Dec. 9 issue to be last of fall semester
The Dec. 9 issue of the Reporter will be the final one published for the fall semester. The regular publication schedule will resume on Thursday, Jan. 20, 2000.

Charles Smith receives publication award
Charles J. Smith, associate professor of music and coordinator of the Music Theory Program, has received the Outstanding Publication Award from the Society for Music Theory.

The award, presented during the society's annual conference held recently in Atlanta, honors an article published in the field of music theory during the previous three years. Smith was recognized for his article, "Musical Form and Fundamental Structure: An Investigation of Schenker's Formenlehre," which was published in the British journal Music Analysis.

The society's Publication Awards Committee cited Smith for presenting "a critique of Schenker's theory of form which is both encyclopedic and provocativeŠThe central portion of the work puts forward its own theory of structure, offering new solutions toward the problem of correlating traditional categories with Schenkerian paradigms, and the speculative concluding section opens the whole Schenkerian analysis to renewed critical engagement."

Rivas wins fellowship from Ford Foundation
Felix M. Rivas, a doctoral student in the Department of Chemistry in the College of Arts and Sciences, has received a three-year Ford Foundation fellowship.

The fellowship will provide Rivas, an organic chemist, with an annual stipend of $14,000 and a $7,500 cost-of-education allowance to UB. The award is administered by the National Research Council.

Research conducted by Rivas and his advisor, Steven T. Diver, assistant professor of chemistry, focuses on developing new methods and catalysts to connect carbon-carbon bonds based on nucleophilic carbenes.

The catalysts and methodology ultimately may lead to new medicines, pesticides, plant and animal hormones, fabrics, cosmetics and other products used in the auto, aircraft and computer industries.

Rivas is active in the Graduate Chemistry Club, which organizes projects to encourage UB and community students to explore careers in chemistry.

Sclove to lecture
Dick Sclove has spent the last 12 years getting word to the American public about who makes the decisions about science and technology in this country and trying to establish institutional structures to promote greater public involvement in those decisions.

Sclove will present a lecture titled "Technology by the People: Democratizing Technology Decisions and Design in the 21st Century" at 4 p.m. today in the Screening Room, Room 112, of the Center for the Arts on the North Campus.

The lecture is free of charge and open to the public.

Sclove is founder and research director of the Loka Institute, an independent, nonprofit organization that studies the social and political effects of science and technology.

Sclove's talk is the first in a series of lectures to be sponsored by the Critical and Cultural Studies of Technology (CCSIT).

For more information, contact Hank Bromley at 645-2155 or at hbromley@buffalo.edu.

PSS to sponsor computing seminar
A seminar on "How to Access and Use the UB Computing Environment from Home, On Campus and Anywhere Around the World" will be held from 1-4 p.m. Monday in the Holiday Inn Buffalo-Amherst, 1881 Niagara Falls Blvd., Amherst.

The session, sponsored by the Professional Staff Senate, is designed to enhance participants' productivity at home and in the office. It will provide a brief overview of the UB computing environment, including the on-campus networks and machines, and how to access them from off-campus.

The seminar will be led by Jim Gerland, president of After Five Internet Applications, Inc.; executive vice president of EdgeNet, Inc., and a lecturer in the UB Department of Computer Science, and Bob Diem, who leads the advanced consulting group in Academic Services for CIT.

The cost of the session is $12, which includes lunch. It is open to the entire UB community.

For more information, contact the PSS office at 645-2003.

Gift begets scholarship fund
A retired General Electric executive and UB graduate has used his business acumen to leverage a gift for scholarships to the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS).

Robert H. Goldsmith has given $125,000 to UB, which General Electric Co. is matching dollar-for-dollar and San Diego Gas & Electric has agreed to match on a partial basis, resulting in a total gift to UB of more than $260,000.

Goldsmith, a 1951 mechanical engineering graduate, and his wife, Catherine, wanted to help UB engineering students so they established the Robert H. and Catherine H. Goldsmith Scholarship Fund.

"We are pleased to provide this opportunity for a student to continue his or her education through to a master's degree, which is fast becoming the degree of choice for the practice of engineering," Goldsmith said.

Mark H. Karwan, dean of SEAS, said Goldsmith has served generously on the school's Dean's Advisory Council, helping to shape the future of SEAS. "Bob Goldsmith saw the need to grow our graduate fellowship program based on his active participation in the Dean's Council, which has meant a major commitment of his time and money."

SEAS students can earn a master's of engineering degree by attending for a fifth year and completing an engineering project. The Robert H. and Catherine H. Goldsmith Scholarship Fund scholarship endowment fund is designed to help those students in their final year of completing a master's degree in engineering.

The first Goldsmith scholar is Moshe Shaked, a fourth-year student working on his combined bachelor's and master's of engineering degrees in the Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering.

Session to address promotions
"Getting to Full Professor," a presentation and informal discussion on the "whys" and "hows" of the promotion-and-tenure process, will be held from 3-5 p.m. Dec. 8 in the Law Faculty Lounge, 545 O'Brian Hall on the North Campus.

The session, presented by the Institute for Research and Education on Women and Gender (IREWG) and the Association of Full Women Professors, will be the second in the "Women Mentoring Women" series.

Speakers will include Mary Bisson, chair of the Department of Biological Sciences; Barbara Tedlock, chair of the Department of Anthropology, and Carol Zemel, chair of the Department of Art History.

The IREWG Curriculum Subcommittee will christen the new offices of the Women's Studies Program in 712B Clemens Hall on the North Campus with an informal teaching workshop from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Dec. 13th. Faculty members are invited to bring their syllabi for courses on women and gender, along with stories about teaching such courses. Questions will be entertained and advisement offered. New faculty members in particular are encouraged to attend.

For more information, contact Deidre Lynch, associate professor of English, at 645-6000, ext. 1030.

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

Organized by the schools of Management and Engineering and Applied Sciences, the IEEE Computer Society and several professional organizations, the conference will feature an exposition of cutting-edge, information-technology products and services, as well as academic workshops led by leading academic and industry researchers from the field of mobile technologies.

UB faculty members are invited to submit papers to the conference, which is titled "Next Generation Enterprises: Virtual Organizations and Mobile/Pervasive Technologies."

"This conference will be among the first worldwide to explore the impact of mobile technologies on the creation of a new business culture," says Ram Ramesh, associate professor of management information systems who is co-chairing the conference with H.R. Rao, associate professor of MIS.

Additional information about the conference can be found at http://www.som.buffalo.edu/isinterface/AIWORC.

RERC-Aging to present conference in Va.
The Rehabilitation Engineering Center on Assistive Technology for Older Persons (RERC-Aging) at UB will present an international conference on promoting independence and improving quality of life for older persons today through Saturday in the Hyatt Regency Crystal City in Arlington, Va.

The conference will be co-sponsored by the National Learning Center of the American Society on Aging (ASA) and the Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America (RESNA).

David Satcher, surgeon general and assistant secretary for health in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, will open the conference with an address entitled "Setting Our Goals for an Aging Society."

UB faculty members will be among the key players in the field of aging-including researchers, consumer advocates, service providers, government officials and representatives of employment and aging programs, as well as nonprofit and for-profit health-care agencies-who will analyze the problems of providing appropriate supportive services. Participants will develop clear guidelines to ensure that older persons with disabilities have the services needed to remain independent, and will submit those guidelines to the appropriate federal agencies.

UB's plans for Y2K to be discussed
"Y2K: Crossing the Dateline-UB's Plans" will be the topic of a presentation to be held from 10-11:30 a.m. Wednesday in 120 Clemens Hall on the North Campus.

Senior Vice President Robert J. Wagner and members of the university's Y2K Emergency Response Team-Hinrich Martens, associate vice president for computing and information technology; Voldemar Innus, senior associate vice president for university services and UB's chief information officer, and Louis Schmitt, director of facilities operations-will present UB's transition plans and take questions.

Sponsored by the Y2K Event Subgroup of the university's Y2K Steering Committee, the presentation will be free of charge and open to all members of the UB community. No reservations are required.

Additional information is available on UB's Y2K Web site at http://wings.buffalo.edu/year2000.