October 13, 2005
ETC.: Campus News & Notes
CYBER SLEUTH: Dave Dittrich, researcher and senior security engineer at the Information School, has been named one of the world’s top seven security professionals by Information Security magazine, which put him on the cover of its October edition. He accepts the award Oct. 19. The magazine lauds Dittrich for tracking down the cause of computer attacks that crippled Internet giants such as Yahoo! and Amazon in 1999. More recently, Dittrich has been rooting out new kinds of “botnets” that lie dormant on infected computers like terrorist sleeper cells. He is a founder of the UW’s year-old Center for Information Assurance and Cybersecurity, which offers a certificate program for mid-career professionals.
IT’S BACK: Poetry Northwest, a literary journal with a long history at the UW, is being revived under an agreement with The Attic Writers’ Workshop in Portland. UW English Professor David Wagoner edited the journal from 1996 until its demise in 2002 because of funding problems. Now it will be edited by poet and critic David Biespiel and published biannually beginning in March of 2006. “This journal, by title, speaks to the nation about what over the years has been a region rich with poets and poetry,” said Richard Dunn, chair of the UW English Department. “We know that Poetry Northwest has been much missed since the University stopped publishing it. The prospect of a new series comes as good news.”
100 STRONG: The College of Arts & Sciences has reached the 100 mark — 100 faculty endowments, that is. In 1998, with only 18 faculty endowments, dwindling state support and salaries already falling well behind the curve, the College made faculty support its central development focus. Then, as the UW’s capital campaign got under way, College Advisory Board members urged Arts & Sciences Dean David Hodge to adopt the audacious goal of raising 100 professorships from private contributions. The Professorship Campaign was launched that year. And just recently, the college made it, announcing a professorship in chemistry as its 100th . “On behalf of the College, I want to thank our many generous donors and volunteers who have worked so hard to make this moment possible,” said Hodge.
WORTH REMEMBERING: Not many University professors wind up with a memorial dedicated to them, but that may happen to the late Angelo Pellegrini, who was an English professor here for many years and was well known not only for his teaching, but for his love of good food and wine. This year, Random House, re-issued a classic book by Pellegrini, The Unprejudiced Palate, which has been described as “a celebration of life, with recipes.” Now comes word that there is a drive locally to build a memorial to the professor.
“Memorials help keep people and ideas alive,” said Jon Rowley, who is spearheading the memorial drive. “The Angelo Pellegrini Memorial is initially conceived as a life-sized statue, an herb garden and a reading bench, with the site and sculptor as yet undetermined. The support in and out of the community by people whose lives were touched by Angelo has been tremendous.” For more information, contact Rowley at rowley@nwlink.com.
KUDOS: Germanics Professor Richard T. Gray, was awarded the prize for best article on a literary topic published in the German Studies Review during the preceding two years. The article was on “Red Herrings and Blue Smocks: Ecological Destruction, Commercialism, and Anti-Semitism in Annette von Droste-Hülshoff’s Die Judenbuche.”
