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Interactions the Newsletter of the UB Department of Physics Volume 4, Issue 2 Fall 2011 Interactions The Newsletter of the UB Department of Physics Volume 4, Issue 2 Fall 2011 established well formulated procedures for all the graduate studies. He continues to be a source of information and ad- vice for our graduate program. Our majors, headed by Alec Cheney, were instrumental in starting a new chapter of the Sigma Pi Sigma, the Phys- ics Honors Society, at UB. They collected signatures and petitioned the Society for a UB chapter. After successfully receiving approval, they also made arrangements for the installation. The President of the Sigma PI Sigma, Dr. Di- ane Jacobs, presided the chapter installation ceremony on November 4. Five students, Alec Cheney, Matthew Gorfien, Connor Gorman, Chun Kwan and Katherine Spoth, were in- Dear alumni and friends, ducted during the ceremony. It was very rewarding to see As I mentioned in the previous issue, the new President and our majors take charge, accomplish their goals and receive the Dean of CAS are now in office. The SUNY2020 legisla- recognition for their outstanding achievements. tion was passed and signed into law, which allows UB for This year’s Homecoming was made special by the return of the first time to plan on a five-year horizon. The new direc- our distinguished alumnus, Dr. Thomas Bogdan (featured tions and initiatives that are being implemented by the new in Alumni in Focus), to give an exciting public lecture on administration are therefore more tangible than symbolic. space weather. He has been the Director of the National This means opportunities for the Department. It is encour- Space Weather Prediction Center, and was recently named aging to see that the President’s plan for the University over- the President of the University Corporation for Atmospheric laps with some of the main concerns and aspirations of the Research, starting January 9, 2012. Department. Two workshops took place this semester. The first one, Uli As many of you know, the quality of education and research Baur Memorial Symposium, organized by Professor Do- in the Department has seen marked improvement in recent reen Wackeroth and the high energy physics and cosmol- years. This has a lot to do with the infusion of new and ex- ogy group, was held at UB on Sept. 24, 2011. It had a list cellent faculty members. The pause of this process in the of distinguished scientists attending from around the world. last couple years due to the economic down turn appears to The second one was organized by Professor Xuedong Hu, be ending and we are on the right track again. Towards this titled Buffalo Workshop on Quantum Computing, held on end, the Department is currently searching to hire a tenure September 17 – 18. It attracted researchers from institutions track high energy experimentalist. in North America, Asia and Europe. I am very grateful to Professor Xuedong Hu for agreeing to serve as the Graduate Director, starting this academic As always, keep in touch. year, succeeding Professor Athos Petrou, who served in this capacity for 16 years. The responsibilities entailed in Best regards, this position have direct impact in several key areas in the Department, ranging from undergraduate teaching through TA appointments to the vitality of graduate research. Pro- Hong Luo, Chair fessor Petrou provided great leadership over the years and Professor of Physics Banner: The Sabres may not have won the NHL Championship in 2011, but an important member of the UB community did! UB Council Chairman, Jeremy M. Jacobs is also the owner of the Stanley Cup winning Boston Bruins and generously shared the Cup with us in June 2011. Here, we see our own Kevin Cullinan (left) and Tom Gruenauer (third from left) along with Tom’s daughter Shannon and son Brian with the Stanley Cup. Faculty in Focus Interactions Volume 4, Issue 2 McCombe and Gasparini – Achievements as Administrators By Drs. Hong Luo and S. Ganapathy Professor Bruce McCombe stepped down as the Dean of CAS in the sum- mer of 2011. Just when we thought Bruce was staying in the Department for good and it was a good time to look back at what he did while being away from the Department, since Jan. 2005, he was asked again to be the interim Provost, starting Jan. 3, 2012. This in itself gives an idea about what he ac- complished as the Dean of the Gradu- ate School (Jan. 2005 – June 2006) and as interim Dean and then Dean of CAS (July 2006—June 2011). The actual list of his accomplishments is quite long, as one would expect, and we will just list a few that directly im- pacted us. The one that was the closest to our heart was the increase in graduate sti- pend that stayed the same for years. As soon as Bruce became the Dean of Graduate School, he negotiated and implemented a $2000 increase to the base stipend starting the 05-06 academic year, followed by another Photo: Douglas Levere $1500 increase, which brought us to a competitive level with peer institutions. One of the most important things that Bruce initiated major increase in sum- As an effort to ensure quality of our we noticed at the department level mer programs and negotiated income education, Bruce created a process was his leadership during the worst sharing with the provost. This resulted and procedures for and implemented financial crisis in years, in terms of in $1M/year of additional state dollars university-wide comprehensive pro- both minimizing cuts to departmental for CAS by fall 2011, part of it will be gram reviews for both undergraduate operating budgets and in maintaining returned to the departments respon- and graduate programs. Bruce rec- the strength of CAS, with retention of sible for the income. ognized the important contributions of senior faculty members and protect- postdoctoral scholars, and created the ing untenured junior faculty members. For amusement, Bruce calculated the Office of Postdoctoral Scholars, which Bruce also visited all departments, so time, the way he often does for other has provided guidance, services and that the faculty could be informed of things, that he spent in meetings. The career development to this group of scholars. the budget situation and approaches result came to 3 years of working time he was implementing. This is espe- in meeting during the 5 years in the After becoming the Interim Dean and cially heart felt in light of the difficulties Dean’s Office! While Bruce believes Dean of CAS, Bruce contributed to the experienced by colleagues in other that he did “what was necessary”, it growth of CAS, bringing the total CAS universities, especially public universi- is clear that many greatly appreciated faculty count to 487 as of Fall 2008. ties, including other SUNY campuses. what he deemed as necessary. 2 Banner: Bruce McCombe and Renee Bush attending one of the UB events. Photo: Nancy J. Parisi Faculty in Focus CONTINUED Professor Frank Gasparini has already recently because of the budget cuts. Among these new hires four assistant spent a year doing his regular duties as But if we didn’t have this increase, professors have received NSF CA- a faculty member after stepping down something else would have been cut REER awards. These hires allowed us as the Chair since Fall 2010 after six in its place. Frank also set aside a to establish a new group in high ener- years. Looking back, one can’t help support fund from the departmental gy experimental research, and expand but notice that his tenure as the Chair budget for graduate students attend- the biophysics group. Increase of the covers the period of arguably the big- ing meetings to present their research faculty size also led to an increase in gest change in the Department. Here ($200 per meeting per student). the number of graduate students from is a list of things that he did since he about 80 to over 90. The teaching load started his chairmanship in 2004. He The faculty count increased from 21 to was also changed from 3 courses per negotiated an increase in TA support 32, then coming back down to 28. This year to 2 courses per year. This was which amounted to a $500 yearly raise was achieved through the hiring of 14 for each TA in the Department. This, new faculty members over a period of in keeping with peer institutions and to combined with what Bruce did as the 6 years. Retirements and people leav- improve our research posture relative Dean, made our stipend much more ing for other institutions brought this to other institutions. What is not seen attractive than before. He then negoti- number below 30. With the financial in these numbers is a corresponding ated a permanent addition to the op- situation at UB improving, hopefully we change of the level of expectation, as erating budget of the Department. He will be able to reach and surpass the can be seen from a list of benchmarks also points out that it was taken back number in the near future. for research productivity. For citations in particular, the Department received Photo: Douglas Levere 3000 citations during 2005. This was 5700 in 2010. This is a good gauge of the quality of the faculty who were hired. Also a goal of 35 for overall faculty size was set which would be in keeping with UB’s size and a broader range of faculty research fields. Frank was actively involved in devel- opment efforts. During his period as chair, two new endowments were started: Excellence Endowment, and with the leadership of Y. C. Lee the Ta You Wu Endowment.
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