing is socially conscious. Conscious of the forces at work in Haiti, and her work is also very new American. She is conscious of the forces at work in the Haitian communities here,� Briere said.

� Leonard A. Slade Jr., professor and chair of the Department of Africana Studies, was invited by Essence magazine to publish his poetry in the May issue. Slade, the author of numerous books of poetry, wrote �For Our Mothers.� Slade earned a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois. His areas of expertise are in black literature, poetry, creative writing, 19th century American literature, and English composition and rhetoric.

� The April 18 issue of The New York Times featured information from the Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics 2002, compiled by the Hindelang Criminal Justice Research Center. �The Way We Live Now: No Politics Are Local� discussed how divisive issues such as pornography and same-sex marriage are being argued in ever-widening jurisdictions. According to the article, two moral orders that worked fine in isolation � human rights and traditional values � are locked in a struggle thanks to the Internet and the pressures of politics. �And it is in the national arena that it will be decided which of those orders emerges as the new uniform morality,� the article says.