Georgia State University Magazine Q4 2013 by Georgia State University

Four-time Emmy winner Todd James (B.A. ’97) makes movie magic on Sesame Street p.14

q ua rte r 4 . 2 0 1 3

Armed with the largest grant in university history, researchers explore the health risks of e-cigarettes p.22

Head Basketball Coach Ron and star player R.J. Hunter have a father-son, coach-player relationship p.28

M A G A Z I N E

p.16

Cracking the Concrete

Downtown Atlanta’s most significant property owner isn’t paving paradise and putting up another parking lot, it’s tearing down a parking garage (Kell Hall— gasp!) and creating a cleaner, greener campus

m aga z i n e. g s u. e d u

ALUMNI STATE A S S O C I AT I O N GEORGIA

S U P P O RT I N G A L U M N I P R O G R A M M I N G F O R 8 5 Y E A R S .

Contents 7 The Sporting Scientist Chris Locandro has found remarkable success on the pitch and in the lab 9 Secrets of the Sphinx Melinda Hartwig goes on Discovery Channel’s ‘Treasures Decoded’ to demystify the Great Sphinx 13 Freedom Defined Alex Robson (B.A. ’11, M.A.T. ’13) poses the question ‘What does freedom mean to you?’

16 22 28 Cracking the concrete when the smoke clears by blood and basketball Georgia State is set to unveil a new master plan that will forever change the “concrete campus.” •

Georgia State researchers investigate the health risks of the next generation of tobacco products.

Big-time basketball schools recruited R.J. Hunter. He came to Georgia State to play for his dad.

Welcome to the new Georgia State University Magazine!

Let us know what you think of the new magazine and website, magazine.gsu.edu. Send your letters to the editor at winman@gsu.edu.

“ Downtown is about to get a whole lot greener.” —Atlanta City Councilman Kwanza Hall

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P.O. BOX 3999 ATLANTA, GA. 30302-3999 (404) 413-2190 | 800-GSU-ALUM M A G A Z I N E. G S U. E D U

from the president Our faculty and researchers are pushing back the boundaries of what is already known, and discovering new pathways to breakthroughs that will change the world.

A Home for Research

Georgia State is breaking ground and breaking through on its way to becoming an eminent research university We’ve broken a lot of university records in our Centennial year, records

in freshman applications and enrollment, number of graduates and graduation rates, fund-raising and more. Another important record we set was in research as we pursued our goal of becoming one of the nation’s premier urban research institutions. Georgia State University researchers received $71.2 million from external funding agencies in fiscal year 2013, marking the second straight year of record-breaking research funding. This outstanding achievement, during a time of diminishing federal research funding, is a testament to the quality and expertise of our faculty. In what is the largest grant in Georgia State history, the university’s School of Public Health and its partners will receive $19 million over five years from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health to establish

one of 14 Tobacco Centers of Regulatory Science. The Center for Behavioral Neuroscience, a research endeavor of seven metropolitan Atlanta colleges and universities, has been elevated to the newest university-level research center at Georgia State. This new designation elevates the university’s position as a home for the best researchers in neuroscience and allows the center to continue its work in research and neuroscience education from kindergarten to the college level. Perhaps the most visible component of our research portfolio growth is the expansion of our Research Park. We will soon break ground on the second tower of the park, which will be dedicated to science research and will be adjacent to the Petit Science Center at the corner of Decatur Street and Piedmont Avenue. It will provide a flexible space and design that

encourages collaborative and interdisciplinary research and will be a transformative facility that drives economic growth by supporting groundbreaking discoveries. Our strategy to pursue leading researchers and put them together in multi-disciplinary teams to address the major problems and issues of the day is clearly paying off. Our faculty and researchers are pushing back the boundaries of what is already known, and discovering new pathways to breakthroughs that will change the world.

Praise for the new Georgia State University Magazine Emails and online commentary

After receiving past issues of the magazine and setting them aside unread, I was compelled to pick up and read the new issue. The layout is visually appealing. The articles were presented in a way that captured my interest. And even the feel of the ink and paper was attractive. Congrats to the team. Great job! Lisa I. Dalton (MBA ’83) Wanted to let you know how amazing the redesign looks! Being a graphic design alum from Georgia State, I’m so happy to see the transformation of this pub. You definitely caught my attention and I’m sure many others! Huge success, and happy to see that print is not dead! Bravo! Heather Devine (B.A. ’06)

I recently received the new issue in the mail. I love the new look! Very updated and vibrant. Congratulations! Ruth Saxton, Clinical Assistant Professor of Early Childhood Education

Sincerely,

Mark P. Becker President

WINTER 2013, Vol 4, Number 4 Publisher Don Hale Executive Editor Andrea Jones Editor William Inman Contributors Rebecca Burns (B.A. ’89, M.A. ’08), Dave Cohen (B.A. ’94), Sonya Collins, Ray Glier, Lauren Montgomery (B.A. ’14), Creative Director José Reyes for Metaleap Creative MetaleapCreative.com Designer Tiffany Forrester Styling Ashley Stephens Contributing Illustrators Adam Cruft, Andy Friedman, La Tigre, Jesse Lefkowitz, Matt Stevens, Steve Wacksman Contributing Photographers Clint Blowers, Adam Komich, Josh Meister, Jayme Thornton Send address changes to: Georgia State University Gifts and Records P.O. Box 3963 Atlanta Ga. 30302-3963 Fax: 404-413-3441 e-mail: update@GSU.edu Send letters to the editor and story ideas to: William Inman, editor, Georgia State University Magazine P.O. Box 3983 Atlanta Ga. 30302-3983 Fax: 404-413-1381 e-mail: winman@GSU.edu Georgia State University Magazine is published four times annually by Georgia State University. The magazine is dedicated to communicating and promoting the high level of academic achievement, research, faculty scholarship and teaching, and service at Georgia State University, as well as the outstanding accomplishments of its alumni and the intellectual, cultural, social and athletic endeavors of Georgia State University’s vibrant and diverse student body. © 2013 Georgia State University

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LETTERS

Illustration by andy friedman

• Download a PDF of the magazine to your favorite tablet or device by visiting magazine.gsu.edu

Just wanted to say that the beautiful redesign of the Georgia State magazine made me open it instead of chuck it into the recycling bin. No offense to the old alumni mag — with all the great design and catchy headlines out there, it’s hard to stand out enough to make me want to read. Your new take on the mag did just that. As someone who produces a quarterly magazine for a very big company and who works with some top designers, my hat is off. Loraine Fick (B.B.A. ’04)

I received my copy of the new Georgia State University Magazine in the mail yesterday and was really impressed. Very professional layout, writing and content. It reflects very well on the university... great work.

Metaleap! What a pleasant surprise. Their office is right next door to ours and we really are really fond of their team. I’m thankful that you’ve hired them and, as a result, this magazine is something I can display on my coffee table proudly. Go State! Jade King (B.S. ’11)

Mimi Breeden (MBA ’80) via Facebook

Very cool. Charles McNair writes for my alumni magazine. Lee Tesche (B.F.A. ’07)

I just got it in the mail and all I can say is WOW! What a fresh, exciting magazine — just WOW!! It is probably the first one I have really “looked” at in years. Congratulations on a job well done! Allison Metheny (B.B.A. ’74) I received my new Georgia State Magazine today. I really like it. It is not too polished. It is not too raw. It draws me in rather than holding me at bay. Its format and style appeal to me and I suspect they will to other Panthers as well. Wayne Gunn (B.A. ’71) Thank you for doing such a brilliant job with the alumni magazine. I have always been impressed with its style and quality and the latest issue motivated me to search the fine print to find out who is behind it.

CORRECTION In our last issue, the article “Life Academic” incorrectly reported that John Knapp, president of Hope College, was Georgia State’s student body president in 1981. Knapp was stuVisit us online at dent body president magazine. gsu.edu in 1979-’80. The Georgia State University Magazine welcomes letters, comments and notification of errors that warrant correction. Email the editor at winman@gsu.edu

To the magazine’s editorial and creative staff: the magazine looks fantastic. This alum is seriously impressed. Keep it up.

Sarah Levine (B.A. ’09, M.A. ’12) via Facebook

M A G A Z I N E. G S U. E D U

in the City

campus Another March on Washington Fifty years later new history is being made The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom signaled a major turning point in the civil rights movement. It was a seminal moment not just for African-Americans but for the entire country, one that a group of 16 Georgia State students helped preserve. In August, the students attended the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington, met with United States Rep. John Lewis and recorded the stories of some of the original marchers as part of the “I Was (T)Here Exchange Oral History Project,” an effort by the National Center for Civil and Human Rights. “It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” says senior Charis Hanner. “One woman told me she was denied admission to Georgia State 50 years ago because the schools were still segregated then. And the reason she said she marched was so that students of all races could go to Georgia State today.” Finance 101 Georgia State helps middle schoolers learn money skills

Georgia State recently opened shop in Junior Achievement’s Finance Park, a new educational facility focused on teaching middle school students about financial management in Atlanta’s World Congress Center. About 30,000 students from the Atlanta Public Schools, DeKalb County Schools, cont’d on p.09

Golf Cart Caravan

Georgia State’s quirky homecoming parade turns 10 Start Your Carts: The first blue and white festooned golf carts took over the

streets of downtown on a chilly Saturday morning in February 2004 before tipoff of a 2 p.m. basketball game. The parade was the brainchild of the Spotlight Board Homecoming Committee.

The Sporting Scientist Chris Locandro’s extraordinary biography has more than one title. Lauren Montgomery (B.A. ’14) photos by adam komich

Panther Tracks: According to the Signal, the first parade route was a short one: It ran from

Gilmer Street, down Piedmont Avenue, right on Decatur Street and right on Peachtree Center Avenue — just two city blocks. Twice is Nice: In 2010, when Georgia State kicked off its football program, homecoming moved to the fall but that didn’t stop the university from properly celebrating its last wintertime homecoming: Georgia State had both a basketball and football homecoming and the parade ran twice that year.

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Illustration by steve wacksman

M A G A Z I N E. G S U. E D U

in the City

Chris Locandro figures he’s spent the lion’s share of his time at Georgia State behind a microscope.

Last fall, the senior neuroscience major in the Honors College, who has a gradepoint average over 4.0 and has earned President’s List honors twice, put what he learned over those long hours to work on a study that could be a breakthrough for those who suffer from epilepsy. Pretty impressive, especially considering that when he’s not in pursuit of a cure, he’s the anchor for the men’s soccer team as its central defender. And he’s earned plenty of hardware for his play. In 2011, he became the first men’s soccer player in school history named to an NCAA AllRegional Team and became just the second to earn all-conference first-team honors. Locandro said there’s no secret formula when it comes to balancing his athletic and academic focus. “It all boils down to time management,” he said. “But once things get hectic, like in the spring when we practice two times a day and I have to prepare for an upcoming research presentation, staying efficient and minimizing distractions becomes even more important.” For Brett Surrency, his head coach, this means he knows exactly what Locandro will give him on the pitch. “He is just unflappable,” Surrency said. “His level of preparation is fantastic. He is one of the hardest working, most disciplined guys and that shows in his game.” Just days after shutting down Andrew Wenger — the first pick of the 2012 Major League Soccer draft — in the Panthers’ 1-0 loss to Duke in the first round of the 2011 NCAA Tournament, Locandro started work on a research project that sought to understand how a mutation associated with epilepsy affects the electrical activity of brain cells. “Put simply, we discovered that neurons with the mutation were much more electrically active than normal neurons,” he said. Locandro has presented his findings at several conferences, and recently was sup-

Fulton County Schools and Marietta City Schools will participate in the program this academic year. It is part of the mandatory curriculum in the schools’ districts. Georgia State, the only university in Finance Park, joins major corporations such Delta, Belk, Georgia Power, SunTrust, AT&T and Assurant in the facility. In the Georgia State shop students will learn about the value of higher education and the distinctive qualities of Georgia State. They also can personalize a simulated dormitory room and take a photo of it. New Institute for Biomedical Sciences opens early 2014 Despite huge advances in recent years in biological and medical research, significant gaps still exist between basic laboratory research and clinical applications. To address this challenge, Georgia State will open the new Institute for Biomedical Sciences on Jan. 14. The institute will be a leading research and degree-granting institute advancing biomedical research that improves human health and trains professionals in the field. “This multidisciplinary institute will educate and train future generations of leading biomedical scientists and health professionals,” said Georgia State President Mark Becker. Becker said the institute will bolster Georgia State’s existing strengths in areas — such as oncology, therapeutics and diagnostics — where the university has made strategic investments. Jian Dong Li, head of the university’s Center for Inflammation, Immunity and Infection, will be the founding director.

ported by a grant to present at the Symposium for Young Neuroscientists and Professors of the Southeast at the University of South Carolina. He’s moved on to the next step of the research, he says, which involves coming up with a drug therapy to block the hyperexcitability of neurons in hopes of preventing epileptic seizures for those with this mutation. Locandro, who will graduate this spring, says he plans on taking a year to continue his research before applying to medical school where he hopes to specialize in either cardiology or neurology. “The first year I came to college, I challenged myself to see if I could do extremely well on the field and extremely well in academics, and I think I’ve kind of met that challenge,” he said. “It’s satisfying to know that I’ve reached that goal and I’m going to hopefully continue to do so.”

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discovery Study Points to More Effective Drugs to Fight HIV/AIDS To understand the impact of the research led by Professor Irene Weber, it’s important to know how anti-HIV drugs are designed. Scientists start by mapping out the structure of the proteins produced by the cont’d on p.10 virus itself. Illustration by adam cruft

Secrets of the Sphinx Georgia State’s Resident Egyptologist Melinda Hartwig goes on Discovery Channel’s ‘Treasures Decoded’ to demystify the Great Sphinx

What are some of the mysteries of the Great Sphinx? The Sphinx is always at the center of some theory or another. Some geologists think the weathering patterns of the stone indicate the Sphinx is older than currently believed. Some people believe there are mysterious passages in the Sphinx left by a 10,000-yearold civilization. There are, in fact, some passages, but they

were carved by later treasure hunters. How old is it, and what do experts believe is its purpose? Good question. The Great Sphinx on the Giza plateau was never inscribed so there are a lot of theories concerning its date, purpose and symbolism. The lion was always associated with the king; in fact, very early kings had lions attached with their burials.

Lions are also guardian figures, which suggests the Sphinx is guarding the royal burials on the Giza plateau. What was revealed on “Treasures Decoded?” I had a chance to follow through on a hypothesis that the Sphinx was built by the pharaoh Khufu. Some believe it was built by Khafre. I examined the remains of Khufu’s quarries

on the south side of the Great Pyramid and to the north of the Sphinx. The causeway of Khafre swerves to avoid the Sphinx, which shows it was constructed earlier… by Khufu! Still, the debate will rage on as to who was the builder of the Sphinx. Melinda Hartwig is an Associate Professor of Ancient Egyptian Art at Georgia State. She also recently appeared in a PBS documentary on Tutankhamun. Watch it at magazine.gsu.edu.

M A G A Z I N E. G S U. E D U

in the City Once they understand that, they can design drug molecules that bind to the target virus protein and interfere with its ability to reproduce. Weber, a professor of biology and chemistry, studies a particular enzyme, called HIV1 protease. Many existing medications are aimed at this enzyme, binding to it so it can’t do its reproductive job. Until now, scientists have used highly intense X-rays to study it. The problem with this method is that hydrogen atoms are a key part of the enzyme’s functioning, but hydrogen atoms are also almost invisible to X-rays. Weber and her team used a different technology, using beams of neutrons that could clearly show the position of hydrogen atoms within the enzyme. They looked specifically at a drug called Amprenavir, which was first approved for the treatment of HIV/AIDS in 1999. What they found went against earlier understandings of how the drug and the enzyme interacted. Once the researchers could see the hydrogen atoms, they could also see that hydrogen bonds were much

• New Board Members: The Georgia State Alumni Association added new members to its board of

200,000+

Youtube subscribers following Georgia State Marching Band rock drummer Casey Cooper. See him in action at magazine.gsu.edu. less important to the functioning of the drug than anyone had previously thought. The study presents drug designers with a whole new set of sites where drugs can potentially bind to the enzyme. If these designs work out, it could mean a new generation of drugs that perform better at lower dosages. “This provides important new insights into the chemistry of how drugs bind HIV protease,” Weber said. Pain Management Researcher discovers way to block morphine tolerance and increase the drug’s results Morphine is one of the most commonly used pain medications, but the pain-re-

directors. They are: Melody E. Barnett (B.A. ’99), Anne Lewis (J.D. ’89), Phyllis L. Parker (B.B.A. ’91) and Anil Sawant,

• Art about Atlanta: Georgia State artists have created some of the city’s most recognizable public

(Ph.D. ’88). To read more about the new members, visit magazine.gsu.edu.

art. Visit magazine.gsu.edu to meet the artists and see an interactive map of where their work is.

• Share Your Success! Class Notes are sharable through Facebook and Twitter! Post your good

lieving effects of morphine diminish as the drug is taken over an extended period of time, resulting in the need for higher and higher doses to produce the same analgesic effect. The lab of Anne Murphy, associate professor of neuroscience and assistant director of the university’s Neuroscience Institute, discovered that by blocking a specific receptor in the brain, it could eliminate the development of morphine tolerance. More important, the results show that by blocking the receptor, it increases the pain-relieving effects of morphine, which could change the way chronic pain is managed. “Our results have exciting implications for the clinical treatment and management of chronic pain,” Murphy said. Lori Eidson, a senior graduate student who worked on the project, added that the receptor has also been implicated in morphine addiction and dependence. “Patients could receive pain relief with reduced concern of negative consequences such as addiction,” she said.

in the GENES • Humans have around 24,000 genes — just a few more than a mouse. • Two individuals share as much as 99.9 percent of the same genetic material and differ in only 0.1 percent of it.

•

“Five years ago we conferred 5,800 degrees.” •

“This past year we topped a record 7,500.” —President Mark Becker

BIG DATA

Georgia State’s Centennial year has been a good one. The university broke records in a number of areas this year, including research funding, fundraising, freshman class size, applications and graduation rates. ¶ Perhaps most impressive is that as the university continues to grow it just keeps getting better. With the most recently graduated class, Georgia State set a record of a 53 percent six-year graduation rate, up a staggering 21 points in only a decade. ¶ “We are helping our students to succeed at levels never before seen in our history,” said President Mark Becker.

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creativity

• The new field of sociogenomics examines ways in which the social environment influences how an individual’s genes are expressed.

Museum Quality Four Georgia State artists’ works are part of the High’s permanent collection Before she even went to college, Yanique Norman already had two pieces in the permanent collection of Atlanta’s biggest art venue, the High Museum. “The High currently owns two of my works,” Norman said, “but I never thought they would be shown. Usually they buy art and store it, just in case you make it big later.” Her big break came sooner than she thought when her work was chosen for the High’s summer 2013 exhibit, “Drawing Inside the Perimeter.” The exhibition also featured the work of another student, Kojo Griffin, and Craig Drennen and Joe Peragine, both faculty members in the Welch School of Art and Design. The High Museum began acquiring the drawings for the exhibition in 2010. All are part of the museum’s permacont’d on p.12 nent collection.

news and share with your network by visiting magazine.gsu.edu/ add-class-notes.

blame it on your molecules

Neuroscientist advances sociogenomics, the study of social behavior in molecular terms Walt Wilczynski can forgive the loudmouth

behind him on the plane. After all, it’s just his genes misbehaving. Wilczynski, director of Georgia State’s Neuroscience Institute and a professor of neuroscience and psychology, received a five-year grant from the National Science Foundation grant to form a Research Coordination Network focused on sociogenomics, an emerging field of biology that attempts to find the genetic basis of social behavior and its evolution.

Illustration by jesse lefkowitz

Sociogenomics, Wilczynski said, can provide insight into the genetic mechanisms responsible for “behaviors as diverse as social bonding, cooperation and aggression that are common in many organisms — including humans — and how these have evolved.” According to Wilczynski, exploring social behavior at the molecular level has important medical implications. “Many neurological disorders from autism spectrum disorders to schizophrenia can

severely impair a person’s ability to engage in normal social interactions,” Wilczynski said. “Understanding how social behavior is regulated at the molecular level will help us understand these diseases.” The grant is part of the National Science Foundation’s Research Coordination Network grant program. Wilczynski’s network will bring together researchers from several prominent universities who are focused on the genomic mechanisms underlying social behavior. M A G A Z I N E. G S U. E D U

in the City For Norman, who will graduate with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree this spring, it was the first time exhibiting in a major museum. But she’s no stranger to the many galleries around town. Her series, “Middle Passage Redux,” in the Sandler Hudson Gallery earned rave reviews from critics. Artistic Achievement Georgia State’s Kay Beck honored for career-long work in film industry Georgia’s booming film industry has Kay Beck to thank for much of its success. For nearly 40 years, Beck, associate professor of communications and director of Georgia State’s Digital Arts and Entertainment Lab, has worked to build the state’s film industry. In acknowledgment of her efforts, Beck was awarded the prestigious Governor’s Award for the Arts and Humanities for her contributions to Georgia’s film, media and digital arts industries. The Georgia Production Partnership and the Georgia Film Commission, organizations of which Beck is a member, lobbied in 2005 to pass a tax incentive as part of House Bill 539, making it more attractive for television and films to shoot in Georgia. Now, the film commission estimates the direct economic benefits of film production in Georgia came to nearly $3.1 billion in 2012. “This is a terrific accomplishment and a wonderful honor,” said David Cheshier, chair of the Department of Communications. “Countless people working in the industry consider her a valued mentor.” Beck has previously worked at Georgia Public Broadcasting, Women in Film and Television Atlanta, and has held a position on the Executive Committee of the Georgia Film Board. She is a co-founder of the Atlanta Film Festival and is its chair.

• Poster Art: Last spring, the Tribeca Film Festival issued a challenge to associate professor Stan Anderson’s senior design class: create

hypothetical posters for the festival. The students didn’t disappoint. Visit magazine. gsu.edu to check out their work.

students coming from 23 countries. Seven of those countries are more than 6,000 miles from Atlanta. For many of the international athletes, being a part of a sport has been a great way to make friends who have helped them ease into a new life in a new place and made them feel welcome. Miles from Atlanta to “At first I didn’t Port Moresby, Papua know my way New Guinea, home around, and my of All-American teammates were tennis player Abigail very much willing Tere-Apisah. to take me around and show me where my classes were,” says junior basketball player Maryam Dogo from Kaduna, Nigeria. Dogo says she’s been able to repay her teammates and friends by sharing some of her favorite foods from home, such as pounded yam and egusi soup. For senior All-American tennis player Abigail Tere-Apisah, who hails from Papua New Guinea, her teammates have helped her adapt to the challenge of being so far from home. “They nurtured me and encouraged me when I first got here,” she said. “It has been more than two years between my trips home. [My teammates] have really been there for me.”

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power of 10

athletics Panthers International Georgia State boasts athletes hailing from every continent except Antarctica

Georgia State’s international student-athlete population numbers 37 this year with

When Georgia State began its inaugural football season in 2010, the No. 10 was often used to symbolize that formative year. The bookstore sold the No. 10 jersey to commemorate the occasion. It’s the number on the most popular Georgia State football jersey. Back in 2010, for no particular reason, the number was issued to freshman linebacker Robert Ferguson. “I remember posing for pictures when we revealed the new uniform and I remember thinking how cool it was to see it was the only number and only jersey for sale in

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• Tao of Jon: Visit magazine.gsu.edu for a video tutorial by Associate Professor of Religious Studies Jon Herman on the

often-misunderstood faith of Taoism. Herman is the author of “Taoism for Dummies.”

the bookstore back then,” Ferguson said. “I took it to task to try to do something major since Pounce and I were both wearing number 10.” Ferguson succeeded. Not only is he’s Georgia State’s all-time leading tackler, he can say that he’s the only player to play in every Georgia State football game. “In football, a lot of people don’t even make it one full year,” Ferguson said. “I take a lot of pride in that accomplishment.”

freedom defined

Alex Robson (B.A. ’11, M.A.T. ’13) poses the question, ‘What does freedom mean to you?’. Lauren Montgomery (B.A. ’14)

alumni All That Jazz Pamella Windham (Sp.Ed. ’75) brings music to Atlanta’s youth When Pamella Windham was in sixth grade her dad took her to Ritter Music Company on Auburn Avenue and bought her a guitar. Now, just as her father did, Windham is passing along a love of music to a younger generation: She recently made a significant gift to the Rialto Center for the Arts’ Jazz for Kids program. Pamella retired decades ago after spending 32 years as a teacher, but she’s still found a way to express her twin passions for music and teaching. Jazz for Kids is an outreach program that sends musicians to elementary and middle schools around Atlanta to perform for students and teach them about jazz. A few weeks ago, to show their thanks for her generous donation, a group of students — middle schoolers about the same age Windham was when she first picked up a guitar — visited her apartment building in Marietta, Ga., and treated Windham and her Georgia State neighbors to a per- alumni living in Florida, according formance. “We had a good to the Georgia State audience. They Alumni Association. played right before The state is second supper, right there only to Georgia’s in the lobby,” she 128,695 Panthers. says. “They were South Dakota has the least with 19. so good!”

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As Alex Robson sees it, freedom is one of the most important and open-ended ideas in the world. As a sophomore in high school, he began to explore the philosophy of freedom and what it means to others. Since 2005, through his Freedom Card project, he has mailed out and collected hundreds of three-by-five index cards from politicos, movie stars, famous authors and musicians who have each scribbled his or her answer to the question: “What does freedom mean to you?” Robson has received cards from politicians from both sides of the aisle (Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, Senator John McCain, former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee), celebrities (Alec Baldwin, Billy Crystal, Regis Philbin) sports figures (Bob Knight, Arnold Palmer, John Wooden) famous poets and authors (Billy Collins, John Irving), musicians (Fats Domino, Kris Kristofferson) and many, many more. President Clinton took a moment to personally congratulate Robson on the project, writing: “I’m glad that you’ve taken the time to study one of our country’s most fundamental concepts — freedom.” “At the beginning we concentrated mostly on famous people,” Robson said. “Now we concentrate on individuals who aren’t so familiar, like the Tuskegee Airmen, the Gold Star Mothers, men who played in the Negro Leagues and Vietnam veterans.” Robson calls the effort “part art project, part philosophical study and part patriotic duty” and says every person can make what he or she wants out of it. “One that has always stuck with me is from Miep Gies,” he said. “She was one of the people who helped Anne Frank and her family survive by providing food and other necessities while they were hiding from the Nazis. Her card states: ‘Freedom obliges me to secure freedom for others.’” And when the question is posed to him? “I’m always working on this one,” he said. “One day I’ll be able to put it into words.”

• Visit thefreedomcards.com to read the responses

Emmy Sesame!

Todd James (B.A. ’97) has won four of television’s top awards behind the scenes on Sesame Street. By Dave Cohen (B.A. ’94) photo by Jayme Thornton

sk Todd James to name his favorite “Sesame Street” character and he’s quick to respond. “Grover. He’s very funny, and when I watch him, I know it is going to be something zany.” James, post-production supervisor, for the children’s show, has, alongside Grover, Cookie Monster, Big Bird and the rest of the “Sesame Street” cast, won four Emmy awards for outstanding achievement in the multiple camera editing category. His most recent came June 14 when the awards were handed out in Los Angeles. “I can’t believe that I won an Emmy,” James said. “To win one is great but to have won four. I mean, who does that? It’s very exciting.” After graduating from the film and video program at Georgia State, James made the jump from Decatur Street to Sesame Street, but not before working behind the camera on a handful of jobs in New York. “I worked on a couple of game shows and I worked on the second Cosby show,” James said, “then I finally landed a job as the control room production assistant on ‘Sesame Street.’” Not only does James get to rub elbows with the Muppets everyday, he gets to mingle with the show’s special guests. “I’ve got to meet a lot of people,” he said. “[Robert] De Niro was on the show, and he was a great guy. I also met Alicia Keys and got a picture with her. You’d be surprised. They’re all very happy to be on Sesame Street. They get here and they see Big Bird, Elmo, Bert and Ernie and become kids again.”

G E OR G I A S TAT E U N I V E R S I TY M A G A Z I N E

in the City A Career 180 Donna Brazzell (M.P.A. ’05) went back to school and discovered a new calling Ten years ago, with her children grown and her home in Atlanta well established, Donna Brazzell (M.P.A. ’05) decided she wanted to re-enter the working world. “I have a bachelor’s degree in chemistry,” she said, “so I went back to the lab for a job interview. And I looked at it and said, ‘This isn’t me anymore.’” Browsing through a Georgia State course catalog, Brazzell realized just how many options were open to her — some of which, such as a degree in public administration and non-profit management, didn’t exist when she went to school the first time around. “I started off in the certificate program because I Years Dave Cohen hadn’t been back in (B.A. ’94) has been school for 25 years calling Georgia and I wasn’t real State Panther sure about things,” games. Cohen is she said, “but once I the longest-tenured was in there, I knew Division I play-byI loved it. And within play radio announcer a couple months I’d in the state. switched over to the graduate program.” The classes were challenging, Brazzell remembers, and the work wasn’t easy. But thanks to a classroom atmosphere that emphasized the sharing of ideas over rote learning, she says she was never bored. “Many of my classmates were working at Atlanta nonprofits,” she said. “Their practical experience, merged with the professors’ theory- and knowledge-based teaching, led to some phenomenal class discussions.” After earning her master’s degree in 2005, Brazzell wasted no time in putting it to use. She worked for the American Lung Association for a couple years and has been the executive director of the DeKalb Library Foundation for the last six. “I really enjoy my job every single day,” she said.

Art on a Grand Scale Video artist Micah Stansell’s (M.F.A. ’09) massive moving images take over Manhattan Micah Stansell (M.F.A. ’09) likes his art big. The filmmaker and installation artist has projected his large-scale video pieces onto the façade of the High Museum and the 80-foot-high walls of the colossal Norfolk Southern Railway Headquarters building Illustration by adam cruft

micah stansell (M.F.A. ’09)

“While made in response to a particular place in Atlanta, the work took on new meaning presented in this location post-Hurricane Sandy.” in Atlanta’s Castleberry Hill neighborhood. This fall, Stansell projected his massive moving images onto the Manhattan Bridge Archway as a participant in the renowned DUMBO Arts Festival in New York. Stansell installed his project called “An Inversion (with water),” which consisted of three large synchronized circular projections each more than 30 feet in diameter on the side and in the archway of the anchorage of the famous bridge. “While made in response to a particular place in Atlanta, the work took on new meaning presented in this location postHurricane Sandy,” Stansell said. Most recently, Stansell and his wife, Whitney, took part in a national art competition where 10 artists in eight different cities were selected to compete, given a 50-gallon oak barrel and tasked to “make art.”

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“In the spirit of its utilitarian Georgia State nature,” Stansell teachers who have said, “we worked graduated since 2006 inside the barrel to working in major created a modern school districts in the take on an early metro-Atlanta area. cinema machine called a zoetrope.” A zoetrope, Stansell explained, uses a rapid succession of images to produce the illusion of motion. The Stansells won $10,000 and a trip to Miami during Art Basel, a massive art showcase in December, where they will represent Atlanta in a competition to bring home a $100,000 prize. Got a promotion? A new addition to the family? Go ahead, brag a little. Visit magazine.gsu.edu for news from your classmates and fellow Georgia State alumni.

M A G A Z I N E. G S U. E D U

Campus e s a h P w Ne a Enters Evolution In its 100th year, the university has unveiled an ambitious new master plan to create a greener urban campus and change the landscape of downtown Atlanta

By Rebecca Burns (B.A. â&#x20AC;&#x2122;89, M.A. â&#x20AC;&#x2122;08) Photo by Clint Blowers

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M A G A Z I N E. G S U. E D U

Like most Georgia State alums, Jerry Rackliffe considers Kell Hall with a mix of affection and consternation. “It’s the only place where you’d find a room numbered in the 100s next to one in the 300s,” he says of the parking garage-turned-classroom building. “You’d walk up and down the ramps trying to figure it out. That building made no sense.” However, unlike other Georgia State grads, Rackliffe (B.A. ‘83, MBA ‘88, J.D. ‘05) built a career working at the university while earning his degrees. Today, as senior vice president for finance and administration, his job involves masterminding budgets and logistics as Georgia State continues to expand and update its campus. Building on work already done over the past decades under the direction of former President Carl Patton, the development is accelerating following the 2012 finalization of a new campus master plan under current President Mark Becker. And for the coming five years, a key priority of the master plan is creating a greenway to connect Woodruff Park to the courtyard at the Parker H. Petit Science Center. This central green space will weave through campus, tracing a path that includes the land where Kell Hall now stands. Simply put: for the greenway to become a reality, Kell Hall will have to be demolished.

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An Ode to Kell

“Her face is not pretty, she has rampways for stairs, and her classrooms are made of odds and ends from war surplus materials, but she can hold her head high, for she has served a great purpose: she has played a part in educating leaders of tomorrow.” Those words, written by the staff of The Rampway of the Atlanta Division, the University of Georgia — as Georgia State was known — back in the 1950s, still ring true today as the countdown to Kell Hall’s demolition begins. For Stephanie Young (B.S. ‘91), business manager in the Department of Chemistry, bidding adieu to Kell is bittersweet. “I started at Georgia State in 1984 and took all of my chemistry, biology, physics, geology, etcetera in Kell,” she says. “I’ll miss the old girl … the smell, the history, the feeling … walking past the cadaver labs on the 7th floor.” Young, who has been with the department since 1992, (“I practically lived in Kell for 23 years!”) says she applauded the president’s announcement the old building will be replaced with a lawn. “I understand the time has probably come to put the old dog down,” she says. “The green space concept is great, but I do hope some sort of monument or memorial to ‘Hell’ Hall, possibly built from some of the existing materials, will be erected,” Young says. “Kell is the original building, the old mother, and hopefully will be remembered long after she is put to rest.”

• Day and night illustrations of the proposed greenway entry from Peachtree Center Avenue show a landscaped courtyard where Kell Hall will have once stood. The landscaping calls for the construction of porches along the back of the Arts and Humanities Building and Sparks Hall.

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the University” address in October. “There is a campus, but what’s happened is that we’ve been able to build and adapt building as we’ve gone along over the past 100 years, but were not able to do it in such a way that creates a welcoming and friendly campus, a place where students have the opportunity to interact.” To facilitate that interaction, Rackliffe’s task now is to figure out how to find space for all the classrooms and facilities in Kell Hall before the demolition starts. Sitting at his desk in Dahlberg Hall, he gestures at an enormous map dotted with outlines representing Georgia State-owned or operated facilities. Moving some classrooms will be relatively easy. Other facilities in Kell will be less simple to relocate. Kell has been home to some labs. Those need to be in special spaces that are vented. “There’s some heavy stuff in Geosciences,” Rackliffe notes, referring not to the challenging subject matter, but the weighty rock and mineral samples in the Geology Department. “There are a lot of moving parts to get this done in five years,” he says. In planning the logistics, he is getting feedback and input from everyone who teaches and works in Kell Hall. “Everyone is on board,” he says. Not only do they see the value of the greenway, they’re also eager to move to less cramped space.

Kell Hall A Symbol of Can-Do Spirit

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Robert W.Woodruff Park

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As Georgia State grows in enrollment and as a leading research university, its new campus master plan addresses the need for a greener campus landscape, improved student life facilities and high quality classrooms and laboratories.

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T he greenway will create outdoor study and social spaces. It is envisioned as a necklace of landscaped quadrangles and courtyards within the campus core with links to the surrounding frame of streets and public open spaces.

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T he planned opening of the Atlanta Streetcar next year will improve mobility and the pedestrian experience on campus and lead to further efforts to revitalize downtown.

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T he plan creates three distinct districts: the Campus Core District — the traditional heart of campus consisting of two city blocks bounded by Peachtree Center Avenue, Gilmer Street, Piedmont Avenue and Decatur Street; the Woodruff Park District — university facilities within one or two blocks of Woodruff Park; and the Piedmont Corridor District — residential facilities along Piedmont Street as well as an area east of the I-75/85 connector, which the university acquired for intramural playfields.

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At first that demolition sounds almost like sacrilege. Kell has been an important symbol for the Georgia State community. The 80-year-old former parking deck’s 1946 re-configuration into the university’s first permanent building speaks to a scrappy ability to thrive in an urban setting and creatively repurpose downtown real estate. The university’s yearbook, The Rampway, is named in honor of Kell’s quirky corridors. But as Georgia State’s leadership team pored over plans for adding classroom, laboratory and dorm space — while preparing for an eventual student population of 40,000 — connecting the university’s facilities through a signature campus green space proved to be a logical next step in Georgia State’s evolution. Rackliffe may harbor a sentimental attachment to Kell — after all he took Physics 101, 102 and 103 in the building — but he’s even more passionate about the greenway project. “This creates an environment that supports student achievement, and that is what we are all on board with,” he says. The impetus for creating the new greenway is not just about look and feel or creating a faster way to walk between points A and B. Numerous research studies have shown that a connected and welcoming physical space leads to a better student experience — and ultimately to better academic outcomes. “For the first time in its history, Georgia State is going to have a feel like a university campus,” says President Becker, who announced the greenway during his “State of

Sports Arena

Research Complex Expansion

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arts and humanities

and what About the Neighbors?

Creating the greenway will not only make it easier for Georgia State students, staff and faculty to move through the campus but also will transform several blocks at the heart of downtown Atlanta. Like any major renovation project, this will have an impact on the neighbors. In the case of the university that means downtown businesses, government and nonprofit organizations, and residents. “We got the ink dry on the master plan a little less than a year ago, and the first thing we did was share that with key stakeholders,” says Becker. “It’s tremendous to have the mayor’s support and the support of city council as well. Kwanza Hall [who represents District 2, which includes Georgia State] keeps his finger on the pulse of what is happening at the university and is extremely supportive.” Hall is downright enthusiastic about the greenway. “It’s removing a parking garage and helping us realize our vision of a greener, cleaner downtown,” he says. “This is a great decision.” Hall and his staff have worked closely

with communities close to Georgia State, such as the Old Fourth Ward and King Historic District, on drafting development plans. “Every master plan for downtown Atlanta envisions the creation of additional parks and green space for residents and visitors to enjoy,” he says. “Thanks to President Becker’s leadership, downtown is about to get a whole lot greener.” The initiative also met a positive response from downtown Atlanta’s corporate community. “Georgia State’s enthusiasm to build a campus that provides attractive green space and pedestrian connections between its buildings and facilities is great for downtown,” says A.J. Robinson, president of Central Atlanta Progress, the business organization that works with the city and other groups on downtown revitalization. In addition to connecting Georgia State to the businesses and government organizations in downtown Atlanta, the Greenway also will increase interaction between the university and a small — but growing — cadre of non-student downtown dwellers.

• The side view of the greenway shows the various additions and changes to the existing infrastructure. The master plan calls for the addition of a tier of new laboratories for the arts in the Arts and Humanities building and improved pedestrian connections between campus buildings in the campus core.

“As a resident, it’s really exciting to see the level of street activity rise with these developments, particularly at night when the area around Woodruff Park was dead for so many years,” says Darin Givens, who lives in a historic building that fronts the park. “Having more people on the street and more green space will make downtown feel safer and more livable. Put this greenway together with the surge of student population via the new One 12 Courtland housing development — bringing hundreds of new student residents here — and downtown is going to end up with more of the kind of college-town vibrancy you see in other urban campuses.” Givens, who writes about urban development and historic preservation at the well regarded blog ATLurbanist, remarks: “I think it’s a great plan and a deceptively significant one. The activity around Kell Hall is fairly cut off from the street level with the pedestrian bridge across Decatur Street and a small courtyard that’s practically hidden from street view. It’s a setup that echoes the ‘gerbil tube’ pedestrian bridges of downtown’s John Portman towers — a 1970s aesthetic that lifted office workers and students off the streets.” The new plan, Givens notes, “opens student activity to the streets and embraces the urban environment more completely.” He adds, “As wonderful as Georgia State has already been for downtown, this will make for an even better relationship among residents, office workers, visitors and students.” Rebecca Burns (B.A. ’89, M.A. ’08) vividly recalls taking Geology 101 in Kell Hall. As features editor for The Signal in the 1980s, she put together a survival guide for incoming Georgia State students titled “Welcome to the Concrete Campus.”

M A G A Z I N E. G S U. E D U

b y s o n ya c o l l i n s illustration by Matt Stevens G E O R G I A S TAT E U N I V E R S I T Y M A G A Z I N E W I N T E R 2 0 1 3

M A G A Z I N E. G S U. E D U

On a

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f o s n e z o d s r e k o m s ex fill a shop tucked into an office park off Highway 316 in Lawrenceville, Ga. From the parking lot, a haze is visible inside the shop. On the door, a handwritten sign reads, “We ID! Must be 18+ to try or purchase any e-cig products.” The haze inside, unlike cigarette smoke, clears as quickly as it rises, taking with it the scent of vanilla. It rises again, followed by baked apples, next cherries, then tropical fruit. The ex-smokers aren’t sneaking a smoke. They’re “vaping” electronic cigarettes — rechargeable pipes and cigaretteshaped devices that vaporize food-flavored liquid nicotine — at the grand opening of Steam Cigs, a “vape” shop and lounge. No law requires that Steam Cigs be hidden from view in an office park. Nor is the shop forbidden to sell to minors. In fact, ecigarettes and other “novel nicotine products” enjoy much greater visibility than conventional cigarettes do. A relatively new product, e-cigarettes fly under the radar and skirt regulations that conventional cigarettes must follow. But that may soon change. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have begun to explore regulations of the sale, marketing and consumption of these new products.

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esearchers at Georgia State will help define those future regulations. In the largest grant in university history, the School of Public Health will receive $19 million over five years from the FDA and NIH to establish one of 14 Tobacco Centers of Regulatory Science. The two entities will award up to $273 million over five years to 14 centers selected to conduct scientific research that will inform federal decision-making on tobacco and nicotine regulations. Michael Eriksen, dean of the School of Public Health, will lead Georgia State’s portion of the research, which will explore the marketing of tobacco and novel nicotine products. The former director of Centers for Disease Control’s Office on Smoking and Health, Eriksen calls the grant “the culmination of a two-decade effort to put tobacco in the proper regulatory scheme.” “This grant is one of the first palpable actions FDA has taken to begin the process of regulating tobacco,” he says.

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The grant is also among the first to fund research on the virtually uncharted territory of novel nicotine products, a focus of Eriksen’s work, among them e-cigarettes, dissolvable oral nicotine products, even nicotine lollipops. “We’re looking at what kind of information people need for improved decisionmaking. But we’ve got to be sure what improved means,” Eriksen says. “Do e-cigarettes get people to quit smoking or are they just a substitute for smoking?” Since they hit the market in 2004, e-cigarettes have inspired polarizing debates. “Some people feel that they are just another scam by tobacco companies to keep business. Others feel this is a panacea that could change the epidemic of tobacco use,” Eriksen says. “The two groups are fighting fiercely.”

Be h i n d t h e v a p or : W h at ’ s a n

Michael Eriksen

e - c i g a re t t e ?

-cigarettes resemble conventional cigarettes, cigars, or tobacco pipes. They contain a rechargeable battery, an photo by adam komich

E-cigarette ” , s r e p a v “ d e l l a c e r a s r e s u not smokers. a re v a p er s getting burned?

atomizer and a refillable “e-juice” or “e-liquid” that may or may not contain nicotine. Big tobacco companies and small businesses are producing and selling the devices. E-cigarette users are called “vapers,” not smokers. A vaper takes a drag from an e-cigarette, the atomizer vaporizes the juice, and the user inhales and exhales the vapor just like smoke. “It feels like smoking. Having a patch on your arm doesn’t, chewing gum doesn’t. It’s the puffing, the smoke and doing something with your hands,” says Chris Cullen, assistant manager at Steam Cigs. E-liquids contain propylene glycol or vegetable glycerin, food flavoring and an optional six to 36 milligrams of nicotine per milliliter of juice. Propylene glycol is a thick liquid often used as a carrier of active ingredients in cosmetics and pharmaceuticals, such as cough syrup. The FDA classes it as a food additive that is “generally recognized as safe.” Vegetable glycerin serves similar purposes. While a cigarette contains about nine milligrams of nicotine, the smoker only gets about one milligram. It’s still unclear how much nicotine e-cigs deliver to the user. A milliliter of juice, however, typically lasts a day for former pack-a-day or more smokers. This can cost as little as a dollar a day. Heavy smokers usually start vaping with 24-milligram e-juices. Many taper their nicotine over time. Some ultimately vape only flavored liquid, says Cullen, who smoked for 35 years. He hasn’t had a tobacco cigarette in 15 months, and he hasn’t had nicotine in nearly two months. “I was on 24 milligrams for six months, then 18, then 12, then six and now zero since about seven weeks ago,” he says. “So I’m just puffing nice, fruity flavors.”

ublic health experts don’t have a fraction of the information on e-cigarettes that they have on conventional cigarettes. It took 15 years of research to determine tobacco cigarettes cause lung cancer. Other ills of smoking have continued to pile up in the 50 years since. It would take decades for researchers to compare the long-term effects of vaping and secondhand vaping to smoking. But Eriksen warns against that. “We can’t wait until we have a body count,” he says. But even e-cigarettes’ toughest opponents concede they can’t be as harmful as cigarettes. They don’t contain tobacco and they don’t burn. “They produce fewer toxins. Exactly what they produce and how much is still getting worked out,” says Stanton Glantz, a staunch opponent of e-cigarettes and a colleague of Eriksen’s who also won a grant to set up a Tobacco Center of Regulatory Science at the University of California-San Francisco. “Analog” cigarettes, as vapers call tobacco cigarettes, contain some 600 ingredients to e-cigarettes’ three. When burned, cigarettes produce 4,000 chemicals, 50 of which are known carcinogens or poisons. What e-cigs and “analogs” have in common is nicotine itself, a stimulant often compared to caffeine but not entirely benign. Approved smoking cessation products, such as patches and gum, contain nicotine as well, but anti-vapers argue the FDA controls those doses. While the FDA doesn’t regulate e-juices, some independent studies have confirmed the juices do typically contain what they say they do.

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s i lv er b u l l e t o r s m oke s c ree n ?

ecause big tobacco companies have an interest in e-cigs, some opponents insist they cannot be trusted. “They say we can’t work with them. They’ve manipulated us before and been found guilty of fraud,” Eriksen says. Opponents suspect these products will only deceive users into thinking they reduce harm, just like filters and light cigarettes once did. Proponents tout the product’s potential to reduce harm. “It’s best to quit smoking completely, but 97 percent of people who try are unsuccessful,” says Michael Siegel, a physician and a professor in Boston University’s School of Public Health. Siegel, a friend and colleague of Eriksen’s, believes e-cigarettes are promising for those who would otherwise never be able to quit. “Everything that’s come before this focuses only on the pharmacological aspect of the addiction. This is the first product that also focuses on the behavioral aspect,” Siegel says. “The hand motion, the throat hit, the holding of the cigarette, even some of the social aspects. You can smoke with others in a group.” Siegel’s published research cites the social aspects of vaping as a strength over clinical nicotine replacement therapies. Vapers often become hobbyists and collectors of paraphernalia, which provides them an identity and supportive community. It’s not unfounded that e-cigarettes can help smokers quit. Besides success stories like Cullen’s in virtually every online forum, studies — though still small — document e-cigarettes’ ability to satisfy cigarette cravings and aid in smoking cessation. In a recent study in “Substance Abuse: Research and Treatment,” 42 percent of smokers substituted all smoking with vaping within one month when they used juices containing 15 milligrams of nicotine or more. Opponents argue, however, that these smokers might have kicked the habit completely had it not been for e-cigs. They say some smokers only use e-cigarettes as a means of cutting back on conventional cigarettes, which Glantz says isn’t enough. “If you’re smoking any cigarettes, you’re

pretty much suffering the full cardiovascular risk,” he says. Research also shows many vapers are still smoking, too. A recent study in “Nicotine and Tobacco Research” found that significantly more current smokers than exsmokers use e-cigarettes. However, while e-cigarette opponents also argue the products will lure those who’ve never smoked, this study and others in the same journal suggest otherwise. Eriksen believes the truth about e-cigarettes lies somewhere in the middle of strong support and fervent opposition. “That’s why we’re doing this work,” Eriksen says. “Neither of them is right.” Until more facts surface, leaders in health promotion, such as the American Lung Association and Mayo Clinic, warn consumers to steer clear of e-cigarettes. Whether e-cigarettes will have long-term effects on users, anti-vapers fear that vaping in places where smoking is prohibited will “renormalize” the act of smoking and undo years of public health efforts to make smoking socially unacceptable. Marketing restrictions and increasing public smoking bans have “denormalized” smoking for the last 30 years. “We’ve made all this progress,” Eriksen says, “But if smoking becomes renormalized through e-cigarettes, that’s a major public health concern. It could become more socially acceptable and kids would see.”

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ids can already see e-cigarettes at eyelevel in the convenience store, at mall kiosks and between the fingers of sex symbols on TV. The proportion of middle and high school students who had ever tried an e-cigarette doubled last year from just over three percent to nearly seven percent, according to the CDC.

s m oke - f ree Playboy centerfold and outspoken anti-vaccine activist Jenny McCarthy is the spokeswoman for Blu e-cigarettes. In a television commercial, McCarthy vapes in a bar. She says she loves being single, but she doesn’t love kisses that taste like ashtrays. During a montage of shots of McCarthy flirting with the man next to her, she counts the ways e-cigs beat conventional ones. She can use them anywhere without any guilt. She doesn’t have to go out in the cold. She doesn’t smell bad or get dirty looks. Rubbing the arm of the man next to her, she says she won’t scare that special someone away. E-cigarettes make it easier for her to pick up a man in a bar. “Are you buying the e-cigarette or are you buying Jenny McCarthy or does one come with the other?” Eriksen asks. The only thing she can’t say is that they helped her quit smoking. That would be a medical claim. Not surprisingly, whether e-cigs should be advertised at all depends on whom you ask. Opponents feel the new products should be treated just like cigarettes. “I don’t think they should be used indoors. And all the same marketing restrictions that apply to cigarettes should apply to e-cigarettes,” Glantz says. Others propose banning any flavors other than cigarette-flavored or banning the product all together. But proponents don’t want to limit the reach and desirability of a product they feel has the potential to help smokers quit. “Anti-tobacco organizations think the flavoring attracts kids, but adults like flavors, too,” says Matt Wellman, owner of Steam Cigs. “If we have to make them taste like tobacco, that would just drive people back to cigarettes.” Wellman supports a federal ban on the sale of e-cigarettes to minors. Proponents feel the products should be advertised for what they really are: not a way to smoke in the non-smoking section, but a way to quit smoking everywhere. “It’s obvious they shouldn’t be marketed to anyone under 18, but you have a product that could help the public and you’re not allowed to tell them what it does,” Siegel says. He says if e-cigarettes were marketed as smoking cessation devices, they would lose all potential appeal to children.

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apers in the lounge at Steam Cigs would also hate to see ecigarettes hidden from the people who need them. Ryan Cook is somewhat of an e-cig evangelist. The 35-year-old started vaping 20 months ago. He immediately kicked the smoking habit he had picked up at age 16. Now he shares his story at vape conventions, tradeshows, in online communities and anywhere else he can. He coaches people who are trying to switch to e-cigs in order to help them avoid relapse. “Of course there was a slight urge to smoke, but you have to be ready to put it down in order to make it happen,” Cook says. Cook compares the patrons at Steam Cigs to the members of a 12-step program. “It’s part of the recovery process,” he says “It’s harder to quit smoking when everybody around you smokes. Here everyone is an ex-smoker.” The patrons exchange ideas about vaping paraphernalia and share stories about how long they’ve been tobacco-free. They recount regaining their sense of taste, being able to climb stairs without getting winded and losing the smoker’s cough. Cook wears his e-cigarette on a lanyard around his neck. “I always wear one because it’s associated with quitting smoking,” Cook says. “It connects me to converts that I can coach off of smoking. It’s about converting smokers to non-smokers, and I’m very passionate about it.” Like Cook, Eriksen would recommend an e-cigarette to an individual trying to quit. He suggested them to his father-inlaw. But as a tobacco expert, he doesn’t have enough information yet to recommend e-cigarettes to the public as a safe alternative to smoking. “Getting nicotine without the smoke is good,” Eriksen says, “but is it good enough? That’s what we need to find out.” Sonya Collins is an Atlanta-based independent

journalist who covers health, health policy and scientific research. She is a regular contributor to WebMD Magazine, Pharmacy Today, Yale Medicine and Georgia Health News.

M A G A Z I N E. G S U. E D U

by Blood and Basketball By Ray Glier Photography By Adam Komich

The father-son, coach-player relationship of Ron and R.J. Hunter

M A G A Z I N E. G S U.father EDU

You keep Ron Hunter quiet by either stripping tape across his mouth, or scaring the heck out of him.

Hunter can chat up a mime, but on a car ride back to Atlanta with top assistant coach Darryl LaBarrie in summer 2011, the Georgia State basketball coach didn’t make a peep. They had just watched a recruit in a 6 a.m. workout, and LaBarrie was thinking the boss is ticked off because the kid wasn’t worth a 4 a.m. wake-up call. That wasn’t it. Hunter was seriously scared, which did the work of a strip of tape. He had a conversation at the gym that morning with another college coach and the man’s words froze Hunter. The coach told the Georgia State basketball coach of the grave mistake he made by letting his son play basketball for him in college. Hunter was numb with fright. He was thinking he might have a chance to coach his own son, R.J., at Georgia State and then this load of angst is dropped on his head. The coach told Hunter that coaching his son in college tore apart his family and cost him his marriage. The coach-dad and the player-son collided on the basketball floor, then at home, and it was a messy mix. “He did all the talking and I listened and it didn’t scare me a little bit, it scared me a lot,” Hunter says of his conversation with the coach. “I can’t even remember the name of the recruit we had gone to see, but I do remember [the coach’s] tone of voice and the look in his eyes.” R.J. Hunter was a star high school player in Indianapolis. He had offers from Big Ten and Atlantic Coast Conference schools and was considering Georgia State and playing for his father. It would be a good get for the program. R.J. is a slick 6-foot-5 guard, a centerpiece player, somebody so smoking good G E O R G I A S TAT E U N I V E R S I T Y M A G A Z I N E W I N T E R 2 0 1 3 SON

the Panthers could ride him to the NCAA tournament, maybe a couple of times. But after talking to the coach whose life was turned upside down by father-son drama, being hoop daddy didn’t seem like such a keen idea. Hunter flashed back to the warnings from his own mother and father a few years earlier not to coach R.J. in college and allow him to find his own way. Would it end in calamity like it did between Ron and R.J. in youth baseball?

Ron coached Ronald Jordan in baseball when he was nine years old and R.J. stormed off the field after one practice. He declared he would never play baseball again — and didn’t — because of how his father purposely pitched out of the strike zone to him to teach him to be a patient hitter. Ron is a micro-manager, a high-strung detail guy, a coach looking for an edge, and a worrier. His nine-year-old son wanted none of it. And now, to hear another coach ring alarm bells, well, Hunter imagined the worst. He was already 0-1 with his kid on his team and now the stakes were higher. On the ride home with LaBarrie, Ron Hunter considered all that could go wrong and he fast-forwarded in his mind’s eye to a sideline collision. Ron the Coach would bark at R.J. the Player about not getting over a screen. The kid would see it another way. He would see his loving father grinding on him. Maybe R.J. would say, “This isn’t my dad, this is some jerk.”

That was scary to Ron, who wants to be R.J.’s dad way worse than he wants to be R.J.’s coach. “I thought to myself right then this idea of R.J. playing for me was not going to tear our family apart,” Ron Hunter says. “I have been married 26 years and that conversation made me pause. I started thinking about all the negatives and what could go wrong. I started thinking about R.J. The decision we had to make was always about R.J. “I struggled with it.” Hunter kept talking to coaches whose sons played for them. University of Detroit Mercy Coach Ray McCallum is one of Ron’s closest friends. His son, Ray McCallum Jr., played at Detroit and was a second round pick in the 2013 NBA draft. Creighton AllAmerican Doug McDermott and his father, Greg, and Valparaiso’s Homer Drew (father/ coach) and Bryce Drew have been used as oracles by the Hunters. R.J. talked to George Hill, the Indiana Pacers star, who played for Ron Hunter at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, which was Ron’s previous coaching stop. R.J. asked Hill what exactly it was like playing for a coach so vibrant he broke his shin stomping on the sideline. Both Hunters were gatherers of information. “There are road maps out there and we use them,” Ron Hunter says. “I have probably talked to more father-son combinations than people can imagine. I want to hear everything. I probably haven’t researched anything as much as I have this the last couple years.” Ron Hunter didn’t worry if he was overequipped. He was taking nothing for granted. The worrywart was sick some days trying to get what he wanted, which was for his son to play for him, while wondering if his selfishness would hurt R.J. His wife, Amy Hunter, had the same worry with what she called “the experiment.” And so R.J. came to Georgia State and…. It didn’t start well, but it got better.

R.J. was one of the top freshmen in the country in 2012-13, averaging 17 points a game. His teammates respect him because he is not a daddy’s boy. There were no father-son confrontations that got out of control. There were no serious husbandwife confrontations with a teenager caught in the middle. There were moments when Ron the Coach got in R.J.’s face on the practice floor and R.J. still saw Ron the Dad scolding him. There was no leftover resentment. Ron

M A G A Z I N E. G S U. E D U

Hunter could be 24 hours removed from beating Duke, but nothing can make him more euphoric than how this “experiment” is working. But, no, it didn’t start well. The first practice of the 2012-13 season, Ron Hunter walked out on the Sports Arena floor and out of the corner of his eye he saw his son standing among his players. He started to say something really absurd. “Hey R.J. get off the floor. Practice is starting.” Hunter was so used to his kid being around his practices, and being underfoot, that his natural reaction was to get him to sideline safety. “I caught myself just in time,” the coach says. “I said ‘Wait a minute, he’s part of this now.’” And then they practiced together at the

“I’m not playing for myself anymore. I’m playing for my team, my dad and my school.”

start of Ron’s second season as head basketball coach. Two hours later, R.J. wasn’t so sure he wanted to be a part of it. He had a miserable practice that first day and his father was not happy with the high school habits his son hauled to Atlanta from Indianapolis. It was R.J.’s turn to be scared. He went home and called George Hill of the Pacers. Relax, Hill told him. Take it in. Your old man knows the game. He will make you better. It did get better for R.J. He would understand his dad as a coach. R.J. would also grow another layer of thick skin to deal with all the game planning against him. Devonte White, the junior guard, a good player who would have been the team’s go-to guy, shared the ball and spotlight with Hunter. That made it easier, too. R.J. would still have some miserable practices, but instead of calling Hill after one of those, R.J. would call his mother. “Burn his dinner,” R.J. would tell her. Actually, there would be no dinner if there was a father-son dust-up at practice. Ron Hunter would come home from practice and feel the vibe. He knew R.J. had called home. Amy Hunter would say, “Did you yell at my son today?” Hunter might get

leftovers that night or a simple declaration from his wife that she was not cooking. “Oh, the two of them are being a little dramatic telling you that,” she says. And then she smiled and it was clear whose side she was on in most of these father-son skirmishes. But Amy Hunter does not let R.J. get away with the negative body language, the head hanging, the throwing back of shoulders, the disgust over a bad call or missed shot. Trained as a child psychologist, she finds moments to tell her son what’s acceptable on the basketball court as far as attitude goes. Along with helping Ron manage R.J., Amy has had to manage her attitude, too. “I’m a sitting duck in the stands,” she says. “People look at you for a reaction when something happens to your son, and then your husband.” Ron was the head coach, but it was not all his decision to offer R.J. a scholarship to Georgia State. Amy had a voice and she made sure she was heard. There would no extremes on either end of the continuum. Her husband was not going to treat R.J. better than other players, but he was also not going to hound R.J. just to show the other players he could be tough on his son. “Seldom does it happen that the coach

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treats the son like a teacher’s pet,” Amy Hunter says. “It is the opposite way and I didn’t want Ron to treat him any differently, and that’s both ways, too hard, too soft. “R.J. is handling it very well. He doesn’t have a problem separating dad and coach. He tells me, ‘Mom, one is business and one is personal. I know the difference.’” R.J. and his mother are close, but so are father and son. Yet, there is a line not to be crossed when the uniform is on that reveals dad and son’s closeness. “I can’t call him dad because it’s weird for everybody else, and if I call him coach it’s weird for me,” R.J. says. “It’s something in between, it’s ‘hey’ or ‘yo’ when I need to ask a question at practice.” The son, after all, is a teammate, too, and there were times following grueling practices that R.J.’s “guys” would grumble about the head coach. Bryce Drew used to stay out on the basketball floor and take extra shots and wait for his teammates to shower and complain about Homer before going in for his shower. R.J. thought about that strategy and said, “Sometimes I might join in and complain about the coach, too.”

LaBarrie said after R.J. committed the staff would have discussions about how it would handle another Hunter in its midst. Not only was this Ron’s son, this was going to be the best player on the team. They game planned and one of the vital decisions was to have assistant coach Everick Sullivan be R.J.’s savant. R.J. was prone to outbursts on the floor as a freshman and his body language could chafe the head coach. It was Sullivan who would intercept the teenager before his father got to him.

One day in a practice last July, however, R.J. lost his poise and the dad marched in first. R.J. tried to throw a sloppy no-look pass through two defenders and it was a turnover. R.J. hurled an f-bomb and the whites of Ron Hunter’s eyes became as wide as a satellite dish. R.J. was ordered off the floor. A few minutes later, Hunter stood in front of his son and glared. R.J. hung his head. His mother wasn’t going to help him out of this one. The coach even said, “I’m going to tell his mother.” “I’m not playing for myself anymore. I’m playing for my team, my dad and my school. I need to put that emotion aside,” R.J. says. “I have to watch myself. I don’t want my emotion to reflect negatively on my dad and my family. That’s a scary spotlight to have. I can’t do things like that.” It is not as if R.J. is this fragile thing that requires a vest of bubble wrap. He’s a biracial child and in a public school all kinds of barbs can get lobbed your way from both sides of the aisle, white and black. Hey dude, what’s with that hair? R.J. is also a string bean. Skin and bones and a jump shot. He is an extraordinary shooter, so naturally there were bumps from defenders to upset his rhythm. He had to learn to be cold-blooded and shoot the ball and not fear the after-bump. You can’t be a puddin’ and deal with that. R.J. is no puddin.’ He showed that his first college game. It was at Duke and, predictably, the chants were hurled out of the stands down on him. “Daddy’s boy, Daddy’s boy.” Ron Hunter was a mess right up until the first minute of that game. Ron the Dad overwhelmed Ron the Coach. He prepared his team, but couldn’t prepare himself if R.J. had a bad game in his debut. R.J. looked terrific in an exhibition game so Hunter knew the Hall of Fame coach on the Duke sideline was going to game plan for R.J. Hunter flew his mother in for the game for emotional backup. His wife was there with 200 Georgia State fans. Ron Hunter was braced for a rough take-off. And then, on the game’s first possession, in Georgia State’s 55 defense, there was a deflected Duke pass. R.J. had the ball and sailed in for a layup and his first college points. “I was fine after that play,” Ron Hunter says, “for the rest of the season.” R.J. had 14 points and 10 rebounds at Duke, his only double-double of the season. From that game on, Hunter and Hunter no longer seemed like an experiment or a risk. A scared coach became a proud dad. Ray Glier is a former sports editor and now reports for

The New York Times, USA TODAY, The Boston Globe, The Miami Herald and CNN, among others

inside insight Presidential Prep • To ready himself for his Oct. 3 State of the University speech, Georgia State President Mark Becker straps his earphones on and

goes deep into his musical vault. To listen to his presidential playlist, (Becker digs The Clash, Bruce Springsteen … and Pink?) visit magazine.gsu.edu.

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