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Arizona Daily Wildcat
The independent student voice of the University of Arizona since 1899 wednesday, march , dailywildcat.com
tucson, arizona
Surgery professor given high honors By Matt Lewis ARIZONA DAILY WILDCAT
Rodney Haas/Arizona Daily Wildcat
UA President Robert Shelton fist-bumps hip-hop dancers of the UA Dance Ensemble after their performances for the celebration of the university’s 125th birthday on Tuesday. The dancers’ varying acts were representing different eras of the school’s history, from the 1910s through World War II up to present day.
UA celebrates 125th birthday By Rodney Haas ARIZONA DAILY WILDCAT
In 1885 C.C Stevens was sent to Prescott to win Tucson the territorial capital. But when the capital was awarded to Prescott, the next best thing was an insane asylum. The last thing people in Tucson wanted was a university. The asylum came with a $100,000 allocation whereas the university only had a $25,000 allocation. In the end, Phoenix was awarded the asylum and Tucson was settled with the university. When Stevens returned he was greeted with a shower of ripe eggs, rotten vegetables and a dead cat. Now, 125 years later the UA is home to 38,000 students and in 2004
“
We just need to get leaders in this state to understand that investing in higher education is an investment in the future. Just as the gamblers and the saloon owner didn’t realize back a 125 years ago.
”
— Robert Shelton President of the University of Arizona
the university provides for close to 40,000 jobs and had an economic impact of $2.1 billion — far cry from the original $25,000 — according to reports released by the Office of Economic and Policy Analysis. “It started with humble beginnings with three students and one building and look where we are now,” Provost Meredith Hay said. To get the university off the ground, the city had to come up with the land, which was donated by two gamblers and a saloonkeeper. It consisted of 40 acres where Old Main sits today. “I like the fact that this university got started by gamblers and a saloon keeper,” UA president Robert Shelton told a crowd that gathered in front of Old Main to celebrate the UA’s 125th birthday Thursday. “I think in their day,
they epitomized the sprit that we call entrepreneurship. They epitomized what we call persistance so we have a lot of history and a lot of personality that we can celebrate because we’re still community of entrepreneurs and risk-takers.” Classes began in 1891 and consisted of 32 students. Shelton described higher education then as more of a continuation of the same themes that were in high school and didn’t engage in the research that university does today. Shelton compared the UA’s past struggles to those of today. “We just need to get leaders in this state to understand that investing in higher education is an investment in the future. Just as the gamblers and the saloon owner didn’t realize back a 125 years ago,” Shelton said.
ASUA primary voting kicks off By Jazmine Woodberry ARIZONA DAILY WILDCAT The Associated Students of the University of Arizona primary elections began early Tuesday morning at 8 and will continue until 8 Wednesday night. Students can vote either online or at one of three polling stations around campus: inside the Student Union Memorial Center, at the Eller College of Management or at the Student Recreation Center. All candidates who started the process in February have made it onto the ballot, and the suspected write-in candidate from last month is not included in the primary election voting. It is unclear whether they will be included in the general
election vote on March 9 and 10. Once voting ends at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, ASUA will announce the winners at an election results show in the SUMC’s Kiva Room. Only authorized personnel can access the results before the show, said ASUA Elections Commissioner Justine Piscitello. These primaries show each candidate where he or she stands in the election polls, said Piscitello. But the primaries might not be fully representative. Some students knew of the primaries through various media but were unsure about voting. “Some people just don’t pay attention,” said Christina Le, an economics sophomore. “I mean, I’m sure a lot of
UA surgery professor Dr. David Armstrong will be recognized with the highest honor in the field of amputation prevention and wound healing by the American Diabetes Association. “It’s a big award — it’s one of the biggest awards in diabetes, so it’s really an honor for somebody in our unit to get it, especially someone who’s not a endocrinologist or a foot surgeon,” said Dr. Joe Mills, University Medical Center chief of the Division of Vascular Surgery, UA surgery professor and codirector of UA’s Southern Arizona Limb Salvage Alliance. Armstrong, a professor of surgery and director of the UA’s Southern Arizona Limb Salvage Alliance, recently won the Roger Pecoraro award. “I look at this as more of a nod to my mentors rather than as a specific personal honor,”Armstrong said. He said he grew up around podiatry, the study of the ankle, foot, and lower leg, spending time at his dad’s office. “I will be receiving this award about six years to the day after he passed. So, I suppose that it belongs with him and the rest of the folks that guided and continue to guide me,”Armstrong said. Dr. Rainer Gruessner, UA professor of surgery and immunology and surgery department chairman, and Mills also helped him succeed, Armstrong said. Armstrong was invited to be on the Oprah Winfrey Show, according to Gruessner. “The reason they picked him is (the Oprah Show) had contacted American Diabetes Association and the World Health Organization about wound healing and diabetic patients, and they were told that the person to talk to is Dr. Armstrong in Tucson,” he said. He will receive the award in June at the American Diabetes Association’s symposium in Orlando, Fla. According to members of the UA surgery department, Armstrong has published more peer-reviewed works than anyone in his field of podiatry. He has spoken in more than 40 countries and mentored other leaders in the field, such as Dr. Lee Rogers, associate director of the Amputation Prevention Center at Valley Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Angeles. “Professor Armstrong is the world’s leader in amputation prevention. There is no one more deserving of this award, and I am humbled by the task of giving it to him,” Rogers said in a press release. DOCTOR, page A3
Hallie Bolonkin/Arizona Daily Wildcat
Michael Colletti, right, an economics junior, supervised an online voting table for ASUA primary election where Geoff Sokol, a biology freshman, places a vote into the computer set up at the Student Union Memorial Center on Tuesday.
people know about it on Facebook, but that’s about it.” Le thought that although the student body might not know much about primaries, ASUA was still important to the UA and to a “good student government.”
Vote at asua.arizona.edu or at one of the three campus polling stations between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m.
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Dr. David Armstrong
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