Focus on the Colleges

Pat Mastors ‘80

Arts & Sciences

More than a dozen journalism alumni offered workshops on everything from interviewing techniques to the new world of internet journalism for 175 students at the second annual Student Journalism Day on May 14, 2004. High school students from Scituate, Central Falls, Barrington, Middletown, Portsmouth, Lincoln, Tolman High, Cranston West, and Cumberland participated. Presented by the URI Journalism Alumni Advisory Committee, the Department of Journalism program featured a keynote address by Pat Mastors ‘80, news anchor at Channel 12 Eyewitness News. Sponsors included URI’s Division of University Advancement, Theta Chi Fraternity, Rhode Island Monthly, and RDW Group, Inc.

Business Administration

Three women business professors have just completed their first year in campus classrooms. They are Mary Hamilton, management; Talia McCray, transportation; and Pamela Stuerke, accounting. Hired at the start of the 2003-2004 academic year, they are among nine women professors out of a total of 52 professors in the college. The hirings are important because of the 1,567 students in the college, 585, or 37 percent, are women. In total, there are 817 men and 494 women undergraduates in the college.

Environment & Life Sciences

Fifty-three undergraduates are spending the next seven months conducting a wide array of environmental research and outreach after being selected for the URI Coastal Fellows Program. Now in its ninth year, the Coastal Fellows Program teams students with URI faculty and research staff to study an environmental topic of their choice. “The Coastal Fellows Program serves as a bridge between classroom learning and applied research,” said coordinator Barbara Nowicki. “It’s a unique program that gives students the opportunity to involve themselves in addressing current environmental problems.”

Feinstein College of Continuing Education

In conjunction with the Urban Field Center , CCE hosted the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston New England Community Development Advisory Council’s summer meeting on July 19. URI Urban Field Center Executive Director Marcia Feld worked with Federal Reserve Bank officials to organize the Providence meeting. More than 50 representatives from New England community development corporations, banks, local and regional governments, educators and individuals from the private sector reviewed the revitalization of New England’s urban communities, including Providence.

Joy Emery

Human Science & Services

URI maintains the largest collection of clothing patterns in the world. After more than a decade of recording and categorizing 20,000 patterns and scanning each package into an electronic data base, Professor Emerita Joy Emery and her cadre of volunteers have created a two-volume CD set containing patterns dating from 1868 to 1956. The patterns, which have been designated a project of Save America’s Treasures by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, include such high style couturiers as Dior and Vionnet. One CD covers 1868 to1944, the other covers 1945 to 1956. Each CD costs $100, and the set costs $150. For more information, contact Emery at 401-874-2713.

Dean Dale Joseph, left, and Marie Ghazal.

Nursing

Marie Ghazal, the vice president of nursing and patient care at the Providence Community Health Centers, Inc., has been named the College of Nursing Alumna of the Year for 2004. Ghazal administers the center’s clinical operations, school-based clinics, the Women’s Prison Project and the Sexually Transmitted Disease Clinic. As chief nursing officer, she is responsible for all nursing practice issues in the organization. When Ghazal was a freshman, her 32-year-old aunt died of ovarian cancer; in her senior year, her father died of bone cancer. What she learned about compassion and commitment during those times of loss have stayed with her through 27 years of professional service.

Jose A. Reyes

Pharmacy

Jose A. Reyes, who had no inkling of ever becoming a licensed pharmacist, quickly became one of the college’s most honored PharmD students. In addition to receiving the U.S. Public Health Services Excellence in Public Health Pharmacy Practice Award, he worked as an interpreter and intern in Providence, helped to develop a Spanish health Web portal, and lectured at national and international conferences. Reyes graduated in May with both a doctorate of pharmacy (drug information tract) and a minor in Spanish. Now he is realizing his dream to practice bilingual pharmacy at the CVS Pharmacy in the Spanish-speaking community in South Providence.

Graduate School of Oceanography

The National Science Foundation awarded John King, professor of geological oceanography, $126,000 as part of a joint international scientific drilling project at Lake Bosumtwi in Ghana. The project, which took place in July, examined the climate history of the region through lake sediment analysis and searched for evidence of meteorite impact cratering recorded in the rocks.

Brad Hubeny and Chip Heil, both doctoral candidates in geological oceanography, also participated in the research project.