Graduate School

On the campus of Cheyney University, a school that is no stranger to financial hardship, professor Adedoyin M. Adeyiga is a rainmaker. The African-born chemistry professor, whose father is a king in Nigeria, has secured more than $5 million in grants for programming to increase minority participation in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). An additional $1.35 million is pending. Adeyiga, or "Dr. A. " as he is known on campus, works furiously to stop students from shunning a subject and career path that many consider scary and intimidating.

JACOB IATI was not playing much last season. His prospects for playing did not look promising. He was ready to graduate, go for his MBA and get on with his life. He talked it over with his coach and they decided that he would give up his final season of eligibility at Albany and become a graduate assistant for Will Brown's team while working on that MBA. "I wasn't playing a lot," Iati said Thursday morning at the Wells Fargo Center. "They offered me to be the GA this year which would pay for graduate school.

Brian Westbrook has a choice to make. Within the next month he has to decide whether he wants to play a fourth season of football at Villanova, where he could try to lead the Wildcats back into the Division I-AA playoffs for the first time since 1997, probably break the I-AA career record for all-purpose yardage and maybe even win the Walter Payton Award, which goes to the top offensive player in I-AA. Or, he could enter the NFL draft. Yesterday, in the Heisman Room of the Downtown Athletic Club, he learned he finished third in this year's Payton voting behind two other underclassmen, Furman running back Louis Ivory and last year's winner, Georgia Southern running back Adrian Peterson.

Joe Woolley, the Eagles' director of player personnel, said the NFL rejected a club request to allow No. 1 pick Antone Davis to remain in Philadelphia after this weekend's minicamp. In an agreement this year with the College Football Association and the NCAA, NFL rules prohibit draft picks from reporting, full time, to their respective teams before June 1. The NFL, Woolley said, makes no exceptions for players such as Davis and No. 5 pick Craig Erickson, who already have graduated.

Walter H. Collins, 74, who as a junior high school teacher held down a second job at 30th Street Post Office for 22 years, died of heart failure Sunday at Moses H. Cone Hospital in Greensboro, N.C., where he had been attending the 50th reunion of his college graduating class. Mr. Collins was with the Philadelphia public school system for 31 years, 28 of those as a math and social-studies teacher at Mayer Sulzberger Junior High School in the Mill Creek section of West Philadelphia.

Senate hearing set on scandal WASHINGTON - The chairman of the Senate committee with jurisdiction over homeland security says he has scheduled a hearing for May 23 to review the Secret Service investigation of the Colombia prostitution scandal. Sen. Joe Lieberman told CNN's State of the Union that he believes the agency has done a thorough job in investigating the incident. But the Connecticut independent said he also wants to know whether there were warning signs about agents' behavior.

The NHL's lawsuit against its players was assigned to a relatively new federal judge who is a longtime New York Yankees fan and a former federal prosecutor. The sides did not talk Sunday, the 92d day of a lockout that threatens to wipe out an entire NHL season for the second time in nine years. NHL players started voting on whether to have their union give up collective bargaining rights, a "disclaimer of interest" that could be a precursor to an antitrust suit. The league argued in a 43-page suit Friday in federal court in Manhattan that the union's actions were a bargaining maneuver and asked that the lockout be declared legal.

For local artist James Burns, creating a mural depicting the emotions surrounding suicide hits close to home. "Suicide is not just about ending one person's suffering," Burns said. "What people don't realize is that it starts a whole chain reaction of sorrow for those who are left behind. " Burns, 37, is head artist on the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program's latest project, "Finding the Light Within," at 119 S. 31st St. The painter was denied the opportunity to know his grandfather because of his untimely death, and while working on the two-year project, he lost friends from graduate school and high school months apart.

For local artist James Burns, creating a mural depicting the emotions surrounding suicide hits close to home. "Suicide is not just about ending one person's suffering," Burns said. "What people don't realize is that it starts a whole chain reaction of sorrow for those who are left behind. " Burns, 37, is head artist on the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program's latest project, "Finding the Light Within," at 119 S. 31st St. The painter was denied the opportunity to know his grandfather because of his untimely death, and while working on the two-year project, he lost friends from graduate school and high school months apart.

It's easy to get lost in the global village. That's why Georgia Bennett has been able to build a business by giving people directions to the right schoolhouse door. Her West Chester consulting firm, Bennett Educational Resources, provides information on education to corporations and their employees moving to and from the United States. The company might help a U.S. family find a program abroad for a special- needs child, or help a foreign transferee's spouse apply to U.S. graduate schools.