A pair of UUPers got some high profile notice recently—from the White House.

Igor Lednev, a UAlbany associate professor of chemistry, has been named to the White House Subcommittee on Forensic Science’s Interagency Working Group on Research, Develop-ment, Testing and Evaluation.

Purchase professor Joe Skrivanek accepted the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring at a Jan. 27 ceremony at the White House. Purchase College won the honor for its successful Baccalaureate and Beyond mentoring program for community college students, which was established and is led by Skrivanek.

As a member of the White House subcommittee, Lednev will work with a select group of scientists and policymakers selected to shape the course of forensic science research over the next 15 to 20 years. The subcommittee examines policies, procedures and plans regarding forensic science and the implications for national security, criminal justice, and medical examiners and coroners at local, state and federal levels.

Representatives from the FBI, the U.S. Department of Justice, the National Science Foundation, and other scientists from top universities are also on the panel. Lednev recently won a $375,000 Department of Justice grant for developing an easy-to-use approach for crime scene investigators (CSI) to identify body fluid traces at crime scenes. The subcommittee will meet once a month in Washington, D.C.

The Bridges program is designed to attract underrepresented students at community colleges to the sciences by helping students transfer to four-year SUNY schools like Purchase and earn their baccalaureate degrees. Since 2001, 70 percent of the program’s nearly 300 students have earned bachelor’s degrees in the science fields—compared to 17 percent of transfer students nationally. A third of Bridges students are in or have completed graduate school, studying STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) specialties.

SUNY has expressed a strong interest in expanding Purchase’s Bridges program. Representatives from a dozen four-year SUNY schools and 11 community colleges met in Albany in November 2010 to discuss taking Bridges statewide. A second meeting is slated for sometime this spring.

— Michael Lisi

Bobbie Harrison’s memory lives on through the actions of her co-workers at the UUP Brooklyn HSC Chapter.

Over the summer, Brooklyn HSCers ran their weekly “Be a Winner–Be a Quitter!” smoking cessation program aimed at getting smokers to cut the nicotine habit and end their dependence on cigarettes.

The three-hour sessions, held on Wednesday afternoons from June through August at the Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, were a solid success. Dozens of smokers stopped by to pick up information and to get free nicotine patches and nicotine gum to help them stop smoking. Participants were also entered into a drawing for a flat-screen television donated by MetLife.

“The response has been very positive,” said UUP statewide Treasurer Rowena Blackman-Stroud, the Brooklyn HSC Chapter president. “We opened this up to the public. We did mailings to the Brooklyn community and also contacted people on campus to take part in the program.

“Most of the people who participated were the usual smokers trying to quit, but there is much more urgency now,” she continued. “People are really making an effort to quit.”

The clinics were held in remembrance of Bobbie, Brooklyn HSC Chapter’s office manager who passed away in May 2008 due to burns sustained in a fire started by a cigarette ember. She was hired by UUP as a chapter assistant in 1997.

Over the years, she rose through the ranks to take on the responsibilities of chapter office manager. Bobbie did her job with enthusiasm and dedication, and ably served as a valued UUP staffer and member of the Communications Workers of America Local 1141—UUP’s staff union—for 12 years.

More than 2,000 people were contacted to take part in the clinics, the second phase of the chapter’s “Take One Step for Bobbie” smoking cessation campaign. The program was launched last year to remember Bobbie and to raise awareness about the dangers of smoking and fire prevention and safety.

It’s also another example of how UUP is caring for the communities where its chapters are located. At the statewide level, UUP took up collections for old eyeglasses and canned food during Delegate Assemblies in 2008 and 2009. Hundreds of  eyeglasses were donated to the Lions Club International and several boxes of food were sent to the Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York.

— Michael Lisi