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Issue 77, Volume 76
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Campus reacts to Tier One Students, faculty and alumni celebrate first major milestone Jose Aguilar
THE DAILY COUGAR The campus was bustling this week with the announcement that UH cleared the first of three hurdles in being deemed a flagship university. On Tuesday, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching labeled UH as a research university with “very high research activity.” This
classification is one of three that qualifies an institution as being in the top tier of universities. UH administration setup a website for the community to share thoughts on the news. Eric Bittner, a UH John and Rebecca Moores Professor of Chemical Physics, took to the site to comment that although the label of Tier One is nice, this news is more than just a label. “Taken by itself, ‘Tier One’ is a simply a badge, a label, and wearing red on Friday. However, ‘Tier One’ is really an attitude,” Bittner said in an email. “(UH) had that attitude well before this list was produced. “It’s an attitude that, as a community, we want
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this University to be a center of excellence, a center of scholarly inquiry at the highest level, and a place where tomorrow’s technology is being discovered today.” Bittner credits the new designation to years of hard work, and sees it as beneficial to everyone on campus. “Having a ‘Tier One’ status would mean that the brightest and best scholars across the US and from around the world will be attracted to UH,” Bittner said. “This produces a critical feedback mechanism since good scholars and students attract more and
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Celebrations honoring the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. will continue throughout the week. Cougar Voices — UH celebrates Martin Luther King, Jr. presents the photo documentary exhibition “And Freedom For All,” which features photos of King and the 1969 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom taken by photographer Stanley Tretick. The exhibit begins today and runs through Jan. 28 in the 3rd floor student gallery of the M.D. Anderson Memorial library. UH’s Student Video Network has a number of features available for the UH community present King’s history, as well as that of the civil rights movement.
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Badrinath Roysam holds the box of the neuro-prosthetic device that is used to record neural activity in the brains of lab rats. The device itself is barely visible to the naked eye. | Courtesy Thomas Shea
HI
Lauren Mathis
THE DAILY COUGAR
ON CAMPUS
Get into the Swing of Things with Gatsby: The Honors College is sponsoring an all-night read-aloud of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s most famous work, The Great Gatsby. The seven-hour reading will begin at 5 p.m. in room 212 of the MD Anderson Library. The event is free, and students are encouraged to bring a copy of the novel.. IT Training: A free class for students and faculty introducing Access 2007 will take place in the SOcial Work Building in room 110-L. The class will be held from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.
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To help the Pentagon improve the ability of prosthetic limbs, UH is working on a year-long project of implanting devices into the brains of lab animals. The project will help military and civilian amputees who need prosthetics. The project is lead by UH researcher and professor of electrical, computer systems and engineering, Badrinath Roysam. Other national universities, like the University of Michigan, are also participating. “A neuro-prosthetic device is something that looks like an electron, but this device is more sophisticated than that,” Roysam said. “The device is surgically inserted into the brain tissue, that way neural activity can be recorded.” While it has been compared to mind control, Roysam said it is not. “There is no such thing as mind control,” Roysam said. “The project is basically about finding the critical combination of factors that
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PROSTHETICS continues on page 6
Solving the prosthetic puzzle
UH, Pentagon partnership aims to impact longevity of neural implant devices
Katie Rowald
make neural implant devices work.” For years, prosthetic devices have failed within weeks, Roysam said. He expects that the implanted device will find the source of the problem and the solution. “These devices stopped functioning after a while because the brain treats the insertion (of the implanted device) as an injury,” Roysam said. “The device is a foreign object to the body and basically the tissue surrounding the device remodeled itself in a matter that served to isolate the device.” The team will work to solve the issues. “Our job in this project is to figure out what are the combinations of factors that make the body reject the device,” Roysam said. Others have tried to figure out the different factors as to why the body keeps rejecting the device. “Is it the way you insert the device? Is it the drug you can insert through the device?” Roysam said. “Could the rejection be due to the shape of the device? Or is it the surface codings on the device, etc?” To try to find out what is causing the problems Roysam’s team will implement the device into lab rats and keep track of it by using a technology called Foresight.
TIER ONE continues on page 6
Photos, film honor MLK legacy
The Student Video Network is located in the UC Underground. Call 713-743-5216 for more information.
Projects, funding top year in review Last year the University’s accomplishments included higher enrollment, a record amount of grants, new dorms and building renovations. Over 38,500 students enrolled in the fall semester, the highest number on record. Out of that number, more than 1,000 brand-new freshmen were the first to experience the new living facilities at Cougar Village in August. Cougar Village became the first oncampus living facility to host live-in faculty members and their families. “I think having a faculty member live on campus is a blessing for these freshmen,” said Kamil Khan, residential assistant at the Cougar Village, and a junior with a double major in marketing and management. “Most of our residents and the residents in Moody Towers are not accustomed to living on their own, and the prospect can be extremely daunting. To have a faculty member just present here can not only assure their parents, but also bring comfort to them.” In addition to the new dorms, UH also began construction in October on an addition to the Jack J. Valenti School of Communication, the Lance T. Funston Communication Center. The $3.6 million project, when completed this fall, will feature a two-story video production studio. UH began renovations on Science Research 1, and also broke ground on an addition to the Lamar Fleming Jr. building. Renovations also began on Energy Research Park, and are expected to be completed by fall. UH researchers had a stellar year as well, with the Texas Center for Superconductivity receiving a $3.5 million grant from the Texas Emerging Technology Fund to help establish their Applied Research Hub, and recruit new scientists and researchers. Additionally, Houston Endowment Inc. awarded UH a $5 million grant to help increase the number of students in doctoral programs, particularly in engineering and the sciences. With the recent news that quarterback Case Keenum will be returning for the 2011 football season and the Tier One research university classification by the Carnegie Foundation, 2011, barely in its first month, seems to be acquiring a few milestones of its own.
COMMUNITY
Titles available include “Kennedy and King: Promises and Dreams,” and “Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years,” among others.
January 21, 2011