Dennis wins Lilly Prize

Carl Dennis, professor of English, has been named winner of the 2000 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, one of the most prestigious literary awards in the English language.

The prize is awarded by Poetry Magazine, which for 90 years has been one of the most important forums for contemporary poetry in the United States. The Lilly carries a cash award of $100,000, making it one of the largest awards made to American poets.

Dennis' selection was announced by Joseph Parisi, editor of the magazine and chair of the selection committee.

In announcing the award, Parisi said: "Carl Dennis is a poet who has valuable things to say-about faith (or its absence) in the modern world, fear, loneliness, life's regrets-the great what-ifs and roads not taken-in ways that are personal and universal at the same time.

"His acute observations about the private and public realms reach beyond mere 'statement' or cliche to subtle levels of informed art. Dennis constantly surprises with the turnings of his agile mind, catching readers slightly (and happily) off-balance with perceptions delivered with disarming humor, irony, and understatement."

A UB faculty member since 1966, Dennis is the author of seven critically acclaimed collections of poetry, the latest of which is "Ranking the Wishes," published by Penguin in 1997.

Dennis is no stranger to recognition in his field. His previous awards and distinctions include fellowships from the Guggen-heim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts and an artistic residency at the Rockefeller Study Center in Bellagio, Italy.

His work has been selected for such prestigious anthologies as the "Puschart Anthology," "The Bread Loaf Anthology of Poetry" and Scribner's "The Best American Poetry" series. Poetry Magazine presented him with the Oscar Blumenthal Prize in 1989, the Bess Hokin Prize in 1995 and the J. Howard and Barbara M.J. Wood Prize in 1997.

Dennis was born in St. Louis in 1939 and received his doctorate from the University of California at Berkeley in 1966.

A new collection of poems, "Practical Gods," will be published by Penguin this year and in 2001, the University of Georgia Press will publish Dennis' first book of literary criticism, "Poetry as Persuasion, an Essay for Writers."

Dennis' principal areas of teaching at UB are American poetry, the American Renaissance, creative writing and Greek and Roman literature in translation.

Mandell to offer tips

"The 10 Worst Financial Planning Tips" will be revealed by Lewis Mandell, dean of the School of Management, at UB's Senior Alumni luncheon on May 10.

The program will be held at noon in the Center for Tomorrow on the North Campus.

Mandell, an author and researcher in the area of finance, hosts "Your Business," a weekly call-in show airing from 7-8 p.m. on Saturdays on WNED-AM. The program is designed for entrepreneurs and others who own or are considering starting a small business.

Cost of the luncheon, designed for UB senior alumni, their guests and spouses, is $12 per person. For more information or to make reservations, call the UB Office of Alumni Relations at 829-2608.

Earth First! activist to discuss bombing

Earth First! activist Alicia Littletree will discuss the unsolved 1990 murder attempt on Judi Bari, the environmentalist who fought against the logging of California redwood forests by big timber corporations, at 2 p.m. tomorrow in 330 Student Union on the North Campus.

Littletree will be the final speaker of the Environmental Network's speakers series. The talk, "Who Bombed Judi Bari?" will be free and open to the public.

Bari and a colleague, Darryl Cherney, were driving in Oakland, Calif., when a pipe bomb hidden under the car exploded. Bari and Cherney survived, but were arrested by the FBI and charged with transporting explosives. The pair filed a civil-rights lawsuit against the FBI and the Oakland Police Department.

Although Bari died of breast cancer in 1997, Littletree, Cherney, and others from the Redwood Summer Justice Project have continued to pursue the civil-rights lawsuit.

Littletree will talk about what she says is the link between corporate timber and the FBI in framing Bari and Cherney for the bombing, as well as the recent escalation in the use of force against environmental activists across the country.

Pharmacist Singh to deliver first junior scholars lecture

Satpal Singh, associate professor of biochemical pharmacology, will deliver the first lecture in the Junior Scholars Distinguished Interdisciplinary Lecture Series at 4:30 p.m. on May 3 in 120 Clemens Hall on the North Campus.

The lecture and awards ceremony will be preceded by a reception at 4 p.m.

Singh won a competition among recently promoted associate professors to deliver the lecture, which is sponsored by the Office of the Provost and the Provost's Junior Faculty Advisory Committee. His lecture, entitled "From Molecules to Mind: Frontiers of Ignorance," will discuss whether complete understanding of the brain requires the discovery of some new fundamental laws of nature, or if there are aspects that may be intrinsically beyond comprehension.

A UB faculty member since 1989, Singh's areas of expertise include electrophysiological, pharmacological and genetic analysis of ion channels and their regulation in Drosophila.

He currently serves as principal investigator on two federal grants: a $530,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health to study "Regulation of Calcium Currents in Drosophila," and a $330,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to study "Mutational Analysis of Potassium Currents in Drosophila."

He received bachelor's and master's degrees in physics from Punjab University in Chandigarh, India, and a doctorate in molecular biology from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Bombay. He served as a postdoctoral associate and an associate research scientist in neurogenetics at the University of Iowa.

Spring Clinical Day set

Maxine Hayes, a UB medical-school graduate and nationally known advocate for programs that promote children's health, will deliver the annual Stockton Kimball Lecture at 11 a.m. April 29 as part of the Medical Alumni Association's 63rd annual Spring Clinical Day.

The event will be held from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Buffalo/Niagara Marriott.

Hayes, who graduated from the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences in 1973, is assistant secretary of community and family health for the Washington State Department of Health. The topic of her lecture will be "The Future of Children's Health in the New Millennium: Opportunities and Challenges."

In keeping with this year's program theme, "Children's Health Issues," other topics and speakers will be:

- "Prenatal Screening for Congenital Heart Disease," Bruce D. Rodgers, associate professor of clinical gynecology and obstetrics, and director of the Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine

- "Growth Hormone: Then and Now," Margaret H. MacGillivray, professor of pediatrics and head of the Division of Endocrinology and Diabetes

- To Eat or Not to Eat," Dalinda Condino, medical director of the Teen-Tots Program and the Grover Cleveland High School Linked Program, and assistant professor of clinical pediatrics

Hayes, who will receive the Stockton Kimball Award at the noon luncheon, has received many honors and awards for her work in developing and promoting health programs for children and women in rural and urban areas and for those who are incarcerated.

She is considered an expert in maternal-child health policy issues and building culturally competent, family-centered care-service systems. She has a master's degree in public health from Harvard University and a bachelor's degree from Spelman College.

Hayes is an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle and associate professor and a member of the maternal-child health faculty at the university's School of Public Health and School of Public and Community Medicine.

Four medical alumni also will be honored at the luncheon for lifetime achievement. They are Richard H. Adler, '45; D. Jackson Coleman, '60; N. Lynn Eckert, '70, and Anil B. Mukherjee, '75.

Jain to discuss "sucker potential"

The late showman P.T. Barnum is quoted as saying, "there's a sucker born every minute," and proved it with his traveling shows.

UB marketing maven Arun K. Jain will discuss the "sucker potential" in his lecture entitled "Modern Barnums and the Suckers Among Us" May 3 at the "UB at Sunrise" community breakfast.

The program, which will begin at 7:30 a.m. and includes a full breakfast, will be held in the Center for Tomorrow on the North Campus.

Jain is Samuel P. Capen Professor of Marketing Research and chair of the Department of Marketing in the School of Management.

Tickets for the program are $12 for UB Alumni Association members and UB staff and faculty, and $15 for all others. For information and reservations, call 829-2608. Visa and MasterCard are accepted by phone.

The "UB at Sunrise" community breakfast series is presented by the Alumni Association and supported by the offices of University Development, News Services, Publications, and Public Service and Urban Affairs.

Israeli scientist to lecture on ubiquitins

Aaron Ciechanover, director of the Rappaport Family Institute for Research in the Medical Sciences of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel, will deliver lectures May 4 and 5 at UB as part of a new biannual seminar series "New Frontiers in Science and Technology."

The lectures are sponsored by the departments of Microbiology and Biological Sciences and Life Technologies, Inc.

Both lectures will discuss "The Ubiquitin-Proteolytic System: From Cellular Functions to Human Diseases."

The lecture on May 4 will be held at 4 p.m. in 220 Natural Sciences Complex on the North Campus. The May 5 lecture will be held at noon in G26 Farber Hall on the South Campus.

IT career session set

The Office of Career Planning and Placement will host a networking event from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Tuesday in 210 Student Union on the North Campus to introduce local college students interested in information-technology careers to some companies that make up Infotech Niagara and Buffalo's "Byte Belt."

Infotech Niagara is a trade group of local companies in the IT business. The Byte Belt is an economic-development zone in downtown Buffalo where several IT companies are clustered.

Speakers will include representatives from Adelphia, Reciprocal, ChoiceOne/Edgenet and Chek.com. There also will be a video on the Byte Belt.

The event will be free and open to the public.

For more information or to register, contact Melissa Ruggiero at 645-6860.

Architecture "friends" to sponsor tours

The Friends of the School of Architecture and Planning will spon-sor walking tours of downtown Buffalo by Roam Buffalo from April 29 through Oct. 28.

Tours of the downtown Landmark District will begin at 2 p.m. Tuesdays and tours of the Theatre and Banking District will begin at 2 p.m. Thursdays. Downtown tours will begin at 10 a.m. Saturdays and Sundays. Tours will last approximately an hour and a half and cost $5 per person.

Two-hour trolley tours will be held at 10:30 a.m. Saturdays and cost $20 per person. Reservations are suggested.

All tours begin at the Market Arcade, 617 Main St.

For more information, call 829-3543.

Free hearing testing scheduled for May 6

The UB Speech Language and Hearing Clinic will provide all members of the university community with a free hearing screening from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. May 6 on the ground floor of the Biomedical Education Building on the South Campus.

Testing will be done on a first-come, first-serve basis and no appointment is necessary. There will be an opportunity for those being tested to ask questions and information will be provided about hearing, hearing disorders and community services.

The service is being offered on the National Day of Hearing Testing, when more than 2,000 hearing health providers across the country will volunteer to test as many people as possible.

David Leach to deliver D.W. Harrington Lecture

The annual D.W. Harrington Lecture will highlight the third annual Resident Scholarly Exchange Day, to be held April 27 in the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

David C. Leach, executive director of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, will deliver the Harrington Lecture, titled "Aligning Medical Education with the Future of Health Care," at 4 p.m. in Butler Auditorium in Farber Hall on the South Campus.

Medical residents will be on hand to discuss their individual research from 11:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the Lippschutz Room and Atrium of the Biomedical Education Building. Topics will include research on environmental interventions and inner-city asthmatics, lower-back injuries and human organ-donation programs.

Leach is recognized for his teaching and research in such areas as managed care and endocrinology, and his interest in chaordic organizations-balancing chaos and order-to effectively respond to change.

He is a former assistant dean at the University of Michigan Medical School and director of medical education and program director of the Transitional Residency Program at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit.

In 1993, he received the Good Samaritan Award from Michigan Gov. John Engler for two decades of service at the Cabrini Clinic in Detroit.

A native of Elmira, Leach received a medical degree from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry in 1969.