Genshaft Named University Provost and VP for Academic Affairs

Judy L. Genshaft "has accepted my invitation to serve" as the University's Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, President Hitchcock announced last week.

Genshaft, who had been serving in the post in an interim capacity since August of 1995, came to the University as Dean of the School of Education in 1992. She had previously served in a number of positions of increasing responsibility at The Ohio State University, including chair of its university senate and chair of its Department of Educational Services and Research.

"Since arriving at the University, Dr. Genshaft has served this institution with distinction and commitment," said Hitchcock. "To her positions here and to her scholarship in educational psychology, she has brought a remarkable degree of informed experience, sound judgment, and creative leadership that associates and admirers both on and off our campus directed to my attention.

"It is indeed a pleasure to endorse the recommendation of the Search Committee . . . and to appoint Dr. Genshaft as the chief academic officer of our University." Hitchcock added, "I am sure that she will be an impressive and effective academic leader and a genial colleague in her crucial new role."

Said Genshaft on her appointment, "I am delighted and honored to be part of such an outstanding faculty, and I look forward to working with all my colleagues to help move the University at Albany even higher up in the rankings of the nation's top public research universities."

Vice President Genshaft received her B.A. in social work and psychology from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, her M.A. in school psychology from Kent State University and her Ph.D. in counseling psychology from Kent State. She is a licensed psychologist and a certified school psychologist.

She has published extensively in her research field of school psychology. Since arriving at Albany she has co-edited two books - Serving Gifted and Talented Students: A Resource for School Personnel in 1995, and Contemporary Intellectual Assessment: Theories, Tests and Issues, published in November 1996.

She has received numerous research grants, including two current projects: EASTNET, a distance learning technology initiative funded for $874,424 by the State University of New York, and a $4.5 million grant from the New York State Department of Transportation designed to bring more minorities and women into the highway construction industry.

She currently is chair of the University Academic Strategic Planning Process, serves as a member of the Academic Affairs Committee of the Kellogg Commission on the Future of State and Land Grant Universities, which is part of the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges (NASULGC), and has held a number of leadership positions in her professional organization, the National Association of School Psychologists.

In addition, she co-hosts a radio program, "The Best of Our Knowledge." The program, on general issues of concern to college and university campuses, is nationally syndicated to more than 60 public radio stations by WAMC-FM.

Vice President Genshaft is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the Distinguished Affirmative Action Award from The Ohio State University and the Distinguished Cooperative Leadership Award (New York) for the National School Development Council.

She and her husband, Steven Greenbaum, a marketing consultant, live in Delmar with their sons, Joel and Bryan.

The Search Committee for Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, chaired by Dean Frank Thompson of the Graduate School of Public Affairs, recommended Genshaft from among four finalists after a nationwide search. President Hitchcock praised the committee "for discharging their demanding responsibilities in such a thoroughly professional, expeditious, and rigorous way. We all owe them so much for the countless hours and intensive deliberations that define this critical search."

Believing it essential that the University move forward in offering a fuller range of services and prevention/education/testing programs for students, President Hitchcock and Vice President for Student Affairs James P. Doellfeld have formed a Vice President's Advisory Council on AIDS Prevention, under the chairmanship of David Carpenter, Dean of the School of Public Health.

Carpenter was recently named by U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala to serve on the 12-member National Advisory Environmental Health Sciences Council.

"Dean Carpenter brings abundant energy, vision, and strength to this important matter of AIDS prevention," said Doellefeld. "AIDS prevention is about keeping people alive. We know some college students engage in high-risk behavior that increases their chances of exposure to HIV. Our obligation is to education, to reduce the risk of exposure, and to test and counsel persons wishing those services."

The Council will advise the vice president, through the Health Services and Counseling Services units, on matters pertaining to HIV and AIDS prevention. By establishing this institution-wide core of administrators, faculty, professional staff and students, they will:

&; participate in the review, implementation and expansion of comprehensive HIV and AIDS prevention programs based on the latest research, focusing on strategies that will reach the entire campus community;

&; assess, through the use of surveys and other tools, the health behaviors of our students, their needs in terms of programs and services, and the effectiveness of existing programs and services; and

&; participate in grant writing and resource development to fund prevention efforts.

The Council will meet approximately four times per year and its prevention strategies will be implemented by a task force directed by Carol Stenger, health educator and coordinator of SHAPE, the University's peer education program on AIDS prevention.

University faculty and staff on the council include Dr. Ingrid Porter, director of University Health Services, and Estela Rivero, director of the University Counseling Center; James Jaccard and Edelgard Wulfert of the Department of Psychology; M. Dolores Cimini and Carl Walker of the Counseling Center; Edward Waltz, director of the HIV Studies Program, and Sharleen Brittel of the School of Public Health; nurse Nancy Histed of the Health Center; Donald Keegan of University Libraries; Stephanie Madnick of Residence Hall Administration; Patrick Romain of the Educational Opportunities Program; and Tardis Johnson of the Campus Life.

Students named are Annie Barba, graduate assistant in the Counseling Center; senior Dawn Schirmer, director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual Alliance of the Student Association; sophomore Maxine Oland and Yesenai Rodriguez. Vinny Reda

The board of directors of Neighborhoods, USA (NUSA), has named the Pine Hills Neighborhood Association as a finalist in its 1997 "Neighborhood of the Year" awards - and the president of the Pine Hills group says improved relations with the University was the key to success.

"The continuing commitment of the University to the Committee on University and Community Relation's work is well known in the community and, in itself, has helped the state of University/community relations," said Henry M. Madej, association president, in noting that Pine Hills, as a joint entry with Albany's Beverwyck Neighborhood Association, was one of four projects to be considered nationally in the Multi- Neighborhood Partnerships category. It's project is titled "University & Community Relations."

"While I certainly hope that the Committee will win this prestigious award, I am also hopeful that its designation as a finalist will get it and the University some well- deserved national exposure and acknowledgment of achievement."

NUSA has presented its awards for 13 years as a way of recognizing the "outstanding work of neighborhood associations from all across the U.S.," according the Janis Foster, awards program chairman. This year neighborhoods from 23 states submitted applications to one of three award categories: physical revitalization/beautification, social revitalization/neighborliness, and multi-neighborhood partnerships.

A winner in each category and an overall winner will be announced on May 24 at NUSA's 22nd Annual Conference on Neighborhood Concerns, this year to be held in Albany, May 21- 24.

Madej gave particular credit to Thomas Gebhardt, the University's director of Personal Safety and Off-Campus Affairs. "To the extent the Committee has had success in the past several years, Tom deserves a substantial amount of the credit," said Madej.

Gebhardt was instrumental in establishing the Committee on University and Community Relations in Fall 1990 as an outgrowth of a task force formed by then Albany Mayor Thomas Whelan and University President Vincent O'Leary.

"The nomination is significant in reflecting the cooperation and improved relationships between the University and the neighborhoods in which our students live," said Gebhardt, who with the neighborhood associations expanded the scope of the Committee to neighborhood safety about four years ago, and then succeeded in adding the institutional participation of the College of St. Rose, the Junior College of Albany, and the Albany College of Pharmacy.

Madej proudly pointed out that he is also an Albany alumnus, with a B.A. in 1967 and master's degree in 1968. "Several of the members of the community are University alumni, and I think this is an example of how so many Albany graduates go on to live in the local community, and strive to help their community improve, and also help relations with their alma mater to improve," he said.