May 30, 1997: Volume 40, Number 5

For the Record

Robert Baker, professor of philosophy, was a guest on Fresh Air with host Terry Gross for a discussion on medical ethics, the challenge of managed care and the role of alternative medicines. He was joined by Art Caplan of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania (where Baker is visiting scholar). The two were interviewed as co-organizers of an American Medical Association conference celebrating the sesquicentennial of the 1847 Code of Ethics, the first to be adopted by a national medical society. Fresh Air is broadcast nationally over a number of public radio stations.

Chemistry major Lamyaa Hassib '98 under the direction of Prof. James C. Adrian Jr., assistant professor of chemistry, has been named a winner of both a GlaxoWellcome Summer Fellowship and a Pfizer Summer Fellowship to conduct research this Summer in the chemistry department. The title of their winning project is: "Catalytic Enantioselective Addition of Silyl Enolates to Imines with Chiral, C2-Symmetric 2,6-Diiminopyridyl-Metal Complex Lewis Acids." The project proposes a novel synthesis of chiral b(beta)-amino acids, compounds which have found an important role in the pharmaceutical industry.

Martha Huggins, Roger Thayer Stone Professor of Sociology, has been featured recently in a number of articles in the international press about her book Political Policing and her research (and upcoming book) on Brazilian torturers. Articles appeared in Estado de Sáo Paulo one of Brazil's largest newspapers, the German magazine Focus, and the Swiss newspaper Neve Züricher Zeitung.

Paul Gremillion, assistant professor of civil engineering, presented a paper titled, "An Undergraduate Course that Integrates Faculty Research and Practical Environmental Field and Laboratory Methods" recently at the Zone I meeting of the American Society for Engineering Education. The meeting included faculty from colleges and universities from the mid-Atlantic and New England regions and from southeastern Canada.

Martin Benjamin, professor of art, and Charles Steckler, associate professor of theater, are presenting works at the 1997 Photography Invitational, an exhibition of winners from past Photography Regional Exhibitions. The show runs through June 11 at RCCA: The Arts Center in Troy. For details, call 273-0552.

Hilary Tann, professor of music, has released two compositions on a CD titled Celtic Connections, which features three contemporary composers with links to Ireland and Wales. The music is performed by Ireland's leading contemporary music ensemble, Concorde. Of Erthe and Air for mixed trio, was composed while Tann was resident faculty member for the term abroad in Japan in the fall of 1990; The Cresset Stone is a meditative work for solo violin, completed in 1994. The CD was produced by Capstone Records (CPS-8640) and is available through Albany Music Distributors (800-752-1951).

Randolph Quaye, assistant professor of sociology and Africana studies, is to give a talk titled "Health Care in Black America: Perceptions of Health Care Providers" this summer at the 12th International Interdisciplinary Conference on Hypertension in Blacks, to be held in London. His presentation focuses on a year-long study at two Schenectady County clinics in which providers recommend greater efforts toward preventative medicine and the inclusion of transportation services in outreach departments.

Donna Burton, associate professor in Schaffer Library, has published two book reviews in Journal of Government Information from Pergamon Press. She reviewed The United Nations and Human Rights, 1945-1995 (U.N. Dept. of Public Information), part of the U.N. "Blue Book Series." This publication has compiled the text of 100 documents generated or approved by the U.N. on human rights issues and was praised by Burton for the multiplicity of access points to the material and the affordable price. Her second review treated a bibliographic tool designed to assist documents librarians and users of the early federal censuses up through 1945. Author Kevin Cook's Dubester's U.S. Census Bibliography with SuDocs Class Numbers and Indexes (Libraries Unlimited), an update and expansion of an earlier work, has added indexing, documents numbers and annotations that make this a valuable addition for those with heavily used retrospective census collections, Burton wrote.

Rudy Nydegger, associate professor of psychology, is president elect of the Psychological Association of Northeastern New York. He will assume a one-year term as president next year.

Terry Weiner, professor of political science and sociology, delivered a paper titled "Medicine, Medicaid and Managed Care: A Broken Covenant?" at the Southern Sociological Society meetings this spring. The paper examines the policy of placing the elderly and the poor in managed care programs and questions whether this policy is consistent with legislation in 1965.

David Gerhan, head of public services and of reference, has written bibliographic entries for the 1997 biennial Bibliographie intemationale de la demographic. Gerhan identified, selected, classified, and annotated 174 citations to the literature of historical demography, published in books, journal articles, papers, and other special studies in the U. S. in 1993-1994. The B.I.D.H is published at the Université de Liège, Belgium, under the auspices of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population, the International commission of Historical Demography, and the Société française de la démographie historique and serves as the bibliographical record for historical demographers. Gerhan serves as correspondent for the United States, among 27 other contributors for various nations.

James T. McWhirter, assistant professor of physics, has received a Cottrell Science Award of $32,000 to support his research in "Point Defects and Their Application to Solid State Lasers." The Cottrell College Science Program is supported by Research Corporation of Tucson, Ariz. It supports research in chemistry, physics and astronomy at undergraduate colleges.

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