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UB sponsors basketball clinic
UB will be a good neighbor and bring a positive message to children in the University Heights neighborhood on Saturday through a free basketball clinic being held in McCarthy Park.
Seventy-five to 100 middle school students are expected to attend the Higher Heights Basketball Clinic, which will be held from 9:30 a.m. to noon in the park. Rain site is Clark Gym on the South Campus.
The clinic is free and open to boys and girls in grades 3-8 who are residents of University Heights. It is cosponsored by the Division of Athletics and the Office of Community Relations, Division of External Affairs.
Directing the clinic will be head men's basketball coach Reggie Witherspoon; head women's coach Linda Hill-MacDonald, who will talk to participants about the value of an education; and assistant men's basketball coach Jim Kwitchoff.
Participants will receive instruction in six basketball skills—shooting, ball handling, passing, defense, footwork and rebounding—and will have an opportunity to ask questions of UB coaches and student-athletes.
Expected to make an appearance at the clinic are state Assemblyman Sam Hoyt; Assemblywoman Crystal Peoples; Lynn Marinelli, chair of the Erie County Legislature; and Buffalo Common Councilwoman Bonnie Russell, who represents University Heights.
Vincent Clark, UB director of community relations, calls the clinic "part of the university's ongoing effort to reach out to our neighbors in a positive and impactful way."
"This particular event will provide another opportunity for UB to engage neighborhood children with messages about the importance of educational achievement," Clark said.
"This all dovetails nicely on the priority that President John B. Simpson has placed on UB's role in pre-K through 16 education."
Linda Yalem run set for Sept. 24
Nearly 1,200 walkers and runners are expected to participate in the 17th annual Linda Yalem Safety Run, to begin at 9:30 a.m. Sept. 24 on the North Campus.
The 5K USA Track and Field-certified course is one of the most popular races in Western New York and a qualifying race for the Buffalo News' "Runner of the Year" series.
The race will start and finish outside Alumni Arena. Overall male and female finishers in the open division will receive cash prizes. Post-race events will include food, prize raffles, merchandise and a Kids' Dash.
The Linda Yalem Safety Run was established to promote personal safety, and is named in honor of Yalem, a 22-year-old UB student who was raped and murdered in September 1990 on the Amherst bike path along the north edge of campus while training for the New York City Marathon.
Registration fees will support rape-prevention programming and personal safety awareness at UB. The first 1,000 registrants will receive a long-sleeve race shirt.
The fee to participate is $17 for advanced registration; $20 day of the race. UB students can register any time for $12. Checks should be made payable to the UB Foundation Inc. (U.S. funds only). UB students may pay their registration fee using Campus Cash at 211 Student Union, through Sept. 21.
Pre-registration by Sept. 21 also is available online at http://www. lindayalemrun.buffalo.edu. The post-mark deadline for mail-in advance applications is Monday.
In-person registration and pick-up of pre-registration race packets will be held from 4-7 p.m. Sept. 22 in Alumni Arena. Participants who pick up their race packets on this date will receive a free voucher for two tickets to any remaining home UB Bulls football game.
Race day registration and packet distribution will begin at 7:30 a.m. in Alumni Arena. Organizers encourage all racers to arrive early to receive a "championship chip" that fastens to the shoe to record times at the finish line. Participants must return their chip to a volunteer after the race. Chip distribution will take place from 7:30 to 8:30 a.m. on race day.
Water stations will be located along the race course and at the finish line. Parking, restroom and shower facilities will be available as well. Rollerblades are prohibited.
An awards ceremony and party will be held immediately following the race.
Participation in the post-race Kids' Dash is free for children ages 5-10 and will begin at 10:30 a.m. at Coventry Loop. Parent or guardian signature is required. Prizes will be awarded in three age groups—5-6, 7-8 and 9-10.
Stewart to head alumni relations
Graham Stewart, director of alumni relations at Ithaca College since 1999, has been named as associate vice president for alumni relations at UB, effective Oct. 2.
During his tenure at Ithaca, Stewart provided strategic direction and supervision for the college's alumni relations program that included alumni weekend, homecoming, network nights, an online community, alumni benefits, volunteer relations, regional clubs, young alumni and student programs, affinity events and travel. He also was responsible for providing direction and staff support to the alumni association's board of directors and played an integral role in planning and executing the college's first comprehensive campaign.
Stewart also has served as director of music admission at Ithaca and director of marketing and public relations for Cornell University. An accomplished professional musician, he holds a bachelor of fine arts degree in music and a master's degree in communication from Ithaca College.
Jenny Lewis to perform in CFA
The Center for the Arts will present Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins at 8 p.m. Oct. 8 in the Mainstage theater in the CFA, North Campus.
A singer and a songwriter from Los Angeles, Lewis spends most of her time singing and playing with Rilo Kiley, a quartet whose third album, 2004's "More Adventurous," has charmed and delighted fans and peers worldwide. Lewis' first solo album, "Rabbit Fur Coat"—modeled after the great "white soul" classics of the past—is one of the most bewitching and intoxicating discs of music released in years.
She now is touring with the Watson Twins, a set of Kentucky-born sisters with an other-worldly gift to harmonize.
Tickets for Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins are $20 for the general public and $18 for students, and are available at the CFA box office from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and at all Ticketmaster locations, including Ticketmaster.com.
Zodiaque Dance Company to perform
The Center for the Arts will present the "Zodiaque Dance Company: 8-Dance Is," Oct. 18-22 in the Drama Theatre in the CFA, North Campus.
Performances will take place at 8 p.m. Oct. 18-21, and at 2 p.m. Oct. 21 and 22.
Zodiaque Dance Company, under the direction of Tom Ralabate, enters its 33rd season with "8-Dance Is." The company remains committed to creative exchanges among its members and guest choreographers, and continues to offer audiences the thrill of university dancers performing a tremendous range of techniques and styles.
Choreographers include UB faculty members Melanie Aceto and Tressa Crehan; UB young choreographer Richard Ashworth; and guest choreographers Joseph Celej, a UB graduate and member of Elisa Monte Dance Company; Joseph Cipolla, artistic director, Configuration; Leslie Wexler, artistic director, Buffalo Contemporary Dance; and Jody Dombrowski, a former Zodiaque member.
Aceto's choreography will be showcased by music composed by Mark Olivieri, a composer-in-residence at Brockport State College and doctoral candidate at UB. The new work will be performed by guest artist Nicola Melville, a New Zealand-born concert pianist.
Tickets for Zodiaque Dance Company are $16 for the general public and $8 for students and seniors. Tickets are available at the CFA box office from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, and at all Ticketmaster locations, including Ticketmaster.com.
For more information, call 645-ARTS.
Music faculty to perform
The Department of Music will present its second annual Faculty Showcase concert, featuring the varied talents of the music performance faculty, at 8 p.m. Sept. 27 in Lippes Concert Hall in Slee Hall, North Campus.
The Faculty Showcase program will feature such familiar and favorite artists as soprano Tony Arnold, pianist Jacob Greenberg, trumpeter Jon Nelson, flutist Cheryl Gobbetti Hoffman, percussionist Anthony Miranda and baritone Alexander Hurd. New UB music department faculty members Jean Kopperud, clarinetist, and Alison d'Amato, pianist, also will perform.
Faculty members will perform a wide spectrum of music, including the refined, courtly music of Alessandro Scarlatti from the late 17th century, the virtuosic and technically demanding "Sonata for Flute" by Sigfrid Karg-Elert, the world premiere of Anthony Miranda's work for pitched and unpitched percussion instruments entitled "Rhythmic Transpositions" and a mid-20th century work for boom box (yes, boom box), cello and piano by Jacob ter Veldhuis.
Tickets are $5, and are available at the Slee Hall box office from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday, at the Center for the Arts box office from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, and all Ticketmaster outlets, including TicketMaster.com.
For further information on Department of Music events, go to http://www.slee.buffalo.edu.
CFA to present Music Is Art
Music Is Art Live @ The Center, the weekly series of live performances and exhibitions presented by the Center for the Arts showcasing Western New York's best contemporary musicians and visual artists, will resume on Sept. 26 with musical artists Doria Roberts and Picture This.
Doors open at 8:30 p.m., with music beginning at 9 p.m. in the CFA atrium. The event is free and open to the public.
Music Is Art Live @ The Center is a collaboration between the CFA, Robby Takac of Chameleonwest Studios and the Goo Goo Dolls, and the Music Is Art Foundation.
The musical lineup for the fall semester; visual artists will be announced:
Oct. 3: Davey O. and 53 Days
Oct. 16: Maria Sebastian and McCarthyism
Oct. 24: Lisa Rose and Elektromat
Nov. 7: Kerilea Butler and Stone Row
Nov. 14: John Schmitt and Maelstrom Percussion Ensemble
Music Is Art Live @ The Center events are recorded for broadcast. The spring 2006 series will be broadcast weekly at 10:30 p.m., beginning Sept. 24, on CW23 WNLO.
Chinese architect to speak
Yung Ho Chang, one of China's most accomplished and best-known contemporary architects, will present an illustrated lecture of his work as part of China's architectural renaissance on Wednesday as part of the School of Architecture and Planning's 2006 Fall Lecture Series.
The lecture, the second in the fall series, will take place at 5:30 p.m. in 301 Crosby Hall, South Campus. It is free of charge, open to the public and will be followed by a reception for Chang.
The China-born, American-educated Chang, who has made an enormous mark on contemporary Chinese architectural practice and on architecture education here and abroad, cites such artistic pioneers as Marcel Duchamp, Alfred Hitchcock, Flann O'Brien and Alain Robbe-Grillet among his influences.
He founded the Graduate Center of Architecture at Peking University and, with his wife, architect Lijia Lu, founded Beijing's first independent architectural firm, Atelier FCJZ or Feichang Jianzhu (which translates as "Unusual Architecture"), a practice he maintains while at MIT, where he currently directs the Department of Architecture.
Atelier FCJZ is a versatile firm and one of the hottest in China. It has a number of completed projects to its credit, including private residences, large- and small-scale museums, government buildings and installations at the Venice Biennale and the Centre Pompidou, Paris.
Chang, 49, the son of an architect, came to the U.S. in 1981 and received a bachelor's degree in environmental design from Ball State University and a master's degree in architecture from the University of California-Berkeley in 1984.
He has taught at Berkeley, Rice University and Tongii University (Shanghai). In 2002 and 2003 he held the Kenzo Tange Chair at Harvard's Graduate School of Design, and in 2004, the Eliel Saarinen Chair at the University of Michigan.
In May, Chang received an Academy Award in Architecture from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a prize given to an American architect whose work is characterized by strong personal direction.
Campbell named president-elect of society
James E. Campbell, professor and chair of the Department of Political Science, has been named president-elect of Pi Sigma Alpha, the national honor society of political science. He will begin his two-year tenure as president in 2007.
Pi Sigma Alpha was founded in 1920 and is a member of the Association of College Honor Societies. It has more than 600 chapters throughout the country. Fifty-one colleges and universities in New York State have Pi Sigma Alpha chapters. UB's chapter, the Rho Tau chapter, was formed in 1990.
Campbell's area of specialization is American politics. His research interests concern American presidential and congressional elections and campaigns, voting behavior, political parties and election forecasting.
He is the author of three books: "The American Campaign: U.S. Presidential Campaigns and the National Vote" (2000), "Cheap Seats: The Democratic Party's Advantage in U.S. House Elections" (1996) and "The Presidential Pulse of Congressional Elections" (1993 and 2nd ed. 1997). He co-edited "Before the Vote: Forecasting American National Elections" (2000).
He also has published more than 50 articles and book chapters. His research has appeared in the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, The Journal of Politics and numerous other scholarly journals.
Campbell is a former American Political Science Association (APSA) Congressional Fellow and was a program officer for the Political Science Program at the National Science Foundation from 1992-94. He won the Pi Sigma Alpha Award for the Best Paper Delivered at the 1996 Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association.
Gift to bring financial experts to UB
A gift of $50,000 from brothers Leslie Sufrin and Gerald Sufrin, a longtime UB faculty member, will support annual lectures in finance, financial economics and accounting in the School of Management.
The Helen and Oscar Sufrin Endowed Lectureship is named in honor of the Sufrins' late parents.
"Through this gift, we hope to enhance the scholarly and educational atmosphere at the school. It means a lot to me and my brother to be able to establish this gift in memory of our parents," said Gerald Sufrin, professor of urology and chair of the Department of Urology, School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, since 1982.
Sufrin said that several years ago he wanted to learn more about accounting when he was elected treasurer of the American Urological Association. He subsequently enrolled in courses in finance, investment and accounting in the School of Management.
"I was impressed by the faculty," he added. "They are supportive of students, dedicated and knowledgeable. I wanted to give something back."
He persuaded his brother, Leslie, who is a certified public accountant in New York City, to join him in honoring their parents' memory. The late Oscar Sufrin was a college professor at Long Island University and an accountant. His wife, Helen, was a stay-at-home mother.
"Our father had a strong commitment to education and learning," said Gerald Sufrin. "No matter what field he was in, he had an educational drive to all of his endeavors. This gift is fitting to honor his values."
Beginning this academic year, the School of Management annually will bring to campus a distinguished business professional in the area of accounting, finance, financial economics or financial management to deliver the lecture. The inaugural lecture currently is being arranged.
"I am grateful to the Sufrins for their generous gift and look forward to the continuing exchange of ideas that occurs by bringing distinguished scholars to campus," said John M. Thomas, dean of the School of Management.