Campus Journal News

The largest manufacturer of paper book matches in the world, the D.D. Bean & Sons Co. of Jaffrey, last year identified a production-line drying problem that was creating a bottleneck, preventing the company from increasing efficiency by adding high-speed presses.

But through a little match-making engineered by Henry Mullaney, executive director of the Industrial Research Center (IRC) at UNH, the company now is testing two new materials ‹ compounds worked out in UNH's chemical engineering department ‹ that hold the promise of solving the problem.

The IRC provides technical assistance from UNH, Dartmouth College and other educational institutions to the business community, helping companies to generate more than $72 million in new sales over the past several years. When D.D. Bean & Sons ran into the roadblock over the drying time of friction ‹ the striking surface on its match books ‹ Mullaney saw an opportunity for a UNH-business partnership which would benefit both.

"What we have to offer is the knowledge and creativity of our faculty and students," he says. "New Hampshire businesses appreciate that, and our educational institutions are enriched by the connections."

For D.D. Bean & Sons, the IRC's interest in partnering worked like a charm, according to Vice President Allen Leach. Through IRC, UNH professor of chemical engineering P. T. Vasudevan visited the company and agreed to take on the challenge to cut friction drying time. Mullaney helped the company apply for an IRC technical assistance grant to support laboratory research.

"Henry also visited us and kept in touch all through the process," Leach says. "He was very helpful and made it easy to apply."

An agreement for sharing costs between IRC and D.D. Bean was drawn up.

Back in his lab, Vasudevan designed a number of polymer chemistry experiments -- carried out by chemical engineering student Alison DuPont of Whitefield -- to address the drying problem. The UNH team came up with two promising new materials, says Vasudevan, to improve the striking surface and dry it much faster than the old mixture. "They are not in use yet, but they perform well in the laboratory and we expect to be able to work the kinks out when we test it on a larger scale," he says. Production-line tests are under way this winter.

Most important for D.D. Bean & Sons, the new techniques should reduce drying time from two minutes to about 30 seconds. Leach is pleased with this result and impressed with IRC's process. "We don't have a full-time chemist on staff, and even if we did, he or she might not have been able to accomplish the things that P.T. and Alison did for us," Leach says. "We could also have spent a whole lot more money," he adds. "But IRC and UNH offered an affordable, economical solution. It's a very good program."

Vasudevan, noting that most universities do not offer such rich research opportunities to undergraduates, says that "it is really wonderful for UNH students to get this great experience, to be exposed to a practical research problem this way."

Since its creation in 1992, the IRC has had an estimated $200 million impact on the state's economy in just this way -- one company at a time. "We seldom produce overnight fixes," Mullaney says, adding that sometimes three years may pass before IRC and its business partners can point to real results. "But we get very good results when they do come in. We average one new job for every $2,300 spent by IRC."

Mullaney points out that research and development, and technology transfer are highly leveraged investments.

"A Rand study showed a typical return of more than 20 times for companies who invest in research and development," he says.

To date, state and company investment in the IRC Technical Assistance Grants, which provide companies with matching funds for R & D projects and assistance from UNH faculty, exceed $7.8 million.

UNH's Institute on Disability will play a lead role in a $2.3 million grant, Facilitating Lifespan Excellence (FLEX), awarded to the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The Institute on Disability is a partner on the FLEX grant, and will work with statewide partners to improve services to residents with disabilities.

The grant, developed by the state's disability and aging communities, is designed to improve health and long-term care service systems and supports for people with disabilities and long-term illness to live in the community.

"This is a common sense way of using money the state is already spending, but for better results," says Joanne Dodge, a Real Choice Advisory Council member.

The grant identifies strengths and challenges in the state regarding community support and independence for residents with disabilities and elders. Challenges include long-term, intensive supports for elders and adults with disabilities or chronic illnesses; the state guardianship statute; public transportation; assistive technology; and support for children.

The Real Choice Advisory Council met several times to address problems and generate solutions prior to submitting the grant. The council -- appointed by Gov. Jeanne Shaheen and comprised of New Hampshire consumers of the elderly, disability and mental health systems -- suggested the following solutions to long-term care reform:

Expand community development strategies and strengthen communities to support their own.

Reorganize the public transportation system.

Develop new organizational models for direct-care workers, such as cooperatives, to allow for access to more money, control, benefits and relationships with people with disabilities.

Make assistive technology part of everyday life.

Create a true volunteer community of all ages.

Ensure that receiving services is not dependent on being poor.

Each of these problems, according to the FLEX proposal, can be tied to problems associated with policy, funding, flexibility, coordination, and lack of consumer participation and choice. The grant aims to address these issues by tapping the state's strength­a growing dedication among many state and nonprofit organizations to flexible, innovative and self-directed support.

Jan Nisbet, director of The Institute on Disability, will serve a primary role with the Policy Resource Center and FLEX management team. These groups will work to ensure the project's goals are met and that the Policy Resource Center makes recommendations for policy and regulatory reforms. Nisbet also will manage the project's administration.

Institute on Disability staff will provide training and technical assistance related to the project's goals. Training coordinator Janet Williamson and Systems Change coordinators Sonke Dornblut and Patty Cotton also will participate.

Jim Wible, professor of economics, has been named associate dean of the faculty at the Whittemore School of Business and Economics.

Among Wible's new responsibilities will be facilitating faculty research opportunities, helping to design and guide the school's first post-tenure review process this year, conflict resolution when appropriate, plus reviewing and recommending work load policy to help faculty balance their teaching, research and service activities. Evangelos O. Simos, professor of economics, has succeeded Wible as chair of the economics department at the Whittemore School.

Wible, now in his 18th year at UNH, will continue to teach when his schedule permits, including a philosophy of economics course this semester. His research publications include more than 20 articles and the 1998 book, The Economics of Science -- Methodology and Epistemology As If Economics Really Mattered. He is working on a book about the mathematical economics and philosophy of Charles Sanders Pierce, one of the giants of the American pragmatist movement.

Wible is a member of the board of the Eastern Economics Association. He was honored as a UNH Faculty Scholar in 1993, and a visiting scholar at Duke University, Durham, N.C. in 1998. He has held the Carter Professorship at the Whittemore School. In the 1970s, he was a predoctoral fellow in Penn State's Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in the Humanities.

Charlotte Kennard Anderson, professor emerita, died on Dec. 2, 2001, at her home in Manchester. She was assistant librarian at the UNH Library and associate professor from 1943 until her retirement in 1980.

Born in Manchester, NH, on Oct. 27, 1913, she was the daughter of David W. and Louise Kennard (Hayes) Anderson. She graduated in 1931 from Manchester Central High School, where her father, a physics teacher, was the head of the science department. She graduated from the University of Michigan in 1935 with a bachelor of arts. In 1936, she earned her bachelor of library science from UM, and her master of science in library science in 1951.

She was a 1932 initiate of Alpha Epsilon Chapter, Alpha Xi Delta. She was a member of the American Library Association, the New England Library Association and the New Hampshire Library Association. She was also a member of the American Association of University Women, the AARP and the Daughters of the American Revolution, Molly Stark Chapter.

She had a variety of interests and traveled extensively internationally for more than 70 years with her sister, Ruth. She was a member of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Manchester YWCA, the New Hampshire Historical Society, the Manchester Historic Association and served on the board of advisors for the Currier Museum of Art. Memorial donations may be made in her name to the Currier Museum of Art, 201 Myrtle Way, Manchester, NH 03104

The UNH Police Department has hired its first victim witness advocate, a position that is rare in New Hampshire police departments and even more rare nationwide in university departments.

Lynda Ruel brings 13 years of working with crime victims and a strong background in the human and family services field to the position, which is funded jointly by a state grant and the university. She will act as a criminal justice liaison, assisting victims of all crimes understand the criminal justice system, identifying resources for them and keeping them informed of the status of the police investigation into their case.

Ruel chairs the victims' services committee of the Governor's Commission on Domestic and Sexual Violence, and is a member of the protocol development and conference development committees of the commission. She holds a bachelor's in human service with a minor in criminal justice from Springfield College.

Last year, more than 900 custody arrests were made on campus, and between 2,000 to 2,500 crimes were reported, says Lt. John Pickering, who was instrumental in bringing the victim witness advocate position to the department.

"We want victims to feel like they have some control in a system that doesn't offer much," Ruel says. "It's a constant emotional rollercoaster ride for victims because the system has to ensure everyone's rights."

"The emotional range can be across the board. Some people resent being victims and want to get on with their lives. When the case is finally over, for many victims, that's when they begin to heal," she says.

Pickering, who has been with the department for two years after leaving state police as assistant commander of the major crimes unit, sought funding for the position in March 2001 after the department began discussing adding the position in December 2000. Pickering knew first-hand of the benefits of such a position -- he was Ruel's supervisor when she worked as the victim witness advocate in the major crime unit of the state police.

UNH's Durham campus is the only university in the state with a victim witness advocate, and among only a handful of police departments statewide that have such a position, Pickering says. Other agencies with a victim witness advocate include each county attorney's office, state police, Manchester police, Nashua police, the state Attorney General's Office and Dover police as part of its anti-stalking unit.

"The victim witness advocate position is an up-and-coming position in law enforcement. We're really just now being able to focus on victims. The whole national has taken a strong look at the rights of victims," Ruel says.

For several years, U.S. Senators Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) have supported a federal Victims' Rights Amendment. The amendment to the U.S. Constitution would give violent crime victims, among other things, the right to be notified in a timely fashion when a convicted felon is released or escapes from prison, or when a public proceeding is held in the case; the right to attend and provide comment at criminal proceedings, such as release, plea, sentencing, commutation and pardon proceedings; and the right to not be subjected to decisions that disregard their safety or restitution claims.

Pickering and Ruel stressed that the victim witness advocate complements the university's Sexual Harassment and Rape Prevention Program (SHARPP). The role of SHARPP -- which works only with sexual harassment and rape victims -- is different than that of the criminal justice liaison, Ruel says.

Once difference is that information provided by victims to SHARPP is confidential, whereas information provided to Ruel could be shared with prosecutors in certain circumstances -- a difference that will be clearly explained to crime victims. "I want to make sure that before they give me something, they understand what might happen to that information," she says.

"We're here to work in conjunction with SHARPP, to address a different aspect of victim's needs, but not to take over," Ruel says.

Most victims have no idea what the criminal justice system is all about, Pickering says. "Lynda is going to be there with them to walk them through the process."