NOTES ON PEOPLE (04/20/97)

NOTES ON PEOPLE

Completes museum internship program

RIDGEFIELD, Conn. - Lena M. Howansky of Wilton, Conn., recently completed a four-week Museum Education Internship at The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art. Ms. Howansky assisted in the museum's Student Docent Program, a nationally acclaimed program that teaches grammar, middle and high school students to lead museum tours.

Ms. Howansky's duties included working with the museum educator to prepare museum programs and curatorial research, in addition to training and directing student docents.

To further her experience in museum work, Ms. Howansky also created a winter educational project at The Lemko-Ukrainian Folk Museum in Stamford, Conn. As an assistant curator, Ms. Howansky constructed a reference library on Lemko-Ukrainian folk art, organized informational material on the museum's exhibit and helped with the upkeep of art displays.

Ms. Howansky has been active in museum studies and served as an exhibit preparatory intern for the University of Michigan Museum of Art during the winter season of 1995-1996. Her work with exhibit and artwork preparation included framing, constructing walls, lighting and making labels.

Ms. Howansky is currently a senior art major with an anthropology minor at Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio. She is preparing for her senior art show, a collection of her drawings to be exhibited on campus this spring. Ms. Howansky also is a member of the Oberlin Art Students' Committee and Oberlin Film Society. Ms. Howansky is a new member of Oberlin's Slavic Folk Choir.

Her anthropological studies at Oberlin include an independent research project for this spring on St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv, related monastic buildings and the Kyiv Pecherska Lavra (Monastery of the Caves).

Ms. Howansky is the daughter of Mary and Steven Howansky. She is a member of UNA Branch 8.

Professor's course voted most popular

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - For the past few years, Yale University has been ranked as the best college in the U.S. The most popular course at Yale for the second year has been "The Digital Information Age" (EE10lb) taught by Prof. Roman Kuc. In the third year of this unique course, the enrollment is 800 students - nearly twice the size of any other course at Yale.

The goal of the course is to describe how commonplace information systems work and why they work that way by illustrating clever engineering solutions to technical problems. The course considers information coding, encryption, transmission and manipulation. One popular aspect of the course is the software project that requires each students to write a personal World Wide Web page and develop a Web page for a Yale-affiliated organization.

Having taken the course, students feel they have an appreciation for the digital information artifacts they encounter on a daily basis. The course is meant for non-science majors who typically go on to work in management and are elected government officials. The current level of knowledge of technological issues is very low, and Prof. Kuc's course is an attempt to remedy this situation.

Prof. Kuc is also the director of the Intelligent Sensors Laboratory in the department of electrical engineering. His research in mimicking animal sonar systems, such as those used by bats and dolphins, for use in robots and underwater vehicles is among the best in the world. He has published over 100 papers in this area.

Prof. Kuc and Prof. Alexandr Nakonechny of the department of cybernetics, Kyiv University, Ukraine, submitted a two-year grant proposal in robotics which was one of 100 selected from more than 3,000 submitted from many of the countries of the former Soviet Union. The grant is for $84,000. The granting agency is the U.S. Civilian Research and Development Foundation for the Independent States of the Former Soviet Union.

During February, three professors from Kyiv University, Prof. Nakonechny, Mykola Kyrychenko and Mykola Lepekha, visited Yale to initiate their collaborative research. Prof. Kuc is scheduled to visit Kyiv University during the next two summers.

Prof. Kuc is treasurer of the Ridna Shkola at St. Michael's Church, where his son Alex and daughter Kateryna attend school. His spare time is spent trying to help his wife, Robin, keep up with their 2-year-old son Victor. Prof. Kuc is a member of UNA Branch 377.

Named fellow at Columbia U.

MADISON, N.J. - Adriana Helbig was named a fellow of the faculty at Columbia University in New York City, the highest honor in the humanities and social sciences - receiving a full scholarship to pursue a doctoral degree in ethnomusicology.

She is a candidate for bachelor of arts degree at Drew University, N.J., where she majors in German and music, and will graduate with honors in music. Her honors thesis on Arvo Paert will be published by Universal Editions in Vienna.

Miss Helbig's music studies began at the Ukrainian Music Institute with Taissa Bohdanska. Through the years Miss Helbig performed as soloist, and accompanist, and directed musicals in high school and college. During the 1995-1996 school year she studied at the University of Vienna and at the Vienna Music Conservatory.

Miss Helbig graduated with honors from St. John the Baptist Ukrainian Catholic School, the School of Ukrainian Studies and Mount St. Mary Academy. She has been active in humanitarian work with handicapped children and the poor. She is a member of Plast Chortopolokhy soroity and teaches at the Ukrainian Music Institute.

The Helbig family, Ada, Zenia, Omelan and Marijka, are members of UNA Branch 25.

On April 27, at 2 p.m. at Drew University's Brothers College Chapel, Miss Helbig will present her senior piano recital, featuring works by Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Scriabin, Dovzhenko and Kos-Anatolsky.

Chicago resident prepares for 101st

CHICAGO - Mary Loboyko of Chicago is anticipating her 101st birthday this August 26, which will make her one of the oldest members of the Ukrainian National Association. Mrs. Loboyko, whose husband, John, passed away in 1977, has four daughters, one son, 21 grandchildren and 24 great-grandchildren. She is a long-standing member of UNA Branch 125 and is one of the few surviving founding members of St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral. Numerous members of her family celebrated Mrs. Loboyko's centennial at an open house last year.

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