COLLEGIATETIMES
thursday april 24, 2008 blacksburg, va.
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bulletin board LEADERSHIP LECTURE MONDAY On Monday, April 28 at 5:30 p.m., Lt. Gen. Carl A. Strock will be speaking on “A Personal Journey of Socially Responsible Leadership” in McBryde 100. Strock is the project director for the Sabine Pass LNG Terminal Project, Bechtel Corporation and a recently retired Commander for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The event is being held by the Myers-Lawson School of Construction Center for Leadership and Charles E. Via Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.
CARIBBEAN NIGHT TONIGHT IN TORGERSEN 1100 The Office for International Research, Education and Development will sponsor a Caribbean Night this evening from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. The event will feature live music and a dance performance by the Salsa Club at Virginia Tech, as well as a running slide show created by students who have studied abroad in the Caribbean. Food and drink will also be provided.
news ROANOKE AIRPORT UPS ITS FEES FOR EXTRA BAGS Effective May 5, just in time for out of state Tech and Radford students to pack the Roanoke Regional Airport on their way home for the summer, the airport is raising their rates for extra checked bags. Most major U.S. airlines are partaking in the change, and will be charging a fee for checking more than one bag for domestic flights. Generally, the average fee is $25 each way for a second bag, and fees may be even higher for a third checked bag. The fees will mostly apply to domestic coach passengers and fees vary depending on the airline and the weight of the checked bags.
weather MOSTLY SUNNY high 74, low 53
corrections If you see something in today’s paper that needs to be corrected, please e-mail our public editor at publiceditor@collegiatetimes.com, or call 540.231.9865.
coming up TOMORROW’S CT Read a Q&A with Carolyn Rude, the English department chair, about her thoughts post April 16 in tomorrow’s paper. Check out a video of 23 year-old millionaire Cameron Johnson on our Web site.
index News.....................3 0pinions................5 Features................6
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An independent, student-run newspaper serving the Virginia Tech community since 1903 105th year • issue 55
warded to eterinary eurologist
A NEW OUTLOOK
JOHN KIMS
ct staff writer
“YOU CAN GIVE YOUR TIME, YOU CAN GIVE $5 OR YOU CAN GIVE THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS, IT DOESN’T MATTER, IT IS JUST THE MATTER OF TAKING THE FIRST STEP.” CAMERON JOHNSON CAMERON JOHNSON ADVANCED TO THE THE FINAL THREE OF OPRAH’S BIG GIVE. THE PEOPLE HE MET ALONG THE WAY AND THE OPPORTUNITIES HE FOUND TO GIVE CHANGED WHAT THE 23 YEAR OLD PLANS FOR HIS FUTURE
SHAOZHUO CUI/SPPS
KAREN KIRK
ct staff writer Cameron Johnson is only 23, but he is already a self-made millionaire. The Roanoke native has started and sold multiple businesses, written his own book and given speeches all over the world. Most recently, and to him most importantly, he made it to the final three on Oprah Winfrey’s new television show, “Oprah’s Big Give.” While most young kids were watching cartoons, Cameron was busy idolizing entrepreneurs such as Richard Branson, Bill Gates, Donald Trump and Michael Dell. He started his first business making greeting cards when he was nine and made his first million when he was 15 after starting his own advertising company. Johnson attended Tech three years ago for his freshman year before leaving to pursue other career options. By now he has met most of his idols and became more than just an acquaintance with some of them. Next month he is going with Branson, the founder of the Virgin brand, to
Necker Island, Branson’s private island in the Caribbean. “I have been really fortunate to meet some cool people,” Johnson said. On the difficulty of staying down to earth after meeting many of his idols and achieving such early success, Johnson said, “when I meet people like that I’m not successful at all compared to them. Even though they are insanely successful and very wealthy, they are just people at the end of the day, and I think they appreciate being treated like people.” After becoming so monetarily successful, Johnson’s experience on “Big Give” taught him that “it is not about the money” when giving back to people. “Doing the show definitely gave me a new outlook on success. Up until this point I had been all about business; I had done a lot of philanthropic work and donated my time, but this was a totally different experience,” Johnson said. “This show changed my outlook on what it takes to give. You can give your time, you can give $5 or you can give
name be sent to the ASP. Soon thereafter, almost $70,000 was sent to the organization in Austin’s honor.
see APPALACHIA, page four
see GRANT, page three
see OUTLOOK, page three
CANDACE SIPOS
ct news reporter
PHOTO COURTESY OF ASP
Two ASP volunteers work on a project for a house in Appalachia. Austin Cloyd’s parents have led several groups of Virginia Tech students on trips with the group. ing plumbing problems, building porches and repairing roofs on over 12,500 homes since the ASP’s inception in 1969. The Cloyds began helping with the project after asking that donations made in Austin’s
“There is no single revolutionary finding in the search for the cure for cancer; it is made by taking continuous small steps.” - JOHN ROBERTSON VMRCVM RESEARCHER “(Virginia Tech and Wake Forest) have a shared interest in curing cancer,” Robertson said. Also on the team from Tech are Dr. Evans, who is studying genetics, Dr. Renee Prater, who is studying the radiation effect on gene expressions, and Dr. Rafael Davalos, who is modeling the electrical and thermal effects of brain injury. As the co-principle investigator, Rossmeisl is in charge of recruiting, examining and treating the canine patients. “Protein abnormalities that occur in dog tumors are almost identical to those that occur in human tumors,” Rossmeisl said. “We think that it (the research project) will benefit both dogs and people.” Within both studies, research is being conducted to look at multiple treatment options such as surgery, radiation and drug therapy. Although the team researches and treats all different types of brain tumors, its main focus is on glioblastoma, a type of brain tumor that is nearly untreatable and statistically results in high mortality rates. The gamma knife, a surgical device used to treat brain tumors, is the main radiation treatment being explored in this research. Currently located at Wake Forest, the gamma knife is a $5 million device that treats brain tumors by administering doses of radiation from multiple angles in the head with more accuracy. Using headgear to show the tumor sample and the mapping of the brain, the gamma knife allows for doctors to treat the tumors in locations unreachable by conventional surgery. Although the device is currently being used to treat human brain tumors, the team is looking into using it to treat canine tumors. “We are currently ready to enroll the dogs in the treatment phase in the trial,” Rossmeisl said. Although only dogs are being used in this study, the research had broad applications and the potential to be applicable to other animals, such as cats. With regard to the human research, the team is looking for more efficient and effective ways of using the gamma knife to treat glioblastoma. The research team is also developing a drug using convection-enhanced drug delivery, a method which would administer the drugs directly to the brain. As the basis for developing the drug, the team used the results of a two-year study that showed certain over-expressions
Serving Appalachia in Cloyd’s memory Bryan and Renee Cloyd are carrying on the legacy of their daughter, Austin, who was killed last April 16. Austin went on four weeklong trips with the Appalachia Service Project, a Christian ministry designed to repair homes for low-income families in Central Appalachia. The Cloyds have taken around 150 Tech students and faculty members on five weekend trips just this year. “The reason my wife and I decided to take some Virginia Tech students down this year was just that that was something Austin had done through high school and something we thought would be helpful,” Bryan Cloyd said. “We just wanted to make that opportunity available and to have that opportunity ourselves to work with students.” Renee was the director of Youth Ministeries at First United Baptist Church at the Cloyds’ former residence where she headed up ASP trips. While Bryan stayed home with his son who was too young to go, Austin always accompanied her mother. About 15,000 volunteers help 400 to 500 families fix their houses every year through ASP, according to the organization’s Web site. More than 240,000 volunteers have performed tasks such as installing wheelchair ramps, fix-
A grant from the Translational Science Institute at Wake Forest University was awarded to Dr. John Rossmeisl, a veterinary neurologist and an assistant professor at the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine. Along with Rossmeisl, four other doctors from Virginia Tech will be working in conjunction with a team of scientists and doctors from Wake Forest to research nd study brain tumors. Co-funded by Virginia Tech, the grant warded a little over $150,000 to the team esearchers, with research to be conducted at Tech and Wake Forest. The money the grant was awarded this January and nd the project until 2010. project is divided into two separate arallel studies: brain tumors in dogs brain tumors in humans. Dr. John tson is the director of the Center for parative Oncology, a professor in the department of biomedical sciences and pathobiology in VMRCVM, and a patholo gist by trade. He co-authored the grant and helps to coordinate the project, solicit and manage cases, do pathology studies and aid with patient care.
PROFESSORS RECOGNIZED FOR RESEARCH The Board of Visitors named Rakesh Kapania, a professor in the aerospace engineering department, the Norris and Laura Mitchell Professor of Aerospace award winner. Also this week, the Board of Directors named Julie L. Ozanne the Sonny Merryman Professor of Marketing at Virginia Tech. Kapania and Ozanne were both given the awards for research accomplishments in their respective fields. “It’s always a surprise because this department is truly exceptional, so to be picked was somewhat of a surprise,” Kapania said. Ozanne said she believes she received the award because for over 25 years she has had a
sustained record of publications and a few papers that were “well received and heavily cited and widely known in the field.” Along with the recognition of both awards, a monetary bonus will be given to each Ozanne professor. Some of the money given to Kapania will go to the engineering department to further undergraduate research projects and international collaborations. KYLE SWANSON/SPPS — Karen Kirk, CT news staff Rakesh Kapania was honored as the Norris and Laura Mitchell Professor of Aerospace.
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