File #3361: "SUN_vol33no5_2007.pdf"

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August 2007
Vol. 33, No. 5

Polling
Puts University
in Spotlight
The successful partnership of 7news
(WHDH), the Boston NBC affiliate, the
Suffolk University Political Research
Center and the Office of Public Affairs
will continue this year with a series of four
New Hampshire statewide surveys, eight
New Hampshire daily tracking surveys and
one Massachusetts statewide survey for the
2007–2008 Presidential election cycle.
“We’re delighted to have the opportunity to continue our polling relationship
with Channel 7,” said Mariellen Norris
of the Office of Public Affairs. “The poll
findings have been used by all the major
broadcast networks, including CNN, Fox,
ABC, CBS, CNBC, CSPAN, and hundreds
of major daily newspapers throughout
the world.”
Since its inception in 2002, the Political
Research Center, under the leadership
of Director David Paleologos, has polled
cutting-edge issues in Massachusetts, New
Hampshire, North Carolina, Virginia, Los
Angeles and New York, among others.
Political Research Center findings
have been “observed by national
campaigns, discussed by political professionals, and reported upon by national
and international media,” said Paleologos.
 Among the achievements for the
Suffolk University Political Research
Center (SUPRC) are:
• Correctly predicted the outcomes of
the 2002 Massachusetts Democratic
Primary and final election in percentage and actual votes.
• Correctly predicted the outcome of
the 2004 New Hampshire Presidential
Primary in percentage and votes,
as reported by C-SPAN the evening
before the primary.
Continued on page 2

Sawyer Library Director Bob Dugan, Dean Ken Greenberg and Dr. Gerald Rizzo, who donated the
17th century African map. (Photo by Tom Gearty)

Afriterra Partner Donates Rare African Map
A strikingly illustrated 17th century map of Africa, depicting trade centers, contemporary costume, and both real and imagined wildlife, has been donated to the University by
Gerald Rizzo, M.D., executive director of the Afriterra Foundation.
The 66-by-44-inch map donated by Rizzo will be prominently displayed on the third
floor of the Mildred Sawyer Library, placed so that observers can get right up to the glass and
examine the details of the map.
The University and the Sawyer Library have supported the Afriterra Foundation in its
effort to digitize its collection of rare maps of Africa, which are viewable online at www.
afriterra.org. The original maps eventually will be housed at the library, which will make
them available to scholars and display them in changing exhibits.
“We want to stimulate open and creative interpretation” of the maps, said Rizzo. “The
History of Africa has been written by only a few people, and the entire American population
has learned this history in a limited and narrow sense.”
“It’s really very generous of Dr. Rizzo to donate this map,” said Sawyer Library Director
Robert Dugan. “The map display illustrates not only the relationship between Suffolk
University and the Afriterra Foundation, but also how higher education works to teach
students.
“There is enough information on this map to keep our students busy for ten years. Here
is another format that is just as rich as books or the Web. For the first time, I truly believe a
picture is worth a thousand words.”
The map is the work of Willem Janszoon Blaeu, Sr., Alexis Hubert Jaillot and Nicolas
Berey and is titled “Nova Africae Geographica Et Hydrographica Descriptio.” In addition
to geographical information, the illustrations show the mathematical basis of the map, ships
battling and mythical figures. Informational text panels surrounding the map are in French
and Latin. 

SUN to Go Online
The sun is moving toward becoming an
online publication and expanding its coverage to include student achievements.
A recent survey of SUN readers showed
that they would be receptive to the changes,
with 67 percent saying they would read the
employee newsletter online and 74 percent
saying they would be interested in reading
about students in the SUN.
An online SUN would deliver more
timely news and present an opportunity for
more frequent publication.
Online publication also is more costeffective. This appears to be a concern for
some SUN readers, who offered negative
feedback after the summer issue was mailed
to their homes. Many faculty are not on
campus during the summer, and, as the
University takes a holiday break, a decision
was made to mail the SUN during recent
summers and winter holiday periods.
However, an online SUN will be
available to anyone, anytime, anywhere
in the world. 

New Faces
Please welcome our newest employees:
Staci DeNigris, Advancement
Orla Downey, Ballotti Learning Center
Colleen Foley, Undergraduate Admission
Andrew Meger, Sawyer Library
Jessica Scotti, Facilities Management
Anna Warner, Business School Dean’s



Office, Undergraduate Programs 

New Issue
The Summer 2007 issue
of Salamander, a literary
journal edited by Jennifer
Barber, English.

Potpourri
In-Mee Baek of Economics has been

promoted to professor.
Robert Allison, History, participated in a debate hosted by National
Public Radio’s “Weekend America” and
“Morning Edition” on whether Boston or
Philadelphia was more important in the
American Revolution. He argued that, without Boston, the Revolution would not have
happened. On July 4, Allison was a guest
on Michael Graham’s morning talk show
on WTKK-FM 96.9, discussing the role
of Stephen Decatur in creating the U.S.
Navy. Later in the day, the Allison family took part in Provincetown’s July 4th
parade. He handed out more than 1,000
American flags to spectators, while his son
Philip entertained the crowds by playing “God Bless America” on the trumpet.
Edward Bander, Law librarian emeritus, and his daughter Lida wrote a one-act
play, The Lottery, which was performed in
June at the Amazing Things Arts Center
in Framingham. Plans are in the works for
a video presentation on local television.
Best wishes to Mary Beck, Ballotti
Learning Center, on her retirement.
Andrew Beckerman-Rodau, Law
School, presented “A Faculty Member’s
Perspective on the Use of Technology in
Legal Education—Is it Time to Pull the
Plug on Technology Investment?” at the
annual CALI conference in Las Vegas.
Mark S. Blodgett, director, Center
for Global Business Ethics & Law. His
article, “International Letters of Credit:
Arbitral Alternatives to Litigating
Fraud,” co-authored with Don Mayer
of Oakland University and published

in the Business Law Journal (1998),
has been cited in the annotations to
Section 5114, Assignment of Proceeds,
in the California Uniform Commercial
Code, Article 5 Letters of Credit.
Jason Carter, Communication and
Journalism. His short film, The Competition,
was accepted as an official selection to
the Long Island International Film Expo
and the Wood’s Hole Film Festival.
Victoria Dodd, Law School,
spoke on WBUR 90.9 radio discussing the recent U.S. Supreme Court’s
decision on school desegregation.
Steven Ferrey, Law School. In August,
he was in Vietnam working on the privatization of the energy sector of the
Vietnamese economy and delivered an
address on global warming and risk mitigation in Toronto, Canada. Ferrey also was
in Tanzania in May working on an international renewable energy initiative.
Jerry Gianakas and Douglas Snow,
Public Management. Gianakis presented
the findings of their research on Local
Government Stabilization Funds at the
annual financial management conference of the Athens Institute for Teaching
and Research in Athens, Greece.
Charles Kindregan and Maureen
McBrien, Law School, delivered
a principal program at the annual
meeting of the Rhode Island Bar
Association on the evolving law of
assisted reproduction and genetics.
Cary McConnell, Athletics, was
inducted into the Medina County (Ohio)
Sports Hall of Fame. The head baseball coach has reached the 300 win mark

Polling Partnership
Continued from page 1

• SUPRC national poll findings were cited and quoted by

Tim Russert on “Meet the Press” in a 2005 interview

with John Kerry about his future political aspirations.
predicted the outcomes of the 2006
Massachusetts Democratic Primary and final election
in percentage and actual votes. This accurate prediction was broadcast on Channel
7NEWS the day before Election Day.
• SUPRC was the first research center in the country to make all of the demographic
cross-tabulations for every poll available at no cost. All archived polls, including
marginals, press releases, internal cross-tab­ lation analyses and summary infor­ ation,
u
m
are posted on the SUPRC Web site. 
• Correctly

T h e S UN is Publis h ed by:
Office of Public Affairs
73 Tremont Street
Boston, MA 02108
617-573-8447
Managing Editor
Nancy Kelleher
2

SUN

Staff Writers
Karen DeCilio
Tony Ferullo
Design
Heather Clark

in 12 seasons at the University and has a
career record of 355 wins in 15 seasons.
Quentin Miller, English. At the conference “James Baldwin: Work, Life, Legacies”
held in London, he presented a paper,
“Separate and Unequal in Paris: Notes of a
Native Son and the Law,” part of a larger
project he is developing on all of Baldwin’s
work in the context of the law. Miller
also chaired a panel at the conference on
“Genres and Literary Traditions” and was a
panelist at the closing plenary discussion.
Elizabeth Moes of Psychology and
graduate student Lindsay Miarmi coauthored a poster, “Awareness of the
Environment: Cross-Modal Inattentional
Blindness,” which received the best
poster award at the Massachusetts
Neuropsychological Society Annual Science
Symposium. In addition, Miarmi won
the Nelson Butters Award for outstanding scholarship. Also attending the symposium were Psychology faculty members
Edith Kaplan and Helen Kenney.
Alex Moschella, Law School,
was named corporate chairman of the
Alzheimer’s Association 2007 Greater
Boston Memory Walk to be held on Sept.
30 at Canal Park, CambridgeSide Galleria.
Susan Nichter, New England School
of Art & Design, was named an associate
at the St. Botolph Arts Club in Boston.
Michele Plott, History, was appointed
director of Women’s and Gender Studies.
Donna Qualters, Education and
Human Services and director, Center for
Teaching Excellence, presented a roundtable “Creating Pathways for Faculty
Change” at the 3rd annual international
Engineering CDIO conference at MIT and a
pre-conference workshop “Active Learning
Inventory Tool (ALIT): Quantifying Active
Learning” at the AACP national conference in Orlando, Fla. She also was a keynote speaker on “Measuring Experiential
Learning and Strategic Planning”
at the 3rd Annual Experiential
Education Symposium on Martha’s
Vineyard co-sponsored by the World
Association of Cooperative Education
and Northeastern University.
Martha Richmond, Chemistry and
Biochemistry and director of Environmental
Studies and Environmental Science, presented a paper, “Exacerbation of Childhood
Asthma Among Children Living in Highly
Trafficked Areas: An Unintended Public
Health Consequence of Diesel-Emission

Fallen Bird Gets
Loving Care
Sabina Besic of the Moakley Law Library was
watching the annual parade of the Ancient and
Honorable Artillery Company on Tremont Street
in June when a loud noise caused a baby sparrow to topple from its nest on top of one of the
large columns in front of Sargent Hall.
Sabina saw the baby bird lying on the ground,
picked it up and brought it inside to her office.
She cleaned the sparrow and placed it in a box
of shredded paper and napkins near her desk. She kept a watchful eye on the bird all day and
asked a co-worker to watch it when she stepped away from her desk.
Sabina brought the baby bird home with her to care for it. The sparrow has grown stronger
and Sabina plans to release it soon. As a tribute to the place where she found the bird, Sabina
named it Sargent. 

Control Technology,” at the 6th Global
Conference on Environmental Justice
and Global Citizenship held at Mansfield
College, University of Oxford, England.
Michael Rustad, Law School, reports
that his son James, a recent graduate of
the University of Vermont College of
Medicine, has begun a residency in psychiatry at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami,
Fla., and daughter Erica, a second-year student at Fordham University Law School, is
interning at a law firm in Madrid, Spain.
Sean Solley, New England School
of Art & Design. He and his wife
Katrin were featured in the July 2-8 edition of the Providence Business News
in an article highlighting the work of
their design practice, solleydesign.
Kathleen Elliot Vinson, Law School,
has returned to the Law School after serving as a visiting professor of legal writing at Boston College for the spring 2007
semester. At the Association of Legal
Writing Directors National Conference
held in June at the University of
Denver, she presented “Expanding Your
Thinking and Gaining a New Perspective: 
Opportunities for Rejuvenation, Rewards,
Challenges, and Lessons Learned.”
David Yamada, Law School, received
the 2007 Thomas J. McMahon Award
for outstanding dedication to the student
body from the Student Bar Association.
Suh-jen Yang, Humanities and
Modern Languages, received her Ph.D.
in Chinese Literature from the University
of Washington. Her dissertation is “The
Literary Merits of the Han (206 B.C.–
A.D. 220) Stele Inscription.” 

Faculty Publications
Edward Bander, Law librarian emeritus,

has published Legal Anecdotes, Wit and
Rejoinder, a collection of anecdotes that
includes material about Judge Frank Donahue and Professor Tom Lambert of the
Law School. Bander compiles anecdotes
on his Weblog—www.banderblog.typepad.com—and welcomes contributions
from SUN readers.
Susan Nichter, New England
School of Art & Design, will have her
work exhibited in “The MacDowell
Colony Centennial Exhibition,” opening Sept. 4, 2007, at the FPAC Gallery
at 300 Summer St., Boston. The show is
in coordination with the Boston Opera
Company’s Our Town, which Thornton
Wilder wrote while spending summers at
the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough,
N.H.
Donna Qualters, Education and
Human Services and director of the
Center for Teaching Excellence, is the
lead author on “Application of Item
Response Theory to Group Assessment of
the Quality of Teaching and Learning to
Improve Freshman Engineering Courses”
in the Journal of Engineering Education,
and “Ethical Leadership: The AIR Model
Empowers Moral Agency” with colleague
Perrin Cohen in the Journal of Human
Values.
Kathleen Elliott Vinson, Law School,
has published an article, “Why I Teach,”
in the spring 2007 issue of The Law
Teacher, the publication of the Institute
for Law School Teaching. 
August 2007

3

On the Move Again
Michael Schneider, associate director
of Web Services, has moved so many times
he feels like he’s working for Walsh Movers.
“I’ve moved my office seven times in my
six years here,” said Schneider. “It doesn’t
matter where I work as long as I have a
computer, a keyboard and access to the
Internet. That’s all I really need to do my
job.”
Many Suffolk employees have been busy
this summer packing and unpacking boxes
and moving from one location to another.
During the latest move, all of the
ad­ in­strative offices vacated the 25th
m i
floor of One Beacon St. for other buildings
throughout the ever-growing Suffolk
campus.
While some employees were new­ omers
c
to the moving process, others were exper­
ienced pros. Laughed Schneider, “I’ve
learned how to pack and unpack my office
pretty well.” 
New Office Locations
Rosalie Stahl Center, 73 Tremont St.
• 5th floor: Human Resources, Business,
Payroll and Accounting
• 12th floor: Facilities, Planning and
Management
Sawyer Building
• 7th floor: Information Technology
Services (ITS, formerly MIS)
• 2nd floor: ITS Customer Support group
• 12th floor: Web Services, now part of ITS
40 Court Street
• 4th floor: University Media Services
One Bowdoin Square
• 6th floor: History, Economics, Beacon Hill
Institute, Philosophy

Web Listing Request
Form Now Online
Members of the University community
are invited to submit information for Web
news and events listings. A Web submissions form is available online on the Public
Affairs and University news pages.
Brenda Laymance, formerly of Athletics,
has joined the Public Affairs Office as
University Web events editor. She will be
tracking all University events and posting
listings to the University events page and
the home page, where appropriate. 
4

SUN

Celebration of Future Civic Leaders
Rep. Byron Rushing, Gov. Deval Patrick, Mayor Thomas Menino, and Vice President John Nucci
were on hand as 28 future public servants from Greater Boston completed training with the Initiative for Diversity in Civic Leadership. The University offered preparation for aspiring political candidates, public administrators, civic leaders and policymakers. The governor was the keynote speaker
at the graduation, and the mayor offered welcoming remarks. (Photo by John Gillooly)

Residence Hall Proposal Advances
The University’s efforts to convert 10 West St. into a residence hall passed a hurdle
in July when the Boston Redevelopment Authority approved the plan. The proposal awaits
review from the Zoning Commission.
The building at the corner of Washington and West streets in the Ladder District would
house about 270 students in apartment-style units.
The ground floor would be used for retail activity, in keeping with the neighborhood.
“We are working closely with the city and the neighbors to make sure that this
development works well for both the community and our students,” said John Nucci, vice
president of Government and Community Affairs.
Suffolk’s first residence hall opened 10 years ago. If approved, 10 West St. would be the
third such facility on the Boston campus. 

Brustein Play to Premiere at C. Walsh Theatre

The world premiere of Robert Brustein’s play, The English Channel,
will inaugurate the 2007–2008 season at the C. Walsh Theatre.
The play, a comic and provocative imagining of Shakespeare’s coming
of age as a playwright, is being presented in association with the Vineyard
Playhouse. The professional production will be at the C. Walsh Theatre
Thursday, Sept. 6, through Saturday, Sept. 15, before moving to the theater
on Martha’s Vineyard.
Brustein, former dean of the Yale School of Drama and founding artistic
director of the Yale Repertory Theatre and the American Repertory Theatre, has joined the
College of Arts and Sciences as a Distinguished Scholar in Residence. 

In Memoriam
Lynne Dahlborg, associate professor of Education and Human Services and for­ er direcm

tor of the Paralegal Studies program.