UB's 1996 Alumni Awards dinner will be held at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, May 1, in the Center for Tomorrow on the university's North Campus. Tickets are $30 and must be purchased in advance from the UB Office of Alumni Relations at 829-2608. The reservation deadline is April 26.

Nancy H. Nielsen, a 1976 graduate of the UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences and former member of the SUNY Board of Trustees, will receive the Samuel P. Capen Award, the UB Alumni Association's most prestigious award.

This award is given to alumni who have made "notable and meritorious contributions to the university and its family...influencing growth and improvement of UB and stimulating others to give their active interest and material support to the university."

The Hon. Gilbert Parent, speaker of the Canadian House of Commons, and Emmy Award-winning director John Patterson will receive Distinguished Alumni awards.

Also to be honored are Erich Bloch, who will receive the Clifford C. Furnas Memorial Award; James P. Nolan, who will receive the Walter P. Cooke Award to a non-alumnus, and Jane Flanigen Griffin, who will receive a Distinguished Alumni Award.

Nancy Nielsen, the first woman to be elected president of The Buffalo General Hospital medical staff, is past president of the Erie County Medical Society and serves as regional medical director for the Board of Professional Medical Conduct in the New York State Department of Health. She is speaker of the House of Delegates for the New York State Medical Society. Nielsen was influential in providing guidance to the future of SUNY's teaching hospitals and UB's eight-hospital teaching consortium. A specialist in internal medicine and infectious diseases, she is a clinical assistant professor of medicine at the UB medical school.

Gilbert Parent has been a member of Parliament since 1974, and was elected speaker of the House of Commons two years ago. He earned a master's degree in education from UB in 1972. An Ontario native and resident of Ottawa, Parent formerly taught at Notre Dame High School in Welland and Dennis Morris High School in St. Catherines, and was vice principal of Thorold High School. He has represented Canada at the United Nations and several congresses of the International Labour Organization in Geneva, Switzerland.

John Patterson, who won an Emmy in 1987 for the television movie "A Mother's Courage: The Mary Thomas Story," earned a bachelor's degree in political science from UB in 1965.

Given his break by "Dragnet" star Jack Webb, Patterson is a U.S. Air Force veteran who served during the Pueblo crisis after five years on active duty. Among his directing credits are episodes of "Cagney & Lacey," "Hill Street Blues," "Hart to Hart," "Scarecrow and Mrs. King" and "Magnum P.I."

Patterson earned the Nancy Susan Reynolds Award in 1985 for an episode of "Hill Street Blues" and the Cowboy and Rodeo Association Best Western for Television Award in 1987 for the television series pilot "Independence."

James P. Nolan, internationally recognized researcher and physician in the field of liver disease, will receive the Walter P. Cooke Award for exceptional service to UB by a non-alumnus. This award is given to non-alumni in recognition of notable and meritorious contributions influencing the growth and improvement of the university.

Nolan is a major investigator of bacterial endotoxins and their interaction with liver cells. He has published more than 100 scientific papers related to liver research and issues of medical work force planning and national health policy. He is a former councilor and president of the Association of Professors of Medicine and a leader in the American College of Physicians.

He joined the UB medical faculty in 1963, serving as chair of the Department of Medicine from 1979-1995. He is a former and first president of the faculty council of the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences and former chair of the Erie County Medical Center Department of Medicine. From 1969-79, Nolan was chief of medicine at Buffalo General Hospital. He holds bachelor and medical degrees from Yale University.

Erich Bloch, former director of the National Science Foundation, will receive the Clifford C. Furnas Memorial Award. The award was established by Furnas' widow, the late Sparkle Moore Furnas, to honor a graduate of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences or the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics who has distinguished himself or herself in the field of science, thereby bringing honor to the university.

Bloch, who earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from UB in 1952, serves as a Distinguished Fellow at the Council on Competitiveness, a non-profit, private organization whose goal is to improve the country's competitiveness in the global marketplace. The Washington, D.C., resident received the National Medal of Technology from former President Ronald Reagan in 1985, and also has received 11 honorary degrees, including one from UB. He is chair of the Dean's Advisory Council of the UB school of engineering.

Jane Flanigen Griffin, associate research director at the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute, will receive a Distinguished Alumni Award. Griffin, who received a doctorate in chemistry from UB in 1974, also heads the Department of Molecular Biophysics at the research institute.

An expert in the field of X-ray crystallography, she is a member of the U.S. National Committee for Crystallography. She is author or co-author of more than 160 scientific papers, abstracts and book chapters, and is on the advisory board of the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry. Active in community organizations, Griffin also serves in several national and international professional organizations.