Anthony Chase, assistant dean of the School of Arts and Humanities, will serve as the honorary chairman for the 31st annual Curtain Up! gala on Friday, September 14.

Presented by the Theater District of Western New York and M&T Bank, Curtain Up! signals the official opening of Buffalo’s live theater season. The event includes theatrical productions at 15 participating theaters, a black-tie gala dinner on stage at Shea’s Performing Arts Center, and a post-performance party featuring live entertainment on Main Street in the Theater District.

In addition to teaching dramaturgy and theater history at Buffalo State, Chase is heavily involved in the local theater community. He is the founding theater editor for Artvoice, where he has provided insight on local and national theater for 22 years. He is also a longtime host of “Theater Talk” on WBFO-FM 88.7 and is the creator and producer of Buffalo’s annual professional theater awards, “The Arties.”

In 2012, the National Conference for Just Communities named Chase a community leader in the arts, and Buffalo Spree magazine named him Best Media Personality in Western New York.

Scott Phillips and James Sobol, associate professors of criminal justice, published “Police Decision Making: An Examination of Conflicting Theories” in Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management 35 (3): 551–565.

Michelle Bae, assistant professor of art education, has published her interdisciplinary book, Girls, Cultural Production, and Resistance, coedited with Olga Ivashkevich (Peter Lang Publishing, Mediated Youth series, 2012).

Bruce Bryski, associate professor of communication, has published "A Trainer's Guide to the Intergenerational Workplace" for the Center for Development of Human Services. This is Bryski's fifth publication in a series of communication manuals for CDHS administrators and trainers across New York state. 

This publication examines the role of communication in today's workforce, which now consists of five generations. Bryski examines how group communication theories and principles can affect leadership, conflict resolution, perception, and stereotypes in the diverse intergenerational workplace. The research also discusses how interpersonal and group communication may be used to develop more effective relationships in the work environment.

Jagat J. Mukherjee, research scientist in the Great Lakes Center's Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry Lab, has received a two-year grant (2012–2014) totaling $147,500 from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Subodh Kumar, the lab's interim director, is coinvestigator on the project, which is titled "Alcohol and PAH-Induced Carcinogenesis."

Three members of the Economics and Finance Department presented papers at the conference "Political Economy and the Outlook for Capitalism" July 5–7 in Paris, France. The conference was jointly sponsored by the Association of Heterodox Economics, the International Initiative for Promoting Political Economy, and the Association Française d'Economie Politique, and was one of the largest gatherings of heterodox economists to date, with 900 attendees from more than 40 different countries.

Tae-Hee Jo, assistant professor, presented a paper titled “Financing Investment under Fundamental Uncertainty and Instability: A Heterodox Microeconomic View.”

Victor Kasper, associate professor, presented his paper “Unemployment and Accumulation: Unemployment Scenarios for U.S. Labor in the Wake/Context of the Current Global Crisis” during a session titled “Developments in the Marxist Theory of the Global Economy,” which Kasper chaired. He also presented the paper “Interactions between the Productive Sector and Financial Sector in the U.S. Economy: An Assessment of the Financial Crisis 2007–2010 using a Marxist Macroeconomic Simulation Model,” coauthored with Tamara Apostolou, a graduate of the master's program in applied economics at Buffalo State, during the session “North America in Crisis.”

Ted Schmidt, associate professor, presented a paper titled “An Analysis of the Financialisation Process in Commodity Markets.”

Jean F. Gounard, director of international student affairs, chaired the annual business meeting of the NAFSA Francophone World Special Interest Group at the meeting of NAFSA: Association of International Educators in Houston, Texas, May 27–June 1 and, subsequently, he was reelected chair of the group. During that meeting, official representatives from various parts of the Francophone world spoke on the status of the French language today. In addition, Gounard chaired a session titled “Francophone West African: Student Credentials: Transferring to the U.S. System.” These meetings also marked the 11th anniversary of the signature of the Memorandum of Friendship between NAFSA and l’Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie initiated by Gounard in 2001, since he was already chair of the NAFSA Francophone World Special Interest Group.

A chapter by Stephen Gareau, associate professor of computer information systems, titled "Economic Analysis of Conventional and Alternative Nutrient Management Approaches," has been published in the book Advances in Citrus Nutrition (A. K. Srivastava, ed.; New York: Springer, 2012).

Zhang Jie, professor of sociology and director of the Center for China Studies, published his article “Suicidal Characteristic-Clusters for Rural Young Victims Aged 15–34 in Three Provinces, China: A Case Control Study,” coauthored with Fang Le, in the Chinese Journal of Epidemiology 33 (3): 286–290.

Zhang Jie, professor of sociology and director of the Center for China Studies, published his article “Combined Effects of Neuroticism and Extraversion: Findings from a Matched Case Control Study of Suicide in Rural China,” in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 200 (7): 598–602. The article’s coauthors are Fang Le, Marnin J. Heisel, and Paul R. Duberstein.