In This Section:
Huskies harvest a successful fall
Mortarboards and snow
An executive move to downtown Hartford
Big East expands its reach
Maya Angelou speaks
New digs for archaeology center
UConn — it's amazing
Duelfer heads back to Iraq
Fallen airman identified

Women's soccer reaches NCAA final

University of Connecticut athletic teams enjoyed a bountiful fall season in 2003.

The women's soccer team, under head coach Len Tsantiris '77 (ED), advanced to the NCAA College Cup championship game and finished the year at 15-6-3. UConn forward Kristen Graczyk '05 (ED) earned third team All-America honors and was the Big East Conference Offensive Player of the Year.

Photo: Stephen Slade

Freshman Meghan Schnur won recognition as Big East Co-Freshman of the Year and earned a spot on the All-Big East First Team.

Head coach Randy Edsall led the football team to a 9-3 record in just its second season as a full-fledged Division I-A program, including a victory over Big East opponent Rutgers and a season-ending 51-17 romp over Wake Forest of the Atlantic Coast Conference. Ten Husky players were named to All-Independent teams, led by senior defensive end Uyi Osunde '04 (CLAS), who was the CollegeFootball News.com Defensive Player of the Year and quarterback Dan Orlovsky '05 (CLAS), who was named ESPN.com's Independent Offensive MVP.

The field hockey team posted a 17-6 record, advanced to the Big East championship game and reached the national quarterfinals of the NCAA Championship. Head coach Nancy Stevens was the Big East and regional Coach of the Year while Lauren Henderson '05 (CLAS) was named first team All-American. Mary Jo Malone '04 (SFS) was second team and Maureen Butler '03 (ED) was third team.

The men's youthful soccer squad and head coach Ray Reid made their sixth straight NCAA tournament appearance and advanced to the second round of the championships.

The men's cross country team and head coach Greg Roy won a pair of events this year and finished fifth at the Big East Championship. Interim coach Bill Morgan and the women's cross country team also won two events in 2003.

Photos: Stephen Slade
Left: Lauren Henderson '05 (CLAS) earned first team All-America honors for the field hockey team. Right: Dan Orlovsky '05 (CLAS) drove the football team to a 9-3 record and was ESPN.com's Independent Offensive MVP.

Head coach Kelli Myers and the women's volleyball team finished with a record of 20-12. It was the fifth time in the past six years the team has completed a 20-victory season.

Jordan Burke '05 (BUS) was a medalist at the New England Intercollegiate Golf Association Championship as head coach Ron Dubois and his team finished third at the event.

The women's tennis team, under head coach Glenn Marshall '91 (SFA), '97 M.A., was led by Whitney Simcik '05 (CLAS) and Alison Adamski, '07 (CLAS), who became the first Husky doubles team to advance to the round of 16 at the regional Intercollegiate Tennis Association Championship. The men's tennis team, also coached by Marshall, was 2-2 for the fall season.

The University's first-ever mid-year commencement had an appropriate seasonal setting, cold weather and falling snowÑas more than 650 graduates walked into the Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts to cheers from their families and friends. Franklin Chang-Diaz '73 (ENG), astronaut and director of NASA's Advanced Space Propulsion Laboratory, delivered the commencement address. Businessman and community activist Thomas J. Wolff '56 (CLAS) was the recipient of the 25th University Medal from UConn President Philip E. Austin.

Photo: Peter Morenus

Students make a snow entry to the Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts for the first mid-year Commencement ceremony.

The UConn School of Business is establishing a major presence in downtown Hartford by relocating some of its M.B.A. program offerings to Constitution Plaza, which will also include a state-of-the -art insurance and financial center to be known as the Financial Accelerator.

Rendering: Schoenhardt Architecture

The Financial Accelerator will be a real-world lab for the School of Business in its new downtown Hartford location.

"We have long had a special relationship with the City of Hartford and the business community in the Hartford area. Locating these business programs and creating the Financial Accelerator in downtown Hartford, where they will be accessible to corporations and students working in insurance and financial services, takes our partnership a giant step forward," says UConn President Philip E. Austin.

The move will boost Hartford's revitalization by attracting nearly 500 students, many of them mid-level executives, as they pursue advanced business degrees during evenings and weekends throughout the year. The M.B.A. and Executive M.B.A. programs will move to Hartford by next fall. Other workforce development programs will also be offered in downtown Hartford in the future.

"The Financial Accelerator will serve as a real-world lab for our faculty's groundbreaking research and provide our business partners with solutions to market challenges that have been tested using real market data," says Curt Hunter, dean of the School of Business. "This initiative will serve as a beacon for the economic development of the Hartford Metro Region and will greatly benefit our students, faculty and corporate partners."

Beginning in the 2005-06 academic year, the Big East Conference will welcome the University of Cincinnati, DePaul University, University of Louisville, Marquette University and the University of South Florida into the league. All the schools now compete in Conference USA.

"All of the five new Big East schools are respected academic and athletic institutions," says Jeffrey A. Hathaway, UConn director of athletics. "From the standpoint of marketplace, our league now has expanded its reach to almost 24 million television households and 22 percent of the country, including Chicago, the third-largest media market in the United States."

The schools that will compete in all Big East sports include UConn, University of Cincinnati, University of Louisville, University of Pittsburgh, Rutgers University, University of South Florida, Syracuse University and West Virginia University. The non-football members include DePaul University, Georgetown University, Marquette University, University of Notre Dame, Providence College, Seton Hall University, St. John's University and Villanova University.

Photo: Peter Morenus

Poet, novelist and educator Maya Angelou told stories and offered encouragement to UConn students to live their lives to the fullest during a visit to the Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts in February.

Photo: Shannon McAvoy

State Archaeologist Nicholas Bellantoni will head the new Connecticut Archaeology Center.

The Connecticut Archaeology Center will open later this year and become part of the State Museum of Natural History at UConn.

"The new center will expand the museum's ability to promote an understanding and appreciation of both cultural and natural history and allow it to grow in new and important ways," says John D. Petersen, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs. "It will be an important resource for the citizens of Connecticut as well as for students and faculty at the University."

Nicholas Bellantoni '80 M.A., '87 Ph.D., the state archaeologist, who has a joint appointment in the Anthropology Department, will head the center. The second and third floors of the museum will be renovated later this year to provide both a working lab open to the public and small-scale exhibit space.

The archaeology center will provide support for UConn graduate and undergraduate students and will operate archaeology field schools. It will also provide elementary and secondary school teachers with training, curriculum guides and teaching resources; provide technical training and assistance to Connecticut municipalities; and offer access to maps, collections and an archaeology library to professional archaeologists, students and the public.

The University's remarkable transformation continues as a variety of UCONN 2000/21st Century UConn building projects move forward. The new Center for Undergraduate Education bundles together under one roof a range of important academic resources for students, while the expanded William Benton Museum of Art allows more space for exhibitions. The comprehensive renovation of the Student Union is keeping a steady pace, even as the structure of the new Pharmacy-Biology Building rises to grace the skyline of the main campus.

Photos: Peter Morenus

Construction Update Slide Show

Photo: Peter Morenus

Charles Duelfer '74 (CLAS) was named by the Central Intelligence Agency as the new leader of the hunt for evidence of weapons of mass destruction programs in Iraq. Duelfer, a former United Nations weapons inspector, is a defense and military affairs expert. He previously served as deputy assistant secretary of state for arms control and most recently was with the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.

Duelfer was second in command of U.N. weapons inspection in Iraq during most of the 1990s. He will lead about 1,400 scientists and other experts to search facilities and interview Iraqis, according to news reports.

Photo: Nutmeg Yearbook

U.S. Air Force Maj. Irwin S. Lerner '64 (CLAS), above center.

Photo: AP/Wide World

Military honor guard salute during the burial ceremony for Maj. Lerner at Arlington National Cemetary.

The remains of U.S. Air Force Maj. Irwin S. Lerner '64 (CLAS), who was declared missing in action when his B-52 bomber was shot down over Hanoi on Dec. 20, 1972, were buried in a military funeral with full honors at Arlington National Cemetery in January.

Lerner, originally from Stratford, Conn., a letter-winning soccer player for UConn, was an electronics warfare officer with the 307th Strategic Wing when his plane was downed by a surface-to-air missile, according to military records. His remains were recovered in 1985 at a crash site in Vietnam, but it took until last November to confirm his identity through a search of DNA samples from maternal relatives, says Kathy Shemeley, president of the Prisoner-of-War/Missing-in- Action Connecticut Forget-Me-Nots.

Lerner is the eighth Connecticut native and only UConn graduate from the Vietnam-era MIA identified since 1989.

At the time of his death, Lerner and his wife, Roberta (Reilly) Lerner '65 (NUR), were the parents of three young children. Roberta Lerner died in 1995. His children, Mark Lerner, David Lerner and Jennifer Clary, and four grandchildren were among 50 mourners who attended the services.