Spectrum - Volume 17 Issue 28 April 13, 1995 - Achievers

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including The Conductor , a special section of the Spectrum printed 4 times a year

Achievers

Spectrum Volume 17 Issue 28 - April 13, 1995

The second collection of short stories by Edward Falco , associate professor of English, has won the Richard Sullivan Prize from the University of Notre Dame and will be published later in the year by that university's press.

The Sullivan Prize volume is selected from an open competition among writers who have published at least one earlier collection of stories. The judges for 1995 were Valerie Sayers and William O'Rourke. "The Artist," one of the stories included in Acid, was originally published last October in The Atlantic Monthly and has been selected by Jane Smiley for inclusion in The Best American Short Stories 1995 .

Falco is also the author of a novel, Winter in Florida , which examined the issue of violence in our society, and of a chapbook of prose poems, Concert in the Park of Culture . This spring, Eastgate Systems will bring out Sea Island , Falco's collection of hypertext poems.

Linda G. Leffel, professor and director of program development in University Outreach and International Programs' Division of Continuing Education, gave an invited presentation on "The Power of Strategic Business Planning" at the national conference "The Art and Science of Conferencing in an Academic Environment: Power and the Role of the Conference Professional. The conference was held in Chicago."

Leffel has been appointed by the president of the National University Continuing Education Association to serve on the National Program Planning Committee for NUCEA's 1996 annual conference in Boston. She was also elected to the Executive Board of NUCEA's Division of Conference and Institutes.

Ned Lester, director of business and community relations for Virginia Tech's outreach and international programs, headed the management team for a recent U.S.-China trade mission. The trade mission, which consisted of 22 business and education leaders, evolved from the joint sponsorship in 1992 by Virginia Tech, Marshall University, and Wright State University of a series of conferences on technology transfer, business-education partnerships, and global marketing.

Blacksburg artist Preston Frazer was honored March 21 by Virginia Tech's Friends of the University Libraries with a reception that featured an exhibition of his work. The event was held in the Special Collections department of Newman Library.

Frazer, who served as professor of life drawing at Virginia Tech for 35 years, was praised by Lon Savage, the master of ceremonies and co-chair of the Friends, for "his years of devoted and invaluable distinguished service on the faculty, as an invaluable contributor to our community, as a patron and benefactor."

Savage thanked Frazer for contributing his own art and the art of others to the university, including a painting of Einstein that hangs in the library. That painting, Savage said, is "one of the few done from life--this one by the noted German artist Max Westfield."

Savage called Frazer "the most original human being created" and said the Blacksburg artist's line drawings "are really masterpieces."

Frazer's artistic works have been published in several books and exhibited at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C., Honolulu Academy of Fine Arts, Oriental Institute, University of Chicago, Harvard, and University of Tennessee at Nashville.

Donna Dunay and Robert Dunay, professors in the College of Architecture and Urban Studies, were recently recognized for a winning design entry in the 1994 Excellence in Masonry Design Awards. Their design of Pear Hall, a children's addition consisting of a playroom and a pair of bedrooms, was cited for its innovative use of materials. This state-wide award is the result of an annual competition held by the Virginia Masonry Council to acknowledge the best projects utilizing masonry as a primary building material.