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REV-UP program to recognize volunteers
The 18th annual REV-UP Recognition Ceremony and Reception will be held at 2 p.m. Tuesday in 102 Goodyear Hall, South Campus, in conjunction with the May meeting of the Emeritus Center.
Emeritus Center members also will elect new members for the board of directors at the meeting.
The speaker will be Graham G. Stewart, associate vice president for alumni relations, who will talk about the importance of volunteers.
Stewart also will assist in presenting REV-UP members with certificates of appreciation, as well as recognizing representatives from departments benefiting from REV-UP volunteers.
The ceremony will recognize 63 REV-UP members who together contributed more than 2,700 hours of volunteer service to 17 UB departments from May 2007 through April 2008.
Since the inception of the REV-UP program in March 1990, more than 55,000 hours of volunteer service have been given to UB by its retirees.
REV-UP (Retired Employee Volunteers—University Program) is a joint program of the Emeritus Center and Human Resources.
For further information about the REV-UP program, contact Leila (Lee) Baker, REV-UP manager, at 829-2271, or bakerl@buffalo.edu.
UB leads MAC in green power
UB has been designated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency the 2007-08 Individual Conference Champion for purchasing more green power than any other school in the Mid-American Conference.
UB purchased 13.3 million kilowatt hours of green power, equal to 6 percent of the university’s total power purchases.
No other institution in the MAC has purchased green power, according to the EPA rankings.
The EPA estimates that UB’s purchase of more than 13 million kilowatt hours of green power is the equivalent amount of electricity needed to power nearly 1,000 average American homes each year.
The UB purchase has an environmental impact equivalent to erasing the annual carbon dioxide emissions of more than 2,000 passenger cars, according to the EPA.
Gender Institute to hold open house
The Institute for Research and Education on Women and Gender will hold an open house from noon to 2 p.m. today to show off its new offices in 207 UB Commons.
A buffet lunch will be provided.
The institute formerly was located in Harriman Hall on the South Campus.
The institute, which promotes research and teaching on women and gender, organizes working groups on mentoring, graduate student professional development, and the annual Gender Week and International Women's Film Festival.
Rosemary Dziak, professor in the Department of Oral Biology, School of Dental Medicine, and Margarita Vargas, associate professor in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, College of Arts and Sciences, serve as co-directors.
For more information visit the institute's Web site.
Ulbrich named director of CEL
The School of Management has named Thomas R. Ulbrich director of its Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership (CEL).
An entrepreneur, Ulbrich is president and CEO of Ulbrich’s Garden Center and Mow More Supplies in Alden. He will be leaving the day-to-day operations of his businesses to his general managers as he assumes his new role in the CEL.
Ulbrich is a graduate of the School of Management’s Executive MBA program, as well CEL’s core program. He has remained active in CEL, serving as reactor in the core program, a coach in the Henry A. Panasci Jr. Technology Entrepreneurship Competition and on CEL’s advisory board.
Ulbrich is active in the National Federation of Independent Business and serves as vice chair of its New York State Leadership Council, where he advocates for small businesses and lobbies state and federal legislative branches on small-business issues.
In the community, Ulbrich is a member of several advisory boards and councils, including the Buffalo chapter advisory board of Students in Free Enterprise and the board of directors of the Alden Chamber of Commerce.
Ulbrich will succeed Althea Luehrsen, now UB assistant vice president of corporate and foundation relations.
CEL was established in 1987 to assist regional economic development. Its 10-month core program is designed for experienced entrepreneurs and business leaders who wish to grow, refocus or better manage their businesses by developing expertise in strategic planning, employee relations, capital acquisition and marketing.
CEL also runs an advanced entrepreneurship program for core graduates and oversees the School of Management’s Allstate Minority and Women Emerging Entrepreneurs Program and the Henry A. Panasci Jr. Technology Entrepreneurship Competition.
UB’s APR scores improve
The Division of Athletics has made great strides in the areas of retention and academic progress of its student-athletes, according to the results of the fourth year of the NCAA’s mandated Academic Progress Rate (APR).
The APR measures the eligibility, retention and graduation of student-athletes competing on every Division I sports team in the nation.
Fifteen of the Bulls’ 20 programs showed improvement from 2005-06 through 2006-07, and the five teams that did not increase their rates are all at least 12 points above the minimum score of 925 (out of 1,000). Six programs earned scores of more than 970 in the four-year rolling rate—softball (972), women's soccer (976), men's cross country (975), women's cross country (987), men's tennis (993) and women's swimming, which scored a perfect 1,000 and did not lose a single point in the four years the APR has been tracked.
Women's cross country, softball, swimming and the recently crowned Mid-American Conference champion women's tennis all recorded perfect 1,000 scores for 2006-07.
Among the biggest gainers in 2006-07 were wrestling, which had an APR of 971; baseball, with a rate of 944; and football, which scored a 933, an overall increase of 33 points since 2003-04, the first year rates were recorded.
The improvement in APR means that no UB program will suffer any penalties in 2008-09. Penalties incurred for 2006-07 in football and baseball have been accounted for because they were absorbed into the current academic year.
The only three UB programs under the 925 cut score for the four-year rolling rate—baseball, football and wrestling—were deemed to be "not subject to historical penalties due to the team's demonstrated academic improvement and favorable comparison, based on other academic or institutional factors,” according to the NCAA's official news release.
“I am extremely proud of the work that our student-athletes are doing in the classroom and the support they are receiving in our area of academic services,” said Warde Manuel, director of athletics. “As I've noted many times, success is the product of a collaborative effort and that is the case here, starting with the support of President John Simpson and the administration down to every person in athletics striving to make sure that our student-athletes are students first.
“I'd also like to commend the efforts of our coaching staff, who have risen to the challenges that the APR has created,” said Manuel. “The APR system rightfully holds people accountable for the student-athletes they recruit, and we are moving in the direction we want to go.”
In addition to its academic success, the Bulls also achieved success on the athletic field this year. The football team claimed a share of the MAC East title for the first time, the men's soccer team reached the MAC finals for the second time and the women's tennis team become the first Division I program in UB history to win a MAC championship and qualify for an NCAA tournament.
Donations sought for SEFA garage sale
The Health Sciences Library is seeking items to sell at its second annual garage sale to benefit SEFA, to be held Sept. 5 and 6.
Organizers are looking for clean, gently used items—no clothing or toys, please. Household items of all kinds, jewelry and electronics are especially welcome.
Donations, which will be accepted until 3 p.m. on Sept. 4, can be dropped off at the Health Sciences Library, Abbott Hall, South Campus.
For further information, contact Lori Widzinski at 829-3900, ext. 138, or widz@buffalo.edu.
Seward to deliver Noble lecture
Jane Seward, acting deputy director of the Division of Viral Diseases in the National Center for Immunizations and Respiratory Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, will deliver the Bernice Noble Memorial Lecture at noon on Tuesday in 144 Farber Hall, South Campus.
Seward will speak on "The Ever Changing Landscape of Vaccine Preventable Diseases."
The lecture is given in memory of Noble, who was a professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology in the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, and a nationally recognized scientist in the field of immunology.
The lecture is free and open to the public.
‘Pre-seed’ workshop set
Erie County Executive Chris Collins will make opening remarks at a dinner to kick off a “pre-seed” workshop for Western New York researchers and entrepreneurs considering the launch of a technology-based business.
To be held from 5-8 p.m. today in UB’s New York State Center of Excellence in Life Sciences and Bioinformatics, the dinner will precede two days of intensive programming to determine whether the researchers are ready to pursue the next steps in commercializing their high-technology product and service concepts, including how to seek outside funding for their ideas, inventions or start-up business.
“This workshop is an excellent way to launch new businesses and spur the commercialization of new technologies in Western New York,” Collins said. “With Western New York’s premier research institutions and its ambitious spirit of entrepreneurship, we are making great strides in establishing a high-tech industry in our region.”
The workshop sessions will be held tomorrow and on May 16 in the Roswell Park Cancer Institute (RPCI) Center for Genetics and Pharmacology, adjacent to the Center of Excellence on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus.
Six teams of researchers and inventors will partner with a business coach, legal and tech-transfer experts, and MBA students from the School of Management at the workshop. The teams will simulate the start-up of a business as a way to analyze the commercial merit of the researchers’ technology. Workshop participants include:
Matthew Disney, UB assistant professor of chemistry, who is seeking to commercialize ways that RNA can be used as a drug target.
RPCI researcher Ravindra Pandey, who created a company to commercialize tumor imaging compounds.
L. Wayne Schultz, research scientist, Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute, who is developing a business to offer X-ray crystallography services to be used in the investigation of infectious disease.
Dennis Ryan of SSL Industries, based in the UB technology Incubator, who is developing energy-saving LED lighting and other green products.
Fred Harrington of Hamburg, who is developing a technology to convert waste materials into products to be used in biofuel production.
David Dugan of Oneonta, who is developing a hands-free toothbrush for use by disabled people and the elderly.
The program will be conducted by life sciences and engineering technology and business experts Judy Albers from JJA Consulting and Mark Wilson from Initiatives Consulting LLC.
On the workshop’s final day, the teams will present their ideas and analyses to a panel of community experts and venture capitalists that will provide feedback on the technology’s business potential and possible investor interest.
The workshops are being offered throughout upstate New York by Initiatives Consulting. Five regions of the state have participated in the sessions since 2003. Seventy-three ideas have been analyzed in the workshops and 26 companies have been formed, according to workshop organizers.
“This workshop is a proven way for potential entrepreneurs to decide whether or not they should move forward with their ideas and how to do so,” said Marnie LaVigne, director of business development with the Center of Excellence and the UB Center for Advanced Biomedical and Bioengineering Technology (UB CAT).
The workshop is being sponsored by NYSERDA, National Grid, the Center of Excellence, UB CAT, Element K and Lippes Mathias Wexler Friedman LLP.