Barnes & Noble Gives $750,000 for New Library, Scholarships
By Mary Fiess
Barnes & Noble College Bookstores, Inc. has pledged a total of $750,000 in support of the new library and new scholarships, President Hitchcock announced on Saturday.
The bookseller�s $500,000 donation to the library brings private support for the new facility, scheduled to open in the summer of 1999, to more than $1.2 million. The University is aiming to raise a total of $3.5 million in private support to equip the library
Another $250,000 will go to three major scholarship funds.
"This generous contribution from Barnes & Noble is a major boost to our efforts to complete our outstanding new library, and it will also directly benefit individual Albany students by providing at least 50 book scholarships a year for the next ten years," said Hitchcock.
The President was cheered by the timing of the gift. "Right now, the University is seeking a $500,000 grant from the Kresge Foundation for the library campaign," she said. "One condition of the grant is that the University demonstrate its ability to generate greater private support. Barnes & Noble has come forward to help us make that case, and we are deeply grateful."
"Barnes & Noble College Bookstores is proud to be a lead donor for the library," said Max Roberts, president of Barnes & Nobles College Bookstores. "Our company has always been committed to supporting higher education. While we show this primarily through the operation of our bookstores across the country, we are also pleased when we can demonstrate our commitment in other ways."
Hitchcock announced the gift Saturday in the atrium of the new library at the annual President�s Recognition Dinner, which honors University donors and supporters. The atrium is largely completed but interior work, such as wiring and flooring, remains to be done in other areas of the facility.
At the dinner, Hitchcock also announced that earlier in the day the University at Albany Alumni Association held a special meeting and pledged a $50,000 challenge grant for the new library.
The first new academic building on campus in over 30 years, the new library is designed to be a technologically advanced and flexible facility which will house the nearly 600,000 volumes in the University�s science, mathematics and technology collections. It will support and actively promote the latest technologies transforming the way students and faculty learn and conduct research.
"Like our other two libraries, our new library reflects how � over the course of our 154-year history � we�ve grown and evolved to meet the changing needs of society," said Hitchcock.
Albany�s University Libraries have been ranked among the top 100 research libraries in the U.S. � but at the expense of space for research and study. Earlier in this decade, State governmental leaders recognized the University�s need for new library space and agreed to support a new facility, contributing $25 million in construction funding for the project. The University, however, must raise the additional $3.5 million needed to complete the project.
Hans Naumann, chairman and CEO of Simmons Machine Tool Corp., and George Philip, executive director of the New York State Teachers Retirement System and chairman of the University Council, are co-chairs of the University Campaign for the Libraries. Chairs of the faculty library campaign committee are Bonnie Spanier and Stephen Brown. Geoffrey Williams and Mary Jane Brustman are co-chairs of the library staff campaign committee.
Presidents Announce China Initiative
President Hitchcock meets with President Fujia Yang of Fudan University of Shanghai, as they announced that their universities have joined forces under an executive education program, the China Initiative, to provide management training to Chinese employees of multinational and foreign-invested firms in China. The announcement by Hitchcock came during a three-day international symposium in Albany.
New Geography Lab Boosts Undergraduate Experience
By Suzanne M. Grudzinski
Undergraduate students of geochemistry will soon be able to participate in fieldwork and other hands-on learning activities, thanks to the creation on campus of an Integrated Undergraduate Physical Geography Laboratory (IUPGL).
The IUPGL, funded by a $200,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to the University�s Department of Geography and Planning and Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, will consist of three separate facilities. The first will be an actual physical geography laboratory that will be used for conducting experiments in geochemical interactions among soil, atmosphere, and vegetation. The second will be a computer class with 20 computers per 40 students, where instructors will teach with the aid of up-to-date computer and technological support. Both facilities will be directed towards undergraduate classes.
The third structure, a climatology observatory located in Mohawk Tower, will be primarily for upper level classes. This facility was included in the blueprints for the tower when it was originally built in the late 1960s. Upon completion in late 1998, the Observatory will be equipped with meteorological, geochemical, and geophysical equipment and operate at full capacity 24 hours per day.
At each of the four corners of the tower�s roof there will be high-tech web cameras that will transmit real-time visual images. These can be overlapped with data from Geographic Information Systems software. Virtually any information about the physical geography can be obtained, from traffic statistics to patterns of roads not visible because of tree cover, to pollution patterns. This will all be available over the World Wide Web.
The first goal the creation of an IUPGL aims for is to acquaint non-science majors with the principles and methods of science in an environment that bridges the gap between theory and practice. Undergraduates often take introductory science courses, such as Introduction to Physical Environment, Environmental Geology, and Planet Earth, to fulfill their general education requirements, but these are usually lecture classes comprising more than 200 students. This new laboratory element will allow for practical training and an opportunity to learn hands-on.
"We really want to provide students with an exciting and enhanced academic experience," said Andrei Lapenis, project director and faculty member of the Department of Geography and Planning.
The second goal of the project is to expand Albany�s linkages to other area institutions. Union College has agreed to allow Albany to use its equipment to make 1,000 analyses per year on soil, water, and air samples.
In addition, the Department of Environmental Conservation has agreed to provide a number of internships for students to help conduct its scientific research, with results copyrighted and made available to the public.
Myles Boylan, program director for NSF�s division of undergraduate education, said points to three IUPGL qualities: "It is interdisciplinary. It is inter-institutional. And it meets the new recommended national standards in earth systems science. The proposal is also a nice blend of theory and practice and its focus on environmental science is bound to attract students."
The project is scheduled to be complete by the Fall 1999 semester, with most of the areas performing this spring.
New Computing Infrastructure Expected to Streamline Administrative Processes
By Christine Hanson McKnight
Administrative processes at the University will become more efficient and streamlined as part of a major overhaul, now underway, of the campus�s administrative computing infrastructure. The new infrastructure will provide administrative capabilities critical to strategic management of the University and improved service to the entire University community.
The project, implemented under the leadership of Executive Vice President Carl Carlucci, began in early 1996 as the University began considering ways to provide students with information via the World Wide Web. According to Marybeth Salmon of University Business Systems, the project manager for the new Integrated Administrative System (IAS), the existing student systems needed to be updated.
"It also became clear to us that the University�s goals would best be served by not just a new student information system, but by a fully integrated, campus-wide, state-of-the-art administrative system," said Salmon.
In November 1997 the University signed a contract with PeopleSoft, a Pleasanton, Calif., firm that specializes in software for higher education, to provide the software for IAS. In May, the software was installed and now, said Salmon, the biggest part of the job � implementation � is underway.
How will the new system work? As an example, Salmon said that University revenues come from a variety of sources: state appropriations, tuition, research grants, fees for housing, and private donations. IAS will provide unified budgeting and reporting across all fund sources available to the University. Such readily accessible financial information is essential for strategic decision-making.
Said Carlucci, "Our goal is to be more efficient, more streamlined, and to increase Web-based self-service options for students and staff."
University employees have been receiving extensive training in the use of this software, which uses a Windows 95 interface and now can be accessed by 50 personal computers. Core implementation teams from each of the three functional areas have been formed to lead the process. In addition, advisory committees will address policy and procedure changes and provide high-level guidance.
The current timetable calls for components of a new human resources database system to be in place by July 1999. The new systems, Salmon said, will be more user-friendly and offer more information to those using it. "It will allow one-step processing of such items as student address information and grades submitted by faculty," she added.
It is expected that in March 1999 the Admissions Office will begin processing student admissions for Fall 2000 with IAS, said Leo Neveu, University controller and chair of the project�s steering committee. "IAS will be a valuable new tool for the admissions staff, allowing better tracking of prospective students and more efficient evaluation of applicants," he said. "The financial aid component of IAS includes a fully automated federal PELL grant management system that supports electronic payment. More and more administrative processes will be paperless."
Neveu said that students will reap the benefits � being able to register for courses, check their schedules and their accounts, and find out their grades via the Web. "Only a few years ago, students needed to visit different offices and sometimes stand on long lines to do those same things," he said.
As an interim solution, PAWS (Personal Access via the Web for Students) went "on-line" in December 1997 and had some 20,000 "hits" in the first nine months. But PAWS allows students only some of functions via the Web that the new IAS system will.
PeopleSoft, founded in 1987, has contracts with more than 40 colleges and universities nationwide, including SUNY-Stony Brook, Cornell, Syracuse and Duke universities and the universities of Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Moscow-on-the-Hudson and Albany-on-the-Yangtze
By Greta Petry
A memorandum signed on Oct. 17 by President Hitchcock and Moscow State University rector Viktor Sadovnichii will create joint centers of Russian and American studies at the two campus.
Based here and in Moscow, the centers will also serve students and faculty throughout their respective university systems. The announcement of the accord, hosted by SUNY Chancellor John Ryan, was followed by a convocation in Chancellor�s Hall of the State Education Building in Albany, where university leaders from 20 countries were awarded honorary degrees.
The foreign officials were on hand for a three-day international symposium. The night before, President Hitchcock announced to them that the University and Fudan University of Shanghai have joined forces under an innovative executive education program, the China Initiative, to provide management training to Chinese employees of multinational and foreign-invested firms in China (see photo, page 4). The first series of seminars, taught by professors from both universities and featuring guest faculty from the corporate community, is titled "The New York-Shanghai Partnership for Human Resources Management," and will begin in January.
Of the Russia agreement, Chancellor Ryan said, "This cooperation represents the highest ideals of a great university: searching for answers, and sharing the knowledge that will help us better understand our world and better understand each other."
"Last January we celebrated more than two decades of exchange programs with Moscow State University, recognized as the country�s premier university for teaching and research," said Hitchcock. "This new partnership represents the latest efforts to prepare students at both institutions for careers in the global marketplace."
Sadovnichii said the relationship between the two schools has been extraordinarily long and fruitful, even surviving the years of Cold War tensions between the U.S. and the then-Soviet Union.
"What�s really new and different about this exchange is that in addition to focusing on traditional topics like language, literature and culture, the new centers will also cover areas like economic development and scientific exchange," said Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Judy Genshaft.
Officials eventually hope to create joint-degree programs where students in one country will earn degrees from either or both universities.
