AUGUST 1st 1997

IN ISRAEL

A new two-year program in Health Psychology at TAU's Gershon H. Gordon Faculty of Social Sciences' Department of Psychology, the first of its kind in Israel, was granted approval and will start classes in the coming 1997-98 school year. The program is targeted for psychologists, medical doctors and social workers who have a Master's degree.

The following Faculties are holding Summer Semesters: The Gershon H. Gordon Faculty of Social Sciences - in the Departments of Political Science, Sociology, Labor Studies and the Public Policy Program, from July 6, 1997 - September 10, 1997. The Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences - School of Mathematics and Computer Sciences, from July 6, 1997 - September 19, 1997. The Faculty of Management-The Leon Recanati Graduate School of Business Administration from July 6, 1997 - August 21, 1997.

The Junior Faculty strike at the nations' universities, including TAU, is still going on. Negotiations are to be renewed after a two week freeze, thanks to the intervention of President of the State of Israel Ezer Weizman.

CONFERENCES

The inauguration ceremony of the Miriam Rappaport Reference Unit was held at the Gitter-Smolarz Library of Life Sciences and Medicine. Addresses were given by Ilana Peled, the Library director, and by Dr. Itzhak Rappaport, who represented the family.

The Faculty of Management-The Leon Recanati Graduate School of Business Administration and the Max Perlman Center for Global Business hosted Prof. Leonard Lodish of the Wharton School of Business Administration, University of Pennsylvania, to a guest lecture in the framework of the Recanati-Wharton Multinational Marketing Program, entitled "Positioning and Marketing in North America." Prof. Shlomo Kalish, the Program's Academic Director, delivered a lecture on Israeli High-Tech. Opening remarks were delivered by Prof. Niv Ahituv, Director of the Max Perlman Center.

Temple University School of Law, Philadelphia and the TAU Buchmann Faculty of Law held a joint symposium entitled "Whither the Peace Process? Revisited After One Year," in the framework of the Temple-Tel Aviv summer program, directed by Prof. Burton Caine. The Symposium, moderated by TAU's Prof. Shimon Shamir, former ambassador to Egypt and Jordan, hosted Richard Roth, Deputy Chief of Mission, the US Embassy; Ambassador of Egypt Mohamed Bassiony; Ambassador of Jordan Omar Rifai; Minister of Higher Education of the Palestinian Authority Hanan Ashrawi; and Uzi Arad, advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Faculty of Management-The Recanati Graduate School of Business Management, the Kellogg-Recanati Executive MBA and Top Executive Program (TEP) in cooperation with the Globes daily newspaper and other executive programs of the Technion and Bar-Ilan and the Hebrew Universities held a conference entitled "Educating Executives and Human Resources Development -- Cooperation Between Business and Academia."

Ambassador of Latvia, Ivars Silars, delivered an address in memory of Prof. Paul Mintz, the author of the Constitution of Latvia, at the inauguration ceremony of the Prof. Paul Mintz Hall at the Buchmann Faculty of Law, donated by his daughter Edith Cohen-Mintz. Addresses were delivered by Yehiel Ben-Zvi, Vice President, and Prof. Eliezer Lederman, Dean of the Faculty. Opening remarks were given by Dr. Dina Porat of the Department of Jewish History, Lester and Sally Entin Faculty of Humanities, on : "Latvian Jewry -- Unique Characterization." Prof. Zeev Segal of the Public Policy Program, Gershon H. Gordon Faculty of Social Sciences, gave a lecture entitled "Who is Afraid of the Rule of Law?"

APPOINTMENTS AND AWARDS

Prof. Yoram Dinstein was awarded Doctor of Humane Letters, Honoris Causa, of the Hebrew Union College, at the Rabbinic Ordination Academic Convocation Ceremony, in Jerusalem.

Prof. Ephraim Yuchtman-Yaar, Director of the Tami Steinmetz Center for Peace Research is the recipient of the first Fulbright--Yitzhak Rabin Award, established by the US-Israel Educational Foundation, in honor of the late Prime Minister. The award was presented by Mrs. Leah Rabin at a ceremony at the residence of the US Ambassador Dr. Martin Indyk. The Award will enable distinguished Israeli scholars to conduct research and lecture in the US on conflict resolution and civic education, with emphasis on tolerance. The other recipient is Dr. Lev Luis Grinberg of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

Prof. Itamar Rabinovich, former Rector of TAU, has been appointed by Cornell University's Board of Trustees as Andrew White Professor at Large, for a six year term. This year Cornell appointed two Andrew White Professors - the Nobel laureate Toni Morrison and TAU's Prof. Rabinovich.

Prof. Shmuel Einav, Associate Dean of TAU's Iby and Aladar Fleischman Faculty of Engineering, Chairperson of the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Director of the Ela Kodsez Institute for Cardiac Physical Sciences and Engineering, was appointed Distinguished Visiting Professor at CALTECH - California Institute of Technology.

Prof. Aaron Klieman of the Department of Political Sciences, Gershon H. Gordon Faculty of Social Sciences, was elected incumbent of the Nahum Goldmann Chair in Diplomacy.

Prof. Jacob Aboudi of the Iby and Aladar Fleischman Faculty of Engineering won second place in the NASA competition called "The Software of the Year."

Dan Katzir, a student of TAU's Department of Film and Television, Yolanda and David Katz Faculty of Arts, won the Jack Volgin Prize for best documentary film entitled Went to Look For Love... Back Soon. Students Guy Lieberman and Yoel Froilich's film Nachman Lyminer--Express Mail was distinguished in the short film category. Teachers of the Department won best Israeli Drama Prize - Gorge Gurevitc for The Shower and Eitan Fucs for Florentin 1995. Prof. David Perlov received an appreciation award for his life work.

VISITS

Prof. Bernard H. Bressler, Vice President Research, the University of British Columbia, (UBC) Canada, and William N. Palm, Director of University-Industry Liaison Office, were guests of the TAU Research Authority . They visited the labs of Prof. Yair Aharonowitz, Director of the Institute of Biotechnology and Prof. Gerald Cohen, Director of the Joan and Jaime Constantiner Institute for Molecular Genetics, who are working on a new antibiotic drugs project together with researchers of UBC in a joint project of TAU, UBC, University of California, San Diego, and the pharmaceutical company ABBOTT. They also met with Dr. Rami Finkler, General Manager of TAU's R&D company, Ramot, and with Prof. Zvi Livshitz of the Sackler Faculty of Medicine.

Six Egyptian experts of the Plant Protection Research Institute, Ministry of Agriculture, were guests of Prof. Dan Gerling of the Department of Zoology, George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences at a workshop on environmentally friendly cotton pesticides and herbicide extermination, in the framework of a joint project of TAU, the Israel Ministry of Agriculture and the Volcani Institute funded by the UN Common Fund of Commodities.

Dr. I.B. Burnett of Sidney, Australia and his brother Dr. Henry Bernard and his wife visited TAU. They met with Vice President Yehiel Ben Zvi, visited the Wiener Library of Anti-Semitism and the Brender-Moss Library of Social Sciences and Management. They also attended a symposium on "The Quantitative Analysis of the Arab Israeli Conflict and the Peace Process" conducted by Prof. Zeev Maoz , Director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies.

ABROAD

The Third Tel Aviv University Riviera Meeting was held in Monaco. An academic conference in memory of Mrs. Lola Beer-Ebner was held, chaired by Prof. Arie Vardi, of TAU's Samuel Rubin Israeli Academy of Music. Cultural events included a tour of the Matisse Museum in Nice and of the Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild. Social events were hosted by Shalom and Hanna Blustein of Tel Aviv (festive opening dinner); Rafael and Eva Efrat of Tel Aviv and Cannes (gala dinner); and Urs and Aviva Felber of Monaco (farewell dinner.)

UPCOMING EVENTS

The TAU North America Conference will be held in Toronto, Canada, on September 18-21, 1997. For registration call Mrs. Lyn Ben-Dat, Canadian Friends of Tel Aviv University (416) 787-9930 or fax (416)787-1762.

The TAU International Board of Governors' Study Cruise - Jewish Roots of the New World, will take place aboard the Royal Caribbean's Legend of the Seas from March 11-21, 1998. For more information contact Jules Love, Executive Vice President, American Friends of Tel Aviv University Tel. (212) 687-5651; (800) 989-1198. Fax: (212) 687-4085.