Social Sciences

Whether it's springtime flooding, an infectious disease outbreak or a volcanic eruption, small or rural communities affected by natural disasters often suffer additional hardship because of their size, say organizers of "Natural Disasters in Small Communities: How Can We Help?" a conference to be held by the University at Buffalo on March 29 and 30.

Eminent American architect Thom Mayne, winner of the 2005 Pritzker Prize, the world's premier architecture award, will deliver the Martell Lecture at the UB School of Architecture and Planning on April 14.

A new University at Buffalo online master's degree program in rehabilitation counseling combines the practical advantage of outstanding job prospects with the opportunity to make a lasting difference in people's lives. The new program is the first counseling program at the university to be offered completely online, allowing UB staff to aim for non-traditional students throughout the state, country and the world.

The University at Buffalo School of Social Work will hold its annual Alumni Day on March 27 in the Buffalo/Niagara Marriott, 1340 Millersport Highway, Amherst.

They look innocent enough, these hollow, translucent urethane tubes. They hang from the ceiling into an exhibition space where they come to rest at foot level. As you draw near to them, however, they "come alive," recoiling (literally) to the ceiling as they "sniff" your breath. When you move away from them, they "exhale" like a gang of long, living lungs, and slowly return to their original positions. It may seem creepy, but its a graphic example of how architectural environments of the future will behave.

The 2008 Will and Nan Clarkson Visiting Chair in Architecture at the University at Buffalo will be the eminent British architect, critic and historian Kenneth Frampton, Ware Professor of Architecture in the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University.

A grassroots cyberspace campaign by a graduate student in the University at Buffalo School of Social Work to raise money for research on a cancer from which she is recovering has earned her top-10 honors in a national online charity fund-raising competition and raised more than $30,000 for a charity dedicated to raising awareness and research funds related to the cancer.

Magda Lustigova Cordell McHale, professor emerita in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, University at Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning, and a pioneering and influential American artist and futurist, died Feb. 21 at the Buffalo home of her friend and caretaker, Denise Kelleher.

The University at Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning will present a panel discussion on March 17 featuring Craig Borum and Ken Daubmann of the collaborative firm of PLY Architecture.

Last summer, graduate students in urban planning in the University at Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning and the University of Stuttgart in Germany worked collaboratively to produce a planning proposal designed to promote the expansion of Buffalo's green infrastructure and its economic prosperity while offering a new landscape-planning methodology in response to the destructive October 2006 storm.