Dear Colleagues,

Some news and announcments:

1.  Note that on Thursday, March 7, Barbara Jacak will give
the Provost's lecture at 4:30PM in the Alliance Room (off
the zebra stripes in the library, near the Chemistry Building).
Barbara's title is:  "Making the Hottest Matter on Earth:
A Look at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider".

2.  Phil Allen will be away on leave for the 2002-03 academic
year at Columbia University.  I am pleased to announce that
Chris Jacobsen has agreed to take over as Undergraduate Director
for the department, effective in the fall.

3.  You might have noticed the article on the Laser Teaching Center
run by John Noe and Hal Metcalf in the February newsletter of the
Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching.  This center, operating 
from the basement of the Grad Physics Building, offers self-paced
projects to about 50 undergraduate, graduate and high school students
each year.  Visit the LTC at http://laser.physics.sunysb.edu

4.  The department was the beneficiary of a gift of a Meade Instruments
0.2 meter reflecting telescope from Mr. Jack Sotnikow of New Jersey.  
The telescope will rejuvenate the Astronomy Open Night observing once
we get it out of the chair's office where the seeing is not so good.

5.  Some honors and awards to present and former department 
members:

    Chiaki Yanagisawa was awarded a fellowship from the Japan Society
    for the Promotion of Science to work on the neutrino experiments
    SuperKamiokande and K2K.

    Fred Walter was appointed as a Distinguished Visitor to JILA,
    University of Colorado, to give a series of seminars in the fall.

    ex student (of Barry McCoy) Craig Tracy, now at the Math Department
    of U. California Davis was 2002 co-winner of the prestigious 
    George Polya prize for work on random matrics.

    The American Geophysical Union will hold a special session during
    its annual May meeting to honor Bob deZafra's achievements in atmospheric
    science.  (http://www.agu.org/meetings/sm02top.html )

                best regards,
                Paul