Archives
People etc.
Text messaging system to be tested
A test of UB’s text messaging system designed to assist in communicating with members of the university community during emergency events will be conducted on Tuesday.
The text messaging system will be activated and an alert, “UB test message sent at 2:30. This is a test,” will be broadcast across the network.
Anyone who has registered to receive these text messages through their mobile devices and did not receive the test alert, or experienced a time delay, or has any questions or concerns about the test should send an email to rave@buffalo.edu.
Anyone wishing to receive emergency text messages can register at the Emergency Preparedness Web site.
Brennan to oversee communications
The appointment of Joseph A. Brennan as associate vice president for university communications at UB was announced yesterday by Marsha S. Henderson, vice president for external affairs.
Brennan has served as executive director of communications and marketing, the chief communications and marketing officer, at Ohio University. His appointment at UB is effective Feb. 18.
In his new position, Brennan, who was selected following a national search, will be responsible for university-wide communications functions at UB and oversee its Office of Marketing and Creative Services, and Office of News Services and Periodicals with the goal of enhancing UB’s reputation and visibility locally, nationally and internationally.
Brennan, who earned doctoral and master’s degrees from UB, has 20 years of communications and management experience in higher education. Before joining Ohio University in July 2006, he had served as the senior communications officer at University of the Pacific in Stockton, Calif., as its executive director of marketing and university relations. He previously was executive director of public relations and marketing at the University of Toledo and public relations director at Delgado Community College in New Orleans.
From 1992-95, he was manager of public communications and research support services at UB’s Research Institute on Addictions and prior to that he served as coordinator of conferences and lifelong learning at Niagara University and was dean of evening and continuing education at Bryant & Stratton Business Institute.
Brennan is a graduate of Wayne State University. He earned a doctorate and master’s degree, both in English, from UB in 1996 and 1988, respectively, and an MBA from the University of the Pacific in 2007.
Brennan has worked as a consultant in the field of public relations and has taught at UB, Niagara, Medaille College, Tulane University and University of the Pacific. A member of the board of directors of the Counselors to Higher Education section of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), he is credentialed by PRSA. His work has won recognition from numerous organizations, including the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education, PRSA and National Council for Marketing and Public Relations.
Promotion-tenure workshop planned
The Buffalo Center Chapter of United University Professions, the union representing UB faculty and professional staff, will be sponsoring a promotion-tenure workshop for academics from 5-7 p.m. Tuesday in the Center for Tomorrow, North Campus.
A light dinner will be served.
Anyone wishing to attend should RSVP by today to Chris Black at cmblack@buffalo.edu or 645-2013.
Dean, Bramen to lead Humanities Institute
Timothy Dean, professor of English, and Carrie Tirado Bramen, associate professor of English, both in the College of Arts and Sciences, have been appointed director and executive director, respectively, of UB's Humanities Institute, effective immediately.
Dean succeeds the institute’s founding director, Ewa Plonowska Ziarek, Julian Park Professor in the Department of Comparative Literature, who has ended her three-year tenure. Bramen, who was appointed interim executive director last July, succeeds Martha Malamud, associate professor of classics, who is on sabbatical leave this academic year.
“Over the past three years the Humanities Institute has served both as a bridge across disciplines within the university and as a bridge to the community,” noted Bruce D. McCombe, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, in making the appointments. “In a relatively short time, the institute has achieved recognition for its interdisciplinary research and community programs at the university, in the City of Buffalo and, through conferences and publications, on the national scene. We are confident that Tim and Carrie, with increased resource commitments from the College of Arts and Sciences, will continue the excellent work begun by Professors Ziarek and Malamud to augment UB’s commitment to the humanities and thereby deepen and enhance the cultural life of the university and Western New York.”
Dean joined the UB faculty in 2002 after several years teaching at the University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign and the University of Washington-Seattle. His research and teaching interests include Anglophone modernism, poetry and poetics, queer theory, gender theory, aesthetic theory and psychoanalytic theory.
A former British civil servant, he received a bachelor’s degree in American studies from the University of East Anglia and master’s and doctoral degrees from The Johns Hopkins University. He also has been a fellow at the Stanford Humanities Center.
Bramen earned her bachelor’s degree in literature and Latin American studies from the University of Connecticut and a master’s degree in critical theory from the University of Sussex, Brighton, England. She joined the UB Department of English after earning a doctorate in modern thought and literature from Stanford University in 1994.
She held a year-long fellowship at the Warren Center for the Study of American History at Harvard University in 2005, and has received three teaching awards, including the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching.
Bramen teaches courses in 19th-century American literature, contemporary U.S. Latino/a literature, critical race theory and cultural and intellectual history.
Both she and Dean have published extensively.
Established in 2005 by the College of Arts and Sciences, the Humanities Institute promotes innovative cross-disciplinary research, teaching and community programs in the humanities, and has presented major annual conferences featuring talks by leading international scholars and researchers addressing humanities issues of relevance today. The fields of the humanities include history, literature, languages and cultural studies, philosophy and, more broadly, the fine arts, media studies, architecture and other fields.
Guards to perform in CFA
The Center for the Arts will present the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards and the Band of the Coldstream Guards at 8 p.m. Jan. 24 in the Mainstage theater in the CFA, North Campus.
Audience members will experience 200 years of rich musical history and pageantry as the pipes, drums and dancers of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards and the Band of the Coldstream Guards perform the music of Scotland, England, Ireland and Wales.
The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards are Scotland`s senior regiment and only regular cavalry regiment. The Band of the Coldstream Guards is 49 members strong. All band members are enlisted soldiers who serve their country with distinction.
Tickets for the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards and the Band of the Coldstream Guards are $29 for general admission and $20 for students and are available at the CFA box office and at all Ticketmaster locations, including Ticketmaster.com.
For more information, call 645-ARTS.
‘A Musical Feast’ set for Jan. 29
“A Musical Feast” featuring UB music faculty members Christian Baldini, Jean Kopperud, Rin Ozaki and Jon Nelson, will take place at 8 p.m. Jan. 29 in the Kavinoky Theater at D'Youville College, 320 Porter Ave., Buffalo.
The concert is co-sponsored by UB's Robert G. and Carol L. Morris Center for 21st Century Music.
Baldini, conductor of the UB Symphony, will conduct the infrequently performed “L’histoire du soldat” (“The Soldier’s Tale”) by Igor Stravinsky. Performing will be Kopperud, clarinet; Ozaki, percussion; and Nelson, trumpet, as well as Charles Haupt, violin; Martha Malkiewicz, bassoon; Jonathan Lombardo, trombone; and Edmond Gnekow, bass.
In “The Soldier’s Tale,” Stravinsky collaborated with novelist C.F. Ramuz in translating a Russian story of the devil, who with Machiavellian manipulations, convinces the soldier to compromise between his ideals and the ease of expediency. Actor Paul Todaro will narrate and provide voice for the devil and the soldier.
The evening’s program also will feature Charles Castleman, violin, performing Bach Solo Sonata in G minor No. 3 and Eugene Ysaye performing Sonata No. 2 for unaccompanied violin.
Kopperud will play a solo part from the “Quatuor pour la Fin du Temps,” "Abime des oiseaux" (“Quartet for the End of Time,” “Abyss of the Birds”) by Olivier Messiaen.
Tickets are $25 for general admission, $20 for seniors and $10 for students.
For information and tickets, call the Kavinoky at 881-7668.
Levenson to speak
Alan Levenson, professor of Jewish History at the Siegal College of Judaic Studies in Cleveland and a finalist for the newly created position of founding director of the Institute for Jewish Thought, Heritage and Culture at UB, will deliver two lectures at UB next week.
Levenson will talk about “The Search for a Usable Past: Zionism and the Bible” at 7 p.m. Wednesday in the Center for Tomorrow, North Campus.
A reception will follow the lecture.
Levenson also will speak on “The Making of the Modern Jewish Bible: The Case of David Ben-Gurion” at 2 p.m. Jan. 24 in 205 Alfiero Center, Jacobs Management Center, North Campus.
Both lectures are free and open to the public.
A scholar of modern Jewish history and thought, Levenson’s current research focuses on Bible scholarship in Jewish and Christian historical contexts.
He has published three books: “Modern Jewish Thinkers: From Spinoza to Soloveitchik” (2004), “Between Philosemitism and Antisemitism: Defenses of Jews and Judaism in Germany” (2004) and “The Story of Joseph: A Journey of Jewish Interpretation” (2006).
Levenson received a doctorate in history from Ohio State University.