University Times

James McCrea, executive director of the Pitt-based Generations Together program, has been recognized for his work in bringing youth and senior citizens together.

Senior Service America (SSA) recently awarded McCrea with a certificate of recognition.

Generations Together is an intergenerational studies program and part of the University Center for Social and Urban Research.

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Ronald Larsen, dean of the School of Information Sciences, and Howard Wactlar, vice provost for research computing in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, will conduct an NSF Post Digital Library Futures workshop June 15 – 17 in Chatham, Mass.

The workshop is supported through an $86,078 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The NSF hopes to engage the international community of scholars, practitioners and users to advise it on future research needs and opportunities on major national projects such as the National Science Digital Library. More than 40 national and international researchers and scholars are expected to participate in the workshop.

According to Larsen, the workshop is intended to “build more ubiquitous, comprehensive digital environments that become interactive and functionally complete for research communities in terms of people, data, information, tools and instruments and that operate at unprecedented levels of computational, storage and data transfer capacity.”

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Gov. Ed Rendell has appointed Pitt law professor Lawrence A. Frolik to the Pennsylvania Council on Aging. The council consists of 21 members who advise the governor, the state legislature and the Secretary on Aging on the needs of older Pennsylvanians and recommend policies and practices to meet those needs.

Frolik, who teaches Law and the Elderly among other courses, is an expert on the relatively new field of elder law.

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Charles Hinderliter, professor of psychology at the Johnstown campus, has been named chair of the UPJ Natural Sciences Division, effective July 1. He will succeed Alan Teich, UPJ associate professor of psychology.

Hinderliter joined the UPJ faculty in 1981. He received his A.B. degree from Susquehanna University and his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Kent State University.

In 1987 he received the Chancellor’s Distinguished Teaching Award.

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Eighteen representatives of the Pittsburgh Local Organizing Committee (PLOC) for the 2005 Summer National Senior Games — the Senior Olympics — traveled to the 2003 Summer Games in Hampton Roads, Va., to receive the official passing of the torch for the 2005 Summer Games to be held in Pittsburgh, June 3-18, 2005.

Accepting the torch on behalf of the PLOC were co-chair Peter Z. Cohen, of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), and PLOC members Dave Sherman of UPMC and Mary Esther Van Shura, of the City of Pittsburgh.

UPMC has provided $60,000 and in-kind services in support of the 2005 Summer Games, during which approximately 12,000 top senior athletes, age 50 and older, from across the United States will compete in 18 different sports within separate age divisions at venues located throughout the city and county.

David White, a certified athletic trainer and athletic training team leader at the UPMC Center for Sports Medicine since 1998, has been appointed executive director of the 2005 Senior Olympics.

“David was a natural choice for the executive director’s position. He has worked tirelessly on the region’s Senior Olympics initiative since it began with UPMC sports medicine representatives attending the 1999 Senior Olympics in Orlando,” said Freddie H. Fu, co-chair of PLOC and chair of orthopaedic surgery at the medical school.

White led PLOC’s campaign to bid for the Games and organized regional representation during the NSGA’s site selection committee visit to Pittsburgh in 2002, which preceded Pittsburgh’s formal award of the Games.

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Carol Stilley, assistant professor of nursing and psychiatry, received the Distinguished Alumni Award for Excellence in Nursing Research from the Columbia University-Presbyterian Hospital School of Nursing Alumni Association.

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Mary Cothran, assistant professor, School of Nursing, and Bettina Dixon, instructor in the School of Nursing’s nurse anesthesia program, were named recipients of the School of Nursing 2003 Dean’s Distinguished Teaching Award.