OFFICE OF INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION, UNIVERSITY AT BUFFALO UB

UB INTERNAUB INTERNAUB INTERNAUB INTERNAUB INTERNATIONALTIONALTIONALTIONALTIONALO F F I C E O F I N T E R N A T I O N A L E D U C A T I O N , U N I V E R S I T Y A T B U F F A L O

Bangalore Program.........2

Jewish Institute................3

Visit to Israel....................4

SUNY-Turkish Meeting...5

New Associate Dean.......6

Archaeology Institute....7

McCombe Honored........9

Preserving AfricanLanguages.....................10

Vesuvius Controversy...11

Biotech Corridor.............12

Thai Legal Culture........13

Teaching in India..........14

Urban PlanningStudio............................15

Crossing BordersStudent Conference.....17

International Activitiesof Faculty & Staff.........18

Directory........................23

C O N T E N T S

S P R I N G 2 0 0 8 VOL. XVII, NO. 1�

UB INTERNATIONALVisit the Office of International

Education website at:

http://www.buffalo.edu/intled

DEAN CAIN RENEWS EXCHANGE WITHCAPITAL MEDICAL UNIVERSITY, BEIJING

Dr. Michael Cain, Dean of theSchool of Medicine and Biomedi-cal Sciences (SMBS), led a UB

delegation to China to renew the

longstanding exchange agreement withCapital Medical University (CMU) inBeijing. UB and CMU have been affiliatedsince the early 1980s.

Accompanying Dean Cain were hiswife Peggy Cain, Stephen C. Dunnett,Vice Provost for International Education;Dr. Richard V. Lee, Professor of Medicineand Anthropology; and Joseph J.Hindrawan, Assistant Vice Provost for In-ternational Education.

The delegation participated in a sign-ing ceremony at the CMU campus onMarch 24, 2008 and toured the CMUcampus and affiliated teaching hospitals,including Beijing Children’s Hospital, thelargest such hospital in Asia.

The delegation’s visit to CMU coin-cided with the arrival of eight fourth-yearmedical students from UB who are par-

ticipating in a month-long program of lec-tures and clinical visits to CMU teaching hos-pitals.

The medical student rotation program

has been conducted annually for more thanten years under the direction of Dr. Lee.During his visit to CMU to orient the UB stu-dents and to initiate their program, Dr. Leealso interviewed CMU faculty members whohave applied to be visiting researchers atSMBS during the next academic year. Un-der the terms of the agreement with UB,CMU sends one or more faculty membersto UB each year to collaborate with UB coun-terparts in biomedical research.

Receiving the UB delegation were Pro-fessor Wang Xiaomin, Vice President ofCMU; Professor An Wei; Dean of the CMUSchool of Basic Medical Sciences; ProfessorXu Qunyuan, Director of the Institute of Neu-rosciences; Professor Fu Fengxiang, Dean ofthe Department of Applied Linguistics; andDr. Wang Qian (“Jane”), Dean of the Officeof International Cooperation at CMU.

continued on page 2

Seated at the signing ceremony at CMU (l-r): Richard Lee, Xu Qunyuan, Wang Xiaomin, Stephen Dunnett, MichaelCain, and Peggy Cain; UB medical students stand next to Joseph Hindrawan, who is on the far right (photo: CMU)

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By Jacqueline Ghosen

Helping high-tech managers in India build betterbusiness practices is the focus of a new master’sdegree program launched by the University at

Buffalo School of Management in conjunction with AmritaUniversity in Bangalore, India.

The Master of Science in Management of InformationTechnology Enabled Services (MITES) will help fulfill theemerging need for highly trained managers in informa-tion technology enabled services (ITES). This rapidly grow-ing sector of India’s economy includes services such as callcenters, claims processing, medical transcription, account-ing and data processing.

“There is a need in India, not only for highly trainedengineers and scientists, but also for managers,” saidJohn M. Thomas, dean of the UB School of Management.“Our program will give Indian managers another dimen-sion to their careers.”

The one-year, 31-credit MITES program is a special-ized degree that is unique among Indian educational of-ferings. While many universities in India offer generalmanagement degrees, no other degree program is spe-cifically focused on the management of ITES firms.

Hewlett-Packard (HP) is helping to fund the programand is initially providing most of the students. Classes aretaught on weekends by UB School of Management fac-ulty in collaboration with the Amrita faculty.

A ceremony marking the official launch of the pro-gram was held at HP's headquarters in January 2008. UBProvost Satish Tripathi and Amrita's Vice Chancellor VenkatRangan attended, as did Dean Thomas and Professor

SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT LAUNCHES PROGRAM IN BANGALORE, INDIA

Ramaswamy Ramesh, who is directing the program forthe School of Management.

“In addition to content related to ITES management,students will receive solid grounding in key functional ar-eas of management, such as finance and accounting,”Thomas said. “Plus, they will develop skills in leadership,communication and strategic thinking.”

Thomas said he is extremely pleased at how well theprogram has progressed in a short time. “There has beenhuge interest,” he added. “More than 300 individualsapplied to the program.” The program, which began inJune 2007, currently has two classes of 35 each runningsimultaneously to meet the demand.

For more information on the MITES program, contactthe School of Management at 716-645-3222. �

Jacqueline Ghosen is assistant dean and director of commu-nications for the School of Management.

CAPITAL MEDICAL UNIVERSITYcontinued from page 1

On the way to Beijing, the UB delegation stopped inHong Kong to meet with alumni and friends of the medi-cal school. Dean Cain hosted a dinner for Dr. Ying-KitLeung, honorary president of the UB Alumni AssociationChapter in Hong Kong and a donor to SMBS, and hiswife, Angela. A generous donor to SMBS, Dr. Leung re-ceived the Walter P. Cooke Award at the annual AlumniAssociation Achievement Awards Ceremony in Buffalo onApril 5 (see page 8). �

Attending the MITES Program launch (seated, l. to r.): Ramaswamy Ramesh, Venkat Rangan, Satish Tripathi, Padmanabhan Gopinathan (HP India), andJohn Thomas

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By Patricia Donovan

The university has established the Institute for JewishThought, Heritage and Culture, a multidisciplinaryresearch and academic degree-granting center that

will focus scholarship on the critical role that Judaism hasplayed in the development and communication of West-ern thought.

The institute already is attract-ing major philanthropic supportwith a $1 million gift from promi-nent Buffalo attorney Gordon R.Gross, LLB ’55, and his wife,Gretchen, to establish theinstitute’s first endowed professor-ship.

Creation of the institute and thegift from the Grosses were an-nounced April 15, 2008 by Presi-dent John B. Simpson at a pressconference in Capen Hall.

The institute has been createdin the College of Arts and Sciencesin conjunction with the strategicstrength in Cultures and Textsidentified as part of the UB 2020strategic plan.

The institute will establish UB asa leader in Jewish studies; the uni-versity will be the first campuswithin SUNY to establish master’sand doctoral degree programs inthe field.

“The interdisciplinary mission of the institute, a centerof excellence that is aligned closely with our strategicstrength in Cultures and Texts, is very much in harmonywith UB’s guiding vision as a public research university—to foster knowledge, inquiry and scholarly excellence witha meaningful impact on the world around us,” Simpsonsaid.

Praising the Grosses for their generosity and foresight,Simpson added: “Gretchen and Gordon Gross have longsupported programs that increase cultural diversity andunderstanding, and we are grateful for their generosityin supporting this new academic position.”

Gordon Gross, a member of the SUNY Board of Trust-ees, explained that “tzedakah, or righteous charity, is afundamental tenet of Judaism that teaches us to share ourgifts with others.”

Noting that he and his wife are “passionate about theInstitute for Jewish Thought, Heritage and Culture,” headded, “We believe it will invigorate the Jewish commu-nity in Western New York, as well as allow UB to create a

world-renowned Jewish studies program. “The institute will support UB’s plan for growth by at-tracting top students and scholars, and will benefit thelocal community by sparking intellectual discussion andproviding access to notable speakers and visiting lectur-ers.”

SUNY Distinguished Professor Bruce D. McCombe,dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, said the institute

“will be a world-class endeavormarked by itsstrong emphasison scholarship andresearch, particu-larly at the gradu-ate level, with a di-rector who is ascholar of the firstrank, a dedicatedfaculty and a highlyfocused identityand coherence.”He noted that a na-tional search hasbeen completedand that the an-nouncement of theinstitute’s director isexpected soon. McCombe saidthe institute is ex-pected to becomea degree-granting

program by fall 2009 with the offering of an independentbachelor’s degree in Jewish studies and expects, at thesame time, to offer an advanced certificate program forgraduate students in history, philosophy, classics and En-glish, as well as other departments.

He said it’s anticipated that by fall 2010, the institutewill have five dedicated faculty members and a range ofgraduate offerings, including both master’s and doctoraldegrees.

McCombe described the leadership gift from theGrosses as “a generous gift providing tangible evidenceof support of this important mission and an absolutelycrucial step in launching the institute.” To underscore theimportance of the institute and its mission, the universitywill match the Gross professorship and a second endowedprofessorship with two additional faculty lines.

McCombe praised a group of local supporters, includ-ing Gross, who have worked closely with UB in creatingthe institute. Other members of the steering committeeare Michael E. Cohen; Peter and Ilene Fleischmann;

JEWISH INSTITUTE ESTABLISHED AT UB

Gretchen and Gordon Gross

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UB President John B. Simpson was a member of ahigh-level delegation to Israel in late March 2008led by Matthew Goldstein, Chancellor of the City

University of New York.Eight presidents of institutions of public higher educa-

tion in New York State participated in the five-day trip,which included visits to many of Israel’s leading universi-ties. The trip was organized and sponsored by the JewishCommunity Relations Council (JCRC) of New York, underthe leadership of Janice Shorenstein, President of JCRC ofNew York.

The delegation visited institutions of higher educationin various parts of Israel. In addition to Hebrew Universityof Jerusalem, the delegation visited Tel Aviv University,Haifa University, Technion Institute of Technology, Al QudsUniversity, Tel Hai University, the Open University of Israel,and several colleges.

These visits to Israeli higher education institutions af-

forded the delegation the opportunity to become familiarwith their campus leadership, academic programs, re-search endeavors, and students.

The delegation also had meetings with senior Israeliofficials including Rabbi Michael Melchior, Chairman ofthe Education Committee of the Knesset, Israel’s parlia-ment.

They attended lectures and informational sessions onhigher education in Israel and the current situation in thecountry. They toured major landmarks in Jerusalem, in-cluding the Western Wall, Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum,and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

A special reception was organized in Jerusalem duringthe delegation’s visit for alumni and friends of the U.S.institutions represented. On that occasion, PresidentSimpson met with some 20 UB alumni and friends in at-tendance and spoke about his vision for UB and the imple-mentation of the UB 2020 strategic planning process. �

President Simpson (far left) with JCRC delegation and hosts at Ono College, a leading private institution of higher education in Israel

JEWISH INSTITUTEcontinued from page 3

Michael Anbar, UB professor emeritus of physiology andbiophysics; and Kenneth Dauber, professor of English.Peter Fleischmann is director and CEO of The Foundationfor Jewish Philanthropies. Ilene Fleischmann is vice deanin the UB Law School and executive director of the UBLaw Alumni Association. Cohen, professor of neurologyand pediatrics in the School of Medicine and BiomedicalSciences, noted the long history of interest in Judaic stud-ies at UB and the insistence by all involved that the leader-ship, scholarship and programming of the institute be ofthe highest quality. Cohen also cited the contributions ofUB faculty members, including Samuel Paley, professor ofclassics, and the late Selig Adler, Samuel P. Capen Profes-sor of History, in keeping the hope for this program aliveover several decades.

The institute’s researchers, faculty and academic pro-grams will address the role of Jewish heritage, cultureand thought as it relates to issues current in the academicworld. By fall 2008, the institute will initiate community-wide education programs and actively support establishedcultural activities in the community and at UB.

Special Collections in the University Libraries has beenselected to house the Jewish Archives of Greater Buffalo,containing synagogue records, local community recordsand the personal papers of notable leaders of the BuffaloJewish community. This material is being collected andorganized by the Buffalo Jewish Archives Project, a col-laborative effort of the Bureau of Jewish Education ofGreater Buffalo and the UB Libraries. �

Patricia Donovan is a senior editor with University News Ser-vices.

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UB HOSTS MEETING OF SUNY AND TURKISHPARTNERS IN DUAL-DIPLOMA PROGRAMS

Seventy State University of New York (SUNY) and Turk-ish administrators of dual-diploma pro-grams (DDP)between SUNY institutions and their partners in Tur-

key gathered at UB on March7, 2008 for their annual Bilat-eral Board Meeting.

Representatives of partici-pating SUNY and TurkishDDP institutions gather oncea year for the meeting—alter-nating between New Yorkand Turkey—to share and dis-cuss program informationand to further develop theircollaboration. In all, elevenSUNY institutions and nineTurkish partners were repre-sented at the March meetingin Buffalo.

This was the first time thatUB was the host site for theBilateral Board Meeting. Theday-long event culminatedwith a reception hosted by UBPresident John B. Simpson athis official residence in Buffalo. Also attending the recep-tion were UB faculty and administrators involved in UB’sdual-diploma programs.

UB collaborates with the Istanbul Technical University(ITU) to offer Dual Diploma Programs in Civil Engineeringand Environmental Engineering. Students complete yearsone and three of these programs at ITU and years twoand four at UB. To date, 64 Turkish DDP students haveenrolled in UB programs. The first group of seven stu-dents is expected to graduate from ITU and UB in May2008.

The March meeting was hosted by UB’s Office of Inter-national Education, with local arrangements coordinatedby Steven Shaw, director of International Admissions. Themeeting was organized by the Office of International Pro-grams of SUNY System Administration and their staff inthe SUNY Office in Turkey.

Conducting the meeting were Ambassador RobertGosende, Associate Vice Chancellor for International Pro-grams at SUNY System Administration, and Dr. KavitaPandit, Senior Vice Provost at SUNY System Administra-tion. SUNY maintains a small administrative office in An-kara, Turkey which assists participating Turkish and SUNYcampuses with marketing and recruitment, programplacement and visa/immigration processes.

Attending the meeting as the representative of theTurkish Council of Higher Education was Professor Atilla

Eris. Twenty-six representatives of Turkish universities alsoparticipated in the meeting, including one rector, severalvice rectors and vice presidents, and a number of deans.

The Turkish institutions that were represented wereAnadolu University, Bilkent University, Bogaziçi University,Ege University, Hacettepe University, Isik University,Istanbul Technical University, Izmir Economics University,and Middle East Technical University.

In 2001, State University of New York (SUNY) Chancel-lor Robert L. King and Turkish Higher Education (YOK)President Kemal Guruz signed a system-wide agreementestablishing dual-diploma programs between selectedTurkish and SUNY universities. Since then, nine SUNYcampuses and nine Turkish campuses have signed institu-tional agreements to offer Dual Diploma Programs toTurkish students.

Through a competitive admissions placement exam inTurkey, students are selected to enroll in the Dual DiplomaPrograms (DDP). Approximately ten students apply foreach available seat. Students must also meet all of thestandard admission requirements of the SUNY partnercampus.

Students complete all of the degree requirements forboth institutions and upon completion of the programreceive degrees from the Turkish university and its SUNYpartner university.

To date, more than 1,500 Turkish students have en-rolled in SUNY-Turkish dual-diploma programs in 14 dif-ferent disciplines—from Business Administration to TextileDevelopment and Marketing. �

President Simpson (l) is introduced to Professor Atilla Eris (r) by Ambassador Robert Gosende (photo: Nancy Parisi)

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By Sue Wuetcher

Andreas Daum, professor of history in the College ofArts and Sciences at UB, has been appointed associate dean in UB’s Office of the Vice Provost and

Dean for UndergraduateEducation.

In this new position,Daum will work on severalinitiatives that have beendeveloped to enhance theeducational experience ofUB undergraduates, includ-ing the undergraduateacademies in research ex-ploration and civic engage-ment that were introducedin fall 2007, and the newGlobal Perspectives Acad-emy that will begin in fall2008.

The Global PerspectivesAcademy will seek to ex-plore international affairsand enhance campus awareness of the ways in whichtoday's global society is truly interdependent.

Students in the academy will develop an awareness ofthemselves as citizens of a rapidly globalizing world; gainan understanding of the processes that connect them withothers around the world; discover the shared interests ofdiverse nations and cultures, while respecting their dis-tinct characteristics and histories; understand the impor-tance of international cooperation and conflict; developskills that allow them to gain international experiencesand prepare them for an increasingly global labor mar-ket; and use the opportunities available at UB to immersethemselves in the world outside the U.S.

Each year the Global Perspectives Academy will high-light a theme of global importance. This theme will bediscussed in the academy seminars and reflected in theevents and activities scheduled outside the classroom. Thetheme for the 2008 – 2009 academic year is: “America inthe World: The World and America” and will include aspecial focus on the U.S. presidential elections.

Daum, who will serve as co-chair of the University Un-dergraduate Curriculum Committee, also will be respon-sible for revisiting and, where necessary, coordinating re-visions and innovations in the university’s general educa-tion program. He also will focus on how UB can furtherexpand undergraduates’ awareness of global issues andenrich their international experiences.

The “international” aspect of his new duties “signals aclear commitment on the part of UB to further interna-

tionalize undergraduate education and update our cur-ricula,” Daum says.

He points out that international perspectives must beinfused into the university’s curricula and programs be-ginning in the freshman year. “We won’t start from

scratch, though; many elements arealready in place, such as studyabroad programs. However, theseelements can be better promoted,linked with each other and comple-mented by new ideas,” he says. Moreover, while UB has done animpressive job of bringing interna-tional students to study at the uni-versity, the university must give stu-dents with local or regional back-grounds more opportunities to learnabout the world and study abroad,and significantly improve training ina wide range of languages and cul-tures.

“We want to help them acquirethe curiosity, skills and knowledgenecessary to gain competence as

global citizens and face the challenges of an increasinglyglobal world in whatever professional or academic fieldsthey choose to work in after college,” Daum says.

A UB faculty member since 2002, Daum’s research andteaching interests lie in European, American andtransnational history. His research deals with topics as di-verse as the history of popular science, transatlantic rela-tions, the Cold War, and urban culture.

He served as a member of the International StrategyTask Group that was charged with issuing recommenda-tions to internationalize UB. Daum also was a member ofthe 2006-07 Faculty in Leadership class. His project for theprogram was a report on internationalizing undergradu-ate education.

A native of Germany, he received a bachelor’s degreefrom the University of Cologne and master’s and doctoraldegrees from the University of Munich, where he taughtas an assistant professor.

Before joining the UB faculty, he served as a John F.Kennedy Memorial Fellow at Harvard University and anassociate research professor at the German Historical In-stitute in Washington, D.C.

He has published numerous articles and four books,the latest of which, Kennedy in Berlin, will be published inits English translation by Cambridge University Press inDecember. �

Sue Wuetcher is the associate director of University NewsServices and editor of the Reporter.

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By Patricia Donovan

In April the university formally launched a new Institutefor European and Mediterranean Archaeology (IEMA)with an inaugural ceremony and the institute’s first aca-

demic conference.The institute for research and education in European

and Mediterranean archaeologyhas been created in the Collegeof Arts and Sciences in conjunctionwith the strategic strength in cul-tures and texts identified as partof the UB 2020 strategic plan.

Theodore Peña, associate pro-fessor and chair of the Depart-ment of Classics and director ofIEMA, says the institute aims tocombine existing UB faculty exper-tise in the fields of anthropology,classics and visual studies with first-rate research facilities available atUB in disciplines such as geo-graphic information systems, vir-tual reality and materials science.

This combined expertise, hesays, produces a unique academicenvironment within which facultymembers can conduct innovativeresearch and undergraduate andgraduate students can obtain cut-ting-edge, cross-disciplinary training.

The success of the IEMA will be tied to close collabora-tion between faculty members and students in the De-partment of Classics, who study the archaeology of an-cient Greece and Rome, and those in the Department ofAnthropology, who study the archaeology of prehistoricEurope.

In addition to Peña, participating IEMA faculty mem-bers include the institute’s assistant director, Peter Biehl,and Donald Pollock, Sarunas Milisauskas, Tina Thurstonand Ezra Zubrow, all of the Department of Anthropology;Bradley Ault, Stephen Dyson and Samuel Paley of the De-partment of Classics; and Vance Watrous of the Depart-ment of Visual Studies.

They currently conduct research in several differentcountries in the European/Mediterranean region, includ-ing Italy, Greece, Turkey, Cyprus, Israel, France, Germany,Denmark, Finland, Poland, Ireland and Iceland, and pro-vide fieldwork opportunities for students at both the un-dergraduate and graduate levels.

IEMA already has established an agreement for theexchange of faculty and students with the Department ofArchaeology at the University of Kiel in Germany, and is

in the process of negotiating a similar agreement withthe MacDonald Institute of Archaeology at the Universityof Cambridge.

“It is central to our mission to foster cutting-edge ap-proaches to the archaeological investigation of specificcultures and so we have established an annualpostdoctoral fellowship to bring promising young archae-

ologists to the UB campus as visiting scholars,” Peña says.The fellow will be responsible for organizing an inter-

national conference on a current topic in the field thatbrings important figures in contemporary archaeology toUB. Participants will publish their contributions as a vol-ume of conference proceedings and teach a graduateseminar on a theme relating to the conference topic toprovide graduate students in the contributing depart-ments a thorough grounding in that topic.

The official launch of the IEMA included a keynote ad-dress by Graeme Barker, Disney Professor of Archaeologyat Cambridge University and director of that university’sMacDonald Institute of Archaeology.

The first IEMA Postdoctoral Fellowship Conference, “To-ward an Eventful Archaeology: Approaches to StructuralChange in the Archaeological Record,” took place April 4-5. It was organized by Douglas Bolender, the 2007-08 IEMApostdoctoral fellow and a specialist in settlement archae-ology and the archaeology of medieval Iceland. Bolendercompleted his Ph.D. at Northwestern University in 2006.

The conference featured presentations by 15 majorfigures in contemporary archaeological research from uni-versities in the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain,

Theodore Peña

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A $200,000 gift from Taher Razik, professor emeritus in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy (ELP), and his wife, Myra, will help raise

awareness about the global community by endowing aninternational fellowship for a junior faculty member fromEgypt. The fellowship will provide three years of study to-ward a doctoral degree in educational administration,covering tuition and fees.

“This gift to the university—and to Western New York—is for the great life we have enjoyed here. Over the years,we have benefited from talking and visiting with peoplefrom different cultures,” said Razik, who was born inEgypt. “We hope by giving an opportunity to an interna-tional junior faculty member to study here that we willincrease others’ understanding of the global community,as well as help graduate a person who will benefit his orher community.”

Razik taught in the Graduate School of Education from1963 until his retirement in 1995. He authored numerousbooks and articles and is working on the third edition ofthe textbook Fundamental Concepts of Educational Leader-ship. Razik also serves on UB’s Institutional Review Board.In 2003, Razik donated a gift to the Graduate School of

Education to create the Taher Razik Lounge.Today, ELP students are using 463 Baldy Hall for study-

ing and discussing scholarly issues with fellow students.The lounge features two Internet connections, as well as acollection of professional publications.

Myra Razik is an active member of the InternationalCommittee of UB’s Women’s Club. This group sponsorsmonthly brunches for international students so that theycan interact and exchange ideas with each other andpeople in the community.

“We greatly appreciate the Raziks’ generosity,” saidGSE Dean Mary Gresham. “Because of Taher and Myra,we will be able to provide even greater intellectual oppor-tunities for global dialogue; this scholarship will prove ben-eficial for both faculty and students in GSE.”

The sponsoring university will cover the facultymember’s transportation and salary. Recipients of theTaher A. and Myra S. Razik International Fellowship areexpected to meet all university admission requirementsfor international students. �

Adapted from the “.edu,” the alumni newsletter of the Gradu-ate School of Education, fall 2007.

Ying-Kit Leung, M.D. of HongKong, China is the 2008 re-cipient of the Walter P. Cooke

Award from the UB Alumni Associationin recognition of his notable and merito-rious contributions to UB. The CookeAward is made annually to a non-UBalumnus who has rendered distin-guished and longstanding service to theuniversity.

Leung was instrumental in creating aUB Alumni Chapter in Hong Kong andserves as its honorary president. He andhis wife Angela, a family physician, fre-quently host receptions for alumni, stu-dents and administrators, and his effortshave helped to bond the UB communityin Hong Kong.

Leung hosted President John B.Simpson and other UB administrators during a visit in 2005and accompanied the university’s leadership to China in2003 for the signing of medical school partnerships.Leung was among 19 individuals honored for theirachievements during the Alumni Association’s annual hon-ors gala held April 5, 2008 at the Adam’s Mark Hotel inBuffalo.

Leung received his medical degree from the Univer-

HONG KONG ALUMNI CHAPTER PRESIDENT RECEIVES COOKE AWARD

sity of Hong Kong and lived in Buffalo from1984-89 while completing a Buswell Fellow-ship. During that time he was also an at-tending physician in Children’s Hospitaland an assistant research professor of pe-diatrics in the UB School of Medicine andBiomedical Sciences.

He is a diplomate in pediatric gastroen-terology of the American Board of Pediat-rics; president of the Hong Kong Society ofPediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology,and Nutrition and is in demand as clinicalteacher and speaker at international meet-ings.

He holds academic appointments at uni-versities in Hong Kong, Shanghai, andGuangzhou in China and has pioneeredthe use of the double-balloon enteroscopein the examination of the small intestine of

young children.In May 2004 Leung was appointed honorary clinical

professor of pediatrics by the School of Medicine and Bio-medical Sciences in recognition of his service to UB’s inter-national programs. He also serves on the school’s Dean’sAdvisory Council. In 2004, Leung’s daughter Mary re-ceived her medical degree from UB; her husband is agraduate of UB’s School of Dental Medicine. �

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By Ellen Goldbaum

Some of the world’s biggest names in condensedmatter physics, including two Nobel laureates, con-verged on Western New York March 6-8, 2008 to

celebrate the scientific contributions — and the birthday— of Bruce D. McCombe, dean of the College of Arts andSciences and SUNY Distinguished Professorin the Department of Physics.

“Magnetic Excitations in Semiconduc-tors: Bridges to the Next Decade,” a two-day scientific conference was held to honorMcCombe and the scientific — and highlycollegial — collaborations he has organizedover the years, both at UB and around theglobe.

More than 20 outside speakers at-tended, focusing on topics ranging fromquantum computation to spintronics andnanotubes to photonic crystals and magne-tism. Nobel laureates attending includedHorst Störmer, professor of physics and ap-plied physics at Columbia University, andKlaus von Klitzing, a director of the MaxPlanck Institute for Solid State Physics inStuttgart, Germany.

The event was attended by leading sci-entists in the field, many of whom are col-leagues or former students and postdoctoralresearchers of McCombe.

“One of the many remarkable things about Bruce isthat throughout his career he has been an integral forcein defining, stretching and redefining the field of mag-netic excitations in semiconductor heterostructures,”noted Satish K. Tripathi, provost and executive vice presi-dent for academic affairs.

“His body of work reads as a chronology of disciplinarybreakthroughs, spanning from fundamental research inspin-dependent phenomena in semiconductors to the de-velopment of new spintronic technologies that have thepotential to replace silicon-based electronics and/or en-able quantum computing. This chronology is further high-lighted by the many doctoral and postdoctoral studentswho are now, in their own right, acclaimed faculty andresearchers."

The fest-symposium highlighted the achievements ofMcCombe and his colleagues at UB, who have long beena major force in semiconductor physics, the field that hasbrought the world everything from transistor radios tothe information technology revolution.

Along with UB colleagues Athos Petrou and BernardWeinstein, who also came to Buffalo in the early 1980s,McCombe helped establish semiconductor physics as a

particular emphasis in the Department of Physics, an ex-pertise that continues to this day and helps to recruit youngand established theorists and experimentalists to UB.

“Bruce has been a pioneer in the physics of two-di-mensional electron systems, a field that emerged in the1960s that had enormous impact on electronics andphotonics, and also led to very fundamental discoveries,”

said Störmer, the 1998Nobel laureate inphysics and a closefriend of McCombe’s. “Bruce has been in-fluential in all aspectsof this progress, frombasic research to ac-tual devices,” Störmercontinued. “He is ableto combine his veryproductive researchwork with several im-portant administrativeand managerial du-ties and — in spite ofit — has never lost hisexquisitely dry senseof humor.” Colleagues say thatsense of humor, com-bined with his gift for

establishing efficient research groups across disciplines,institutions and even continents, has allowed him toachieve a strong record of scientific success and collabo-ration.

McCombe’s contributions range from verifying theo-retically predicted spin effects in semiconductors as farback as the late 1960s to researching the quantized elec-tronic states of “quasi-two-dimensional” systems realizedin silicon metal-oxide semiconductor devices and in nar-row “sandwiches” of compound semiconductor materialscalled quantum wells from the mid-1970s through the1990s. He also has studied and designed new materialsand structures that have the “right” properties for ulti-mately developing spintronic devices and the electronicand vibrational properties of quantum dots andnanoparticles. Spintronics is expected to lead to dramaticimprovements in electronic systems and devices, includ-ing faster processing speeds with less power consump-tion; non-volatility, where turning off the power doesn’t“turn off” the information; and possibly the developmentof quantum computers. �

Ellen Goldbaum is a senior editor with University News Ser-vices.

Bruce McCombe

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LINGUIST DOCUMENTS ENDANGERED AFRICAN LANGUAGES

By Patricia Donovan

Much research addresses how and why many ofthe earth’s thousands of languages are disap-pearing.

The question still arises, however, as to why it shouldmatter to the rest of us if, say, Pite Sami, a language spo-ken by fewer than 20 inhabitants of Norway and Swe-den, should vanish from the face of the Earth.

Jeff Good, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Departmentof Linguistics in the University at Buffalo College of Arts

and Sciences, says that we should attend to these lossesbecause even seldom-used languages can tell us a greatdeal about the methods of categorization of the naturaland mental world and because they can serve as vitallinks between the present and the prehistoric past.

Good is the recipient of a recent grant and a fellow-ship from the National Science Foundation and NationalEndowment for the Humanities’ Documenting Endan-gered Languages Program, a new, multi-year effort topreserve records of key languages before they becomeextinct.

He says, “As the numbers of languages decline, welose rich and distinct cultural variations from which wecan learn a great deal in fields as far ranging as anthro-pology, agriculture, linguistics, philosophy, geography andprehistory.”

His current research involves six languages spoken in acluster of villages in the northwest highlands of Cameroon,a country in which more than 200 different languagesare spoken, from Aghem to Zulgo.

Good says that from a scientific standpoint, the workof linguists today is like that of early botanical and zoologi-cal explorers and collectors who went into the field todocument the diversity of living things in the world, withno idea of what they might find.

“Of course there is a human dimension to linguisticsstudy,” he says, “since linguists also work to preserve forthe speakers themselves, their descendants and posterityinformation about cultures that find themselvesmarginalized by the modern world.

Good says, “Although in principle, cultural knowledgecan be transmitted apart from language —as the Irish, for instance, can attest — in prac-tice, the political and economic forces thatcause people to give up their languages alsocause them to lose cultural knowledge,” hesays. He notes that very often, the last speakersalso are among the last who remember tradi-tional stories, songs and histories. “The languages of concern to me,” he says,“are in the Bantu language family, which it-self includes 500 or 600 distinct languages.The languages I study remain alive in partbecause the hilly terrain of this area seems tofoster language variety and isolates the regioncommercially and politically. “In fact, people living in one village mayspeak an entirely different language than thatspoken in the next village,” Good says, not-ing that people in such circumstances aremultilingual by necessity. In addition to speak-ing their own languages and those of nearby

villages, many also speak the official languages ofCameroon, which are English and French.

“When these villagers move to a new place,” he says,“they add new languages to their repertoire, rather thanreplacing one language with another. Even in large citiesthey maintain their native languages by attending regu-lar ‘country meetings’ with their fellow villagers.”

Social groups like ‘country meetings’ are important,Good says, because as the speakers of a minor languagedisappear or die, those who are left are often absorbed— along with the special aspects of their culture — intolarger social and language groups.

When his study is complete, Good will have producedprimary documentation resources of the endangered lan-guages studied and descriptive materials on the lan-guages in the form of annotated recordings and initialdescriptions of the languages’ grammars. �


A market in Yaounde, Cameroon

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SCIENCE VS. POLICY: UB RESEARCH ON VESUVIUS TRIGGERS CONTROVERSY

By Ellen Goldbaum

In the spring of 2006, a paper pub-lished in a scientific journal by re-searchers at the University at Buffalo

and two scientific institutions in Italyreported that approximately 4,000years ago during the Bronze Age,Vesuvius produced an eruption thatdevastated the area now occupied bymetropolitan Naples.

The authors suggested that thisevent—more powerful than the fa-mous Pompeii eruption—should be areference for current hazard planningfor metropolitan Naples, home tomore than 3 million people.

It wasn’t exactly welcome news inNaples, where hazard mitigation plansdid not include the possibility that thenext eruption of Vesuvius might pose a serious threat toNaples.

The public debate that ensued, and which is still ongo-ing, is explored in an episode of the History Channel’s“Mega Disasters” series called “The Next Pompeii?”which first aired December 8, 2007.

Filmed in part at the Center for Computational Re-search in UB’s New York State Center of Excellence inBioinformatics and Life Sciences, “The Next Pompeii?”prominently features three UB professors, includingMichael F. Sheridan, Ph.D., director of UB’s Center forGeohazards Studies in the College of Arts and Sciencesand an author of the paper on Vesuvius that was pub-lished in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sci-ences (PNAS).

That paper inspired the idea for the episode, as wellas major international broadcast and print media cover-age, including a multi-page feature article in September’sNational Geographic.

The controversy that followed is a classic example,Sheridan said, of how much—or how little—influence sci-ence has over public policy on extreme events.

“There are lots of different ways of dealing with suchhuge potential natural disasters,” he said, “and frankly,one way is sweeping it under the carpet. Always what’s atissue is ‘What are the possible events and their probabili-ties?’ Sure, a meteorite could strike New York City, but theprobability of that is very, very slight.

“However, when you’re living near a volcano, whichhas erupted in the past, the probability of a disaster hap-pening in the future goes up as time passes. It’s like livingin a high-crime district—you’re bound to get robbedsooner or later.”

The media attention that followed the scientific publi-cation on Vesuvius could not go unnoticed by Italian civilauthorities, Sheridan said.

“The first response from national authorities in Italywas rejection of the notion that the next eruption ofVesuvius could bury Naples in ash,” said Sheridan, who isfrequently in contact with his Italian colleagues.

After the initial controversy subsided, Sheridan said thenational authorities reconsidered some of the evidence inthe PNAS paper.

“Public controversy caused them to take another lookat our hypothesis,” said Sheridan. “From what I under-stand, officials in the city of Naples are now consideringopinions from a broader group of researchers.”

While no new plans have yet been adopted, Sheridansaid it is “good and healthy” that the scale of the nextpotential eruption of Vesuvius is now being reviewed bymore experts.

“I think if the same people keep discussing the sameproblem with the same information, they will always cometo the same conclusion,” he said. “If experts with a rangeof viewpoints come to the table with different sets of dataand different models about how a natural phenomenonworks, the level of confidence in the solution is bound tobe higher.”

New technology also is playing a larger role in deter-mining how to deal with extreme events, addedSheridan, UB professor emeritus of geology.

The Center for Geohazards Studies, which he directs,is one component in UB’s strategic strength in mitigationand response to extreme events identified in the UB 2020strategic plan being implemented by the university withthe goal of rising among the ranks of the nation’s public

Michael Sheridan

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TORONTO FIRM'S RELOCATION STRENGTHENS BIOTECH CORRIDOR

By John DellaContrada

In what can be described as a “win” for BuffaloNiagara’s emerging biotechnology industry, an inter-national pharmaceutical consulting company has relo-

cated an office to the region to establish partnerships withthe University at Buffalo and benefit from the region’sbiotech assets.

PharmIdeas, a provider of economic, data and clinicalresearch analysis for pharmaceutical companies world-wide, recently opened for business at the Northpointebusiness park in Amherst, relocating from North Caro-lina.

The company selected Buffalo Niagara over Philadel-phia, Washington, D.C., and New Jersey locations be-cause of the region’s growing biotech industry and exten-sive intellectual assets, particularly UB and the university’sNew York State Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics andLife Sciences in downtown Buffalo, according toPhamIdeas president and founder Michael Iskedjian.

“UB offers the type of scientific background and sup-port we were looking for to expand the research we do,”Iskedjian explains. “I see a lot of potential for two-waycollaboration and I’m eager to interact with the Center ofExcellence. It’s a very high-tech building with a very inter-esting collaborative approach. It has so many diverse re-searchers in health care all working together under oneroof.”

“This open-mindedness to biotech innovation is veryexciting,” he adds. “It’s a very encouraging sign forgrowth of biotech in Buffalo.”

Founded in 1994, PhamIdeas is headquartered nearToronto in Oakville, Ontario, and has another office inOttawa. Three employees currently work at the company’snew office in Amherst, but Iskedjian says he envisions hir-ing up to seven additional employees in the next three tofour years.

“I see a lot of potential for finding local talent for thetype of research we do,” Iskedjian says. “I’d like to de-velop a fellowship program to tap into the talents of UBgraduate students. This would benefit our work and wouldgive students tremendous insight into both the businessand research sides of the pharmaceutical industry.”

Another factor in Iskedjian’s decision to relocate, hesays, was the opportunity to collaborate with Uniform DataSystem (UDS), a company founded by Carl Granger,M.D., UB professor of rehabilitation medicine. UniformData System, also located in Amherst’s Northpointe busi-ness park, has developed a widely used system for docu-menting the severity of patient disability and outcomes ofhealth-care interventions.

“Together with Uniform Data System, I think we candevelop a unique approach to measuring patients’ health

and quality of life,” Iskedjian says.PharmIdeas’ collaboration with UB will include joint re-

search and training efforts with faculty and students inUB’s School of Public Health and Health Professions andSchool of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences.Projects will focus on pharmacoeconomics — comparingthe value of one drug or drug therapy to another — andpharmacoepidemiology — studying the use and effectsof drugs already on the market.

Researchers from both UB schools have been involvedin related research at the Center of Excellence, which isthe hub of UB’s biotech research and commercializationactivities focused on creation of new medical technologiesto alleviate human suffering.

Iskedjian and Thomas Einarson, Ph.D., the company’svice president for scientific affairs and associate professorat the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy in the University ofToronto, delivered a seminar on pharmacoeconomicsand outcomes research this semester to students and fac-ulty in UB’s Department of Social and Preventive Medi-cine.

Marnie LaVigne, Ph.D., director of business develop-ment at the Center of Excellence, says PharmIdeas’ newrelationship with UB is an example of industry-academicpartnerships that have fueled growth of biotech indus-tries in other regions.

PharmIdeas’ presence in Buffalo Niagara will raiseawareness about the region’s biotech resources, particu-larly its biomedical informatics expertise, among majorpharmaceutical companies, she says.

“The company’s bi-national reach will also aid the ef-fort to build a collaborative biotech corridor between Buf-falo and Southern Ontario,” LaVigne adds.

The New York State Center of Excellence inBioinformatics and Life Sciences was created on the Buf-falo Niagara Medical Campus in Buffalo in 2002 as part ofmore than $200 million dollars in investment from state,federal, industry and philanthropic sources. �

John DellaContrada is director of media relations/nationalmedia for University News Services.

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EXPLORING THE LEGAL CULTURE OF THAILAND


By Gabrielle Foley and Daniel Horner

In January of 2008, eleven intrepid law students boldlywent where no group of U.B. law students had evergone before. No, not the frontiers of space, for this trip

we only ventured as far as Chiang Mai, Thailand.Our purpose was to explore the legal culture of Thai-

land and our goal was to return home with a new per-spective on our own legal practices and culture in theUnited States. Toward that end, we explored Chiang Maiand its surroundings with an eye for the ways in whichlocal culture, and in particular Buddhism, influences andinteracts with the Thai legal system.

This included, among many other things,discussing the concept of justice with localmonks, learning about dispute resolutionfrom village chiefs and local leaders, study-ing constitutional law, environmental law,public health, and women’s rights withleading Thai experts, and visiting institutionssuch as the provincial and administrativecourts in Chiang Mai.

On the second day of our adventure, wetrekked out to Wat Ton Kwaen, a rural villagetemple where we sat for a peaceful and in-formative conversation with the local abbot.For many of us, this temple was our favoritespot on the trip and the conversation weparticipated in there was one of the mostmeaningful we experienced in Thailand.

Although this temple was much less or-nate and much smaller than many of theother temples we saw on our trip, thehumbleness of the structure made it seem all the moreserene. It was out of the way, off the beaten track so tospeak. It really felt like we had found something uniqueand special.

That sense was reinforced by the fact that we took thetime to sit down and speak with the abbot. We actuallyparticipated in a dialogue, asking the abbot questionsabout his life experiences, his role in village society, andhis thoughts on justice, law and karma.

That alone made it different from other temples andother trips where so often people just pass through, justobserving. It felt less like being a tourist and more likebeing a pilgrim, not because we had sought out this par-ticular place, but because we were seeking out some kindof understanding.

Our questions and the abbot’s answers were carefullytranslated by our teachers accompanying us on the trip.This added to the feeling that we were truly bridging ourdifferences in order to learn about the abbot’s opinionsand values.

After our conversation, the monk offered us all an op-portunity to make merit by putting any amount of moneyin an envelope, and then he said a blessing for our group.He then motioned for the men to come up to him to havebracelets tied around their wrists.

The women in our group had their bracelets tied onby persons other than the monk. As we had learned theday before from Ajaan Choo, one of our new friends anda law professor at Chiang Mai University, monks are notallowed to touch women.

This was something Ajaan Choo explained to us whilewe were in a rot daeng, a type of communal taxi, whichalso happened to be carrying a monk. Ajaan Choo toldthe women to carefully exit the rot daeng, so as not tobump into or touch the monk while they were gettingout.

The bracelets we received from the abbot are particu-larly special to each of us. Whether we are Buddhist ornot, whether spiritual or not, it was clearly an honor tohave someone bless you and wish you well by invoking allthat they believe in.

More than a symbol of a single blessing, however, thebracelets represent to our group a mystery that we havecome to know and respect. In contrast to what we hadlearned from books read in preparation for our trip, theabbot drew sharp distinctions between Buddhist and ani-mistic practices.

However, we felt his actions of tying these braceletsaround our wrists was strikingly similar to an indigenous,non-Buddhist concept of binding a person’s khwan, or

Daniel Horner receives wrist string from the abbot of Wat Ton Kwaen (Photo by Brenna Terry).

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TEACHING AND TRAVELING IN INDIA

Michael Prentice teaching at BITS-Pilani

by Michael Prentice

When Professor Barbara Wejnert, chair of the Glo-bal Gender Studies department, approachedme and asked if I would be interested in going

to India for a semester, I couldn’t believe my luck. Is sheserious? I thought, while eagerly answering, “Yes!”

Three weeks later, I had an invitation to teach com-puter science at the Birla Institute of Technology and Sci-ence (BITS), Pilani—one of UB’s new exchange partnersin India. Located in Rajasthan in northwest India, BITS is

one of the premier technical universities in the country, ahighly competitive and expensive private university.

At the time, I was working as a research assistant forProfessor Wejnert in the Global Gender Studies depart-ment at UB. She arranged for my trip, through her ac-quaintance with Professor Nirupama Prakash at BITS, whowas then a visiting professor teaching a course in the UBGlobal Gender Studies program.

Professor Prakash was my contact and host at BITS,arranging the accommodations and funding from com-puter science. My visit was partially funded by the BITScomputer science and women’s studies departments, andby the UB Global Gender Studies Department. The rest ofthe travel and accommodation expenses were paid byme out of pocket.

I arrived at BITS at the end of July 2007. The campus islocated in the village of Pilani, Rajasthan, on the edge of adesert, and mid-summer is hot and humid! I found my-self racing from one air-conditioned refuge to the next.

Once set up, I taught a six-week introductory course inmachine learning techniques, an overview of the basicmethods in statistical learning. I had a core class of twentystudents, interested in both the material and the noveltyof a foreign exchange student.

The BITS campus is a beautiful green oasis on the edgeof a large desert, set apart from the poverty-stricken townoutside by walls and gates and an extensive irrigationsystem. I believe, though I am not sure about this, that the

town grew up outside to support the needs of students,guests, and staff. While there are activities on campus, it isquite isolated and meant to foster an atmosphere of quietstudy. Though there is on-campus transportation avail-able, I chose to walk to class every day and explore thecampus on foot.

Camels are everywhere, and are the main source ofcargo transportation for those who can’t afford trucks. It’swonderful to walk down the street and be surrounded bydogs, goats, and camels all existing with humans, with-out much interaction, as if in separate societies.

Bicycle rickshaws swarm the campus. I hadto overcome my embarrassment to hire oneseveral times, but it is a fun experience. For aquarter you can be taken across campus in abicycle-driven carriage, and is something I rec-ommend at least once. One night towards the end of my stay, Dr.Nirupama Prakash and her husband, Dr. RaviPrakash took me out to enjoy the Ganesh festi-val on campus, which was lively, colorful,friendly, and full of festival lights and food. Itwas like a warmer, more community-orientedChristmas, maybe akin to a religious fourth ofJuly or Memorial Day.

While I was at BITS, another UB student visited, as did astudent from the University of Virginia. We were the sec-ond, third, and fourth foreign students to visit BITS. Theother UB student, Melissa Robins, is a graduate student inbiology and infectious diseases at UB. She was conductinga study at BITS on the acceptability of alcohol-based handsanitizer to street food vendors.

The students at BITS are smart and motivated, as to beexpected from a prestigious and competitive university,and almost overwhelmingly male. Female enrollment isonly twenty percent, and falling every year. The femaleenrollment drop-off correlates with recently institutedstandardized testing for admissions.

Some of the most puzzling, wonderful, and lasting ex-periences had nothing to do with my time at the univer-sity, however. I was fortunate to see a broad range oflifestyles and meet a truly diverse group of people, fromthe poorest regions north of Calcutta (now Kolkata) to thehighest wealth and luxury in Bangalore, the main centerof IT growth and home to Google India.

I would like to say a very special thank you to Dr. Wejnertfrom the Global Gender Studies department here at UBfor arranging this wonderful opportunity, and Dr.Nirupama Prakash of the Womens Studies department atBITS Pilani for being a wonderful and gracious host. �

Michael Prentice is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Com-puter Science and Engineering.

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URBAN PLANNING STUDIO WITH UNIVERSITY OF STUTTGARTWINS HONORABLE MENTION IN IIE AWARDS COMPETITION

By Patricia Donovan

In summer 2007, graduate students in urban planningin the School of Architecture and Planning and theUniversity of Stuttgart in Germany worked

collaboratively to produce a planning proposal designedto promote the expansion of Buffalo’s green infrastruc-ture and its economic prosperity while offering a newlandscape-planning methodology in response to the de-structive October 2006storm.

That project, “Buffalo:A City as a Park,” is one ofeight projects cited by theInstitute of InternationalEducation (IIE) in its 2008Andrew Heiskell AwardCompetition for Innova-tion in International Edu-cation. Three universitieswere named winners ofthe award and five others,including UB, receivedhonorable mention in theprestigious internationalcompetition.

The InternationalComparative Urban Plan-ning Studio involved 13students and was led byWilliam Page, professor in the school’s Department ofUrban and Regional Planning, and Niraj Verma, profes-sor and chair of the department. Also participating were10 students and a professor from Stuttgart’s urban plan-ning program. A studio is a laboratory in which plannersaddress and solve a specific problem.

UB participants attended the “Green and GrowingSummit” held by the Community Foundation for GreaterBuffalo last May to assess and plan for the “retreeing” ofWestern New York after the previous October’s storm.

They then traveled to Stuttgart to study the green in-frastructure of a typical European city, which they foundto be life-affirming and supportive of extensive social in-teraction and ease of travel among all age groups.

The German planning students then came to Buffaloto examine the city’s existing park system, landscapeplans and storm damage. The two groups of studentsconducted a series of workshops through which the Buf-falo green infrastructure proposal was developed.

“The project celebrates the resilience and communityspirit of Buffalo,” says Page. “Its main goal was to en-gage, what was by any account, a disaster and define

how this could be developed into entrepreneurial energyaimed at making the city a better place to live and in-crease its entrepreneurial growth,” he says.

Verma adds: “While ‘greening’ and ‘park’ are the‘leitmotif’ of the studio, the student planners gave equalattention to the area economy and the nature of the vari-ous communities that make up our city. Indeed, these maybe the ultimate aims of this grand vision of the students.”

In fact, thestudents en-gaged in wide-spread consul-tation with abroad swath ofc o m m u n i t yleaders, entre-preneurs, busi-ness represen-tatives, schools,developers ofc o m m u n i t ygardens, theblock clubs thatknow thatneighborhoodpride andneighborhoodresponsibi l itygo together.

They interviewed members of food co-ops; the childrenand adults whose community spirit is on display in themany gardens, parkways and walkways of Buffalo; geog-raphers and cartographers; and representatives ofBuffalo’s economic, social and political systems.

Their efforts resulted in a project report that was fundedby the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo and theGerman Academic Exchange Service.

Page explains that the report was presented to theCommunity Foundation for use by its Green and GrowingSteering Committee.

“This is a public-private partnership composed of rep-resentatives of every private organization and publicagency in the city working on the improvement of ourgreen infrastructure, development of parks and othergreen spaces, the establishment of community gardensand the maintenance of efforts to re-tree the city,” he says,adding that this project will help guide the committee’sactions in these efforts.

The report’s authors write: “Disparate green infrastruc-ture, however abundant, is unlikely to serve the vision ofBuffalo as a park, a place in which greening aims for eco-

On behalf of UB, Stephen Dunnett (l) accepts the honorable mention award for the Stuttgartprogram from IIE President Allan Goodman


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research universities. The center represents an interdisci-plinary group of faculty researchers from the physical andsocial sciences, engineering and the medical sciences.

“Just in the past five years, we have been able to usenew technology to add various ‘weighting’ measures tospecific models or theories in order to determine theprobability that an extreme event will affect a given area.By utilizing all likely models, we aren’t forced into choos-ing one theory over another,” Sheridan said.

“At the Center for Geohazards Studies, we’re using atechnique called Bayesian probability, which allows us toattach a value to uncertainties based on other assump-tions. Such calculations are useful in modeling a futureextreme event,” he said. “Current research is movingtoward developing models that best communicate thehazard potential with the objective of minimizing loss oflife and property.”

Sheridan’s colleague in extreme events research, ChrisS. Renschler, Ph.D., UB associate professor of geography,also is featured in the Mega Disasters episode. Renschler,whose research focuses on geo-spatial modeling of natu-

ral resources, has collaborated with Sheridan on ways toprecisely visualize volcanoes and model volcanic debrisflow and other geophysical phenomena in order to bet-ter predict how and where they might occur and the im-pact they would have.

Maurizio Trevisan, SUNY Distinguished Professor andformer dean of UB’s School of Public Health and HealthProfessions, now vice chancellor and chief executive of-ficer of the University of Nevada Health Sciences System,also is featured on the History Channel show.

For decades, Sheridan has worked with civil protectionauthorities in Mexico, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Guatemalaand other countries, mapping hazards from active volca-noes to help responsible authorities identify the best meth-ods for protecting citizens.

Sheridan’s co-authors on the PNAS paper wereGiuseppe Mastrolorenzo, senior researcher, and LuciaPappalardo, researcher, at Istituto Nazionale di Geofisicae Volcanologia-Osservatorio Vesuviano and PierpaoloPetrone, technical administrator at the Museo diAntropologia, Centro Musei delle Scienze Naturali. �

Ellen Goldbaum is a senior editor for University News Ser-vices.

THAI LEGAL CULTUREcontinued from page 13

their essence, something he had denied any knowledgeof as a representative of the Buddhist faith.

Had we just had our khwan bound by this Buddhistmonk? What exactly did this ceremony mean for him?For that matter, with the variety of religious and culturalbackgrounds in our own group, what did the ceremonymean for us as individuals?

These are the kinds of questions that come up continu-ally when one truly travels—as opposed to merely passingthrough a place. And while many of our questions ulti-mately went unanswered, any one of our group of eleventravelers can tell you that we did arrive at a deeper un-derstanding.

It’s one thing to know what a culture’s practices are

said to be. It’s quite another to be confronted with them,to grapple with their contradictions, and to process themin some personal way.

No matter what conclusion each of us reached on themystery and meaning of the khwan bracelet, we were allhumbled by the experience of meeting the monk andspending time at his small village temple.

Wherever our future travels take us, whether to coun-tries on the other side of the globe, or maybe here inWestern New York, we’ll take with us this and all our ex-periences in Thailand. �

Gabrielle Foy is a second-year student and Daniel Horner athird-year student in the Law School’s J.D. Program. Theywere part of the Legal Culture of Thailand Program at ChiangMai University in Thailand from January 5-19, 2008, directedby David M. Engel, SUNY Distinguished Service Professor atthe UB Law School.

ARCHAEOLOGY INSTITUTEcontinued from page 7

France, the Netherlands and Iceland. The 2008-09 IEMA postdoctoral fellow will be Sarah

Ralph, who received her doctorate from the Departmentof Archaeology at the University of Cambridge in 2006and is a specialist in forensic archaeology and the archae-

ology of northwestern Europe during the Iron Age. Shewill organize a conference titled “The Archaeology of Per-sonal Violence in Late Iron-Age Europe,” which will beheld in Buffalo in April 2009. �


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17UB HOSTS 2008 "CROSSING BORDERS" STUDENT CONFERENCE

Located at one of the busiest and most important bor-der crossings with our neighbor to the north, faculty and students at UB have long held a natural interest

in Canada and in the Canadian-American relationship.On April 3-4, 2008, UB played host to the twelfth annual“Crossing Borders” student conference.

This was the first time in the conference’s history thatUB has served as the host institution. As part of the wide-ranging cooperative agreement between Brock Univer-sity in St. Catharine’s,Ontario and UB thatwas signed by Presi-dent John Simpsonlast fall, the two insti-tutions will alternate ashosts for the meetingfor the next five years.

As the name sug-gests, the “CrossingBorders” conferencefocuses primarily onCanadian-Americanrelations. It has longenjoyed the strongsupport of the Cana-dian Consulate Gen-eral in Buffalo and theUnited States Consu-late General inToronto.

This year approximately sixty undergraduate, gradu-ate, and professional school students, drawn from 10 uni-versities in southern Ontario and western New York state,participated in the multidisciplinary conference.

Among the wide variety of topics that was addressedin the papers presented were comparisons of public poli-cies, border security issues, foreign policy studies, com-parisons of popular culture, and the challenges of fight-ing crime across the border.

The conference began on the evening of April 3rd witha reception sponsored by the Canadian Consulate in Buf-falo. This kickoff event was held at the Buffalo and ErieCounty Historical Society.

The approximately 100 guests in attendance were wel-comed by UB President John Simpson and by College ofArts and Sciences Dean Bruce D. McCombe.

After brief remarks by representatives of the US andCanadian Consulates, Mr. Lauren Rachlin delivered thekeynote address entitled “Regional or Bi-National … Callit What You Will. It’s Our Future or We Have None.”

Drawing on his long experience practicing law in bothBuffalo and Toronto, and in advocating for a stronger re-lationship across the border, Mr. Rachlin urged confer-

ence students to appreciate the importance of Canadafor the future of the Buffalo economy.

He contrasted the “hardening” of the Canadian-American border since 9/11 with the experience of theEuropean Union, where national borders are being dis-solved. Drawing attention to the shared values and re-gional assets of Canadians and Americans in this area, heoffered an impassioned call for students to understandand advocate for a bi-national community based on west-

ern New York andsouthern Ontario. The conference itselfinvolved twelve panelsand a luncheon atwhich Canadian ConsulGeneral StephenBrereton and U.S. Con-sul General John Naywere in attendance. Allsessions were held onFriday, April 4 on the UBNorth Campus. In recognition of the50th anniversary of theNorth American Aero-space Defense Com-mand (NORAD) organi-zation, the keynote lun-cheon address wasgiven by Colonel Keith

Swensen. Colonel Swensen is an AWACS pilot and hasserved since 2006 at the NORAD headquarters inPeterson Air Force Base in Colorado.

In his remarks he drew attention to the seamlesslysmooth integration of the air forces of Canada and theUnited States as they work to ensure the air defenses oftwo countries. Drawing on his long experience as part ofthis integrated bi-national command structure, Col.Swensen described the overall mission and the opera-tional environment of NORAD.

Despite the large asymmetry in the size of the air forcesof the two countries, he explained that within NORADthey operate as equals.

He also emphasized the human face of NORAD opera-tions, giving his audience valuable insights into the net-work of interpersonal relationships that reach across ourshared border to ensure our safety from air – and morerecently also maritime – threats.

By all measures, the conference was a great success.There were many interesting and high quality papersdelivered at the conference, and the organizers had thedifficult task of identifying the best paper in order to pro-vide its author(s) with the $250 prize. �

Canadian Consul General Stephen Brereton addresses the Crossing Border Conference

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INTERNATIONAL ACTIVITIES OF FACULTY AND STAFF

SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE AND PLANNINGDepartment of Urban and Regional PlanningNiraj Verma, professor and chair, was invited by the University ofNewcastle, U.K. and the Global Planning Research Unit (GURU) toaddress their faculty, students, and local planners in January 2008. Healso gave a paper “E-Governance and the Network Society” at amini-conference in Newcastle during the visit.

COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCESDepartment of AnthropologyAna Mariella Bacigalupo, associate professor, conducted ethno-graphic and archival research in southern Chile for her new book“Memory, Forgetting and Shamanic Historical Consciousness: TheMaking of Francisca Colipe and her Mapuche Community.” Thisresearch project was funded by a UB 2020 Scholars grant.

Robert K. Dentan, professor emeritus, presented his “Life Workamong the Semai of Malaysia” talk to the UB Anthropology Club inNovember 2007. In late November, Dentan was a discussant at asession on “Difference, (In)equality and Justice: Traditional law andpolitical systems in Southeast Asia,” at the American Anthropologi-cal Association Meeting. Dentan recently published the article “Re-cent Studies on Violence: What’s In and What’s Out” in the Canadianjournal Reviews in Anthropology 37(1): 1-27, March 2008. In press is anarticle titled “Schooling vs. Education, Hidden vs. Overt Curricula:Ways of Thinking about Schools, Economic Development and Put-ting the Children of the Poor to Work” in the French journalMoussons. The article, the version of a keynote address given at aconference on children in the Asia-Pacific region at the NationalUniversity of Singapore, is about Malaysian indigenes. Also in pressis an article titled “How Peace Changes but Remains Peace” in theDutch journal Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde.

Department of ChemistryFrank V. Bright, UB Distinguished Professor and chair, and MichaelR. Detty, professor, are working with Professor Mario Pagliaro of theCNR di Palermo to develop a technique for keeping cameras andsensors used under water free of biofouling by using a xerogel coat-ing developed by Detty and Bright at UB as an offshoot of researchsponsored at UB by the Office of Naval Research. The gel protectsequipment underwater for long periods. The accumulation of veg-etation on underwater sensors and cameras is a world-wide prob-lem that UB researchers are addressing with an environmentallyfriendly approach. No biocides are used in the process and thesurface is designed such that vegetation cannot “stick.”

Luis A. Colón, professor, presented an invited lecture at the 10th

International Symposium on Hyphenated Techniques in Chroma-tography and Hyphenated Chromatographic Analyzers , which tookplace in Site Oud Sint-Jan, Bruges (Belgium), January 30 - February01, 2008. The lecture concerned the latest progress on Colón’s groupapproach to the fabrication of chromatographic materials.

Philip Coppens, SUNY Distinguished Professor, gave a number ofinvited lectures overseas recently: “Beyond Structure Determina-tion: Chemical Bonding by X-ray Diffraction” on October 15, 2007 atthe Chemistry Department, University of Göttingen; on October 19,2007 at Max Planck Institut for Chemical Physics of Solids, Dresden;and on October 22, 2007 at the Institute of Physics, UniversitätAugsburg—all in Germany. During his visit to Germany, Coppensalso lectured on “Use of transferable aspherical atoms in chargedensity analysis: electrostatic properties and improved refinementof low-resolution data sets” at the Crystallography Department,Freie Unversität Berlin on October 17, 2007; “Photocrystallography:From linkage isomerization to excited-state geometry” at the Ger-

man Chemical Society, München on October 23, 2007. During a visitto Taiwan in January 2008, Coppens gave the following invited lec-tures: “Molecules, light and X-rays: combining time-resolved dif-fraction and spectroscopy in the study of excited states in solids” atNational Synchrotron Radiation Research Center on January 3; “Mol-ecules, light and X-rays: combining time-resolved diffraction andspectroscopy in the study of excited states in solids” at NationalTaiwan University, Taipei on January 4; “Beyond Structure Determi-nation: Chemical Bonding by X-ray Diffraction” at Dong Hua Uni-versity, Hua-Lien on January 7. On January 24 Coppens gave a talk“The Quest for Higher Resolution in Space and in Time” at a Collo-quium honoring Jochen R. Schneider at the German SynchrotronLaboratory, DESY, in Hamburg, Germany. Coppens’ research groupcollaborated in an experiment with counterparts at the AdvancedSynchrotron Ring in Tsukuba, Japan November 4-12, 2007.

Department of ClassicsRoger Woodard, Andrew V. V. Raymond Professor of the Classics,received the Choice Outstanding Academic Title 2006 Award for hisbook Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World’s Ancient Languages.

Department of CommunicationGeorge Barnett, professor, was recently elected President of theInternational Network of Social Network Analysts (INSNA), theworld’s largest organization devoted to the study of network sci-ence.

Department of EnglishJoan Copjec, UB Distinguished Professor, inaugurated the 2008“Media & Psychoanalysis” series in February at the Austrian FilmMuseum in Vienna, Austria with her lecture on “The Censorship ofInteriority: Shame, Hejab, Cinema.” Her essay, “The PhenomenalNonphenomenal: Private Space in Film Noir,” was translated intoChinese for publication in a special issue on “Movies vs. Architec-ture” of the journal New Architecture.

Tim Dean, associate professor, gave two lectures in Helsinki, Fin-land: a keynote presentation at an International Symposium on Por-nography, Sexual Representations, Obscenity, and Desire, at theUniversity of Helsinki (October 19, 2007) and an invited lecture,“American Freaks,” at the University of Art & Design, Helsinki, Fin-land (October 22, 2007). Also, Dean has been appointed to theAdvisory Board of “Queer in Europe,” an international, interdiscipli-nary research network based at University of Exeter, U.K. He is one ofonly two U.S. scholars on the board.

Susan Eilenberg, associate professor, published an essay on LloydJones’s Booker-shortlisted novel Mister Pip in the October 4, 2007issue of The London Review of Books.

Jerold Frakes, professor, attended the Ottoman Summer School onthe Aegean island of Cunda, co-sponsored by Harvard Universityand Koc University in July-August 2007. He is currently translating anintroductory textbook of the Ottoman literary language into En-glish.

Stacy Hubbard, associate professor, will present a paper on immi-gration and “urban frontiers” in turn-of-the-century America at aconference on “Migration Matters: Immigration, Homelands andBorder Crossings in Europe and the Americas,” at Leiden Universityin the Netherlands in June 2008.

Bruce Jackson, SUNY Distinguished Professor and Samuel P. CapenProfessor of American Culture, was featured in the “Il grandeclassico” section of the current issue of PrimaPersona (#17). The sec-

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tion consists of new Italian translations of Michel Foucault’s introduc-tion to the French edition of Jackson’s In the Life and a chapter fromthe book, two of Bruce’s Texas prison photographs, one of his photosof Foucault, and a 1969 Danny Lyon photo of Bruce outside thesolitary confinement wing of Ellis prison farm in Lovelady, Texas.

Damien Keane, assistant professor, presented a paper titled “Cross-fade of Silence to Stillness: MacNeice’s ‘The Unoccupied Zone’” atthe Louis MacNeice Centenary Conference at Queen’s University,Belfast in September 2007.

Ming-Qian Ma, assistant professor, presented a paper at the con-ference on “Prague School and Theories of Structure,” at the CharlesUniversity in Prague, October 2007. Titled “Toward a Closed-OpenTypology: Language System, Systems Theory, and a Phenomenologyof Organization-Structure Interface,” this paper was also selectedfor publication in a volume on Prague School theory of language.

Ruth Mack, assistant professor, attended a workshop at the Victoriaand Albert Museum in London, U.K. on Horace Walpole and Straw-berry Hill.

Steve McCaffery, David Gray Chair, gave readings and talks at theAutonomous University of Madrid, Spain and University College,London, in May and June 2007. His latest publication “The BashoVariations” appeared through Book Thug, and in July 2007 he wasrecipient of the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts’ Dora MavorMoore Award for Outstanding New Play, Independent Film Cat-egory for “The Four Horsemen Project.”

Cristanne Miller, Edward H. Butler Professor of Literature and chair,gave two papers, “‘By- / play’ in the Rhythms of Marianne Moore’sPoetry” in Wuhan, China at the Conference on 20th-Century Ameri-can Poetry, July 21-23, 2007 and “Dickinson at Sea: 1860” at theEmily Dickinson International Society Conference in Kyoto, Japan,Aug 2-5, 2007.

Maura Pellettieri, an undergraduate in the department, has won aprize for her eco-themed short story, “If You Go Looking for Life, BeSure To Pack A Lunch.” The prize consists of an invitation and allexpenses paid trip to the UN’s “Year of Planet Earth” Conference inParis in February 2008 and an invitation to South Africa’s 2008Grahamstown Science Festival.

Umbr(a), the journal edited by graduate students in the EnglishDepartment’s Center for the Study of Psychoanalysis and Culture, ispublishing past issues in Korean. The publisher, In-Gan-Sa-Rang Pub-lishing Company, has already translated and published the 2003special issue Umbr(a): Ignorance of the Law. This year, In-Gan-Sa-Rang will be translating into Korean and publishing as books the2004 and 2005 issues Umbr(a): War and Umbr(a): the Dark God,forthcoming December 2008. Joan Copjec wrote an introduction forthe first translated volume.

Andrew Stott, associate professor, won the 2007 Royal Society ofLiterature’s Jerwood Award, for a “first major commissioned work ofnon-fiction” for his biography of the Regency clown, Joseph Grimaldi,to be published by Canongate. Stott traveled to London to collecthis award.

“The Liberation of Jerusalem,” a new verse translation of TorquatoTasso’s Gerusalemme Liberata by Max Wickert, professor, has beenaccepted for publication by Oxford University Press. It is scheduledto appear in the Oxford World Classics series in late 2008. Twoselections from it can be found in the current issue of Forum Italicum.

Howard Wolf, professor emeritus, will have his collection of travel

essays, Far-Away Places Lessons in Exile, (1983-2000) published inJerusalem in 2008.

Department of Global Gender StudiesPiya Pangsapa, assistant professor, gave a paper titled “Womenworkers and civic engagement in Southeast Asia” at the EngenderingPolitics and Policy Conference which was held at the School of SocialSciences at the University of Manchester, 21-22 June, 2007.Pangsapa spent the summer 2007 engaged in collaborative inter-national research in the UK which will result in two forthcoming co-authored research publications - Environment and Citizenship: Inte-grating Justice, Responsibility and Civic Engagement (Zed Books) andResponsible Politics: Bringing Together Labor Standards, Environment,and Human Rights in the Global Corporate Economy, to be publishedby Palgrave Macmillan. Her participation in a two-day internationalconference at the Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery andEmancipation (WISE) at the University of Hull (UK) last year, whereshe gave a workshop presentation, prompted an invitation to con-tribute to a special Forum section for Global Social Policy. Her piece,“Enslavement in Thailand: Southeast Asia as the Microcosm of 21stCentury Slavery,” appears in the Spring 2007 GSPissue in commemoration of the bicentennial of the legislation abol-ishing the slave trade. Two forthcoming articles based on researchshe conducted on migrant workers in Thailand will appear in Inter-national Migration and Journal of Contemporary Asia. Her recentlypublished book, Textures of Struggle: The Emergence of Resistanceamong Garment Workers in Thailand (Cornell University Press, 2007)will be reprinted by Silkworm Books (Chiang Mai, Thailand) fordistribution in Southeast Asia in June 2008.

Department of HistoryAndreas Daum, professor, participated as a moderator and com-mentator in an international conference on “Imagining Outer Space,1900-2000” at the Center for Inter-Disciplinary Research at the Uni-versity of Bielfeld (Germany) in February 2008. He has also beenelected for a three-year term, beginning in January 2008, as a mem-ber of the editorial board of the Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte,the leading scholarly journal in the history of science in Germany.

David Gerber, professor and chair, chaired and gave a presentationat a round-table panel discussion he organized, entitled “Jan TomaszGross: Historian and Moral Critic: An Evaluation of the Books NEIGH-BORS and FEAR,” at the European Social Science History Conferencein Lisbon February 26-28, 2008. He presented a paper, “YankeysNow?: Joseph and Rebecca Hartley’s Circuitous Path to Americanidentity — A Case Study in the Use of Immigrant Letters as SocialDocumentation,” at the American Ethnicity: Rethinking Old Issues,Asking New Questions conference at the Jagiellonian University,Krakow, Poland, May 19-20, 2008.

The book The Forbidden Lands: Colonial Identity, Frontier Violence andthe Persistence of Brazil’s Eastern Indians, 1750-1830, authored by HalLangfur, assistant professor, has received “honorable mention” forthe Erminie Wheeler-Voegelin Prize awarded by the American Soci-ety for Ethnohistory for the best book-length work in the field ofethnohistory published in 2006.

Department of LinguisticsMitsuaki Shimojo, associate professor and director of the JapaneseProgram, visited three of UB’s exchange partners in Japan in Octo-ber, 2007, Kanazawa University, Konan University, and Tokyo Univer-sity of Agriculture and Technology (TUAT), for a discussion of futurecollaboration. These site visits were sponsored by the Office of Inter-national Education. Shimojo’s visit to Tokyo University of Agricultureand Technology was joined by Jonathan Bird, UB Professor of Electri-cal Engineering, to develop a proposal to create a technical Japa-nese program for UB engineering majors in collaboration with TUAT.

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Cultivation of Virtue: Greece and China”. For both ancient Greekphilosophy and Chinese philosophy, the ultimate goal of the questfor philosophical wisdom is not just the achievement of abstractknowledge, but for one to live and to transform oneself. This isdifferent from the prevailing modern university conception of phi-losophy according to which philosophy is mainly a theoretical disci-pline to address a set of problems or a set of doctrines and philo-sophical reflection is peripheral to life, even when it comes to thosewho practice it. Yu’s project investigates and compares how Greekand Chinese philosophers conceive of the idea that philosophy is anart of living, how this goal of philosophy determines its style, howmany general of ways of living there are, and how such an idea canbe carried out in human life. This is to keep alive the ancient concep-tion of philosophy as an art of living, and also to reveal some funda-mental features of these two ancient philosophical traditions. Theproject is a sequel to his The Ethics of Confucius and Aristotle: Mirrorsof Virtue (Routledge, March 2007). Yu’s primary areas of researchand teaching are Ancient Greek Philosophy and Ancient ChinesePhilosophy. He has served and continues to serve on the EditorialBoards of History of Philosophy Quarterly (2002-2005), World Philoso-phy (2000-present), Frontiers in Philosophy (2006–present), the Chi-nese translation of the Complete Works of Aristotle (1988-1998), andthe book series on Chinese and Comparative Philosophy (New York:Global Publications). Yu also served as a guest editor for the Journalof Chinese Philosophy.

Department of Theatre and DanceKazimierz Braun, professor, received the “Gloria Artis GoldenMedal,” which is the highest Polish honor for an artist. The medalwas bestowed on him by the Minister of Culture and the NationalHeritage, Mr. Kazimierz M. Ujazdowski. In the name of the Minister,Braun received “Gloria Artis Golden Medal” from the Consul Gen-eral Krzysztof Kasprzyk in the ceremony at the Polish Consulate inNew York on October 28, 2007. The ceremony was held before theperformance of Tamara L. authored by Braun, a play about the fa-mous Polish painter Tamara Lempicka. Before coming to Buffalo,Braun was Artistic Director of the Contemporary Theatre in Wroclawand professor at Wroclaw University in Poland. He directed in Po-land and internationally, in the United States, Ireland, Germany andother countries. He also wrote several books on the history of theatreand novels published both in Polish and in English. Two of Braun’splays opened internationally at the end of 2007. American Dreams, aplay about the situation of new immigrants to the US, was produced(in Russian) by the “Academichesky Teatr imieni Lensovieta” in St.Petersburg, Russia. It opened on December 21, 2007. Tamara L., abiographic play about the Polish-French painter Tamara Lempicka,was prepared (in Polish) by the “Teatr Ochoty” in Warsaw, Poland,and opened on December 28, 2007. Both plays met with very goodreviews.

Thomas Ralabate, associate professor, has been appointed Na-tional Chair of Education Strategy for Dance Masters of America, Inc.(DMA), an international dance organization for dance educatorsand their students. In November 2007, Ralabate presented at the24th Annual Bermuda Union of Dance Teachers (BUT) Conference,“Making Cultural Connections through the Arts.” A former UnitedStates Latin Ballroom Dance Champion and United State represen-tative to the World Latin Ballroom Dance Championships, Ralabatepresented master classes on the rich tradition of Ballroom SocialDance forms. In March 2008, Ralabate adjudicated dance worksand present master classes in choreography and comparative jazzstyles and techniques for Inter-Danza 2008, in Mexico City, Mexico.From July 25 to August 4, 2008, Ralabate will organize and presentfor the National DMA Teachers Training School at the Center for theArts at UB. This will be University at Buffalo’s eleventh consecutiveyear hosting this ten-day international education conference whichattracts dance artists/educators and students form around the world.

Department of PsychologyMichael P. Farrell, professor and chair, was invited to give a plenaryaddress to a conference on interdisciplinary research in health carein December, 2007. Farrell is an invited speaker at the GoodenoughCollege and Conference Center in London where health care re-searchers from United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States areholding a conference: “Unhealthy Professional Boundaries? WorkingTogether in Health and Social Care”. His public lecture/plenaryAddress was presented on December 4, 2007. It was titled: Interdis-ciplinary Collaborative Circles and Creative Work: The Case of Wil-liam Morris and his Arts and Crafts Circle. After presenting thelecture, Farrell flew to Ireland to meet family researchers at the newChild and Family Research Centre at the National University of Ire-land at Galway. He is part of a planning committee organizing aconference on the effects of globalization on families in Ireland.From June 2 through 8 they will meet first at NUI Galway, then atQueen's University in Belfast, then in Dublin. The conference is spon-sored by the Groves Conference on Marriage and Families, an inter-disciplinary group of distinguished researchers and family therapistswho meet each year to discuss emerging issues that affect families.They chose Ireland this year because it is a microcosm where familiesacross the class structure are experiencing the effects of rapid socialand economic change due to globalization.

John E. Roberts, associate professor, presented two papers at inter-national conferences: Roberts, J.E., Carlos, E.L, & Yanes, P.K., “Taskparameters and trajectories of overgeneral memory,” presented atthe Autobiographical Memory Meeting, Amsterdam, The Nether-lands in January 2008; and Roberts, J.E., & Raes, F., “Trajectories ofovergeneral autobiographical memory: The impact of self-esteemand depressive rumination,” presented at the World Congress onCognitive Behavioral Therapies, Barcelona, Spain in July 2007.

Department of PhilosophyBarry Smith, SUNY Distinguished Professor, co-organized the firstinternational conference in ontology, sponsored by the JapaneseCenter for Ontological Research in Tokyo in February 2008. He is amember of the scientific committee of the International Workshopon Integrative Bioinformatics, University of Ghent, Belgium, Sep-tember 2008; the Australasian Ontology Workshop, Gold Coast inQueensland, December 2007; and the International Conference onFormal Ontology in Information Systems, Saarbrücken, Germany,October-November, 2008. He has co-supervised the University ofLeipzig Ph.D. dissertation of Mr. N. Tsikolia on the topic of “Mecha-nisms of carcinogenesis: A consideration based on realistic ontol-ogy.“ He serves as a consultant to the German Federal Ministry ofHealth on creation of national and cross-border e-Health systemsand services. He has given presentations at the Intelligent Systemsfor Molecular Biology Conference in Vienna, Austria, July 2007 (GeneOntology Annotations), the U.K. National Environment ResearchCouncil in Oxford, August 2007 (The Environment Ontology), theFrege Center, University of Jena, October 2007 (Evolving Ontologies:The Future of Biomedical Informatics), the University of Geneva,Switzerland, October 2007 (How Philosophy of Science can HelpBiomedical Research), and at the British Columbia Cancer Founda-tion, Vancouver, January 2008 (the Ontology for Biomedical Investi-gations).

Stephen Wear, adjunct professor, presented a paper in Taipei, Tai-wan in 2005: Wear, S.E.; “Truth Telling to the Sick and Dying in aTraditional Chinese Culture”; in The Family, Medical Decision-Mak-ing and Biotechnology; edited by Shui Chuen Lee; Dordrecht, Hol-land: Springer Publishing; 2007, pp.71-82.

Jiyuan Yu, associate professor, is Faculty Fellow in the HumanitiesInstitute for spring 2008. On April 23, 2008 Yu presented the Hu-manities Institute’s Faculty Fellow Lecture entitled “Philosophy and

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SCHOOL OF DENTAL MEDICINEDepartment of Periodontics and EndodonticsSebastian Ciancio, SUNY Distinguished Professor and chair, pre-sented a paper “Periodontal Disease: Impact on Implants” to theannual meeting of the Swiss Society of Periodontics in Bern, Switzer-land on September 14, 2007. Ciancio is president-elect of the Inter-national Society of Periodontology, which will have its next annualmeeting in New Delhi, India. In March 2007, Ciancio presented apaper on “Guidelines for Products for the Treatment of PeriodontalDisease” to the Italian College of Dentists meeting in Rome, Italy.Ciancio was an invited speaker for the 30th Asia Pacific Dental Con-ference held in Bangkok, Thailand May 6-12, 2008. He has beeninvited to lecture at the annual meeting of the Federation DentaireInternational in Stockholm, Sweden on Sept. 26, 2008. His topic willbe “Impact of Medications on Periodontal Treatment Planning.”

GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATIONDepartment of Library and Information StudiesLorna Peterson, associate professor, is working through the U.S.Department of State, Information Resource Officer for Mediterra-nean Europe (Portugal, Spain, Malta, Italy, Macedonia, Greece andCyprus), the U.S. Embassy in Rome and with the City Librarian, FilipPetrovski of Skopje, Macedonia to do a materials and personnelexchange with Buffalo area libraries and librarians. Peterson had adigital video conference with librarians in Rome, Italy, Skopje,Macedonia, Washington, DC, and Buffalo, New York.

SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENTDepartment of Management Science and SystemsRajiv Kishore, associate professor, taught in Bangalore, India duringsummer 2007 in the executive MS program in Management of IT-Enabled Services (MITES) offered by the School of Management incollaboration with Amrita University, India. He taught a course onAnalysis, Modeling, and Design to about 70 professionals and ex-ecutives from the IT Enabled Services sector, of whom about 55 weresenior-level executives from Hewlett Packard, India (see page 2).During this visit, Kishore presented a paper titled “The Role of Ser-vice Level Agreements in Relational Management of IT Outsourcing:An Empirical Study” at the Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow,India. He also gave a seminar during this visit on the topic “Chal-lenges in Outsourcing of IT Enabled Services” at the Jaipuria Insti-tute of Management, Lucknow, India.

H. Raghav Rao, professor, was in Bangalore, India for a month inDecember 2007-January 2008 teaching in the School ofManagement’s M.S. program in MITES (jointly with Amrita Univer-sity). He taught Information Assurance to about 70 executives ofwhom about 55 were senior-level executives from Hewlett PackardIndia. In addition, he attended the Web Innovation 2007 conferencein Bangalore as a delegate of SUNY.

SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AND BIOMEDICAL SCIENCESDepartment of PediatricsWilliam E. Pelham, Jr., UB Distinguished Professor and director ofthe Center for Children and Families, was cited in a recent BBCprogram on the effectiveness of ADHD medications such as Ritalinand Concerta. The Multimodal Treatment Study of Children withADHD, which Pelham co-authored, has been monitoring the treat-ment of 600 children across the US since the 1990s. The findings bythis influential study also suggested long-term use of the drugs couldstunt children’s growth. It said that the benefits of drugs had previ-ously been exaggerated. In 1999, the American study concludedthat after one year medication worked better than behavioraltherapy for ADHD. But now after longer-term analysis, the report’sco-author, Professor William Pelham of the University of Buffalo, said:“I think that we exaggerated the beneficial impact of medication inthe first study. “We had thought that children medicated longer

would have better outcomes. That didn’t happen to be the case.“There’s no indication that medication’s better than nothing in thelong run.”

SCHOOL OF NURSINGNancy Campbell-Heider, associate professor, delivered a paper atthe World Psychiatric Association Meeting in Melbourne, Australiaon November 30, 2007. The paper was authored by: Campbell-Heider, N., Feigenbaum, J. C, & Finnell, D. (November 30th, 2007).The title of the paper was “Integrating addictions, mental healthand harm reduction in a primary care curriculum.”

W. Scott Erdley, clinical associate professor, was an invited speakerat the Conference on International Medical Informatics Symposiumin Hualien, Taiwan (MIST), November 17, 2007, speaking on “NI2020: Towards defining nurses’ future”. He was also the keynotespeaker at the Taipei City, Taiwan, International Nursing InformaticsSummit Workshop on November 18, 2007, presenting on “A newcurriculum for nurses - TIGER”. Dr. Erdley was also a guest speaker atthe Department of Nursing at the National Cheng Kung University,Tainan, Taiwan, on November 20, 2007, at the behest of UB School ofNursing alumnus Jui-Ying Feng, assistant professor. The topic of hispresentation was “Achieving the TIGER Vision: Collaborative effortsthat will shape the future of nursing.”

Patricia Polowy, clinical instructor, traveled to Coq Chante, a ruralcommunity in the mountains of Haiti, with another nurse practitio-ner, nurse and civil engineer in February 2008. They worked with theHaitian physician and health aides to address ways to reduce themortality rate for children under 5 years as well as to increase skilledattendance at births and promote breastfeeding, birth registrationand immunization rates. They also worked to increase access to cleanwater (and thereby reduce parasitic infestations) and addressingthe other health concerns of the community.

SCHOOL OF PHARMACY AND PHARMACEUTICAL SCIENCESThe Office of International Pharmacotherapy Education and Research(IPER), in the University at Buffalo (UB) Pharmacotherapy ResearchCenter was developed to provide a point of contact and a centralresource for individuals seeking training in pharmacotherapeuticseducation and research. Due to the global need and an apprecia-tion of the varying perspectives from different countries, a focus ofinitial activities of the office relate to HIV/AIDS. IPER has gainedmomentum, and its training opportunities have been able to facili-tate five young, motivated international HIV/AIDS clinician research-ers to advance their knowledge of applied antiretroviral therapeu-tics and HIV/AIDS clinical pharmacology. The International Center for HIV/AIDS Pharmacotherapy Researchand Training (ICHAPRT) Program is an initiative of the UB School ofPharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences in collaboration with theUniversity of Zimbabwe School of Pharmacy. Through formalizededucation and training programs and technology transfer initia-tives, ICHAPRT seeks to establish methods in developing countriesthat have been successful in developed countries. Developed in 2002,this collaborative program aims to provide long term support forthe development of research infrastructure that enhances the capac-ity of the developing country institutions to conduct relevant re-search on practical and affordable pharmacotherapy interventionsin the management of HIV/AIDS in local populations. Two traineeshave been enrolled during the 2007-2008 period from the Univer-sity of Zimbabwe. Tinashe Mudvitza, R.PH, MPhil candidate hascompleted an 8 week training period at the UB/ECMC HIV/AIDSprogram. Tongai Chizanga, RPh, and an MPhil candidate will alsocomplete an 8 week training period during the Spring of 2008. Bothtrainees complete the pharmacology laboratory training module,which involves multiple aspects of pharmacology laboratory opera-tions from protocol planning and sample management to method

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development and validation. As registered pharmacists, these train-ees also complete the Introductory HIV Pharmaceutical Care Spe-cialist Certificate Program. This innovative, web-based programprovides training for pharmacists to develop their knowledge andskills to access, counsel and manage the medications of patientsliving with HIV infection and other common co-morbidities. An im-portant ICHAPRT goal is to establish a state-of-the-art bioanalyticalfacility at both UB and UZ. Waters Corporation has provided anHPLC system to support training in the PRC at UB focusing on bio-logic sample analyses for drug assays. The instrument was donatedto the UB Pharmacotherapy Research Center to facilitate initial train-ing and will eventually be moved to Harare to develop the UZpharmacology research laboratory. The Research Scholar programfacilitates training opportunities for post-graduates, post-doctor-ates in the area of HIV/AIDS clinical care and research. To date, twoscholars have completed the program and a third is expected thissummer. Dr. Yun He, M.D., the Director of HIV/AIDS clinical pro-grams in Henan, China completed an 8 week clinical training pe-riod at UB/ECMC and attended the to 47th Annual InterscienceConference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC)Meeting (September 17-20) at Chicago to learn antiretroviral PK/PD as part of her training. Wen-Liang Lin, M.S. Pharm., R.Ph., fromthe National Cheng-Kung University Hospital in Taiwan completedthe UB HIV Scholar Program during the summer of 2007. PaveenaSonthisombat, Pharm.D., Assistant Professor of Pharmaceutical Sci-ences, at the Naresuan University in Thailand will be completing an8-week training period at UB/ECMC during the June-July period of2008.

SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH AND HEALTH PROFESSIONSDepartment of BiostatisticsRandolph L. Carter, professor and director of the Population HealthObservatory, was recently selected as one of an international groupof scientists who will collaborate with statisticians at the RadiationEffects Research Foundation (RERF) in Hiroshima, Japan. The goal ofthe collaboration is to develop new statistical methods for analyzingdata from survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima andNagasaki in 1945. In addition to UB, the Imperial College London,the University of Washington, Oregon Medical University, the Uni-versity of Southern California, Kurume University in Kurume, Japan,and the German National Research Center for Environment andHealth are represented in the group. Participants were selected fortheir recognized expertise in areas of statistics important to RERFand their past contributions to radiation effects research. The pri-mary goal of the collaboration is to develop solutions to statisticalproblems caused by uncertainties in individual A-bomb radiationdose estimates. A secondary goal is to jointly train biostatisticianswho are prepared to begin their careers as primary investigators inradiation effects research or cancer biostatistics. Austin Miller andCarmen Tekwe, both doctoral candidates in the department, arecurrently writing dissertations under the umbrella of this collabora-tion. Part of their training consists of yearly visits to RERF to learn fromradiation effects researchers with expertise in biostatistics, molecu-lar biology, cancer epidemiology, genetics, or clinical studies. Ms.Tekwe is currently working at RERF as a Visiting Student Fellow inpreparation for research entitled “Measurement Error Adjusted Ef-fects of A-Bomb Radiation Dose on Cancer Risk”. Her research pro-posal recognizes that the statistical models appropriate for assess-ing the effects of radiation exposure on health outcomes have thecharacteristics of a class of models known as linear Multiple Indica-tors, Multiple Causes (MIMIC) models, except that they are nonlin-ear and the causal variables are measure with error. She thereforeproposes to generalize MIMIC models and methods of estimation toa class of models that she calls Generalized MIMIC MeasurementError (G-MIMC ME) models. She will apply her methods to estimatethe effects of radiation exposure on health outcomes, adjusting formeasurement error in dose. Mr. Miller visited RERF last summer to

study the Dosimetry System 2002 (DS02) and its use in estimating A-bomb radiation doses to individual survivors and to investigatewhether alternative dosimetry systems based on a combination ofphysical dosimeters and biological manifestations of radiation ex-posure could be developed. His research proposal, entitled “Statis-tical Methods for Biodosimetry in the Presence of both Classical andBerkson Measurement Error”, proposes to develop methods to solvethe problem of measurement error in DS02 dose estimates whenestimating models relating biodosimeters to dose, apply the meth-ods to estimate these relationships, and invert the relationships toobtain dose estimates based on both the biological manifestationsof dose and its physical determinants. Carter will present an invitedpaper, entitled “Estimation of radiation dose from biological mani-festations and imperfect measures of physical determinants”, at the2008 Joint Statistical Meetings at the session organized by Dr. PhilipRoss, Chief of the Department of Statistics at RERF, and entitled“Radiation Exposure Effects Research: Moving forward after 60 Yearsof following A-Bomb Survivors”. Mr. Miller and Ms. Tekwe also willpresent their research at contributed paper sessions at this meeting.This is an ongoing collaboration that will provide future studentssimilar opportunities to be involved in this exciting research. Jonathan Dare, a second year master’s student in the department,will complete a master’s project this semester with the goal of cali-brating historical clinical measurements on A-bomb survivors in theRERF Adult Health Study (AHS) cohort to those obtained under themost recent measuring method. This work is vital to the preparationof the AHS data for longitudinal research.

Department of Exercise ScienceMelissa Chabot, Undergraduate Nutrition Coordinator, traveled toSingapore in January 2008 to meet with students taking her NTR109SP/110SP (Nutrition in Practice) online class. Students in UB pro-grams at Singapore Institute of Management (SIM) take ProfessorPeter Horvath’s online NTR 108 class and Chabot’s NTR 109 class.During her visit to Singapore she met with NTR 109 students, trainedthe local instructors on the use of UBlearns and presented a lectureopen to all SIM students on Disordered Eating. Students inSingapore have the opportunity to interact with students at UBtaking NTR 109WB through online discussion forums.

John X. Wilson, professor and chair, is continuing his research col-laboration with Guo Wei Huang, dean of Public Health, Tianjin Medi-cal University, Tianjin, China. As a result of research accomplished todate, two manuscripts have been prepared for publication: “Effectsof folate on the expression of genes regulating proliferation of neu-ral stem cells;” and “Effects of genistein on apoptosis of vascularendothelial cells following oxidative injury”.

SCHOOL OF SOCIAL WORKIn 2006, Filomena M. Critelli, assistant professor, received $3, 000from the Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy for a study at DASTAKWomen’s Shelter, in Lahore, Pakistan. While in Pakistan, she did apresentation on Research Methodology, at the University of thePunjab, Lahore, Pakistan. In addition to her research in Pakistan, shepresented a paper, “Immigrants in a post 9-11 world,” at the Inter-national Federation of Social Workers World Conference, Munich,Germany. Filomena’s paper titled, “Women’s Rights=Human Rights:Pakistani Women against Gender Violence” has been accepted forpresentation at the 19th World Conference of Social Work, August2008, in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil.

In 2007, while travelling in England, Howard J. Doueck, professorand associate dean, and Peter Lyons, an alumnus of the school,presented papers on at the Universities of Bradford in Bradford, andSheffield Hallam University in Sheffield, both in the U.K. In addition,Doueck presented to a class at the University of Huddersfield,Huddersfield, U.K.

23


Office of the Vice Provost forInternational Education(716) 645-2368, 645-2528 (Fax)[email protected]://www.buffalo.edu/intledProfessor Stephen C. Dunnett

Vice ProvostMr. John J. Wood

Associate Vice ProvostMs. Patricia Shyhalla

Director of Resource ManagementMs. Marvis Robinson

Financial Resource Officer

International EnrollmentManagement(716) 645-2368, 645-2528 (Fax)[email protected]. Joseph J. Hindrawan

Assistant Vice Provost and DirectorMr. Raymond Lew

Assistant Director

International Admissions(716) 645-2368, 645-2528 (Fax)[email protected]. Steven L. Shaw

DirectorMs. Elizabeth A. White

Assistant DirectorMs. Amy Matikosh

Admissions AdvisorMs. Sherene Cheah-Milizia

Admissions Advisor

International Student and ScholarServices(716) 645-2258, 645-6197 (Fax)[email protected]. Ellen A. Dussourd

DirectorMr. Oscar Budde, Esq.

Director of Immigration ServicesMs. Diane Hardy

SEVIS CoordinatorMr. Eric E. Comins

International Student AdvisorMs. Jessica Kumro

Staff AssistantMs. Mary Jean Zajac

Paralegal

Study Abroad Programs(716) 645-3912, 645-6197 (Fax)[email protected]. Melissa L. Polasik

DirectorMs. Olga Lepkyj

Study Abroad Advisor

Council on International Studiesand Programs(716) 645-2368, 645-2528 (Fax)Professor David E. Engel

Chair

Fulbright Program(716) 645-2181, Ext. 561; 645-5954 (Fax)Professor Patrick McDevitt

Fulbright Advisor

D I R E C T O R Y 23

DIR

ECTO

RY

Catherine Dulmus, associate professor andDirector of the Buffalo Center for Social Re-search, presented papers at four interna-tional conferences: Nisbet, B.C., & Dulmus,C.N. (November, 2007), “The ClozarilClinic: A successful model for the treatmentof psychotic disorders,” a paper presentedat the World Psychiatric Association Interna-tional Congress in Melbourne, Australia;Sowers, K.M., Rowe, W.S., Dulmus, C.N., &Thomlison, R. (July, 2007), “Social Work andGlobal Poverty: Lessons Learned from theThird World," a poster presented at the 15thBiennial Symposium of the InternationalConsortium for Social Development,” inHong Kong, China; Sowers, K.M, Dulmus,C.N., Rowe, W., & Thomlison, R. (2006, De-cember) “Policy intervention to reduce useof child and adolescent physical restraint,” aposter presented at the Fifth Annual Inter-national Conference on Social Work inHealth and Mental Health. Hong Kong,China; and Sowers, K.M., Rowe, W., &Dulmus, C.N. (2006, August), “Promotingelder wellbeing: Challenges for the globalcommunity,” a poster presented at the 33rdInternational Congress of Schools of SocialWork, Santiago, Chile. In 2007, Dalmus co-authored a chapter on “Evidence based so-cial work: Challenges for policy, practice,“in S. Borrmann, M. Klassen, & C. Spatscheck(Eds.), International social work: Social prob-lems, cultural issues and social work education:Opladen, Germany: Barbara Budrich Pub-lishers.

Mansoor Kazi, research associate professor,continued his international work with a pub-lication in an Australian Journal and an in-vited presentation in Scotland. In 2007, Kazipublished Kazi, M.A.F. (2007) “A Reply toEric Weir’s Review of Realist Evaluation inPractice by the Author”, Evaluation Journal ofAustralasia, 7(1); and Kazi, M. A. F. &Mickaliger, R. V. (2007). Realtime Evaluationin Moray Children’s Services. An invited pre-sentation at Moray Council Children’s SocialWork Service Divisional Days Seminar in June2007 in Elgin, Morayshire, Scotland.

In 2006 with colleagues, Robert Keefe, as-sociate professor, presented a paper at theannual meeting of the Society for AppliedAnthropology. Vancouver, Canada titled,“Food is just decoration: Urban retail foodmarkets and health.

Wooksoo Kim, assistant professor, contin-ues her research on Korean immigrants andrecently presented two papers in South Ko-rea: Kim, W., & Kim, S. (2007) “Adjusting toa new environment: Alcohol drinking amongelderly Korean immigrants in Canada,” aposter presented at the 13th Annual Quali-tative Health Research in Seoul, South Ko-rea; and Kim, S., & Kim, W. (2007), “Whenwe get older: Drinking experiences among

Korean elderly,” a paper presented at the13th Annual Qualitative Health Research inSeoul, South Korea. Kim and AdjoaRobinson, assistant professor, received agrant from the UB Canadian-AmericanStudies Committee in April 2008 to support,“Canadian-American Welfare Policies: ARoundtable Discussion.” In addition, Kimreceived a grant from the same group tostudy “Alcohol use among Korean CanadianElderly in Toronto.”

Hilary Weaver, professor, was keynotespeaker at the Building Bridges CulturalCompetence conference, Fort Frances,Ontario. In addition, her paper was titled,“Striving for cultural competence: Meetingthe needs of First Nations Peoples”. She alsopresented a paper titled, “Indigenous So-cial Work in the United States: Reflections onIndian Tacos, Trojan Horses, and Canoesfilled with Indigenous Revolutionaries”. In-digenous Social Work Around the World, atFredericton, New Brunswick, Canada, andwith Elaine Congress, a paper titled, “In-digenous Peoples: The Past and PresentStruggle for Human Rights,” was presentedat the International Federation of SocialWorkers 50th Year Jubilee Conference, inMunich, Germany. �

URBAN PLANNINGcontinued from page 15

nomic prosperity. Not only can itmake Buffalo a more attractive citywith a new and economically entic-ing image, but it actually can makethe city an exciting and desirableplace to live and work.

“Re-imaging of the region,” theywrite, “has the goal of movingBuffalo’s image away from that of arecovering rust-belt city to one wheregreen dominates the landscape in away that makes community life richand the city itself beautiful.”

The UB students who participatedin the studio are Janel Bedard, SarahCashimere, Nathaniel Key, RobertWatkins, Quinn O’Brien, BhaktiKulkami, Ching Chen Lee, ThomasLyon, Jeffrey Mancil, Amanda Mays,Steven Nagowski, Arlene Rodriguez,Kari Terwiliger and Katherine Veith.

Patricia Donovan is a senior editor withUniversity News Services.

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John J. Wood, Editor

UB LAW DEAN SPEAKS TO ELECTORAL DISPUTE IN KENYA

When violence erupted inKenya after its disputed December 27 presidential

election, U.S. news outletscalled on Makau Mutua,dean of the UB LawSchool, for his views onwhat was happening inhis native country.

Mutua, a SUNY Distin-guished Professor, speaksfrom close contact withevents. He is chair of theKenya Human RightsCommission, and he hadbeen in Kenya and Tanza-nia this past summer tobuild up nongovernmen-tal organizations that hehopes will produce thenext generation ofKenyan political leaders.

He says that he did notknow what to expectwhen he visited Kenya last summerbecause of his legal representation ofJohn Githongo, the former KenyanPermanent Secretary for Governanceand Ethics who resigned his positionand went into exile after accusingmembers of the Kibaki governmentof corruption.

After many years of one-party rule,

Mutua says, politicians who controlledthe state migrated to various politicalparties and now run those parties.

This has meant that governingcontinues to be based on patronage,not merit. Further complicating theKenyan political picture, Mutua says,each party has identified itself withone of the country’s ethnic groups, sothat the political discussion has been“fractured and balkanized along eth-nic lines.”

Mutua and others have beenworking to develop leaders in “civilsociety”—a network of human rights

organizations, women’s groups, barassociations and other nongovern-mental organizations.

The Kibaki administration, Mutuasays, recruited the best and bright-est from civil society into govern-ment service. “The most seniorpeople are gone,” he says.

Mutua says. “And we hope thatwhoever runs the state helps to forma Kenyan national identity that tran-scends ethnic and regional identi-ties. The purpose of civil society is tobe the guardian.” �

—Adapted from UB Law Brief, Febru-ary 2008.

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