Science and Medicine Briefs

NEW DEAN FOR HUMANITIES AND SCIENCES  Malcolm Beasley (pictured), the Theodore and Sydney Rosenberg Professor of Applied Physics and, by courtesy, professor of electrical engineering, has been appointed the new dean of the School of Humanities and Sciences. President Gerhard Casper and Provost Condoleezza Rice announced the appointment June 5. Beasley has chosen Ellen Markman, professor of psychology, to become the new associate dean for the social sciences. Beasley, 58, who has been a member of the faculty since 1974, will succeed current Humanities and Sciences Dean John Shoven, who will step down at the end of the academic year. Casper described Beasley as "extremely thoughtful" and a "great university citizen. He's somebody who is broadly interested in the university and will understand the full range of disciplines that he will be overseeing. He also shows great concern and sensitivity about the important issues that face us." Rice added that Beasley brings an impressive record of academic leadership and administrative experience to the job. Beasley said, "I served on the search committee for the previous dean, John Shoven. So I know what kind of scrutiny these things go through. I'm excited about it."

NEVER ASSUME  A computer snafu erased years of academic work at the Graduate School of Business. Dean A. Michael Spence called the error a "disaster'' and estimated that 10 to 15 faculty members and doctoral candidates had not been able to recover their work, ranging from research notes to sections of dissertations and books developed over years. The incident occurred in March when a contractor hired to move the two business school servers to the university's central computer center for upgrading failed to back up the contents before shutting the computer down. Some users had not backed up files.

INFESTED BY MILLENNIUM BUGS  For millions of computer systems the millennium bug is more Godzilla than insect. The appellation refers to the fact that most computers are programmed with code that uses only the last two digits to indicate the year. When the clock turns at the millennium, those computers will read the year 2000 as 1900, throwing off

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