In Brief

• Duke's board of trustees, meeting in May, created the Nannerl O. Keohane University Professorship to honor the university's eighth president, who steps down June 30. In announcing the award, trustee chair Peter M. Nicholas '64 said, "My trustee colleagues and I could think of no better way for us to personally honor her scholarship and passion for the campus she has led so well than with a university professorship." The $2 million to support the Keohane University Professorship was provided by the trustees. University professorships are endowed professorships intended for scholars distinguished by their ability to transcend academic disciplines and are jointly established in more than one school or department. Nicholas also announced that, with trustee support, full funding had been obtained to establish the $750,000 endowment required for a women's athletic scholarship in Keohane's name.
  
• David S. Ferriero, currently the Rita DiGiallonardo Holloway University Librarian and vice provost for library affairs at Duke, will become the Andrew W. Mellon director and chief executive of the research libraries at the New York Public Library on September 1. Robert Byrd, director of the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, will become acting university librarian after Ferriero's departure. A search committee for his successor has been established by the provost's office.
  
• Martha Putallaz, a professor of psychology, is the new executive director of Duke's Talent Identification Program (TIP). TIP is a national leader in identifying academically talented students and providing innovative programs to support the development of their educational potential. Last fall, more than 80,000 students participated in TIP's Seventh-Grade Talent Search, and, last summer, more than 2,300 students from forty states and fourteen foreign countries attended TIP summer programs. Putallaz, director of the psychology department's undergraduate studies, specializes in research focusing on children's peer relationships and how that predicts their success as adults. In April, TIP's new headquarters was dedicated in honor of William Bevan A.M. '43, Ph.D. '48, Hon. '72, the former Duke provost who started TIP in 1980.
  
• James Vaupel, a senior research scientist in the Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy and an internationally known demographer, was one of ninety researchers from around the world elected to the National Academy of Sciences this spring. Membership in the academy, a private, congressionally authorized organization that acts as an official adviser to the federal government, is considered one of the highest honors in science and engineering. Vaupel is also founding director of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany. At Duke, he works in the Sanford Institute's Program on Population, Policy, and Aging.
  
• Stephen Jaffe, music professor and co-director of the Encounter Series at Duke, has a new recording, The Music Of Stephen Jaffe, Volume II, published by Bridge Records. The album includes a new violin concerto. In January, his new cello concerto premiered at the Kennedy Center, performed by the National Symphony, with David Hardy on cello and Leonard Slatkin conducting.