award-winning professor leaves UNH for new opportunity

After 39 years at the University of New Hampshire, Berrien Moore III, director of the Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space, will be leaving UNH and EOS for Climate Central, a small non-profit research institute located in Princeton, N.J. and Palo Alto, Calif.

Moore, who was part of a team of scientists from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for its research on how to battle climate change, will leave UNH in June 2008. The interim director of EOS will be Roy B. Torbert, associate director for academic affairs and research at EOS.

Moore came to UNH in 1969 and has been the director of EOS since it was established in the 1980s.

“(EOS) wouldn’t be here if not for Berrien,” said David S. Bartlett, associate director of finance and administration at EOS. “He was the founding director 20-plus years ago. He brought many of the current faculty, including myself, to UNH.”

Moore said that he feels as though leaving UNH and EOS for Climate Central was the right decision. However, it was one of the toughest decisions he has ever had to make.

“It was an extremely difficult decision,” said Moore. “There was not a dry eye in sight when it was made.”

Although Bartlett said Moore will be missed, he also said that EOS plans to continue moving forward.

“It is a loss, but life goes on,” said Bartlett. “It is a little bump in the road that we will have to get over and proceed. He has left a very strong team of faculty, staff and graduate students. We will push on and be successful.”

suspended professor returns to teaching this semester

John Collins recently returned to UNH for the first time in seven months. For two weeks after the first day of classes, boxes remained unpacked outside the door of his Rudman Hall office.

The College of Life Sciences and Agriculture was happy to welcome back Collins after a suspension that spanned over 200 days due to a domestic dispute that occurred on June 28.

“I’m glad to be back at it,” Collins said.

The problems began when co-worker Stacia Sower filed a restraining order against Collins. UNH police later filed charges of stalking and disorderly conduct.

Collins allegedly kicked over a garbage can in Rudman Hall while repeatedly screaming a threatening statement because of a parking ticket he had received earlier in the day.

Collins initially pleaded not guilty on July 26 in Durham District Court and has since been found not guilty on both charges. The restraining order against him has been lifted, although a Strafford County Superior Court judge did issue a “no harassment” order, meaning Collins can interact with Sower but cannot harass her in any way.

Collins has since written a letter of apology to Sower and to the department regarding the incident. Professor Sower could not be reached for comment.

“I’m excited to have him back to get started working on my research again,” said graduate student Gabrielle Giese. “I know a lot of students are happy to have him back, too, because many were disappointed last semester when they found out he wasn’t teaching.”

Collins returned to his position on Jan. 22 and will also work weekends alongside Professor Andy Laudano, teaching extra lectures to allow students to hear material missed last semester.

university implements text message alert system

UNH joined a growing trend in emergency preparedness last week with the addition of a text message alert system. The system, which is provided by Roam Secure, is free to registered users and will send out text messages and emails in the event of a campus emergency. UNH is the first university in New England to use Roam Secure’s system.

Roam Secure is a Virginia-based company that focuses on emergency text alerts and communications. Its text message alert system is called Roam Secure Alert Network, and it is used in major cities like Washington, D.C., and New Orleans, as well as 12 colleges and universities, including Villanova University and the University of Southern California. The system can send more than 18,000 messages per minute to registered users.

So far, fewer than 3,000 students have registered for UNH’s RSAN system.

“I want every student to sign up,” said UNH Deputy Police Chief Paul Dean. He called the RSAN system “critical.”

Kathy Prendergast, director of marketing for Roam Secure, said the RSAN system originally catered to governments and federal agencies. However, the shootings at Virginia Tech created demand for the system at the college level.

“At that time, universities started coming to us,” she said.

Interest in a text message alert system for UNH began with students. Student body President Richard Drenkhahn said the addition of the system was mentioned to the administration over the summer. He said there was a desire to take campus safety a step beyond the outdoor siren system that had been installed in May.

In an e-mailed statement through the president’s office on Thursday, Jan. 24, Dean said the text messaging is another means of communication during an emergency, in addition to the existing Directed Communications mass e-mail system and the UNH information line, which can be reached at 862-0000.

“I believe in transparency,” said Dean. “If you know, you can make good decisions for your safety … It’s your community. You’ve got to know what’s going on. (The police) can’t be everywhere at once.”