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Contents
New
Awards at RIA
Director's
Report
New
Postdoc at RIA
RIA:
A Microcosm for Buffalo, The City of Good Neighbors
Lights,
Camera, Action!
Red
Ribbon Prevention
Longtime
RIA Supporter to Head Alcoholism & Drug Abuse Committee
RIA
Scientist Presents a Research to Practice Seminar
RIA
in New Orleans
Scientist
Spotlight
Research
Results
RIA’s
Seminar Series
RIA
Employees Recognized
Applause,
Applause
Select
Conference Presentations
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Director's
Report
 A
great deal has occurred since our last RIA Report, and that includes
the heavy snowfall of November 20. Approximately 40 RIA employees were
forced to spend the night in the building. A story
on the two-day episode, now happily behind us, is included in this Report.
In terms of new
research, RIA scientists have successfully competed for two new
grant awards. The first, awarded to a team headed by Dr. Grace
Barnes, will investigate the relationship between involvement in
sports and other extracurricular activities and substance use and other
risky adolescent behaviors. The second grant, awarded to Dr. Kimberly
Walitzer and myself, will be studying the interrelationships between
AA participation, spirituality and recovery from alcoholism. Descriptions
of these two studies are provided in the adjacent story.
Our Fall Seminar
Series, recently completed, focused on genetic perspectives on addiction.
Our featured speakers were Drs. Matthew McGue, Andrew Heath,
and Ting-Kai Li. Our Spring Seminar Series will focus on substance
use in the workplace. Our speakers will be Drs. Roland Moore,
Paul Roman, and Michael Frone with Kristin Voelkl Finn.
As always, these seminar presentations are free and open to the public.
Dates and times are identified on our website, and we welcome your attendance
and participation.
Described in our
last RIA Report was the initiation of our postdoctoral training
program. Funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism,
the program focuses on research training on the causes and treatment
of alcoholism. We are delighted to have recruited Dr. Felipa Chavez
as our first postdoctoral associate on this training grant. Information
on her research interests is provided elsewhere in this Report.
Finally, in what
has become a yearly tradition, RIA staff, Erie County Council for the
Prevention of Alcohol and Substance Abuse staff, community leaders,
and young people and their families collaborated in the annual “Take
a Stand Against Substance Abuse” event on October 25.
New
Postdoc at RIA
 The
first postdoctoral associate to be recruited for RIA’s research training
grant is Felipa Chavez, Ph.D. Formerly a RIA research assistant,
Dr. Chavez said “This is a totally new experience for me. I’m interacting
with researchers and staff from other projects, learning the mechanics
of grant writing, and preparing my first manuscript for publication.
It’s a very challenging time and I’m excited about starting this new
phase of my life.”
Dr. Chavez worked
with Drs. Kenneth Leonard and Rina Das Eiden on the Infant
Development Study examining the interactions of parent and child free
play situations. “Parent-Infant Interactions Among Families With Alcoholic
Fathers” was covered in the May/June 2000 issue of RIA’s Research In
Brief. She also collaborates with them on research into the development
of empathy. In this study, the ability of 18 and 24 month old children
to empathize with others is being studied. Will these children feel
empathy for someone who has hurt themselves or dropped papers? Do they
become distressed or try to help?
Dr. Chavez’s current
project is examining incidents of maltreatment of children in homes
where alcohol is abused. She will be preparing her first grant application
on this topic under the mentorship of Dr. Eiden and Dr. Pamela Schuetze,
of Buffalo State College. Dr. Chavez is married to Kevin Gray,
a geographer, and they have three children, a four-year-old daughter
and 17-month old twin boys.
RIA:
A Microcosm for Buffalo,
The City of Good Neighbors
Yes, another Buffalo,
N.Y. snowstorm made the national news on Monday, November 20, 2000.
We received just over 24 inches in 24 hours – the third highest rate
of snowfall in the history of the city! One of our best kept secrets
(and there are several about life in Western New York) that the pundits
rarely mention in conjunction with the snow reports is the people, their
strengths, their creativity, and their instinct to help and pull together.
RIA staff started
leaving the Main Street building in downtown Buffalo just after the
lunch hour. The snow was already falling in earnest. Around 3:30 p.m.
it was clear that this was a new situation for all of us. So many people
had been sent home from downtown locations that the streets as well
as the expressways soon were in gridlock, a new experience for many
Buffalonians.
“Cars literally
surrounded the building,” according to Director Gerard J. Connors,
Ph.D. “Our staff had been working all day to keep the parking lot
clean, but you couldn’t pull out onto the side streets, because of all
the abandoned cars and the snow that had piled up. However, the most
impressive but certainly not surprising sight was the tremendous amount
of good spirit, good will, and comradery that were evidenced on the
part of the RIA staff throughout the day, that evening, and the following
day.”
RIA Administrative
Officer James Krygier started shoveling to help people out of
parking spots around l:00 p.m. but gave all the credit to his staff.
“Don Giardina worked on the tractor until at least 8:00 p.m.
on Monday. Mark Rusek worked three or four straight shifts and
Gerry Brennan stayed even though he had been scheduled off for
Tuesday. One day ran into the next with very little sleep for most of
us.”
Of the 40 or so
RIA employees who were either stranded in the building or tried to leave
and kept straggling back all night, it’s hard to single out some and
not others. Carol Nottingham (therapist) was reported by several
people as responsible for not only sharing groceries she’d left in her
car but walking to the store for more food for breakfast. She also organized
a game of Pictionary about 10:00 p.m. Motorists who found themselves
stranded on the polar parking lot that was Main Street were invited
into the building to sleep in chairs or on the floor. Vending machine
food was available, and coffee was brewed upstairs and brought down
by Pat Aughtry (research assistant).
Audrey Dersam
(project director) said she could watch the progress of the storm from
her office window that faces Main Street. Once she knew she was staying
for the night, she and Jennifer Livingston (project director)
walked to a nearby pizzeria and brought back enough food for a small
army. “Walking in the streets between abandoned cars and people sitting
in cars trying to stay warm was strange and eery,” she said. Later,
we’re told, she did more than her fair share of shoveling to help co-workers
and others create safe spots for their vehicles until morning.
Neil McGillicuddy,
Ph.D. and Darlene Cutonilli (clinic counselor) made it from
the rear parking lot to the front of the building in just three hours!
Darlene said, “The guys helped push my car out the next morning and
then we jumped Neil’s battery from my car. Everyone was so helpful.
I didn’t do much really, kept people laughing mostly.” She also offered
canned soup to some of the stranded motorists. Some children on a school
bus in front of the building were invited in but opted for Wendy’s down
the street early in the evening and then bedded down at the nearby Salvation
Army.
Several people have
a story about a child in day care who they tried to reach but couldn’t
and how someone helped them out. People called home for news about family
members, a wife who hadn’t made it home yet or a child spending the
night in a community center. Some went across the street to the Anchor
Bar (home of the Buffalo chicken wing) for Monday night football. Perhaps
the best prepared RIA-staffer was Bob Rychtarik, Ph.D. After
working in the snow to help a co-worker, he returned to his car for
a sleeping bag, and was warm if not totally comfortable on the floor
of his office for the night.
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