Notes

Sports sponsorship: Two sports at Bucknell University -- wrestling and women's rowing -- along with other women's sports will be bolstered because of a $5.6 million donation from Bucknell alumnus William Graham, chair and chief executive officer of The Graham Company, a leading provider of property and casualty products and surety bonds. Graham was co-captain of the 1962 Bucknell wrestling team that finished third in the Middle Atlantic Conference Championships. The donation allows wrestling to be reinstated as a varsity sport, and is expected to provide an equal number of new varsity opportunities for Bucknell men and women over the next four years. Primarily through endowments, the gift will underwrite all aspects of the wrestling budget, while women's rowing will receive new assistant coaches and increased program support. A new women's lacrosse and field hockey field was constructed with an early installment of the gift, and an endowment for women's athletics as a whole is being established. The wrestling team will be restored in the winter of 2005-06; the expansion of women's rowing will be effective in the spring of 2006. "Bucknell's decision to reclassify the wrestling team in 2001 was extremely difficult to make," said John Hardt, Bucknell director of athletics. "This donation gives us the opportunity to reinstate the program and provide our students the quality opportunities they deserve while complying with Title IX requirements." Mike Moyer, executive director of the National Wrestling Coaches Association, said during a news conference to announce the gift that the Bucknell action was "unprecedented" and a move he hopes other institutions will consider as they try to reinstate men's programs and enhance women's sports at the same time. "We're confident that other institutions will follow Bucknell's lead in finding creative solutions," he said.

Milestones: A pair of Drexel University head coaches earned milestone victories recently. Softball coach Terry DeTuro picked up her 200th career win in a 2-1 triumph over Cornell University March 13. The win put DeTuro, who is in her second season with Drexel, at 211-164-3 as a Division I head coach. Her 13-year tenure has included stops at Georgian Court College and the University of Virginia. Drexel women's lacrosse coach Anna Marie Vesco earned her 100th career victory when her Dragons defeated Howard University, 18-11, on April 24. After the win, Vesco's career record in 11 years of coaching stood at 100-79. She is 18-15 in her two seasons at Drexel.

Miscellaneous: Charles E. Young, former chancellor at the University of California, Los Angeles, and president at the University of Florida, has taken on another academic position in the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar. Young, who has served as Florida's CEO for the last four years and as the UCLA chancellor for almost 30 years before that, has assumed a new role as president of the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development. The foundation's mission is to improve education in the country by attracting American colleges and universities to establish satellite campuses. Four -- Cornell University; Carnegie Mellon University; Texas A&M University, College Station; and Virginia Commonwealth University -- already have done so as part of a 2,400-acre "education city" being built in the capital. "What they're doing here is remarkable and sustainable, and it seemed to be something that also required some leadership," Young told the Los Angeles Times recently. "I became convinced that I was the right person, with the experience and a record of being able to work with people." Young has extensive service with NCAA governance committees, including the NCAA Presidents Commission. He also chaired the Special Committee to Study a Division I-A Football Championship formed in 1994. In addition, Young served on the initial Knight Foundation Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics beginning in 1988.

-- Compiled by Gary T. Brown