UNIVERSITY BRIEFS

Duke, NCCU share community grants

Duke and North Carolina Central University are assisting low-income Durham children through $4.5 million in grants awarded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Duke will use $2.25 million to develop intensive after-school programs at community centers in low-income neighborhoods. It is the largest gift for community engagement as part of the Duke-Durham Neighborhood Partnership Initiative. NCCU will use its $2.25 million, the largest grant NCCU has received from a private source, to expand its Saturday academy for low-performing Durham school children and to create family resource centers for students and their families.

Board elects new members

The Board of Trustees elected four new members in July: Wilton Alston and Clarence 3C.G.2 Newsome, as well as Sara Elrod and Tomalei Vess, the respective undergraduate student and graduate and professional student young trustees.

Alston, the president of the Duke Alumni Association, received a bachelor of science in biomedical engineering degree from Duke in 1981. Newsome, dean of Howard University1s School of Divinity, holds three degrees from Duke and was a member of the Duke Divinity School faculty for eight years. Elrod graduated from Trinity in May and Vess received a doctoral degree in biology.

Medical Center ranked sixth

Duke University Medical Center was ranked the sixth best hospital in the nation by U.S. News & World Report1s July 22 issue.

Duke ranked sixth overall for the third year in a row, and had 16 specialty areas that were highly ranked. The magazine1s annual guide to 3America1s Best Hospitals2 became available July 15. This was the 13th year in a row that the Medical Center made the list of top 16 hospitals in the United States.

White House honors faculty

Four University faculty members were among 60 experts honored at the White House in mid-July for their 2001 Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers, a special recognition for young, federally funded investigators. Launched by former president Bill Clinton, the PECASE program provides additional recognition for a select group of researchers whose projects are deemed of greatest benefit to their funding agencies1 missions.

The faculty came from different sectors in the University: Steven Cummer is an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at the Pratt School of Engineering; Michael Fitzgerald, an assistant professor of chemistry; John Klingensmith, an assistant professor of cell biology; and Dr. James Tulsky, a general internist at the Durham Veterans Affairs Medical Center with a joint appointment as associate professor of medicine at the Duke University Medical Center.

Graduate faculty elect chair

The Executive Committee of the Graduate Faculty elected new officers at a meeting earlier this spring. Monty Reichert, professor of biomedical engineering, was elected chair, and Craufurd Goodwin, professor of economics, was elected vice chair. They replace outgoing chair Kenneth Surin, professor of literature, for one-year terms.