Crowell elected to leadership position in international professional organization

Mark Crowell, associate vice chancellor for economic development and director of the Office of Technology Development, has been selected as the president-elect of the Association of University Technology Managers.

Crowell will serve as the president-elect for 2004 and as president of the association in 2005. The association is a professional organization for technology-transfer directors and intellectual-property experts from universities and teaching hospitals. It has more than 3,200 members with the majority located in the United States and Canada.

The association’s board of trustees selects the officers. The members will formally elect the slate of officers on March 5 at the annual meeting in San Antonio, Texas.

A graduate of UNC, Crowell became associate vice chancellor in September 2000. Before coming to UNC, Crowell held a similar position at N.C. State University for eight years.

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Former Black Panther Ahmad Rahman available to speak to community groups

Ahmad Rahman, the 2004 Diaspora Scholar in Residence at UNC’s Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History, is available to speak to community groups this week.

He also will provide commentary at the center’s screening Tuesday (Feb. 24) of "American Exile," about former Black Panther leader Pete O’Neal, who has lived in Africa for the past 30 years. The free public screening will begin at 3:30 p.m. in 319 Greenlaw.

Rahman, a visiting assistant professor of Africana studies at the University of Toledo, was a leader in the Black Panther Party in Detroit. He was sent to prison in 1971 as a result of an FBI investigation. Rahman spent 20 years behind bars, earning his bachelor’s degree and becoming the first prisoner admitted into a graduate program at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. Currently he is completing his doctoral dissertation .

To schedule an event with Rahman, contact Jennifer Ramirez at the center, 962-9001 or jramirez@email.unc.edu.

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UNC art department alumni featured in current exhibit

The work of seven UNC art department alumni is on display at the Hanes Fine Art Center through March 4. The show, a mix of photography, sculpture, drawing and painting, is in the John and June Alcott Gallery, open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays. For more information, call 962-2015.

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March 19-20 sale at Wilson to offer books at discounts

Books at bargain prices will be sold from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. March 19 and 9 a.m. to noon March 20 in UNC’s Wilson Library, when Friends of the Library hold their annual sale. On the second day, prices will be halved from the day before, said Friends’ Liza Terll.

The free public event will close from 10:30-11 a.m. March 20 as the staff prepares for the grand finale, books sold at $3 per bag from 11 a.m. until noon.

Some specially priced books will not be discounted or included in the bag sale. Friends only may attend a preview sale from 7-9 p.m. March 18. The next day, they may buy books at half price, and on March 20, they will receive an additional 50 percent discount.

Credit cards will not be accepted – just cash or checks. For more information, contact Terll at 962-1301 or liza_terll@unc.edu.

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Athletics and academics mix in sculpture by UNC alumnus

A huge abacus with basketballs in place of beads, framed by a the replica of a football goalpost, now stands in the UNC art department’s Alumni Sculpture Garden, just north of Hanes Art Center.

Commissioned by a department committee overseeing the garden, the public artwork "Scoreboard" will be on display through spring 2005. The site-specific installation by alumnus Arthur Brett Reif pertains to the "often contentious relationship between athletics and academics," said art professor Jim Hirschfield.

Reif, who earned a master’s degree in fine arts from UNC in 1996, is a special assistant professor at the Kansas City Art Institute. He has exhibited work in Buffalo, Cleveland, the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh and UNC’s Ackland Art Museum.

"I am a huge Tar Heel fan," he said. "Eventually, I came to the juxtaposition of the abacus, a symbol of mathematics and learning, with the basketball, a symbol of athletics and entertainment on the UNC campus and North Carolina in general. "The piece is intended to dramatize the marriage between athletics and education in a humorous way. In the end, as Roy Williams can attest, this is how people in Chapel Hill keep score."

Reif works in non-traditional media including automobile grease, post-it-notes, test tubes and plastic wrap, Hirschfield said. His current work involves frying objects and materials to create installations. For more information, call 962-2015.

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Contact: News Services, (919) 962-2091, news@unc.edu