UGA Columns January 26, 2015

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The University of Georgia

UGA President Jere W. Morehead reports on the state of the university SPECIAL SECTION

A-D

University Theatre to present ‘A Lesson Before Dying’ Feb. 3-8 Vol. 42, No. 22

January 26, 2015

www.columns.uga.edu

UGA GUIDE

Governor’s budget proposal includes top UGA priorities

4&5

By Tom Jackson

supplement $14 million in private gifts already committed. The As the Georgia Gen$35 million for eral Assembly convened Phase I, now under Jan. 12, Gov. Nathan construction, was funded Deal submitted his budentirely through private gifts. get proposal for fiscal The governor reyear 2016. Included in the governor’s proposal quested $17 million to LEGISLATIVE are two key capital conconstruct a facility for the Center for Molecular struction projects for Medicine, which would UGA in fiscal year 2016, be matched by UGA with $8 million which will begin July 1.

“We greatly appreciate the in nonstate funds. The building, to support Gov. Deal and the board be constructed adjacent to UGA’s of regents have demonstrated for Complex Carbohydrate Research these projects, and I will articulate Center, would facilitate UGA’s rise to members of the General Assem- among the very best biomedical rebly their importance,” said UGA search institutions and position the President Jere W. Morehead. state of Georgia as an international The governor requested leader in glycoscience.

“In addition to leveraging $43 million in FY16 for Phase II of the Terry Business Learning nonstate funds, these projects build Community. These funds would See BUDGET on page 8 tjackson@uga.edu

UPDATE

Photos by Jonathan Lee

Ingrid Mejia, a third-year psychology major, takes part in the Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service by planting daffodil bulbs near the Chase Street on/off ramps. More than 80 UGA students and nearly 600 volunteers participated in this and other service projects throughout Athens.

Bridging the gap

UGA, Athens community come together for Day of Service

By Matt Chambers mattdc@uga.edu

Under sunny blue skies, some UGA students, faculty and staff spent their day off work and class bettering the Athens community.

Hundreds of local volunteers worked at various project locations Jan. 19 during the Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service. Some service-minded individuals were clearing trails around Oglethorpe Avenue Elementary School, others were beautifying the East Athens Community Center. There also were service projects cleaning up two area cemeteries.

Jazymyne Simon, a first-year UGA student, spent a portion of the day—which also was her birthday—near the Chase Street on/ off ramps. There, volunteers clad

Twenty community groups came together to plan the Day of Service.

in bright safety vests were picking up litter and digging holes to plant daffodil bulbs along the exits from the Georgia 10-Loop.

“It’s my birthday, and I figured I could either stay in bed or get out and do something,” Simon said. “It was worth getting up a little early to do this.”

Danny Bounds, senior coordinator in UGA’s Center for Leadership and Service, helped organize

the university’s role in the Day of Service. He worked with people from 20 other community groups who came together to set up the day. “(The Day of Service) brings out so many people—you get students, different schools members, baseball teams, churches,” Bounds said. “I really think this day encourages the community to stand up for Athens and really come together and work toward a common goal.

I think that is very powerful.”

More than 80 UGA students and a total of about 600 volunteers participated throughout the city, according to Bounds. Nineteen UGA Service Ambassadors were among those who volunteered on the holiday.

Victoria Clarke, a first-year Service Ambassador, said working See SERVICE on page 8

franklin college of arts and sciences

UGA joins $1.5M NSF plant molecule study to reduce agricultural water consumption

By James E. Hataway jhataway@uga.edu

Fresh water, a critical resource for life on Earth, soon may become dangerously scarce. Water use has been growing at more than twice the rate of population increase in the last century, and by 2025, the demand for fresh water will exceed available resources for two-thirds of the world population, according to the United Nations.

Now, thanks in part to a

$1.5 million collaborative grant from the National Science Foundation, researchers at UGA, the University of California at Jim Leebens-Mack Riverside, the University of Texas and the University of Buffalo are looking to Mother Nature for clues about how plants survive in

water-limited environments and what people can do to engineer crops that require less of this precious commodity.

“Agaves, yuccas and their relatives, together with orchids living in the canopies of tropical dry forests, are known for their ability to thrive in water-limited environments,” said Jim Leebens-Mack, an associate professor of plant biology in UGA’s Franklin College of Arts and Sciences and principal investigator for

See STUDY on page 8

Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases

Gates grant to expand UGA’s efforts in infectious diseases

By James E. Hataway jhataway@uga.edu

The University of Georgia Research Foundation has received an additional $710,000 from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to expand its research into the elimination of schistosomiasis, a neglected tropical disease affecting millions of people throughout most of Africa and some of Asia, the Middle East and the Americas, to include studies on control and elimination of intestinal worms that infect almost 2 billion people globally.

This grant adds to the more than $22 million in support awarded to UGA by the Gates Foundation since 2008, when

researchers in the Schistosomiasis Consortium for Operational Research and Evaluation, or SCORE, began looking for ways to gain control of and ultimately eliminate the disease that causes more than an estimated 200,000 deaths per year in sub-Saharan Africa alone, according to the World Health Organization.

“We’ve made great progress in our understanding of this disease and what must be done to stop it,” said Dan Colley, director of UGA’s Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases and principal investigator for the project. “This latest supplement will expand our research to include parallel studies on the debilitating and even

See GATES on page 8

Odum School of Ecology UGA, Penn State model predicts end to Ebola epidemic in Liberia

By Beth Gavrilles bethgav@uga.edu

The Ebola epidemic in Liberia likely could be eliminated by June if the current high rate of hospitalization and vigilance can be maintained, according to a new model developed by ecologists at UGA and Pennsylvania State University.

The model includes factors such as the location of infection and treatment, the development of hospital capacity and the adoption of safe burial practices and is “probably the

first to include all those elements,” said John Drake, an associate professor in the UGA Odum School of Ecology who led the project. The study appeared in the open access journal PLOS Biology Jan. 13.

Drake said that the UGA model should be useful to public health officials as they continue to combat the Ebola epidemic because it offers both general insights and realistic forecasts, something few models are able to do.

During fall 2014, the authors ran

See MODEL on page 8

2 Jan. 26, 2015 columns.uga.edu

UGA Libraries

Around academe

Polish university reinstates degrees earned by German Jews in Nazi era

Wroclaw University in southwest Poland has reinstated academic degrees of German Jews nearly 80 years after Nazis revoked their titles, according to The Telegraph in the United Kingdom.

Due to antisemitism, the university—which during the Nazi era was within German borders— had illegitimately revoked the degrees of more than 260 people.

Relatives of the graduates were scheduled to attend a ceremony Jan. 22 reconferring the degrees.

University’s annual banished words list includes polar vortex, hack

Lake Superior State University released its annual “List of Words Banished from the Queen’s English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness for the New Year.”

The humorous list compiles words and phrases that get on the nerves of academe’s “word-watchers,” according to an LSSU news release.

Among the top offenders were BAE (as in before anyone else), polar vortex, hack (for overuse and mis-use) and skill set.

LSSU has released its annual list each year since Jan. 1, 1976.

Microsoft Lync now available for UGA students, faculty, staff

News to Use

UGA students, faculty and staff now have access to Microsoft’s Lync, an instant messaging, video conferencing and online meeting tool useful for collaboration, especially for small group meetings.

Microsoft will rename Lync as Skype for Business this year.

Lync is available with an individual’s UGA account that is used to access UGAMail, OneDrive for Business and calendar services, which are all powered by Microsoft’s Office 365 platform. Some benefits of Lync include: • Instant messaging with other people at UGA by using your contacts list; • Scheduling online meetings with colleagues; • Screen sharing of presentations in online meetings; and • A presence tool that allows colleagues to see if you’re available, based on your Outlook calendar.

Lync is an option for video conferencing, but is not intended to replace other Web conferencing tools available at UGA such as Blackboard Collaborate or GoToMeeting. UGA’s offering of Lync/Skype for Business does not include the option for phone conference calls.

There are several ways to access Lync. They include a desktop application for Windows and Mac, a Web-based client through the online UGAMail and mobile apps for Android and iOS. The EITS Help Desk website includes detailed instructions on how to use Lync at http://t.uga.edu/1bB. Source: Enterprise Information Technology Services

Super social work

UGA’s School of Social Work was listed as one of the top colleges for an undergraduate degree in social work.

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Source: College Factual

UNIVERSITY

UC, Berkeley New York U. Rutgers Fordham Adelphi U. of Wisconsin U. of Washington Syracuse U. of Texas at Austin UGA

Janet Beckley

Media Archives improves access to rare Nixon interview footage

By Jean Cleveland jclevela@uga.edu

The UGA Libraries is using new technology to improve access to more than 30 hours of rare videotaped interviews with former U.S. President Richard M. Nixon.

The videotapes largely had been unseen outside of the group that produced them in 1983. They were donated to UGA Libraries by Jesse Raiford, president of Raiford Communications, nearly 15 years ago. Raiford said he selected UGA as the recipient of the tapes because he wanted them to be housed at an educational institution that would make them accessible to the public The interviews with full transcription are online at http://t.uga.edu/1af.

The interviews are an oral history of the former president’s life, from his childhood to his decision to resign the presidency, said Ruta Abolins, director of the Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection. Copies of the tapes also are available for viewing at the Richard B. Russell Building Special Collections Libraries.

“With surprising candor, President Nixon sat down over a period of several months in 1983 and talked with his former aide Frank Gannon about his life, his career of public service and his unprecedented resignation from office,” said P.Toby Graham, university librarian and associate provost at UGA.“Included in the tape excerpts are discussions on the importance of being a good poker player, the life of his young family, the White House taping system, his thought process leading up to his decision to resign and his startling answer to the question, ‘Do you think you’ve had a good life?’ ” The interviews are of “incalculable

Paul Efland

Media archives intern Kathleen Carter worked on the project that made the more than 30 hours of videotaped interview tapes with former U.S. President Richard Nixon more accessible to the public.

value from a scholarly/research point of view,” said Fred Guida, a former professor of mass communications at UGA who appraised the tapes as part of the donation process. “The Nixon-Gannon interviews are, in fact, priceless in terms of their scholarly and historical value.”

Guida called the gift “a major untapped resource,” and said that while there is an abundance of film and video available covering or featuring Nixon in the years prior to his presidency, he made relatively few post-resignation television appearances. The Gannon interviews represent his most substantial and lengthy post-presidency television appearance.

Taking place nearly a decade after Nixon’s resignation, the interviews were conducted in four groups of two- and three-day sessions over seven months.

Each two-hour interview was organized around a specific topic, including

academic affairs

Bergmann named interim director of pre- and post-award grant services

By Sam Fahmy

sfahmy@uga.edu

Carl Bergmann, associate vice president for research–facilities, has been named interim director of preand post-award grant services, effective Feb. 15.

In this new role, Bergmann will report directly to Provost Pamela Whitten and will work closely with Vice President for Research David Lee and Vice President for Finance and Administration Ryan Nesbit to improve services provided to faculty as they pursue and manage external grants for research, scholarship and service activities.

As interim director of pre- and post-award grant services, Bergmann will be responsible for: • Defining, coordinating and implementing process improvements in the pre- and post-award offices to best serve faculty members in the pursuit of new grant proposals and the management of funded awards.

• Assessing opportunities for managerial and productivity improvements within the pre- and post-award offices and identifying opportunities to better coordinate workflow across the offices.

• Working directly with the president and provost to develop an optimal long-term organizational structure to improve all grant-related services for UGA faculty.

The appointment of Bergmann is part of a campus-wide effort to streamline and enhance grants management at UGA, with the ultimate goal of boosting

faculty productivity.

The Office for Sponsored Programs, which provides pre-award services, and the Contracts and Grants Division, which provides post-award services, will be housed in the same building later this semester. In recent months the two offices have increased the frequency of their regular meetings to improve coordination, launched new staff training and shadowing programs and have increased their outreach to departments.

In fall 2014, the university worked with an independent consulting group to follow up on the recommendations of a faculty/staff work group that reviewed operations associated with sponsored activities. These recommendations and the subsequent findings of the external consulting group are helping guide improvements to grant support at UGA. “The appointment of Dr. Bergmann as interim director of pre- and postaward grant services reflects this institution’s continuing focus on ensuring that our faculty have the support they need to advance their research, scholarship and service activities,” Whitten said. “I am confident that his leadership, along with his perspective as a researcher, will significantly enhance the level of service and support that faculty receive.”

In his continuing role as associate vice president for research–facilities, which he assumed in 2008, Bergmann serves as the liaison between OVPR and UGA’s Facilities Management Division and the Office of University Architects.

Vietnam, China, the Soviet Union, the Middle East, the Watergate scandal and Nixon’s resignation as president, U.S. domestic policies, U.S. presidents, foreign leaders and Nixon’s reflections on his political career.

A sense of trust exists between Nixon and Gannon, a friend and former employee, allowing Nixon to be more candid than he was in any other interview setting, Guida said.

Kathleen Carter, a media archives intern, said she knew little about Nixon before working on the project this fall.

“All I knew was he resigned the presidency,” Carter said. “Now I definitely know a lot of things that I never expected to know about him.”

Additional materials, such as photos, a link to a map of Nixon’s birthplace and other supplemental information also are being added to the archives.

WILLSON CENTER Author, activist to give first Betty Jean Craige Lecture

By Dave Marr

davemarr@uga.edu

Loung Ung, an author and human rights activist who as a child in the 1970s survived the genocide by the Khmer Rouge in her native Cambodia, will give the inaugural Betty Jean Craige Lecture Jan. 29 at 4 p.m. in the Larry Walker Room of Dean Rusk Hall.

Craige is University Professor Emerita of Comparative Literature and a former director of the Jane and Harry Willson Center for Humanities and Arts.

“Few have contributed more to the academic life of the University of Georgia than Betty Jean Craige,” said UGA President Jere W. Morehead. “After four decades of outstanding service to this institution, she continues to inspire the best in all of us. I am pleased that her long and distinguished career at UGA is being recognized through this lecture series.”

Ung’s talk, “First They Killed My Father,” also is the first lecture in the 2015 Global Georgia Initiative, a speaker series sponsored by the Willson Center, which has partnered with the comparative literature department to present this lecture.

Ung is the author of First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers; Lucky Child: A Daughter of Cambodia Reunites with the Sister She Left Behind; and Lulu in the Sky: A Daughter of Cambodia Finds Love, Healing and Double Happiness. She is an international activist on a variety of human rights issues, including child soldiers, land mines, women and war and domestic violence.

Research News

columns.uga.edu Jan. 26, 2015

3

Digest State Botanical Garden to hold Orchid Madness fundraiser Feb. 7

Peter Frey

Kristen Navara, an associate professor in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, found that male fetuses are more likely to die if their mothers don’t gain enough weight during pregnancy.

Baby fat

CAES study finds that low weight gain in pregnant women reduces male fetal survival

By J. Merritt Melancon jmerritt@uga.edu

The amount of weight a woman gains during pregnancy can be vitally important—especially if she’s carrying a boy—according to a study by UGA researchers.

Kristen Navara, an associate professor in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, found that male fetuses are more likely to die if their mothers don’t gain enough weight during pregnancy.

“Fetuses are differentially susceptible to inadequate weight gain during pregnancy and that puts males more at risk, at least at certain points of gestation,” said Navara, a reproductive endocrinologist in the college’s poultry science department.

“Currently, the recommendations for weight gain in pregnancy are the same whether the fetus is male or female, even though it is well known that they grow at different rates and have different metabolic rates,” Navara also said. “I think it is important to continue the research to determine whether women carrying boys should actually

be eating more than women carrying girls to maximize the chances of the fetus’s survival.”

On average, 105 boys are born for every 100 girls worldwide, but that number can deviate based on a large number of social, economical and physiological variables. At times of extreme environmental stress, like war, the birth rate of girls exceeds that of boys.

Navara’s work, in part, seeks to pinpoint the physiological reasons those shifts occur.

In her analysis of birth rate data, Navara found that for women who gained less than 20 pounds, the female-to-male birth rate ratio shifted to about 52-to-48 in favor of female babies. The shift most likely is due to the fact that male fetuses require more energy in the first weeks and months of gestation and have been shown to be more likely to succumb to adverse conditions in the womb, she said.

Female babies, as evidenced by a greater rate of successful births, proved more resilient in the face of lower gestational weight gain than male babies.

Navara believes that this correlation between weight gain and male fetal death could be stronger before six months of

gestation, but data on male fetal deaths prior to six months of gestation was not available.

Navara’s study is based on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data on 46 million pregnancies over 23 years.

She worked with the UGA Statistical Consulting Center to analyze the data.

“The correlation was a near perfect relationship where the proportion of males rose with the number of pounds women gained during gestation,” Navara said. “To me, that tight of a relationship indicates that weight gain and the sex ratio at birth are, in fact, directly related and that the relationship isn’t driven by another related variable.”

While Navara works within the UGA poultry science department, she also studies reproductive systems across several different species.

“I believe there is a lot to be learned by cross-referencing what different species do, and picking out the effects and mechanisms that are conserved among all of them,” she said.

In this particular study, her results could have implications on how childbearing women are instructed to care for themselves while pregnant.

School of Public and International Affairs Public servants individually motivated to help environment

By Molly Berg

mberg14@uga.edu

New UGA research shows that while on the job, public servants contribute not just to mandated sustainability but also to discretionary eco-friendly initiatives of their own.

“Some people are born with a higher intrinsic need to serve the public,” said study co-author Robert K. Christensen, an associate professor in the School of Public and International Affairs. “They have a desire to help others and serve society. Government and nonprofit managers, for example, typically have higher levels of public service motivation than business managers.”

The study in the American Review of Public Administration used a survey of hundreds of public servants in a large Southeastern city to examine their environmental and organizational behaviors.

Authored by Justin M. Stritch, a former doctoral student in public administration and policy, and Christensen,

who also is the school’s Ph.D. director in the public administration and policy department, the research found that public servants were likely to engage in eco-initiatives.

“Eco-initiatives involve things like recycling or energy conservation. Reusing water bottles and turning off your computer screen are examples,” said Stritch, now an assistant professor at Arizona State University.

In the survey, public servants from the city’s neighborhood and business services, fire, police and human resources departments as well as the city manager’s office reported their environmental and workplace behaviors.The results showed that eco-initiatives had to do with how motivated these public servants were to help society.

Public service motivation, a type of altruism, determines how people feel about the public and how they want to service public values. People with public service motivation can fulfill their desire to help society by choosing a job

in government or a job in the private sector that helps citizens.

“Eco-initiatives are correlated with the public service motivation of an individual,” Christensen said. “Public servants with high public service motivation engage in micro-citizenship behaviors to benefit society on a broader basis.”

Along with public service motivation, two other predictors indicate a person’s likeliness to perform ecoinitiatives: organization commitment and environmental connectedness.

Environmental connectedness describes an individual’s attachment to nature. In other words, an employee’s concern for the environment will help predict whether, and to what extent, they engage in eco-initiatives.

“Even after accounting for an individual’s connectedness to nature, an employee’s public service motivation is a key factor in understanding voluntary eco-initiatives in the public workplace,” Christensen said.

The State Botanical Garden, a unit of the UGA Office of Public Service and Outreach, will host the fundraiser Orchid Madness Feb. 7 from 6-8 p.m. in the visitor center and conservatory.

Orchid Madness will include a reception, a silent auction, an exclusive view of rare orchids and an orchid for each guest to take home. In conjunction with the fundraiser, a hands-on beginner orchid class will be held Feb. 7 at 10 a.m. Participants will learn how to take care of orchids and about the diversity of the orchid genus.

Proceeds from the fundraiser, including the silent auction, will benefit the garden’s horticulture department.

Tickets are $50 in advance or $60 at the door.

For more information or to register, go to botgarden.uga.edu or call 706-542-9353.

COE team of researchers to assess federal gifted education programs

A team of researchers from the UGA College of Education has received a one-year, $360,000 cooperative agreement to assess gifted education programs in U.S. Department of Defense schools around the world.

UGA experts will meet with representatives from Department of Defense Education Activity schools to discuss future goals for providing gifted education services for students in the 181 accredited schools, which are located in 14 districts in 12 foreign countries, seven states, Guam and Puerto Rico. Many of the schools’ 78,000 students are the children of active military personnel.

The collaborative project brings together faculty experts from the education college’s Torrance Center for Creativity and Talent Development, the educational psychology department, the Program Evaluation Group and military experts from UGA Extension.

The research team includes Bonnie Cramond, a professor of educational psychology; Sarah Sumners, interim director of the Torrance Center; Karen DeMeester, director of the Program Evaluation Group; and Casey Mull of UGA Extension.

Additional faculty members and doctoral students from the educational psychology department/ Gifted Education Program and Georgia College & State University’s Center for Program Evaluation and Development also will assist in the project.

UGA student-athletes record fall GPA of 3.0 or better for second year in a row

The 552 student-athletes enrolled at UGA earned a cumulative GPA of 3.0 during the 2014 fall semester. This is the second year in a row that UGA student-athletes have combined for a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or better during the fall semester.

Achieving a 3.0 or higher GPA has been accomplished previously during the spring semesters, but 2013 was the first time this achievement occurred in the fall.

On the men’s side, the cross-country team posted the highest GPA with a 3.19 average, while the women’s teams were led by the swimming and diving squad, which turned in a combined 3.36 GPA. Among the men’s teams, tennis finished second with a 3.04 mark while track and field posted a cumulative 2.98 GPA to finish third in the standings.

Swimming and diving finished fourth with a 2.96 GPA, followed by golf in fifth with a 2.87 GPA. Equestrian claimed second place honors on the women’s side with a cumulative GPA of 3.33 while cross-country was close behind in third with a 3.32 GPA. Track and field finished fourth posting a GPA of 3.24, followed by volleyball in fifth with a 3.22 GPA. The GPA of cross-country athletes also was counted in the final standings for track and field, but the mark is not counted twice in the total number of students or in the overall total GPA.

PERIODICALS POSTAGE STATEMENT Columns (USPS 020-024) is published weekly during the academic year and biweekly during the summer for the faculty and staff of the University of Georgia by the UGA News Service. Periodicals postage is paid in Athens, Georgia. Postmaster: Send off-campus address changes to Columns, UGA News Service, 286 Oconee Street, Suite 200 North, Athens, GA 30602-1999.

For a complete listing of events 7 8 5 at the University of Georgia, check the Master Calendar on the Web (calendar.uga.edu/­).

I

The following events are open to the public, unless otherwise specified.

Dates, times and locations may change without advance notice.

UGAGUIDE

Performing Arts Center to present ‘50 Years of P.D.Q. Bach’ Jan. 29

By Bobby Tyler btyler@uga.edu

Peter Schickele will perform in Hodgson Concert Hall Jan. 29 at 8 p.m. He is one of the world’s leading satirists as the “discoverer” of P.D.Q. Bach, the 21st child (out of 20) of J.S. Bach.

Exhibitions Emilio Pucci in America. Through Feb. 1. Georgia Museum of Art. 706-542-4662, hazbrown@uga.edu.

Witness: The Photographs of Billy Howard. Through Feb. 12. Circle Gallery, Jackson Street Building.

Not Ready to Make Nice: Guerrilla Girls in the Artworld and Beyond. Through March 1. Georgia Museum of Art. 706-542-4662, hazbrown@uga.edu.

Creatures in the Garden. Through March 8. State Botanical Garden.

The Life and Work of Alice Fischer, Cultural Pioneer.

Through March 8. Boone and George-Ann Knox Gallery II, Georgia Museum of Art. A Year on the Hill: Work by Jim Fiscus and Chris Bilheimer. Through March 8. Georgia Museum of Art. 706-542-9078, mlachow@uga.edu. (See story, above right).

“OC” Carlisle Solo Art. Through May 11. Candler Hall.

Food, Power and Politics: The Story of School Lunch.

Through May 15. Russell Library Gallery, special collections libraries.

Terra Verte. Through May 31. Jane and Harry Willson Sculpture Garden, Georgia Museum of Art.

MONDAY, JANUARY 26 2015 Founders Day Lecture Speaker: Paul Kurtz, UGA School of Law J. Alton Hosch Professor of Law and associate dean ­emeritus. 1:30 p.m. Chapel. 706-542-8199, wdarden@uga.edu.

Blood Drive 2:30 p.m. East Campus Village.

Lecture “Foods for the Non-Foodie: Barriers to Healthy Eating in the Perimeter of the Aisle,” Louise Wicker, a professor of food science and technology and team leader of the UGA Obesity Initiative: Food Ingredients and Obesity. Part of the Sustainable Food Systems Seminar Series. 3:35 p.m. 103 Conner Hall.

706-542-8084, sustainag@uga.edu.

Charles Adron Farris III

Freshman theatre major Anthony Nash will take center stage as Jefferson in the University Theatre performance of A Lesson Before Dying.

University Theatre to present ‘A Lesson Before Dying’ Feb. 3-8

By Aaron Kelly

aaronlk@uga.edu

University Theatre at UGA will present A Lesson Before Dying, adapted to the stage by Romulus Linney from the novel by Ernest J. Gaines and directed by George Contini. Performances will be held in the Seney-Stovall Chapel Feb. 3-8 at 8 p.m. with a matinée Feb. 8 at 2:30 p.m.

Tickets are $12, $7 for students. They can be purchased at www.drama.uga.edu/box-office, by phone at 706-542-4400 or in person at the Performing Arts Center box office or Tate Student Center cashier window.

A Lesson Before Dying is set in 1948 Louisiana. Jefferson, a young African-American, is the innocent bystander of a liquor store shootout. He is falsely accused of murder, convicted and sentenced to death after a trial in which his own defense lawyer asserts that he is not intelligent enough to have committed the murder and compares him to a hog.

While Jefferson awaits his execution, he receives visits from Grant Wiggins, a black teacher at the local parish school. The two men develop an unexpected personal connection and deep mutual respect that transforms them both, instilling them with dignity and solidarity in the face of injustice and tragedy.

“In light of recent events in Ferguson, Cleveland and throughout the country, I need to remind myself that Ernest Gaines’ A Lesson Before Dying is a work of fiction,” said Contini, an associate professor in the theatre and film studies department. “This play is incredibly timely and can’t help but be part of the discourse currently happening in this country around the themes of racial injustice, oppression, fear and distrust of the legal system.”

The production includes performances by third-year Master of Fine Arts acting students J.L. Reed as Grant Wiggins and Vallea Woodbury as Emma Glen—fresh from their recent stints at professional theaters in Atlanta and Milwaukee—and freshman theatre major Anthony Nash as Jefferson. It also employs a large ensemble of actors to add depth and detail to the setting.

“We selected the play for this season simply because it is a tremendously powerful and inspirational story of social injustice and personal redemption,” said David Saltz, head of the theatre and film studies department. “It was an amazingly serendipitous and prescient choice; I cannot imagine a play that more effectively speaks to this particular moment.”

Showcase Week Kickoff The financial planning, housing and consumer economics department is having a Showcase Week kickoff event where faculty will host a reception to celebrate with current and prospective students.

4 p.m. Pecan Tree Galleria, Georgia Center.

706-542-4856, sworthy@uga.edu.

exhibition as well as discuss works from a number of other exhibitions. She will explain her process and artistic references and provide some biographical information that pertains to her work and career, including her heritage and upbringing, her participation in artist-in-residence programs and her recent travels to Italy. 2 p.m. N150 Lamar Dodd School of Art. kgeha@uga.edu.

CPR/AED/First Aid Course This course will certify participants in adult and pediatric CPR/AED. $55 for students, faculty, staff and dependents; $65 for alumni. 5 p.m.

119 Ramsey Student Center. 706-542-5060, ­mdecembe@uga.edu.

Performance Garrison Keillor, American author, storyteller, ­humorist and host of the radio variety show A Prairie Home Companion. $40-$75. 8 p.m. Hodgson Concert Hall, Performing Arts Center. 706-542-4400, ugaarts@uga.edu.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 27 Lecture Andrew Daily, an assistant professor of modern French and global history at the University of Memphis, will give a public lecture on the 1972 play Histoire de nègre (Black History). 11 a.m. Special collection libraries auditorium.

Spring Tuesday Tour 2 p.m. Richard B. Russell Building Special Collections Libraries galleries. 706-542-8079, jclevela@uga.edu.

Forum “Sound Minds, Sound Bodies and College Sports.”

Dr. Brian Hainline, chief medical officer for the NCAA and one of the country’s leading authorities on training safety for collegiate athletes, will lead a public forum on the health and well-being of studentathletes. Ron Courson, senior athletic director for sports medicine at UGA, and several current and former UGA student-athletes will serve as panelists.

Welch Suggs, associate director of Grady Sports Media, will moderate the forum. Co-sponsored by Grady Sports Media. 2 p.m. Masters Hall, Georgia Center. 706-201-5373, freemans@uga.edu.

Guest Lecture Mequitta Ahuja will examine the paintings and drawings on view in her Lamar Dodd School of Art

Calendar items are taken from Columns files and from the university’s Master Calendar, maintained by University Public Affairs. Notices are published here as space permits, with priority given to items of multidisciplinary interest. The Master Calendar is available on the Web at calendar.uga.edu/.

Workshop “Understanding Human Subjects Research and the Institutional Review Board (IRB).” This workshop is for those who are confused about the Institutional Review Board process or unsure about what constitutes “human subjects” research. Participants will discuss what is human subjects research and when it’s needed to have permission of the IRB to conduct research in a classroom. Part of the ­Scholarship of Teaching and Learning series. 2 p.m. North ­Instructional Plaza Mall. 706-583-0067, tchagood@uga.edu.

Ecology Seminar “The Ecology of Ebola,” John Drake, an associate professor in the UGA Odum School of Ecology.

Reception precedes seminar in lobby. 4 p.m.

Ecology building auditorium. 706-542-7247, ­bethgav@uga.edu.

Garden PRESENTATION Participants will take a journey with State Botanical Garden director Wilf Nicholls, who is known for presentations that are engaging, informative and fun. The talk begins at 7 p.m. Donations will be accepted. 6:30 p.m. Gardenside Room, State Botanical Garden. 706-542-6156, ckeber@uga.edu.

Innovators Lecture Hosted by the Office of Service-Learning. Speaker: Becca Stevens, founder of Magdalene, a residential community in Nashville for women who have survived trafficking, prostitution and addiction.

6:30 p.m. Chapel. coenen21@uga.edu.

Men’s Basketball vs. Vanderbilt. To be televised on the SEC Network. $15. 7 p.m. Stegeman Coliseum. 706-542-1231.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 28 Certificate in Native Plants Orientation Anne Shenk and Cora Keber, members of the State Botanical Garden education staff, will introduce the

4&5

Georgia Woodwind Quintet and Georgia Brass Quintet to perform

Yale University art historian to give lecture at Lamar Dodd School of Art

By Bobby Tyler

By Alan Flurry

btyler@uga.edu

The UGA Performing Arts Center will present Peter Schickele in 50 Years of P.D.Q. Bach: A Triumph of Incompetence! Jan. 29 at 8 p.m. in Hodgson Concert Hall.

Tickets, which are $25-$55, will be discounted for UGA students.

They can be purchased at the Performing Arts Center box office, online at pac.uga.edu or by calling 706-542-4400.

Schickele is an internationally recognized composer, musician and author who has created more than 100 works for symphony orchestras, choral groups, chamber ensembles, movies and television. He also is one of the world’s leading satirists as the “discoverer” of P.D.Q. Bach, the 21st child (out of 20) of J.S. Bach.

Since creating P.D.Q. Bach 50 years ago, Schickele has released 11 albums of the fabled genius’s works, and he has published 11 editions of The Definitive Biography of P.D.Q. Bach. Robert Marsh of the Chicago Sun-Times has called Schickele’s P.D.Q. Bach “the greatest comedy-in-music act before the public today.”

From 1990 to 1993, Schickele earned a Grammy in the best comedy album category for four consecutive years, winning for P.D.Q. Bach: 1712 Overture and Other Musical Assaults, Oedipus Tex and Other Choral Calamities, WTWP-Classical Talkity-Talk Radio and Music for an Awful Lot of Winds and Percussion.

Schickele’s extensive discography also includes P.D.Q. Bach: The Jekyll and Hyde Tour and The Ill-Conceived P.D.Q. Bach Anthology, both on the Telarc label, and The Dreaded P.D.Q. Bach Collection on the Vanguard label. P.D.Q. Bach’s full-length opera, The Abduction of Figaro, has been released on DVD by Video Artists International.

columns.uga.edu Jan. 26, 2015

aflurry@uga.edu

As part of its Noontime Concert Series, the UGA Performing Arts Center will present the Georgia Woodwind Quintet and Georgia Brass Quintet Jan. 28 at the Chapel. The performance is free.

The Noontime Concert Series was created by the Performing Arts Center for UGA faculty, staff and students. Each concert features musicians who are in Athens to perform as part of the classical music series at the Performing Arts Center as well as performers from UGA’s Hugh Hodgson School of Music. The Georgia Woodwind Quintet and the Georgia Brass Quintet are resident faculty ensembles in the Hodgson School of Music.

The concerts, which begin at noon and last approximately 50 minutes, are designed to encourage colleagues and students from across campus to come together and enjoy music during their lunch hour.

The Noontime Concert Series lineup for the remainder of the season includes The Knights chamber orchestra Feb. 10; tenor Lawrence Bakst and pianist Kathryn Wright March 16; and the Jupiter Quartet with clarinetist Jon Manasse and pianist Jon Nakamatsu April 20.

Exhibition showcases gifted works by award-winning local artists

By Eva Chamberlain etcuga@uga.edu

The Georgia Museum of Art is presenting the collaborative exhibition A Year on the Hill: Work by Jim Fiscus and Chris Bilheimer through March 8 on the Patsy Dudley Pate Balcony.

The artists recently gifted many of the works from the exhibition to the museum, prompting a reshowing. The exhibition was displayed in 2011 at UGA’s Lamar Dodd School of Art. The works in the exhibition are large digital prints measuring up to 8 feet in height. The artwork depicts plant and animals found in and around the Hill, a neighborhood in Athens where all of the work on the project was completed. In addition to the autobiographical exploration of rebuilding after profound change, this collaborative project recomposes nature and explores the role of photography in imposing meaning on our surroundings.

Fiscus, an award-winning advertising and editorial photographer whose clients include Levi’s, Showtime and ESPN, seeks to erase the boundaries between commercial and fine art photography. Bilheimer, a Grammy-nominated graphic artist who designed packaging for R.E.M. and Green Day, embraces the randomness unavoidable in even the most structured settings. The collaboration is the result of the pair’s personal friendship and time together in Athens. The project lasted between the end of 2009 and fall 2010.

The show features images focusing in on raw emotions, yet zooming out to open up onto wide horizons, according to Asen Kirin, an associate professor of art and associate director at the art school and curator for the exhibition.

“These photographs are as local as the Hill in Athens and as universal as the essential need to redefine and affirm one’s place in the world,” he said. certificate program. Participants will learn about the variety of volunteer opportunities available, including projects with botanical gardens, citizen science projects and opportunities with the Georgia Plant Conservation Alliance. 9 a.m. Classroom 2, State Botanical Garden. 706-542-6156, ckeber@uga.edu. noontime concert The Georgia Woodwind Quintet and Georgia Brass Quintet will perform. Noon. Chapel. (See story, above).

Workshop “Accommodating Students with Disabilities in the Classroom.” This workshop aims to inform participants about why students receive accommodations, how to implement accommodations in the classroom and how to keep every student in mind when designing a course. Staff members from the Disability Resource Center will lead participants to a fuller understanding of how to assist students with disabilities at UGA. 2 p.m. Reading Room, Miller Learning Center. 706-583-0067, tchagood@uga.edu.

Carol Armstrong, a professor of the history of art at Yale University, will present a lecture at the Lamar Dodd School of Art Jan. 29 at 5:30 p.m. in Room S151 of the art school. Part of the Visiting Artist/Scholar Lecture Series, the lecture is open free to the public.

A faculty member at Yale since 2008, Armstrong teaches and writes about 19th-century French art, the history of photography, the history of art criticism, feminist art theory and female artists.

She has published books and essays on Edgar Degas, Edouard Manet and Paul Cézanne as well as 19th-century photographically illustrated books and female photographers from Anna Atkins to Diane Arbus.

In addition, she is also an active art critic who has written frequently for October and Artforum. She also is a practicing photographic artist and an occasional guest curator.

Her current projects include a book about Cézanne and his afterlives, titled Cézanne’s Gravity, which will be the focus of her UGA lecture.

In Cézanne’s Gravity, Armstrong compares two figures who have been held responsible for what came after them in their respective fields: Cézanne, often called the father of 20th-century art, and Albert Einstein. She will discuss the ways in which these two avatars of modernism thought about objects, space and time, and came to similar conclusions, though in different forms and from different perspectives. The one in paint and the other on the blackboard; the one in a material and intuitive fashion and the other by means of thought-experiments and mathematical reasoning.

Carol Armstrong, a professor of the history of art at Yale University, will present a lecture at the Lamar Dodd School of Art Jan. 29 at 5:30 p.m. in Room S151 of the art school.

Betty Jean Craige Lecture Loung Ung is an author and human rights activist dedicated to promoting equality, human rights and justice in her native country, Cambodia, and worldwide. Her visit to UGA is presented in partnership with the comparative literature department.

She will deliver the talk “First They Killed My Father” as the inaugural Betty Jean Craige Lecture. Part of the Willson Center’s Global Georgia Initiative. 4 p.m.

Larry Walker Room, Dean Rusk Hall. pon@uga.edu.

(See story, page 2).

Lecture Carol Armstrong is professor of the history of art at Yale University. She teaches and writes on 19th-century French art, the history of photography, the history of art criticism, feminist art theory and women artists. Part of the 2014-2015 Visiting Artist/ Scholar Series, sponsored by the Lamar Dodd School of Art and the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences.

5:30 p.m. S151 Lamar Dodd School of Art. 706-542-0116, michelleegas@uga.edu. (See story, above right).

Concert UGA Symphony Orchestra. $10; $5 with a UGACard.

8 p.m. Hugh Hodgson Concert Hall. 706-542-4752, musicpr@uga.edu.

Performance 50 Years of P.D.Q. Bach: A Triumph of Incompetence!

It’s been 50 years since Peter Schickele released P.D.Q. Bach on an unsuspecting musical public. Now, he reaches back across the decades to explore the damp vaults and dusty attics of Leipzig to celebrate history’s most justifiably neglected composer. $25-$55. 8 p.m. Hodgson Concert Hall, Performing Arts Center. 706-542-4400, ugaarts@uga.edu. (See story, above left).

THURSDAY, JANUARY 29

FRIDAY, JANUARY 30

Tour at Two Led by Mary Koon, independent curator. 2 p.m. ­Georgia Museum of Art. 706-542-9078, mlachow@uga.edu.

Workshop “Using UGA’s eLC to Your Advantage Whatever the Course You Teach: Traditional, Flipped or Online.”

This Award-Winning Faculty Series workshop, led

by Meigs Professor Audrey Haynes, will focus on utilizing the tools of the new eLC (D2L platform) to facilitate content delivery, discussion, assessments, surveys, communication and group activities that are effective in all types of classrooms. Participants will learn how to make grading a bit easier as well as best practices for organizing material on eLC to significantly impact how students interact with a course. 1 p.m. Reading Room, Miller Learning Center. 706-583-0067, tchagood@uga.edu.

Blood Drive Noon. Science library.

Lecture “A Feminist Epistemology of Climate Change Governance: Everyday and Intimate Politics,” Amy Trauger, an associate professor in the geography department.

Part of the Women’s Studies Friday Speaker Series.

12:20 p.m. 148 Miller Learning Center.

706-542-2846, tlhat@uga.edu.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 31 Men’s Tennis vs. UCLA. Part of the SEC-PAC-12 Showdown. 2 p.m.

Dan Magill Tennis Complex. 706-542-1621.

To submit a listing for the master calendar and columns Post event information first to the Master Calendar website (calendar.uga.edu/). Listings for Columns are taken from the Master Calendar 12 days before the publication date.

Events not posted by then may not be printed in Columns.

Any additional information about the event may be sent directly to Columns. Email is preferred (columns@uga.edu), but materials can be mailed to Columns, News Service, 286 Oconee Street, Suite 200 North, Campus Mail 1999.

An Elegant Salute to Georgia The Friends of the Georgia Museum of Art host the 14th biennial gala celebrating the official state museum of art. $300. 6:30 p.m. Georgia Museum of Art. 706-542-0830.

“Get Your Pucci On” The Friends of the Georgia Museum of Art will host dessert and dancing with DJs Alfredo and Zdog at the after-party for Elegant Salute. Pucci-themed attire encouraged. A ticket for this event is included with a full-price Elegant Salute ticket. $65; $50 for nonmembers. 9:30 p.m. Georgia Museum of Art. 706-542-9078, mlachow@uga.edu.

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 1 Men’s Tennis vs. USC. Part of the SEC-PAC-12 Showdown. 2 p.m.

Dan Magill Tennis Complex. 706-542-1621.

Coming up Brown Bag Panel Discussion Feb. 3. “Excellence in Teaching Fully Online Courses.” Methods used to teach fully online classes can vary greatly from one course to the next; however, the common attribute that can be found in the narratives shared by these faculty panelists are strategies that have proven to be successful at fostering interaction, student engagement and student learning. 11 a.m. Reading Room, Miller Learning Center. 706-583-0067, tchagood@uga.edu.

Performance Feb. 3. A Lesson Before Dying. Also to be performed Feb. 4-8 at 8 p.m. and Feb 8 at 2:30 p.m. $12; $7 for students. 8 p.m. Seney-Stovall Chapel.

706-542-2836, dinac@uga.edu. (See story, above left).

UGAAlert Test Feb. 4. In conjunction with Severe Weather Awareness Week, a campus-wide full test of the university’s mass emergency notification system, UGAAlert, will take place. The phone number reflected on caller ID during the test will be 706-542-0111.

Campus community members are encouraged to program this number into their cell phone so they will recognize it as a UGAAlert emergency call in the future. 9 a.m. 706-542-5845, prepare@uga.edu.

Next columns deadlines Jan. 28 (for Feb. 9 issue) Feb. 4 (for Feb. 16 issue) Feb. 11 (for Feb. 23 issue)

6 Jan. 26, 2015 columns.uga.edu

The National Academy of Inventors named two emeritus UGA faculty members to the 2014 class of NAI Fellows.

Michael A. Dirr, emeritus professor of horticulture, and Robert Ivarie, emeritus ­professor of genetics, joined 414 innovators representing more than 150 research uniMichael Dirr versities and governmental and nonprofit research institutions.

Election to NAI Fellow status is a professional distinction accorded to academic inventors who have demonstrated a prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on the quality of life, economic development and Robert Ivarie the welfare of society.

Dirr is responsible for introducing more than 150 new plants into the horticulture trade, with approximately 50 of them receiving U.S. plant patents.

His advancement of the genera of crape myrtle, viburnum, elm, oak, gardenia, loropetalum and distylium has improved these plants and made them more accessible to the gardening public.

His signature contribution is the development of hydrangea cultivars with the ability to bloom multiple times throughout the growing season.

Ivarie’s research produced a portfolio of inventions to genetically engineer chickens as bioreactors for the efficient production of proteins for human therapeutic use. His inventions are now the basis for a platform technology covered by 19 issued U.S. patents and foreign counterparts, along with additional pending patent applications.

Ivarie, now retired, used the portfolio of technologies as the basis for the formation of a biotechnology company, which focuses on developing new therapeutics for very rare diseases.

Three UGA administrators were named to Georgia Trend’s “most influential” and “notable” lists for 2015.

UGA President Jere W. Morehead was on the magazine’s list of 100 Most Influential Georgians, and Jennifer Frum, vice president for public service and outreach, and P. Toby Graham, university librarian and associate provost, were named 2015 Notable Georgians.

Georgia Trend said this of its 100 Most Influential Georgians: “Some of the 100 wield their influence in the limelight; others work behind the scenes. But all of them impact the daily lives of Georgians everywhere.”

The same issue named University System of Georgia Chancellor Hank Huckaby as Georgian of the Year.

Sally J. Zepeda, a professor in the College of Education’s lifelong education, administration and policy department, received the Paula Silver Case Award from the University Council for Educational Administration during its annual convention recently in Washington, D.C. Sally Zepeda Zepeda’s case study, “Communication and Trust: Change at the Onset of Appointment to the Superintendency,” was identified as the most outstanding case published in 2013 by the Journal of Cases in Educational Leadership. She shares the award with R. Stewart Mayers of Southern Oklahoma State University, who co-authored the study. Mayers is a UGA doctoral graduate.

Kudos recognizes special contributions of staff, faculty and administrators in teaching, research and service. News items are limited to election into office of state, regional, national and international societies; major awards and prizes; and similarly notable accomplishments.

Faculty Profile

Paul Efland

Swarn Chatterjee, an associate professor in the College of Family and Consumer Sciences, works with students in a First-Year Odyssey course.

Money matters: FACS professor focuses on financial advice, planning, resiliency

By Cal Powell

jcpowell@uga.edu

Growing up in the pre-Internet era of Mumbai, India, Swarn Chatterjee recalls the sense of intrigue he had while watching his father fill out paper applications for mutual funds.

“He was an entrepreneur and a doit-yourselfer,” Chatterjee said. “He used to manage his own money and business.”

The young Chatterjee often ended up poring over a fund’s prospectus and asking his father questions about finances.

Chatterjee, an associate professor in the College of Family and Consumer Sciences, points to those conversations with his father as the beginning of his interest in the world of financial services.

During his graduate studies in finance at Texas Tech University, Chatterjee discovered personal financial planning as an area of study. He went on to earn his doctorate in consumer economics with an emphasis in personal financial planning from Texas Tech.

“This field focused on researching individual financial decision-making, as opposed to corporate decision-making,” he said. “That appealed to me more.

Household finance and behavioral economics were fields that were emerging.

There was a gap in the literature in that area so I decided to go into this field.”

Chatterjee’s current research focuses on three areas: measuring the value of financial advice across the different stages of the financial planning process; examining factors that are associated with greater financial resiliency among households recovering from an adverse financial event; and determining the association between household financial decision-making and food insecurity as

well as food purchase behavior.

Chatterjee also seeks to identify factors that improve financial decisionmaking among transitioning young adults, such as the college students he teaches, and the elderly.

“There seems to be some issues that are lingering that affect both. Financial literacy is one; cognitive mistakes individuals make is another,” Chatterjee said.

As it turns out, socialization to financial practices as a child, such as the education he received from his father as a boy in India, has been positively identified as a factor in a person’s financial well-being.

“We’re seeing vast disparities in financial literacy in those who are doing well financially and those who are not,” Chatterjee said.

In addition to his ongoing research efforts, Chatterjee teaches several classes related to financial planning, including behavioral economics, family portfolio management and computer applications, and serves as adviser to the FACS Student Financial Planning Association.

“I love to teach and I love to conduct research, but the most rewarding part to me is to be able to introduce students to the cutting-edge research that’s taking place and relate that to their classroom learning,” he said. “I think that adds value to what they take away from this class. They’re able to translate some of the research we’re doing into real-life practice as they graduate and become financial planners or researchers and scholars in the field.”

Chatterjee is part of a department that offers three majors: financial planning, consumer economics and housing.

The overlapping research interests and interdisciplinary nature of the department gives students unique insights into

Facts

Swarn Chatterjee Associate Professor Financial Planning, Housing and Consumer Economics Department College of Family and Consumer Sciences Ph.D., Consumer Economics, Texas Tech University, 2007 MBA, Finance, Texas Tech University, 2003 B.S., Electronics Engineering, Shivaji University, India, 1996 At UGA: Eight years

the field and adds to the great camaraderie among faculty members, he said.

“Swarn is a dedicated faculty member who always goes above and beyond for the department,” said Sheri Worthy, FHCE department head. “He is a great team player and everybody loves him—his students, his colleagues and his administrators. He excels in teaching, research and service, which is an excellent attribute for land-grant university faculty.”

The growth of the financial planning industry—statistics from the Bureau of Labor show the employment of personal financial advisers is projected to grow 27 percent from 2012-2022—makes the field of study an attractive one.

Chatterjee said this upward trend in employment prospects, combined with the practical training students receive in the major, make his work extremely gratifying.

“I think the ability to communicate good research and integrate that with teaching is very powerful,” he said. “I believe it increases the learning of students in that area. I think the students enjoy it, and I love it.”

School of Law Associate dean for faculty development at law school named

By Lona Panter lonap@uga.edu

The UGA School of Law’s Usha Rodrigues has been named the school’s new associate dean for faculty development. In this role, she will work closely with the law school’s faculty, especially its untenured professors, to expand and promote scholarly activities.

“I am pleased that Usha, an accomplished scholar, will be serving in this position,” said Georgia Law Dean Peter B. “Bo” Rutledge. “I believe our faculty will benefit greatly from her knowledge, work ethic and experience and that she will be able to assist our professors with their scholarly pursuits.”

Rodrigues joined Georgia Law in fall 2005 and was named to the M.E. Kilpatrick Chair of Corporate Finance and Securities Law in 2014. Her work has appeared in the Usha Rodrigues Virginia, Illinois, Minnesota, Fordham, Emory, Florida, Kentucky and Washington and Lee law reviews. She also has published in online forums for Vanderbilt, UCLA, Texas and Harvard Business law reviews and in the peer-reviewed Journal of Corporate Finance.

Prior to coming to Athens, she was a corporate associate with Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati in Reston, Virginia, where she specialized in corporate law and technology transactions. She also served as a judicial law clerk to Judge Thomas L. Ambro of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit.

Rodrigues earned her bachelor’s degree summa cum laude from Georgetown University, her master’s degree in comparative literature summa cum laude from the University of Wisconsin and her Juris Doctor from the University of Virginia, where she served as editor-in-chief of the Virginia Law Review and was inducted into the Order of the Coif.

COLLEGE OF EDUCATION

columns.uga.edu Jan. 26, 2015

Virtual BreakThru

7

UGA partners with Georgia Tech to provide e-mentors for STEM students with disabilities

By Kristen Morales kmorales@uga.edu

For some, an island is a place of retreat or isolation. A place to be alone with your thoughts.

But the virtual island created in BreakThru, a project combining the talents of researchers from UGA and the Georgia Institute of Technology, is a place for students with disabilities who want to work in a science, technology, engineering or mathematics-related field.

Here, students find small mentoring nooks, large classrooms, an amphitheater, floating cafes, lounges and green space—all computer generated based on the online virtual world Second Life.

Using avatars, this is also a place for students to meet with their mentors, take part in STEM-related experiences, such as scavenger hunts, and access more resources through the Internet. BreakThru’s avenues of communication create a relationship called e-mentoring, and it’s breaking new ground in the ways students engage with their mentors.

The e-mentoring island is only one type of social networking tool used by BreakThru, which began five years ago with a grant from the National Science Foundation.

The project pairs students who have disabilities with a mentor who has expertise in a STEM field to help foster the students’ pursuit of a STEM degree. The e-mentoring experiences help hone students’ interest in a career or simply expand their knowledge of a STEM-related subject.

Now in its final year, the team is adapting other tools, such as smartphone texting and Google Chat, to keep the project on the cutting edge.

“We’re always looking at access and how these students can have access to STEM through social media,” said Noel Gregg, a professor in UGA’s College of Education and one of two principal

investigators on the project.

A new world

People with disabilities represent a minuscule percentage of the population working in a STEM career, Gregg said. The goal of BreakThru was to recruit high school and college students who had an interest in a STEM-related career path, but might not follow through with the decision because of their disability.

Students and mentors are matched up using several factors, including the student’s disability, background and interest or education. When paired with a mentor, the students access the knowledge and support of a STEM expert.

BreakThru provides training for the mentor, a small stipend and the framework for the student and mentor to communicate.

Originally, the e-mentoring island was the focus of the program.

Georgia Tech’s programmers, led by co-principal investigator Robert L. Todd, created a world where students could create an avatar and listen in on guest speakers, find study rooms or conduct experiments. But as smartphones became more ubiquitous, the ways to connect with fellow students and mentors evolved.

Now, with even more ways to interact, it’s more about finding the right tool for the student and mentor. The BreakThru researchers also realized they can apply what they’ve learned to other modes of learning, such as online classes.

A model citizen

In BreakThru, mentors are there to help the students navigate bureaucracy, keep them on track in their life and show them opportunities for learning, research and career turning points.

This relationship is also how the program gets its name. Through social media and virtual environments, students and their mentors “break through” the traditional

weekly reader

‘Georgia Review’ winter issue released

The Georgia Review Winter 2014, Volume LXVIII, No. 4 Print and digital: $15

The winter issue of The Georgia Review contains a Carol Ann Davis essay, “The One I Get and Other Artifacts,” that has been nominated for a National Magazine Award in essays and criticism. Other publications up for that award are The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair and Virginia Quarterly Review.

Other contributors include Athens librarian Maura Mandyck, retired UGA professor Doris Kadish and a second UGA retiree, Coleman Barks, whose international reputation as a poet and translator is virtually unmatched. The issue features the last of some 50 essay-reviews of new poetry written for the Review by Judith Kitchen since the late 1980s.

Described by one critic as “one of the two or three leading poetry critics in the U.S. and one of the five or so in the English-speaking world,” Kitchen died Nov. 6 at age 73.

Kristen Morales

Gerri Wolfe, left, liaison for the Regents’ Center for Learning Disorders, who also serves as a mentor in the BreakThru project, sits with project mentee Rosa Cromartie, a dual major in biochemistry and molecular biology and chemistry.

Cromartie graduates this spring and plans to continue her studies to get a doctorate in analytical chemistry with a concentration in forensic science. Her goal is to work in a forensic science laboratory with the FBI.

form of top-down mentoring.

Smartphone text messages or virtual worlds make it possible to connect over long distances, and the one-on-one connections help eliminate barriers that once would have discouraged students from pursuing a STEM class or career.

“Mentors link students to resources that support learning, including other BreakThru mentors,” said Gerri Wolfe, program coordinator for BreakThru and liaison for the Regents’ Center for Learning Disorders, which is housed in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. “They help build a community of support for students and create a dynamic group mentoring experience.”

And because an overwhelming number of mentors stay in the program year after year, their participation shows the experience is positive for both themselves and the students.

A lasting benefit

The success of BreakThru is measured differently depending on the student, Wolfe said.

For high school students, success is a nurtured interest in the field. College students benefit from the life skills that mentors model for them.

“One of the things mentors stress is the ability to understand your unique educational needs and communicate those needs,” Wolfe said.

Often, students feel they’ve been labeled early on with a disability and are reluctant to communicate if they have a specific need.

“You have to ask for everything in college, to be a self-advocate,” Wolfe said. “And that’s a big change for many students transitioning from high school.”

As the grant period comes to a close, the future of BreakThru remains uncertain. Gregg said the

overall goal was to create a program that could be scalable, depending on the size of the community or institution that wants to implement the program.

The next year, she and her team will look more closely at other applications for mentor programs, other ways to virtually connect with a mentor and ways the BreakThru model can apply to more traditional online learning.

But in its current form, BreakThru can be adapted by other institutions interested in guiding a more diverse student population to STEM fields. The mentoring model also can be adapted to other academic situations, according to Wolfe.

“E-mentoring does seem to make a difference, and we have some great success stories where students left high school and went to college and are now working in a STEM field,” she said.

ABOUT COLUMNS

Cybersights

Columns is available to the campus community by ­subscription for an annual fee of $20 (second-class delivery) or $40 (first-class delivery). Faculty and staff members with a disability may call 706-542-8017 for assistance in obtaining this publication in an alternate format.

Columns staff can be reached at 706-542-8017 or columns@uga.edu

Editor Juliett Dinkins Art Director Janet Beckley Photo Editor Paul Efland

Franklin College redesigns sites

Senior Reporter Aaron Hale

http://www.franklin.uga.edu/

The Franklin College of Arts and Sciences launched a suite of newly redesigned websites Jan. 16.

The launch included the college’s primary site as well as the sites associated with the dean’s office, instructional technology, academic advising, development and the college’s news blog, the Franklin Chronicles.

Reporter Matt Chambers

Reflecting the full range of activity in UGA’s largest college, with more than 30 departments and as many centers, programs and institutes, the new redesign builds a comprehensive, well-organized Web presence that provides ready information for students, faculty, staff and prospective students.

Copy Editor David Bill The University of Georgia is committed to principles of equal opportunity and affirmative action.

The University of Georgia is a unit of the University System of Georgia.

I

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8 Jan. 26, 2015 columns.uga.edu

GATES from page 1

Crowning glory Above: Madison Giddens, center, a third-year digital and broadcast journalism major, was crowned Miss UGA 2015 on Jan. 17. Other contestants included, from left, Courtney Giebler, fourth runner-up; Destiny Levant, second runner-up; Lindsay Quandt, first runner-up; and Hannah Holley, third runner-up.

Right: Meri Ellis Hunt, left, who was crowned Miss UGA Outstanding Teen 2015, stands with Giddens.

BUDGET from page 1 upon existing UGA strengths that make the university more competitive,” said Toby Carr, UGA’s associate vice president for government relations. “We very much look forward to working with the regents, the governor and the legislature to enhance the university’s ability to serve the state.”

Another of UGA’s top legislative priorities is closing the salary gap with peer institutions. In his proposal, Deal asked the General Assembly to consider a merit-based salary increase pool for faculty and staff for a second consecutive year.

Bulletin Board Cholesterol screening

As part of Heart Health Month, the University Health Center will offer UGA faculty and staff and their spouse or domestic partner cholesterol screening Feb. 9-12 and Feb. 16-19 from 8 a.m. to noon and from 1-3 p.m. No appointment is necessary for the test, which costs $10.

The screening requires that participants not eat anything after midnight on the night before they take the test.

They also should drink plenty of water so they are fully hydrated at the time blood is drawn. Results will be sent by mail. Participants must bring a current UGACard or picture ID. For additional information, visit www.uhs.uga.edu or call 706-542-8690.

Dental Health Month

As a part of Dental Health Month, the University Health Center’s dental clinic is offering UGA faculty and staff and their spouse or domestic partner free X-rays with any appointment during February. The discount applies to X-rays only and not to other services. It only can be used once per patient.

In addition to the free X-rays, anyone who has a dental clinic appointment in February will be entered to win their next cleaning and exam at no charge.

The clinic provides preventive, restorative, cosmetic and emergency dental care. Services include cleanings, X-rays, fillings and crowns, root canals, extractions, fabrication of TMJ/clenching appliances and athletic mouth guards and teeth whitening.

The clinic is open weekdays from 8 a.m. to noon and from 1-5 p.m.

Dental insurance is accepted and billed, however, patients should check with their insurance provider about reimbursement before an appointment.

More information is available online at www.uhs.uga.edu. To schedule an ­appointment, call 706-542-8700.

Lean Six Sigma program

The Terry College of Business’ Office of Executive Programs will hold its Lean Six Sigma program March 9-13 at the Tate Student Center.

Early-bird registration, which ends Feb. 9, for the general public is $3,250; UGA employees can register up until March 9 for $2,587.50.

The five-day course is for middleand senior-level business professionals who want to become more efficient at meeting organizational goals and objectives. It will be taught by Mary McShane-Vaughn, an adjunct faculty member in Terry’s executive education program.

More information, including a

more widespread soil-transmitted helminths, round worm, whipworm and hookworms, and it will carry the project forward to 2018.”

Schistosomiasis is a parasitic disease caused by several species of worms belonging to the genus Schistosoma. The parasite’s life cycle begins when human waste containing eggs enters the water, whereupon the eggs hatch.

Free-swimming hatchlings then seek out and infect freshwater snails. The hatchlings mature and replicate inside the snails, eventually releasing tens of thousands of larval parasites that burrow into the skin of humans who wade, swim, bathe or wash in the water.

The infection can be treated with the drug praziquantel, but patients frequently are reinfected when they return to the water where they work or play. The soil-transmitted worms also are treatable with drugs, but re-infection rates are high due to the contaminated environment in which many people live.

“Controlling schistosomiasis and soiltransmitted worms isn’t as simple as diagnosing the disease and prescribing a treatment,” said Colley, who is a microbiologist in UGA’s

Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. “We have to consider people’s behavior, their environment, social and cultural practices as well as all the medical and field data required to develop strong treatment programs.”

SCORE researchers are working with African communities and governments to evaluate mass drug administration, snail control, diagnostic tests and sanitation and hygiene changes designed to slow or stop disease spread.

One of their first major studies, representing more than five years of fieldwork and data collection, will be ready for analysis this year.

They hope these and subsequent results will ultimately reveal the right combination of techniques necessary to gain control of the disease and sustain that control until it is eliminated.

“It’s difficult to explain what a monumental task this is,” Colley said. “The project requires the hard work of dozens of partners in academia, government and nonprofit organizations and hundreds of field and laboratory workers, all of whom have been invaluable in fighting these diseases that globally affect so many of those in poverty.”

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to plant daffodil bulbs gave her “a sense of community.”

“I wanted to make a difference,” Clarke said. “We’re a big university in a small town, and I feel like projects like this help bridge the gap between Athens and UGA.” Clarke and Simon were among campus group members, local community organizations, students and Athens residents who came out in droves to honor the late civil rights leader by making a difference around Athens. A kickoff event for the day was held at Thomas Lay Park before volunteers set off to the various projects.

Bounds said that students at the university tend to “stick to the UGA bubble” of the campus and downtown areas. One of the benefits of the service projects, he said, is to get students involved in the community and working with others they may not come into contact with during their studies.

“We really like for students just to get out, meet other students who are passionate and interested in serving, but also serve with community members and others from around Athens,” he said. “It brings different people from all different backgrounds and organizations together.”

the model for five different hospital capacity scenarios. For the worst case, with no further increase in hospital beds, the median projection was for 130,000 total cases through the end of 2014; for the best case—an increase of 1,400 more beds, for roughly 1,700 total or an 85 percent hospitalization rate—the median projection was 50,000 cases. After the authors updated it with more recent information collected through Dec. 1, the model projected that, if an 85 percent hospitalization rate can be achieved, the epidemic largely should be contained by June.

“That’s a realistic possibility but not a foregone conclusion,” Drake said. “What’s needed is to maintain the current level of vigilance and keep pressing forward as hard as we can.”

Epidemic modeling is an important tool that helps public health officials design, target and implement policies and procedures to control disease transmission, and several models of the 2014 Ebola epidemic already have been published. Many of these models, according to Drake, seek to estimate the disease’s reproductive number—the number of new cases that one infected individual can generate.

“This is useful because it says how far transmission must be reduced to contain the epidemic,” he said. “Our model does this too, but it does other stuff as well. It aims to be intermediate in complexity—it captures all the things we think to be most important and ignores the rest.”

program overview, registration and the agenda, is at http://t.uga.edu/1aG. Email questions to expr@uga.edu.

Free tax return help

For the ninth year, Georgia United Credit Union is partnering with the Internal Revenue Service and UGA’s College of Family and Consumer Sciences to provide the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program.

The VITA program provides free tax return assistance to individuals and families with low to moderate income who do not have depreciable property, business losses or extensive stock transactions.

This year’s site is at the Georgia United Credit Union at 190 Gaines School Road. Sessions will be available on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings Jan. 27 through April 9 and on Saturdays Jan. 31 through April 11.

To see a complete list of available dates and times or to make an appointment, go to https://www.georgiaunitedcu. org/membership/vita-tax-prep.

For those without Internet access, phone reservations can be made at 706-227-5400, ext. 6486.

Bulletin Board is limited to information that may pertain to a majority of faculty and staff members.

STUDY from page 1 the project. “If we can understand how these plants adapt to water stress at the molecular level, we can learn how to increase water efficiency in economically important plants like biofuel and food crops.”

During normal photosynthesis, most plants absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through pore-like structures on leaves known as stomata. The CO2 combines with water and sunlight to produce the carbohydrates a plant needs to grow as well as oxygen.

The same pores that absorb CO2 also allow water to escape through evaporation. That’s not a problem for plants that receive plenty of rainfall or help from irrigation, but it could be fatal for vegetation growing in dry climates.

Using a unique process known as crassulacean acid metabolism, or CAM photosynthesis, orchids and agave close these pores during the daytime when rising temperatures cause the most evaporative water loss. In CAM species, the pores open and take in CO2 during the cooler evening and the carbon is stored for photosynthesis of carbohydrates when the sun is out during the day.

“It’s as if a plant is deeply inhaling CO2 at night and doing photosynthesis while holding its breath during the part of the day when it is in greatest danger of losing valuable water,” Leebens-Mack said. “If we get a firm grasp of the genetics involved in this process, we may be able to transfer it to biofuel and feed crops that are sensitive to water shortages.”

SPECIAL SECTION • JANUARY 26, 2015

Nancy Evelyn

Andrew Davis Tucker

Andrew Daviv Tucker

Photo courtesy of the UGA in Washington Program

UGA faculty are creating student-centered classrooms and laboratories. Top left: Dr. Paula Lemons, an associate professor of biochemistry and molecular biology in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, is the 2014 recipient of the Regents’ Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Award. Top right: The UGA in Washington Program gives undergraduate students an opportunity to participate in academic and internship programs in the nation’s capital. Bottom left: Meg Babcock-Adams, right, a Center for Undergraduate Research Opportunities student and chemistry and marine sciences major, sets up an analysis machine that she and marine sciences professor Dr. William Miller used on a research cruise in the North Pacific Ocean. Bottom right: Fenwick Broyard, UGA alumnus and executive director of Community Connection of Northeast Georgia, works with Lingman “Lynn” Guo, a master’s degree candidate in social work and a student intern at the agency.

the 2015

state of the university Good afternoon, and thank you for ­joining me today. David, I appreciate that very kind introduction, and I am grateful for your continued service as Chair of the Executive Committee of University Council.

This gathering represents one of the many great traditions at the University of Georgia. In January of each year, the President has the privilege to provide the campus community with a report on the state of the University. I am honored to continue that tradition today.

Let me begin with a simple but compelling truth: the state of the University of Georgia is stronger now than at any point in our 230-year history. The evidence for this statement can be found in the world-class learning environment created by our outstanding faculty, staff, and students, as well as in our expanding research enterprise in areas of local, national, and global significance.

It can be seen in the numerous ways we are extending our vast intellectual resources to promote prosperity in communities across Georgia and beyond. And, the evidence lies in the important steps we are taking as a community to secure the long-term success of America’s first state-chartered University.

These four broad areas—building a world-class learning environment, expanding the research enterprise, promoting prosperity, and securing our long-term success—will serve as the framework for my address this afternoon.

They also will paint a picture of a University—propelled by its land-grant mission—that is pursuing a strategic course to reach new heights of excellence as a leader among the nation’s best public research universities.

Building a World-Class Learning Environment

This fall, the University of Georgia enrolled the most academically qualified class of first-year students in its history.

You might feel as if you have heard that statement before, and you have. I made this very same statement during the State of the University address one year ago.

The demand for a UGA degree continues to rise among our state and nation’s most exceptional students. They are attracted to the world-class learning environment we are building together at the University of Georgia.

The foundation of the rich educational experience we offer is our outstanding faculty, who are firmly committed to

Delivered by

President Jere W. Morehead January 21, 2015 The Chapel s­ tudent learning: faculty such as Dr. John Knox, who was named Georgia Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation; Dr. Marshall Shepherd, who received the Protector of the Earth award from the Captain Planet Foundation; Drs. William Finlay and Paula Lemons, who received awards for excellence in teaching from the Board of Regents this year; and Drs. James Hamilton, Audrey Haynes, and David Mustard, who are our most recent recipients of the Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professorship, the University’s highest recognition for teaching excellence.

Of course, we have hundreds of other faculty members who are creating student-centered classrooms and laboratories and using today’s most innovative instructional methods

to facilitate learning at the highest levels possible.

Our many dedicated staff members also contribute in significant ways—seen and unseen—to the lives of our students and to the life of this University. There is no better illustration of this point, perhaps, than the ongoing implementation of Athena, our new student information system and the product of hundreds of staff members working together, tirelessly, for more than four years, to advance information technology for the benefit of the entire campus.

With this example and many others in mind, I am excited to announce today that in May of this year the President’s Office will host a campus-wide Staff Appreciation Day. This event will be the culmination of a weeklong initiative designed to thank our outstanding staff members for their many contributions to the University of Georgia.

I am grateful to the team of staff leaders—representing departments across campus and the University Staff ­Council—that is planning this celebration. My thanks to each of you for your work on this important project.

With an eye toward the future, we are constructing state-of-the-art facilities to support the academic work of our faculty and students. In August, the University broke ground on a new Science Learning Center near Stegeman Coliseum—a dream for many, many years now becoming a reality with its opening in the fall of 2016.

Those who attended the ceremony were moved by the remarks of Meg Babcock-Adams, a senior at UGA and future scientist, as she described—in the way only a student can—how this new facility will position the University of Georgia at the leading edge of science education.

Later in the fall, on our Griffin campus, we broke ground on the Food Technology Center.

Just last month, here in Athens, we began an expansion and renovation project for historic Baldwin Hall to address pressing academic needs in the School of Public and International Affairs. The project also includes improvements for the Departments of Anthropology and Sociology in the Franklin College and a new elevator to make all areas of the building accessible.

A dedication ceremony is planned next month for the new Veterinary Medical Center. Spanning roughly 300,000 square feet, the new center will allow the College of Veterinary Medicine to increase enrollment, expand on existing specialties, and create new academic programs to keep pace with advances in veterinary science.

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University in the nation’s capital and provide an affordable housing option for our undergraduate students who participate in our thriving academic and internship programs offered in Washington, D.C. Construction on Correll Hall—Phase I of the Terry College’s Business Learning Community—is progressing on the corner of Baxter and Lumpkin streets. This facility will open next fall.

We were grateful to learn last week that Governor Deal included in his budget recommendation to the General Assembly $43 million in state funds for Phase II of the Terry College Learning Community. These funds would be joined by $14 million in private gifts, bringing the total contribution from the state and our generous friends and supporters to Phase I and Phase II of the Terry project to more than $90 million.

We are grateful that the Governor also recommended $17 million to build a new facility for our burgeoning Center for Molecular Medicine. If approved, this investment from the state would be coupled with $8 million in non-state support to create a $25 million center.

In addition to enhancements to our facilities, the 2014 calendar year also saw the implementation of a number of new academic initiatives focused on student success. We hired new faculty to add course sections in which limited space was shown to impede timely progress toward earning a degree.

We also hired 25 additional academic advisors and upgraded information technology systems. A research assistantship program was launched that provides stipends for undergraduate students to conduct research in close partnership with faculty and graduate students as part of established research teams. All told, these new initiatives represent a significant investment in the academic success of UGA students.

Over the past year, we also invested in programs and services to create a more welcoming and open campus that fosters educational growth and understanding for all. For example, Provost Pam Whitten and I jointly announced the Women’s Resources Initiative in September. This initiative is designed to enhance access to services for women across campus.

This fall, we saw the University unite around the national “It’s on Us” sexual assault awareness campaign. Numerous programs were organized in support of a safer campus environment. These events complemented the ongoing work being done, every day, by dedicated staff in the University Health Center, the UGA Police Department, the Equal Opportunity Office—among other areas—to address this critical issue on our campus.

A new space was dedicated in the Tate Center for student veterans—another important advancement in our commitment to serve our students at UGA who have served this country so honorably.

All of us should be pleased that our ongoing efforts to foster an inclusive and diverse campus were nationally recognized this year through honors such as receiving the prestigious “Higher Education Excellence in Diversity Award” and being ranked as a “Best for Vets” college by Military Times.

We must, however, continue seeking opportunities to create an even more connected and nurturing academic community for all. To aid the University in this endeavor, the Provost and I have directed funds to the Office of Institutional Diversity to conduct a campus-wide climate survey this year.

I also am establishing today a $250,000 endowment for that office to expand diversity training opportunities on campus and to expand initiatives focused on the recruitment and success of underrepresented faculty and students.

Strengthening our commitment to a welcoming and open campus remains critical to our future success as a great public research university, dedicated to serving all the people of this state and beyond.

I am proud of our strong commitment to put students first at the University of Georgia. The institution’s remarkable first-year retention rate is one positive result of this commitment. We can expect 94 percent of this year’s incoming freshman class to return next fall for their sophomore year.

Another result is our climbing six-year graduation rate, which has reached a record high at roughly 85 percent. It is worth noting that almost all of these students—around 83 percent—will graduate in five years or less. Our high retention and graduation rates are part of the reason we were ranked again among the top 20 public universities by U.S. News & World Report.

We learned in the fall that the overall graduation rate among student-athletes reached a record high at 84 percent— on par with non-athletes—and nine sports teams achieved a rate of 90 percent or above. Additionally, the more than 550 student-athletes enrolled at the University of Georgia earned an average GPA of 3.0 last semester.

Chris Conley was named SEC Scholar-Athlete of the Year in football, and—just last week—Olympic gold medalist Shannon Vreeland received the NCAA Top Ten Award as one of the very best student-athletes in the country.

As you can see, the University of Georgia is building a world-class learning environment where our students flourish academically. Just as important, these students will

Dot Paul

Dr. James Hamilton, an associate professor of advertising in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, is one of three faculty members in 2014 named to a Meigs Professorship, the University’s highest recognition for teaching excellence.

UGA was a 2014 recipient of the INSIGHT Into Diversity Higher Education Excellence in D campus. Above: More than 130 UGA employees were recognized in the fall for earning th

Paul Efland

Dr. Audrey Haynes is one of three faculty members in 2014 named to a Meigs Professorship. Haynes is an associate professor of political science in the School of Public and International Affairs.

Andrew Davis Tucker

An associate professor of economics in the Terry College of Business, Dr. David Mustard is one of three faculty members in 2014 named to a Meigs Professorship.

Paul Efland

Military Times has ranked UGA as a “Best for Vets” college. A new space was dedicated in the Tate Center for student veterans—another important advancement in the University’s commitment to serve UGA students who have served in the U.S. military.

graduate with little debt relative to the national average for similar institutions. The University of Georgia is among the nation’s leaders in providing an exceptional education at an affordable cost. Being consistently ranked in the top 10 of Kiplinger’s “100 Best Values in Public Colleges” is one indication of our strong commitment to keep costs low and quality high for students and families.

This commitment must continue, and, toward that end, I am pleased to announce that the University will extend the freeze on food services and parking rates for our students through the 2015-2016 academic year. In addition, with the exception of the fee that supports Athena, the University did not propose an increase to any mandatory student fees for next year.

I am grateful to the many individuals across campus whose conscientious financial planning is allowing the University to hold these costs steady for another year.

These are all excellent accomplishments in keeping with our commitment to put students first. However, we should not rest on the accomplishments of today. We must continue our pursuit of excellence well into the future.

And, it is in this spirit of bold institutional progress that I want to share with you an innovative new initiative being developed to further enhance the learning environment for our students.

Currently, the Provost is working with the deans and our faculty on a proposal that would provide all undergraduate students at the University of Georgia with an experiential learning opportunity prior to graduation.

Recognizing the differences that exist across academic programs, the experiential learning component could be met through a variety of ways: an internship, for instance—like the one completed by Jamie Gottlieb, a public relations major in the Grady College, whose internship led her to NBC Universal to work on social media strategy for various news brands.

Or, a student might conduct a research project—perhaps through our Center for Undergraduate Research Opportunities, where Charles Bond, a biological engineering major in our College of Engineering, recently conducted research on large-scale production scenarios for bioplastics and algae biofuels.

The component also could be fulfilled by travel study at one of our international campuses in Cortona, Costa Rica, or Oxford; or perhaps by staying closer to home to help revitalize a community in Georgia through a service learning project; or even by working in Washington, D.C., and living in our new residential facility.

Regardless of what and where, each student’s experience would occur outside of the traditional classroom environment and would be grounded in his or her major and tailored uniquely to aspirations beyond graduation.

Each experience also would help students connect foundational knowledge to real-world challenges, hone critical thinking and problem-solving skills, and build confidence and civic responsibility. These are but a few of the highly important educational outcomes associated with experiential learning.

Under the proposal being developed, our schools and colleges will define the specific courses and activities that fulfill the experiential learning component for their academic programs, ensuring seamless integration into existing curricula without increasing hours required for graduation in any major.

To offer a tailored learning opportunity to each and every student at a major public research university would be an extraordinary accomplishment. The proposal demonstrates the innovative spirit of our faculty and their ability to push the boundaries of undergraduate education. This point cannot be overstated.

Last Friday, the proposal was presented to the University Curriculum Committee for discussion. If approved by the

The 2015 State of the University

columns.uga.edu Jan. 26, 2015

Todd Dickey

Using a nearly $19 million grant, Dr. Samantha Joye is leading a multi-institutional project to continue studies that track the effects of the BP/Deepwater Horizon oil spill on the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem.

Paul Efland

Diversity Award, a national recognition for its efforts to foster an inclusive, diverse he UGA Diversity and Inclusion Certificate.

Scientists in UGA’s Center for Family Research, led

by Dr. Gene Brody, left, and Dr. Steven Beach, received four NIH grants that provide more than $10 million to develop new strategies to improve the health and well-being of young, rural African-Americans in Georgia.

John Kelley Jr.

Wide receiver Chris Conley has received numerous accolades for his contributions on and off the football field. Most recently, he was named the 2014 SEC ScholarAthlete of the Year in football and to the Allstate/AFCA Good Works Team.

faculty, this transformational initiative would begin with first-year students who enroll in the fall of 2016. I look forward to providing more details in the coming weeks and months as we develop a funding plan—involving public and private resources—to make it a reality.

Expanding the Research Enterprise in Areas of Local, National, and Global Significance

From our world-class learning environment, I now turn to our dynamic research enterprise, which is expanding in areas of local, national, and global significance. The research conducted at the University of Georgia broadens our understanding of the human condition. It promotes economic development. It addresses problems that threaten our security and well-being. In short, our research changes lives and changes the world for the better.

The research conducted by Drs. Gene Brody and Steven Beach—Co-Directors of UGA’s Center for Family Research—is a case in point. A team of scientists in the center, led by Professors Brody and Beach, received four grants last year from the National Institutes of Health providing more than $10 million to develop new strategies to improve the health and well-being of young, rural African-Americans in Georgia.

Dr. Samantha Joye’s research provides another great example. She is leading a multi-institutional project to continue studies of natural oil seeps and to track the effects of the BP/Deepwater Horizon oil spill on the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem. In November, her team, representing more than a dozen research universities, received a three-year, nearly $19 million grant from the Gulf of Mexico Research ­Initiative.

Over the past year, the senior administrative teams from the University of Georgia and Emory University have been meeting to explore opportunities to collaborate more closely as research institutions, especially in the area

Peter Frey

Dr. Marshall Shepherd, the UGA Athletic Association Professor in the Social Sciences, was named Captain Planet Protector of the Earth by the Captain Planet Foundation, which recognizes outstanding, real-life environmental superheroes.

of infectious disease.

We are currently working with our Emory colleagues on grant- and contract-funded projects totaling more than $45 million. Influenza, malaria, and tuberculosis are some of the significant global health challenges being tackled through this cutting-edge research. Our growing partnership is not only paving the way for improvements in healthcare but also advancing the state’s economically important bioscience sector.

The research activities of our faculty across campus attracted grants and contracts that last year alone generated more than $190 million in externally sponsored project expenditures. For the seventh year in a row, UGA was among the top five in the nation based on the number of technologies licensed or optioned by industry, and 28 new products originating from faculty research entered the market.

In order to enhance our position as a premier research university, however, we must continue to expand our research enterprise. Nothing is more important in this endeavor than recruiting and retaining outstanding research faculty.

Two Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholars will join the University later this year, adding to this growing group of distinguished scientists on campus. Dr. Robert Haltiwanger, one of the world’s leading glycobiologists, will join UGA’s Complex Carbohydrate Research Center, and Dr. Ted Ross, a pre-eminent infectious disease researcher, will join the College of Veterinary Medicine.

The Provost and I announced in the fall a hiring initiative to recruit grant-active, tenured faculty, whose research is literally changing the world. This hiring initiative follows one launched in the fall of 2013, which focused on recruiting faculty who conduct research across traditional disciplinary boundaries, where many of the world’s most complex challenges now reside.

Through several faculty hiring initiatives in recent years, the University has been able to add more than 100 new

faculty positions to replenish many of those lost during the Great Recession.

I am pleased that this year we were able to offer meritbased raises for faculty and staff for the first time since Fiscal Year 2009. We also increased the graduate assistantship rate to improve our ability to attract the most academically talented graduate students.

A pool for salary increases was my top legislative priority last year. I remain grateful to the Board of Regents, the General Assembly, and the Governor for supporting it.

However, the University of Georgia still lags behind regional and national peers in this regard. That is why improving salaries for faculty and staff will remain a top priority for the foreseeable future.

Governor Deal and Chancellor Huckaby have proposed another salary increase for the upcoming fiscal year, and I intend to articulate to members of the General Assembly the importance of closing the salary gap between the University and its peer institutions.

Of course, our efforts to recruit and retain outstanding faculty will have limited impact on our goal to increase research productivity without an efficient infrastructure in place to support grant applications and management. It has become clear that the University needs to make improvements in this area, and a campus-wide initiative is now underway with this goal in mind.

Better integration between pre- and post-award services was a recommendation made by our Deans and leading research faculty. This semester, the Office for Sponsored Programs, which provides pre-award services, and the Contracts and Grants Division, which provides post-award services, will be moved into the same building. Close proximity should promote greater collaboration. A shadowing program between the two units is being introduced this semester to provide valuable cross-training to staff in both areas.

Improving customer service in grants administration is another area of focus under the initiative. To facilitate this enhancement, a new training program was rolled out in the fall, feedback buttons were added to email signatures, and key websites are being redesigned to provide a more userfriendly interface. Staff involved with grants administration across campus are now working in teams to identify additional process improvements.

The University also employed an external consulting group to conduct an independent review of the administrative operations supporting research and other sponsored activities at UGA. The group completed its review in December and provided recommendations that have been incorporated into an implementation plan to further improve our research infrastructure.

The Provost, working closely with the Vice Presidents in charge of Finance and Administration and Research, will be moving that plan forward in the coming weeks.

The end result of these steps will be increased productivity, as our faculty spend more time on their critical research and scholarship and less time on administrative activities.

Promoting Prosperity in Communities Across Georgia and Beyond

Now that we have reviewed the University’s world-class learning environment and its expanding research enterprise, I would like to discuss the many significant ways the University of Georgia is fulfilling its land-grant mission to promote prosperity in communities across Georgia and beyond.

We are called by this mission to train the state’s leaders; to solve pressing challenges; to boost the economy. In essence, we have an obligation to extend our vast intellectual resources to improve lives and to improve communities, and now—more than ever before—we are answering that call with a far-reaching nexus of service and outreach activities.

When public officials across the state need resources to plan for a better Georgia, they turn to the Carl Vinson Institute of Government, which trained more than 22,000 elected officials and public employees last year alone.

Just last month, we hosted the 29th Biennial Institute for Georgia Legislators, which has become a national model for state legislative training.

When Georgia’s blueberry farmers need training and information on best practices, they turn to a team of scientists and extension specialists from our College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, who are experts in blueberry cultivation.

With the agricultural industry and the University of Georgia working hand-in-hand, Georgia now leads the nation in blueberry production. This significant achievement for our economy comes as UGA Extension celebrates 100 years of improving lives and communities in this state.

When small businesses need financial guidance or support with strategic planning, they turn to the University’s Small Business Development Center. With 17 offices around the state, our Small Business Development Center helped launch more than 300 businesses last year, employing thousands of Georgians.

When public officials in Hart County needed assistance making their community more attractive to industry, they turned to our Archway Partnership. This collaboration paid CONTINUED on page D

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With the agricultural industry and the University of Georgia working hand-in-hand, Georgia now leads the nation in blueberry production. Above: UGA graduate student Danielle Rosensteel picks blueberries from a test plot at the UGA Blueberry Research and Demonstration Farm in Alma.

The University’s Archway Partnership, a public service and outreach unit, is celebrating its 10th anniversary of extending UGA’s expertise to Georgia counties facing significant issues related to economic and community development. To date, nearly 215 projects have been completed by more than 150 students. Above: Yingting Chen, a master’s degree candidate in landscape architecture, presents her work on Hart County’s Reed Creek Park at the final pin-up critique with College of Environment and Design faculty.

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off in December, when a global manufacturing company announced plans to locate its first U.S. facility in Hartwell, creating 800 high-paying jobs for Georgians.

Just last week, we finalized plans to add Griffin-Spalding County as the University’s next Archway Partnership ­community.

These anecdotes make it clear: the University of Georgia plays a leading role in the economic development of the state of Georgia. In fact, UGA has an estimated annual economic impact of nearly $4 billion on this state. This compelling figure symbolizes the strong and special relationship that exists today—and will exist well beyond tomorrow—between our great institution and the great state we call home.

I am reminded of a passage from the late Tom Dyer’s definitive history of the University of Georgia. In his book, Professor Dyer devotes many pages to describing the rise of the service mission at UGA. One of the movement’s earliest champions was the 11th president of the University, Walter B. Hill.

Speaking to an audience of Georgians in 1905, President Hill conveyed an insightful message, which has made a lasting impression on me: “The university of the 20th century will be differentiated from its predecessors in this: it will connect its activities more closely with the business and life of the people.”

I cannot help but wonder how Walter Hill would admire the state of the University today, in the 21st century, considering the very close relationship between our teaching, research, and service activities and the needs of our state, nation, and world.

I believe he would be astounded by the breadth and depth of our efforts to promote prosperity. I also believe he would understand the importance of acting now to ensure that this institution can continue to fulfill its land-grant mission throughout this century and well into the future.

Securing the Long-Term Success of America’s First State-Chartered University

That brings us to the final theme for today’s address: securing the long-term success of America’s first state-chartered university. Each of us has a stake in this priority. Protecting our valuable campus resources is the starting point, and in

2014 the University made great strides in this area.

Our Facilities Management Division moved forward with a plan, now approved by the Board of Regents, to replace the University’s aging coal-fired boiler with a more cost-effective and energy-efficient solution. The new electrode boiler is scheduled to be installed next fall and is projected to save the University more than $19 million over a 30-year span.

We took steps to safeguard the University’s historic resources as well. In the fall, I appointed a campus-wide steering committee, under the leadership of Dean Dan Nadenicek, to develop a preservation master plan for our properties, structures, and landscapes. Graduate students from the College of Environment and Design will be heavily involved in many aspects of the planning process.

Taken together, these accomplishments reveal a thoughtful and coordinated commitment to the effective stewardship of our resources and to the advancement of campus sustainability. This commitment will benefit the educational environment at UGA for generations to come.

The long-term success of the University also will be determined by our ability to increase private support.

This past year, we responded in a historic way to this demand, completing the best fundraising year in our history, with nearly 57,000 alumni and friends giving more than $126 million in gifts and pledges.

Since July 2013, working together we have added 23 endowed faculty positions to raise our total number to 251. Endowed chairs and professorships help us to recruit and retain top faculty and to provide additional support for their vital research.

We have increased the endowment for merit- and need-based scholarships by 26 percent—adding more than $56 million. Growing this part of the endowment is increasingly important as we strive to continue to attract the best and brightest to the state’s flagship institution and to keep the cost of attending affordable for students and their families.

We have grown our Foundation assets beyond $1 billion for the first time ever. History informs us that state and federal funding for public higher education can ebb and flow over time. By increasing our foundation assets, we protect the University against changing external factors and give ourselves more security to remain focused

on institutional priorities during periods of uncertainty.

Each of these momentous achievements was made possible by outstanding students, faculty, and staff; by dedicated Trustees; and by faithful alumni and friends.

Your unyielding devotion to this University is making a positive difference in the lives of countless individuals on this campus, throughout this state, across our nation, and around the globe—and I thank each and every one of you.

We still have much work left to do as we move ahead in the quiet phase of a comprehensive campaign to raise more than $1 billion in private support to secure the long-term success of the University of Georgia. Our recent fundraising achievements, however, give me great confidence as we aggressively pursue that goal. The continued strong commitment of the entire University of Georgia family will be instrumental in our success.

Closing

I want to leave you today with a passage from renowned author and lecturer Jim Collins. He observed that, “We cannot predict the future, but we can create it.” These words are a powerful reminder of our great responsibility and of our great potential to propel the University of Georgia forward, toward new heights of excellence.

But, these words also beg the question: What future will we create together for the University of Georgia? Today’s address answers that question convincingly. Together, we will create a future for this institution defined by unparalleled learning opportunities for students, by world-changing research and scholarship, by strong ties to communities throughout Georgia and beyond, and by responsible planning and management of our precious resources.

This is the future we are creating together for the University of Georgia, and our many accomplishments over the past year illuminate just how deep our resolve is to achieve this strategic vision. Without a doubt, we have much to celebrate. With faculty, staff, students, alumni, and friends who care profoundly about the University of Georgia, America’s first state-chartered university is in very good hands, and our best days most certainly lie ahead.

Thank you for being here today and for all that you do to support the University of Georgia.

Peter Frey

Undergraduate student Mollie Sherman signs the “thank you” poster at the Tate Student Center Plaza.

The thank you signs students made for the third annual Thanka-Donor Day, held this past spring.

Increasing the endowment for merit- and ­need-based scholarships by 26 percent allows the University to strive to continue to attract the best and brightest.