Top TEACHER
School of Management professor Frances E. Zollers G’74 was named SU’s 2002 Methodist Scholar/Teacher of the Year. Chancellor Kenneth A. Shaw announced Zollers’s selection during his annual address to the University community this fall. The award, sponsored by the Division of Higher Education and Ministry of the Methodist Church, recognizes the dual role of a professor as teacher and researcher and carries a $2,000 stipend.

“Fran has been a leader in the continuous improvement of teaching within the school,” says School of Management Dean George Burman, who nominated Zollers for the award. “She makes a difference.”

Zollers, a professor in the law and public policy department, has been active on numerous committees and has won several faculty awards. She was also named 2002 Outstanding Teacher of the Year by the SU Alumni Association.

Expert INSIGHTS
The news media regularly tap academics for their expertise on current events and issues. Now, Central New Yorkers have their own weekly round-table talk show featuring perspectives from some of the area’s sharpest minds. The Ivory Tower Half Hour premiered in September on WCNY-TV, Syracuse’s public television station, and is hosted by David Rubin, dean of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. “The program showcases some of the outstanding faculty members available to students at colleges and universities in Central New York, arguably the richest and deepest area of public and private higher education in the nation,” Rubin says.

Among the panelists are Kristi Andersen, a Laura J. and L. Douglas Meredith Professor in the political science department of the Maxwell School and the College of Arts and Sciences, John Robert Greene G’83, a professor of history and humanities at Cazenovia College, and faculty members from Cornell University, SUNY Cortland, and Onondaga Community College.

Ranking RECOGNITION
Syracuse University gained recognition as one of the top national universities for study-abroad programs and learning communities in new rankings released by U.S. News & World Report. The University’s study-abroad programs were ranked 5th, while its learning communities were ranked 12th.

Overall, SU was listed in the second tier of national universities with doctoral programs, as it was last year. Rankings are calculated on the basis of peer assessment, graduation and retention rates, faculty resources, student selectivity, financial resources, and alumni giving. “Syracuse ranks higher than many top-tier schools in several criteria,” says SU Vice Chancellor and Provost Deborah A. Freund. “Our Academic Plan is helping us to focus on the things we need to improve, and we are doing it.”

Rescued TAPES
Media librarian George Abbott saved a valuable research tool from the recycling bin and acquired it for the Syracuse University Library in the process. Last winter Abbott learned that a public television station was running out of storage space for a videotape archive of Inside Albany, the only weekly television series devoted exclusively to New York State legislative issues. “They felt they didn’t have the space for the tapes,” Abbott says. “But with our ability to transfer videotape to DVD at Bird Library, that didn’t present a problem for us. Knowing the interest on campus in both politics and television, we went for it.”

Produced at WMHT-TV, Schenectady, Inside Albany is aired over nine public television stations. David Hepp G’70 has produced the show since its inception in 1975 and serves as an on-air reporter. Episodes typically feature interviews with top state legislative officials and documentary reports that have taken viewers from the tip of Long Island to the edge of Niagara Falls. “Inside Albany has for years provided the most comprehensive coverage of New York State issues on television,” says Professor Jeffrey M. Stonecash, chair of the political science department and author of Governing New York State and other books on state and national politics.

College of Law professor William Banks testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee about tensions between individual freedoms and national security surveillance created by the USA Patriot Act. The legislation, passed after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, expands the powers of federal agencies to gather and share intelligence information.

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Jim Brown ’57 returned to campus this fall with film director Spike Lee for a viewing of Jim Brown: All-American, Lee’s documentary biography of the football great. The film includes SU campus scenes.

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Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb ’98 was elected to the SU Board of Trustees in November. McNabb, who holds a B.S. degree in speech communication from the College of Visual and Performing Arts, is one of the youngest people ever named to the board.

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Craig Benson G’78, who earned an M.B.A. degree from the School of Management, was elected governor of New Hampshire in November.

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Jonathan Nelson, an art history professor with SU’s Division of International Programs Abroad in Florence, Italy, was the curator of Venus and Love: Michelangelo and the New Ideal of Beauty, an exhibition at the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence. The focus of the show was the popular 16th-century oil painting Venus and Cupid by Pontormo, which is based on a lost Michelangelo drawing.

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The Syracuse University in the Community program was named a 2002 Exemplary Program by the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators. The initiative, created by the Division of Student Affairs and the Office of Government and Community Relations, was introduced in 1999 as a way to educate students about their rights and responsibilities while living in the neighborhoods surrounding the campus.

University LECTURES
The University Lectures, a cross-disciplinary series featuring world-renowned experts from many disciplines, will host the following speakers during the spring 2003 semester:

February 5—Dr. David Satcher, former U.S. surgeon general;

March 3—Joshua Bell, Grammy Award-winning violinist, accompanied by Simon Mulligan;

March 18—August Wilson, author, playwright, and poet;

April 1—Daniel Goleman, psychologist, journalist, and author of Emotional Intelligence;

April 14—Carlos Fuentes, acclaimed Latin American novelist.