Education

When they first arrive on campus, college freshmen are deluged with orientation packets and publications. But after the first few weeks, that deluge dries up, often leaving students' questions unanswered. The University at Buffalo has figured out how to keep information flowing to freshmen -- but not flooding them -- through the development of MyUB, an online portal for freshmen that actually grows with the student.

Richard V. Lee, M.D., University at Buffalo professor of medicine, is editor of a special millennium issue of Annals of Internal Medicine devoted to various interrelationships between time and medicine. The issue was published Jan. 4, 2000.

David K. Anderson has donated to the University at Buffalo the internationally respected Anderson Gallery, with an estimated worth of up to $3 million, and has established a $2 million charitable remainder trust to assist with gallery maintenance and exhibitions. Anderson, whose previous donations to UB include support for the Center for the Arts and the donation of nearly 300 paintings, sculptures and prints with a value totaling more than $1.5 million, also plans to transfer to the university a substantial part of the Anderson Gallery permanent collection.

With an assist from the National Science Foundation, an assistant professor of media study at the University at Buffalo is launching a unique software game that addresses the lack of computer educational activities oriented toward girls, particularly those from underrepresented groups.

At this moment, computers across the University at Buffalo campus are analyzing signals from the sky that could be indicators of alien intelligence.

A pharmacist and business executive turned venture capitalist, University at Buffalo graduate Henry A. Panasci, Jr. has given $1 million to the university to create a competition that encourages students to become entrepreneurs.

A new University at Buffalo study published in the December issue of Pediatrics comparing the effectiveness over time of Adderall and Ritalin -- two drugs for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) -- shows that a single dose of Adderall is effective for a full school day.

Is there an infant or toddler with disabilities on your holiday gift list? If so, you might be interested in some advice from Susan Mistrett, director of the Let's Play! project at the University at Buffalo, which uses assistive technologies and interactive strategies to help disabled children to play.

For the University at Buffalo Department of Geology, "hands-on" in a lab apparently isn't hands-on enough. That's why excavators are drilling four, 50-foot wells on the North (Amherst) Campus so that students can learn about hydrogeology -- the study of how water and other liquids, such as pollutants, move through the shallow subsurface -- up close and personal.

With the help of a $2.74 million grant, researchers at the University at Buffalo and the University of Missouri-Columbia are taking steps to find answers to why some teens engage in risky behaviors, such as drinking, using drugs and having unsafe sex.