UGA Columns April 17, 2017

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Allan Armitage to deliver College of Environment and Design’s Reid Lecture

April 17, 2017

Vol. 44, No. 33

www.columns.uga.edu

UGA GUIDE

4&5

UGA will celebrate faculty, student, staff and alumni successes

By Camie Williams Jan Barham

Melanie Ford

Sadie Brown

Heather McCormick

Julie Cheney

Emily Saunders

Carla Dennis

Megan Ward

First class

Anjali Dougherty

Cara Winston Simmons

Ten inaugural participants selected for Women’s Staff Leadership Institute

By Juliett Dinkins jdinkins@uga.edu

Ten individuals have been named the first participants in the university’s Women’s Staff Leadership Institute.

Launched in January by Human Resources, the WSLI is an annual program aligned with the Women’s Leadership Initiative launched in 2015 by President Jere W. Morehead and Provost Pamela Whitten.

It is administered through the Training and Development Department with the support of executive sponsors Jennifer L. Frum, vice president for public service and outreach, and Dawn Hall Cartee, director of the University of Georgia Center for Continuing Education & Hotel. Allie Cox, senior professional development leader in Training and Development, coordinates

the WSLI. Juan Jarrett, associate vice president for human resources, recognizes the significance of a women’s leadership development program for staff at UGA. “It’s my pleasure to support this very worthy initiative. Human Resources Training & Development strives to meet the professional development needs of the university community, and the Women’s Staff Leadership Institute is an important way to encourage the personal and professional growth of our staff,” he said.

Frum echoed that sentiment.

“The success of UGA and Georgia depends on a pipeline of people with diverse skill sets and ideas who can move into leadership roles,” she said. “This program will help a dynamic group of women develop leadership skills that will

enable them to reach their highest potential and serve as role models for other staff and students.”

The 2017 cohort includes employees from four units and four schools and colleges. Beginning April 24, they will meet monthly through October to attend half-day leadership workshops and take part in discussions on campus with UGA senior administrators.

“The women selected for the inaugural class of the Women’s Staff Leadership Institute already have achieved success in their careers at UGA,” said Cartee. “We want them to develop leadership skills that will enhance that success and make them even more valuable to the university.”

Members of the institute’s inaugural class are: • Jan Barham, associate dean of See LEADERSHIP on page 8

ODUM SCHOOL OF ECOLOGY

camiew@uga.edu

The University of Georgia will celebrate the achievements of its students, faculty, staff and alumni in a series of events during Honors Week, April 17-21.

Honors Week is an annual tradition at UGA that dates back to the 1930s, when then-Chancellor S.V. Sanford set aside a day to recognize exemplary students.

In 2011, the event expanded to a week to include events recognizing faculty, staff and alumni.

“Honors Week underscores the fact that the University of

Georgia’s growing reputation as a leader in public higher education is rooted in the extraordinary accomplishments of our students, faculty, staff and alumni,” said Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost Pamela Whitten.

Honors Week activities include the Public Service and Outreach Meeting and Awards Luncheon and the 2017 UGA Alumni Awards Luncheon, which are open to the public, in addition to several invitation-only events.

Numerous departments across the schools and colleges also will

See HONORS on page 8

GRADY COLLEGE

Sixty Peabody finalists named; Rashida Jones to host ceremony

By Margaret Blanchard mblanch@uga.edu

The Peabody Awards Board of Jurors has selected 60 finalists that represent the most compelling and empowering stories released in electronic media during 2016.

As part of a new distinction introduced last year, jurors chose 60 finalists out of 1,200 entries from television, radio and the web.

The Peabody Awards are based at the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia.

Beginning April 12, the winning Peabody programs will be revealed over the next several weeks in a succession of announcements by category. The 60 Peabody Awards finalists, listed by category and in alphabetical order with network or platform in ­parentheses,

are online at https://t.uga. edu/37Y. Peabody Award winners and finalists will be celebrated at a gala event on May 20 at Rashida Jones Cipriani Wall Street in New York. The event will be taped for a television special to air on both PBS and FUSION networks June 2 at 9 p.m. EST and PST. Rashida Jones, a previous Peabody Award winner for Parks and Recreation, will serve as host.

Time Inc.’s Entertainment Weekly has been named official media partner for the 76th annual Peabody Awards Ceremony and a contributing sponsor of the See PEABODY on page 8

HONORS PROGRAM

Father of modern ecology: Eugene Odum taught Two undergraduates receive new ways to understand and protect planet Earth 2017 Goldwater Scholarship

By James Hataway jhataway@uga.edu

Eugene Odum was not given to fits of anger, but this time he was furious.

It was the fall of 1946. Odum, then a young associate professor in the University of Georgia’s biology department, had taught a course on ecology for several semesters and was passionate about the subject.

In a meeting with his colleagues, Odum suggested that his ecology class be required of all new biology majors. His fellow scientists looked at him and laughed.

Odum stormed out of the room

but was not deterred. That night, he began writing a guiding set of principles that would ultimately serve as the foundation for the discipline’s first textbook.

Today, no one laughs about Odum’s work.

He is lionized throughout science as the father of modern ecology, and recognized by the University of Georgia as the founder of what became the Eugene P. Odum School of Ecology—the world’s first stand-alone college of ecology.

Before lead was banned from gasoline, before Rachel Carson published Silent Spring about the dangers of pesticides, before the

United States created Earth Day—which our nation celebrates this Saturday, April 22—Odum’s research and advocacy inspired the Eugene Odum modern environmental movement.

“He was a true visionary; he saw things that others didn’t,” said Betty Jean Craige, University of Georgia Professor Emerita of comparative literature and the

See ODUM on page 7

By Stephanie Schupska schupska@uga.edu

UGA juniors and Honors Program students Morgan Gibbs and Mallory Harris are among 240 students across the nation to be recognized as Barry Goldwater Scholars, earning the highest undergraduate award of its type for the fields of mathematics, natural sciences and engineering.

Gibbs and Harris are each studying in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. Gibbs, from Peachtree City, is majoring in chemistry and minoring in pharmaceutical sciences. Harris, from

Morgan Gibbs

Mallory Harris

Dunwoody, is pursuing mathematical sciences with a concentration in computational biology. Both plan to earn doctorates in their ­respective fields.

“Once again, multiple UGA­­ s tudents have received the­ ­

See GOLDWATER on page 3

2 April 17, 2017 columns.uga.edu

Around academe

UF, UW-Madison pair up to increase STEM students with new program

The University of Florida and the ­ niversity of Wisconsin-Madison are teaming U up to create a National Science Foundation program to improve rates of African-American and Latino students pursuing graduate degrees in STEM fields.

A news release from UF News reports that the program is one of the first NSF INCLUDES grants to increase the number of students going into STEM fields.

Connecticut system looks to merge 12 community colleges into one system

The president of the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities System is recommending the state consolidate 12 community colleges into a centrally managed organization to cut costs, according to a recent article in Inside Higher Ed. The president believes the state can save more than $40 million every year by merging the colleges and consolidating administrative and personnel positions throughout the system.

ArchPass Duo to be required for vLab

News to Use

Beginning May 5, students, faculty and staff accessing vLab, UGA’s virtual computer lab, from nonlab devices will be required to log in with ArchPass Duo, UGA’s phone-based twofactor authentication service. That includes personal laptops, phones, classroom podiums, iMac and Mac Pro machines at the Miller Learning Center and computer work stations.

Most computers in labs at the Miller Learning Center and in University Housing will not require ArchPass Duo for vLab access.

“Two-factor authentication” means there will be two steps to the vLab log-in process: 1) Enter your MyID and password; and 2) Verify your ID with another method, such as a phone call, passcode or push notification to an ArchPass Duo-enrolled device.

Requiring ArchPass Duo to access vLab will provide an extra level of security for users and the campus network. The two-step login process makes it harder for cyber criminals to steal credentials and helps protect users’ personal information and the university’s data.

To begin using ArchPass Duo, students, faculty and staff can enroll via the Self- Service Portal on the ArchPass Duo website. The enrollment process takes less than five minutes.

Users can enroll a smartphone, cell phone, landline phone or tablet in ArchPass Duo. The enrolled device will be used to verify a user’s ID when they log in to vLab. Users can verify their ID with a phone call, SMS text message passcode or through the Duo app on a smartphone or tablet.

A video with instructions for enrolling in ArchPass Duo can be found on the EITS Help Desk YouTube channel at https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=N5M6BEocS20. For more information about ArchPass Duo, visit archpass.uga.edu.

Source: Enterprise Information Technology Services

SCHOOL OF PUBLIC AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS, COLLEGE OF PUBLIC HEALTH

Team of UGA students wins national policy competition for its TurnKey app

By DeShonna Johnson shon822@uga.edu

A new app wants to reward teens for not using the phone while driving.

Created by students from UGA, the app recently took first place at the University of Pennsylvania’s Fels National Invitational Public Policy Challenge in Philadelphia.

Consisting of Master of Public Administration students Laura Pontari and Sara Richey, public health doctoral candidate Hilary Carruthers and Master of Public Health student Oluwatobi “Tobi” Olagunju, the team received $10,000 to complete the development of TurnKey, a mobile app designed to dissuade high school students from texting and driving.

“The experience was incredible, demanding and completely worth it,” said Olagunju. “We worked hard to identify a serious problem and worked harder to develop an acceptable solution.”

The TurnKey app uses behavioral economics such as positive reinforcements to encourage students to drive safer. For each minute a student does not interact with the phone while d ­ riving, he or she receives points that eventually earns prizes. Higher performing students will have their names entered into a drawing each semester for the chance to win a larger grand prize. In addition, students who team up to participate in the app’s group competitions can claim awards that include bonus points or a group pizza party.

From left: UGA students Hilary Carruthers, Laura Pontari, Oluwatobi “Tobi” Olagunju and Sara Richey created the TurnKey app to reward teens for safer driving habits.

W. David Bradford, who holds the George D. Busbee Chair in Public Policy in UGA’s School of Public and International Affairs, and Grace Bagwell Adams, an assistant professor of health policy and management in the UGA College of Public Health, were the team’s faculty sponsors.

“The Fels Policy Challenge is transformative for students; they have the opportunity to build something innovative that has potential for real, sustainable change in their communities,” said Bagwell Adams. “It is inspiring to watch these ideas come to fruition.”

In collaboration with an app developer and the Athens-Clarke County School District, the TurnKey team will launch the pilot phase of the app at one Athens-area high school in fall 2017 and eventually span out to others.

“Our plan is to get TurnKey in the

GRADY COLLEGE

Giving Voice to Voiceless fund established by alumna

By Parker Middleton jparkerm@uga.edu

Award-winning journalist, author and distinguished UGA alumna Charlayne Hunter-Gault has established a new endowment, Giving Voice to the Voiceless. The endowment, created by Hunter-Gault and her husband, Ronald Gault, will provide grants to university students to promote social justice and global understanding by giving voice to the voiceless, the charting light of the life and work of Hunter-Gault.

“From Athens to Africa and beyond, my ‘journeys to the horizon’ as a journalist have tried to find people whose voices need to be heard so they can realize their dreams for themselves and their communities,” Hunter-Gault said. “I hope this fund will encourage Georgia Dawgs from anywhere in the university to travel near and far, as I have tried to do, to give voice to those whose voices are unheard.”

Hunter-Gault announced the fund April 1 during her keynote address at the fifth annual Chess and Community Conference at the Georgia Center. Hunter-Gault has reported on the Chess and Community program, created and directed by UGA alumnus Lemuel LaRoche, on PBS. “Charlayne Hunter-Gault is an instrumental figure in the history of this institution,” said UGA President Jere W. Morehead. “We are honored that she and Ron have established this fund, which will further Charlayne’s profound legacy and will positively impact the lives of our students.”

Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication Dean Charles Davis lauded “the remarkable work and commitment of Charlayne Hunter-Gault—from her PBS program Race Matters that has shown us Lemuel LaRoche’s dedication to chess and community in Athens, to her Peabodywinning stories and her service on the Peabody Board of Jurors, and as a champion of journalism the world over.

“Her subjects give voice, and their personal stories move from our ears to our hearts,” Davis said, echoing the citation accompanying Hunter-Gault’s second Peabody Award.

“We are grateful to be the stewards of Charlayne and Ron’s vision for this fund,” Davis said. “As it grows, it will help generations of students engage in innovative projects, internships, study abroad experiences, field study and other endeavors that give voice to the voiceless.”

“Ron and I are honored to launch this fund with our contribution,” Hunter-Gault said. “We hope others will join to help students to give voice to voiceless individuals and their stories, and in so doing, to advance social justice, global understanding and the human good.”

hands of all 3,200 high school students in Athens within three years,” said Bradford. “Even if the TurnKey program doesn’t prevent any fatal accidents, we conservatively expect it to reduce the rate of accidents in Clarke County by 10 percent.”

Once the app is launched more widely, the team believes this will result in 500 fewer accidents per year, with an average savings of $6,000 per accident.

These savings would benefit the youth and their families, the broader community of drivers and pedestrians, and ultimately serve to bring down costs, including those for auto insurance, in the area.

“We strongly believe that UGA can lead the nation in addressing teen texting while driving by developing TurnKey in collaboration with the Athens-Clarke County school system,” said Bradford.

SIGNATURE LECTURE

Elders shares vision for future during Mary Frances Early Lecture

By Krista Richmond krichmond@uga.edu

Education, education, education.

According to Dr. M. Joycelyn Elders, the first AfricanAmerican appointed U.S. surgeon general and professor emeritus at the University of Arkansas School of Medicine, that is the key to a better society. Elders spoke on “Bridging the Gap in Higher Education”at the 17th annual Mary Frances Early Lecture April 5 at the Georgia Museum of Art. “We’ve got to build a bridge that everybody—that all—can get across.

The bridge has to support itself, and so we have to make sure that we build a group of bright young people for the 21st century who can take of themselves,” she said.

Elders emphasized the lessons she learned in her position as director of the Arkansas Department of Health.

Joycelyn Elders “I saw patients and thought I was a pretty good doctor. But I didn’t think about their home. I didn’t think about their environment. I didn’t think about where they came from. I just thought about my taking care of their acute illness, giving them a prescription and sending them home,” she said. “As health director, I learned a lot. I learned that social environments are far more important than what I thought was my good doctoring.”

Elders believes that education and prevention are important to a true health care system. Teaching people how to take care of themselves helps create a stronger, healthier society. Her vision for the future includes a patient-centered, prevention-focused, purpose-driven and solution-oriented health care system.

The event, part of the Signature Lecture Series, is named for Mary Frances Early, the first African-American to earn a degree from UGA, and her legacy at the university. Early graduated with a master’s degree in music education in 1962 and completed her specialist in education degree in 1967.

“It’s a joy to be here,” Early said. “When I reflect on my time here at the University of Georgia, I can see progress many of you can’t see because you have been here when things were the way they are now. But they have not always been that way, and I can attest to the fact that we have made a lot of progress.”

RESEARCH NEWS

columns.uga.edu April 17, 2017

3

Digest Environmentalist to speak April 19 at ‘The Georgia Review’s’ Earth Day program

Dorothy Kozlowski

Heidi Ewen and fellow researchers propose additional training for public housing service coordinators on services for aging residents.

Assisted living

Aging in place could save money, benefit health outcomes in public housing for elderly

By Leigh Beeson lbeeson@uga.edu

Training service coordinators in low-income public housing to better assist aging residents could not only improve community members’ health outcomes but also save the government money in hospital visits, nursing home stays and rehabilitation costs, according to an article by researchers at UGA published recently in the Journal of Housing for the Elderly.

These coordinators would be trained to facilitate aging in place, a concept the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines as the “ability to live in one’s own home and community safely, independently and comfortably, regardless of age, income or ability level.”

Most Americans want to remain in their homes as they age, but for low-income citizens living in public housing complexes, it often isn’t possible, said Heidi Ewen, lead author of the article and an assistant professor in the financial planning, housing and consumer economics department of the College of Family and Consumer Sciences.

“Nobody wants to lose their home because of some type of health crisis,” said Ewen, who also has a joint appointment in UGA’s Institute of Gerontology in the College of Public Health. “But when people living in public housing have health crises that result in them ending up in nursing homes or rehabilitation centers, they may end up losing their apartments, which are rented on a month-to-month basis. It’s a really precarious situation for them.”

In addition to being a time of uncertainty for the renters, hospital and nursing home stays are costly to the government.

The researchers propose a new comprehensive training protocol for service coordinators in public housing that will help them better address the needs of their aging residents. The curriculum will expand current service coordinator training on basic aging and the aging services network to include housing law, minority aging and health disparities, and health promotion ­programming.

The service coordinators would bring chronic disease management and fall prevention courses into the housing facilities so that residents could learn

how to deal with their illnesses in their homes rather than having to arrange for transportation.

They also could advocate for design changes in the buildings. The Department of Housing and Urban Development constructed most of America’s housing for the elderly, known as Section 202 housing, starting in the 1950s. So the design features, including 5-foot-high light switches and power outlets that are low to the floor, aren’t conducive to aging in place, Ewen said.

Now the goal for the researchers is to get a grant to fund several service coordinator positions in Section 202 housing in the Athens area to see whether the health outcomes of the residents improve.

The researchers are also looking to secure funding to place kiosks in the lobbies of the public housing buildings that will enable residents to periodically update their needs and upcoming medical services.

Using these kiosks, residents will be able to electronically send a note to the service coordinator and appropriate community organization to help arrange transportation and services.

pursue a career in the interdisciplinary field of drug discovery and design. Her interests span a variety of drug design techniques, and she wants to use these techniques to combat chronic diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.

She currently conducts research in assistant professor Arthur Roberts’ laboratory in the UGA College of Pharmacy, where they study drugprotein interactions with the multidrug resistance transporter protein P-glycoprotein.

Gibbs is a trombonist in the Redcoat Marching Band, in the UGA trombone choir and for the volleyball and basketball bands; vice president of the UGA chapter of the American Chemical Society; and a two-time CURO Research Assistant. This summer, she will participate in the National Institutes of Health’s internship program. She also participated in the pediatric oncology education internship program at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Harris, a UGA Foundation Fellow, plans to obtain a doctorate in computational biology and aims to conduct

research and teach at the intersection of mathematics and biology. After receiving a Ph.D., she hopes to study disease systems at the biochemical and population levels. Specifically, she wants to develop more accurate diagnostic tests and precisely targeted treatment strategies based on genetic indicators, supporting a shift from reactionary to preventive approaches to epidemiology.

She is working with professor John Drake in the Odum School of Ecology, studying vector-borne disease forecasting. She also conducts research in associate professor Juan Gutierrez’s Biomathematics Research Group in the Franklin College, integrating multi-omic data sets to understand the pathways affected by malaria infection and treatment in non-human primates.

UGA also received one honorable mention from the Goldwater Scholarship competition. Sophomore Ruth Schade, a Foundation Fellow from Marlborough, Massachusetts, is majoring in nutritional science and hopes to pursue a doctorate in immunology.

GOLDWATER from page 1 ­ restigious Goldwater Scholarship—a p clear signal of the strength of undergraduate education at this great institution,” said UGA President Jere W. Morehead. “As Morgan and Mallory continue on their academic and career paths, I have no doubt their research discoveries will help to improve lives around the world. The University of Georgia is very proud of them.”

Since 1995, 53 UGA students have received the Goldwater Scholarship, all of whom have been members of the Honors Program.

“I am so pleased for Morgan and Mallory,” said David S. Williams, associate provost and director of the Honors Program, who serves as the UGA campus faculty representative for the Goldwater Scholarship. “As individuals, they each richly deserve this recognition. Together, they represent the quality of UGA’s undergraduate research program and the strong support that faculty members provide to our students.”

Gibbs plans to obtain a doctorate in medicinal chemistry and intends to

The Georgia Review’s ninth annual Earth Day program will be held April 19 at 7 p.m. in the atrium of the Visitor’s Center at the State Botanical Garden.

This year’s speaker is writer and environmentalist John Lane. Author of a dozen books of poetry and prose, including six from the University of Georgia Press, Lane is professor of English and environmental studies at Wofford College and director of the college’s Goodall Environmental Studies Center. His latest book, Coyote Settles the South, was named as a finalist for the 2017 John Burroughs Medal for distinguished nature writing. As an environmentalist, Lane was named the 2013 Water Conservationist of the Year by the South Carolina Wildlife Federation and the Clean Water Champion by Upstate Forever.

A catered reception and music from Hawkproof Rooster will follow Lane’s address. Open free to the public, the program is sponsored in part by UGA’s ­Environmental Ethics Certificate Program, the UGA Office of Sustainability and the State Botanical Garden.

Arizona State University administrator to give 2017 Torrance Lecture April 20

Punya Mishra, associate dean of scholarship and innovation at Arizona State University, will give the 2017 E. Paul Torrance Lecture April 20 at 5:30 p.m. in Room S151 of the Lamar Dodd School of Art. Mishra, who also is a professor in the Division of Educational Leadership and Innovation in ASU’s Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, will give a lecture titled “From the Swampy Lowlands of Practice to Unbearable Lightness of Theory: Navigating Creativity, Technology and Teaching.” The lecture is open free to the public.

Mishra, who additionally holds an affiliate faculty position in the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, is nationally and internationally recognized for his work on the theoretical, cognitive and social aspects related to the design and use of educational technologies.

Sponsored by the College of Education’s Torrance Center for Creativity and Talent Development, the Torrance Lecture brings scholars to UGA to discuss research and issues concerned with creativity. It was established in 1985 in honor of the native Georgian and pioneer in research on the identification and development of creative potential. He is most noted for the development of the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking, which are used worldwide.

UGA students surpass $250,000 raised in fight against cancer during Relay for Life

Overnight from April 7 to April 8, nearly 3,000 UGA students participated in the 18th annual University of Georgia Relay for Life at the university’s intramural fields. The event culminated with the early morning announcement that the students had raised a total of $255,129.47 to support the American Cancer Society.

UGA’s event is notable for being Relay’s first event organized by, led by and composed entirely of college students. The student group is an affiliate of Relay for Life that is registered with UGA Student Affairs’ Center for Student Activities and Involvement.

UGA Relay has raised more than $3 million for the American Cancer Society since the first relay in 1999 and annually ranks as one of the top collegiate relays in the nation.

This year’s event featured the staples of Relays across the country: a survivors lap in which survivors celebrate their victories over cancer while participants congratulate them, a luminaria ceremony during which candles are lit in honor of those lost to cancer and in support of individuals whose fights continue, and a fight back ceremony that inspires participants to take action. Additionally, the group held team fundraisers, a “Mister Relay” pageant, a lip sync competition, a silent disco, a food-eating contest, and a warrior tournament on an inflatable obstacle course.

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 Division of Marketing & Communications. Periodicals postage is paid in Athens, Georgia. Postmaster: Send off-campus address changes to Columns, UGA Marketing & Communications, 286 Oconee Street, Suite 200 North, Athens, GA 30602-1999.

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

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

Dates, times and locations may change without advance notice.

UGAGUIDE

EXHIBITIONS

Advanced and Irascible. Through April 30. ­Georgia Museum of Art. 706-542-4662. hazbrown@uga.edu.

Expanding Tradition: Selections from the Larry D. and Brenda A. Thompson Collection. Through May 7. ­Georgia Museum of Art. 706-542-4662. hazbrown@uga.edu.

Equality Under the Law: History of the Equal Rights Amendment.

Through May 12. ­Hargrett Library Gallery, special collections libraries. 706-542-8079. jclevela@uga.edu.

Necessary Words & Images: 70 Years of The Georgia Review.

Through May 12. ­Hargrett Library Gallery, special collections libraries. 706-542-8079. jclevela@uga.edu.

Michael Ellison: Urban Impressions. Through May 21. ­Georgia Museum of Art. 706-542-4662. hazbrown@uga.edu.

A Championship Tradition: The NCAA Tennis Tournament in Athens. Through May 30. Rotunda, special collections libraries.

Dartmouth music scholar will discuss ‘Aesthetics as Eugenics’ at UGA School of Music

By Clarke Schwabe ccschwabe@uga.edu

The Hugh Hodgson School of Music hosts noted music, media and ethics scholar William Cheng for a talk titled “Aesthetics as Eugenics” April 18 at 5 p.m.

The event, funded by a Distinguished Lecturer grant from the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts and hosted by the Hodgson School’s Musicology/Ethnomusicology Student Association, will explore how judgments of others’ musical and artistic abilities and disabilities can affect William Cheng social justice and progress.

Cheng, assistant professor of music at Dartmouth College, is the author of Sound Play: Video Games and the Musical Imagination, All the Beautiful Musicians and the upcoming Touching Pitch: Dirt, Debt, Color. Much of his recent work, including his book, Just Vibrations: The Purpose of Sounding Good, explores how music and music scholarship affect or are affected by social systems.

“William Cheng is one of the most exciting young scholars in the discipline,” said Susan Thomas, Hodgson School associate professor of music and women studies. “He is one of the rare scholars and writers who not only changes our views about a topic, but has caused the discipline to reconsider how we do it, why we do it, and who we impact.”

Cheng operates where sound, politics and power intersect and advocates for, as he writes, “interpersonal care as a principal component of academic and activist labors.”

“Cheng’s work consciously reconstructs music’s and musicology’s underlying humanism; his is a scholarship rooted in ethics,” said Thomas.

“Because of this I would say—and I don’t mean this lightly—that he is a transformative figure for the discipline.”

Responses to Cheng’s work echo Thomas’ assessment of the core of Cheng’s scholarship.

Joseph Straus, a professor at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center, wrote of Cheng’s book Just Vibrations that it is “a passionate and personal plea for a reparative musicology, for a field that favors empathy, compassion and care.”

“Cheng made me think in deep and not always comfortable ways about my work and my life as a scholar,” wrote Straus.

David Haas, professor of musicology at the Hodgson School, said of Cheng’s book Sound Play: Video Games and the Musical Imagination: “Sometimes you just stop and re-read a section and say to yourself, ‘writing just doesn’t get any better than this.’ ” Cheng’s talk is open free to the public and will be held at the School of Music in room 521.

The Hugh Hodgson School of Music at the University of Georgia is a rising national leader in musical education and performance. With more than 300 undergraduate and 200 graduate students, the School of Music trains the music performers, educators, scholars, composers and therapists of tomorrow with world-class facilities, unparalleled instruction and hundreds of performance opportunities each year.

706-542-5788. hasty@uga.edu.

On the Stump—What Does it Take to Get Elected in Georgia?

Through Aug. 18. Special collections libraries. 706-542-5788. jhebbard@uga.edu.

MONDAY, APRIL 17 HONORS WEEK 2017 Through April 21. (See story, page 1.)

PSO ANNUAL MEETING AND AWARDS LUNCHEON Part of Honors Week. 9:30 a.m. Georgia Center. 706-542-6045. bolmgren@uga.edu. (See story, page 1.)

ENRIQUE GRANADOS CELEBRATION: GRADUATE STUDENT PERFORMANCES The Hugh Hodgson School of Music’s graduate students will present performances honoring Enrique Granados, the 19th-century Spanish pianist and composer. 6 p.m. Ramsey Concert Hall, Performing Arts Center. 706-542-4752. ccschwabe@uga.edu.

FACULTY RECOGNITION BANQUET Invitation only. Reception at 5:45 p.m.; dinner and award presentations at 6:30 p.m. Part of Honors Week. 6:30 p.m. Mahler Hall, Georgia Center. 706-542-5806. staciaf@uga.edu. (See story, page 1.)

ENRIQUE GRANADOS CELEBRATION: FACULTY CONCERT The Hugh Hodgson School of Music’s faculty will hold a concert in celebration of Enrique Granados, a 19th-century Spanish pianist and composer. 8 p.m. Ramsey Concert Hall, Performing Arts Center. 706-542-4752. ccschwabe@uga.edu.

TUESDAY, APRIL 18 INTERNATIONAL AGRICULTURE DAY Events include an afternoon lecture, reception and awards ­program. This year’s keynote, “The Struggle for Enough: Why Half the World’s Farmers Go Hungry,” will be given by J. Scott Angle, former CAES dean and current president and CEO of the International Fertilizer Development Center. 3:30 p.m. Georgia Museum of Art. 706-542-1073. ogp@uga.edu.

columns.uga.edu April 17, 2017

4&5

Armitage to deliver annual Neel Reid Lecture

By Melissa Tufts mtufts@uga.edu

Allan Armitage, horticulturist, author and UGA professor emeritus of horticulture, will deliver this year’s Neel Reid Lecture at the College of Environment and Design April 21 at 1:30 p.m. in lecture hall 123 of the Jackson Street Building.

In the lecture “Stories from the Garden,” Armitage will explore how familiar plants in the American garden came by their names, revealing a cultural genealogy for gardeners and landscape designers.

Who was the Nellie Stevens of the ‘Nellie Stevens’ holly? Why do we call pinks, pinks? Who put the “dog” in dogwood?

The Neel Reid Lecture honors the Georgia architect and garden designer who practiced early in the 20th century. The Peachtree Garden Club of Atlanta enriches the CED program by funding this annual lecture and established the Neel Reid Memorial Scholarship Loan Fund at the CED in 1947. Hundreds of landscape architecture students at UGA have benefited during the past seven decades from tuition assistance, and thousands of people have enjoyed hearing leaders in the world of gardening share their knowledge.

Armitage, who retired from the UGA horticulture department in 2014 as a specialist in perennials, has authored more than 14 books that serve as classroom texts, reference books and gardeners’ companions. Originally from Canada, Armitage has won numerous awards, including the Liberty Hyde Bailey Award for lifelong achievements in horticulture.

Open free to the public, the lecture is part of the Alumni and Honor’s Day celebration at CED.

Allan Armitage, horticulturist, author and professor emeritus of horticulture, will deliver this year’s Neel Reid Lecture.

ECOLOGY SEMINAR “Spatial Self-Organization and Its Implications for Ecosystem Robustness,” Corina Tarnita, Princeton University. A reception follows the seminar at 4:30 p.m. in the lobby. 3:30 p.m. Auditorium, ecology building. 706-542-7247. bethgav@uga.edu.

an overview of current rural health care legislation and public policy, the impact of technology on rural health care delivery, the economic realities facing rural providers and an inside look at the operations of rural health care facilities. Larry Walker Room, Dean Rusk Hall. fkhan@uga.edu.

HUGH HODGSON FACULTY SERIES The UGA Hugh Hodgson School of Music’s Reid Messich, assistant professor of oboe, will conclude the Hugh Hodgson Faculty Series with his recital. Tickets are available at pac.uga. edu or the PAC box office. $12; $6 with a UGA student ID. 8 p.m.

Ramsey Concert Hall, Performing Arts Center. 706-542-4752. ccschwabe@uga.edu.

ANDREA CARSON COLEY LECTURE Siobhan Somerville, University of Illinois. 12:30 p.m. M. Smith Griffith Auditorium, Georgia Museum of Art. 706-542-4662.

SATURDAY, APRIL 22 BASEBALL vs. Vanderbilt. $5-$8. 2 p.m. Foley Field. 706-542-1231.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 19

FOOTBALL G-Day Game. To be televised on SEC Network. 2 p.m. Sanford Stadium. 706-542-1621.

RAMSEY LECTURE SERIES “Lazy Genes: Do They Exist and Can We Modify Them?” Frank Booth. A reception will follow. The Ramsey Lecture Series is presented by the kinesiology department. 4 p.m. M. Smith Griffith Auditorium, Georgia Museum of Art. LECTURE Ulrike Schneider, Potsdam University, Germany, is the spring 2017 Max Kade Distinguished Visiting Professor for the ­Germanic and Slavic studies department. She will lead a talk on historical and literary perspectives on the controversial topic of Jewish writers in the German Democratic Republic. 5 p.m.

147 Miller Learning Center. 706-542-3663. jaropson@uga.edu.

HONORS PROGRAM BANQUET Part of Honors Week. Invitation only. 5:30 p.m. Classic Center, 300 N. Thomas St. 706-542-2649. rhino@uga.edu. (See story, page 1.)

‘THE GEORGIA REVIEW’ EARTH DAY EVENT The Georgia Review’s ninth annual Earth Day event will include a talk by nationally known environmental writer John Lane, music by Hawk Proof Rooster and a reception. 7 p.m. Visitor Center, State Botanical Garden. 706-542-3481. (See Digest, page 3.)

THURSDAY, APRIL 20 AFRO-FRENCH STUDIES COLLOQUIUM The colloquium will open at 11:30 a.m. with a buffet lunch, to be followed by two talks: Philippe Gumplowicz, “From Harlem to Paris: Jazz Music Arrives in Europe,” at noon, and Pap Ndiaye, “The Minority Paradox: Blackness in France,” at 1 p.m. Contact Rachel Gabara at rgabara@uga.edu to RSVP for lunch. 137 Tate Student Center.

TORRANCE LECTURE “From the Swampy Lowlands of Practice to Unbearable Lightness of Theory: Navigating Creativity, Technology and Teaching,” Punya Mishra, Arizona State University. 5:30 p.m. S151 Lamar Dodd School of Art. 706-542-3237. dsharpe@uga.edu. (See Digest, page 3.)

RESEARCH AWARDS BANQUET Part of Honors Week. 6:30 p.m. Georgia Center. 706-542-5969. cochran5@uga.edu. (See story, page 1.)

MUSEUM MIX The museum’s thrice-annual late-night art party features a live DJ, free refreshments and galleries open until 11 p.m. ­#museummix. 8 p.m. Georgia Museum of Art. 706-542-4662.

CONCERT The 2016-2017 season concludes at the UGA Hugh Hodgson School of Music with a performance by the UGA Symphony Orchestra and UGA Combined Choirs. Tickets are available at

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

PERFORMANCE Counterpoint Dance Company, UGA’s premier student-run dance company. $5, includes a reception after the performance.

7:30 p.m. Dance building. 678-764-6269. ajc05842@uga.edu.

SUNDAY, APRIL 23 Arron Foster’s work is on display through May 14 at the Georgia Museum of Art as part of the Master of Fine Art exit show.

UGA art students push boundaries in exit show

By Sarah Dotson sdotson@uga.edu

The Georgia Museum of Art at the University of Georgia is showing the work of Master of Fine Arts degree candidates at the Lamar Dodd School of Art through May 14.

This year’s graduates present a variety of work, diverse in medium, theme, scale and style. They are Thomas Bosse, Reid Brechner, Julia Megan Burchett, Ellie Dent, Jamie Diaz, Arron Foster, Meirav Goldhour, Zachary Harris, Ariel Lockshaw, Shuk Han Lui, Jonathan Nowell, Amanda Scheutzow, Stephanie Sutton and Dan Vu. An accomplished group of artists, many of these candidates have been exhibiting their work in galleries and shows across the country for the past few years.

Drawing and painting are more often incorporated into video and sculpture than hung traditionally on the wall.

This tendency toward creating tactile, engaging and three-dimensional art reflects current trends in contemporary art practice. For example, Bosse has used his training in metalworking to create cups in which he will serve drinks to visitors during the opening reception, creating an interactive experience. Foster is a printmaking student who animates pac.uga.edu or the PAC box office. $12; $6 with a UGA student ID. 8 p.m. Hugh Hodgson Concert Hall. 706-542-4752. ­ccschwabe@uga.edu.

FRIDAY, APRIL 21 ALBERT W. JOWDY MEMORIAL GOLF CLASSIC Registration is open for the UGA College of Pharmacy’s 25th annual Albert W. Jowdy Memorial Golf Classic. Player registration begins at 8 a.m., and there is a shotgun start at 9:30 a.m.

Online registration is available at https://gail.uga.edu/events/

his prints in videos he creates and displays alongside the more static images.

Sarah Kate Gillespie, the museum’s curator of American art and curator of the exhibition, worked closely with the candidates to ensure their pieces would be installed with utmost integrity. With works that require large amounts of wall space, power outlets, video projectors and other electronic components, organizing this show offered a logistical challenge, but she said it remains “one of the highlights of our calendar.”

Gillespie also pointed out that some of the students’ work will appear in nontraditional spaces around the museum. Although the majority of their installations will be in galleries, Lockhart’s paintings will stretch down the 60-foot wall of the Patsy Dudley Pate Balcony, and Diaz is creating a ceramics assemblage that will sit on the floor near the museum’s Tiffany stained-glass window.

Related events include “MFA Speaks” April 20 at 5:30 p.m., in which each student will discuss his or her work, and 90 Carlton: Spring, the museum’s quarterly reception (free for members of the Friends of the Georgia Museum of Art, $5 non-members) May 12 at 5:30 p.m.

All events are open free to the public unless otherwise indicated. phar/jowdy-golf-classic-2017. The brochure can be downloaded at http://www.rx.uga.edu./images/pdf/alumni/golf-brochure. pdf. $130, Young Alumni discount (under 30); $150, registration; $20, additional reception guests. UGA Golf Course.

706-542-4536. kihamby@uga.edu.

RURAL HEALTH CARE SYMPOSIUM The second annual Rural Health care Symposium is part of an annual effort to bring attention to the national rural health care crisis. Key topics to be explored at this year’s daylong conference include the opioid epidemic and addiction treatments,

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, Marketing & Communications, 286 Oconee Street, Suite 200 North, Campus Mail 1999.

SPRING BIRD RAMBLE Join the Oconee Rivers Audubon Society for a morning bird walk at the Garden. 8 a.m. Upper parking lot, State Botanical Garden.

706-542-6014. connicot@uga.edu.

SUICIDE PREVENTION CAMPUS WALK The Out of the Darkness Suicide Prevention Campus Walk raises money for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

Noon. Register in front of administrative offices, State Botanical Garden. 470-279-9603. edb33991@uga.edu.

BASEBALL vs. Vanderbilt. $5-$8. 1 p.m. Foley Field. 706-542-1231.

MONDAY, APRIL 24 CONCERT The Hugh Hodgson School of Music’s Wind Symphony will perform. 8 p.m. Hugh Hodgson Concert Hall. 706-542-4752. ccschwabe@uga.edu.

COMING UP LUNCH AND LEARN April 25. “Use of the Executive Order,” Michael Lynch. This program series is sponsored by the Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, the School of Public and International Affairs, the UGA College Republicans and the UGA Young Democrats. For more information, email russlib@uga.edu or call 706-542-5788. 12:30 p.m. 277 special collections libraries.

ODUM LECTURE IN ECOLOGY April 25. The 32nd annual Odum Lecture, “Collective Sensing and Decision-Making in Animal Groups: From Fish Schools to Primate Societies,” will be given by Iain Couzin, University of Konstanz, Germany, and director of the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, collective behaviour department. The lecture will be followed by a reception in the lobby.

3:30 p.m. Auditorium, ecology building. 706-542-7247. bethgav@uga.edu.

CONCERT April 25. The UGA Philharmonia will perform. 8 p.m. Hugh Hodgson Concert Hall. 706-542-4752. ccschwabe@uga.edu.

NEXT COLUMNS DEADLINES April 19 (for May 1 issue) May 3 (for May 15 issue) May 31 (for June 12 issue)

6 April 17, 2017 columns.uga.edu

CAMPUS CLOSEUP

Dr. Ray M. Kaplan, a faculty member in the College of Veterinary Medicine, received a Federal Laboratory Consortium Southeast Region 2016 Excellence in Technology Transfer Award for “Technology to Aid in the Control of Internal Parasites in Sheep and Goats.”

The award was presented by the Ray Kaplan USDA Agricultural Research Service’s Dale Bumpers Small Farms Research Center. Kaplan is a professor of parasitology in the college’s infectious diseases department.

Dr. Jorg Mayer, a faculty member in the College of Veterinary Medicine, received the 2016 Oxbow Exotic Mammal Health Award, presented annually for recognition of excellence and innovation in the field of exotic mammal medicine and care. Mayer is an associate professor of zoological medicine in the college’s small animal medicine and surgery department.

Gregory H. Robinson, University of Georgia Foundation Distinguished Professor of Chemistry, has been named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. A nonprofit organization with a heritage that spans 175 years, the Royal Society of Chemistry is the United Kingdom’s professional body for chemical scientists and the largest organization in Europe for advancing the chemical sciences.

Gregory Robinson Robinson joins his department of chemistry colleague, Graham Perdue Professor Henry “Fritz” Schaefer, who was elected in 2005 as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

A 2012 Humboldt Research Award from Germany’s Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and a 2014 recipient of the Southeastern Conference Faculty Achievement Award, Robinson is an internationally recognized scholar whose scientific achievements have been described as groundbreaking. Over the past 25 years, Robinson and his team have published a series of fundamental findings that have reshaped how scientists view chemical bonding in many chemical compounds.

Emma Laing, an associate research scientist in the foods and nutrition department in the College of Family and Consumer Sciences, received the 2017 Outstanding Dietetic Educator Award from Area 3 of Nutrition and Dietetic Educators and Preceptors.

The award recognizes the Emma Laing teaching, mentoring and leadership activities of faculty and preceptors in dietetics education programs that are accredited by the Accreditation Council for Education in Nutrition and Dietetics.

Laing accepted her award at the NDEP regional meeting in Louisville, Kentucky, in late March. Area 3 encompasses Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Puerto Rico.

The mission of the NDEP is to advocate for and empower educators to lead the profession of nutrition and dietetics.

As a result of its mission, the goals of NDEP are to recognize educators and preceptors as leaders of the profession, support and advance nutrition and dietetic education programs, and support the purposes and goals of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

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.

Dorothy Kozlowski

During her time at the School of Law, Lisa Mathis steadily worked toward a degree of her own. She started taking classes in 2002 and finished requirements for her bachelor’s degree in communications studies last year.

Director creates special events to ‘friendraise’ for School of Law

By Krista Richmond krichmond@uga.edu

Each day is just a little bit different for Lisa Mathis.

As the School of Law’s director of special events, one day might include a portrait unveiling, and the next might include a reception honoring the Superior Court judges of Georgia. And Mathis often is thinking about the details of those events six months in advance.

“I love the organization of it, and I just really like our people,” she said. “For our events, you have to have a service heart to do them. You have to want to make people feel comfortable and make people happy. I like to say I ‘friendraise.’ ” For Mathis, these events play an important role for the law school. Her work on them helps with budgets, and the events themselves build relationships with alumni. She also sees herself as a resource for faculty and staff.

Mathis started at the law school in 2002 in a temporary position that morphed into a full-time one. Jill Birch, who worked in special events and alumni relations for the law school at the time, quickly became her mentor.

“She taught me well,” Mathis said.

“I was overwhelmed, but it was exciting. I could learn new things I hadn’t done before.”

Mathis previously worked as a secretary, and her position at the law school initially included record-keeping, check requests and “all the other things administrative people are challenged to do.” Birch’s husband was a salesman at

the body shop where Mathis worked and suggested she apply for the open position in the law school’s special events office because he liked her work ethic.

Her work has varied from planning events to other duties like heading the redecoration of rooms in the law school.

“If you look around my office, you’ll see there are all kinds of little things,” she said. “People will come by and say, ‘Do you have birthday candles?’ Well, of course I have birthday candles. You never know what someone’s going to need, and I try to keep things available that make events work well for the law school.”

One of Mathis’ favorite parts of event planning is floral arranging. In fact, that’s often where she starts the planning process and settles on the theme for events. After deciding on the goal of the event, she works on budgets, locations, guest lists, invitations, menus and other details.

“It’s more than a day,” she said. “It’s six months ahead. One of the things people don’t realize is how much time goes into planning an event. You plan an event for six months, and it’s over in two hours.”

Mathis said her most memorable event was a gala she planned celebrating the 150th anniversary of the Georgia Law Review held at the InterContinental Hotel in Atlanta with guest speaker Justice Clarence Thomas. Her two favorite annual events are the law school’s Commencement activities, including a pre-graduation reception for friends and family of graduates held at the Grand

FACTS Lisa Mathis Director of Special Events School of Law B.A.: Communication Studies, University of Georgia, 2016 At UGA: 14 years

Hall in the Tate Student Center, and a Homecoming barbecue for 700-800 guests on Herty Field.

“I always like to do something that’s unusual and something that has a ‘wow factor’ to it,” she said. “I want to make the law school look the best it can. I want alumni to walk in and know this is a special place.”

During her time at the law school, Mathis steadily worked toward a degree of her own. She started taking classes in 2002 and finished her bachelor’s degree in communications studies last year.

“It helps me communicate with people,” she said. “A lot of things transpired from this opportunity.”

One of the skills she worked on was public speaking. She’s always had an interest in politics and ran for county commissioner in Madison County in 2015 and has served on the Board of Electors.

In her spare time, Mathis is active at Athens Church, enjoys running and has an interest in zip-lining, skydiving and hang gliding.

“I’m looking for things to do in the second half of my life,” she said.

OFFICE OF THE VICE PRESIDENT FOR INSTRUCTION

Griffeth to lead Office of Academic Honesty and Integrity

By Tracy Coley tcoley@uga.edu

Phillip Comer Griffeth has been named director of UGA’s Office of Academic Honesty and Integrity. In this role, he will provide leadership for the Office of Academic Honesty and Integrity, a unit of the Office of the Vice President for Instruction, which supports and educates faculty, staff and students in maintaining academic integrity, as well as mediation between faculty and students in cases of academic dishonesty.

Griffeth is most widely known in the community as a private attorney in his own law firm for 11 years. Prior to that he served as a senior assistant district attorney in Georgia’s Western Phillip Griffeth Judicial Circuit, as well as the chief assistant solicitorgeneral in Athens-Clarke County. Griffeth most recently was associate director of the Institute of Continuing Legal

Education for the State Bar of Georgia.

“The combination of his keen mediation skills and pleasant demeanor make Phillip an ideal fit for this office,” said Rahul Shrivastav, vice president for instruction.

Griffeth earned a Juris Doctorate from the Walter F. George School of Law at Mercer University, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics at Davidson College in North Carolina.

In addition to an extensive legal career, Griffeth also has been involved with several educational opportunities for students.

DIVISION OF DEVELOPMENT AND ALUMNI RELATIONS

columns.uga.edu April 17, 2017

ODUM

Altson Family

Kathelen Amos

Kessel Stelling Jr.

Loch Johnson

AJ Green

Celebrating commitment

UGA Alumni Association to present annual awards

By Kelundra Smith kelundra@uga.edu

The University of Georgia Alumni Association will celebrate alumni, friends and faculty during its 80th annual Alumni Awards Luncheon April 21 at noon in the Tate Student Center Grand Hall.

“Our call to action for UGA alumni is to connect, hire and give, and these award recipients exemplify what it looks like to heed that call,”said Meredith Gurley Johnson, executive director of the UGA Alumni Association. “They have identified ways in which they can promote student success and provide financial and volunteer support for the great things happening on campus.”

This year’s honoree awards include the: • 2017 Alumni Merit Award, the UGA Alumni Association’s oldest honor, will be presented to Kathelen Van Blarcum Amos and Kessel D. Stelling Jr. Amos graduated with her Juris Doctor degree from the UGA School of Law in 1982. After working in private practice for three years, she joined Aflac in 1985, where she went on to become the company’s first female executive vice president.

As chairman and CEO of Synovus, ­Stelling leads a talented team of commercial, retail, corporate and financial management services professionals in building longterm relationships. He began his career

with ­Synovus in 2006 when the company purchased Riverside Bancshares Inc. and merged it with Bank of North Georgia. He graduated from the Terry College of Business with a bachelor’s degree in finance in 1978.

• 2017 Family of the Year Award. The family of Gayle and Jimmy Alston will receive the Family of Year Award, which is presented to a family who demonstrates a history of loyalty to UGA. They bring recognition and honor back to UGA through outstanding leadership and service to the university and the community at large. Gayle and Jimmy met as freshmen at UGA, where she graduated in 1965 with a bachelor’s degree in English and he graduated in 1966 with a bachelor’s degree in advertising.

Following in the footsteps of his father Philip, Jimmy served a term on the board of the UGA Foundation where he chaired the Foundation Fellows Committee. The family’s John N. Goddard Foundation also established the first UGA School of Law fellow scholarship in 2016, the Philip H. Alston Jr. Distinguished Law Fellows, which is modeled after the university’s prestigious Foundation Fellows program for undergraduates.

• 2017 Faculty Service Award. Loch K. Johnson is receiving the 2017 Faculty Service Award. First presented in 1969, the award recognizes current or former UGA faculty and staff who have distinguished themselves

WEEKLY READER

in service to the university.

Johnson is Regents’ Professor of International Affairs at UGA and a Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor. He is the author of over 200 articles, along with more than 30 books on U.S. national security.

• 2017 Friend of UGA Award. The late Cora Nunnally Miller will be honored with the 2017 Friend of UGA Award. The award is given to non-UGA graduates whose professional or public service has greatly assisted the university.

Miller anonymously contributed more than $33 million to the UGA Foundation throughout her lifetime and granted permission for the university to share her name only after her death.

• 2017 Young Alumni Award. The Young Alumni Award will be presented to AJ Green. A native of Summerville, South Carolina, where he attended Summerville High School, Green hosts football camps for youth in the area. In 2011, Green was drafted by the NFL’s Cincinnati Bengals where he is a wide receiver.

In 2015, he endowed the AJ Green Family Football Scholarship, which will provide support for a student-athlete on the UGA football team in perpetuity, as well as the AJ Green Family Scholarships, earmarked to support two need-based scholarships to UGA students in perpetuity. Green lives in Atlanta with his wife and son during the off-season.

ABOUT COLUMNS

Tenth edition of business textbook published

Business & Society: Ethics, Sustainability & Stakeholder Management 10th Edition

By Archie B. Carroll, Jill Brown and Ann K. Buchholtz Cengage Bound Book: $249.95 MindTap Digital Access: $110 eBook: $73.49

from page 1

author of Eugene Odum: Ecosystem Ecologist and Environmentalist. “He spoke intensely and passionately about saving the environment, but he used his model as a way of thinking about the world.”

Fundamentals of Ecology, which Odum published in 1953 with his younger brother and fellow ecologist Howard, was the discipline’s only textbook for more than a decade. This book was the first to suggest that scientists approach nature “top-down.”

Odum pioneered the concept of the ecosystem, the holistic understanding of the environment as a system of interlocking biotic communities. But his ideas were not simply theoretical concepts; he leaped at every opportunity to put his ideas into practice.

With a small team of graduate students and a modest grant of $10,000 from the Atomic Energy Commission, Odum began work at what would later become UGA’s Savannah River Ecology Laboratory. Now spanning more than 300 square miles, this facility still serves as a unique outdoor lab where researchers study energy technologies and the effects of human activities on the natural environment.

He was also instrumental in developing the University of Georgia Marine Institute, where he began a long-term analysis of salt marsh ecology and coastal food webs that inspired generations of wetland scientists.

Twenty years after his colleagues laughed him out of a departmental meeting for suggesting that his class become part of the required biology curriculum, the board of regents granted approval for UGA’s Institute of Ecology, with Odum serving as its first director. In 1970, he became the first UGA faculty member to be elected to the National Academy of Sciences. With his brother, Howard, he received the Crafoord Prize, which is widely considered the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for bioscientists.

Odum produced a seemingly endless stream of books, international conference talks and journal articles, but he always held a special place in his heart for his textbook.

Now in its fifth edition, Fundamentals of Ecology has been translated into more than a dozen languages.

Odum passed away at his Athens home in 2002 at the age of 88. In 2007, the Institute of Ecology was renamed in his honor as the Eugene P. Odum School of Ecology.

In a tribute to her late friend, Craige noted that he gave much of his accumulated wealth, derived largely from book royalties and awards, to UGA’s ecology program.

“But he gave something even more valuable to the people who knew him,” she wrote. “He taught us a way to understand the world as a giant ecosystem whose parts are all interconnected, and he instilled in us an environmentalist conscience.”

CYBERSIGHTS Archie Carroll, professor emeritus of management in the Terry College of Business, has released the 10th edition of Business & Society: Ethics, Sustainability and Stakeholder Management, a textbook used to teach courses in business ethics, corporate social responsibility and business and society. The book was co-authored by Jill Brown, an associate professor of management at Bentley University who also received her doctorate at UGA, and the late Ann Buchholtz, a professor of leadership and ethics at Rutgers University.

Business & Society aims to demonstrate the importance of business ethics, sustainability and stakeholder management and to teach students how effective business decision makers can balance and protect the interests of various stakeholders, including investors, employees, consumers, the community and the environment.

The 10th edition includes content that further emphasizes the social, legal, political and ethical responsibilities of today’s businesses to both external and internal stakeholder groups.

7

Columns is available to the community by ­subscription for an annual fee of $20 (secondclass 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

Site helps maintain brand consistency

brand.uga.edu

Brand.uga.edu was created to facilitate consistent internal communication throughout the university, whether about prospective students, alumni, donors or other stakeholders.

Maintained by the Division of Marketing & Communications and continuously updated, the site defines and describes the UGA brand and illustrates how its parts

work together to create a distinctive look, feel and voice that people will immediately recognize.

The brand toolkit gives guidance on editorial and visual representations and offers examples of how to bring the brand to life.

The site provides direct access to downloads, training modules and practical advice on how to craft content within the brand.

Art Director Jackie Baxter Roberts Photo Editor Dorothy Kozlowski Senior Writer Aaron Hale Communications Coordinator Krista Richmond 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.

8 April 17, 2017 columns.uga.edu

HONORS

LEADERSHIP from page 1 s­ tudents and director of the Tate Student Center in the Division of Student Affairs. At UGA since 2004, Barham oversees management of the Campus Reservations, Events & Technical Services, the Center for Student Activities and Involvement, Print & Copy Services, UGA Card Office, Legion Pool & Field, and Tate Operations. She serves as a member of the Dean of Students administrative team and on committees such as the Behavior Assessment Response Council, Sexual Assault Response Team and UGA Women’s Coordinating Council. She is also part of the advising team for the Student Government Association.

• Sadie Brown, director of fiscal affairs for the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. Brown, who has worked at UGA since 2002, is responsible for core finance and administrative support to the one of the university’s largest organizations. She manages the college budget of approximately $225 million including budget development, position management, preparation of fiscal and personnel documents, studies and reports for use in management decisions, external accountability and advising CAES administration.

• Julie Cheney, senior director of alumni operations in the Division of Development and Alumni Relations. Cheney, who started at the Institute of Higher Education in 1999, left to work at UNC-Chapel Hill and returned to UGA in 2007. She currently leads a full spectrum of finance and administration obligations for the Office of Alumni Relations, oversees analytic solutions for measuring alumni engagement, manages personnel processes from hiring to employee engagement and works in collaboration and consultation with UGA’s school, college and unit alumni directors.

• Carla Dennis, director of administrative services and communications in University Housing, has been employed at UGA since 2000. In addition to providing leadership for the administrative services and communications operations for University Housing, she oversees marketing and public relations, information technology, business and human resources, and assignments and occupancy management aspects for Housing.

• Anjali Dougherty, associate director of Internal Auditing, joined UGA in 2006. As a university auditor, she works with an array of constituents at all levels of the organization to help them develop better financial and operational processes and think more critically about their approach to problem solving and also is involved in the risk assessment process for the university, the development of the annual audit plan, and the training of audit staff.

• Melanie Ford, director of construction in the Office of University Architects, began working at UGA in 2007. Her main

r­esponsibilities include overseeing the construction of all capital construction projects and major renovations. She is involved with the day-to-day interface with the construction managers hired on campus. She also provides guidance to construction managers and University Architect project managers for compliance of construction with applicable codes and UGA’s design guidelines.

• Heather McCormick, regional director of development in the Division of Development and Alumni Relations.With UGA since 2012, McCormick builds and maintains relationships with alumni and friends in an effort to raise leadership and major gifts for the university. She also represents UGA’s Development and Alumni Relations Office in a major gift capacity representing all of the university’s schools, colleges and units over an expansive territory of the U.S. • Emily Saunders, director of alumni relations for the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, has been at UGA since 2007. She connects Warnell alumni with current students, faculty and employers and encourages their engagement with the university. She also manages Warnell’s regional events, homecoming activities, annual giving campaigns, mentor program, professional communications with alumni and other creative programs aimed at keeping the school’s constituents engaged.

• Megan Ward, administrative director of the New Media Institute in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, has been employed at UGA since 2013 and oversees the operations of the New Media Institute. In addition to teaching undergraduate and graduate New Media and Emerging Media courses,Ward also serves as licensee for TEDxUGA, leading all curation and organizing efforts for the annual event.

• Cara Winston Simmons, director of the Student Success and Advising Center in the College of Family and Consumer Sciences, has worked at UGA since 2003. She is responsible for directing the center’s activities around recruitment, orientation, advising, career development, student involvement and leadership, experiential learning and student programming. She also provides oversight and secures funding for The Bridge, a four-part transition series for new FACS students, and the UGA Hygiene Closet.

“The growth of the Women’s Leadership Initiative to include a range of programming for faculty, staff and students underscores this institution’s commitment to helping individuals reach their full potential,” Whitten said.

“An extraordinary group of professionals has been selected for the inaugural cohort of the Women’s Staff Leadership Institute, and they are poised to make an even greater impact on the University of Georgia.”

Bulletin Board Bulldog Bucks changes

Bulldog Bucks is returning to an on-campus program this summer and will no longer be available off campus. Bulldog Bucks will continue to operate on campus with restructuring to limit future losses. The last day to make off-campus purchases with Bulldog Bucks will be May 31.

Customers may continue to use Bulldog Bucks as a payment method at participating on-campus locations.

Customers still will be able to deposit money into their Bulldog Bucks account and monitor activity via the Bulldog Bucks website and through kiosks located at select locations on campus. A full list of participating on-campus merchants will be available after May 31 at https://bulldogbucks.uga.edu/campus-vendors.

Contact Bulldog Bucks at bbucks@uga.edu or ­706-542-8257 with account questions.

Fulbright application workshop

The Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program offers U.S. faculty, administrators and professionals grants to lecture or conduct international research in a variety of academic and professional fields. The application deadline for 2018-2019 academic year is Aug. 1.

A representative from the Institute of International Education, which administers the Fulbright program,

from page 1

be holding special recognition ceremonies for ­honored students in their disciplines.

For more information, go to http://calendar. uga.edu/.

Honors Week will begin April 17 with the 26th annual Public Service and Outreach Meeting and Awards Luncheon. It will be held from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. in the Georgia Center for Continuing Education Hotel and Conference Center.

The meeting and luncheon are open to the public, but online registration is required at http://t.uga.edu/Es. During morning and afternoon sessions, faculty and staff will have the opportunity to attend professional development sessions. A luncheon at noon in the Magnolia Ballroom will honor the 2017 Public Service and Outreach award recipients. The 2016-17 Service-Learning Fellows’ poster presentations, highlighting the courses and projects they have developed during their yearlong fellowship with the Office of Service-Learning, will be on display.

The Faculty Recognition Banquet also will be held April 17 in Mahler Auditorium of the Georgia Center. The reception for the invitation-only event will begin at a 5:45 p.m. reception; dinner will be served at 6:30 p.m.

Sponsored by the senior vice president for academic affairs and provost, the event will recognize the winners of this year’s awards for teaching excellence, including the Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professorships and the Richard B. Russell Awards for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, as well as faculty and graduate students who will be honored for outstanding teaching.

The Presidential Honors Week Luncheon will be held April 19 with registration and photos at noon and the luncheon at 12:30 p.m.

PEABODY from page 1 FUSION after party. The deal includes exclusive content in the print magazine and on EW.com. Supporting sponsors of the 76th annual Peabody Awards ceremony include the Emerson Collective, an organization focused on education, immigration reform, the environment and other social justice initiatives, and The Coca-Cola Co. Jones is an actor, director, producer, screenwriter, musician and activist. She currently stars in the hit TBS series Angie Tribeca in which she plays the title role, in addition to working behind the camera as executive producer and a director of some episodes.

A multi-hyphenate in the entertainment

will be on campus to conduct workshops for UGA faculty interested in applying to the program.

The workshops will provide an introduction to Fulbright and offer tips on identifying grants and preparing a compelling application. Two identical workshops will be offered, and faculty may choose which session they wish to attend. Both workshops will be held April 20.

The first one is at 10:30 a.m. in Hirsch Hall (Room 355) of the School of Law. The second workshop is at 1 p.m. in Room 141 of the Coverdell Center.

RSVP online at http://oie.uga.edu/fulbright/. Faculty who cannot attend either session may fill out the RSVP form and indicate that they would like to be invited to future Fulbright-related events. More information on the Fulbright Scholar program, including the 20182019 catalog of awards is at http://www.cies.org/.

Spring pottery sale

Hosted by the Office of the President, the invitation-only recognition luncheon at the President’s House will honor First Honor Graduates and Student Government Association leaders, as well as student recipients of the Presidential Award of Excellence and national scholarship winners.

At 5:30 p.m. that same day, the Honors Program Banquet will be held at the Classic Center. Dinner for the invitation-only event will be held at 6:30 p.m. During the banquet, Honors Program students who have graduated in the summer or fall of 2016 as well as the graduating class of May 2017 will be recognized. Recognitions presented at the banquet include the Jere W. Morehead Award, which is given to an exceptional alumna/alumnus or friend of the Honors Program.

On April 20, the Research Awards Banquet will be held in Mahler Hall of the Georgia Center for Continuing Education.

The reception for the invitation-only event will begin at 5:30 p.m.; dinner will be served at 6:30 p.m. Sponsored by the University of Georgia Research Foundation, Inc., the 38th annual Research Awards Banquet recognizes excellence in UGA research and scholarly creativity. Awards are given annually to honor outstanding faculty and graduate students.

The Alumni Awards Luncheon (see story, page 7) will be held April 21 at noon in Grand Hall of the Tate Student Center.

The UGA Alumni Awards celebrate distinguished alumni, faculty members and friends of UGA. The Alumni Merit Award, Young Alumni Award, Faculty Service Award, Family of the Year Award and Friend of UGA Award recognize those who demonstrate dedication to the University of Georgia. Registration for the luncheon, which is required, can be completed online at t.uga.edu/34E.

The UGA Ceramic Student Organization will hold a spring pottery sale April 26-27 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the first floor lobby of the Lamar Dodd School of Art, 270 River Road.

Work on sale will include hand-built sculptures for home and garden as well as functional pottery: teapots, mugs, boxes, plates, vases and bowls. All work was made by ceramic students or faculty. Prices will range from $10 and up.

space, Jones was nominated this past year for an NAACP Image Award for co-writing the first episode of Netflix’s third season of Black Mirror. She also developed Claws on TNT, a nail salon turned money-laundering-front dramedy, set to premiere this summer. On April 21, she will be releasing a docu-series on Netflix, Hot Girls Wanted: Turned On, a continued exploration of themes discovered in her Emmy-nominated documentary in 2015, Hot Girls Wanted. The series will focus on society’s relationship with sex and technology. Fans grew to love Jones from her roles on The Office and Parks and Recreation and through the romantic film that she wrote and starred in, Celeste and Jesse Forever.

Proceeds from the ceramic sale will go to support a student educational field trip to a national ceramic conference and to help bring resident artists to campus.

Hourly parking is available at the Performing Arts parking deck, which is located next to the Performing Arts Center on River Road.

For more information, email Ted Saupe at tsaupe@ uga.edu.

Faculty Writing Retreat

Write@UGA will hold a Faculty Writing Retreat May 17-18 from 9 a.m. until 3:30 p.m. in the Reading Room of the Miller Learning Center.

Faculty members may elect to register for just one or both days. Breakfast, lunch, refreshments and snacks will be provided along with a comfortable and quiet space for participants to work. Writing faculty also will be available should participants wish to discuss a project in process.

For more information, email Lindsey Harding (lharding@uga.edu) or Elizabeth Davis (eadavis@uga. edu). Registration, which is open until May 7, may be completed online at https://ugeorgia.qualtrics.com/jfe/ form/SV_bkoPTn2ruvdDlPv. Bulletin Board is limited to information that may pertain to a majority of faculty and staff members.

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Richard B. Russell Awards

Three UGA faculty members will receive Richard B. Russell Awards for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching April 17 at the 2017 Faculty Recognition Banquet at the Georgia Center for Continuing Education Hotel and Conference Center. Russell Awards recognize outstanding teaching by faculty early in their academic careers. Award recipients receive $7,500. The Richard B. Russell Foundation in Atlanta supports the program.

Chad Osburn

Peter Frey

Kelly Dyer

Sonia Hernandez

Associate Professor of Genetics Franklin College of Arts and Sciences

Associate Professor Joint appointment in the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources and the College of Veterinary Medicine’s Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study

When Kelly Dyer took her first evolutionary biology class in college, she was instantly hooked. While many science classes required a lot of memorization, genetics and evolution sparked her interest, and she realized that she had a penchant for problem solving and independent thinking.

Now, as a genetics researcher, professor and mentor, she has the opportunity to introduce her own students to this field.

She strives not only to help her students actively understand and solve problems in the field of genetics, but also help students learn valuable lessons beyond that scope—teaching them written and oral communication, imploring them to take on independent research projects and encouraging them to network and present their research at conferences.

Dyer’s research uses Drosophila flies as a model to understand how organisms adapt to their environment and how one species splits into two. Flies are a system that allows even unexperienced researchers to easily assimilate and learn basic research methods, so it’s not long until students can address their own questions. As a result, since she joined the UGA faculty in 2007, Dyer has mentored nearly 50 undergraduate students, as well as high school students and teachers, conducting research projects in her lab.

“Almost immediately, she encouraged me to develop my own experiences and take charge of my own project,” said former student Erin Giglio. “She helped me to place my experiments in the broader context of the field, but she always encouraged me to be independent and self-reliant, the prime director of my own work. She also created a lab culture that encouraged its members to support each other, allowing new students to benefit from the skill of more experienced students.”

Similarly, her classroom methods encourage students to be problem solvers and critical thinkers, all while developing important communication skills. In an evolutionary genetics class that she redesigned to include writing intensive methods, students completed labs that replicate classic experiments and then build on this by designing their own experiments.

In addition to these methods, Dyer knows that helping students learn through real-world and contemporary concepts is one of the best ways to engage students to want to learn more about a subject. For instance, she has used dogs as an example to help demonstrate key concepts of evolutionary genetics in both introductory and advanced courses.

Key to becoming a good professor, said Dyer, was having good mentors. Her experiences learning from UGA faculty colleagues, including being a Lilly Teaching Fellow, really helped her become the teacher she is today. Interacting with other professors, often from disciplines outside of the sciences, has been a tremendous source of ideas and inspiration. The culture among faculty encourages a strong mentoring environment.

“Faculty members take mentoring seriously,” she said. “We are here for each other, and we are here for our students.”

—Jessica Luton

Whether fluttering across her classroom imitating the longtailed manakin’s courtship rituals or leading students across the steamy hills of Costa Rican rainforests on nocturnal hikes, Sonia Hernandez leads by doing.

She feels most effective as an educator in the field. It is harder work than traditional classroom teaching—from the long hours and the logistics of international travel to the organized chaos of real-world research—but worth every minute, she said.

In addition to multiple ecology and wildlife disease courses, she also teaches Conservation Medicine and Biology every year in Costa Rica, the only abroad field-based class of its kind in the nation offered to undergraduate students.

Her team wakes up at 6 a.m., works hands-on projects all day and falls asleep exhausted and dirty, but very happy.

Hernandez posits her teaching style from the position of the student. Teaching applied ecological sciences requires attention to detail and a tender patience, she said, but also provides a critical opportunity to inspire student ownership and future wildlife and veterinary leaders. Her teaching philosophy boils down to a dynamic recipe: promote multidisciplinary education that fosters in-the-field experiential learning, add commitment to lifelong mentorship and pledge to support diversity in wildlife conservation and veterinary fields.

Students say her enthusiasm for conservation is contagious and inspires a commitment to wildlife ecology. Her colleagues are awe-inspired by her ability to dovetail wildlife disease research and exotic animal medicine, and infuse the technical curriculum with passion and hands-on teaching.

“Sometimes elite research scientists prefer to exclusively conduct research and have neither the time nor aptitude for relating their academic training and exciting research to students, especially undergraduates,” said Susan Wilde, an associate professor in Warnell.

Hernandez’s willingness and enthusiasm for teaching are fostered by her commitment to continuing her own education, Wilde said. Hernandez not only encourages students to get out of the classroom and challenge themselves, but she also continues to challenge herself by taking advantage of UGA’s Center for Teaching and Learning, which offers opportunities to enhance teaching effectiveness.

“Sonia opened the door for me to wildlife diseases, ecology, ornithology, perils of working in the field, the glamour of data entry and analysis, molecular biology, and the cultural awakening of living with a family in rural Costa Rica,” said former student Dr. Rajesh Joshi, who was conferred a DVM from UGA in 2012. “It changed my way of thinking … That is the power of a great teacher.”

—Erica Hensley

Dorothy Kozlowski

John Mativo Associate Professor of Workforce Education College of Education With students in both the College of Education and the College of Engineering, John Mativo’s influence and enthusiasm for teaching extend across the STEM fields and into the community where students are benefiting from their work on real-world industry projects.

“My teaching philosophy is simple: Inspire students to dig deeper in what they are learning,” said Mativo, who joined UGA’s faculty in 2007. “In presenting real-life examples, students can bridge the unknown to the known.”

Hired to help develop a new engineering design program in education, Mativo teaches graduate-level courses in Global Innovation, Technology and Careers; Evaluation of Workforce Programs; and Action Research in the College of Education in addition to Dynamics, Computational Engineering Methods, and Logic Design in the College of Engineering. Additionally, he instructs undergraduate students in two First-Year Odyssey courses, Alternative Energy and Sustainability as well as Product Design and Innovation.

“Dr. Mativo’s achievements in his teaching, research and service attest to his ability to fulfill the land-grant university mission,” said Rob Branch, a professor of learning, design and technology and head of the career and information studies department. “Several students have recognized him as a mentor and indicated him as a prime reason for the successful completion of their respective academic degree programs.”

Many of Mativo’s courses contain a service component for students to actively engage in the community. As a result, students are not only immersed in experiential learning, but they also experience the benefits of service and outreach.

In 2011, his dedication to this approach inspired his students to design, install and commission a wireless computer network for the Athens Nurses Clinic, a facility that provides free health care to homeless and low-income residents in Athens, so medical practitioners could share information about their patients more rapidly and efficiently.

The course materials, along with the students’ enthusiasm and knowledge, helped guide the development of the network design. After just two months, the project was approved by the clinic, and the team officially established the wireless network.

Mativo’s goals as an educator and a researcher are twofold: To enhance the way students engage in learning today and to advance energy harvesting systems that can withstand vibratory environments. He has played a significant role in developing an integrative STEM curriculum using robotics to teach science within existing middle school curricula.

“Students come to us with different backgrounds, and we have to figure out what they know and what they don’t and work from that point toward meeting the learning objectives of the course so students can perform exceedingly well,” said Mativo. “By exercising respect to one another, we can attain great achievements.”

—Kathryn Kao

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Josiah Meigs Teaching Professors Five faculty members will be honored as Meigs Professors April 17 at the 2017 Faculty Recognition Banquet at the Georgia Center. The professorship is the university’s highest recognition for instruction at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Meigs Professors receive a permanent salary increase of $6,000 and a one-year fund of $1,000 for academic support.

James E. ‘Jeb’ Byers Professor and Associate Dean for Administrative Affairs and Research Odum School of Ecology

Peter Frey

According to Jeb Byers, effective teaching requires excellent organization and command of the material, enthusiasm and—most importantly—immersive engagement.

“It is insufficient to talk about a subject,” he said. “Students must experience it.”

Whether teaching a 200-person lecture course, mentoring an undergraduate ecology major or advising a doctoral student, Byers puts this philosophy into practice, and students respond. Their experience might be in the form of a field trip, a laboratory experiment or a classroom exercise where they play the role of a pregnant barnacle that must develop strategies for maximizing the survival of larvae—but the result is transformative.

Byers, a marine ecologist, joined the Odum School in 2008 after seven years at the University of New Hampshire.

Shortly after arriving he became graduate coordinator, a position he held until 2016. In that role, he led a revision of the graduate curriculum and introduced a new graduate seminar course in cross-disciplinary ecology.

Under his watch, Odum School students received

Markus Crepaz Professor of Political Science and Department Head School of Public and International Affairs

Peter Frey

If a phrase could accurately describe the effect of Markus Crepaz’s teaching, it would be: a transformative experience. Crepaz makes his students active participants in the learning process.

In 2008, Crepaz co-created the Stellenbosch Study Abroad program in South Africa. It is a program that students credit with changing their lives as well as their passions. Under his leadership, Crepaz helped to set up a partnership with the organization Vision Afrika that allows students to interact with children in an after-school program in a nearby township as part of their required coursework.

This community engagement is the heart of experiential learning as it allows UGA students to catch a glimpse into the challenges South Africa has faced in trying to overcome apartheid. This Politics of Development course brings to life issues such as poverty, income inequality and racial discrimination that otherwise may seem like abstractions in the lecture halls at UGA. “Making personal connections, establishing meaningful relationships and employing all senses is what experiential

John Maerz Professor of Vertebrate Ecology Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources

Dorothy Kozlowski

Students in John Maerz’s First-Year Odyssey seminar courses in animal behavior and herpetology quickly discover that learning is a “participatory sport” in his classroom.

Maerz has been teaching for more than a decade, and in that time, he realized the more memorable he can make a particular lesson, the more ingrained it will become in his students.

“Learning is just memory,” Maerz said. “If you learn something briefly and don’t reinforce it, that memory will wither and die. But if we take that and we either practice it repetitively or make it highly memorable—so memorable that you remember that day you learned something because it was so out of the norm—then that memory is reinforced.”

It’s an atypical approach to teaching large lecture classes, but it’s earned Maerz high praise from students and colleagues alike.

“Whether you (are) searching for plastic lizards in Whitehall to learn about calculating population estimates, drawing anurans (tailless amphibians) in class to think about how form tells about function or writing your own key to

14 NSF Graduate Research Fellowships—36 percent of those received at UGA, the highest percentage of any unit on campus.

Furthermore, all 12 of his completed doctoral and master’s students—he is currently advising five more—have gone on to land competitive jobs at institutions like Boston University, the University of Washington and NOAA. Even while serving as graduate coordinator and running a successful research program, Byers has had a major impact on undergraduate education. He teaches courses in ecology and marine biology, including an Honors course, Ecosystems of the World, and a First-Year Odyssey Seminar, Ecology of Invasive Species, that he developed. He is a core faculty member in the NSF-sponsored Population Biology of Infectious Diseases Research Experience for Undergraduates program at UGA, has advised 15 Honors students and mentored more than 60 undergraduates in directed research.

Byers also has shared his teaching methodology with UGA colleagues, co-facilitating a popular Faculty Learning Community, “Nexus Classroom: Where Teaching and Research Coalesce,” through the Center for Teaching and Learning in 2014-2015.

“Full immersion and engagement empowers students,” Byers said. “It also invigorates me and continues to intensify my passion for teaching.”

—Beth Gavrilles learning is all about,” said Crepaz. “Being there with the students at this nexus between their experiences and my teaching makes me an interpreter of their daily observations.

It is perhaps my favorite part of teaching. When personal experience triggers a desire for wanting to understand, teaching becomes a collective endeavor that weaves seamlessly between theories, observations and practice.”

Crepaz constantly challenges his students’ world views and presses them to eliminate personal bias by looking at the world with depth and applying what they’ve learned to the outside world, something his students appreciate both abroad and in the classroom.

“I can’t emphasize enough the impact [Crepaz] had not only on my education, but also on my world view and ambition ... when I came home from South Africa that summer, I returned with a newfound passion for human rights and development; since then it has been my goal to advocate for those limited by the often inescapable cycle of poverty,” said Sydney Stringer, a 2011 Stellenbosch participant.

Similarly, students have experienced Crepaz’s engaging, passionate teaching style on campus in courses such as his upper division Politics, Film and Literature and graduate research design courses. His challenge for students to see past the obvious is posed within the classroom, often asking questions such as “so what?” and “what’s the puzzle?” earning him the affectionate nickname of “Dr. Crepuzzle.”

—Deshonna Johnson

turtles of Georgia, he never simply lets his students sit back and listen,” said Theresa Stratmann, a former student who is now pursuing her doctorate.

Maerz is the kind of professor who is immortalized in movies and television shows but rarely exists in the real world, Stratmann said. His classes are challenging for students, with some syllabi warning that his classes will require much out-of-classroom work and more writing than might typically be expected in a science course.

“Writing is such a fundamental skill; it’s a way of thinking through problems,” Maerz said. “Writing forces you to condense your ideas, line them up logically and defend them with clear evidence.”

Maerz’s end goal for his students isn’t just a beautifully polished paper but learning the process involved in researching, writing and revising one’s work.

“I never see my class as the end all, like you’re going to learn how to do X here,” he said. “What I’m going to do is give you a foundation, get you thinking about it and get you excited about it.”

Maerz is more than just a teacher for his students. He’s a mentor who helps them discover their passions and instills the confidence they need to achieve their goals.

“If you find something that feels really intuitive to you, really gets you excited and you seem to understand it more than your average bear would, then go farther with it,” Marez said. “Pursue it.”

—Leigh Beeson

2017 HONORS & AWARDS Annette Poulsen Sterne Professor of Banking and Finance Terry College of Business

Andrew Davis Tucker

The term finance does not adequately cover what ­Annette Poulsen, the Sterne Professor of Banking and Finance, teaches to her students every day. Far beyond textbook problems, Poulsen is a dedicated instructor whose lessons delve into critical thinking and distill complex issues down to their core.

“Dr. Poulsen’s impact on me was not confined to the four walls of Brooks Hall or the syllabus. She had an exceptional way of relating to and inspiring her students,” wrote former student Morgan McCorkle Redd. “Not only did I begin to keep up with financial news, gain an interest in case studies around my degree and get honest advice about my career—I also ran my first marathon, in part because of professor Poulsen.”

Poulsen’s supportive demeanor, good advice and availability outside the classroom made the deepest impression on students—from First-Year Odyssey freshmen to doctoral candidates.

Her capacity to inspire students and her confidence in their abilities are a constant refrain in her teaching evaluations, as is her hallmark of drawing examples from current

Karen Russell Jim Kennedy New Media Professor and Associate Professor of Public Relations Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication

Andrew Davis Tucker

Karen Russell begins each new session of her Online Reputation Management course discussing the difference between reputation and character. She is well qualified to lead this conversation considering that she has a powerhouse online reputation that frequently lands her on lists of top Tweeters. More importantly, her character as a professor makes lasting impacts on her students who stay in touch years after their studies and influences public relations educators and professionals alike.

In addition to teaching students about the power and pitfalls of social media, Russell also teaches public relations campaigns courses, as well as graduate level courses in media history, public relations management and the department’s 4+1 master’s degree program.

Russell not only inspires her students, but she also has had a major impact on the field of public relations education, too. She authored one of the first blogs in the industry, “Teaching PR,” and recently wrapped up six years editing The Journal of PR Research, a journal for PR theory development.

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events that relate to the course material.

Poulsen’s commitment to student learning runs deep.

Since she began overseeing the $1.4 million Student ­Managed Investment Fund, the program utterly transformed from a professor-led exercise to a groundbreaking experiment in business pedagogy.

“Instead of lecturing and controlling the course, she innovatively passed the baton to student leadership, empowering them to lead, organize and conduct the normal course of business. That led to an amazing breakthrough in the learning experience that will forever set this program apart from others in the country and, more importantly, impact every student who has the opportunity to experience SMIF,” said former student Mitch Reiner.

Poulsen has developed new and interesting courses to serve students across a variety of platforms. She created a new course for Terry students studying abroad in China that focused on cultural understanding and China’s nontraditional market economy. For the Terry@Oxford program, she incorporated extensive writing work into her class to reflect the kind of coursework done with Oxford tutors.

She also was instrumental in developing the college’s first hybrid MBA program, taught some of its first Executive MBA students and was a leader in designing the first Online MBA program at Terry and has helped develop courses for the Online BBA program as well.

—Matt Weeks

Russell’s teaching also influenced Marie Hardin during her doctoral studies at Grady College. Hardin serves as dean of the College of Communications at Penn State.

“Dr. Russell is a deeply caring and engaging teacher who seeks to connect her material to students,” Hardin said. “She focuses on learning and on making knowledge relevant and accessible. She asks students to participate in the learning process, and she holds them accountable for doing so.”

Cory McCollum, a 2011 graduate, echoes those themes of engagement and self-learning. “There was a feeling that you were walking into a living room more than a classroom,” McCollum said. “Learning from Dr. Russell throughout the entire semester felt like a conversation. It was like she had tricked me into learning. How wonderful is that?”

Russell, who has taught at Grady College since earning her doctorate in 1993, said the ever-changing field and classroom conversations keep her motivated. While she hopes to prepare her students professionally, she also hopes some of her classroom lessons become life lessons.

“It’s about collaboration and teamwork—that’s how it actually works in the real world,” Russell said. “Invariably a student will complain that so-and-so didn’t pull their weight. My standard response is ‘life is a group project.’

There aren’t very many things that they are going to do where they aren’t going to depend on other people doing their part, as well.”

—Sarah Freeman

Research Awards

INVENTOR OF THE YEAR AWARD

ENTREPRENEUR OF THE YEAR AWARD

The Inventor’s Award is for a unique and innovative discovery that has made an impact on the community.

The Academic Entrepreneur of the Year Award recognizes a faculty member who has started a company based on UGA research.

Paul Efland

Biao He, Georgia Research Alliance Distinguished Investigator and holder of the Fred C. Davison Distinguished University Chair in Veterinary Medicine, focuses on defining viral pathogenesis at the molecular level and investigates how viral proteins can overcome host defense.

He has filed eight invention disclosures, ranging from a parainfluenza virus (PIV5) vaccine platform system to a novel mumps vaccine to a method of inducing innate immunity, leading to one issued U.S. patent, four pending U.S. patents and more than a dozen pending foreign patent applications.

He collaborates with researchers across UGA on a variety of projects including examining the efficacy of the PIV5 platform as a vaccine vector against a spectrum of viral and other disease agents including HIV, influenza, tuberculosis and malaria, and as a novel anti-cancer therapy. The PIV5 vaccine platform system has been licensed or optioned to several major pharmaceutical companies for product development.

He also is exploring commercial development of his inventions through two startup companies: CyanVac, a GRA Venture-funded company, and Wuhan Saitekang.

Richard Meagher is a Distinguished Research Professor of Genetics whose wide-ranging molecular research includes plant molecular genetics, RNA and purine metabolism, chromatin remodeling, obesity, and most recently, cell-type specific epigenetic reprogramming in blood, brain and adipose tissues.

He has co-founded several biotech companies including Applied Phytogenetics and Abeome, a UGA Innovation Gateway Incubator resident company focused on the highthroughput selection, analysis and synthesis of monoclonal antibodies for the therapeutic market. Meagher and Abeome were recognized with the 2016 Innovation of the Year Award by Georgia Bio for the development and commercialization of the AbeoMouse™, a transgenic mouse capable of producing B-cells that surface display secreted antibodies.

Meagher’s most recent entrepreneurial efforts are focused on exploring the commercial potential of an immunoliposome approach to inhibit adipogenesis as a means of combating obesity. These products could potentially reduce obese patients’ risk of heart disease, stroke, Type 2 diabetes, dementia and cancer.

Peter Frey

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2017 HONORS & AWARDS

Distinguished Research Professor The title of Distinguished Research Professor is awarded to faculty who are internationally recognized for their original contributions to knowledge and whose work promises to foster continued creativity in their discipline.

Andrew Davis Tucker

John Drake, professor in the Odum School of Ecology, is a globally recognized authority on the ecology of infectious diseases. Described by an external evaluator as “possibly the leading ecologist of his generation,” Drake conducts research in the interdisciplinary field of population biology, crossing boundaries between ecology, evolutionary biology and epidemiology.

His contributions include new theoretical results, original experiments, and the development of new quantitative methods for reconciling theory and data.

He developed a novel experimental system that showed for the first time that characteristic statistical fluctuations known as “critical slowing down” may be used to devise early warning signals of environmental deterioration. He developed a new approach to model-independent early-warning systems for emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases.

Peter Frey

Jessica Kissinger, professor of genetics, is a globally recognized molecular biologist and world expert in bio-computational research whose contributions to the field of eukaryotic pathogen research have helped transform how pathogen research is conducted internationally. An expert on the evolution of parasite genomes, she conducted the first systematic survey of gene transfer in the Apicomplexa, upending prevailing thought. Her subsequent series of papers on the Apicomplexa also opened a new window into genome evolution and the biology of several other important diseasecausing organisms.

Her most recognized and sustained contribution to science has been the cocreation, maintenance and enhancement of integrated omics tools to facilitate research on eukaryotic pathogens. The databases and program resources have been designated an NIH Bioinformatics Resource Center.

Peter Frey

Tianming Liu, professor of computer science, is an internationally recognized researcher in the field of brain imaging and mapping.

In addition to building a fundamental understanding of the brain, his research has enabled understanding of the relationship between brain anatomy and function, with applications to medical and surgical interventions, and the treatment of psychological and psychiatric disorders.

Highlights of Liu’s distinguished record include the discovery of a novel mechanism of cerebral cortex folding, which offers a general framework for describing and modeling the anatomical connectional and functional architectures of the brain. His research group developed a map of the human brain named DICCCOL, which shows great promise as a new guide to the inner workings of the body’s most complex and critical organ.

Andrew Davis Tucker

Peggy Ozias-Akins, professor of horticulture, is widely recognized as a world expert on apomixis, the asexual production of seeds in plants. Although the phenomenon was intensely studied for decades, there was little to show for these efforts. Ozias-Akins took a pioneering approach and applied a combination of forward genetics, genetic engineering and genomics to the problem.

She was among the first to ever localize apomixis to a chromosomal region, and later she found the first plant gene associated with apomixis. Her work lays the foundation to begin research into systematic application of apomixis in plant breeding, which could have enormous impact on agriculture in both advanced and developing nations.

Ozias-Akins has been equally successful in applying the biotechnological and molecular biology tools that she has developed to specific cases of crop improvement, most notably the peanut.

Creative Research Awards

This year, Creative Research Awards were given in two areas—the sciences and the social and ­behavioral sciences—to recognize outstanding bodies of work that have gained broad recognition.

Dorothy Kozlowski

Claudio Saunt, Richard B. Russell Professor in American History, has made tremendous contributions to the fields of early America, Native American and digital history, and to understanding the complexities of our world.

He is among an elite cohort of historians who have gained scholarly and public attention for their inclusive, continental approaches to American history, and his perspectives permeate virtually all new historical scholarship.

Saunt has published three award-winning books, but his belief that history is not merely for academicians also has guided his expansion into the digital world, including creating an online presence for American history.

One of the first scholars to recognize the value and possibilities of digital technology, he has used mega-data to do highly demonstrative digital mapping and interactive projects that reconstruct changing American population dynamics, land cessions, disease and Native demography.

His forthcoming book, Aboriginia: Mass Deportation and the Road to Indian Territory, is anticipated to become the leading history of Indian removal.

Dot Paul

Dorothy Kozlowski

LAMAR DODD AWARD FOR DISTINGUISHED ACHIEVEMENTS IN THE SCIENCES

WILLIAM A. OWENS AWARD FOR DISTINGUISHED ACHIEVEMENTS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

Allen Moore, Distinguished Research Professor of Genetics, is an evolutionary behavior geneticist, conducting research on the genetics of sociality using insects, which have often played key roles in elucidating the evolution of social behavior.

His work combines theoretical and statistical approaches to tackle evolutionarily important problems in behavior, and then brings the full arsenal of modern molecular techniques to dissect the underlying mechanisms. Moore has selected his insect systems in a way that allows him to manipulate experimentally varied social behaviors, including aggression, mating, altruism, and notably, parental care.

In his latest advance, Moore uses genomic approaches to understand complex behavioral traits in burying beetles. His work will test the importance of specific genes in determining differences between care provided by mothers and fathers, and between single parents and biparental teams. It may open the doors to understanding pathways of gene interaction both within parents and between parents and offspring.

Jody Clay-Warner, Meigs Professor of Sociology, investigates injustice from both basic and applied vantage points, addressing critical problems in society: injustice, violence, victimization and the laws and policies designed to control these problems.

Her research broadens understandings of injustice by systematically examining how social structure and contextual factors affect how people perceive and rationalize injustice, as well as the emotional, cognitive and legal processes involved in responses to injustice. For example, she challenged the notion that women are always more likely to perceive gender discrimination than are men, developing a theoretical model that explained how occupational structure affected perceptions of gender bias.

Her work on violence against women demonstrates the role of structural and contextual factors on women’s response to sexual violence and on re-victimization. Carried out in a rigorous way theoretically and methodologically, her work contributes to understanding and perhaps solving some of our most pressing social problems.

2017 HONORS & AWARDS

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Creative Research Medals These medals are awarded for outstanding research or creative activity within the past five years that focuses on a single theme identified with the University of Georgia.

Andrew Davis Tucker

Peter Frey

Andrew Davis Tucker

Peter Frey

Xiangyu Deng, assistant professor of food microbiology, is recognized for creating a bioinformatics tool that is helping transform global laboratory surveillance of salmonella, the most prevalent bacterial foodborne pathogen in the U.S. and worldwide.

His creation, SeqSero, is a powerful web-based tool that offers a novel and rapid approach to serotyping salmonella strains obtained from infected humans, animals, foods and the environment during epidemiological investigations.

His innovation replaces a complicated and time-consuming laboratory protocol with whole genome sequencing that allows accurate, fast “fingerprinting” of any salmonella strain.

SeqSero has cut analysis time from days to seconds, while adding no additional cost. The tool has been adopted by U.S. federal agencies and state health departments as well as laboratories and regulatory agencies in other North American countries, Europe and Asia.

Katrien Devos, professor of plant biology, has made numerous important contributions to the understanding of plant genomics, in particular wheat, millets and switchgrass, a biofuel crop.

Her work with foxtail millet, an important crop in China, and finger millet, a food security grain crop in East Africa, has highlighted the need to bring attention, funding and research to lesser-known orphan crops. Little was known about the genetics of either species before Devos began her project, but her pivotal paper on the genomics of Setaria has formed the basis for a new community of researchers working on foxtail millet and its wild relative, green foxtail, which are now considered models for understanding the genetics of switchgrass.

Devos now is leading a similar endeavor in finger millet.

This work has created a noticeable shift from the community’s single-minded emphasis on major crops.

George Foreman, director of UGA’s Performing Arts Center and associate professor of music, guided the production of “Music for the Tsars: Works from the Russian Institute for the History of the Arts,” a CD that significantly advances music education and performance in Russia and the U.S. This massive creative and scholarly undertaking began in 2012 with the goal of highlighting the Russian Institute for the History of the Arts’ rich and largely unknown collection of 19thcentury wind band music. Foreman coordinated all components of production and recording, while also capturing the original intent and nature of the music.

In 2014, the works were recorded in UGA’s Hodgson Concert Hall by Hodgson School of Music faculty and more than 100 student musicians.This wonderful recording will have a lasting impact on the world of band literature, the lives of students and others who contributed, and the global perception and reputation of the university.

Deepak Mishra, associate professor of geography and leading international scholar in the use of satellite remote sensing techniques, co-created the Small Satellite Research Laboratory in January 2016, starting the space research program at UGA. The goal of this program, made possible by funding from NASA and Air Force Research Lab, is to launch a student-built low Earth orbit satellites, aka CubeSats, by 2018 that also provide faculty with unique space-based data that will advance research on coastal ecosystems, marine processes and water quality. Mishra and colleagues assembled a 50-member team of faculty and students from physics, mathematics, computer science, marine science, geography, engineering, design and management, among other departments, to guide the missions.

These projects will develop cutting-edge technologies, including running “structure from motion” techniques from an orbiting platform—something never before attempted.

Early-Career Scholar Awards

Dorothy Kozlowski

FRED C. DAVISON EARLY-CAREER SCHOLAR AWARD IN SCIENCES Richard Chandler is an assistant professor of wildlife ecology and management whose research aims to narrow the divide between ecological theory and application to advance knowledge about wildlife population dynamics and enhance conservation efforts.

His unique approach fuses theoretical models with hierarchical statistical models to understand how populations respond to environmental change and management.

In addition, Chandler is co-inventor of open-source software used by thousands of wildlife ecologists around the world to study the abundance and distribution of focal species. His quantitative focus has enhanced his core ecological research, which includes studies of population dynamics at range margins, in fragmented habitats and in agricultural landscapes.

His accomplishments have contributed to wildlife management in Georgia and throughout the Southeast.

Andrew Davis Tucker

FIle photo

CHARLES B. KNAPP EARLY-CAREER SCHOLAR AWARD IN SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

MICHAEL F. ADAMS EARLY-CAREER SCHOLAR AWARD IN THE ARTS AND HUMANITIES

Sun Joo “Grace” Ahn is an assistant professor in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication studying how user experiences in virtual worlds shape and transform individual attitudes and behaviors in the physical world.

Ahn was among the first in her field to call attention to the need to re-examine and extend classical theories and models of persuasion and communication in a digital era. Her work, which has advanced the scholarship of persuasive communication by integrating communication, psychology, computer science and public health, makes unique and timely contributions to understanding how virtual reality systems can impact attitudes and behaviors of children and adults in ways that were difficult or impossible with traditional media systems.

Ahn is widely recognized as a rising star of her field.

Jamie Kreiner, assistant professor of history, is an accomplished historian of the early Middle Ages.

Her research focuses on the mechanics of culture, including how medieval communities themselves thought that knowledge and commitments were communicated, adopted and affected by other forms of power.

Kreiner’s first book, The Social Life of Hagiography, was published in 2014 by Cambridge University Press, the most distinguished press in medieval European history.

Kreiner already has established an international reputation, and her scholarship has been praised as “path-breaking” by noted European and American historians for its inspired use of anthropology, narratology and cognitive science to draw new insights from old sources.

Dorothy Kozlowski

Elizabeth Wright, professor of Spanish in the Romance languages department, is recognized for a seven-year project in which she recovered the story of Europe’s first known poet from the black slave diaspora, Juan Latino.

This poet and educator, born in slavery circa 1517, is a Renaissance precursor to AfricanAmerican social reformer Frederick Douglass.

Anticipating the American abolitionist movement three centuries later, Latino secured education, freedom and literary recognition in Spain. Until Wright’s efforts, Latino was little known, due to the difficulty of his literary works written in Latin verse and the scarce documentary evidence of his life.

Marshaling skills in literary translation of both Latin and Spanish, as well as archival detective work, Wright undertook two interconnected research projects that together have recovered Latino’s literary legacy and pieced together his life story.

Wright’s creative, scholarly work draws attention to the interwoven threads of history and literature, while also illuminating hidden cultural links.

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April 17, 2017 columns.uga.edu

2017 HONORS & AWARDS

Outstanding Academic Advisors Two University of Georgia advisors have received an Outstanding Undergraduate Academic Advising Award.

Cindy Schulman in the Exploratory Center is a recipient in the professional advisor category, and Jessie Daniels in the Terry College of Business is the recipient in the new staff advisor category.

They were nominated by their superFrom left: Associate Vice Presidents for Instruction William Vencill visors and selected by and Naomi Norman, 2017 Outstanding Academic Advisor Cindy 12 students from the Schulman, Exploratory Center Coordinator Jennifer Eberhardt and various colleges on Director of UGA Academic Advising Judy Iakovou. campus.

Cindy Schulman has been an advisor for five years, first in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. She then moved to the Exploratory Center last summer as a founding member and leader of the advising staff. Schulman is also the first point of contact for potential transfer students who are interested in applying to Terry College. She previously taught at Athens Technical College and prior to that at a Florida high school for 10 years. Schulman has a bachelor’s degree in mathematics/mathematics education from the University of Central Florida.

“Cindy is a master academic advisor who works tirelessly in support of the EC’s mission to support undergraduate students in search of the right major and career path,” said Exploratory Center coordinator Jennifer Eberhardt. “In addition to advising her roster of current UGA students who intend to study business, she is also our liaison with prospective transfer students. In both roles, her colleagues know her as an advisor who guides students through challenging transitions with vast knowledge, skill and dedication.

Advisors across campus note her enthusiasm, patience and sense of humor. One of her colleagues wrote, ‘Cindy develops a healthy professional relationship with her students, and it is obvious how much they love and respect her.’ ” From linking students with prospective professional opportunities outside of campus to communicating with students via Skype to guiding them through difficult situations, Schulman takes the extra steps to help her advisees.

“Mrs. Schulman has made a lasting impact on both my academic career and my outlook on life. She has shown me that respect and professionalism are the best ways to mend wrongs, and that a commitment to excellence is a requirement for both of these qualities,” a pre-business student said about the advising experience with Schulman.

“I was very nervous about how my credits would count here and what the registration process was like,” said one transfer student.

“She immediately alleviated some of my concerns while also offering advice on how to make the academic transition go more smoothly.”

Others had equally good things to say about Daniels and her academic advising at the Terry College of Business.

From left: Director of Terry College Academic Advising Laura Clark, “Everything [DanJudy Iakovou, 2017 Outstanding New Academic Advisor Jessie iels] has done in her Daniels, William Vencill and Naomi Norman. two-plus years as the coordinator of the Online BBA program has been innovative out of necessity, including advising a growing group of unique students from a distance. This program is only the second undergraduate, fully online degree-completion program housed at UGA, and Jessie built strong partnerships inside Terry, across campus and throughout the state in order to get the program started and to move it forward as it grows, both in number of students and the impact on their lives,” said Laura Clark, director of Terry College Academic Advising.

One nontraditional student said on the end-of-term survey: “She listens to my concerns and invests time and effort in responding to my questions and concerns. As a student whose initial matriculation occurred when UGA was using the quarter system, my transcript requires special attention. Even registration was challenging. However, Jessie was available to respond to my emails and help me through my first registration in 20 years.”

Another advisee said, “Jessie Daniels is knowledgeable, accommodating and sincerely cares about the students in the online program. I’ve had many questions since considering the online program and she’s answered every one. Her dedication to her job is unparalleled.”

The award is presented each spring to staff members for excellence in advising undergraduate students on class selection and course of study, assisting them with academic problems, and providing guidance on related matters such as decisions about graduate school and careers. The Office of the Vice President for Instruction administers the award each year. Schulman and Daniels will be recognized at the spring AACC meeting, and as Outstanding Academic Advisors, their names and recommendations have been forwarded to the National Academic Advising Association for consideration of a national advising award.

—Tracy Coley

Public Service & Outreach

The Office of the Vice President for Public Service and Outreach will recognize seven faculty and staff members for outstanding service to the state and UGA April 17 at the 26th annual Public Service and Outreach Meeting and Awards Luncheon.

2017 Engaged Scholar Tina Harris, a professor in the communication studies department in UGA’s Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, is this year’s recipient of the Engaged Scholar Award. This annual award recognizes a full-time, tenured faculty member for significant contributions in public service, outreach and community engagement.

Harris teaches courses and conducts research primarily in the area of interracial communication.

Through her courses, she challenges students to not only translate theory to practice, but also to become critical thinkers committed to positively impacting their many communities.

STAFF AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE The recipient of the Public Service and Outreach Staff Award for Excellence is Kate Smith, a program coordinator at the Fanning Institute. In her role, she serves as lead support for the institute’s youth leadership programs as well as leadership programs focusing on individual and community growth.

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Walter Barnard Hill Awards

Five faculty members and service professionals will receive the Walter Barnard Hill Award for Distinguished Achievement in Public Service and Outreach in recognition of their outstanding contributions to the improvement of the quality of life in Georgia and beyond.

Tracy Arner

Melanie Biersmith

Danny Bivins

Dennis Hancock

Janet Rechtman

Five faculty members and service professionals will receive the Walter Barnard Hill Award for Distinguished Achievement in Public Service and Outreach in recognition of their outstanding contributions to the improvement of the quality of life in Georgia and beyond.

This year’s Hill Award recipients are Tracy Arner, Melanie

Biersmith, Danny Bivins, Dennis Hancock and Janet Rechtman.

Tracy Arner manages the Carl Vinson Institute of Government’s financial management training program, which provides specialized training and certification to finance officers, elected officials and others who serve in local governments and state agencies.

Melanie Biersmith is the

statewide coordinator for UGA’s Georgia 4-H Environmental Education Program and manages operations of 4-H centers at Wahsega, Fortson, Burton and Camp Jekyll.

Danny Bivins, a senior public service associate with the Carl Vinson Institute of Government’s Strategic Operations and Planning Assistance division, provides

expertise in downtown development, planning and de­ sign, historic preservation, quality growth and regionalism.

Dennis Hancock, an associate professor in UGA’s crop and soil sciences department and the State Forage Extension Specialist, helps resolve basic and comprehensive issues facing forage and livestock producers in Georgia.

Janet Rechtman is the coleader for the J.W. Fanning Institute for Leadership Development’s nonprofit leadership development and capacity building practice where she develops, delivers and evaluates programming and training for communities, organizations and individuals in Georgia and beyond.

Service-Learning Excellence Awards Three outstanding faculty members have been awarded Service-Learning Excellence Awards for 2017.

Established in 2011, the awards recognize faculty for innovative service-learning course design as well as scholarship that stems from academic service-learning work.

Carol Britton Laws Two awards are being presented in the Service-Learning Teaching Excellence category, recognizing excellence in developing, implementing and sustaining academic service-learning opportunities for UGA students in domestic and/or international settings.

A third award is presented for Service-Learning Research Excellence and advancing service-learning scholarship.

The 2017 Service-Learning Teaching Excellence Award recipients are Carol Britton Laws, an assistant clinical professor in disability studies in the College of Family and Consumer Sciences’ Institute on Human Development and Disability, and Sungkyung Lee, an associate professor in the College of Environment and Design.

Laws, a 2013-2014 Service-Learning Fellow, has developed and taught service-learning courses for both graduate and undergraduate students centered on disability issues and advocacy. She coordinates the Disability Studies Certificate program, and over the past four years has integrated service-learning coursework into the program, in classes including Disability Issues in Adulthood, Disability Issues in Childhood and Adolescence, and Advocacy Practices for Social Change. Laws’ students have partnered with a range of community organizations, including Hope Haven, Georgia Options, Extra Special People, the Butterfly Dreams therapeutic riding farm and the Athens Community Council on Aging.

In each case, her students apply their course content to learn from and support people with disabilities, and to understand social, personal and structural issues for these community members and the agencies and families which support them.

Her students report that her service-learning Sungkyung Lee classes furthered their interest in public service and in disabilities studies.

Laws has published and presented on the role of service-learning and civic engagement in disabilities studies. This semester, as part of a new grant-funded, inclusive post-secondary education program for students with intellectual or developmental disabilities, she is implementing a new service-learning course, Principles of Person-Centered Practice, which pairs UGA students as peer mentors for these “Destination Dawgs” students.

Lee, a 2011-12 Service-Learning Fellow, has incorporated service-learning into landscape architecture studio courses since 2010, including Sustainability in Design and Community and Place studios. Her graduate and undergraduate landscape architecture students apply their knowledge of community-based design and development planning to work on real-world projects in collaboration with diverse, historically underserved communities and neighborhoods in Athens and in Albany.

Lee’s studio course projects have engaged her students in developing and installing community gardens, agricultural and stream bank site designs, and neighborhood analyses focused on recreation and on garden markets.

Her students have also collaborated with the College of Environment and Design’s materials reuse program to implement sustainable designs using repurposed and otherwise wasted building materials.

Tiffany Washington

CED Dean Daniel Nadenicek said that Lee’s students “come away from her courses with a new point of view and a sense of urgency about how they can use their professional skills to truly help people.”

The 2017 Service-Learning Research Excellence Award recipient is Tiffany Washington, an assistant profes-

sor in the School of Social Work.

Washington has integrated community-engaged research with service-learning coursework in gerontology, focusing on issues of health and caregiving. School of Social Work Dean Anna Scheyett said Washington is committed “to blending service-learning and research within her larger research agenda” in integrative ways.

Specifically, Washington developed and embedded into two service-learning courses an innovative program which partners social work graduate students with adults with dementia to provide in-home, tailored activities, while also allowing their regular caregivers a “self-care” break.

Through carefully designed evaluation research, she has demonstrated the results of this “Houseguest” program, including impacts on student learning about dementia, attitudes towards older adults, and self-efficacy, as well as benefits to the participating community members. Washington has published and presented extensively on the program. To date, three journal manuscripts and several external grant proposals have been based on Houseguest program seed data, and Washington also has co-presented with her graduate students at peer-reviewed conferences.

She was a Service-Learning Fellow in 2014-2015 and a recipient of UGA’s Creative Teaching Award in 2016.

—Shannon O. Wilder

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columns.uga.edu

2017 HONORS & AWARDS

Creative Teaching Awards

The Creative Teaching Awards recognize UGA faculty for excellence in developing and implementing creative teaching methods to improve student learning.

These awards are presented annually on behalf of the Office of Instruction, the Center for Teaching and Learning and the Office of the Provost to faculty who have demonstrated either the use of innovative technology or pedagogy that extends learning beyond the traditional classroom, or creative implementation of subject matter that has significantly improved student learning outcomes.

Congratulations

Robert Newcomb

Trisha Branan

“I am proud of all of the faculty, staff, students and alumni who are being recognized this week. Their accomplishments inspire the entire UGA community to reach for even greater heights of excellence. I am grateful for all they are doing to advance the mission of this institution and make a positive difference in the world.”

File photo

Jason Cantarella

Clinical and Administrative Pharmacy College of Pharmacy

Mathematics Franklin College of Arts and Sciences

Trisha Branan, clinical assistant professor of pharmacy, transformed the Critical Care Pharmacy course PHRM 5370.

Branan worked with course co-coordinator Anthony Hawkins and instructional designer Russ Palmer to create a virtual intensive care unit patient room that allowed students to interact with various health care disciplines and patient families.

She uses pre-formed dialogue, replicated vital sign monitors and access to laboratory data to mimic clinical practice.

Her innovative efforts provided a set of immersive and interactive learning tools that allowed students to think critically and communicate effectively to make clinical decisions in scenarios that are reflective of real-world critical care pharmacy problems.

Jason Cantarella, professor of mathematics, designed a revolutionary learning experience in the level one calculus course.

With funding from the NSF, he created Robot Calculus.

Through the incorporation of progressive calculus tools, his students experienced firsthand the direct impact of mathematics on robotic programming and how these concepts may be applied to other predictive reasoning. The National Science Foundation reviewed the project, citing that “students in the [robot calculus] sections were better equipped to approach and solve the applications questions.”

The predicted impact of this course on STEM disciplines is substantial, particularly for engineering.

—University of Georgia President Jere W. Morehead

Robert C. Anderson Memorial Award David K. Thomson, a recent doctoral graduate in history, is recognized for his groundbreaking scholarship on financing of the American Civil War, which cost the federal government $3.2 billion.

Thomson traveled across the U.S. and globally to understand the role of finance in securing victory for the Union cause. His dissertation uncovers the degree to which Wall Street, investment banking and the democratization of the sale of financial instruments all trace their roots to the Civil War, and lay a foundation for the rise of the U.S. as a dominant player in global finance in the 20th century.

His manuscript documents not just the financial history of the bond drive but also the social history of those who sold the bonds and the thousands of ordinary citizens who were persuaded to invest in the debt of an imperiled nation.

Thomson is currently an assistant professor at Sacred Heart University, Connecticut.

Alexandra Scharf, a recent doctoral graduate in bioengineering and large animal medicine and surgery, is recognized for her research in MRI-based molecular and cellular imaging and the application of this technology to cell-based, regenerative therapies.

Scharf has been instrumental in developing techniques using equine and ovine models of tendonitis to elucidate the contribution of cell therapy to the overall soft tissue healing process. Specifically, using iron particle labeling techniques, she has been able to trace the cells in the tendon for up to two weeks from injection.

This work has led to a series of remarkable opportunities to perfect the delivery, understand the therapeutic benefits, and the predictability of outcomes following cellular treatment of injured soft tissues.

Scharf is now pursuing her veterinary degree in large animal medicine at UGA.

Postdoctoral Research Award

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Julie Luft Mathematics and Science Education College of Education Julie Luft, Athletic Association ­ rofessor of Mathematics and Science P Education, and Kristen Miller, director of biological sciences in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, collaborated on a course that prepares undergraduate students to be peer learning assistants.

Although other faculty have used PLAs in the past, they created an innovative course to give advanced students the pedagogical training needed to better help

File photo

Kristen Miller Biological Sciences Franklin College of Arts and Sciences other students succeed in challenging math and science classes.

The PLAs provide support and ­individualized attention to their students.

In addition, their course provides a means for the PLA students to master course content, put learning into action and vital communication skills.

Their vital assistance to the class also allows the faculty more time to focus on teaching and improving student outcomes.

Hongmin Chen, a postdoctoral research associate in the chemistry department, is recognized for his contributions to the engineering of nanoparticles for imaging and therapy.

Two projects are related to the synthesis and use of nanoparticles for imaging and cancer treatment. In one project, he succeeded in developing a novel in vivo cancer treatment, called X-ray induced photodynamic therapy, which enables nanoparticles to be guided directly to tumors, and activated to kill cancer cells.

In another, he developed a contrast agent that removes the toxic effects of gadolinium-based contrast probes widely used in clinical magnetic resonance imaging.

Chen developed a novel and straightforward methodology that encapsulates the Gd nanoparticles with carbon, rendering them biologically inert.

Chen has published 14 peer-reviewed papers, almost all published in top-tier journals, and his work has attracted nationwide attention.

James L. Carmon Award

Matthew Becton, a doctoral student in the College of Engineering, conducts research in the Computational Nano/ Bio-mechanics Lab. His highly multidisciplinary research crosses the boundaries between c omputational modeling, molecular ­ biology, chemistry, physics and engineering to understand the structure and properties of various materials at the nanometer scale.

Much is unknown about the effects of nanomaterials inside the body.

Becton’s research aims to probe the mechanical factors of cell damage and destruction utilizing nanoparticles from a predictive modeling viewpoint to provide a fundamental understanding of ­cell-nanoparticle interactions.

His research has strong applications in medicine, ranging from gene delivery, bioimaging and biosensors to nanovaccines and drug delivery. Such knowledge will not only guide the use of nanoparticles, but also save time and cost on in vitro and in vivo studies.