Following widespread positive reaction to its November 1999 report, "State of the Region: Performance Indicators for the Buffalo-Niagara Region," the UB Institute for Local Governance and Regional Growth will hold a conference Feb. 3 dedicated to examining the report's findings and encouraging area players and partnerships to develop specific strategies for regional change.

Why buy millennium mementos when you can create an original in a class at the Creative Craft Center at UB? The six-week courses for adults will begin Jan. 24 and include basic and intermediate pottery and stained glass, creative and color photography, knitting, crocheting, quilting and jewelry crafting.

The Gifted Math Program at UB is accepting nominations of outstanding sixth-grade mathematics students submitted by schools and parents for its Fall 2000 entering class.

The 200th anniversary of the birth of Millard Fillmore, UB’s first chancellor and 13th president of the United States, will be observed in ceremonies to be held at 10 a.m. Jan. 7 in Forest Lawn Cemetery.

KPMG LLP, the accounting, tax and consulting firm, has donated $25,000 to support the Department of Accounting and Law in the UB School of Management.

Carlos and Michele Pato, the internationally known husband-and-wife team of psychiatrists at UB whose research focuses on the role of genetics in certain mental disorders, will speak at the UB at Sunrise breakfast series, to be held from 7:30-9 a.m. Feb. 8 in the Center for Tomorrow on the UB North Campus.

Without a strong response to the decennial census, both New York State and the Buffalo-Niagara region stand to lose federal funds and potentially Congressional representation, the director of the University at Buffalo Institute for Local Governance and Regional Growth warns.

It won't be apparent to passengers landing on today's (Thursday, Jan. 6) inaugural flight at Istanbul's brand new international airport, but the roof of the massive terminal building features a unique approach to seismically modernizing the structure following last summer's devastating quake.

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.

New York State's 55-cent-per-pack increase in sales tax on cigarettes that will take effect March 1 will have a positive, over-all effect on the state economy, despite reducing cigarette sales, a study by a University at Buffalo health economist has reported.

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.

The Charles B. Sears Law Library at the University at Buffalo has received an important collection of books, manuscripts, documents, treaties and other material related to the defense of indigenous rights -- and in particular, of American Indian nations -- from the late Howard R. Berman. A distinguished scholar of international human-rights law, Berman, a 1971 graduate of the UB Law School, devoted his legal career to defending the interests of aboriginal peoples.

Humanities faculty at UB will co-sponsor "The Angelika Film Seminars: Conversations about Great Films" a series of 14 outstanding films followed by seminar discussions led by members of the Department of English in the UB College of Arts and Sciences. The series will run on Wednesday nights from Jan. 19 to April 26 in the Angelika 8 Theater in downtown Buffalo and feature films produced from 1933-85 in a broad range of genres -- farce, musical comedy, film noir, documentary, fantasy, westerns, biography and more.

Researchers from the University at Buffalo's Functional GI Disorders Center and the University at Albany have received a $2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to conduct a clinical trial of two non-medical treatments for irritable bowel syndrome, one of the leading causes of work absenteeism.

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.

"Wednesdays at 4 PLUS," the biannual literary series presented by the University at Buffalo Poetics Program, this spring will feature Pulitzer-Prize winner Jorie Graham, major American poets Clark Coolidge and Ronald Silliman, British deaf performance artist Aaron Williamson, and several prominent literary figures in the field of ethnopoetics.

Robert R. Orrange has been named associate director of the Office of Career Planning and Placement at UB.

Despite the terror of "Jim Crow" and the backlash of white plantation owners, African Americans had managed to accumulate nearly 15 million acres of land by 1910. Today, that number has declined to less than 1 million acres. Although their numbers have decreased significantly, there are still a handful of black farmers who continue to hold onto their family farms.

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.

Three local college and university presidents will discuss the direction, goals and future of higher education locally, regionally and nationally in a session of the Breakfast Seminar Series of Higher Educators to be held at 8:30 a.m. Feb. 18 in the Center for Tomorrow on the UB North Campus.

To refer to Susan Cole, chair of the UB Department of Classics, as a "pigaholic" is extreme, but when it comes to the hog heaven that was ancient Greece, she can wax rhapsodic on the subject of Hellenic porkers. On Jan. 31, Cole, associate professor of classics and a noted humanities scholar, will focus on the ups and downs of Greco swine-life in a lecture called "Pigs for the Gods and Pork for the Table: Dining Out in the Ancient Greek City."

Hospitals looking to join a health-care network can expect to attain operating margins 12 percent higher if they join a network with financial risk-sharing arrangements rather than a network without such arrangements, a UB study of hospitals in New York State has shown.

A UB graduate and his wife have donated $25,000 to UB's Graduate School of Education to establish the Willower Family Lecture Series.

Moog Inc. has given $125,000 to UB for a graduate fellowship in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS).

Industry and academic experts from around the world will gather at the University at Buffalo on April 27-29 to investigate how a new wave of computer technologies is revolutionizing the way the world conducts business.

Respected historian and technology gadfly David F. Noble, a controversial and outspoken critic of attempts to "automatize higher education" by setting up extensive distance-learning systems and "online universities" that he says are no more than diploma mills, on Jan. 28 will present the second in a series of lectures sponsored by Critical and Cultural Studies in Information Technology (CCSIT), a UB interdisciplinary graduate initiative.

An extremely enthusiastic response by University at Buffalo faculty to the year-old, high-performance computing facilities in the Center for Computational Research (CCR) has prompted the center to double the capacity of its most powerful machine, a 64-processor SGI Origin2000 supercomputer. By acquiring 64 additional processors and a high-speed interconnect, the CCR now has a 128-processor Origin2000 supercomputer.

The first major national conference held to explore the lives, strengths, problems and needs of young urban women will be held in Buffalo April 14-15. The keynote speaker will be Lani Guinier, professor of law at Harvard University.

In its first year of operation, the UB Business Alliance has received a "Project of the Year" award from a national organization, boosted its royalty income and the numbers of inventions disclosed and made significant changes in its incubator facility, making it easier for start-ups to rent space. The UB Business Alliance will mark these and other accomplishments at an anniversary celebration to be held Jan. 26 in the Center for the Arts.