SET PHASERS FOR 'ROCHESTER'

Rick Rashid '80 (PhD), senior vice president for research at Microsoft, has restarted a computer game he first worked on 25 years ago as a graduate student at Rochester.

The software company's new Internet game, Allegiance, is an updated version of Alto Trek, one of the world's first networked computer games, designed by Rashid and classmate Gene Ball '82 (PhD) during the mid-1970s. Released last March, the game was overseen by Rashid, an avid computer gamer, who worked on the project during his spare time at the Redmond, Washington, company's labs.

The new game, described as "massively multiplayer," can accommodate thousands of players at once, dueling one another over the Internet.

In a profile of Rashid, The New York Times said, "Allegiance is a pure, unadulterated space-war game with impressive 3-D graphics and a plot sure to seduce any Trekkie."

Rashid, an expert in designing computer operating systems, first toyed with the ideas behind the game as a graduate student. Back then, the campus was an early bastion of the highly regarded Xerox Alto computer.

The then high-tech computers arrived with no software, but they had an early version of a local area network known as Ethernet.

Taking advantage of that, Rashid developed a game that could be played on computers in separate rooms. And a networked game was born.

HAIL TO THE CHIEF EXECUTIVES OF EDUCATION

John E. Bassett '71 (PhD) begins the new academic year as president of Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. A former dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Case Western Reserve University, the American literature expert is the latest in a string of Rochester graduates in top posts at educational institutions.

In addition to Bassett, Donald Sweet '61 took over July 1 as the new president of Youngstown State University.

Sheila Blumstein '65 has been filling in as interim president of Brown University while a search is under way for a permanent executive.

And in Buffalo, Elizabeth Capaldi '65 took over as provost of the State University of New York at Buffalo. She had been provost at the University of Florida. Capaldi also serves as president of the 15,000-member American Psychological Association.

ROCHESTER SALUTES KOREAN WAR VETS

The commitment of Rochester alumni to serving their nation was on full display in June during the national ceremony to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Korean War.

About 25 alumni volunteered to help with the June 25 event in Washington, D.C. Rochester was one of the few higher educational institutions to organize a contingent.

More than 10,000 people attended the ceremonies to honor the Korean War's 1 million veterans.

The Rochester effort was organized by Gerry Smith '83 (Mas), a member of the Trustees' Council of the College, and by Kelly Redder, director of regional and parent programs in the Alumni Relations and Development office.

ART IMITATES LIFE, WHICH IMITATES TV . . .

Alumni who tune into the hit television show Providence have to watch--and listen--closely, but they may catch subtle references to fellow graduate Jane Shmerler Heller '72.

A successful novelist, Heller is a high school friend of John Masius, the creator of the NBC series (along with the CBS hit Touched by an Angel), and the two stay in touch by dropping references to one another in their work, according to a profile in The New York Times.

So far on Providence, the main character has referred to "Jane Shmerler" in telling a story about high school, and one of the characters on the show has been caught reading Name Dropping, Heller's latest novel.

For her part, the manuscript of Heller's next book, Female Intelligence, includes characters who refer to Touched by an Angel.

DOCTOR OF MYSTERY IS IN

The mysteries of medicine are not lost on Marshall Goldberg '52.

The professor of medicine, psychiatry, and the creative arts at Thomas Jefferson Medical College has published a dozen mysteries.

Nearly all of them draw on his experience as a doctor and as a professor of medicine, but there's a good dose of his past life as a football player, boxer, street fighter, and network news correspondent in them as well.

"I feel most alive when a new patient comes into my office," Goldberg told the Philadelphia Daily News. "It's like opening a novel."

Goldberg's first novel, The Anatomy Lesson, follows a first-year medical student who discovers that the cadaver he's been assigned to dissect has been murdered. In his latest, Managed Murder, investigators try to expose mob connections in health maintenance organizations.

When he's not writing fiction, Goldberg has written two books on medical research and diagnostics. He's also won two awards for outstanding teaching at Jefferson.

THE VERY MODEL OF A
MODERN MAJOR HONOR

James Stuart '69E (DMA) received an honorary degree from the College of Wooster during the Ohio college's 130th commencement in May.

Stuart is the co-founder and artistic director emeritus of the Ohio Light Opera, based at the College of Wooster. The ensemble is internationally renowned for its productions of the operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan, Strauss, Herbert, and other composers.

In 1996, Stuart was elected to the College of Fellows of the American Theatre at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

COUNTING ON HER

Constance Forbes Citro '63, study director of the committee on national statistics at the National Academy of Sciences, has been appointed co-editor of the forthcoming Encyclopedia of the U.S. Census.

TOP TEACHER

Jim Miles '68W (MS), a business teacher at Pittsford (New York) Sutherland High School, received the National Business Education Association's Secondary Teacher of the Year Award.

Miles also teaches at Monroe Community College and in the Pittsford district's adult education program.

EASTMAN GRAD WINS PRESTIGIOUS AWARD

William Eddins '83E, '86E (MM) has received an ovation of a special sort.

The resident conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra is the 2000 winner of the Seaver/National Endowment for the Arts Conductors Award. The $50,000 career-development grant is presented once every three years to an American conductor.

Eddins, who graduated from the Eastman School when he was 18 years old--making him one of the school's youngest graduates--has built a career as a frequent guest conductor of major orchestras around the world.

He also is founder and artistic director of the Prospect Park Players, nicknamed P3, a chamber music series based at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota.

STARS SHINE ON ALUMNUS ASTRONOMER

Giles Fontaine '74 (PhD), professor of astronomy at the University of Montreal, has long been a star in his field of astrophysics.

A specialist in the study of the stellar phenomenon known as white dwarfs, Fontaine was part of the first team to identify the importance of the dying stars in dating the age of the universe at 10.3 billion years old. Previous estimates ranged from 7 billion to 23 billion years old.

For that work and for his career as an astronomer, Fontaine received the Carlyle S. Beals Prize from the Canadian Astronomical Society in May. A member of the Royal Society of Canada since 1992, Fontaine also received the Marie-Victorin Prize from the government of Québec in 1999.

FACING THE CHALLENGE

My Lien Nguyen '97 (MS) successfully rode from St. Louis to San Francisco as part of a tandem bicycle team competing in the "Face of America Challenge Ride" last spring.

The multistage ride is designed to demonstrate that all people, regardless of disability or ethnicity, can be physically fit, full participants in society.

Currently a Ph.D. student in the botany program at the University of Hawaii, My Lien sustained a serious spinal injury five years ago and has partial paralysis in all four limbs.

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