Nextel Founder
Praises State Entrepreneur's Aid September 21, 2004
Virginia Gov. Mark
Warner told an audience at Eastern Connecticut State
University in Willimantic Monday that it was $1 million in
venture capital from entrepreneur David T. Chase that helped
him co-found Nextel, the cellular phone company.
So
Warner, a 1973 graduate of Rockville High School, was pleased
to be giving an address sponsored by the David T. Chase Free
Enterprise Institute at Eastern.
During his campus
visit, Warner also received the Chase Medallion from Eastern
President David G. Carter for "bettering the social,
educational and economic interests of others," Eastern
officials said in a press release.
Warner, a Democrat
elected as Virginia's 69th governor in November 2001, spoke of
his failed business ventures before Nextel took off, his
efforts to balance Virginia's budget and the importance of
technology in education.
As chairman of the National
Governors Association, Warner last week announced a yearlong
initiative encouraging states to redesign America's high
schools, in order to better prepare students for college and
successful careers.
Fairfield University announced Monday it has
raised a record $137.9 million in a capital campaign launched
publicly four years ago.
The amount surpasses the
original goal of $100 million. The goal was later raised to
$125 million.
The Rev. Jeffrey von Arx, Fairfield's
president, announced that the campaign, begun by his
predecessor, the Rev. Aloysius P. Kelley, had dramatically
changed the campus.
Seven buildings - the John A.
Barone Campus Center, the DiMenna-Nyselius Library, the
Charles F. Dolan School of Business, the Rudolph F. Bannow
Science, Apartment Village, the Thomas J. Walsh Jr. Athletic
Center and Alumni House - have either been built or renovated
with the capital campaign funds.
Of the total pledged
to the campaign, $68 million has been designated to build the
university's endowment.
Sandra Phair, a teacher at West Hill Elementary
School in Rocky Hill, has been selected by Phi Delta Kappa
International, a national professional education association,
as Wal-Mart's Teacher of the Year in Connecticut.
Phair was selected because of her contributions to
education and the positive impact she has on her students.
She was honored during a ceremony at the school on
Sept. 16 during which representatives from Phi Delta Kappa and
Wal-Mart in Rocky Hill presented Phair with a $10,000
educational grant from Wal-Mart to the school.
Ingrid Russell, a professor of computer science at
the University of Hartford has received a $99,469 grant from
the National Science Foundation to develop ways to teach
college students about artificial
intelligence.
Russell's was one of only 10 computer
science proposals funded in a national program aimed at
improving the quality of science, technology, engineering and
mathematics education.
A number of hands-on laboratory
projects will be developed into a one-semester course on
artificial intelligence. Russell is working on the project
with Zdravko Markov of the computer science department at
Central Connecticut State University in New Britain and Todd
Neller of the computer science department at Gettsyburg
College.
Berel Lang, of the philosophy department at
Trinity College in Hartford, has been awarded a Lady Davis
Faculty Fellowship at Hebrew University in Jerusalem for the
spring and summer terms in 2005.
Lang, who has written
about the Holocaust, will be working on a project titled
"Minorities in a Majority World: From Genocide to Group
Rights."
This week's Education Briefs column
was written by Courant staff writers Melissa Pionzio and Kate
Farrish.
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