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Searching for a Better Understanding of Mentally-Disordered Perpetrators of Violent Crime |
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Two New Computer Labs in McCormack Hall: Students Networked for Success |
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Campus Notes |
Conferences and Presentations
In January, faculty and graduate students of the Department of Anthropology and the Historical Archaeology Program presented recently completed research on the Magunco site, one of John Eliot's Christian Native Communities, at the annual meeting of the Society for Historical Anthropology in Quebec City. Presenters included Professors Barbara Luedtke and Stephen Mrozowski, who organized the session, and students and graduates John P. Murphy, Kathrine Priddy, David Brown, Holly Herbster, and John Kelley.
On February 5, Carol Hardy-Fanta, research director, Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy and Tess Browne, Mass Audit coordinator, made a presentation and conducted a workshop at the Women 2000 Conference, the five-year follow up to the UN International Women's Conference held in Bejing in 1995. Hardy-Fanta and Browne's presentation was on the Mass Action for Women Audit.
Professor Stephen Mrozowski of the Anthropology Department presented a lecture to the New York Academy of Sciences on the topic "Historical Archaeology and the Future of Anthropological Research" on February 28.
Physics Professor Gopal Rao presented a talk on optical information processing on December 9 to the Boston Chapter of the National Society of Imaging Science and Technology at the Polaroid Corporation in Waltham.
In February, June Kuzmeskus, coordinator of the UMass Boston-Dorchester High School Partnership, Sandra Simpson and Chris Baumgarten, teachers at Dorchester High School, and Emily Bibbins, a Teach Next Year intern, conducted a conference session on the collaborative development and implementation of Teach Next Year, the Dorchester High School-based urban educator preparation program. The session was held at the annual meeting of the American Association of Colleges of Teacher Education in Chicago.
Professor Edmund Beard, director of the McCormack Institute, presented a public lecture at the Romanian Cultural Foundation in Bucharest, Romania on February 9. His topic was "Continuity and Change in the American Political Party System: A Preview of the Upcoming US Presidential Election."
Professor Margaret Driscoll, director of the Instructional Design Program, was a keynote speaker at the United States Air Force Special Operations Base at Hurlburt Airforce Base in Florida, where she delivered a talk on web-based training, "Beyond the Page Turner."
Professor Frederick C. Gamst of the Anthropology Department made several presentations on labor and safety issues in the railroad industry in December and January. One of only three faculty members nationwide to serve on the Railroad Safety Advisory Committee to the Federal Railroad Administrator, Gamst helped formulate industry automation standards in December following two years of research. His findings, which led to a prohibition of one-person freight train crews, was among the topics he presented to railroad unions in December, and in January, he presented on the same topics to the Transportation Research Board's subcommittee on Human Factors of Fixed Guideway Transportation Systems.
Adrian Haugabrook, assistant dean of students, was the keynote speaker at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in North Adams on February 12. He also facilitated the opening and closing sessions of the conference, the theme of which was "CAUTION: Leaders under Construction."
Harold Horton, associate director of the William Monroe Trotter Institute, presented "Facts and Fallacies as related to Affirmative Action" at a campus-wide teach-in, "In Defense of Affirmative Action" held at UMass Amherst in September. He also was the discussant for a symposium, " The Role of Research in Challenging Racial Inequalities in Education" at the April 1999 meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) in Montreal, Canada.
Professor Garrison Nelson, senior fellow, McCormack Institute, participated at a conference on Presidential-Congressional Relations at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on January 29.
Professor Segi Stefanos of the General Center, CPCS, presented a paper, "Gender and Nationalism in Post-Independence Eritrea: Compatibility and Tensions" at the DuBois Institute, Harvard University on February 2. Her presentation was sponsored by the Civil Society and Democratization Research Group. A shorter version of the paper was presented at the National Union of Eritrean Women's 20th Anniversary Conference on November 28, 1999 in Asmara, Eritrea.
Professors Rajini Srikanth (English) Lois Rudnick (American Studies/English) and Larry Blum (Philosophy) have been hired by WGBH Television to provide workshops for Boston area schoolteachers in conjunction with the new television series, "Culture Shock," which focuses on controversial works of art, literature, and music. They will be presenting a workshop on March 21 related to the Culture Shock episode, "Born to Trouble: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," dealing with issues of race and racism in the novel. They previously presented their workshop on February 10 on campus, and led a discussion after a showing of the documentary at the Boston Public Library on February 1.
Honors and Awards
Michael Borek, director of the Harbor Explorations Program at the Graduate College of Education, is the recipient of the 1999 Public Educator Award given by the New England Water Environment Association, an organization that promotes the objectives of cleaner water and increased public awareness of water pollution control.
Music major Daniel Barrett Sumber co-produced, played guitar, and sang on the album "Silver Bowl" which was recently nominated for a Boston Music Award. The album features vocalist Kristin Cifelli and was nominated in the Best New Folk Album category. Sumber is a student of Professor David Patterson.
Publications
Physics Professor Gopal Rao's article, "Optical Implementation of Wavelet Transform" appeared in the December issue of the journal Optics and Photonics News. The December issue is devoted to highlighting significant breakthroughs published in other journals. Rao's article originally appeared in the September issue of Applied Physics Letters.
Professor Donaldo Macedo of the English Department and Applied Linguistic Program, has written a new book, Dancing with Bigotry: Beyond the Politics of Tolerance co-authored with Professor Lilia Bartolome of the English Department and published by St.Martins Press. He also co-authored with Bartolome "El Racismo en La Era de la Sloba Lizacion" published in La educación en el siglo XXI: Los retos del futuro immediato edited by Francisco Imbermón. This text was published by Editorial GRAO, Barcelona, Spain. In addition, the following articles by Macedo have been published: "The Illiteracy of English-Only Literacy" in Educational Leadership; "Decolonizing the English - Only Movement" published by Harvard University Publishing Group; and "Freire: el pedagogo más importante del siglo XX" which appeared in Educación Social, Barcelona, Spain.
A critique of the Intermark's web-based learning center by Professor Margaret Driscoll, director of the Instructional Design Program was published in the February 2000 issue of Inside Technology training magazine. The critique was titled "Web-based Training: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly."
Grants
The Center for Social Policy, McCormack Institute, has been awarded a $143,000, fifteen-month grant from the US Department of Health and Human Services to assess the impact of welfare reform on trends in emergency services. This project involves collection and analysis of data and case studies of emergency service providers and recipients from six communities in Massachusetts, and will be done in collaboration with the Institute for Asian American Studies and the Trotter Institute.
Outreach
Staff members from the Center for Social Policy, McCormack Institute, participated in the one-night census of homeless persons for the City of Boston on December 13. They worked with staff members from the Long Island Shelter and Pine Street Inn to gather information on a random sample of individuals who sought shelter that night. The information was analyzed in comparison to other statewide homeless information collected by the Center through the ANCHoR Project.
Performance
Fernando Colina of the Office of Institutional Research, was one of 450 performers who staged Mahler's Symphony No. 8 with the Boston Philharmonic at Symphony Hall. As a member of the Chorus Pro Musica, these same performers staged an encore presentation at Carnegie Hall in New York City on January 19.
Events
The Labor Resource Center and the Massachusetts AFL-CIO co-hosted an economic development summit of 22 representatives from 11 state research institutions working in the areas of regional economic development, workforce development, and and labor market analysis. Three UMass Boston centers, the McCormack Institute, the Gaston Institute's Center for Community and Economic Development, and the Labor Resource Center.
On February 1, UMass Boston hosted a "virtual board meeting" of the Massachusetts Chapter of the Alzheimers Association, connecting sites in Lowell and Hadley with UMass Boston. The video conferencing technology was coordinated by John Jessoe of the Distance Learning Center, and supported by the Massachusetts Turnpike Initiative (MITI). Professor Nina Silverstein, director of the Undergraduate Program in Gerontology, is president of the Massachusetts Alzheimer's Association.
A reception honoring government and educational officials from the People's Government, Guangdong Province, China, was hosted on January 29 by Chancellor Penney and Dean Philip Quaglieri of the College of Management. John Ciccarelli, assistant to the Chancellor for Economic Development, organized this program with the Peoples Government, Guangdong Province, which provides the nine officials with training in western management concepts through College of Management and other courses.
Appointments
Susan Swann has been appointed director of the GEAR UP program, a new initiative of the University's Pre-Collegiate and Educational Support Services funded by the US Department of Education to increase the number of students at the Gavin Middle School prepared to pursue a college education. Swann was the assistant director of the Learning Center at Suffolk University before coming to UMass Boston.
Galia Kagan has been appointed coordinator of the Health Careers Opportunity Program, which seeks to increase the number of students from disadvantaged backgrounds who are preparing to pursue a career in public health or medicine. The program is a collaboration of the University's Pre-Collegiate and Educational Support Services, the Massachusetts Public Health Association and Tufts University. Kagan was formerly the middle school career specialist for the Private Industry Council.
Jane Brown-Sederberg has joined the staff of the Division of Continuing Education as coordinator of Information Technology Programs. She will be responsible for developing courses, workshops and certificate programs for the DCE's Technology Training Center. Previously, Brown-Sederberg has held positions in the Office of the State Auditor and at Bridgewater State College.
In the News
An op-ed article by Professor Lawrence G. Franko of the College of Management, "HMO's plight calls for market reform" appeared in the Boston Herald on January 12, 2000. His letter to the editor of The Boston Globe on the same topic was published on February 7.
Edmund Beard, director of the McCormack Institute, was a guest on Romanian Television's public affairs show "Orient Express" during February. He was interviewed on the 2000 presidential election.
Dale H. Freeman of the UMass Boston Archives was interviewed on the Chelmsford and Greater Lowell area cable television show, "The Writers" to discuss his publications in the Historical Journal of Massachusetts and his thesis on the history of the West Boston Bridge.
Copyright Award
On January 28, the United States Department of Commerce, Patent and Trademark Office, granted UMass Boston the exclusive trademark or copyright for the title of our public sculpture park, Arts on the Point.