O'Leary Accepts Cal State Post

Marion O'Leary, head of UNL's Department of Biochemistry since 1989 and director of the Center for Biological Chemistry, was recently named dean of the School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics at California State University at Sacramento.

Among other initiatives at UNL, O'Leary was a key player in the development and construction of the year-old Beadle Center.

O'Leary also has been involved in distance education and outreach activities around the state through SEER (Satellite Education and Environmental Research), a statewide television series on water.

Before coming to UNL more than seven years ago, O'Leary spent 22 years at the University of Wisconsin.

Grobsmith Accepts Colorado Deanship

Elizabeth Grobsmith has been named dean of the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences at the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs. The appointment begins Aug. 1.

Grobsmith is associate vice chancellor for academic affairs at UNL and director of Summer Sessions.

Grobsmith, also a professor of anthropology, served as assistant dean of UNL's College of Arts and Sciences before assuming her position in the office of the senior vice chancellor for academic affairs. She has been a faculty member since 1975.

Grobsmith was responsible for developing and shepherding a number of undergraduate initiatives at UNL, including the new General Education Program and the Honors Program. She also reviewed faculty promotion and tenure files prior to submission for regental approval and was the academic affairs liaison with other campuses within the NU system and other post-secondary institutions in Nebraska.

UNL Associate Dean Wins SBA Award

For excellence in technology-based economic development, Samy Elias, associate dean for engineering research at UNL, has received the Tibbetts Award from the U.S. Small Business Administration's office of advocacy.

The award recognizes local programs which enhance technologically-oriented small businesses through the Small Business Innovation Research program, known as SBIR. With SBIR, the largest federal agencies are required to award a portion of research and development moneys to small businesses. Technology-based firms receiving such moneys are considered a key source of job creation and economic development.

Elias has taken the leadership role in Nebraska by encouraging businesses to use SBIR. He organized a significant SBIR workshop in Nebraska in 1994 and has assisted firms in responding to federal solicitations and preparing SBIR proposals. Elias represented Nebraska as a founding member of the 14-state regional council Project SBIR West and served as a session leader at a regional meeting of the 1995 White House Conference on Small Business. Because of its high rate of commercialization of research projects, the General Accounting Office has rated SBIR as one of the most successful national research and development programs.

Woollam Company Receives Defense Award

J.A. Woollam Co. has been awarded the Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Award for outstanding performance by a small business contractor.

The J.A. Woollam Co. is owned by John Woollam, director of the Nebraska Research Initiative Center for Microelectronic and Optical Materials Research and professor of electrical engineering at UNL. His company is a spin-off of the center.

Over the last several years, the company has developed instruments and techniques for monitoring and controlling the production of materials used in optical and electronic devices. The instruments and techniques lower costs, increase yield and improve device and circuit performance. Products potentially enhanced by these developments include night vision glasses and extremely high speed integrated circuits for communications systems.

Wishart Book Receives Geography Honor

The Association of American Geographers has awarded David Wishart, professor of geography at UNL, the 1996 John Brinkerhoff Jackson Prize. This award, given for Wishart's book titled An Unspeakable Sadness: The Dispossession of the Nebraska Indians, recognizes a popular book of scholarly and literary merit on the human geography of the United States.

Published by the University of Nebraska Press last year, Wishart's book tells the story of the dispossession process as it affected Nebraska Indians -- the Pawnees, Poncas, Otoe-Missouria and Omahas -- throughout the 19th century and into the 20th.

Doug Amedeo, chair of the geography department, says this recognition is a noteworthy honor. The John Brinkerhoff Jackson Prize "is recognized as one of the most prestigious awards one can receive in our field for a literary accomplishment," he said.

Baseball Player's Biography Earns Award

A book published by the University of Nebraska Press has been named winner of the first Harold Seymour Award sponsored by the Society for American Baseball Research.

Divided Heart: The Life of Baseball's First Black Major Leaguer, by David W. Zang of Baltimore, received the award at the society's annual meeting in Kansas City in June. The book is the story of Fleet Walker, who played for the Toledo Blue Stockings before the turn of the century, when racial attitudes were hardening and segregation was becoming the pattern of American society.

Landscape Services Wins State Award

UNL's Department of Landscape Services is a 1996 Keep Nebraska Beautiful award winner.

The department tied for first place in the "civic-nonprofit" category. Roddy Spangler, staff assistant, and Susan Budler, assistant manager of east campus crews, submitted the nomination.

UNL's landscape services department was praised for its efforts to educate the public, its cooperation with other entities, its tours and workshops, its work to encourage volunteers, its impact on campus aesthetics, its wise use of resources and environmental friendliness.

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