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IREWG plans graduate student symposium
"Gender Across Borders" will be the theme of the third biannual Graduate Student Symposium on Gender, to be held March 6 in the Natural Sciences Complex, North Campus.
The symposium will cover research involving women and gender in history and in the present, with a stress on national and international trends in women's issues, and especially war and its effects on women.
The symposium also will feature an "Emergent Women Scientists" panel and "Fresh Ideas" poster session.
The symposium will provide an opportunity for graduate students to present their gender-focused research work. Even though the target for these symposia is graduate students, undergraduates who have done some gender-related research and are interested in participating also are welcome.
Anyone interested in participating should visit http://www.womenandgender. buffalo.edu.
Abstracts are due by email Jan. 28; those that are mailed should be postmarked by Jan. 26.
For further information, contact Ameyo Awuku at asawuku@acsu.buffalo.edu or 829-3451
Girls Choir of Harlem to perform
The Center for the Arts will present the Girls Choir of Harlem—the female counterpart to the Boys Choir—at 2 p.m. Dec. 13 in the Mainstage theater in the CFA, North Campus.
The 50-voice performing choir representing the Girls Choir of Harlem made its Lincoln Center debut in Alice Tully Hall in November 1997 to enthusiastic critical acclaim. The choir's performances consist of an intricate repertoire of classical, spiritual and pop music for audiences around the country. The UB performance also will feature holiday music.
The performers of the Girls Choir attend the Choir Academy of Harlem, where they have three hours of rehearsals per day, as well as a full academic curriculum interspersed with artistic classes in music theory, voice, movement, hand bells, piano and Orff percussion.
The Girls Choir of Harlem has been featured on such programs as "60 Minutes," "Good Morning America" and Oprah's Angel Network, as well as appearing on the front page of "The New York Times." The choir frequently makes appearances at colleges and universities, and has been featured at prominent affairs honoring numerous leaders.
Tickets for the Girls Choir of Harlem are $25, $20, $15 and $10 for children ages 12 and under. Tickets are available at the CFA box office from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, and at all Ticketmaster locations.
For more information, call 645-ARTS.
A message on holiday schedules from President William R. Greiner
Given that this year the days immediately following the Christmas and New Year's holidays fall on a Friday, it is likely that a number of UB employees will be requesting leave on Dec. 26, 2003, and Jan. 2, 2004. The high probability of increased leave requests, in conjunction with the fact that the need for services will be very low on these two days, may present difficult staffing decisions for our unit managers.
Please be advised that the campus itself will be remaining open on Dec. 26, 2003, and Jan. 2, 2004. However, the provost and vice presidents have the discretion to allow individual units to determine whether their operating needs will warrant closing or reducing their services on those days.
Employees who are not available on those days will be required to charge time not worked to accrued vacation, personal leave or compensatory time. If an employee elects to work rather than use available time, he or she will be allowed the option to do so even if their particular unit is closed. If this is the case and their building or particular office is closed, an alternative work site must be identified and provided for these individuals.
Thank you for your assistance in this matter. You may direct any questions to
James L. Jarvis, Jr., director of employee relations, at 645-5000, ext. 1287, or jjarvis@business.buffalo.edu, or to Elizabeth Dundon, manager of benefits administration, at 645-5000, ext. 1266, or ldundon@business.buffalo.edu.
WBFO membership drive raises more than $250,000
WBFO 88.7 FM, the National Public Radio affiliate operated by UB, recently completed its most successful fall membership drive, raising more than $250,000.
Almost 1,300 telephone and Web-site-generated pledges from Western New York and Southern Ontario listeners were recorded during the station's eight-day, fall, on-air campaign.
More than 500 new members joined the station and 400 existing members participated in a challenge grant to encourage new and lapsed members to call in a donation.
"We are simply elated by this tremendous response by our loyal listeners," says Carole Smith Petro, associate vice president and general manager. "Their generosity clearly shows that WBFO is counted among the region's most valued cultural and educational assets."
WBFO's membership totals almost 7,500. Nearly 100,000 listeners in Western New York and Southern Ontario tune in to the radio station each week.
A major public service of UB, WBFO has been broadcasting from studios in Allen Hall on the South Campus for 44 years, and has served Jamestown and Olean for the past nine years through repeater stations WUBJ 88.1 FM and WOLN 91.3 FM, respectively.
UB to offer bachelor's degree in film studies
UB is offering a new undergraduate interdisciplinary program leading to a bachelor of arts degree in film studies through the Department of Media Study in the College of Arts and Sciences.
The 120-credit-hour program will focus on the critical study of film and be taught by faculty members from several departments in the CAS, including English, art, theater and media study.
"The career and educational objectives of the program are to offer an undergraduate education in film criticism that will prepare students in depth for further film study on a graduate level," says Royal Roussel, professor and interim chair of the Department of Media Study.
He notes that an increasing number of universities offer general education programs in English and the humanities that incorporate courses in film theory and film history. The new UB program, he says, is a response to those changes and an effort to prepare a generation of students with expertise in the professional analysis of film.
Roussel says students expressed their desire for the program through their ongoing enrollment in film courses and their response to surveys about the proposed program. Twelve faculty members in various UB departments who already make film a primary focus of their course offerings and research also expressed a keen interest in bringing together their work and students under the umbrella of an interdisciplinary major.
The program, he adds, is one of an increasing number of cross- and inter-disciplinary programs and undergraduate majors designed to offer specific vocational skills and help students understand their world so that they can operate in it as conscious agents and not as passive recipients of material transferred to them through film technologies.
The program will organize existing UB film and media courses into a coherent and predictable sequence that will give students access to the most important filmatic texts of their own and other cultures.
Forty-six of the program's required credit hours will be derived from courses in film and media analysis and film history that will cover the development of film as both a genre and as a language, teach them the basic terms of film analysis and enable graduates to watch films analytically.
Nursing to offer new master's degree program
The School of Nursing will inaugurate a new master's degree program in January to prepare nurses to be psychiatric/mental health nurse practitioners, one of the most in-demand and financially rewarding of nursing specialties.
The program is one of only two offered in Western New York. Nationally, the number of such programs has nearly quadrupled since 1990, from 10 to 38 currently, according to program director Eris Perese, clinical associate professor in the nursing school.
"The psychiatric/mental health nurse practitioner is one of the fastest growing professions within the mental-health care system," said Perese. "This is due to several factors: an increase in the incidence of mental illnesses such as depression, an increase in the number of people living longer and an insufficient number of physicians entering the field of psychiatry.
"Psychiatrists primarily provide care in private-practice settings or in teaching hospitals or institutions," Perese added. "There are not enough of them to meet the growing need for community-based, mental-health care provided in clinics, schools, day treatment centers, forensic settings and rehabilitation programs."
UB currently offers a post-master's psychiatric nurse practitioner certificate program for nurses who already hold a master's degree as a clinical specialist in psychiatric nursing. The new master's-degree program will accept nurses without a master's degree in psychiatric nursing and prepare them to practice as psychiatric nurse practitioners.
The new program combines elements of the clinical specialist and nurse practitioner preparations. The curriculum encompasses 49 credit hours of advanced-practice nursing courses and psychiatric/mental health nurse practitioner specialty courses. While a bachelor's degree in nursing is required for admission to the master's program, the specialty also is offered as a BS/MS program for registered nurses with a diploma or an associate's degree in nursing.