Archives
People etc.
UB Police win car design contest
UB Police have won a first-place prize in the 2007 International Police Vehicle Design Contest sponsored by Law & Order magazine.
Gerald W. Schoenle Jr., UB chief of police, said that the university was one of 150 entrants in the contest and won first prize in the state and federal agency category.
The UB Police became involved in the contest after Schoenle formed a review committee last year to decide which car model the department should use, as well as the cars' graphic design.
With input from other members of the department, the committee came up with the winning design, according to Investigator Donald S. Kreger, who entered the design in the Law & Order contest this spring.
"They decided on this design and on using Dodge Chargers," Kreger said, adding that UB Officer Joshua B. Sticht developed the design.
Schoenle called the award "a nice recognition for our department."
"We are very proud of our police vehicles and the design that our officers have chosen," Schoenle said. "I think it is critical to have the rank-and-file members of an agency involved in such decisions."
The current (August) issue of Law & Order includes a feature on the contest winners, as well as photos of the winning vehicles and judges' comments. Each winning agency receives a commemorative plaque and chooses a charity to receive its prize money.
UB will donate its prize money to First Candle/SIDS Alliance, a national nonprofit health organization, as a tribute to UB Officer Timothy Pray, who recently lost his newborn son, Timothy Jacob Pray, to SIDS.
"First Candle also will be the beneficiary from our department's annual golf tournament this year," Kreger said.
Liturgy of Holy Spirit to be held Sept. 16
The Newman Centers at UB will mark the opening of the 2007-08 academic year with the Annual Convocation and Liturgy of the Holy Spirit, to be held at 11:30 a.m. Sept. 16 in St. Joseph University Church, 3629 Main St., Buffalo, adjacent to the South Campus.
During the convocation, the Newman Award, the highest honor given by the Newman Centers, will be given to Carole Smith Petro, associate vice president and general manager of WBFO-FM 88.7, UB's National Public Radio affiliate.
Petro will be recognized for her efforts on behalf of the UB community during her many years of service to the university.
She has held a number of administrative positions at UB for more than three decades, including as chief of staff in the President's Office. She has served on and chaired various university committees, including serving as co-chair of the presidential inaugurations of UB Presidents William R. Greiner and John B. Simpson, and as co-chair of the university's sesquicentennial celebration in 1996.
All members of the campus community are invited to attend the convocation.
Benefit screening set for Kurtz documentary
A special benefit screening of "Strange Culture," Lynn Hershman Leeson's critically acclaimed documentary about the prosecution of UB faculty member and artist Steven Kurtz, will take place at 7 p.m. Sept 8 at the Market Arcade Film and Arts Centre, 639 Main St., Buffalo.
Kurtz will attend and answer questions after the screening.
The documentary, which premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, will have its Buffalo theatrical run at the Market Arcade Sept. 7-13.
Kurtz is a professor in the UB Department of Art and a founding member of the internationally known art-and-theater collective Critical Art Ensemble, which focuses its work on the intersections between art, technology, radical politics and critical theory. He was accused of bioterrorism in May 2004 when police, responding to the death of Kurtz's wife, Hope, found his art to be suspicious. Today, Kurtz and his longtime collaborator Robert Ferrell, a geneticist at the University of Pittsburgh, face charges of mail fraud and wire fraud, punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
"Strange Culture," starring Tilda Swinton, Thomas Jay Ryan, Peter Coyote and Wallace Shawn, chronicles the Kurtz case.
Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center is sponsoring the screening with the Market Arcade.
Tickets are $10, and all proceeds will go to fund Kurtz's and Ferrell's legal defense.
For more information, call Hallwalls at 854-1694.
India.Arie to perform in CFA
Two-time Grammy winner and 12-time Grammy nominee India.Arie will perform at 8 p.m. Sept. 19 in the Mainstage theater in the Center for the Arts, North Campus.
She will perform songs from her latest certified-gold, Grammy-nominated album, "Testimony: Vol. 1, Life & Relationship," as well as other hits.
One of a handful of neo-classic soul artists to emerge from the late 1990s, India.Arie came onto the music scene in 2001 with her platinum-plus debut, "Acoustic Soul," and uplifting hit single, "Video." She followed with 2002's "Voyage to India," collecting a host of awards, including two Grammys and three NAACP Awards, as well as being recognized by BET, Billboard magazine, MTV, VH1 and Essence magazine.
India.Arie released her third studio album, "Testimony: Vol. 1, Life & Relationship," to the top of the Billboard charts in June 2006. The empowering hit single, "I Am Not My Hair," a duet with Pink, was featured in the Lifetime television movie "Why I Wore Lipstick to My Mastectomy." Other songs on the album feature collaborations with Bonnie Raitt, Akon, Gary Lenox of Rascal Flatts and Victor Wooten, and include a cover of Don Henley's "Heart of the Matter."
India.Arie also is recognized as a tireless champion of social and humanitarian causes around the world. A U.S. Ambassador for UNICEF, she recently returned from a trip to South Africa, where she observed and assisted in humanitarian efforts. The release of "Testimony: Vol. 1" coincided with National HIV Testing Day, a worldwide cause close to her heart.
Tickets for India.Arie are $35 for the general public and $30 for students, and are available at the CFA box office and at all Ticketmaster locations, including Ticketmaster.com.
For more information, call 645-ARTS.
Praxair gift to name professorship
Praxair Inc., a valued corporate partner of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences for many years, has pledged a $250,000 gift to establish the Praxair Professor in Operations Research and a $25,000 gift to support the university's annual Business Partners Day.
Mark H. Karwan, professor of industrial and systems engineering and dean of the school from 1994 to 2006, will be named to the professorship.
"Through the years, Praxair has benefited from the knowledge and experience of one of UB's most accomplished and respected scholars in the field of operations research," said Steve Lerner, senior vice president and chief technology officer at Praxair.
"It gives us pleasure to be able to honor him through a gift to the UB School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. We enjoy our partnership with UB and look forward to continued collaboration."
Praxair's support of UB includes multidisciplinary optimization research, lecture series, fellowships in chemical engineering, internships and various sponsorships of UB engineering events.
The gift will complement Karwan's research in the fields of mathematical programming, applied operations and multiple-criteria decision-making, and teaching.
Under Karwan's leadership, UB Engineering experienced tremendous growth and development. He initiated numerous new research centers in the school, increased research expenditures and established a dean's advisory council, a group of industry leaders who assist the school in achieving its goals. He began his UB tenure more than 30 years ago.
Karwan earned bachelor's and master's degrees from The Johns Hopkins University and a doctorate from Georgia Institute of Technology.
Ebert talk to open lecture series for teachers
Charles H.V. Ebert, SUNY Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Department of Geography, will talk about "Hurricanes and Tornadoes" at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 12 in the opening program of the 2007-08 Western New York Science and Technology Forum lecture series for area teachers.
The lecture, and all others in the series with the exception of a field trip to Old Fort Niagara State Park, will take place from 7:30-9:30 p.m. on Wednesdays through Jan. 9 in Room 201 Natural Sciences Complex, North Campus.
Speakers from area institutions and industries, as well as UB, will provide information on new exciting scientific developments that can be incorporated into the classroom.
Among the topics to be covered in this year's series are "Energy Usage and Climate Change," "The Science of Sports Training," "The Mechanism of Hearing," and "Buffalo's Role in the Human Genome Project."
In addition to Ebert, UB speakers will be Wayne Gall, Social and Preventive Medicine; Gerry Rising, Learning and Instruction; Walter Simpson, UB Green; Surajit Sen, Physics; Yarrow Axford, Geology; Satpal Singh, Pharmacology and Toxicology; William Kinney, Physics; Matthew Xu-Friedman, Biological Sciences; and Norma Nowak, New York State Center for Excellence in Bioinformatics and the Life Sciences.
The series was begun in 1969 by its director, George H. Nancollas, SUNY Distinguished Professor and Larkin Chair in the Department of Chemistry. Co-directors are Stephen Free, professor of biological sciences, and Marcus Bursik, professor of geology.
The fee for the lecture series is $30.
For further information or to register for the series, contact Barbara Raff at 645-6800, ext. 2020.