Dept.of Energy Expert Discusses Nuclear Waste Disposal

By Mary Fiess

Thomas Grumbly, the number three official at the U.S. Department of Energy, will discuss the complex issues surrounding the disposal of nuclear wastes in a talk sponsored by the Graduate School of Public Affairs at SUNY's Rockefeller Institute of Government, 411 State St., Albany, on Monday, March 17, at 4 p.m.

Grumbly's talk, which is free and open to the public, is entitled "Disposing of Nuclear Materials: How Should We Reconcile Foreign Policy and National Security with State and Local Environmental Policy?"

Grumbly, who has served as under secretary at the Department of Energy (DOE) since May 1996, is responsible for oversight of the department's nuclear materials and weapons cleanup program, the civilian radioactive waste program, and safety-related activities in the former nuclear weapons complex.

Prior to this position, Grumbly served as DOE's assistant secretary for environmental management and was responsible for directing all environmental management activities at the department's nuclear weapon sites, including waste management operations, environmental restoration, environmental compliance and related technology development and demonstration activities.

Grumbly served as president and chief executive officer of Clean Sites, Inc. from 1987 to 1993, when he moved to DOE. Clean Sites is a non-profit organization formed by a coalition of industrialists, environmental groups and former government officials dedicated to solving America's hazardous waste problem through site management, dispute resolution and policy analysis.

Grumbly's talk is also sponsored by the Rockefeller Institute of Government, and Albany Law School's Environmental Law Program.

In a record turnout for a referendum, and by a nearly 10-to-1 margin, Albany students supported an increase in their annual mandatory athletic fees to help finance the school's move to NCAA Division I level intercollegiate athletics competition.

The non-binding referendum drew 1,593 voters, with 1,437 voting "YES" and 156 voting "NO" to a proposal for three annual increases of $15 in the mandatory athletic fee, moving it from its current $83 per year to $128 per year.

"The move to Division I will help propel the University at Albany into the next millennium," said Michael J. Castrilli, Student Association President. "The record student turnout, coupled with the overwhelming number of votes supporting the move, sends a clear message to the University Senate and President Hitchcock that students are ready and willing to make the move to NCAA Division One."

Student Association Vice President Ashish Prabhakar said, "This is the largest turnout for a referendum ever. It is obvious that the students are confident in the move to Division I and are ready to make the commitment to support it."

The proposal to upgrade the University's athletics program is now being reviewed by the University Senate, which will make its recommendation to President Karen R. Hitchcock. Hitchcock is expected to make a final decision by June 1.

Project Renaissance, the University's new approach to teaching freshmen, has been so successful that next year the program will double in size.

The program, available to freshmen on a first-come, first- served basis, will grow from 200 to 400 students, separated into groups of 100 students each.

In this unique living-learning community, students take an integrated curriculum where the subjects are related to one another.

"The faculty members work together so the curriculum works together. For example, students would be reading history, studying literature, listening to music, and exploring the science of the same time period," said Lil Brannon, director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, which manages Project Renaissance.

The program also gives first-year students a way to take classes in a small group setting, while adjusting to life at a university of 11,000 undergraduates.

Cindy Batista is a Project Renaissance student who plans to go to medical school. She likes the program because "the classes are smaller. There are more opportunities for students to get to know the teachers one-on-one and discuss certain topics, which you wouldn't be able to do in a lecture."

Batista, originally of the Bronx, said one benefit of the program is an effective support system. "If I don't understand something during discussion, I can just go down the hall and ask," she said. The freshman added she likes living with the same group of students with whom she takes most of her classes, and that this makes it easy to make friends.

Project Renaissance's emphasis on human identity and technology, "is a who we are and where we come from kind of course. It tries to tie in all those things we learned from the past; how history ties into science, and how religion has influenced it, and how technology and medical technology developed. The teachers find a connection among all their specialties and they teach it to us," Batista said.

One of the most popular aspects of the program has been its focus on technology. Project Renaissance was designed so that students learn how to access information, build web sites, search libraries, and talk to one another via computer technology.

"They encourage us to use computers, they require us to use a computer for homework to keep us up with technology," Batista said.

Several weeks ago two groups of Project Renaissance students met in the intimate setting of the Arena Theater at the Performing Arts Center to see a lively presentation by actor Mike Francis playing the astronomer Galileo. Francis also has a decade of experience as a lecturer at the Charles Hayden Planetarium at Boston's Museum of Science. Team faculty members for the group, Ernest Scatton of Germanic & Slavic Languages, Sue Faerman of Public Administration and Policy, and Jon Scott of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences joined in the discussion.

Project Renaissance will be moving to a new location in the fall - from Tuscarora and Seneca into larger quarters at Mohawk Tower on Indian Quad. Another change will be in the community action learning aspect of the project, which will now focus primarily on service to the campus.

The idea for Project Renaissance came about because the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Literature wanted to create a program for first-year students that would offer them the best possible orientation to a research university.

"We began developing the program in 1993 by asking students, faculty, residential life staff, and many other campus professionals what they thought the best features of the University at Albany were. Every group spoke of the excitement of being at a research university where everyone is engaged in inquiry," said Brannon.

Project Renaissance courses cover half of the general education requirements, the liberal arts courses that form the foundation for an educated person.

A recent study conducted by the leading journal in the field of library and information science has ranked the University's School of Information Science consistently within the top three to four schools in the country.

For the study, faculty designated as "full-time" in 57 schools listed in the 1992-93 Journal of Education for Library and Information Science, were searched online through the Library Literature database. The search results included total authorships, the number of book reviews, and the count for each of the full-time faculty reflecting the number of unique items credited to authors in the school.

Schools were then ranked by total authorships, total papers and total book reviews. Consistently, when the top 15 schools in each of these categories were listed, the University at Albany placed either third or fourth in 15 of 16 categories for school with Ph.D. programs.

"The results of the study reflect the long-term strengths of the school, because we have people on the faculty who have been leaders in the field for quite a while," said Philip Eppard, interim dean of the School. "The field has evolved since its primary emphasis was on library science, but the faculty productivity and publication productivity here at Albany has kept pace with that change."

The study went on to determine whether or not a Ph.D. program makes a difference in productivity. When the schools were ranked again, this time for the top 15 schools with Ph.D. programs by average total authorships, the University was, again, ranked third.

There was shown to be a strong correlation between the presence of a Ph.D. program and publishing productivity. The last comparison made in the study was between Certificate and Non-Certificate Schools of LIS. In this study, Albany ranked second among the top 15 schools by average total authorships.

Different tables in the study went on to break down the number of authorships further by ranking the total papers and then the book reviews. In every ranking, the University at Albany appeared on all lists.

Eppard pointed out that the Journal of Education for Library and Information Science findings were consistent with results of the revised Hayes Study published by The Library Quarterly a year ago. In that study, Albany ranked consistently in the top 15 of all schools of library and information science, and faculty member Joseph H. Morehead was ranked first in the nation among "individuals with the most journal articles" over a 12-year period.