UB installs phone line for closing information
The university has installed a new telephone service to provide information when office hours and class schedules will be altered as the result of inclement weather or for other reasons.

The information will be available at 645-NEWS to students, faculty and staff, as well as the public, 24 hours a day. There never will be a busy signal since the line has the capacity to handle an unlimited number of calls simultaneously.

The standard recorded message will be "Offices are open and classes are being held as scheduled today at the University at Buffalo." The message will be changed appropriately as soon as university officials decide to alter office hours and class schedules due to weather conditions or other situations.

Journal co-edited by Johnson earns award
CR: The New Centennial Review, the theoretically inflected interdisciplinary journal of the Americas co-edited by a UB faculty member, has received the Council of Editors of Learned Journals' (CELJ) Phoenix Award for Significant Editorial Achievement for 2001.

	JOHNSON

CR is a reinvention of the Centennial Review a highly respected publication founded in 1957 that was nevertheless virtually moribund when its editorial leadership was taken over last year by David E. Johnson, assistant professor of comparative literature, and Scott Michaelsen, associate professor of English at Michigan State University. Both Johnson and Michaelsen are UB alumni.

The journal publishes work across a wide range of disciplines by scholars exploring the concepts of culture and identity politics in the Americas across a number of historic eras. It includes cultural and ethnic studies, border and borderland studies, anthropology, sociology, postcolonial studies and the like.

The editors expect CR to define the roles of UB and Michigan State as leaders in the emerging field of hemispheric and global American studies.

In presenting the award at the annual conference of the Modern Languages Association, Michael Cornett, vice president of the CELJ, praised the quality of the publication's editorial quality, redesign, refocus and greatly expanded length. He also noted the risks taken by the editors in making such significant changes to a proven journal with a longstanding reputation.

Workshop to address teaching styles
Barbara Rittner, associate professor of social work, will lead a workshop on "Adapting Teaching Styles to the Demands of the Syllabus" from 1-2:30 p.m. Feb. 15 in 114 Hochstetter Hall, North Campus.

The workshop is sponsored by the Center for Teaching and Learning Resources.

During the workshop, Rittner will present ideas on how to adapt teaching strategies to match the content demands of the course.

Among the topics to be discussed will be an overview of the basic approaches to teaching, deciding the best match for the course objectives, using creative approaches to both straight lecture and experiential courses and using such campus resources as the Blackboard course-management system, instructional technology specialists and media services.

To register for the workshop, contact Jeannette Molina, associate director of the Center for Teaching and Learning Resources, via e-mail at jmolina@buffalo.edu by Monday.

Wolck to speak at emeritus meeting
Wolfgang Wolck, SUNY Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in the Department of Linguistics, will speak at a meeting of the Emeritus Center scheduled for 2 p.m. Tuesday in 102 Goodyear Hall, South Campus.

Wolck, an internationally renowned linguistics scholar, will discuss "Sounds of Our City: Buffalo's People and Their Speech."

The program is free of charge and open to all members of the UB community.

EAP info to be offered
The Joint Labor-Management Employee Assistance Program Committee will staff an information table at sites on the North and South campuses to provide written materials and answer questions about benefits under the EAP.

EAP coordinators will be available from noon to 2 p.m. on Feb. 20, March 20 and April 24 in the Baldy Walkway, North Campus, and on Feb. 27, March 27 and April 30 in the lobby of Harriman Hall, South Campus.

African language added to WLI
Wolof, the principal language spoken by 2.7 million Africans in Senegal, Gambia and Mauritania, has joined Swahili and Yoruba on the menu of African languages now taught through the World Languages Institute (WLI).

The course will be of particular use to those expecting to travel or do business in the former French colony of Senegal, a Muslim country that now is a hotbed of local international economic activity.

A 10-week, non-credit course in Wolof will run from noon to 1 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from Monday to April 19 in 322 Clemens Hall, North Campus. The instructor will be Senegal native Abdou Rahman Sarr, a veteran teacher and translator who works in the Senegali capital of Dakar. Sarr currently is co-teaching a course on law and literature in Senegal with Judy Scales-Trent, professor of law, who was a Fulbright scholar to Senegal last year.

A $15 fee will cover the cost of course materials. Those interested in enrolling should contact the WLI at 645-2292.

Zodiaque concert set
The Department of Theatre and Dance will present "Ladies on Stage," the spring dance concert of the Zodiaque Dance Company, Feb. 14-17 and Feb. 21-24 in the Drama Theatre in the Center for the Arts, North Campus.

Performances will begin at 8 p.m. on weekdays and Saturdays, and at 2 p.m. on Sundays.

The production will feature classical guitarist and composer Damien Simon and guest choreographers Kerry Ring and Stacy Zawadzki. Simon has composed three new pieces for the company.

Tickets for "Ladies on Stage" are $12 for the general public and $5 for seniors and students. They are available in the CFA box office from noon to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, and at all Ticketmaster locations.

CFA to present "Vagina Monologues"
As part of the V-Day 2002 College Campaign, the Center for the Arts will present a benefit presentation of Eve Ensler's groundbreaking, Obie Award-winning play "The Vagina Monologues" at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 19 and 20 in the Drama Theatre in the CFA on the North Campus.

V-Day is a global movement that helps anti-violence organizations throughout the world continue and expand their core work while drawing public attention to the larger fight to stop worldwide violence against women and girls.

For the V-Day College Campaign, colleges and universities around the world will present benefit productions of "The Vagina Monologues."

Proceeds from the UB production, which will be directed by Kelli Bocock-Natale and feature a cast of 13 students from the Department of Theatre and Dance, will benefit the Anti-Rape Task Force at UB.

Tickets for the "The Vagina Monologues" are $15 for the general public and $7 for students and are available from noon to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Friday in the CFA box office and at all Ticketmaster locations.

MBA grad wins Panasci contest
JoAnn Johnson, a 2002 graduate of the part-time MBA program, won the $25,000 first-place prize in the second annual Panasci Entrepreneurial Competition, which awards seed money to UB students and recent alumni who devise and present the best plans for launch of a viable new business in Western New York.

A veterinarian, Johnson won for her plan to start up Western New York Equine Services, which will provide emergency-call coverage for vacationing or overworked equine veterinarians throughout the area. According to Johnson's business plan, the venture will service nine Western New York equine veterinarians who treat 15,000 horses in the area. Within a few years, she plans to expand the service to other regions of the state.

The second-place prize of $15,000 was awarded to Russell Van Brocklen, a UB undergraduate student studying neurological communications. Van Brocklen's proposed venture, Thinking Methodologies, will develop strategies and products to help learning-disabled high school students succeed in college.

Johnson and Van Brocklen received their awards at the contest's final round, where they and three other finalists publicly presented their business plans to a judges' panel of area entrepreneurs and businesspeople.

A total of 17 teams, composed of students and alumni from various academic units at UB, competed in this year's contest, which is organized by UB's Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership.

The contest is funded by a generous gift from School of Pharmacy alumnus Henry A. Panasci Jr, chairman of the Cygnus Management Group of Syracuse and former CEO of Fays Inc. Panasci created the contest to encourage the entrepreneurial interests of UB students and alumni, and to promote the development and launch of new businesses.

Veridian gives gift to libraries
Veridian, through its Buffalo operation, has donated an extensive collection of engineering research materials and technical reports to the University Libraries, making the collection available to the public for the first time.

Portions of the donated material date back to the 1940s when the Curtiss-Wright Airplane Division laboratory was converted into a public research institute, the Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory, which in 1972 became Calspan Corp. In 1978, it became an Arvin/Calspan Advanced Technology Center, which became Veridian when Calspan and the Alexandria, Va.-based Veda merged in 1997.

"We value our long history with Veridian and appreciate this gift of historical journals and technical reports. The collection will be a rich resource for our faculty and students who generate solutions for societal problems," said Mark Karwan, dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

"These materials represent an in-depth, high-technology research base supporting both the academic and commercial sectors in Western New York," said Nancy Schiller, associate librarian in the Arts and Sciences Libraries.

According to William Rae, SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Veridian has provided critical support in the development of the courses he teaches in flight dynamics of airplanes and road vehicle dynamics.

Currently stored in the Science and Engineering Library, the collection will be processed and fully integrated into the libraries' collections by the end of 2002. The technical report collections, when combined with the existing University Library holdings, will create the most extensive technical reports resources in Western New York.

The donated materials cover aeronautics and aerodynamics, chemistry, computer sciences, engineering, environmental sciences, mathematical sciences, physics, regulations, research administration and transportation. The material, much of it in microfiche, includes approximately 420,000 technical reports, 25,000 society papers and volumes of journals and books.

Veridian's gift is part of UB's $250 million fund-raising campaign.

Grant to GSE extends support
The Ford Foundation has awarded a $130,000 grant to the Graduate School of Education extending support for an international conference in Africa and a study examining the worldwide shift in the burden of higher education costs from governments and taxpayers to parents and students.

UB will use the grant in conjunction with the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania to organize an international conference in Dar es Salaam focusing on higher education in Africa. The conference will be held from March 24-28, with experts from around the world in attendance to address the issue of cost-sharing in relation to rising tuition fees in both public and private universities.

The $130,000 grant supplements a grant of $416,000 awarded in January 2000 by the Ford Foundation to spearhead a three-year project directed by D. Bruce Johnstone, University Professor of Higher and Comparative Education and former chancellor of the State University of New York.

"In most African nations, a huge demand for higher education is greatly outpacing the capacity of the tax systems to continue providing this higher education free of charge. There simply isn't the money," said Johnstone, who directs the International Comparative Higher Education Finance and Accessibility Project (ICHEFAP) through the GSE's Center for Comparative and Global Studies in Education.

ICHEFAP's goal is to build an international database on the costs of higher education, complete with models of tuition, student-aid and loan-policy packages, and to document emerging solutions to the access dilemma. Future plans are to establish an international network that will review and update the database, prepare papers on the pertinent topics and provide fellowships that will attract visiting scholars and graduate students to UB.

The Ford Foundation's grant to the university is part of UB's $250 million campaign.