Medical students' race to raise awareness of domestic violence
The UB chapter of the American Medical Student Association (AMSA) in the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences is challenging Western New Yorkers to run, walk, roller blade or bike in the fight against domestic violence in a 5K race to begin at 11 a.m. on Sunday in Delaware Park.

The race will be part of a week-long effort by AMSA at Buffalo to mark the 10th anniversary of the designation of October as National Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Registration for the race is $15 and will begin at 10 a.m. at The Juicery, which is also the site of the start and finish line. All donations and proceeds will benefit Haven House.

An ongoing "soap drive" also is being held by AMSA to collect toiletries for women at Haven House. Donations can be brought to the race.

As part of the recognition of National Domestic Violence Awareness Month, Nancy Hannavan, coordinator of community resources at Haven House, will speak at noon on Tuesday in Butler Auditorium in Farber Hall on the South Campus. Her talk will be free and open to the public.

Biomathematician is named chair of mathematics
Jonathon Bell, professor of mathematics, has been named chair of the Department of Mathematics.

A member of the faculty since 1981 and associate chair from 1985-87, Bell conducts research at the interface of mathematics and biology, developing mathematical models of biological mechanisms.

With colleagues at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the Institute for Sensory Research at Syracuse University, he is exploring the sensation of touch by modeling phenomena that occur at the level of the skin's touch receptors.

Additional research interests of Bell's include other applications of diffusion theory, including pricing theory of financial derivatives and fluid transport through the skin.

SEFA Campaign
The SEFA campaign has reached 50 percent of its goal, according to Barry Eckert, dean of Health Related Professions and chair of the 1997 campaign. For further information on how you can help UB reach its goal and maintain its No. 1 national standing for United Way giving, see the SEFA Web site at http://wings.buffalo.edu/sefa or contact your department liaison.

HOT L Baltimore to be presented by Theatre and Dance
The Department of Theatre and Dance will present HOT L Baltimore on Oct. 15-19 at 8 p.m. in the Black Box Theatre, Center for the Arts. Jerry Finnegan will direct the show by Lanford Wilson, based on experiences during the author's stay in Buffalo at the Lafayette Hotel while he worked at the Studio Arena Theatre. Tickets are $10, general admission; $7, groups of eight or more; $5, students with ID. Tickets are available at the CFA Box Office and from Ticketmaster locations.

Update your electronic phone directory listing!
New title? New office location? Your listing in the electronic phone directory on UB WINGS may need updating and only you can authorize changes.

To bring your entry up to date, access the UB Directories at http://wings.buffalo.edu/directories. Then click on phone book. To review your entry, follow the directions, entering your last name and hitting "return" on your keyboard.

Click on "change this record" to change your title; e-mail address; phone, fax or pager number; your office location, or mailing address.

You must enter your SUNYcard number to authorize the changes to the database. The update will take effect within the next 24 hours. The changes you make in your electronic phone book entry are NOT reflected in your personnel/registrar official data and you must notify the appropriate office to make the changes in your official data.

Student group sponsors contest to benefit kids
Shoppers at Walden Galleria and visitors to the North Campus can win prizes as well as help sick children by guessing the number of tennis-size balls in a pickup truck.

Contest proceeds will benefit projects of UB's Omicron Chapter of Pi Sigma Epsilon and Kids Alive, Inc., a non-profit organization that provides support for children with life-altering diseases. The truck will be at the Galleria from 11 a.m.- 6 p.m. Sunday; at the Student Union from 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday through Friday and at UB Stadium from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. on Oct. 25, during Homecoming.

Conference to address political redistricting
What would election districts look like if they were drawn without bias? That question and others related to racial gerrymandering, the U.S. census and the impact of redistricting on voter participation will be addressed by geographers and political scientists at a conference, "Geographic Information Systems and Political Redistricting: Social Groups, Representational Values and Electoral Boundaries," to be held Oct. 24-26 in the University Inn and Conference Center, 2401 North Forest Road, Amherst.

Sponsored by UB's National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis, the conference will feature panels and presentations on political redistricting and the use of Geographic Information Systems, computerized geographic analysis tools, in drawing political districts.

Speakers will discuss inequities in election districts, methods of population-counting and the impact of the recent Supreme Court decision banning race-based districts.

Peter Rogerson, professor of geography, will discuss how election districts might look if they were drawn without regard to politics or race in a talk, "Political Districting in Cities With Negative Residential Density Gradients: Some Theoretical Investigations."

Other talks include "Race-Based Districts: Do they Help or Harm Representation?"; "Playing a Game with Changing Rules: Geography, Politics and Redistricting in the 1990s" and "Racial Gerrymandering, the Supreme Court and the 'Shapes' of Things To Come."

Conference coordinators are Munroe Eagles, associate dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and professor of political science, and David Mark, director of the National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis. Sponsors of the opening reception are Mark B. Kristal, interim dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, and Provost Thomas Headrick. For more information, call 645-2545 ext. 49.

Family violence clinic receives $140,000 in state funding
The Family Violence Clinic in the School of Law has received $140,000 in state funding to expand its work throughout the Eighth Judicial District of New York and serve as a regional resource center offering technical assistance and training to various government agencies and community-based organizations.

The funding, announced by Barry B. Boyer, dean of the law school, and John B. Sheffer II, director of the Institute for Local Governance and Regional Growth, includes a $70,000 member item from New York State Sen. Mary Lou Rath and a $70,000 STOP Violence Against Women grant from the New York State Department of Criminal Justice.

The Family Violence Clinic, directed by Suzanne E. Tomkins, provides legal support for victims of domestic violence. It offers students an enriching educational component and strengthens relationships with a broad spectrum of agencies in the legal and social-service system in Western New York.

The clinic has used the new funding to join with the Institute for Local Governance and Regional Growth in a cooperative venture beginning this fall to serve as a regional resource center for the Eighth Judicial District, which includes the counties of Allegany, Cattaraugus, Chautauqua, Erie, Genesee, Niagara, Orleans and Wyoming. The clinic is providing technical assistance to the counties in the form of training and development of resource materials tailored to the needs of each locale. The clinic also is working closely with officials in each county to develop community-coordinated response projects.

Personnel reorganized in Division of University Services
In an effort to streamline and improve financial management of the university, Senior Vice President Robert J. Wagner has announced a reorganization of personnel within University Services.

Leonard F. Snyder has assumed the title of senior associate vice president for university services and is responsible for the university's initiatives in financial management. He previously was associate vice president and controller for UB.

Kevin R. Seitz has been named associate vice president and controller, and will report directly to Snyder. He previously was assistant vice president for university services.

Both appointments were effective Oct. 1.

In announcing the reorganization, Wagner noted that the changes added no new positions or staff to the controllers organization.

"This...will allow Len Snyder to delegate day-to-day operations of the business offices and concentrate on institutional priorities. It (will), in addition, provide Kevin the increase in responsibilities he has richly earned and insure continuity of leadership in the controller's organization," Wagner said.

Professor receives grant from art foundation
Marion Faller, associate professor of art, has been recognized by the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) with a $5,000 grant to create a catalogue to record and promote her photography.

The Catalogue Project, a program of NYFA, awarded the grant to recognize Faller's artistic achievement and it will be used to design, assemble and print the catalogue. She is one of five women awarded the third annual Catalogue Project grant, which is funded specifically for women photographers over the age of 40 from New York State.

Faller, a noted documentarian of regional folk art, embodies the aesthetics of everyday life in her work, focusing on how individuals and communities visually express their sense of what is beautiful and important.

She received a bachelor's degree in art from Hunter College and a master's of fine arts degree from UB after completing the program in photographic studies at the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester. Before joining the UB faculty in 1982, she taught photography at Colgate University. Faller also has been selected by the Colby Art Program to be the 1998 Colby visiting woman artist at the Buffalo Seminary.

Astronomer to speak on how stars are born
Where do stars come from? The answer to this and other cosmic questions will be addressed on Tuesday when Judith L. Pipher, professor of astronomy at the University of Rochester, presents the Harlow Shapley Visiting Lecture at 7:30 p.m. in Knox 110 on the North Campus.

This free public lecture is sponsored by the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics and the Department of Physics. Co-sponsors are the American Astronomical Society and the Harlow Shapley Endowment Fund.

Pipher studies regions of star formation in our galaxy, and has participated in developing near-infrared arrays and cameras for the Space Infrared Telescope Facility.

In "Unveiling the Birth of Stars," she will discuss her work using infrared, visible and radio imagery to view regions of "star-birth" through "star-adolescence" to adulthood. For more information, call 645-2017.

UB to co-sponsor talk by world-peace activist
James H. Forest, international peace activist, author and friend of the late Catholic writer Thomas Merton, will give a talk, "Merton, Mysticism and Me: Crafting Peace in a Violent World" at 7:30 p.m. on Monday in Sacred Heart Academy, 3860 Main St., Eggertsville.

The talk is free and open to the public. Co-sponsors are the Department of American Studies, Catholic Campus Ministry and Newman Center, and the Office of Student Life, all at UB; the Western New York Peace Center; the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers); Erie Community College; the Reverend A. Joseph Bissonette Foundation; the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, and Riverside-Salem United Church of Christ.

Forest was on staff at the Fellowship of Reconciliation from 1967-69, responsible for Vietnam program activities. In 1969, he was imprisoned for 13 months for his involvement with the "Milwaukee Fourteen," a group that burned draft records.

Medical historian to deliver Health Sciences Library lecture
George E. Haddad, a resident physician at Yale-New Haven Hospital and a doctoral student at Yale University School of Graduate Studies, will present the C.K. Huang Lecture at the 22nd annual meeting of the Friends of the Health Sciences Library.

The meeting will be held from 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Sunday in the Austin Flint Main Reading Room of the Health Sciences Library on the South Campus. The event coincides with recognition of October as National Library Month.

Haddad's lecture is entitled "Medical Memories: Commemorations of Robert Koch's Discovery of the Tubercle Bacillus." The C.K. Huang Lecture is named in honor of the former director of the Health Sciences Library.

Haddad teaches "Cultures of Western Medicine" in Yale's Department of the History of Medicine and Science, and organized the 1997 Joint Atlantic Seminar for the History of Biology and Medicine at Yale. After graduating from UB's Honors Program in 1990 with a bachelor's degree in philosophy, he earned his medical degree from the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

Award honors Yencer, School of Architecture
The School of Architecture and Planning and Richard C. Yencer, materials and methods shop manager at the school, will be honored with the Habitat for Humanity/Buffalo Key of Hope Award Friday in a ceremony to be held from 5:30-7:30 p.m. at the Erie Community College City Campus Atrium. The Celebration of Humanity event honors volunteers and supporters of Habitat/Buffalo for their accomplishments.

The award recognizes the leadership Yencer has given to architectural students and the work that the students have contributed to the construction of nine houses during the past five years.

Fulbright recipients to note anniversary
Current and former recipients of a Fulbright Award are invited to attend "A Celebration of Cultural Exchange" Saturday in honor of the 20th anniversary of the Fulbright Association.

The event, sponsored by the Western New York Fulbright Association and featuring national and international speakers, will be held in Moot Hall of Buffalo State College, 1300 Elmwood Ave.

Registration is from 9:30 a.m. to 10 a.m and the program is scheduled from 10 a.m. to noon. Please RSVP to 878-5331.

"Recent exposure" of downtown Buffalo on display in UGL
Downtown Buffalo's revitalized Chippewa Street is gaining more attention as the subject of a social photography documentation by UB graduate Renee Ziegler titled "Recent Exposure." It is on display until Nov. 7 on the first floor of the Undergraduate Library in Capen Hall.

Photos portray a typical day and night in the life of Chippewa Street, previously a run-down section of downtown Buffalo characterized by crime and prostitution. The dramatic rebirth of Chippewa due to city initiatives and the growth of new businesses provided Ziegler with a perfect subject for the social photography documentary.