Is .First · Undergraduate to Win Prestigious 'Young Investigator Award' E;llen Kruger wasn't even supposed to be eligible for the competition, much less win it. But the Peru State College senior c;:ime away as corecipient of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene's "Yo.un1;J ·Investigator Award" anyway.
U.S. The selection committee "was very impressed with the· quality of (Kruger's) work, and doubly impressed when they • found it was done by. an undergraduate student," Dr. ·Long said.
Kruger and.Dr. Carol Pappas. associate professor of natural science at PSC, attended thE: ASTMH's annual meeting last month in Honolulu, Hawaii. ·Kruger's research project involving the Asian Tiger . Mosquito had been submitted for the group's "Young Investigator Award." Entryrequifemehts h::!d to be waived, however, since only graduate-level students or post-doctoral scientists were supposed to have been eligible. No undergraduate student had ever before won the award -- until Kruger came along. She, along with Dr. Misha Pless of the Center for Disease Control, were judged co-winners by the five member selection panel.
Dr. Carol Pappas watches while Peru State College senior Ellen .Kruger enters scientific dat~ into a PSC computer for one of Ms. Kruger~s research projects. The two recently returnl!d from a •nat•Qnal conference iri Hawaii at which Ms. Kruger won a top honor.--photo provided by college advancement
·Another All-Time High
Gallentine Ups, Enrollment ; For PSC ·President Jerry Gallentine. the fall 1989 enrollment is just a part of· the plan. another goal achieved in a !<ling-term building effort.
of 1 ,663, PSC's full-time equivalency figure, achieved by dividing total credit hours by 15 (a standard load for college students), ·also increased by 3.7 percent, from 1, 100 to 1,141.
• But the fall 1989 final ef!rollment of 1 •724 is more than that. It's more than Still, Gallentine refuses to ~hother . all-time high, t.he take credit for the achieveseventh consecutive fall that men~. Instead, he points to the Nebraska's first; college. has strong faculty at the college; al.thieved record enrollment. h,ard work by the staff in student services, and most of ; The headcount is a special all, the students. milestone for PS.C and for Dr. <?allentine. because during his "More young traditional-aged tenure at PSC. enrollment has · college students realize that f'111ore than doubled. good jobs in the future will increasingly depend on a ····The enrollment of 1 , 724 college education," he said. Shows an increase. of 3.7 percent over last fall's record Continued to 1 o
Paneiists included Dr. Phillip Loverde of the State University . of New YorkBuffalo, Dr. Thomas Unnasch of the University of AlabamaBi rm in g ham, Dr. Bruce Eldridge of the University of California-Berkely, Dr. William Kammerer of the Hershey (Pa.) Medical Center, and Dr. Carole Loqg of Hahnemann University in Philadelphia, Pa .. committee chair .. Kruger's presentation featured her ongoing research into Tdentifying different populations of ·fhe Asian Tiger Mosquito, a known carrier of infectious diseases abroad that is now makrng its way into the
Dr. Long emphasized that Kruger received no special consideration based on her undergraduate status. "Her work was judged on its own merits, before they (judges) knew she was an undergraduate," Dr. Long said . Dr. Long polled the judges.to
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Kruger foun<;:I out just prior to the ASTMH's annual banquet that she was a winner. Sharing her excitement was Dr. Carol Pappasand 1987 PSCgraduate Genelle Grossman, a graduate assistant research scientist at Harvard University. Continued to 10
Recomme,)d~tlons
Find Qp:positlon ·Higher Ed .. Study Complete by Cathie English Former. state college Board of Trustee member Tom i Morrissey, Tecumseh. said the.consultant's report·, "Toward· More Effective Governance and Coordination of Nebraska Higher Education" is an interesting report and analysis of the Pr.oblems of higher education in Nebraska. ,.
Morrissey said the report was not far Off the mark; the solutions proposed however, were. "The solutions," stated Morrissey, "will only aggravate the problem." The Widmayer & Associates report, published in November, recommended total reorganization of higher education in Nebraska, with separate governing boards for each of the three campuses of the University of Nebraska and the four state colleg~s. The report also recommended a "new" Board of Regents that ·would have "certain limited authority and coordinating responsibilities for the seven public senior insitutions." The new board would include "six members to be elected from the respective congressional districts, and five members to be apponted by the Governor and confirmed by the Senate." Dr. Jerry Gallentine, PSC president, said the report dealt with a tot of complex issues and he was not in 100 percent agreement or disagreement with the report. "A lot of questions are unanswered," s.tated Gallentine, '.'a lot of issues need to be clarified." · · Gallentine said there may .~be both positive and negative aspects to a locaJ governing board for each campus. He said he continued to 10
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make certain Kruger's wo;k would be allowed into the competition, which featured research efforts · by over 50 0th.er young scientists frpm the U.S. and abroad -- all at the graduate or post-doctoral level.
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