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Miller named chair of English
Cristanne Miller, W.M. Keck Distinguished Service Professor and chair of the Department of English at Pomona College, Claremont, Calif., has been appointed chair of the Department of English, College of Arts and Sciences, for a three-year term, effective with the Fall 2006 semester.
Miller also will hold the E.H. Butler Chair in the English department.
She is the first chair to be hired from outside the department in almost 40 years.
Miller's husband, Jerold Frakes, professor of German and comparative literature and associate faculty in classics at the University of Southern California, will join the UB English department faculty as a full professor.
Miller's work focuses on 19th and 20th century American poetry, in particular on the poetry of women. She is a major scholar and a prolific writer, whose books include "Emily Dickinson: A Poet's Grammar" (Harvard University Press, 1987), "Marianne Moore: Questions of Authority" (Harvard University Press, 1995), "Cultures of Modernity: Marianne Moore, Mina Loy, Else Lasker-Schüer" (University of Michigan Press, 2005) and "Comic Power in Emily Dickinson," co-authored with Susanne Juhasz and Martha Nell Smith (University of Texas Press, 1993).
She is also editor of The Emily Dickinson Journal, which she will bring to Buffalo with her. In addition, she has edited seven books, with an eighth—"Words for the Hour: A New Anthology of American Civil War Poetry," co-edited with Faith Barrett (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press)—in advanced proofs.
Miller is a member of the publications board of the Modern Language Association and is vice president of the Modernist Studies Association.
Raymo is next WBFO author
Chet Raymo, author of "Walking Zero: Discovering Cosmic Space and Time Along the Prime Meridian," will read from his work at 7 p.m. May 15 at Musicalfare Theatre at Daemen College.
The reading, which will be broadcast live on WBFO 88.7 FM, UB's National Public Radio affiliate, will be presented as part of the station's "Meet the Author" series.
It will be free and open to the public. Bert Gambini, executive producer of the "Meet the Author" series, will serve as host. A book signing will take place immediately following the reading and light refreshments will be served.
In "Walking Zero," Raymo uses the prime meridian—the line of zero longitude and the standard for all the world's maps and clocks—to tell the story of humankind's intellectual journey from a cosmos not much larger than ourselves to the universe of the galaxies and geologic eons.
PRB meeting set for May 3
The annual meeting of interested faculty with the chair of the President's Review Board (PRB) and the vice provost for faculty affairs will be held at 2 p.m. May 3 in 330 Student Union, North Campus.
James Sawusch, professor of psychology and chair of the PRB, and Lucinda Finley, professor of law and vice provost for faculty affairs, will discuss the promotion process and answer questions.
For more information, call 645-3594.
UB sets high school physics program
The Department of Physics, College of Arts and Sciences, for the first time is sponsoring a summer program for aspiring high school physicists who also appreciate the arts.
Students enrolled in the Physics & Arts Summer Institute, which will run from July 10 through Aug. 4, will build an exhibit for the Physics & Arts Exhibition in the UB physics department of that honors, celebrates and de-mystifies the discipline for the general public.
"We want the high school students to help us communicate with the public about why physics is so exciting," says Doreen Wackeroth, assistant professor of physics and developer of the summer institute.
Wackeroth noted that with the world's most powerful particle accelerator coming online next year in Geneva, Switzerland, this is an extremely opportune time to begin educating the general public about the fundamental physics questions that soon will be investigated.
During the institute, students will construct an exhibit featuring a spark chamber, a physics instrument that can make cosmic rays visible to the naked eye. Subatomic particles, created in collisions of cosmic rays with the Earth's atmosphere, cause a series of sparks along their path through the spark chamber.
Under the direction of a high school physics teacher and a UB undergraduate physics major, students attending the institute will design explanatory materials to go with the spark chamber exhibit, among them posters, Web pages and audio tours.
They also will attend lectures by UB professors on particle physics and on the arts, visit the particle accelerator at Cornell University, learn from UB's science librarians how to conduct scientific research online and lead members of the public on tours of the physics exhibit once it is complete.
The UB Physics & Arts Summer Institute is being funded by the education and outreach portion of a prestigious National Science Foundation CAREER award that Wackeroth recently received.
Earth Day Colloquium Honors the Great Lakes
The Great Lakes—their management, scientific problems and future directions—will be the subject of the 2006 Earth Day Colloquium to be held by UB's Environment and Society Institute and the Great Lakes Program tomorrow from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. in the Student Union on the North Campus.
The free program will feature panel discussions on current and future issues confronting the Great Lakes, as well as a competition of multidisciplinary student research related to environmental science, engineering, policy and management.
Panelists will include Barry Boyer, UB professor of law; Kofi Fynn-Aikens, chief, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Lower Great Lakes Fisheries Resource Office; Donald Zelazny, Great Lakes coordinator, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, Paul MacClennan, environmentalist and former reporter for The Buffalo News; Kerry Mitchell, political, economic and public affairs specialist with the Canadian Consulate; and Lynda Schneekloth, UB professor of architecture.
UB Green will make a presentation on the "UB Climate Action Initiative," which is analyzing UB's impact on climate change.
Awards of recognition and appreciation will be presented to John B. Sheffer II, former New York State Senator and Assemblyman and retired director of UB's Institute for Local Governance and Regional Growth and Assemblyman Sam Hoyt for their vision and dedication to protecting the Great Lakes.
The award to Assemblyman Hoyt also will recognizes his father, the late Assemblyman William Hoyt, who with Sheffer in 1985 helped launch UB's Great Lakes Program, which is now celebrating 20 years of protecting and preserving the lakes.
The colloquium will be dedicated to the late Gerry Mikol, who served as the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Great Lakes Coordinator and Head of Region 9, who died earlier this month. Mikol was a member of the UB Great Lakes Program Advisory Board and a tireless advocate for the Great Lakes.
For a complete listing of events, please go to http://www.eng.buffalo.edu/glp
Student Remembrance Ceremony to be held April 28
UB will hold a ceremony at 3 p.m. April 28 in 210 Student Union, North Campus, to honor the memory of UB students who died during the academic year.
The following students will be honored:
Dennis L. Brown; Robert Valenti, higher education; Won Joo Lee, civil, structural and environmental engineering; Kabuki Caesar, exercise science; James Lovette, School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences; and Scott Wiktorski.
A reception and dedication of bricks, in permanent remembrance of the students, will be held following the ceremony on the promenade along the spine on North Campus.
"As we come to the close of another academic year, we want to remember the students we lost and to give everyone a chance to reflect on what these—and all students—bring to the UB experience," said Barbara J. Ricotta, associate vice president for campus life. "It's a simple way for the entire UB community to appreciate the lives of these important people and for their friends and colleagues to share the impact they had on UB."
The ceremony is open to the entire campus community. Donations of flowers and student mementos for the service, requests to speak at the service or requests for more information may be sent to Elizabeth Lidano, director, Judicial Affairs & Student Advocacy, 645-6154 or lidano@buffalo.edu.
Law Review to honor O'Donnell, Schwenkel
Denise E. O'Donnell, J.D. '82, a partner in the Buffalo-based law firm Hodgson Russ LLP, and Robert C. Schwenkel, J.D. '82, a partner in the New York City-based law firm Fried Frank Harris Shriver and Jacobson, will be honored at the 17th annual Buffalo Law Review dinner to be held April 27 at the Buffalo Club.
Both honorees are Buffalo Law Review alumni and have excelled in the legal profession. They remain active in the UB Law School community. O'Donnell is a recent past president of the Law Alumni Association and Schwenkel mentors hundreds of law students, helping to guide them through the New York City law firm recruitment season.
O'Donnell is seeking the Democratic nomination for New York State attorney general. Before joining Hodgson Russ, she served as the U.S. attorney for the Western District of New York from 1997-2001. During that time, she directed all criminal prosecutions and civil litigation for the federal government in the 17 counties of Western New York. While U.S. attorney, she served as a vice-chair of the Attorney General's Advisory Committee.
Schwenkel is chair of Fried Frank Harris Shriver and Jacobson's New York corporate department, where he leads a team of 140 attorneys. He joined Fried Frank in 1982 and became a partner in 1989.
He maintains a diverse transactional corporate practice concentrating in private equity and mergers and acquisitions. Representative clients include private investment funds managed by Goldman, Sachs & Co.; Permira Advisors LLC; Appaloosa Management LP; Cortec Group; and Penske Capital Partners.
Summer drawing sessions to be held
The Department of Visual Studies will present open figure drawing sessions on Wednesdays from May 17 to Aug. 16.
No session will be held on July 5.
The sessions will run from 7-9:30 p.m. in 218 Center for the Arts, North Campus.
The cost is $5 per session; no registration is necessary. Easels will provided; participants should bring their own drawing materials.
Open figure drawing is sponsored by SVAO—the UB Student Visual Arts Organization.
For more information, go to http://visualstudies.buffalo.edu/resources/svao/index.html.