UB Faculty Experts

EXPERT CONTACT : Tedd R. Habberfield Assistant Professor Department of Psychiatry University at Buffalo 716-626-7492

The most important point when preparing yourself and your child for overnight camp is to remember kids take their cues from their parents, says Tedd R. Habberfield, a licensed psychologist and assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the Univesrity at Buffalo.

"If we're scared, they will look around to see what is scary," says Hsbberfield. "If we're confident and excited, they will look to see what is so wonderful.

"If we focus on how much we will miss them and how hard it will be to cope with them being gone, they wil focus on missing us."

Habberfield says the best way to prepare them for overnight camps, including those that last a week or more, is to help them realize how to entertain themselves and how to make their own friends. Ideally, these skills begin before they even start school, in play groups and preschool.

"This is when kids are most likely to feel alone and miss their families. Does your child know how to play on his or her own or do theur always need to be entertained?"

Habberfield says it's useful if parents explain to children how and who to ask for help when they get to camp. Encourage them to be persistent if they do not get what they need thr first time, or try another camp staff member.

As for parents, it's also a time for them to experience some personal growth.

"If we will be home with no children, parents will need to plan how they will spend their time," Habberfield says. "Parents need something to look forward to when they have time alone. Read a book, take a walk, go to an adult movie or prepare special meals that the kids wouldn't consider trying.

"If there are other children at home, use this time to give them special attention they wouldn't normally have if their siblings were home."

EXPERT CONTACT : James A. Gardner Vice Dean for Academic Affairs University at Buffalo Law School 716-645-3607 jgard@buffalo,edu

   "After failed attempts to advance cutting-edge civil rights claims in the New York courts," says Gardner, "proponents of legally recognized gay marriage have achieved their goal the old-fashioned way: by convincing the state legislature to enact a law."

   Gardner, the Joseph W. Belluck and Laura L. Aswad Professor of Civil Justice in UB's Law School and SUNY Distinguished Professor who is frequently quoted about Constitutional Law, elections and other judicial issues, says the gay marriage law passed recently took cues from the successful litigation strategy pursued in Hawaii, Massachusetts, California and Vermont.

    "Advocates of gay marriage turned to the New York courts, where they sought a ruling under the state constitution that the reservation of official recognition of marriages to straight couples violated equality and civil rights guarantees," he says. "New York’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, rejected this claim, although proponents did achieve limited success when a lower court subsequently ruled that New York is constitutionally required to recognize gay marriages performed and officially recognized in other states.  Disappointed in the courts, advocates of  legal recognition mounted a legislative campaign that issued finally in the new legislation."

   Gardner says people often mischaracterize the dispute over gay marriage as whether the law should permit gays and lesbians to marry.  "In fact, to the extent that marriage is understood as a religious institution," Gardner says, "gays and lesbians are not and cannot be prohibited from marrying; their right to marry in private religious ceremonies is fully protected by the U.S. Constitution’s Free Exercise Clause."

    Instead, he says, the issue is over the obligation of the state to extend the same recognition to privately performed gay marriages as it does to privately performed heterosexual marriages. This would extend to gays and lesbians the legal protections – and obligations – that attach upon official state recognition. 

    “The new legislation will thus have no legal impact on the availability of religiously consecrated gay marriages," Gardner says. "It will, however, now extend to gay marriages the many aspects of state law that have long regulated the marriage relationship in terms of property ownership and descent, tax liability, child-rearing, agency, insurance and pension coverage, and so forth.”

EXPERT CONTACT :  Elayne Rapping Professor Emeritus of American Studies University at Buffalo erapping@gmail.com

Media experience: Commentary for New York Times, NPR, Associated Press, CNN, USA Today, Washington Post, Politico.com and many others.

EXPERT CONTACT : James Campbell, PhD Professor and Chair of Political Science University at Buffalo 716-645-8452 jcampbel@buffalo.edu

 The killing of Osama bin Laden is “a major accomplishment for the Obama presidency” says James Campbell, professor and chair of the UB Department of Political Science and nationally recognized expert in American electoral politics. “I expect his approval ratings to improve somewhat over the next week or so, as a result of this good news,” he says. Campbell says that a five or six percent bounce within the week or so would make sense. “I think it probably also undercuts perhaps some of the advantage Republicans have traditionally enjoyed on national security issues, at least in the short run.”

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 Chowdhury says he hopes his fellow Americans understand that “the majority of Muslims were always against what Osama bin Laden stood for.”

 “From everyone I’ve spoken to, everyone’s extremely happy and elated, even, that he’s finally gotten caught. It almost seemed like it would never happen. It’s been 10 years.” 

EXPERT CONTACT : Catherne Cornbleth Professor of Learning and Instruction Graduate School of Education University at Buffalo 716-645-4048 ccorn@buffalo.edu

 An increasingly influential national organization evaluating teacher education programs misleads its audience by claiming to be “non-partisan” when, in reality, the group is part of a growing movement of “corporate education” reformers pushing an agenda of standardization and privatization at the expense of meaningful teaching and learning, according to UB Prof. Catherine Cornbleth, author and longtime teacher advocate.

"And the same kind of stifling of public schools, teachers and students that we have seen for several years is now being directed against college and university-based teacher education as well,” says Cornbleth.

The organization rating teacher education programs is the self-styled National Council on Teacher Quality, according to Cornbleth, and the problem with NCTQ’s evaluation model, she says, is its superficial and arbitrary nature

 Cornbleth has earned a reputation as a researcher and champion of the perennial value of good teaching -- which defies cookie-cutter production. Her latest book is about teachers who have found ways to reach individual students within strict, standardized test-driven environments. Before that, Cornbleth’s work with life-changing but unconventional “maverick” teachers attracted national attention and praise, connecting with Americans’ familiarity with teachers who have been portrayed in movies and well-known literature.

 Now she is taking aim at NCTQ and other corporate education reformers, especially those who insist on accountability for schools and teachers but evade accountability for their own actions.

“Longer term, if NCTQ and other corporate reformers get their way, public school teachers would pass corporate provided subject matter tests for certification and follow so-called scripted instructional programs provided by corporate publishers,” says Cornbleth.  There would be little or no room for individualization to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse student population.

  “It’s the old factory model for manufacturing automobiles that even Ford doesn’t follow anymore.” 

James Campbell, PhD, professor and chair of the Department of Political Science at the University at Buffalo, and Joshua Dyck, PhD, assistant professor of political science at UB are both experts in electoral politics.

Here they comment on why President Obama has begun fundraising for the 2012 campaign so early, predictions that his efforts will break all records, why he will HAVE to raise so much money, the broken public financing system, Republican eletoral disarray, the recent rebuke of the Democrats and what all this tells us about the upcoming presidential election.

EXPERT CONTACT : James E. Campbell, PhD Professor and Chair Department of Political Science 716-645-8452  jcampbel@buffalo.edu

EXPERT CONTACT : Joshua Dyck, PhD Assistant Professor Department of Political Science  716-645-8435 jdyck@buffalo.edu

"In 2008, President Obama changed the way campaigns were run when he raised enough money from small donors over the internet to smash all previous fundraising records," Dyck recalls. 

"Based on his grassroots support and presence as an incumbent, I expect that he will once again raise an incredible amount of money, making it a formidable task for his Republican opponent to unseat him. 

"However, as Donald Trump will prove this year if he decides to run for President, money will only take you so far.  While the official campaign was announced today, it's far too early to start talking about re-election prospects," he says. 

EXPERT CONTACT : Michael Poulin Assistant professor Department of Psychology Office 716- 645-4977; Cell 949-290-9583 mjpoulin@buffalo.edu

In the three years following 9/11, assistant professor of psychology, Michael Poulin's  found in a recently published study that religious individuals (i.e. those who participated in religious social structures by attending services) had a higher positive affect, fewer cognitive intrusions (unwanted intrusive thoughts about 9/11), and lower odds of new onset mental and musculoskeletal ailments than among those in the study who expressed no religious or spiritual proclivities.

Those who were high versus low in spirituality (i.e. feeling a personal commitment to spiritual or religious beliefs) had a higher positive affect, lower odds of new onset infectious ailments, and more cognitive intrusions, but a more rapid decline in intrusions over time.

“These findings focused on responses to a collective trauma,” Poulin says, “but they may apply to stress and coping more generally.”

“I think it’s reasonable to speculate that religion and spirituality might help survivors of the recent Japan disasters adjust to the stress of that experience, although the pattern of results might not be the same,” he says, noting that, unlike Japan, the culture of the U.S. is heavily individualistic.

“The culture of Japan, however, is more collectivistic in that it focuses on the goals and experiences of groups like the family or nation, so religious practice, which involves group participation, may be more important to post-trauma health and well being in that context,” Poulin notes.

EXPERT CONTACT : Alan Lockwood, MD Professor of neurology and nuclear medicine UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences Office: 716-859-7526; Cell 716-868-8763 ahl@buffalo.edu

Alan Lockwood, MD, can discuss human health effects of radiation. He is a board member of Physicians for Social Responsibility. Six weeks after the Chernobyl accident, he examined survivors at the Moscow hospital

 Lockwood calls the Japanese Health Ministry’s advice not to give tap water to infants “prudent.” He notes, “The reason that iodine-131 is so dangerous in children is that their normal growth and development, especially of the brain, depends on the thyroid gland. And if there is exposure as a child, the risk of developing thyroid cancer later in life is higher.”