THE NEWS RECORD
132 YEARS IN PRINT VOL. CXXXI ISSUE XLVII
MONDAY | APRIL 23 | 2012
BUILDING FOR THE FUTURE
LOCAL BAND HAS NEW VEINS entertainment | 3
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Ono talks up co-op at Emory TEDx BEN GOLDSCHMIDT | SENIOR REPORTER
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SHARING HIS VISION Provost Santa Ono traveled to Atlanta’s Emory University Saturday to share UC’s role in the ever-changing world of higher education.
After a century of leading the charge in cooperative education, the University of Cincinnati is still striving to evolve the way higher education meets the needs of a shrinking world. Provost Santa Ono expressed these sentiments in a Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED) talk at Emory University in Atlanta Saturday. The committee at TEDx Emory — an independently coordinated and TED-inspired event — invited Ono to talk about the role UC has played in reinventing higher education in the country, Ono said. While endorsed by TED, TEDx talks are planned around the world on a communityby-community basis and gives a stage to noteworthy ideas on a local level — much like TED does on a global level. Since UC engineering professor Herman Schneider pioneered cooperative education in 1906, institutions across the country have
embraced it as one of the most logical and beneficial ways for a student to get hands-on experience in his or her field of study, Ono said. “There’s an alignment of what they’re learning in real-world situations and what happens in the classroom,” Ono said. “There’s constant feedback assessing whether or not they have attained certain competencies of certain rubrics of what they’re learning in the classroom.” Ono added that in 2011, approximately 6,000 students worked co-ops and earned $43 million. In many cases, students earned enough to pay for their education, Ono said. In more recent years, UC has begun interdisciplinary programs — programs that bring together students and faculty of different major fields of study — to gain this kind of educational experience while also solving real world problems, Ono said. “We intentionally get students to work as a team, to work across disciplines,” Ono said. “They still major in engineering, architecture, design, mathematics, arts and sciences, but
we intentionally create an environment that they will have to experience when they leave college. The power of having multiple people working together is just as powerful as adding multiple musicians to an ensemble.” These interdisciplinary programs include the Niehoff Studio — a UC initiative addressing urban issues that challenge the quality of life in Cincinnati; the Village Life Outreach project — an organization that provides primary care to people in need in Africa; and the Livewell Collaborative — a research firm for older than 50 consumers. As a testament to the potential of interdisciplinary education, Ono mentioned the construction of the Roche Health Center — a zero-energy health center in rural Tanzania designed by UC students of a variety of majors involved in the Village Life Outreach project. It is the first and only health care facility in the area, and it serves 25,000 villagers, Ono said. Furthermore, their work has been recognized by President Barack Obama, SEE TEDX | 2
NightRide budget set, pending approval
Researchers begin trials for tumor vaccine DIAMOND CRUMPTON-SCOTT | TNR CONTRIBUTOR
MADISON SCHMIDT | TNR CONTRIBUTOR
Numbers have been crunched and a budget is set to incorporate a new nighttime shuttle service into the lives of University of Cincinnati students. Budget outlines for NightRide — a nightly door-to-door shuttle service — were presented Monday, April 16, to members of the Student Advisory Committee on University Budget (SACUB), so the Department of Public Safety might have the funding to launch their plans into action for the 2012-2013 academic year. The proposed NightRide service — comprised of the dual efforts of the UC Police Division [UCPD] and Student Government [SG] — combines ideas of the current NightWalk service and Bearcat Transportation System [BTS] by driving students who live within a mile of campus directly to their homes, said Alan Hagerty, student body president. The estimated cost for the first year will be $142,110 and will drop to $134,790 after onetime costs for a van and additional technology installments have been made. NightWalk is a student-run organization with help from Public Safety. Though NightWalk receives university funding, there has been great difficulty in making the volunteer service work, said Mitchel Livingston, vice president of student affairs and services. Right now, volunteers are hard to come by — especially on the weekends, Hagerty said. Plans for NightRide outline a trained staff of 15 students — five of which will be on duty at any given time during operation — uniforms for workers and two new vans for patrolling and pickup. The current system, NightWalk, is staffed by roughly 300 individual volunteers who are trained throughout the year. SEE NIGHTRIDE | 2
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Entertainment College Living Classifieds Sports
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GREEN AND CLEAN The University of Cincinnati received its designation because of its research of sustainability concerns in an urban context, having multiple buildings meeting LEED qualifications, its promotion of sustainability and the goal to become carbon neutral by 2050.
EASY BEING GREEN Princeton Review names university one of 332 greenest nationally for third straight year
KELSEA DAULTON | STAFF REPORTER
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he University of Cincinnati’s drive to be “green” was noticed for the thirdconsecutive year and was published in “The Princeton Review’s Guide to 322 Green Colleges.” The Princeton Review collaborated with the U.S. Green Building Council to create the guide. The guide organizes the colleges state-by-state in alphabetical order and are not ranked. “College-bound students are increasingly interested in sustainability issues,” said Robert Franek, The Princeton Review’s senior vice president. “Among 7,445 college applicants who participated in our spring 2012 ‘College Hopes & Worries Survey,’ nearly seven out of 10 — 68 percent — told us that having information about a school’s commitment to the environment would influence their decision to apply to or attend the school.” The guide features UC for several reasons, including the research of sustainability concerns in an urban context, having multiple buildings that meet LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) qualifications, the promotion of sustainability throughout campus and the goal to become carbon neutral by 2050. The guide describes carbon neutrality as, “the effort to balance out the total amount of carbon output based on the notion that unavoidable emissions in location X can be neutralized by protective measures taken in location Y.” The Crawley building, Teachers’ College, the Campus Recreation Center, Steger Student Life Center, Van Wormer Hall and Lindner Varsity Village are UC’s LEED certified buildings. UC requires all new construction and some renovations to meet at least the second out of the four levels of LEED certification.
LANCE LAMBERT | SENIOR REPORTER
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One of the aspects that influenced the decision was UC’s promotion of urban farming with its garden located on the Main Campus. The garden allows students to acquire hands-on agricultural and early childhood education experience. The UC Bike Share program is an attempt to reduce carbon emissions from automobiles. Anyone with a university ID has the privilege to check out a bike, free of charge, for up to three days to use on campus and around the community. UC’s volunteer population is also noted in the guide, recognizing the 11 tons of recyclable material collected from 2011’s sporting and other events, along with the readily available recycling around campus. The campus dining halls were noted for offering vegetarian and vegan options, buying much of their produce from local farmers and hosting a weekly farmers’ market on campus.
SEE TRIALS | 2
US Defense grants $3.7M for cancer research
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TAKING THE LEED Van Wormer Hall is one of UC’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)-certified buildings.
The University of Cincinnati is advancing the defense against brain disease. UC researchers are currently opening clinical trials for a brain tumor vaccine. Patients with glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) — a form of malignant brain tumor — are being sought for two cancer vaccine clinical trials in Cincinnati and across the country. “[These are] national trials [with] multiple institutions.” said Christopher McPherson, director of surgical neurooncology for the UC Brain Tumor Center and an assistant professor at McPHERSON the UC College of Medicine’s neurosurgery department. “The idea of the trials is to use patients’ immune system to establish a response to cancer.” This form of brain tumor accounts for 60 percent of the 17,000 new brain tumors annually diagnosed in the United States. “[These trials were started] to get to the point of a cure,” McPherson said. “The brain tumors we treat don’t have a cure, so we hope to raise the length in life span, improve the quality of life, and have a chance for a cure some day.” UC students are not involved in the trials, but 10 to 20 patients from the UC Brain Tumor Center can enroll. They are a portion of the 400 patients nationwide expected to participate in two trials. “[In] one a patient undergoes surgery to see if [their] tissue has the marker, if so they go under radiation and injections every two weeks to build help build up the immune system,” McPherson said. This is the phase-3 study Celldex Vaccine Targeting EGFRvIII. “[In the second] we take the tumor and the patient’s immune cells mix them together and then the immune cells learn about the tumor [and] become immune to it”, continued McPherson. “Then you inject these cells back into the patient.”This is the phase-2 Celldex sponsored study. In the second study, patients are divided into two groups based on previous treatment regimens. One group will consist of those who have experienced GBM recurrence and have not taken the
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Research at the University of Cincinnati has caught the eye of the U.S. Department of Defense [DoD], bringing millions in research funds to UC. A $3.7-million grant from the DoD will fund a team of UC researchers to study circadian rhythms that might lead to better disease treatments and understanding of cancer. The research team, led by HONG Christian Hong, an assistant professor in the department of molecular and cellular physiology in UC’s College of Medicine, received the grant from the Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency — an agency within the DoD. But DoD grants are nothing new to UC. In 2007, UC received a four-year DoD grant totaling $932,919 for kidney cancer research; which marked the first time the DoD had ever awarded funds for kidney cancer research. “Our research goals are to investigate interconnected mechanics of cellar processes, such as circadian rhythms of cell cycles and DNA damage response,” Hong said. The DoD is interested in understanding these cell cycles at a molecular level, Hong said. Findings could improve care for patients
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with trauma or exposure to gut pathogens, Hong said. The team expects to find that circadian rhythms are able to shift, delay or speed up cell cycle. “If that is possible, then it could easily manipulate a patient’s body,” Hong said. The team is still in the beginning stages of a research project that started in January after two years of prior research. “The cell-division cycle under DNAdamaged cells may not control growth division — which is cancer,” Hong said. “DoD interested in a detailed map of findings.” Clinical trials are still far out from this point. If exciting data is found, then the team will move toward trials, Hong said.