DEPARTMENT NEWS

African and Asian Languages and Literatures
Cynthia Chennault, Elinore Fresh, and Zuyan Zhou were featured speakers at the recent China Unlimited business and cultural seminar series at the Koger Gallery and Gardens in Jacksonville. The seven week series was aimed at business professionals, educators, students, and others interested in furthering their understanding of China. Chennault and Fresh spoke at the "Exploring Chinese Tradition" seminar on October 17 and Fresh presented at the "Bringing China Home" lecture on October 31.

Anthropology
Allan Burns led a workshop on human rights and anthropology in Chiapas, Mexico, October 13-21. The program, sponsored by several Mexican academic institutions, brought together 25 indigenous leaders for training with anthropologists who specialize in human rights issues and visual anthropology.

Paul Magnarella's book, Justice in Africa: Rwanda's Genocide, Its National Courts and the UN Criminal Tribunal, has won the Association of Third World Studies' 2000 annual book award. The award was presented on October 20 at the association's annual meeting in Denver and consists of a plaque and a check, which Magnarella is donating to Rwandan humanitarian relief.

Chemistry
Kenneth Wagener has been given a rare grant extension from the National Science Foundation. The "Two Year Extension for Special Creativity" extends three-year grants to five years without requiring a renewal proposal. The NSF grant will fund Wagener's research on the study of branching in polyethylene, the world's largest volume polymer.

Geological Sciences
Ray G. Thomas has been appointed a principal editor for the Journal of Earth System Science Education (JESSE). JESSE is a peer-reviewed electronic publication sponsored by the National Science Foundation. Its aim is to establish an orderly collection of reviewed resource materials for both the broadly defined discipline of geoscience as well as related disciplines involved in Earth system and global change education.

Sociology
Jay Gubrium is the recipient of this year's Distinguished Career Contribution to Gerontology Award. The award is given by the Gerontological Society of America to a scholar "whose theoretical contributions have helped bring about a new synthesis and perspective or have yielded original and elegant research designs addressing a significant problem in the literature."

Mike Radelet received the Stephen Goldstein Justice Award from the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. This is the association's top award for human rights work.

Zoology
Carlos A. Iudica recently gave two presentations related to his research on systematics and evolution of a Neotropical fruit bat of the genus Sturnira. He presented partial results of his research at the American Society of Mammalogists' meeting at the University of New Hampshire on June 19. On September 29, he gave a presentation at the North American Symposium on Bat Research at the University of Miami. The presentations summarized the goal of his PhD project, which was to resolve the phylogenetic relationships among species of the genus Sturnira, an important seed disperser in the Neotropical rain forest. Iudica, who defended his dissertation in August, is the Interim Assistant Curator of Mammalogy at the Florida Museum of Natural History.

CLAS Professor Collaborates with College of Business
The Center for International Business and Education Research (CIBER) in the Warrington College of Business is expanding its outreach to UF faculty involved in business-related research across the disciplines. Carol West, professor of economics, is director of CIBER. Barbara McDade, CLAS professor of geography, is an affiliate of the program and is developing a course on the geography of entrepreneurship in developing countries with a focus on Africa. McDade was involved in bringing guest speaker Nana Asante Frempong to speak at a CIBER workshop on September 29. Frempong, who is a member of parliament in Ghana and has been in the export business for over 25 years, spoke about business prospects and difficulties for US entrepreneurs in Ghana. From left to right: Barbara McDade (associate professor of geography), Nana Asante Frempong (guest lecturer and member of parliament from Ghana), and Agnes Leslie (outreach director at the Center for African Studies)

Two CLAS Professors Named AAAS Fellows
Alan R. Katritzky (Chemistry) and Leslie Sue Lieberman (Anthropology) have been named fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Katritzky received the award for his studies of chemical reactivity and its application to synthetic methodology, as well as for his research on chemical structure-property relations. Lieberman earned the distinction for her scholarship in the fields of anthropology and women's health, and for her distinguished leadership in scientific organizations, including the presidencies of the University of Florida chapter of Sigma Xi, the Council on Nutritional Anthropology and the National Association of Academies of Science.

Founded in 1848, the AAAS represents the world's largest federation of scientists. Its goal is to advance science for human well-being through its projects, programs and publications.

UF-Utrecht Faculty Exchange Deadline
The UF-Utrecht Faculty Exchange Committee invites faculty from UF to apply to the exchange program in 2001-2002. Faculty may teach in the fall or spring semester. A letter of interest with some indication of the courses or research that one would conduct in Utrecht should be sent to Albert Matheny, AAC 100, PO Box 112015, no later than December 1. If you have any questions about the program, you can contact Albert through email at <matheny@polisci.ufl.edu>.

New Student Scholarship Awards in Aging Presented
On October 17, UF's Institute on Aging held a breakfast meeting to announce the recipients of the new Student Scholarship Awards in Aging. The awards, which are sponsored by the Institute on Aging, the Center for Gerontological Studies, and a donation by Dr. Leighton E. Cluff, recognize outstanding scholarship on topics related to late life, aging, and older citizens. Former CLAS student Cindy Hamilton (BA, psychology, December 1999) and current CLAS graduate student Katherine White (psychology) were two of the award recipients. Robin West (associate director of education at the Institute on Aging and director of the Center for Gerontological Studies) was on the review committee and assisted in the presentation of the awards.

At the meeting Michael A. Smyer, dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Boston College, gave the first Whittington Endowed Guest Lecture. His presentation was the first in a series of annual lectures to be given by individuals whose scholarship in the field of aging is nationally recognized.

Above Left: Undergraduate Student Scholarship Award winner Cindy Hamilton is congratulated by Robin West.

Ethics Lecture Sponsored Across Disciplines
On September 29, in the Friends of Music Room, Professor Kofi Agawu (right) of Princeton University gave a university-wide ethics lecture titled "Ethical Issues in the Representation of African Music: Can the Production of Musical Ethnographies Ever Be an Ethical Process?" The lecture was sponsored by the Center for Applied Ethics, the Center for African Studies, the Center for World Arts, and the Department of Anthropology.

Dean's Office Staff
Kim Pace, an assistant instructor in the dean's office, has accepted a position in academic affairs at UF. Pace held several posts in the dean's office for the past 11 years, and was most recently responsible for maintaining the office's web pages, analyzing statistical data about the college, and organizing the Journal of Undergraduate Research for the University Scholars Program.

Former CLAS Dean Will Harrison says the college has lost one of its best. "Kim is one of the most talented, charming, and accomplished people I know. As dean, it was my habit to assign her the most difficult jobs, which she invariably made look easy."

"I'm going to miss working in CLAS very much," says Pace. "It's difficult to leave the dean's office after so many years. However, I'm excited to move on and try new things."

Pace will be working with the provost's office in Tigert Hall on academic issues and special projects related to campus planning and development. She will also continue working with the University Scholars Program.

Sociology Prof's 1966 Ground-breaking Book Named a Classic in Family Studies
In its August edition, the Journal of Marriage and the Family honored sociology professor Felix M. Berardo's ground-breaking work in Emerging Conceptual Frameworks in Family Analysis (1966, 1981), which he co-authored with F. Ivan Nye, as one of the great classic books on family studies. The Journal stated that Nye's and Berardo's was the first full-length book devoted entirely to family theory, and noted that it was one of the major works that shaped the field of family science and allied disciplines.

"Nye and Berardo's Emerging Conceptual Frameworks in Family Analysis made an important contribution to subsequent theorizing by helping bring order to the field, by demonstrating how graduate students and distinguished ïeditorial consultants' could be used to both the field and the students' advantage, and by foreshadowing important theoretical development in the 1990s."

Zoology Department Well Represented at International Symposium
The Zoology department was well represented at the Third International Symposium on Frugivory and Seed Dispersal, which took place in Sao Pedro, Brazil, August 6-11. Participants included two faculty members (Doug Levey and Colin Chapman), eleven current or former graduate students, and seven current or former postdoctoral fellows. All presented talks or posters, most of which focused on tropical fieldwork. The symposium highlighted the importance of fruiting plants for maintenance of vertebrate populations and, likewise, the importance of fruit-eating vertebrates for dispersal of seeds. Doug Levey is editing a book that resulted from the symposium, which will be published in 2001.

Left: Doug Levey (back row, fourth from left) and Colin Chapman (back row, seventh from right) with current and former graduate students and postdoctoral fellows from the zoology department in Brazil.

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