Women's health research bolstered by NIH grant.
Research on women's health issues--from osteoporosis to gender differences in health and illness--has been expanded at the UConn Health Center with a five-year, $2.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health. The proposal pairs junior researchers with senior Health Center faculty who are nationally recognized leaders in such areas as infertility, aging, alcoholism, and autoimmune disorders.

The Health Center is one of 11 academic institutions nationwide to receive funding from the new NIH initiative, which seeks to increase the number of researchers in women's health fields.

$8.5 million to support Gifted and Talented Center.
Established in 1990, UConn's National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented is the first and only educational center of its kind in the nation. This year, the Center's leadership role was acknowledged with a new five-year, $8.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Educational Research and Improvement.

The Center focuses on the psychology and education of high-potential youth, from preschool through high school. Each year thousands of educators from around the world turn to the Center for advice and guidance for cultivating the talent of the world's most remarkable young people.

Redefining human rights.
Dr. Wiktor Osiatynski was the first Marsha Lilien Gladstein Visiting Professor in Human Rights. As the Gladstein professor, Dr. Osiatynski spent much of his time teaching and discussing human rights with students and faculty. He was instrumental in founding the new Human Rights minor in UConn's College of Liberal Arts & Sciences.

Delivering the inaugural Gladstein Distinguished Lecture, Osiatynski, a professor at Central European University in Budapest and Warsaw, emphasized the critical importance of human rights in response to oppressive governments and suggested that we can build healthier communities by putting more emphasis on social obligations.

"The future of human rights," he says, "may lie at the personal level, where rights and human dignity intersect."

UConn is again ranked the top public university in New England.
Once again, UConn is New England's top public university, according to a ranking of the nation's best colleges and universities by U.S. News & World Report. The magazine also recognized the University's programs in medicine, education and law among the best in the country, while naming the UConn Health Center's John Dempsey Hospital one of America's best 50 hospitals for geriatric services.

UTC gives record $4 million gift to engineering.
United Technologies Corporation's $4 million contribution to the School of Engineering is the largest gift ever to a public school of engineering in New England, and it represents the most significant financial contribution UTC has ever made to an educational institution.

The generous donation was enhanced through the State of Connecticut's endowment matching program, bringing the total contribution to $6 million. The gift will permit the University to endow three faculty chairs, establish an Advanced Technology Clinic for joint UTC-UConn research, sponsor junior faculty positions, and establish a $1 million endowment for undergraduate scholarships.

UConn partnership with South Africa receives research grant.
Extending the extraordinary partnership between the University and the African National Congress is a $665,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The grant will fund archive management work at UConn's Thomas J. Dodd Research Center and the University of Fort Hare, the oldest and most illustrious of South Africa's historically black universities. Together, the two universities will catalog and archive documents that chronicle the history of the ANC and describe the heroism of those who led the fight that ended apartheid.