Harry Longwell, Chairman of the Board of Trustees announced that the Board has named Francis M. Lazarus, Ph.D. to become the University of Dallas' seventh president on July 1, 2004. Lazarus will succeed interim president, Robert M. Galecke who has held the post since the retirement of Reverend Monsignor Milam J. Joseph on December 31, 2003.

Lazarus has been Provost of the University of San Diego, a Catholic school, for eight years, during which time the University expanded the size of its faculty by more than 20 percent, increased student applicant selectivity by almost 40 percent, achieved recognition by U.S. News and World Report as one of the top 100 research and doctoral institutions in the United States, and was granted a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, the nation's oldest and most prestigious honor society. The University of San Diego enrolls 7,000 students and offers more than 60 bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degree programs. The school is known for its commitment to teaching, the liberal arts, the formation of values and community service.

Lazarus received his doctorate in Latin literature and his master's degree in Greek and Latin from Cornell University and his bachelor's degree in classical languages from Canisius College. He also earned a certificate in the monuments and typography of ancient Rome from the American Academy in Rome.

Following graduate school, Lazarus pursued his teaching career at the United States Military Academy at West Point and later at Salem College in North Carolina. He served as the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences for the University of Dayton in Ohio from 1980 through 1988. He then spent eight years as the vice president for academic affairs for Marquette University in Milwaukee.

The University of Texas at Dallas is one member of the SPRING (Strategic Partnership for Research in Nanotechnology) organization named in a one-year, $10 million grant from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research. This is a major boost to nanotechnology research in the state of Texas and a sign of what collaborations between universities can accomplish for the benefit of the economic and intellectual environment in the state.

In a press release announcing the grant, U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) said "Texas is pushing the envelope ever further in research and that is certainly the case with nanotechnology. Our scientists founded this emerging field, which has enormous potential. Rice professors Dr. Richard Smalley and Dr. Robert Curl won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1996 for the discovery of fullerenes. Nanotechnology can transform health care, transportation and defense through the application of stronger, lighter and more efficient materials. These new funds will advance this critical work in the laboratory and the marketplace."

The grant money will be used to support the wide variety of nanotechnology research, which centered around nanobiotechnology, nano for energy, nanophotonics, nanoelectronics, and nanoenvironmental research, all areas of direct benefit to satisfying the Air Force's needs for revolutionary materials research done by the organization members, ranging from nano-energy to nanomedicine.

SPRING was started in January 2002 as a way for the more than 200 nanotechnology researchers at Texas universities to work together to make the state a national powerhouse in nanotechnology research by providing a forum for regular communication and interaction. The founding members are The University of Texas at Austin, The University of Texas at Dallas and Rice University. SPRING has grown to include The University of Texas at Arlington and the Nano at the Border program which includes The University of Texas at Brownsville and The University of Texas - Pan American. Nano at the Border was established to assist research schools with fledging nanotechnology programs jumpstart their efforts.

Nanotechnology enables the fabrication of material structures and devices having molecular dimensions and entirely new physical or chemical properties as a result of sizes smaller than the wavelength of light. Still in its infancy, nanoscience has the potential to revolutionize such disparate fields as electronics, medicine, communications and manufacturing. The National Science Foundation has estimated that 2 million workers will be needed to support nanotechnology industries worldwide within 15 years. In the United States, the Federal investment in nanotechnology R&D has increased from $116 million in fiscal year 1997 to a request of $849 million in fiscal year 2004.

A $6.5 million bequest will benefit students and faculty in four Texas Tech University programs. The bequest will go to the College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, the College of Arts and Sciences and the Virginia Murray Sowell Center for Research and Education in Visual Impairment in the College of Education. The donor making the gift wishes to remain anonymous. The gift is through the Texas Tech University Foundation.

The deferred gift, the single largest contribution Texas Tech has received this year, will be divided among the horticulture program, which will receive $2.7 million, the College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, with $2.7 million for graduate scholarships, the Department of History with $750,000 and the Sowell Center $300,000.

The gift to Texas Tech's history department was prompted by the donor's wish to honor the memory William G. Wehner, former vice chancellor for institutional advancement. The donor wishes to honor Wehner's love of history.

The Sowell Center will use its gift portion to create an endowment supporting a distinguished lecture series on the topic of visual impairment. The center is named in memory of the late former distinguished faculty member and Vice Provost Virginia Murray Sowell, Ph.D., who started the personal preparation program in visual impairment in 1977.

Planned gifts, such as bequests and trusts, play an important role in the growth of Texas Tech's endowment, said Greg Teeter, Texas Tech director of planned giving and legal counsel.

A new five-year research program at Rice University is pioneering regenerative medicine techniques that could help millions of Americans heal faster after dental surgeries.
Researchers in Rice's J.W. Cox Laboratory for Biomedical Engineering will conduct the research under a new five-year, $1.4 million grant from the National Institutes of Health.

More than 10 million Americans undergo surgical tooth extractions every year, and the procedure invariably involves some loss of bone from the tooth socket. This bone loss is problematic for dentists because it can compromise both the functional and esthetic outcomes of treatment involving dentures and bridges. Significant losses of bone also make it difficult for surgeons to properly fit dental implants to the ridge of the jawbone without requiring additional surgical procedures.

The body's natural powers to regenerate bone are also hindered by the soft tissue of the surrounding gums, and in severe cases following trauma or cancer surgery, wide gaps called "critical-size defects" are created in the jawbone that the body is unable to bridge with replacement bone. To overcome these problems, oral surgeons may graft new bone into the gap. However, this bone must be either harvested from deceased donors, animal sources, or taken from elsewhere in the patient's body.

In previous work on rabbits, principal investigator of the project Antonios Mikos' (the John W. Cox Professor of Bioengineering and director of Rice's Center for Excellence in Tissue Engineering) research group has isolated the growth factors that are released by the body in order to stimulate bone growth in the tooth socket after a tooth extraction. Their new research initiative will use this information to design methods that can aid the body in healing defects that are normally too large for it to heal on its own.

This will be accomplished by the fabrication of a biodegradable implant capable of releasing these healing factors in a controlled manner so that the proper amounts are released over the right time period at the site of interest. The implant will enable healing by stabilizing the gap and offering a welcome environment for the body's own bone cells. The implant will break down over time as the patient's own bone cells move in and produce replacement bone.

Like other technologies involving tissue engineering or regenerative medicine, the researchers hope to stimulate and aid the body's own powers of regeneration. The approach offers advantages over existing treatments because it eventually ends up giving the patient exactly what they lost: their own tissue. It also eliminates the risk of tissue rejection and disease transfer from donor grafts, and it requires no additional surgery to harvest grafts from the patient.

The University of Texas at Austin has formed a partnership with an Austin company to commercialize a technology that could improve the effectiveness of agrichemicals and drugs.

The new company, called Entercel Ltd. and based in Austin, has licensed the technology from the university and will continue to develop and market it. The university's partner is WesTech Ventures I LP, a venture capital fund of Emergent Technologies Inc., also based in Austin. WesTech will provide capital for the new company.

The technology is a chemical-based platform that adjusts a cell's ability to resist foreign compounds it encounters in its environment. In an agricultural setting, the platform could allow for an herbicide to have better performance and a broader spectrum of activity at a much lower rate. This would mean less chemical applied to the environment and a better product for the company. It could also be used in fungicides that attack pests.

The technology is the product of research conducted at The University of Texas at Austin by professors Stanley Roux and Alan Lloyd and Windsor, who was a post-doctoral student in their laboratory. They are members of the Institute for Cellular and Molecular Biology in the College of Natural Sciences.

The agreement is significant in several respects:
-It's the first deal between the university and Emergent, which has licensed technology from other universities, including the University of Oklahoma and Texas Tech University.
-It's a partnership, which is a new commercialization model for the OTC and university.
-With this structure, the university can anticipate a regular revenue stream of money from the company's profits. Normally, the university gets royalties or an equity stake in a company spun off from university research.
-It gives new life to the technology, which had reverted to the university when the original startup Texagen went out of business in 2003.
-It keeps the technology and the company in Texas. "

ETI is a venture capital firm that specializes in forming, funding, commercializing and managing biotech companies for the purpose of converting institutional and university-based technology into high return ventures.

Making the Texas Woman's University (TWU) College of Nursing the leader in nursing research and education in Texas and a model for the entire United States is the goal of Dr. Marcia Hern, the college's new dean. Dr. Hern begins her duties at TWU on Aug. 16.

Hern currently is director of nursing for the Cincinnati Children's Division of Developmental Disabilities and executive director for community outreach and development for the University of Cincinnati College of Nursing. She is a professor of nursing at the University of Cincinnati and was head of the Department of Parent Child Health Nursing at UC. She also had taught at Xavier University.

Hern earned her bachelor of science degree in nursing from Ohio State University and her master's and Ed.D degrees from the University of Cincinnati.

Dr. Jared Hazleton, dean of the University of North Texas College of Business Administration since June 1999, has announced his plans to step down after the spring commencement ceremony on May 8.

Hazleton, who also is a professor in the Department of Finance, Insurance, Real Estate and Law, said he is looking forward to devoting all his energies to scholarly pursuits after 35 years of administrative responsibilities.

His teaching specialties include graduate and undergraduate courses in financial management, markets and public policy, microeconomic theory, and money and banking.

Dr. Howard Johnson, UNT provost and vice president for academic affairs will head efforts to create a search committee during the summer and launch a nationwide search in fall 2004 with the goal of having a new dean in place by July 1, 2005.

During Hazleton's tenure as dean, the UNT business school created four new outreach centers (Murphy Enterprise Center, the Center for Logistics Education and Research, the Center for Financial Services and the NAFTA Studies Center) and added a number of new student programs (including: the Distinguished Executive Lecture, new study abroad programs, a student-managed career fair and a student-managed investment fund).

Other COBA achievements under Hazleton's leadership include raising more than $12 million in contributions, generating more than $2.5 million in grants and contracts, and establishment of an executive MBA program.

Prior to joining UNT, Hazleton was a professor of finance at Texas A&M and director of the Center for Business and Economic Analysis in A&M's Lowry Mays College and Graduate School of Business. He also served as dean of the University of Washington's Graduate School of Public Affairs, as vice chairman of the economics department at the University of Texas at Austin, and as an associate dean and faculty member of the UT Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs.

Hazleton also served as vice president for economics for Amarillo-based Mesa Limited Partnership, and was president of the Texas Research League, based in Austin.
In addition, he worked as an adviser on state tax policy to Texas former Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock and the Texas House Select Committee on Taxation. He also has written three books, four monographs and numerous professional articles.

Hazleton holds a bachelor's degree in accounting from the University of Oklahoma and a doctorate in economics from Rice University.

Jonathan MacClements, MD, assistant professor of family medicine at The University of Texas Health Center at Tyler (UTHCT), has been named director of medical education, said Steven D. Brown, MD, chief medical officer at UTHCT.

As director, Dr. MacClements will be responsible for the Graduate Medical Education Program, including the Family Practice Residency Program and the Occupational Medicine Residency Program, Dr. Calhoun said. He also will supervise continuing medical education, the Watson Wise Library, and the Lake Country Area Health Education Center.

MacClements has been with the Health Center since 2000. He was named director of UTHCT's Family Practice Residency Program in January 2003. MacClements is board certified in family practice. He received his medical degree from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. MacClements completed his family practice residency at UTHCT and was chief resident in 1995-96. He assumed his new duties in March.

MacClements is board certified in adolescent medicine and has an added qualification in tropical medicine and travelers' health. In addition, he has completed a faculty development fellowship and a program directors' fellowship.

Melissa Keathley recently was named UTHCT's director of surgical and procedural services. In this position, she will coordinate services offered by the operating room, recovery room, day surgery, interventional catheter lab, and other procedural areas.

Before coming to the Health Center, Keathley was director of the Value Analysis Program at The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston from 1995-2003. While there, she helped implement $13.5 million in savings in supplies. She has 17 years of experience in managing operating rooms, including 10 years with St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital in Houston, home of the Texas Heart Institute.

Keathley, a native of Kalamazoo, Mich., was raised in San Antonio. She has a master's of science degree in management from Houston Baptist University and a bachelor's of science degree in nursing from The University of Texas at Austin.

Wells Fargo has awarded $100,000 to the University of Houston Center for Mexican American Studies Program (CMAS) to assist UH in its efforts to help Hispanic students complete their education.

Within the next 10 years, Hispanics are expected to be the majority of Houston's population, but the percentage of Mexican-Americans earning college degrees still remains below the national average. One of CMAS' principal objectives is the recruitment and retention of Hispanic students at the university to lessen this gap.

The center is working on fulfilling a $5 million endowment goal, which will be dedicated to its students. The fund will be a secure source of money for CMAS scholarships and services. The center has already raised $1.5 million of the goal and will continue to approach businesses and individuals in its campaign and is accepting help from anyone who might support its work.

Through its Urban Experience Program (UEP), created in 1994, CMAS offers support to program participants in the form of mentoring, mandatory tutorial and study hall, internships and skills workshops. Launched with a dozen students, UEP now serves 75 undergraduates, many of who are at-risk students from inner city schools.

Out of its nearly 150 student participants, UEP and its predecessor, the Hispanic Family College Project founded in 1986, have helped 75 percent graduate.

Most of the students in the program are from local high schools including Austin, Milby, Reagan and Eisenhower, though there are a few from around the state.

In addition to UEP, the center sponsors a high school retention program for students at Stephen F. Austin High School: Students Aspiring to a Better Education (SABE). Established in 1986, the program offers career guidance, academic tutoring, mentoring services, skill workshops, self-development seminars and personal intervention.

Overall, UH is among the premiere institutions for Hispanics. Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education magazine placed it in the Top 20 schools in the United States in its latest rankings. Last year, nearly 18 percent of the university's enrollment was Hispanic. UH awarded nearly 1,000 degrees to Hispanic graduates in May 2003.

Thirty high school chemistry teachers will have the opportunity to participate in a Professional Development Program offered by Texas A&M University-Commerce.

The program, which starts this summer, is being funded by a U.S. Department of Education grant awarded to Dr. Anil Banerjee, associate professor of chemistry. Banerjee received $79,919, the maximum amount.

Experienced teachers will be encouraged to develop innovative experiments and inquiry teaching. Conceptual understanding and lab experiments will be highlighted, Banerjee added.

Those who have been in other careers and are entering chemistry teaching will also be targeted, he said.

The grant will pay tuition, fees, and child-care for area teachers to take a graduate course, "Advanced Chemistry Teaching Methods I," starting Tuesday, June 1, on the Commerce campus and at the A&M-Commerce Metroplex Center in Mesquite.

The courses will run during the week through Thursday, June 24.

The program will also require teachers to take a graduate course, "Advanced Chemistry Teaching Methods II," this fall. This will be an interactive two-way video course with students meeting at the Metroplex Center and the Commerce campus.

This course will begin Monday, Aug. 30, and end Friday, Dec. 17.

During the 2004-2005 school year, teachers will also be observed in their classrooms and given assistance for improvement if needed.

The program offers the possibility of the teachers being able to earn transcript credits and/or professional development clock hours toward becoming "highly qualified" under the No Child Left Behind Act, Banerjee added.

A 50-year-old man paralyzed from the neck down in a devastating motorcycle accident ayear ago is learning to walk again with the help of a robot named Lokomat at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.

Chuck Benefield of Dallas was riding his motorcycle on a quiet country road when a car rear-ended him, throwing him from the bike. When he awoke from a coma 11 days later, he learned he was paralyzed.

Physicians and physical therapists at UT Southwestern are using Lokomat to teach Mr. Benefield to walk again.

The robot provides "gait training" by teaching a patient's spinal cord and brain, with sensory information, to signal the body to step again. A harness supports the patient's body weight over a large treadmill. The legs and hips are strapped into the machine's robotic exoskeleton, which simulates a fluid walking motion. A computer records precise movement measurements and plots them on a graph, which is displayed in real time on a nearby monitor and allows patients and therapists to track progress.

UT Southwestern is the only institution in Texas and is among only a handful in the nation using the new machine.

During conventional treatments, patients are supported by a harness over a treadmill, but a therapist must manually move the patient's hips and legs. The procedure is extremely fatiguing to the patient and the therapist, and the patient's spasticity often cannot be overcome to accomplish gait training.

Benefield, who has regained some use of his arms, has been using Lokomat for about a month and said he could already see results in his lower extremities. He is regaining muscle tone and feeling in his legs; the swelling in his ankles and calves is gone; and he has more mobility.