Winter 2002

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PERSONAL LOSSES, PERSONAL RESPONSES

TWO MORE ALUMNI OF UMASS AMHERST have been identified among the victims of the September attacks. SHERYL ROSENBAUM ’90 of New Jersey, an accountant and partner at Cantor Fitzgerald, and DAVID ELLIS RIVERS ’83 of New York City, editorial director of Waters magazine, Risk Waters Group, were at the World Trade Center September 11. This brings to 10 the number of alumni lost in the attacks. (Listed in our fall issue were CHRISTOFFER CASTANJEN ’00C; GEOFFREY CLOUD ’87; TARA SHEA CREAMER ’93; PETER HASHEM ’83; TODD HILL ’90; JOHN C. JENKINS ’81C; THOMAS PECORELLI ’92; and JESSICA SACHS ’01.) All of these beautiful people are remembered in pictures and tributes on CNN’s www.cnn.com/specials/2001/memorial . AMONG THOSE RESPONDING: KENNETH FEINBERG ’67 has been named special master of the federal government’s September 11 compensation fund. The appointment by Attorney General John Ashcroft makes Feinberg sole arbiter of how much money thousands of victims of the terrorist attacks will receive. “I think he has become, instantly, the most important human being on the planet to 5,000 devastated families,” remarked Leo Boyle, president of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America. Feinberg is a Washington attorney specializing in mediation, negotiation, and arbitration. JAMES KALLSTROM ’66 is New York Governor George Pataki’s appointee as director of the state’s newly established Office of Public Security. “The horrific actions of September 11 heightened the state’s sense of vulnerability and the need to ensure that its citizens, structures, and natural resources are protected effectively from any further attacks,” Kallstrom told a congressional committee in November. A former assistant director of the FBI, Kallstrom headed the criminal investigation into the crash of TWA Flight 800 in 1996. JOHN SHRODER JR. ’63G, a University of Nebraska professor whose M.S. in geology was earned at UMass, has become a “go-to guy for the U.S. military as troops search for terrorist suspect Osama bin Laden,” reported the UMass Campus Chronicle last fall. An expert on the rocks and caves of Afghanistan, which he helped map in the 1970s, Shroder told the Omaha World-Herald that he has misgivings about aiding a military search, but knows he must help: “I have to stand up because I have knowledge that is important for the U.S. government.” JOSH MEYER ’87 of the Los Angeles Times is in Washington covering the war on terrorism for his paper. CHARLES SENNOTT ’84, former Middle East bureau chief and now Europe bureau chief for the Boston Globe, was interviewed on NPR’s Fresh Air in October after traveling with the Special Forces in Afghanistan. KEVIN CULLEN ’81, formerly a Northern Ireland correspondent is covering homefront investigations for the Globe. NEEDHAM-BASED SOFTWARE COMPANY PTC HAS donated $100,000 to the UMass system to endow a scholarship fund in memory of Massachusetts victims of September 11. The gift announced by CEO C. RICHARD HARRISON in November creates a need-based scholarship available to students at any of the five UMass campuses, with preference given to engineering and applied science students whose families were directly affected by the terrorist attacks. In addition, PTC employees contributed approximately $54,000 of their own money to September 11 relief, and PTC provided a match for a total of $108,000.

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Truth, reconciliation, action

TRUTH: larger image

COMMENCEMENT 2001: a catchup

IN A HEARTBEAT: a faculty response to September 11

LOSSES, RESPONSES: ten alumni lost; six alums' response

RECONSTRUCTIVE SURGERY: Coolidge Bridge project underway

RECONSTRUCTIVE: larger image

HIGHLIGHTS: rich fish - sounds grotty, but pogy oil’s good for you

Fish: larger image

Damp distinctions: water polo fourth in U.S., shower research scores Ig Nobel

Damp distinctions: larger image

Usefulness U: the Translation Center

Plus: Acid rain update, UMass bragging rights, and the soles of insects