TWO UMB ALUMNI JOIN BOARD OF TRUSTEES:
Acting Governor Jane Swift has appointed three new university trustees, Dennis G. Austin, Lawrence Boyle, and James J. Karam. All three appointees received their undergraduate degrees from UMass campuses, and Austin and Boyle are alumni of UMass Boston.
Austin is the director of state government relations for the Raytheon Company. Boyle is the senior partner of the Morrison, Mahoney, and Miller law firm in Boston. Karam, a graduate of UMass Dartmouth, is the president of First Bristol Corporations in Fall River. The newly named trustees replace former trustees Daniel E. Bogan, Roberts S. Karam, and Peter K. Lewenberg.
FACULTY APPOINTMENTS:
Jain Ruvidich-Higgins, director of the Office for Service Learning and Community Outreach, was appointed to serve on the Region One Commonwealth of Massachusetts Charitable Campaign Employees Campaign Committee.
Kristine Alster has been appointed interim dean of the College of Nursing and Health Sciences and will begin her term on June 6, following the retirement of Dean Brenda Cherry. Alster has taught in the College of Nursing since 1983.
Judith Smith of the American Studies Program has been appointed a Charles Warren Fellow and will participate in a seminar on film history at Harvard University. Her project is titled “Black and White in Color: Hollywood Film Representations of Racial Citizenship, 1949-1963.”
PUBLIC SAFETY NOTES:
The department has been notified by the Mass. Executive Office of Public Safety that it has been approved to be a recipient of funding in 2003 to replace bulletproof vests for officers that were purchased five years ago. This replacement program has saved the department over $25,000. In all Public Safety has received over $410,000 in grant funding since 1996.
Officers Jeff Williams and Keith Harrington have left the department to take positions in larger departments in the Metro Boston area.
Program Specialist Richard Lee will assist in running the New England Community-Policing Partnership annual convention in June. Lee is a board member of the organization which is dedicated to maintaining the precepts of Community policing in a changing world.
ORTIZ NAMED INTERIM DIRECTOR OF LIBRARIES:
Interim Provost Arthur MacEwan has announced the appointment of Daniel Ortiz as interim director of libraries. He will begin his term on July 8, 2002, following the departure of Dr. Sharon Bosstick. He will serve as interim director until the appointment of a permanent director.
Ortiz joined UMB in 1992 as science librarian. After receiving his doctorate in library administration from Simmons College in 1994, he became associate director of libraries in 1995. In 1998 he served as director of library services at the Massachusetts College of Art, and then returned to UMB in 1999.
FACULTY PUBLICATIONS:
Professor John Conlon of the Theatre Arts and Communications Division, published an extensive study of poet, critic, and dramatist T.S. Eliot in “Great American Writers: Twentieth Century,” which was edited by R. Baird Shuman and published by Marshall Cavendish Corporation.
Dick Cluster of Academic Support and the Honors Program has translated several new works of Cuban fiction which will soon be published: “Frigid Tales” by Pedro de Jesus; an excerpt from Leonardo Padura Fuentes’ “Masks” which was recently published in “Cuba: A Traveler’s Literary Companion; and “Looking at Cuba” by Rafael Hernandez.
Udaya Wagle of CPCS and the Public Policy Program published an article “Rethinking Poverty: Definition and Measurement,” in the 2002 issue of the “International Social Science Journal.”