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VOLUME 22, NUMBER 13— April 7, 1999
Campus Hosts National Writers Convention
William Kennedy: A Celebration
CAT Earns Straight 'A's'
"World Turns" Back to Albany for Playboy Star
Viewing JWorld Economic Instability
EEOC Head to Speak at Bread & Roses Awards
They'll Sing a Gentle Irish Harp
Five Students Cited for Excellence
Campus Autonomy Improves Dorms at Albany, SUNY-Wide
Colleges of Technology Join Forces
The Impact of Peer counseling in Drawing Healthy Birth from the Addict Mother
Robert Osuna, Department of Biological Sciences
Gebbhardt Articulates the Five E's
Tedeschi Receives Fulbright Scholarship in Germany
Stec Named Interim VP for F&B
Saurav K. Dutta, School of Business
Deborah S. Archambeault, School of Business
Guess Who's Coming to Work?
Fossieck Lecture to Feature Noted "Equality" Historian
Cohen Charts Theoretical and Critical Course for English Department
CTG Helps Design 21st Century Digital Government
Hentoff, Levin to Discuss Constitutionality of Hate
Susan Milligan, '84
Barbara Fischkin, '75
Richard Nordwind, '75
Concert to Benefit Spellman Scholarship
Sprint International
Men Rally Once, Not Twice
Women Win JBattle of the Ranked in Lacrosse
Third Academic All-America for Field Hockey's Peck
Softball's 15-Win NECC Streak Ends
Lose Two, Win Two on Diamond
Campus Hosts National Writers Convention
By Vinny Reda
More than 2,000 writers, teachers, students, editors, publishers and lovers of literature will alight in Albany April 14-17 when the University hosts the largest professional meeting of writers and teachers of creative writing.
1998 Pulitzer Prize-winning author (Angela's Ashes) Frank McCourt will give the keynote address at annual convention of the Associated Writers Programs (AWP), an event that will include within its schedule a three-day tribute, "William Kennedy: A Celebration . . ." Kennedy, a Pulitzer winner himself (Ironweed, 1984), is director of the Writers Institute and a member of the University's Department of English faculty.
Other renowned authors and poets participating in readings, panels and other presentations include Russell Banks, Robert Creeley, Maxine Kumin, John Montague (Albany's visiting poet), Peter Matthiessen, Jill McCorkle, Grace Paley, Laura Marello, David Lehman, Carolyn Forché, and poets and University faculty members Don Byrd and Pierre Joris.
The conference theme this year is "Bringing Writing Off the Page and Into the Community," a topic well known by Judith Johnson of the Department of English, and this year's Conference chairwoman and a former AWP president. "Many events, including the Wednesday night opening event of performance poets, "Archi-Text," emphasize performance, oral story telling, multimedia and electronic publication, and the writer in the community," said Johnson, who was instrumental in bringing the feminist literary journal Thirteenth Moon online several years ago and in creating a CD-ROM version of the University graduate student journal The Little Magazine in 1995.
Programs will range from a "Pedagogy Forum" to an annual series of workshops and talks devoted to the teaching of writing, to the Kennedy tribute and even to late-night music and dancing.
Each year the conference also features a book fair with author book-signings. "In addition, this year — again, in keeping with our theme — there will be AWP's first Tech Fair, organized by our University in collaboration with RPI and Clarkson University," said Johnson. "It will feature exhibits and demonstrations of electronic and multimedia technology for authoring, editing, publishing, and teaching."
Registration for the more than 125 separate events opens at 3 p.m. on Wednesday, April 14, with the Book Fair beginning an hour later. After a full day of panels and readings on Thursday, at 8 p.m. the Conference will get its official send-off with opening remarks from Johnson, and welcomes from President Hitchcock and AWP Board President Julie Checkoway.
The Writers Institute is cosponsoring the Kennedy Celebration plus seven other events during the Conference. Other sponsors, beside the University, include the Academy of American Poet, the Poetry Society of America, and writing programs at Bucknell and Norwich universities, and Bennington College.
William Kennedy: A Celebration
By Vinny Reda
"William Kennedy: A Celebration . . ." will cover nine events interspersed within the broad AWP Convention schedule. Even more, it will begin to cover in the most proper setting the significance of Albany's greatest literary voice.
"I wanted to do something for a long time that would amount to a serious scholarship conference on Bill's work — which I think up to this time has been a glaring omission," said Donald Faulkner, associate director of the New York State Writers Institute. He will deliver the opening remarks at the Celebration's introductory event on Thursday, April 15, at 12:30 in the Omni Hotel in Albany. Immediately following will be a talk on "Kennedy as Journalist" by Douglas Brinkley, director of the Eisenhower Center for American Studies.
"To schedule this appreciation and study of his work at a time when we can reach the broadest audience imaginable of writers, literary minds and pure lovers of literature is just ideal," said Faulkner.
He noted that Thursday's next scheduled event, from 2:30 – 4 p.m., will be the more extemporaneous "Talking About William Kennedy," featuring authors Frank McCourt (Angela's Ashes) Peter Quinn (Banished Children of Eve), and Dennis Smith (A Song for Mary).
"We want the Celebration to be intellectually challenging, but also enjoyable and entertaining. You'll get an exploration of the use of time in Kennedy's cyclical novels balanced by Frank McCourt's recollections of what it was like to hoist a beer with Bill.
"And that's the way it should be, because Bill in the classic sense is 'a man of parts.' There are many aspects to him: a man of warmth and vivacity, but a truly deep thinker as well — an experimenter and inventor of great prose."
The final event, on Saturday at 8 p.m. in the Omni's ballroom, will be a reading by Kennedy himself from new work and old, with a special tribute to follow. For a list of the entire Celebration schedule, see the Update Calendar.)
CAT Earns Straight 'A's'
By Mary Fiess
The University's Center for Advanced Thin Film Technology (CAT), a leading resource for the microelectronics industry, has earned straight "A's" in a new evaluation by the New York State Science and Technology Foundation.
Albany's CAT ranks in the "top tier" in its economic impact when compared to all 13 Centers for Advanced Technology across New York, and it is No. 1 when compared to the five other centers in its age group, according to the evaluation. The CAT's economic impact was reported to be $42.4 million in 1997-98, up $11.5 million from the previous year. Albany was designated a Center for Advanced Technology by the state in 1993.
Economic impact was just one of the five categories in which Albany's CAT received an "A". It was also awarded "A's" for "opportunity," specifically for creating "opportunity where there previously was none"; for "leverage" and "leadership"; and for its overall performance.
"Leveraging is an integral part of the Albany CAT culture. CAT staff members are constantly looking for opportunities to multiply the impact of their activities," said the report done by the CAT Program Steering Committee of the state Science and Technology Foundation. "The Albany CAT has visionary, entrepreneurial leadership and a strong management team."
The report praised CAT Director Alain Kaloyeros, saying he is "relentless in his search for resources to expand the scope" of the center and that he was "instrumental in making New York universities part of the team that won the Semiconductor Industry Association Focus Center in Interconnects."
Albany's CAT aims to grow high-tech businesses and jobs by transferring knowledge from the laboratory bench to the workbench. Businesses, in partnership with CAT researchers, develop and test new concepts and technologies in the area of semiconductors and other advanced materials. IBM; Varian; Motorola; Texas Instruments; Intel; and more than 40 other companies, large and small, are CAT sponsors and partners.
The Center for Biotechnology at SUNY Stony Brook was the only other CAT to receive an "A" as an overall grade.
'World Turns' Back to Albany for Playboy Star
Among the actors who make up the all-student cast of the Department of Theatre's next major production will be an award-winning actress of daytime drama.
Yvonne Perry Hulbert plays the leading female role of Pegeen in The Playboy of the Western World, which runs April 23-25 and April 28–May 1 in the Lab Theatre of the Performing Arts Center. The classic Irish play, by John Millington Synge, is part of the University's Irish semester.
Hulbert, a Voorheesville native, brings to the stage an extensive film and television background, including her current role in "As the World Turns." She has played the character Rosanna Cabott for four years and in 1993 won a Soap Opera Award from Soap Opera Digest for outstanding female actress.
This fall, Hulbert cut back on her work in national television in order to earn a master's degree in theater at the University. Despite her busy New York schedule over the past four years, she has returned to the area to perform local charity work.
The show is directed by Kathryn Long, a former associate director of the Studio Arena Theatre in Washington D.C. Long has also worked with the Jean Cocteau Repertory, Stage One in Louisville Ky., and is a recipient of a grant from the National Endowment of the Arts.
The Playboy of the Western World is widely considered one of the classic works in Irish literature, and such was its impact upon its premiere in Ireland in 1909 that riots ensued. The play is a tragic comedy about a small town in Ireland, where the locals spend their time dreaming of more exciting lives. Into this peaceful yet staid setting arrives a stranger who enthralls the village with tales of heroism. His arrival causes a stir, which results in events that are comical, tragic, and ultimately uplifting. The play's centerpiece is his romance with Pegeen, a strong minded and fiery tempered Irish woman.
Admission is $10 for the general public and $7 for students. Nighttime performances will run April 23-24 and April 28-May 1 at 8 p.m., and there will be one matinee, on April 25 at 3 p.m. For further information, please call the Performing Arts Center box office at 442-3997.
Viewing World Economic Instability
Jogindar S. Uppal, Vice President for Academic Affairs Carlos Santiago, and emeriti Franklin Walker and Edward Renshaw, all of the Department of Economics, will take part in a Wednesday, April 14, panel dealing with the current international instability in economics and finance.
The discussion, open to all, will be held in BA 130 at 3:30 p.m. Graduate students are particularly encouraged to attend.
Uppal will be discussing the problems of Indonesia, which may be suffering from an economic Asian Flu. Covering recent developments in Latin America will be Santiago. Walker will be discussing the unstable capital flows that may be the cause of tipping a third or more of the countries around the world into recessions. Renshaw will attempt to shed light on the unanswered question of whether these recessions and problems will spread to the U.S.
EEOC Head to Speakat Bread & Roses Awards
Ida Castro, chairperson of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), will be the featured speaker when the Women's Concerns Committee of the University Commission for Affirmative Action and the University Council of Women's Groups host their Annual Spring Celebration at 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday, April 14, in the Campus Center Assembly Hall.
The 1999 Bread and Roses Award will be awarded at the event to Maritza Martinez, M.S.W., assistant dean for Academic Affairs, and Jan Hagen, Distinguished Professor in the School of Social Welfare, for their sustained commitment and contribution on behalf of gender equity at the University.
Castro's participation comes through the University's Distinguished Women Speaker Series. Featured in the October 1998 issue of Hispanic Business as one of the "100 Most Influential Hispanics," Castro is the first female to serve as EEOC chairperson, a position she was nominated for by President Bill Clinton and sworn into on Oct. 23, 1998.
At the age of 20, she became the youngest, and only, female city cabinet member in Carolina, Puerto Rico, and years later the first Hispanic woman to earn tenure as an associate professor at Rutgers College.
The celebration and following reception are open to all. For more information, contact Carol Anne Germain, co-chair, Council of Women's Groups, at 442-3590.
They'll Sing a Gentle Irish Harp
As part of the Irish Semester, the University Chamber Singers, with soprano and harpist, will offer a pair of concerts Friday, April 9, at noon at CESTM, and Saturday, April 10, at 8 p.m. in the Recital Hall of the Performing Arts Center.
Titled "My Gentle Harp — Music of Ireland," the concert features Marjorie Hartzell, longtime first harpist of the Albany Symphony, and University sophomore Tonya Burandt as soprano soloist.
The event will highlight traditional Irish folk songs that were either set to music or composed by Charles V. Stanford (1852-1924), Turlough Carolan (1670-1738), Rory Dall O'Cathain, Maurice O'Connor, and other leading musical figures of Ireland. Included will be songs categorized as "Music of Love," such as "The Girl I Left Behind Me" and "My Gentle Harp (Londonderry Air)"; and as "Music of War," including "Johnny, I Hardly Knew Ye" and "The Minstrel Boy."
"I think we have a rather moving and lovely program," said David Griggs-Janower, director of the Chamber Singers and concert conductor. "Charles Villiers Stanford was one of history's greatest Irish composers of 'classical' music. Turlough Carolan was a harpist-composer who traveled the Irish countryside on horseback for nearly 50 years, composing pieces in honor of the gentlemen-patrons in whose homes he was entertaining. Nearly 200 of his compositions survive. Rory Dall O'Cathain was one of the greatest of the Ulster harpists and a member of a noble family of County Derry."
Five Students Cited for Excellence
SUNY Chancellor John W. Ryan announced on March 30 the 1999 Chancellor's Awards for Student Excellence, which included five University at Albany students among the 92 representing 40 SUNY campuses.
"This award is our way of honoring students who have shown the courage, ability and will to succeed," Ryan said.
Nominated by the campuses, the award recipients have demonstrated outstanding academic achievement and have received national or international recognition for their efforts. Some of the honored students have won prestigious scholarships; others were recognized for their achievements by academic honor societies, such as Phi Beta Kappa. Students may also be recognized for accomplishments in the arts, sciences, languages, international education, anthropology and engineering.
Recipients from Albany, with their class years, specific accomplishments, and places of residence are:
• Eric Baumer, graduate student, National Institute of Justice dissertation grant; Fulbright foreign scholarship award, St. Louis, Missouri;
• Heather Freer, graduate student, Kennedy Center/American College Theater Festival Irene Ryan (acting competition) award, Latham;
• Elizabeth Mary Lynch, senior, Rhodes Scholarship nominee; Marshall Scholarship semi-finalist; winner of international student essay contest sponsored by People's Daily in Beijing, China (essay was in Chinese); Phi Beta Kappa, Whitestone;
• Maxine Oland, senior, National Science Foundation research experience for undergraduates award; publication of article in Journal of Lithic Technology; Phi Beta Kappa, Putnam Valley; and
• Paul Alan Rosen, senior, Rhodes and Marshall Scholar applicant; University at Albany University Honors Scholarship recipient; Phi Beta Kappa, Albany.
Campus Autonomy Improves Dorms at Albany, SUNY-Wide
In a March 23 presentation to the Board of Trustees, college representatives and System Administration officials explained how "devolution" has led to a significant number of new and improved residence halls and increased student demand for on-campus housing.
Since SUNY campuses were given full control of their residence halls in 1997, there has been a significant increase in both rehabilitation and construction of residence halls, said Vice Chancellor for Finance and Business Brian Stenson.
The pattern has held firm at Albany. "We have directed considerable resources into renovations in the residences, including developing recreation rooms and fitness centers, and all of this has resulted in a significant increase in the yield of juniors and seniors remaining on campus," said Laurie Garofola, director of Residential Life. "We are also in the process of renovating another building downtown, Sayles Hall.
"We are really looking at quality of life issues in the residence halls, not only to improve quality of life for our current student population, but to provide supportive programs and facilities for students coming into the University as well."
Stenson said that SUNY-wide, "students are responding to these changes, with campuses reporting fewer vacancies and some seeing waiting lists for students wanting to live on-campus."
In Fall 1998, Albany had 6,177 beds in use, 219 more than the year before. Both years, the campus operated at 99 percent capacity, with the increase in "beds used" largely the result of renovation and re-occupation of a former dormitory, Pierce Hall.
System-wide, more than 56,420 residence hall beds were occupied this year — 1,573 more beds than in 1997-98. That figure represents nearly 93 percent of the available space.
Since 1997-98, when campuses were granted authority to set room rates, each campus became responsible for meeting the operating costs of its residence halls. The result has been that rates have risen at a slower pace and helped campuses improve their fund balances, Stenson said. Wall Street bond analysts recently maintained the A, A3 and A- ratings for new and existing residence hall debt.
"This is just another way in which we're helping the campuses help themselves," said Trustees Chairman Thomas F. Egan.
Colleges of Technology Join Forces
SUNY's five colleges of technology are officially joining forces in a new management structure approved in late March by the Board of Trustees.
The five colleges — the State University colleges of technology at Alfred, Canton, and Delhi, and the colleges of agriculture and technology at Cobleskill and Morrisville — will operate as the University Colleges of Technology, or UCT. This consortium, while not merging these colleges, will allow each campus to operate more efficiently, improve cooperation among the institutions, and integrate them more fully with the other SUNY campuses. At the same time, the UCT will help fulfill the increasing demand from business and industry for highly skilled technicians.
"Building on our increased commitment to these five campuses that began more than three years ago with Rethinking SUNY, these campuses now will be able to enter a new era," remarked Trustees' Chairman Thomas F. Egan. "These campuses soon will be offering a fuller range of academic programs, more than they each could have done individually."
Guess Who's Coming to Work?
by Carol Olechowski
Again this year, girls between the ages of 9 and 15 will have a chance to get acquainted with the University as the campus welcomes Take Our Daughters to Work Day on April 22.
Founded in 1993, the annual observance has become a celebration of girls' interests and abilities. The special daylong program begins at 8:45 a.m. with breakfast in the Patroon Restaurant, followed by three sessions of workshops scheduled between 10:15 a.m. and 3 p.m.
Each participant may choose one workshop from each session's selection. Options include tours of CESTM, UPD, the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, Dutch Quad, SUNY Tunes, the Performing Arts Center, and the Atmospheric Sciences Research Center. If they wish, the girls may elect to visit the University's day care center, meet international students to learn about their cultures and customs, swim, enjoy an aerobics class, or listen to a master storyteller.
An ice cream social is free for daughters, $1.50 for others, and will be held from 3:15 to 3:30 p.m.. The program concludes with African storytelling. Lunch will be offered at the Dutch Quad dining room, 12:30 - 1:30 p.m. at a cost of $3.50. A sponsor must accompany each girl attending lunch.
Volunteer chaperones are needed. Anyone interested may contact Nancy Belowich-Negron at 2-5491 or via E-mail at email@example.com. Forms for workshop choice and the ice cream social are also available, and should be returned to Jerry Rivera-Wilson, ED B-8, no later than April 16.
The event is sponsored by University Auxiliary Services, Office of the President, Office for Affirmative Action, the Women's Concerns Committee, and the Council of Women's Groups.
Fossieck Lecture to Feature Noted 'Equality' Historian
by Vinny Reda
One of America's leading historians on the Revolutionary era will deliver the 13th Annual Janice D. and Theodore H. Fossieck Lecture Tuesday, April 20, at the University.
Pauline Maier, William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of American History at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will speak on "The Strange History of All Men Are Created Equal," at 3 p.m. in the Campus Center Terrace Lounge. The event is free and open to the public.
For several years, Maier has studied the Revolution's impact on the U.S. until the time of the Civil War. She has received grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.
Maier's most recent book, American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence (Knopf, 1997), explored the development of independence, the writing of the Declaration, and its transformation during the 19th Century into a statement of principles to guide established governments. The New York Times Book Review included the work among its "Editor's Choice" list of the 11 best books of 1997, and it was a finalist in the general non-fiction category for the 1998 National Book Critics' Circle Award.
A reception will follow the lecture in the Department of History on the second floor of the Ten Broeck Building on Dutch Quadrangle.
Cohen Charts Theoretical and Critical Course for English Department
By Greta Petry
Last August, The Chronicle of Higher Education noted: "A year from now, Tom Cohen will be seen as either a gifted healer or one of the most foolish men in higher education." Cohen had left a comfortable professorship at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in order to lead what the Chronicle called Albany's "tense" English program.
Seven months into the new job, Cohen has set a future course for the department. His goal is to make a national name for the English program by hiring professors who have a strong background in diverse issues affecting critical thinking, writing, and pedagogy in higher education today, and by restoring the innovative ideas on which Albany's Ph.D. program was based.
The divisions that preceded him "created a unique opportunity to re-think the role of the Department of English and to create a new University culture in the humanities going into the next century, or for that matter, the next millennium," Cohen said.
In order to rebuild the department, Cohen has been given the go-ahead to hire 12 new professors over the next four years. Interviews with candidates are ongoing, and two professors have been hired: Brian Massumi, who comes to Albany from a prestigious Australian think tank and McGill University, has a background in critical theory and culture; and Dina Al-Kassim, who earned a Ph.D. from Berkeley and is an expert in transnational modernist fields.
"We are looking for people who are theoretically informed but who are connected to different critical agendas, in order to create a vibrant place for debate," Cohen said.
The department placed ads in the Chronicle and on the Modern Language Association's "Job List" that were different from run-of-the-mill help wanted ads.
"We asked for people with a combination of talents. They must have a theoretical or critical component in order to contribute to Albany as a bastion of positive intellectual exchange. They also need to be interested and willing to participate in a dialogue aimed at redefining the humanities in higher education," Cohen said.
The chair said he has received positive feedback on the ads, including responses from several former MLA presidents "who are all paying attention to what's happening at Albany, because Albany is now back on the map and is a place where things can happen."
The debate over ideology in English departments is occurring at institutions across the country, including in programs as prestigious and established as Duke University's. The differences can be rhetoric and composition vs. literature, or creative writing vs. theory — distinctions that are by and large lost on the average person outside of academia.
Cohen finds great hope in going back to the original ideas on which the Ph.D. program was based in the early 1990s.
"We will focus on a dynamic notion of writing which constructed the program instead of using the notion of writing to create a network of interests across the department," Cohen explained. By replacing factionalized interests with respect for differing ideologies, Cohen and associate chair Cary Wolfe "have set about to put the entire department in a forward movement so that all the faculty have something to gain."
Indeed, as the Chronicle noted: "A graduate of Yale University's comparative-literature program, he (Cohen) can talk with high theorists and with literary Marxists. What's more, he is sympathetic to the department's efforts to sustain an unorthodox Ph.D. program, which draws on literary, composition, and pedagogical theory."
Cohen's vision for the English department includes "new ways of interpreting the power of literary texts, of thinking and writing that can continue to transform the environment of higher education."
Several initiatives are in the works. With David Wills, chair of the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, Cohen is planning a conference on the theme "Book Ends." The program will focus on what it means for the humanities and English today to pass from the age of the book to different forms of information technology and to explore how literature will function in the future.
A formal project to train TA's to teach has been instituted. And Cohen is working outside as well as inside the department, seeking enhanced visibility and financial support by building ties with community groups, coordinating dinners, and contacting emeriti.
In another initiative, Cohen is working with Richard Hoffmann, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, on a possible model for a required writing and thinking course for first-year students.
"For example, we would take three teaching assistants and one professor and tackle a literary issue or a problem in ecology and make that the motif for studying writing and critical reading skills. This allows us to present a proactive model of great value and diversity," he said. It would go far beyond simple freshman composition, which just focuses on the mechanics of writing, he added. "Instead, we want to tackle the more complex problem of the development of writing, so that students will learn to think, read and criticize around a problem that is of intense interest to them."
Integral to "building a new culture that is sympathetic to new ideas" is hosting internationally known speakers and organizing conferences. To that end, a departmental committee brought in Donald Pease of Dartmouth in October, and literary critic J. Hillis Miller of the University of California at Irvine in March. Next fall, additional high-profile scholars like Jacques Derrida and Barbara Herrstein Smith will be on campus.
Cohen has named many other key committees, and he and Wolfe sit on each one in order to facilitate progress. One faculty committee worked to rewrite the departmental by-laws; another is considering revisions to the master of arts program for today's job market and to distinguish the M.A. from the Ph.D. program. Another committee is reinterpreting the Ph.D. program to strengthen it. Key committees on professionalism and placement are geared toward the needs of students as they seek jobs.
The professionalism committee recently hosted Helen Tartar, the editor of Stanford Press, who discussed ways in which graduate students and teaching assistants can prepare their academic works for publication. She "walked away with a couple of manuscripts," Cohen noted. A placement committee is gearing its efforts towards helping students find jobs; a workload inequities committee is also active. A new committee has been assigned to review the undergraduate curriculum.
"In short, we are creating a new department with a synthesis of the best elements of the original program combined with a willingness to tackle the future problems of the profession with unblinking eyes," Cohen concluded.
CTG Helps Design 21st Century Digital Government
By Stephanie Simon
April 15 is just around the corner, and everyone is doing taxes. No one enjoys it, but the IRS e-file and Telefile programs make it easier by allowing people to file returns electronically using such simple technologies as the telephone.
E-file and Telefile prove that technology can improve customer service in government. The University's Center for Technology in Government (CTG) is at the forefront of a national movement encouraging government to use technology as a way to transform its services and programs for the 21st century.
CTG – an applied research center devoted to improving government and public services through policy, management, and technology innovation – is a grantee in the National Sciences Foundation (NSF) Digital Government Program. This program "supports research projects that will help move American government toward the promise of transformed public services," as stated in the NSF announcement.
In October, as part of the program, CTG hosted a multidisciplinary workshop where dozens of researchers in the fields of information, social, behavioral, and computer science met with government policy leaders to discuss the elements necessary to create a successful and useful digital government for the next millennium. The resulting recommendations, which will help the NSF fund research projects in the Digital Government Program, are detailed in a new national report, Some Assembly Required: Building a Digital Government for the 21st Century.
"Information technology, already an essential part of government operations, will continue to be vitally important to administration, decision making, and direct service delivery in the 21st Century," said CTG Director Sharon S. Dawes, lead author of the report.
Some Assembly Required details recommendations to further the goals of the Digital Government Program. Those suggestions include supporting research at all levels of government and between the public and private sectors, investigating issues of governance and democratic processes in the digital age, researching service and system integration, and linking research and practice.
"We can already see the transformational potential of digital communications and advanced networking and data management tools in relatively rare government applications like the IRS e-file and Telefile programs," said Dawes. Advanced computing and communications technologies make programs like these technically feasible, but alone they are insufficient for achieving the kinds of services that the public demands and deserves. Leadership, management strategies, organizational structures, cross-boundary relationships, financing mechanisms, information policies, and public participation and acceptance are all equally crucial elements of effective 21st Century government services."
Hentoff, Levin to Discuss Constitutionality of Hate
by Vinny Reda
Syndicated columnist and nationally known civil libertarian Nat Hentoff and Brian Levin, J.D., the director of the Center of Hate and Extremism at Richard Stockton College, will be the key players in a School of Criminal Justice forum: Hate Crimes Legislation: Targeting Bias at the Expense of the Constitution.
The forum takes place on Thursday, April 22, at 7:30 p.m. in the Page Hall Auditorium on the Downtown Campus.
In 1995, Hentoff was honored by the National Press Foundation for lifetime distinguished contributions to journalism. His views on journalistic responsibility and the rights of Americans to write, think, and speak freely are expressed in his weekly column in The Village Voice, and he has come to be acknowledged as one of the foremost authorities in the area of First Amendment defense. He is also an expert on the Bill of Rights, The Supreme Court, student rights, and education.
In addition to his Voice column, Hentoff is a nationally syndicated columnist for the Washington Post, appearing in over 200 newspapers. A jazz expert, he writes on music for the Wall Street Journal and was a staff writer for more than 25 years on The New Yorker. He has published many books on jazz, biographies, and novels, including a number of books for children.
Civil rights attorney Brian Levin is an associate professor of criminal justice as well as director of the Center at Richard Stockton College. The Center conducts sophisticated research and monitors trends, criminal cases and legislation pertaining to terrorism, extremist movements and hate crime.
Previously, Levin served as associate director for legal affairs of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Klanwatch/Militia Task Force in Montgomery, Ala., legal director of the Center for the Study of Ethnic and Racial Violence in Newport Beach, Calif., and as a corporate litigator for Irell & Manella. He was also a New York City police officer in the Harlem and Washington Heights sections of Manhattan during the crack wars of the 1980s.
Gebhardt Articulates the Five E's
The winter issue of Commuter Perspectives, published by The National Clearinghouse for Commuter Programs, features an article written by Thomas L. Gebhardt, director of the University's Office of Personal Safety and Off-Campus Affairs and chairperson of the Committee on University and Community Relations.
Gebhardt's article, "Developing a Comprehensive Campus Safety Program: The Five E's of Safety" focuses on a model in which institutions of higher education can develop a comprehensive safety program.
"The article is one which our readers will find as relevant and interesting as I did," said Richard A. Stevens, editor of Commuter Perspectives. "Gebhardt's enthusiasm for the project and creative approach were terrific."
Gebhardt's article emphasizes the five E's of safety: Evaluation – identifying all existing safety programs and services at an institution of higher education and in its surrounding community; Education –educating people in the college community on what steps to take; Enforcement – enforcing existing laws to make life safer and more secure; Environment – enhancing the environment, both on and off campus; and Evaluation – obtaining and compiling crime statistics, both on and off campus.
"I am proud that the safety programs we have in the University are mentioned," said Gebhardt; "particularly those programs directed to our off-campus student population in addition to the University community."
Tedeschi Receives Fulbright Scholarship to Germany
The Council for the International Exchange of Scholars in Washington, DC, has awarded a Fulbright Senior Scholar Fellowship to James Tedeschi of the Department of Psychology.
The scholarship was approved by the Fulbright counterpart in Bonn, Germany. It will allow Tedeschi, a member of the University faculty since 1970, to conduct research and lecture from April to August of 2000 at the Otto Friedrich Universität in Bamberg and also at the Institut fuer Psychologie, Lehrstuhl fuer Sozialpsychologie, Friedrich Schiller Universitaet in Jena.
Stec Named Interim VP for F & B
President Hitchcock named Paul Stec as the Interim Vice President for Finance and Business, effective April 1. Stec, who served as Interim Vice President for Advancement for a year and a half, until the arrival of Robert Ashton this January, will take over the new post while a national search for the vacant VP's post is prepared, said the President.
"We are indeed fortunate to have such an exemplary and accomplished University officer as Paul available to assume his second interim vice-presidency in the past few years," said Hitchcock. "Paul has a broad and informed understanding of the multifaceted operations of our University and an unwavering commitment to the mission and the values that distinguish our campus."
The President again noted the progress made in the division under the leadership of Carl Carlucci, who departed the University to serve as First Deputy Comptroller of New York State.
Stec added: "Carl did a fine of job of crating vibrant, substantive activity in through the division. We have a marvelous senior management team of Don Delmanzo in the Physical Plant, Leo Neveu as comptroller, Kathy Lowery in financial management, and Steve Beditz in human resources. And the Master Plan implementation and the new systems implementation project are moving along splendidly."
Saurav K. Dutta
By Theresa Poon
A distinguished scholar, nationally known researcher, and former management consultant, Saurav K. Dutta joined the School of Business in the area of accounting and law last fall with credentials in both research and academia.
"We're very pleased and excited to have him," said David Marcinko, chair of the department. "He is a prominent researcher who brings a unique blend of both technical and traditional backgrounds in accounting auditing."
After earning his B. Tech. in aerospace engineering from the India Institute of Technology in Bombay in 1985, Dutta worked in Bombay as an associate management consultant for Sigma Consultants. With aspirations of obtaining a degree in management science, he enrolled at the University at Kansas. There, some members of the faculty advised him that his analytical skills and research abilities were a perfect match for the emerging field of accounting. Others were skeptical, however, that Dutta, who had never taken any courses in the subject, could successfully pursue the Ph.D.
To test his proficiency, he took the Certified Management Accountant (CMA) exam in 1989. He scored the second highest total score in the nation and was rewarded the Robert Beyer silver medal.
At Kansas, Dutta was a recipient of numerous fellowships including the Incoming Graduate Student Fellowship in 1987 and the Paul Landis Dissertation Fellowship in 1990.
In 1991, after completing his accounting Ph.D. with honors, Dutta became an assistant professor at the graduate school of management at Rutgers University. There, he developed a new advanced financial analysis elective for the MBA and module for the MBA in financial communications."
Dutta's areas of study include accounting, auditing, and information systems. He has done extensive research in audit planning, which entails a process of collection, evaluation, and aggregation of evidence. He applies a fairly new theory called "belief functions" to the auditing profession. "It is an alternative way of looking at probabilities," said Dutta. "It states that things can add up to less than one because it leaves room for the factor of ignorance."
Based on his research studies, Dutta has published such refereed articles in the Journal of Accounting, Auditing and Finance and the International Journal of Intelligent Systems in Accounting, Finance and Management. His professional affiliations include serving as associate editor for the Indian Accounting Review and as a reviewer for The American Accounting Association Annual Meeting. He also maintains active membership in the Institute of Management Accountants.
This fall, Dutta taught a new course at the University, "Statistical Application in Accounting and Auditing," dealing with a new area of study for which no textbook now exists, yet one which is already highly regarded in the job market. "Being part of a smaller accounting program gives the faculty the flexibility to prepare our students in the area of systems of qualitative analysis," said Dutta. This semester, he is teaching two core courses: "Electronic Data Process (ADP) Auditing," and "Cost Management Systems."
Dutta remains an active researcher in his field of account auditing. His current project involves a study of short-term price reversals in the stock market. "The creativity demonstrated in Dr. Dutta's research greatly contributes to the quality of the courses he designs and how he teaches them," said Marcinko.
Deborah S. Archambeault
By Jinsun Ko
The School of Business's area of accounting and law welcomed to its faculty last fall Deborah S. Archambeault, a young teacher/research with outstanding academic credentials. Her primary research interests are financial accounting, corporate governance, and accounting policy.
A native of the Albany area, Archambeault received her bachelor's degree from Siena College in 1989 and then went on to attend Albany, earning her master's degree in 1994. At Siena, she achieved a 4.0 grade point average in her major field, and a 3.9 overall. At Albany, she earned a 3.9 on her master's.
In addition to her academic caseload, from 1989-92 she worked in Albany as a senior accountant at Ernst & Young and from 1993 to 1994 as an accounting consultant at the Cohoes City School District. There, Archambeault developed and designed a Lotus-based cost accounting system that was used to claim state aid reimbursement for special education programs. As of May 1994, the system had acquired approximately $150,000 in additional aid through the system.
After receiving her master's in 1994, Archambeault attended the University at Alabama to earn her Ph.D. Alabama has among its disciplines accounting history, a major interest of Archambeault. While at Alabama, in addition to earning another perfect 4.0 for her coursework, Archambeault received such academic honors as the American Accounting Association Doctoral Consortium Fellowship and the Southeast Doctoral Consortium Fellowship.
She was also chosen as the university's 1996-97 Graduate Council Fellow and Presidential Graduate Fellow, highly competitive university-wide awards based on overall academic achievement. Archambeault received the privately funded Clifford H. and Mary K. Armstrong Endowed Fellowship at Alabama as well.
While still working on her Ph.D., she returned to the Albany area. "I am naturally familiar with the area and also with the University and its excellent faculty," said Archambeault. "I'm delighted to be able to teach here." Last fall she taught "Introductory Financial Accounting," as well as "Introductory Managerial Accounting." This semester, she is teaching a graduate course titled "Contemporary Developments in Accounting Thought."
Academic honors have followed Archambeault throughout her higher educational career. She won the Siena College Faculty Award for excellence in accounting as well as the National Association of Accountants Student Honor Award, both in 1989. At Albany in 1994 she received the Coopers & Lybrand Outstanding Accounting Graduate Student Award and the Institute of Management Accountants Student Honor Award for Excellence in Accounting.
A certified public accountant in with New York State since 1991, Archambeault is a member of the American Accounting Association, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, and Beta Gamma Sigma, a national honor society into which she was inducted while a master's student at Albany.
Archambeault is currently working on her Ph.D. dissertation, which is titled "The Relation Between Corporate Government Strength and Fraudulent Financial Reporting." She will return to Alabama in the summer to present the paper there.
The Impact of Peer Counseling
in Drawing Healthy Birth from the Addict Mother
By Suzanne Grudzinski
In 1985, when Barry Sherman of the School of Public Health responded to one of the most serious health problems New York State had ever faced, he also unknowingly encountered his next book. The book, Addiction and Pregnancy: Empowering Recovery through Peer Counseling, written with Laura Sanders and Chau Trinh, was published last fall by Praeger Publishers.
Sherman and other researchers saw that New York City and other major urban centers in the state were facing the consequences of a growing crack epidemic. Hospitals in New York City were being overcrowded with hundreds of newborns – known as "boarder babies" – infants born to mothers addicted to crack cocaine. These women were not only facing addiction, but addiction to an inexpensive, readily accessible drug for which there was no known antidote. They were receiving no prenatal care and were delivering low birthweight, high-risk infants.
Sherman, asked to confront the growing epidemic and devise preventive measures against it, traveled to the Lincoln Hospital Acupuncture Clinic in the Mott Haven section of the South Bronx. The program already in existence there was a pioneer endeavor called Maternal Substance Abuse Services (MSAS). Acupuncture and Chinese herbs were used to treat withdrawal symptoms; MSAS also made Narcotics Anonymous and counseling sessions available. What the program was missing, however, was peer counseling, thought to be the factor that would hold the innovative program together.
The peer counseling program received a five-year, $1.6 million dollar grant, which was soon put into action. Program creator Sherman suggested it be named SISTERS to capture "the feeling of family closeness held among staff and clients." Peer counselors, known as sisters, are themselves women in recovery who have given birth to babies with positive drug toxicologies. The name was enthusiastically accepted, and an acronym – Sustained Interpersonal Strategies for Treatment and Empowerment of Recovering Substance Abusers – now exists.
SISTERS aims to give women the chance to regain power over themselves and over their lives. The key to the program is rehabilitation so that addicted pregnant women can give birth to healthy babies. Recovery is not only accomplished through detoxification, but through building self-esteem and learning social assertiveness from role models who have been through the same experience. Another central focus of the program is helping to change parenting attitudes and behaviors as women are taught how to handle the stresses of parenting.
The SISTERS program has also been active in the development and validation of new research instruments. The Abstinence Self-Efficacy Scale and the Traumatic Life Events Inventory are state-of-the-art measures of the plight of women in recovery.
Addiction and Pregnancy is based on Sherman's experiences with the program and the data gathered as it became more established. The extensive evaluation demonstrated the program's effectiveness in higher rates of sobriety, improved psychosocial functioning, and numerous family reunifications.
The Public Health Book Review noted that Sherman's book "suggests that women trying to overcome drug addiction fare better when provided a strong network of support." James Maddux of George Mason University's psychology department added that the work is "an interesting, well-documented, and well-written account of an innovative program designed to deal with a serious and often intractable social and psychological problem. The authors are to be commended for the program's innovations and for the careful, data-based evaluation that is presented in the book."
Robert Osuna
By Carol Olechowski
Since his days in high school, Robert Osuna recalls, "I have felt good about sharing whatever knowledge I had with anyone willing to listen." Today, as a faculty member in the Department of Biological Sciences, he shares his knowledge with Albany students.
A Bronx native, Osuna earned his bachelor's and master's degrees in biology at the University of Puerto Rico in Rio Piedras. During his last year as an undergraduate, he remembers, "I had the opportunity to teach biology, chemistry, and physics to junior high school students. Having such an audience was a compelling motivation to improve my teaching strategies. By the time I finished the B.S., I decided to pursue an M.S. with the intention of becoming a college-level biology teacher."
Osuna still had that objective in mind when one of his professors asked if he had considered studying for a Ph.D. He admits: "I hadn't. But several hours of conversation were enough to convince me that I had the 'stuff' that makes a good professor and that I should seriously look into this."
While earning his doctorate at the University of Michigan, Osuna worked as a teaching assistant and as an academic counselor for undergraduates. He recalls his interactions with students as a wonderful experience: "They would frequently approach me to let me know how much they appreciated my dedication and effectiveness in teaching. They boosted my confidence as a teacher and strengthened my desire to teach."
Osuna, who discovered an affinity for research while he was studying for his master's, honed his research interests in molecular biology during his Ph.D. studies and later, when he conducted post-doctoral research at UCLA.
Since he came to Albany five years ago, his work in the laboratory has brought him recognition from the National Institutes of Health in the form of a five-year, $513,300 research grant. His research has also enabled him to "set up a competitive laboratory from scratch," and a "very high-quality" biochemistry laboratory course that allows students to "receive valuable training as researchers, with an emphasis on techniques, critical thinking, problem-solving, and written and oral communication of findings." In addition, Osuna has received three University at Albany faculty research awards.
In collaboration with his co-authors, Osuna has published in the Journal of Bacteriology several papers based on his research, which focuses on understanding the role and expression of a DNA binding protein in the bacterium Escherichia coli, called Fis (Factor for Inversion Stimulation). He has also been invited to write a review article for the Molecular Microbiology FEMS Journal.
Osuna has presented his work at conferences organized by the American Society for Microbiology, of which he is a member, and the Molecular Genetics of Bacteria and Phages meeting organized by the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories and the University of Wisconsin. He has also been invited to conduct seminars at his alma mater in Puerto Rico.
At Albany, he has chaired a number of thesis committees. Osuna notes his pride in "having a student complete a master's degree thesis with me, and having four students on their way to completing their Ph.D. theses under my guidance." He has also chaired the University Commission for Affirmative Action (UCAA) and its subcommittee for waiver requests; and is a member of both the Graduate Programs Committee's Student Admissions Subcommittee and the Committee for Undergraduate Programs in Biology. He is also advisement coordinator for Albany's biochemistry and molecular biology undergraduate program.
Biological sciences chair Jon Jacklet notes: "Robert Osuna has, in a matter of a few years, become one of the best teachers in the department. He is consistently ranked at the 'excellent' level for quality of instructor not only by the students, but also by his peers. Yet, he is a demanding but fair instructor who teaches a challenging course in genetics for our biology majors. In addition to his sterling teacher performance, Robert is an excellent young scientist. Indeed, we are very proud of Robert Osuna."
Osuna acknowledges his pride in "having been able to recruit a graduate student into our program from the University of Puerto Rico." He also notes that he is proud of "my ability, as a Latino faculty member, to serve as a role model for many students of color and of varying cultural backgrounds. I am certain that anyone who hears my story will walk away convinced that, if I could succeed, so could he or she."
His studies at three different institutions, Osuna says, have given him "a better appreciation of the quality of teaching that goes on at Albany. For one thing, the interactions I am able to have with my students are far greater than what I experienced at other universities."
Alumna Detained During Belgrade Bombing
Among the group of 29 foreign journalists arrested and detained on a Belgrade hotel rooftop by Serbian police, hours before the first NATO missiles struck Yugoslavia on March 24, was a University alumna.
Susan Milligan '84 of the Boston Globe was detained for about four hours, after Serbian police officers raided the Hyatt Hotel and confiscated equipment necessary for foreign press to transmit live and taped television footage. The journalists watched as NATO air raids and missile attacks were visible in the distance.
Milligan was among six American reporters detained on the rooftop. All but one of the 29 journalists — a Belgian reporter — were released after four hours, and the Belgian was released the following day.
Milligan received a B.A. in Political Science from Albany, where she wrote news articles for the Albany Student Press. She worked for several years on the New York Daily News, becoming its White House reporter in the mid 1990s. She moved the Globe in February of 1998.
In February, Barbara Fischkin '75, former features writer for Newsday newspaper and author of the book Muddy Cup: A Dominican Family Comes of Age in a New America (Scribner, 1998), has become a regular on-line columnist for the Fox News website (http://www.foxnews.com/).
Richard Nordwind '75 was appointed this year the movie editor for the Los Angeles Times.
Nordwind received a B.A. in both English and history from the University, where he was a frequent contributor to the Albany Student Press.
He has worked on the editorial desks of several Los Angeles-area newspapers since graduation, including the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner and the Orange County Register.
Concert to Benefit Spellman Scholarship
By Vinny Reda
Scholarship programs at both the University and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute will benefit from a prize-winning cellist's April 28 concert, sponsored by The Albany District Links.
Cellist Anthony Elliott will be the featured performer for the program, which will be held at The Troy Savings Bank Music Hall at 7 p.m. Proceeds from the concert will go to the University's Seth Spellman Scholarship and to RPI's Paul Zuber Scholarship.
Elliott was the Grand Prize-winner of the Feuermann International Solo Cello Competition in 1987, and has appeared as a soloist with the New York Philharmonic, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Vancouver Symphony, and the CBC Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Also in continuous demand as a conductor, he is a professor of music at the University of Michigan, and a member of the artist faculty at the Aspen Music Festival.
The late Seth Spellman was a University professor and administrator for more than 20 years. In addition to teaching, he served as dean of the School of Social Welfare and of the Allen Collegiate Center, and as assistant to the president. He also chaired the Department of Afro-American Studies.
The Albany District Links is one of 270 chapters of an international organization committed to promoting education, civic, and cultural activities for its members and the communities in which they live.
Tickets for the concert at $25 each – $20 for seniors and students – are available at The Troy Savings Bank Music Hall. They may also be ordered by phone at 273-0038 or by contacting any member of The Albany District Links.
Women 2nd, Men 4th in Sprint International
Janna Johnston set two school records, and Xiomara Davila Diaz was a double-winner in the 400-meter hurdles and triple jump to highlight Albany's performances at the University of Connecticut Sprint Invitational on Saturday at Sherman Family Sports Complex.
The Great Danes placed second behind Rhode Island in the women's competition, while the men were fourth.
Johnston, a senior from Clifton Park, N.Y., eclipsed the late Kimberly Toone's 1995 mark with a leap of 18-feet, 9.75-inches to win the long jump. In addition, she was second in the javelin with a school-record 112-07, and placed third in the high jump.
Davila Diaz won the 400-hurdles in 1:02.55, and took the triple jump in 36-03.50. The Puerto Rican native was second in the 100-hurdles and third in the 100-dash. Flavia Cass finished first in the discus.
In the men's meet, Ronald Edmundson was the lone winner for the Great Danes, when he went 46-07.25 in the triple jump. Ben Wright placed third in the 1,500 (3:59.13). Danny Agosto and Christian Bloomer were second and third, respectively, in the long jump. Agosto's best mark was 21-11.50, while Bloomer leaped 20-10.50.
Men Rally Once, Not Twice
Junior attackman Dan Small scored with one second remaining in regulation, as Albany rallied in the final period for an 11-10 victory over Skidmore at Varsity Field on March 31. Small, who had four goals and one assist, tallied the game-winning shot, when he came from behind the cage and beat goalkeeper Mike Votano to the off-stick side.
Skidmore trailed 8-7 early in the fourth quarter, but went ahead on back-to-back goals by Tim Harvey and Scott Toth. Albany regained the lead at 10-9 with 4:49 remaining, when John Baumann netted one of his three goals on the afternoon. Harvey drew the Thoroughbreds even with 57 seconds to play.
Albany (2-2) suffered a 10-6 setback at LIU-Southampton last Saturday, as the victor's Rich Stoia scored three times, including the go-ahead goal in the second quarter.
NOTES: The Great Danes host Air Force (Sun., April 11) on Albany Youth Lacrosse Day at 12 noon . . . UA meets six Division I opponents this season . . . Dan Small is Albany's top scorer with 11 goals and four assists, while John Baumann has 10 goals and four assists . . .
Women Win Battle of the Ranked in Lacrosse
Freshman Amy DiMicco scored a season-high four goals and assisted on another, as Albany rallied in the second half for a 12-9 victory over Limestone on April 3 at Varsity Field. Both teams were ranked in last week's Brine/IWLCA Division II national poll.
Limestone used three unanswered goals to reverse a one-goal deficit and take a 6-4 halftime lead. Sophomore attacker Jody Kennedy, who had two goals and two assists, scored twice in that stretch.
Albany (3-2) opened the final period with seven consecutive goals, as Danielle Ballard and Stacey Mayer each found the net twice in that run. Mayer's free-position goal with 21:00 remaining put the Great Danes ahead for good at 7-6.
NOTES: Amy DiMicco's season-high total came on her 19th birthday . . . Anne Colonna scored a career-best five goals in last Monday's 16-3 win at American International . . . Karen Karpus, a senior captain, is seventh on the school's all-time list with 45 career goals . . . the Danes meet nine Division I teams in 1999, including Niagara on Thurs., April 8 . . .
Third Academic All-America for Field Hockey's Peck
Liz Peck has been selected to the GTE District I Academic All-America College Division Fall/Winter At-Large Team for the third straight year. Peck, an All-America midfielder in field hockey, has a 3.94 grade point average as a graduate student in the University's molecular biology doctoral program.
Softball's 15-Win NECC Streak Ends
Debbie Hodge's run-scoring single in the opener helped Albany split a New England Collegiate Conference doubleheader with New Haven last Saturday. The Great Danes won the first contest, 2-1, but had their nine-game winning streak halted in the nightcap by a 4-1 score.
New Haven's Jackie Kupka belted a solo home run in the second inning to give her club the lead in the opening game. Nancy Nicsevic tied the contest in the fifth with an RBI single, before Hodge provided the game-winner in the sixth. Jessica Hansen improved to 8-1 on the mound by scattering four hits and recording five strikeouts.
In the second game, UNH catcher Becky Snow scored two runs and drove in another with a sacrifice fly. Albany (13-7, NECC 5-1) saw a string of 15 straight conference wins come to an end.
NOTES: Michelle Mausteller batted .429 last week with seven RBIs . . . Mausteller's pinch-hit two-run double in the bottom of the seventh was the difference in a 2-1 victory over Queens on April 1 . . . right-hander Jessica Hansen has won five straight decisions, and is 21-2 over the last two seasons . . . freshman Valerie Terry's RBI single in the 11th inning handed Albany a 4-3 victory at Massachusetts-Lowell on March 31 ... Terry's winning hit also provided head coach Chris Cannata with her 100th career win . . .
Lose Two, Win Two on Diamond
Michael Oliva lined a two-run single to center field in the 11th inning of the second game to lead Albany to pair of victories over Massachusetts-Lowell in a New England Collegiate Conference doubleheader on March 31. Albany (4-8, NECC 4-2) won the nightcap, 8-6, and also took the first game, 15-14, in 10 innings. The extra-inning twinbill lasted eight-plus hours at LaLacheur Park.
Oliva, who had five hits and three runs on the day, scored infielders Josh Sanchez and Frank Cannistra with his game-winning hit. The River Hawks had tied the contest at 6-6 in the eighth on RBI singles by Lennie Carter and Glen Magnan.
In the opener, left fielder Rob Ryan stole third base and reached home with the winning run in the tenth on catcher Dave Harne's throwing error. Ryan went 6-for-11 at the plate in the doubleheader with five runs and three RBIs.
Last Saturday, New Haven, the NECC's first-place team, came from behind twice to take two games from the Great Danes. The Chargers rallied in the ninth for a 9-8 victory in the first contest, and were 8-5 winners in the second.
NOTES: Tony Gregoli posted a .500 batting average with five runs and nine RBIs in five games last week . . . Gregoli rapped out five hits, including his second home run of the season, in the New Haven twinbill . . . sophomore Steve Checksfield is hitting .391 over his last five starts with two homers and two doubles . . . Albany played its longest doubleheader (21 innings at Mass.-Lowell) since joining the NECC in 1995 . . . the Danes went 20 innings with Southern Conn. State two years ago.


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Store and transport 25 slides safely with durable ABS cases. Fisherbrand Colored ABS 25 Place Slide Boxes keep standard microscope slides in numbered, grooved slots. Provides safe, dust-free storage.
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At BrightonSEO last month the subject of links with rel="nofollow" generated quite a bit of debate both in the workshop I ran with our Search Strategist JJ Grice and in the PR & SEO roundtable that I attended, so we thought it would be worth clarifying a few reasons why we at Branded3 never say no to nofollow links.
First of all, when thinking about no-follow links we probably need to take a step back and consider the overall strategy and what we're trying to achieve. No strategy should have the sole aim of generating links, there has to be other objectives otherwise it will never be (or look) like a natural strategy.
All of our strategies and placements at Branded3 have multiple objectives aside from just generating links, all placements must have traffic-driving potential, be opening the brand to a new audience, driving social engagement etc.
So here's my top three reasons why we as SEOs or PRs should never be saying no to nofollow links:
1. They have traffic driving potential
You should only ever be trying to generate a link from a website relevant to your client's core offering and that has a genuine readership and audience. If you are doing this right, then all of the links that you place should have traffic driving potential to your client's site which also means there should be the chance of generating a conversion. I'm not saying that every link should drive thousands of visits and conversions, but there needs to be the chance that people seeing the link would want to click on it and have some chance of converting.
2. They can lead to followed links
By getting a nofollow link on a genuine website with a large audience, you open up the chance of other bloggers seeing this and covering the story themselves. The chances are they will also link to your client and they may not no-follow the link which means that you will end up with follow links as a result of the original no-follow link that was placed. We've seen this happen on multiple occasions when we gain a no-follow link on an authority site with a large audience this nearly always translates into followed links from other bloggers.
3. They may help with rankings in the future
Finally, as most of you will have seen there has been much speculation within the SEO community about whether no-follow links actually do pass any value – Google has always said that nofollow links will not pass PageRank but there have been studies that seem to show that nofollow links do help sites to rank.
Most recently, Simon Penson's post on Moz – The Panda Patent: Brand Mentions Are the Future of Link Building looks at Google's latest patent and how nofollow links and even brand mentions with no link at all may well be a part of the algorithm in future. Also, in Matt Cutt's most recent video he talks about being excited for the next algorithm update that will look at how Google measures authority.
I think the key to running a successful, natural SEO campaign is having a mix of follow and nofollow links. As SEOs we need to not be saying no to nofollows or putting pressure on journalists and bloggers to make links followed but just accept that no-follow links bring other benefits and as long as the links are in-line with the overall strategy you should still see success for clients.


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Love Heats Up The Ice
Not just sequins and spandex, this time love was also in the air at the 2008 U.S. Figure Skating Championships. Olympic skating stars John Baldwin and Rena Inoue both had successful singles careers. Inoue, originally skated for Japan, but fell for blond Baldwin and switched teams (not in the gay way). They skated together for the U.S. in the 2006 Winter Olympics and are the first duo to successfully land a triple axel. You know with moves like that, the sex must be pretty crazy! After their most recent program at the national competition, John surprised Rena when he got down on bended knee in the middle of the ice and proposed. Aw, man. It was so cute, we began to feel guilty for staring at his butt. Luckily, we've still got single skating hotties Ryan Bradley and Brian Joubert to melt our ice. So, congratulations to the happy couple on both their silver medal and their engagement! [You Tube]


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New Pelican Canoe
Suitable for up to 3 adults
Weight capacity 800lbs
Oars not included
Whilst every care has been taken in there preparation, the correctness of these particulars is not guaranteed. The particulars are intended only as a guide and they do not constitute a term of any contract. A perspective buyer is strongly advised to check the particulars and where appropriate to have the vessel fully surveyed, inspected and sea or river trialed depending on location of the boat
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Professionalism in the Workplace Workshop
Come join us for this interactive workshop where we will learn how to make that first impression count! We will explore the importance of understanding the culture of the organization you work for and how to be professional at work. Topics cover everything from cell phone etiquette, to avoiding office drama, to the use of social media. This is sure to be an informative workshop that you will not want to miss!
Facilitator(s): Ashley Moore
Contact: For more information, please contact Ashley Moore at email@example.com or at 978-556-3946.
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Date: Friday, Nov. 18th, 2016 from 12:00 to 1:00 p.m.
Location: Haverhill Campus, Room A112
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Location: Lawrence Campus, Room L244
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Date: Thursday, March 2nd, 2017 from 2:00 to 3:00 p.m.
Location: Haverhill Campus, Room SC214
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Date: Tuesday, March 21st, 2017 from 12:00 to 1:00 p.m.
Location: Lawrence Campus, Room LC301


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A NURSERY worker has been suspended after she was accused of posting offensive material about disabled people on her Facebook page.
An investigation has now been launched into the worker, Kila Hunter, at New Beginnings Childcare Limited in Westhoughton after a complaint about the posts was made to Bolton Council.
Ms Hunter has been suspended until the outcome of the investigation.
Pictures alleged to have been posted show adults with Down's syndrome with an offensive caption, and words such as "retards" are shown on the page to describe children with special educational needs.
Screen grabs of the posts, seen by The Bolton News, have been handed over to Bolton Council, which works with the nursery.
New Beginnings has been found to "require improvement" by the government's education watchdog.
The nursery was given the lowest rating by Ofsted, with inspectors describing it as inadequate in January last year.
They said: "Some staff have been employed without the provider taking sufficient steps to check or keep records of their suitability.
"This means the provider has not safeguarded children's welfare."
Bolton Council workers were drafted in to help the nursery raise standards and it rose to an Ofsted grade three rating — which indicated it required improvement — in August, 2013.
- Shocking picture shows stab victim covered in blood after knife attack
- MP demands review into unauthorised luxury home development
- REVEALED: Bolton's massive pothole repair bill and the most complained about roads in the town
- Why this grandmother is so pleased with her holiday win
- How growing up in Bolton forged one of the country's most famous forgers
But then it slipped to "inadequate" in October last year and the government education watchdog took enforcement action and issued a "welfare requirement notice".
This means the nursery has to "ensure staffing arrangements meet the needs of all children, to ensure their safety and to make sure that children are adequately supervised at all times of the day".
It must also "ensure all staff understand the safeguarding policy and procedures, in order to respond in a timely and appropriate way to any safeguarding issues".
In April, the nursery was upgraded to "requires improvement" and Ofsted found "checks are carried out on all staff in order to ensure children are cared for by suitable adults" and that "the nursery had made rapid progress in improving the quality of care and teaching since its previous inspection".
The nursery confirmed Ms Hunter had been suspended and an investigation was underway.
Sharon Ward, owner of the nursery, stressed the allegations were not related to the nursery.
She added: "We were told about this by the local authority. It is nothing to do with the nursery.
"Parents have been informed about the suspension and that it is something to do with Facebook.
"We take safeguarding very seriously and parents have been very supportive."
The nursery has informed the relevant bodies, including the council.
Ms Hunter's Facebook page now has privacy settings which mean that no comments are now visible.
She declined to comment when approached by The Bolton News.
One person, who did not want to be identified, said: "I think the posts are disgusting and anybody who thinks that should not be educating children."
New Beginnings Childcare Limited was registered in 2012 and is privately managed, operating from two floors of a converted police station in Westhoughton.
It employs 17 members of childcare staff.
There are 79 children on its roll, and the nursery receives support and advice from the local authority.


text:
CMF clearinghouse Homepage
Transportation professionals now have a new resource to help them identify, implement and evaluate cost-effective roadway safety improvements. The UNC Highway Safety Research Center (HSRC), with funding from the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration, has established the Crash Modification Factors (CMF) Clearinghouse, a central, Web-based repository of Crash Modification Factors, or CMFs. The CMF Clearinghouse is located at www.CMFClearinghouse.org.
A CMF is an estimate of the change in crashes expected after implementation of a certain roadway safety treatment, such as a traffic signal. For example, imagine that an intersection is experiencing 100 angle crashes and 500 rear-end crashes per year. If you apply a countermeasure that has a CMF of 0.80 for angle crashes, then you can expect to see 80 angle crashes per year following the implementation of the countermeasure (100 x 0.80 = 80). If the same countermeasure also has a CMF of 1.10 for rear-end crashes, then you would also expect to also see 550 rear-end crashes per year following the countermeasure (500 x 1.10 = 550).
CMFs are often used by transportation professionals in their decision-making process to determine which countermeasures to implement in order to achieve specific safety gains. Previously, CMFs were located through various national and state sources. The CMF Clearinghouse gives transportation professionals' access to more than 1800 CMFs for over 400 countermeasures in one central, searchable location.
"Our goal is to provide practitioners with the information they need to make informed decisions for their road safety treatments," said Daniel Carter, engineering research associate at HSRC and member of the CMF Clearinghouse project team. "The CMF Clearinghouse brings together CMFs from references such as the Highway Safety Manual and the FHWA Desktop Reference Guide, as well as a multitude of recently published safety studies.
By searching the CMF database, professionals can identify potential countermeasures, obtain their expected effectiveness, compare alternative treatments and find resources on cost-benefit analysis. This enables users to make educated decisions about the most applicable CMF to their condition. In addition to the vast listing of CMFs, the Web site includes a general overview of CMFs, a glossary of terms related to CMFs and a listing of frequently asked questions. Users may access a comprehensive resources section that includes links to CMF-related information on trainings, resources and publications.
The CMF Clearinghouse also encourages transportation professionals to submit their own CMF studies for inclusion into the clearinghouse. The Web site will be updated regularly with new research and user submissions that have undergone critical reviews by the CMF Clearinghouse project team. Researchers at the HSRC have contributed significant work in the development, analysis and modification of specific CMFs. In 2003, HSRC researchers joined other highway safety experts as part of National Cooperative Highway Research Project (NCHRP) 17-25 to examine CMFs and their effectiveness. This effort resulted in the NCHRP Report 617: Accident Modification Factors for Traffic Engineering and ITS Improvements. The report was completed in 2008, and outlines 35 CMFs that are deemed to be of high or medium-high quality. For more information, please visit www.CMFClearinghouse.org.
The University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center
730 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd, Suite 300 | Campus Box 3430 | Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3430
Phone: 919.962.2203 | Fax: 919.962.8710


text:
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Turnaround as public sees humanity behind the wire
Page Tools
I'm falling in love with Michael Duffy. That's a bit of a worry for him, because I'm a grandma. His writings of late have been insightful and informative and, may I say, good honest analyses. "Suddenly the tide of toughness turns" ( Herald, June 11-12) was refreshingly frank and honest.
Mr Duffy gives his readers something to ponder when he asks if the Government's "new" compassion for "all refugees, not just Mr Chen" means its previous toughness was "assumed" and, if so, he questions the "moral seriousness" of the Coalition.
Ah yes. Now that is the big question. Maybe the Government is sniffing the wind and can feel there's a change stirring in the electorate concerning its attitude to "illegals" and their incarceration. People don't like to see little children behind barbed wire. The "illegals" are fast becoming very human indeed. Populism has helped the Coalition enormously during its tenure in office and it knows when to change tack if it is prudent to do so.
Lorraine Nelson Frenchs Forest
The wrangling within the parliamentary Liberal Party over immigration is not to be disparaged.
Refugees were demonised at the time of Tampa because it was the most public demonstration that the Government "was doing something" about media-hyped boat landings.
Since then, Australia has militarily attacked the regimes from which many people had sought asylum. There has been a demonstrable rise in "Christian" thinking and rhetoric, "family values" and a more charitable mood following regional natural disasters. Furthermore, accepted refugees have merged into the productive community, just as they always have.
Of course, there has also been increasing evidence that our immigration policy, culture and administration is deeply flawed. We can't move forward as a society if governments do not periodically grapple with - and reassess - conflicting values.
David Cumming Mosman
What gives with Michael Duffy? He was widely touted as the right-wing answer to Phillip Adams but he seems to be slipping towards the left. He'd better watch it, lest he be labelled a Howard hater.
Peter Spencer Newtown
The Prime Minister recently stated that trade with China and the almighty dollar would not influence how the Chinese diplomat Chen Yonglin would be treated in his bid to stay in this country. Was that core, non-core or good old political theatre, Mr Howard?
D.J. Fraser Gold Coast (Qld)
After so many years of pig-headedness towards the inhumane treatment of asylum seekers in detention, John Howard has apparently seen the light. He has offered improved health services and measures to reduce lengthy stays in detention ("Howard moves on detention to rein in MPs", Herald, June 10).
But you report that Howard's offer is designed to persuade Petro Georgiou to "drop his proposed private member's bill and prevent the embarrassment of Liberal MPs voting against the Government on the detention policy"; therefore, Howard is not genuinely humanitarian on this issue.
Every mind can choose between concern and indifference for fellow humans. Petro Georgiou has demonstrated his concern by gentle words and a proposal to reduce Australia's heartless treatment of asylum seekers. John Howard, in contrast, has once more demonstrated that some minds are like concrete, thoroughly mixed up and permanently set.
Vincent Scoppa Leichhardt
Here's hoping that the Government's sotto voce behind closed doors apropos its immigration detention policy will speak loudly for a humane and sensible treatment of any and all detainees, and not just of asylum seekers. Australia and the rest of the world is listening in.
Hendry Wan Matraville
Mornings not the same without Catterns for breakfast
Disaster! Angela Catterns is leaving the ABC and my 40-year-old Philips mantel radio through which I have been listening (loud and clear on 2BL in NSW) to "Ange" every morning ("The ABC's toast as Catterns goes for gold", Herald, June 11-12). My beloved wireless has no FM. Don't tell me that I have to retire it after all this time? What to do?
Peter Frylink Umina Beach
I just heard of the move to the new FM station by Angela Catterns. I listen to her each day but I will not be changing stations to follow her. She should look at what happened to Philip Clark when he moved to 2GB - we all stayed and listened to her. I think most ABC listeners are wedded to the station, not the presenter. Although I wish her well, I can't see her getting anywhere near to the 8 per cent rating she had at 702.
Robert Pallister Punchbowl
When will programmers realise that we may be over 40, but dead we're not. Angela Catterns seems like a lovely woman but her breakfast offering was the aural equivalent of watching paint dry. Roll on the change.
Eddie Raggett Mosman
Angie, Angie, where will it lead us from here? Mornings will never be the same.
Geoff Bullock West Pennant Hills
So, 702 (or 2BL for oldies) is looking for a new breakfast announcer after Angela Catterns departs. They should look no further than Bob Carr - he is the best announcer in the state.
David Magoffin Cheltenham
Memo to she who must be obeyed in staff management: ABC, your current problem is easily solved.
Welcome Clive Robertson back to ABC Classic FM, surprise and delight 100 per cent of ex-listeners, move present incumbent to 702 QED.
Pat Ellercamp Caves Beach
Other airlines get the jump on Qantas
After reading the comments of Qantas's chief financial officer, Peter Gregg, on the bid by Singapore Airlines to take business from Qantas ("Singapore Air has a secret agenda, claims the Frightened Kangaroo", Herald, June 10), I suggest he book a flight with Singapore Airlines on a seat in any class and he'll soon realise that the biggest thing Qantas needs to worry about is the other airline's vastly superior customer focus and service. Ditto for Cathay Pacific and Emirates.
Qantas has allowed itself to become little more than a dressed-up imitator of the US airlines, which left customer focus on the shelf more than 10 years ago. Qantas playing the nationalistic card when it suits is no substitute for world-class customer service.
Gerard Kennedy Shanghai (China)
Popularity contest
In Vietnam, an Australian citizen has been sentenced to death for drug smuggling ("Bid to save Australian from execution", Herald, June 11-12). To gain full government and public support in Australia, he will need to show he is fit, tanned and handsome.
Barry Smythe Wallerawang
An announcement ssh
I never thought I'd see the day when I agree with Mitchell Beston (Letters, June 10).
While CityRail is restoring bins to the stations, so that some of us can actually sit on the currently littered seats while waiting for our delayed trains, could it also stop the incessant repetition of multiple public address messages about delayed trains, trains running out of timetable order, and holding on to your children?
If we have to wait for up to 30 minutes for a delayed train, could we at least do so in peace?
Ramona Singh Glebe
Regarding the lack of bins on Sydney rail platforms, Melbourne commuters suffer no such problems. They're also not subjected to constant announcements warning them not to touch unaccompanied baggage.
Melbourne also manages to provide its citizenry with working public toilets and water bubblers, luxuries that seem beyond Sydney's local governments.
David McBain Warilla
Exams the answer
The article "Great expectations fuel the rise of school plagiarism" ( Herald, June 10) suggests that plagiarism is rife in our schools and that detection is often difficult.
The solution is actually quite simple and avoids the ridiculous setting of homework and assignments that bedevil parents and give rise to private tutoring organisations. The answer is regular in-house tests and exams. Tests should replace assignments to assess learning outcomes on a regular basis. Tests should be developed to encourage both knowledge retention and application, something homework often fails to achieve.
Plagiarism would no longer be a problem in schools and kids wouldn't be afraid of that big exam at the end of year 12.
Brad Hinton Mount Colah
A stunned ecologist
I'm an ecologist and I'm stunned ("Russia's floating nuclear station stuns ecologists", Herald, June 11-12). What stuns me, however, is that the Herald does not know what an ecologist is.
An ecologist is a scientist (you know, food chains, distribution and abundance of organisms, etc). An environmentalist is just (arguably) a political derivative of the science done by ecologists.
It's bad enough that my discipline is often used as a misnomer to lend credibility to often ill-informed, reactionary rabbles of protesters. It is completely intolerable that at dinner parties when we tell people our title (after years of tertiary study) they think we have just stated a quaint political position and are left wondering what we do for money.
Your story has just undone years of dinner party education - I think I'll go and be a lawyer.
Colin Thorpe Coogee
Tax cases awaited
I have a lazy $10 which says that none of the 12 clients of the tax fraud schemes ("Big end of town caught in tax raids", Herald, June 11-12) will be charged. Nor will the public learn their names or the amount of money each has contributed (or caused to be contributed) to a certain political party over the years.
Garry Wong Wanniassa (ACT)
Selfish water use
Each morning passing through Taylor Square in inner Sydney, I am in total disbelief and outrage. How do our councils justify making a complete mockery of the water shortage in this country? What exactly is the point of that row of tubes in Taylor Square which pour out litres and litres of water - is it a fountain? And, if so, what right do we have ornamenting our cities with water features at a time like this?
Others to whom water is like gold are struggling to feed their families, while our fountains are happily flowing. Turn them off, if anything just out of respect.
Beata Chudyba Paddington
Brilliant! The State Government is responding to the water crisis by stopping environmental flows, then sucking the rest of the water out of the bottoms of the dams, then raising the walls of empty dams, then building a pipeline to a dry river bed, then drilling for fast-disappearing groundwater, then desalinating sea water that will contribute to the climate change that is causing the problem in the first place. What's next?
Tony Hill Bundanoon
A recent trip through Goulburn confirmed the dire state of climatic affairs in that neck of the woods. Things are so dry that the trees have started following dogs around.
Stephen Driscoll Carlingford
Faith tested
Scott Poynting (Letters, June 10) wonders when there will be an inquiry into the actions of our military in regard to the SIEV-X disaster. I think I have a little more faith in our military than he does, but, then again, I used to think that baggage handlers were honest toilers who did the occasional comedy turn with animal costumes.
Rosemary O'Brien Georges Hall
Misguided conservation
Good to read Marilyn Hoey (Letters, June 10) - elephants don't belong in Mosman. None of the animals do.
I recently received a letter from Taronga Zoo wanting donations for its rainforest exhibit for two silvery gibbons. It claimed that it can provide a better rainforest than the original habitat in Indonesia, and said that the monkeys were "my family" and that if I donated money I would receive a photo of them to be put into my own personal family photo album. I was repulsed by this patronising and condescending rubbish.
This Noah's Ark approach to conservation is archaic and utterly wrong. What saddens me is that the money spent on sending out this rubbish would be better spent on buying tracts of land in Indonesia for the monkeys.
Sarah James Rozelle
Power walking
If Bob Carr is considering nuclear power stations as an option for our energy desires, he should also consider "gym generation". Get all the city's gyms connected to generators and have all those exercise bikes and treadmills produce electricity.
Adrian Langker Dulwich Hill
Spectacle sellers focus on profit
Having been in the spectacle frame business, I can tell C. McNamara (Letters, June 11-12) that frames are expensive because of the spectacular profit margins involved, particularly when the names of famous designers are attached. Virtually all frames now come out of the same few factories in South-East Asia, at an import cost of a few dollars apiece. This industry follows the age-old adage: forget the cost, the price is what the market will bear.
Michael Phillips Wollstonecraft
I would like to know why I can buy a 34-centimetre colour television with remote control and warranty for less than $100, but this would only buy me about one half of a pair of eyeglass frames (and cheap ones at that).
Bill Hamilton River Heads (Qld)
Doner in the flesh
Your piece on doner kebabs (Spike, June 10) reminded me of that great maxim of Dame Edna's - she wouldn't eat a kebab unless she knew who the doner was.
E. Scott Paddington
Tough to stomach
According to the weekend's 376-page Herald, an English company is planning to market pea ice-cream ("How to hide children's vegies in a choo choo of deception"). Did anybody, like me, have the misfortune to read this gem of information in the middle of eating breakfast?
Jan Serisier Turramurra
Go to the country
While the State Government is busy digging tunnels around the city, spare a thought for our country cousins. How about a tunnel through the Blue Mountains to bring the country closer to the city?
Brian Swan Epping
Chatterers' corner
Ian Sanderson (Letters, June 11-12), those that aren't in the chattering classes refer to themselves as the silent majority, presumably because they let Alan Jones and John Laws do all of their thinking and talking for them.
Tony Peric Mosman
On the next boat
I vote for Peter Costello to leave the island. Second is Amanda.
Keith Russell Mayfield West
Discount CEO offer
So Telstra, after a long and extensive search, has chosen an American to head the company. And for only $10 million a year. I would have done it for $1 million a year and a phone card.
Gary Watters Panania
Bring on the chiefs
Australia needs apprenticeships to catch up on its skills shortage in CEOs.
Morris Graham Georgetown
Life on Mars
Richard Black is concerned about the "hoonish message" being sent to our youth by scientists getting ecstatic about a burn-out on Mars (Letters, June 10). Surely as big an issue is the poor example it sets for Martian youth.
Tony Moore Caringbah


text:
In separate press releases, Bell'O International and Z-Line Design today announced progress in an effort to have patents awarded to Whalen Furniture Manufacturing reexamined. However, Whalen stated that reexamination is part of a dispute process and did not suggest its patents had been revoked.
The action comes after Whalen sued Bell'O, Z-Line, Walker Edison Furniture Co. and TechCraft Manufacturing late last year for infringing a patent for its 3-in-1 mount. Whalen launched the patent infringement lawsuits against the companies on December 19, 2011 in the United States District Court for the Southern District of California.
In the actions, Whalen alleged that the 3-in-1 television stands produced by the four competitors infringed U.S. Patent Number 8,079,311 owned by Whalen. In the suit, Whalen sought an award of damages as well as an injunction to have its competitors enjoined from manufacturing and/or selling their infringing television stands in the U.S.
On June 5, Whalen announced that it was awarded a second utility patent for its 3-in-1 Television Support and Mounting Kit. The company then filed lawsuits against Bell'O, Z-Line, Walker-Edison and TechCraft, Inc., alleging infringement of the new patent, Number 8,191,485.
Today, Bell'O announced that, on November 9, The U.S. Patent & Trademark Office issued orders granting the company's request and for reexamination of Whalen's '311 and '485 patents; and a request for an action rejecting the claims related to them in the reexamination proceedings.
Marc Sculler, Bell'O CEO, noted that the patent office had accepted arguments that the company had made in asking for the reexamination. According to patent office documentation provided by Bell'O, an examiner determined that Bell'O would likely to prevail in its objections to Whalen's patent claims and ordered the reexamination.
"Bell'O has not infringed any of Whalen's alleged patent rights, and Bell'O will continue to vigorously defend against the complaint's allegations," Sculler said. "As a leading designer and manufacturer of furniture and consumer electronic accessories, Bell'O holds over 200 worldwide patents, trademarks and copyrights. Bell'O respects intellectual property rights and takes care to avoid infringements. Bell'O will continue to pursue invalidity of Whalen's '311 and '485 patents via the PTO reexamination proceedings and in the lawsuit."
Z-Line Designs issued a statement reiterating its previously expressed position on the patent infringement lawsuits filed against it by Whalen as being without merit. Z-Line asserted in the statement that its contention has been supported by the patent office's reexamination proceedings. Among the defects with the patents the PTO found, according to Z-Line, was that one of Whalen's own products was on sale and sold well prior to the applications that led to the issuance of the patents. That circumstance rendered the patents invalid, Z-Line stated.
Jim Sexton, CEO of Z-Line Designs commented, "As a leading furniture designer and manufacturer, Z-Line respects intellectual property rights and takes care to avoid infringements. Z-Line itself has a strong intellectual property portfolio that it has developed over many years. Z-Line assures their customers and partners that Z-Line stands behind and is fully committed to its products, and that they should not be misled by any claims from Whalen representatives regarding Z-Line's products, or its ability to supply those products. There will be no change or impact on the way Z-Line sells and supports their product lines. Z-Line intends to defend these lawsuits vigorously and is convinced now, more than ever, that it has strong and meritorious positions that will prevail."
In its statement, Whalen said, "Reexaminations are part of the normal course of a patent dispute. While Whalen's patents will be reexamined in the USPTO, Whalen's lawsuit against Bell'O and Z-Line for infringement of the '311 and '485 Patents remains. Whalen is confident that the USPTO will confirm the validity of Whalen's patents and a jury will confirm Bell'O's and Z-Line's infringement."