UGA Columns Feb. 14, 2015

Periodicals Postage is PAID in Athens, Georgia

News Service University of Georgia 286 Oconee Street Suite 200 North Athens, GA 30602-1999

®

The University of Georgia

Corporate relations manager connects employers with Terry College students CAMPUS CLOSEUP

6

Patty Griffin, Sara Watkins, Anais Mitchell to perform in Hugh Hodgson Concert Hall Vol. 43, No. 25

February 15, 2016

www.columns.uga.edu

thasting@uga.edu

Photos by Dorothy Kozlowski

The Science Learning Center—currently unfurnished as crews continue to insulate it and install drywall—is a three-story, 122,500-square-foot building tailor-made for undergraduate science, technology, engineering and mathematics instruction that will open for classes in August.

‘Culture of active learning’ Science Learning Center built for teaching science with new technology

aahale@uga.edu

A new dawn for science instruction begins at UGA this fall.

The Science Learning Center, a three-story, 122,500-square-foot building tailor-made for undergraduate science, technology, engineering and mathematics instruction, opens for classes in August. The SLC will offer a new setting for effective teacher-to-student interaction and student-to-student collaboration— all with the goal of more effectively teaching STEM subjects at UGA and empowering students to pursue careers in the STEM fields.

“We’re really promoting a culture of active learning” said Ronald Cervero, an associate vice president for instruction at UGA. “The students learn from each other as well as their instructor.”

The state-of-the-art facility— currently unfurnished as crews continue to insulate it and install drywall—already cuts an impressive figure. Once complete, the SLC will replace aging classrooms and labs on

tcoley@uga.edu

UGA will host its fifth annual one-day STEM Institute on Teaching and Learning Feb. 26 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Georgia Center for Continuing Education.

STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Open to K-12 teachers, UGA faculty and STEM educators and researchers in Georgia, the conference is being presented by UGA’s Office of STEM Education. This year’s theme focuses on

UGA has entered into a collaborative research agreement with GeoVax Labs Inc. to develop and test a vaccine to prevent the Zika virus infection.

The collaboration will combine the vaccine development expertise of UGA researchers led by Ted Ross, director of UGA’s Center for Vaccines and Immunology, with GeoVax’s novel vaccine platform technology. Ross, a professor and Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Infectious Diseases in the College of Veterinary Medicine, joined UGA last fall.

South Campus that were built over students as well as between students 50 years ago. and their peers.

The SLC, with its 33 instruc- • The labs—20 chemistry, tional labs, two 280-seat lecture halls, 10 biology, two ecology and one two 72-seat SCALE-UP classrooms physics—are designed to proas well as spaces for informal student mote face-to-face interaction collaboration, is aimed at better com- between students as they engage in munication between instructor and See SCIENCE on page 8

“Increasing the Pool of STEM Talent” with presentations on integrating research, teaching and learning in the STEM disciplines as well as topics on experiential learning, instruction through gaming and learning communities.

“This event traditionally promotes stimulating conversations, interesting presentations and networking opportunities in addition to providing invaluable resources for STEM educators,” said Timothy Burg, director of the Office of STEM Education. “This year we are adding graduate student

poster sessions that will provide an opportunity for dialogue with conference participants around research involving teaching and learning in STEM fields.”

The conference will feature two nationally recognized leaders in STEM education. Robert Mathieu, the Vilas Distinguished Professor of Astronomy at the University of Wisconsin and a member of the leadership team of the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning, will open the conference See STEM on page 8

See VACCINE on page 8

Leadership roles for women in agriculture discussed at summit jmerritt@uga.edu

Gwynne Darden, assistant vice president for facilities planning, left, describes the layout of the Science Learning Center to a tour group.

On Feb. 1, t h e Wo r l d Health Organization declared Zika virus an international health e m e r g e n c y, noting that Zika is spreadTed Ross ing explosively and could affect as many as 4 million people in the Americas by the end of the year. The mosquito-transmitted virus is linked with birth defects in thousands of babies in Brazil, and more recently, with Guillain-Barre syndrome, a disorder in which the

WOMEN’S LEADERSHIP INITIATIVE

By J. Merritt Melancon

OFFICE OF THE VICE PRESIDENT FOR INSTRUCTION UGA to hold STEM Institute on Teaching and Learning

By Tracy N. Coley

4&5

UGA partners with biotechnology firm to develop Zika vaccine

By Terry Marie Hastings

By Aaron Hale

UGA GUIDE

More than 150 agricultural leaders from across 13 Southern states and Washington, D.C., converged on UGA’s campus in Athens Feb. 8 to discuss leadership roles for women in agriculture.

“The delegates at this summit represent the future of agriculture,” said UGA President Jere W. Morehead in his welcoming remarks.

“The work they are doing to shape policies and programs to promote gender equity and women’s leadership development will have a positive impact on an industry that is crucial to our nation’s food security and economic vitality.”

Women representing government agencies, farms, the Cooperative Extension System and agriculture-related industries were invited to participate in the UGAled Southern Region Women’s Agricultural Leadership Summit.

Participants were chosen because of the leadership roles they play in their home states.

“This is a very far-reaching conversation,” said Laura Perry Johnson, associate dean for extension for the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. “The thing that has made this summit a success is the diversity in our delegates; we have representatives from industry, from

See SUMMIT on page 8

COLLEGE OF PUBLIC HEALTH

$1.49M NIH grant will be used for research training in Uganda

By Rebecca Ayer alea@uga.edu

Every year, 50,000 people die in East Africa from tuberculosis.

Worldwide, 1.5 million people die from the disease. And when HIV infection is added to the mix, TB becomes even deadlier. UGA is fighting against these numbers with a new $1.49 million grant from the Fogarty International Center of the National Institutes of Health.

UGA is partnering with Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, to train Ugandan scientists in new and emerging methods increasingly important in understanding the complex transmission dynamics of HIV and Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacterium responsible for

­tuberculosis.

According to the World Health Organization, TB infections now rival HIV/AIDS as a leading Christopher Whalen cause of death from infectious diseases. Persons co-infected with TB and HIV are estimated to be 27-32 times more likely to develop active TB disease than persons without HIV. “Infectious diseases do not respect human political borders,” said Dr. Christopher Whalen, the grant’s principal investigator and

See GRANT on page 8

2 Feb. 15, 2016 columns.uga.edu

Around academe

NFL player to earn doctorate

Baltimore Raven’s offensive lineman John Urschel tweeted that he will attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology during the off-season to begin a doctoral program in spectral graph theory, numerical linear algebra and machine learning, The Baltimore Sun reported.

Urschel has a bachelor’s and master’s degree in math from Penn State, where he excelled both in the classroom and on the field.

Urschel won the William V. Campbell Trophy, known as the “academic Heisman.”

Oregon State accepting SNAP benefits To help financially insecure students, Oregon State University recently began accepting Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits at its campus grocery store, according to an Inside Higher Ed article. While a growing number of college-aged students in the U.S. are enrolled in SNAP, few universities accept the benefits.

For institutions to enroll in the aid program, they must meet federal standards that mandate a certain amount of fresh food be sold and require a specific payment infrastructure be in place. Most universities that have attempted to accept benefits have fallen short on these criteria.

“While we don’t have a good sense of SNAP participation yet, we know this is an issue, based on our food pantry numbers,” said Tara Sanders, university housing and dining services nutritionist at Oregon State.

WILLSON CENTER FOR HUMANITIES AND ARTS

Global Georgia features Do Good Fund photos, former NEH chair

By Dave Marr

davemarr@uga.edu

Pictures of Us: Photographs from The Do Good Fund Collection, an exhibition currently on display in six venues on the UGA campus and in the Athens community, will be the focal point for a series of public events in February.

The Do Good Fund is a Columbus, Georgia-based public charity that focuses on building a museum-quality collection of contemporary Southern photography, including works by emerging photographers, and encourages complementary, community-based programming to accompany each exhibition.

The multi-venue exhibition, part of the Global Georgia Initiative of the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts, brings dozens of photographs from the collection of The Do Good Fund to Athens and UGA.William R. Ferris, a widely

recognized leader in Southern studies, African-American music and folklore and former chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities, will be the featured Global Georgia speaker Feb. 18 at 4 p.m. in the M. Smith Griffith Auditorium of the Georgia Museum of Art. The exhibition venues are the AthensClarke County Library (curated by the Georgia Museum of Art),Cine,the Lamar Dodd School of Art, the Lyndon House Arts Center, the Richard B. Russell Building Special Collections Libraries and the Willson Center (curated by the UGA College of Environment and Design). A portfolio of Do Good Fund photographs is also featured in the winter issue of The Georgia Review. Details on all six exhibitions and links to information about the events are at willson.uga.edu.

The Georgia Museum of Art has organized a free, two-part photography workshop for teens that will take place

FRANKLIN COLLEGE

Center to mark 30th anniversary with workshop

News to Use

Eduroam launched on campus

A new, free wireless service called eduroam is now available at UGA. All UGA students, faculty and staff have access to eduroam while on campus with their wireless devices. In addition, eduroam allows all UGA students, faculty and staff to get wireless service when visiting participating eduroam institutions in the U.S. and abroad. Currently, about 400 higher education institutions in the U.S. are eduroam participants. Eduroam is also available at educational institutions and research facilities in 74 countries.

To access eduroam, UGA students, faculty and staff must provide their full UGA credentials with their MyID followed by “@uga.edu” (example:YourMyID@uga.edu).

When a MyID password is updated, it also must be updated for eduroam access.

Eduroam allows students, faculty and staff of participating eduroam schools to get Internet access across institutions using their school’s credentials.

For example, a UGA faculty member visiting at Clemson University, which is also an eduroam participant, could use his or her UGA credentials (MyID@uga.edu) to log in to Clemson’s wireless network on campus. Likewise, a Clemson faculty member could do the same with their credentials when they visit the UGA campus.

A list of current U.S. participants and international participants is at https://www.eduroam.us

By Alan Flurry

aflurry@uga.edu

Political connections

On Feb. 3, UGA President Jere W. Morehead, center right, stopped in for a meeting with House Speaker Paul Ryan, second from right, and four UGA alumni who work in Ryan’s office. The alumni are, from left, Ben Jordon, Carly McCallie, Brendan Buck and Doug Andres. The president’s trip to Washington, D.C., included visits with legislators, UGA students and alumni.

SCHOOL OF LAW

Sustainable lifestyles to be focus of annual Red Clay law conference

By Heidi M. Murphy hmurphy@uga.edu

Read more about diversity at UGA at discover.uga.edu.

at the Athens-Clarke County Library Feb. 17 at 4:30 p.m. The workshop is part of the worldwide photography project “Inside Out.” The Russell Libraries will host a talk by photographer Billy Weeks, a two-time winner of the Gordon Parks International Photography Award, Feb. 16 at 2:30 p.m.

The Russell Libraries exhibit is devoted to images from Parks’ seminal 1956 Life magazine photo essay documenting the state of segregation in the U.S. South.

Ferris will speak on “The Storied South: Voices of Writers and Artists,” which is the title of his 2013 book culled from his interviews with 26 Southern luminaries including Alice Walker,William Eggleston and Eudora Welty. Ferris is the Joel R. Williamson Eminent Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the senior associate director of UNC’s Center for the Study of the American South.

“Making a Sustainable Lifestyle Accessible to All” is the working title of the 28th annual Red Clay Conference to be held Feb. 26 in the School of Law’s Larry Walker Room in Dean Rusk Hall.

The daylong program will include discussions on solar power in the Southeast and Georgia’s new “Household Solar Panel” bill, flood insurance and the tensions between risk and affordability, and farm-to-school food initiatives and child nutrition reauthorization.

Avi S. Garbow, general counsel for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, will provide a special address, while Robert R.M. Verchick, a legal expert in environmental regulation, climate change and the developing field of disaster law, will deliver the keynote address.

Garbow, who became the EPA’s general counsel in August 2013, has worked closely on President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan, Clean Water Rule and other initiatives to protect public health, improve public access to environmental information and advance environmental justice. Previously, his work at the EPA focused on the agency’s air and water programs and serving in the area of

enforcement and compliance assurance.

He also served as a federal prosecutor in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Environmental Crimes Section.

Verchick, who is the GauthierSt. Martin Eminent Scholar and Chair in Environmental Law at Loyola University New Orleans, served in the Obama administration as deputy associate administrator for policy at the EPA in 2009 and 2010. He is the author of three books, including Facing Catastrophe: Environmental Action for a Post-Katrina World, which was selected as a CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title by the American Library Association. Verchick is also a Senior Fellow at Tulane University’s Disaster Resilience Leadership Academy and president of the Center for Progressive Reform, a national policy institute focused on public health, public welfare and environmental protection.

The conference, which runs from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and includes lunch for registered attendees, is open to the public and is free for members of the UGA community. The cost for non-UGA members is $10. For attorneys seeking continuing legal education credits of six hours, including one ethics hour, the cost is $60.

Since it was founded in 1986, UGA’s Center for Simulational Physics has played an important role in the use and development of computer simulation techniques. Solving problems often intractable from a theoretical perspective or impractical for experimentation, physicists turn to computational simulation to understand fundamental physical phenomena.

Crude computer simulation techniques date back to the 1940s at Los Alamos National Laboratory. But the center at UGA was the very first such facility in the world devoted entirely to developing and using advanced computer simulation algorithms.

“In 1983 we started the program in simulational physics, and in 1986 we were approved as a university center,” said David P. Landau, Distinguished Research Professor of Physics and founding director of the CSP. “The next year we started this workshop series, and it really became a meeting place for simulationists from around the world because there was no other meeting place.”

The CSP workshop has continued every year since, bringing dozens of visiting scholars and hundreds of students to study at UGA and making the university a world leader in computer simulation studies of condensed matter physics.

“We continue to have students and faculty from around the globe coming to study at UGA on fellowships from their nations and universities,” Landau said.

“They are involved in the learning process at every level—exchanging of ideas, carrying out research that has enriched our environment and providing research people power for the university.”

The CSP has broadened its interests and now includes computational astrophysics and computational biophysics.

The 29th annual Center for Simulational Physics Workshop at UGA will take place the week of Feb. 22. Hosted by the UGA Center for Simulational Physics, it will be held in Room 322 of the physics building. The meeting is open to the UGA community, but registration is required. For more information, including the complete schedule of invited speakers, visit csp.uga.edu .

RESEARCH NEWS

columns.uga.edu Feb. 15, 2016

3

Digest Finalist for campus dean of Medical Partnership to visit Athens, Augusta

Dorothy Kozlowski

J. Vaun McArthur, a senior research ecologist with the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory and Odum School of Ecology, led a team that collected samples, which included sediment as well as water, from 11 locations in nine streams. The level of metal contamination among these locations varied from little to high. McArthur believes environmental contaminants may be partly to blame for the rise in bacterial resistance.

Legacy waste

SREL ecologist finds another cause of antibiotic resistance

By Vicky L. Sutton-Jackson vsuttonj@uga.edu

The rapid emergence of antibioticresistant bacteria has prompted the medical community, nonprofit organizations, public health officials and the national media to educate the public about the dangers of misusing and overusing antibiotics. However, UGA researcher J. Vaun McArthur is concerned that there’s more to the problem than the misuse of common medications.

McArthur, a senior research ecologist with the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory and Odum School of Ecology, believes environmental contaminants may be partly to blame for the rise in bacterial resistance, and he tested this hypothesis in streams on the U.S. Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site.

The 310-square mile site near Aiken, South Carolina, east of the Savannah River, was closed to the public in the early 1950s to produce materials used in nuclear weapons. This production led to legacy waste, or contamination, in limited areas of the site. This waste impacted some of the streams in the industrial areas.

“The site was constructed and closed to the public before antibiotics were used in medical practices and agriculture,” McArthur said. “The streams have not had inputs from wastewater, so we know the observed patterns are from something other than antibiotics.”

McArthur tested five antibiotics on 427 strains of E. coli bacteria in the streams. His research team collected samples, which included sediment as well as water, from 11 locations in nine streams. The level of metal contamination among these locations varied from little to high.

The results, published in the journal Environmental Microbiology, revealed high levels of antibiotic resistance in eight of the 11 water samples. The highest levels were found at the northern location of Upper Three Runs Creek, where the stream system enters the site, and on two tributaries located in the industrial area, U4 and U8. The level of antibiotic resistance was high in both water and sediment samples from these streams.

McArthur said Upper Three Runs Creek flows through residential, agricultural and industrial areas before

it enters the SRS, so the bacteria in this stream have been exposed to antibiotics.

In contrast, U4 and U8 are completely contained within the site and have no known input from antibiotics. However, they have a long history of inputs from the legacy waste.

McArthur conducted a second screening using 23 antibiotics on U4, U8 and U10, a nearby stream with little to no industrial impact.

“More than 95 percent of the bacteria samples from these streams were resistant to 10 or more of the 23 antibiotics,” McArthur said.

These included front-line antibiotics—gatifloxacin and ciprofloxacin, which are used to treat basic bacterial infections from pink eye to urinary tract and sinus infections. The contaminated streams U4 and U8 had the highest level of antibiotic resistance.

“These streams have no source of antibiotic input, thus the only explanation for the high level of antibiotic resistance is the environmental contaminants in these streams—the metals, including cadmium and mercury,” McArthur said.

COLLEGE OF PUBLIC HEALTH

Study looks at delayed TB diagnosis in Uganda

By Erica Hensley

erica.hensley25@uga.edu

Most studies of delayed tuberculosis diagnosis focus on how the delay affects patient outcomes and community transmission.

A UGA study takes a new angle on the issue, looking at the potential societal influence on the delays and how to prevent them.

TB is an infectious bacterial disease that often attacks the lungs and affects 8 million people worldwide; it kills 2 million annually. A delayed diagnosis is the largest public health hazard related to TB, as every step taken before treatment is an opportunity to transmit the disease to someone else, according to Dr. Juliet Sekandi, who previously practiced medicine and specializes in infectious diseases. She is now a postdoctoral research and teaching associate in the UGA College of Public Health.

Sekandi’s impetus for this specific research used the degrees of separation theory to study why practitioners see TB patients cycle through repeated

diagnoses, defining each “degree” as a “step.” The study found that TB patients surveyed in Kampala, Uganda, circled through four separate steps while seeking care before reaching proper diagnosis and treatment. The study also found that strong community networks are vital to speeding up the process.

“I had to move away from the clinic and into the community that the TB patients came from to ask why they are coming back even after they’ve been given effective TB treatment,” said Sekandi, who is under the mentorship of Dr. Christopher Whalen, the Ernest Corn Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology in the college’s epidemiology and biostatistics department.

The study, published in the journal BioMed Central Infectious Diseases, used steps as the time variable as it calculated how long patients spent navigating throughout their social networks, community and health care providers.

The researchers then split the steps into two categories: health professionals who specialize in TB care and those

who don’t. The latter group was found to represent a larger hurdle in a person’s timely diagnosis.

The ideal number of steps is one, from a patient directly to a TB-care provider. However, the extensive and disparate network of the Ugandan health care landscape often results in patients cycling in and out of the health care system, seeing many providers who are not specialized in TB diagnosis or treatment, Sekandi said.

Patients spent 41 percent of the total time between noticing symptoms and diagnosis in the first step. Social networks represented the majority of the second step and ultimately led to a quicker diagnosis than steps to nonTB providers, which exemplifies the importance of community and social network support in minimizing time to diagnosis, she said.

Second to delay in deciding to seek care, the time spent navigating through non-TB providers represented substantial hurdles to a timely diagnosis and comprised 34 percent of total time spent seeking care, according to the study.

A finalist in the ongoing search for the position of campus dean of the GRU/UGA Medical Partnership will visit Athens and Augusta to meet with faculty, staff, students and community members.

Dr. Michelle “Shelley” Nuss, campus associate dean for graduate medical education at the GRU/ UGA Medical Partnership, will give a public presentation Feb. 15 from 5:30-6:30 p.m. in Room 228 of Russell Hall on UGA’s Health Sciences Campus.

Nuss is also an associate professor of medicine and psychiatry at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University and an adjunct clinical faculty member in the department of psychology in UGA’s Franklin College of Arts and Sciences.

Nuss’ CV and candidate feedback form are at http://provost.uga.edu/index.php/GRU_UGA_finalists

School of art to present Dodd lecture

The Lamar Dodd School of Art will present a lecture by artist Paul Pfeiffer, who holds the 20152016 Dodd Professorial Chair.

Free and open to the public, the lecture will be held Feb. 18 at 5:30 p.m. in Room S151 of the art school.

Pfeiffer’s work in sculpture, photography and video often derives from ready-made photographs and television footage. He transforms them to inspire contemplation of the role played by massmedia in contemporary culture. Often integrating monumental and miniature scales, his works challenge viewers to take a second look at familiar objects and images.

Drawing on a range of imagery and culling ideas from a variety of academic disciplines, Pfeiffer synthesizes sports, cinema, labor, science and psychoanalytic theory to offer insights into the nature of representation within contemporary media environments.

While in residence as the Dodd Chair, Pfeiffer will work with the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communications sports journalism students as well as art students.

Law school to host public interest conference focusing on social justice

UGA’s School of Law will host the 11th annual Working in Public Interest Conference Feb. 20 at 9 a.m. in the Larry Walker Room of Dean Rusk Hall. Registration is required.

The conference will focus on current social issues affecting the law and potential solutions that the law can offer in social injustice situations.

Steve Gottlieb, executive director of the Atlanta Legal Aid Society, will present the keynote address at 2:20 p.m. The event is free for members of the UGA community. Register for the event at http://t. uga.edu/23G or contact Hannah Allen at hea4981@ uga.edu or 601-810-2775.

For more information about the WIPI conference, visit http://t.uga.edu/23H.

University of Washington professor to open CED’s spring lecture series

The College of Environment and Design will open its spring lecture series with a talk by an internationally recognized place-making expert.

Jeffrey Hou, professor and chair of landscape architecture at the University of Washington, will speak Feb. 25 at 4 p.m. in Room 123 of the Jackson Street building. The lecture and the following reception, sponsored by the Vincent Eleanor Ferguson Endowment, are free and open to the public.

Winner of the Environmental Design Research Association Great Places Award in 2010 and 2012, Hou has built a career focused on design activism, public space and cross-cultural place-making.

His latest book, Now Urbanism: The Future City is Here, focuses on a new approach to re-evaluate and transform today’s urban centers.

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

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

I

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

Dates, times and locations may change without advance notice.

UGAGUIDE

The Knights chamber orchestra to perform with special guest Gil Shaham

By Bobby Tyler btyler@uga.edu

The UGA Performing Arts Center will present The Knights chamber orchestra with guest violinist Gil Shaham Feb. 21 at 3 p.m. in Hugh Hodgson Concert Hall. The program will feature the new “Concerto for Violin” composed especially for Shaham by Jonathan Leshnoff. The concert also will include Pablo de Sarasate’s Navarra, with Shaham and Knights co-artistic director Colin Jacobsen as soloists, and Beethoven’s Eroica.

Tickets for concert are $25-$60 and are discounted for UGA students. Tickets can be purchased at the Performing Arts Center box office, online at pac.uga.edu or by calling 706-542-4400.

“In recent years, The Knights have been fortunate to tour North America in various shapes and sizes with incredible guests. For our return to UGA, we are thrilled to have with us the incomparable Gil Shaham. Gil’s evident joy in the infinite possibilities of the violin

Patty Griffin, Sara Watkins and Anais Mitchell to perform

By Bobby Tyler btyler@uga.edu

The UGA Performing Arts Center will present Grammy winner Patty Griffin with Sara Watkins and Anais Mitchell Feb. 16 at 8 p.m. in Hugh Hodgson Concert Hall. The trio of award-winning artists will join forces for a celebration of American songwriting and performance. This special concert will feature all three musicians sharing songs and accompanying each other.

Tickets for the concert are $25-$45 and are discounted for UGA students. Tickets can be purchased at the Performing Arts Center box office, online at pac.uga.edu or by calling 706-542-4400.

Griffin is the recipient of a Grammy Award for best traditional gospel album, a Grammy nomination for best contemporary folk/Americana album and the American Music Association’s 2007 artist of the year and album of the year awards.

Singer and multi-instrumentalist Watkins was a founding member of Grammy Award-winning Nickel Creek.

Mitchell is a Vermont-based singer-songwriter widely known as “the queen of modern folk music.”

Paintings by David Ligare on display at art museum

By Hillary Brown

hazbrown@uga.edu

By Clarke Schwabe

This month, the Georgia Museum of Art will transport visitors to the warmth of California with the exhibition David Ligare: California Classicist, which will be on display through May 8.

Organized by the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, California, the exhibition includes 76 paintings and drawings, mostly borrowed from the collection of the artist and other private lenders.

Born in Oak Park, Illinois, in 1945, Ligare moved to California in the late 1970s and began painting large canvases inspired by Greco-Roman antiquity. The West Coast landscape and light form the background for images drawn from classical sources such as his paintings “Hercules Protecting the Balance Between Pleasure and Virtue,” “Orpheus” and “Penelope.”

Many of the paintings are on an extremely large scale; several measure nearly 10 feet wide, dwarfing the viewer and making for an in-person experience very different from looking at reproductions in a book or online.

“This exhibition brings something new to our schedule at the museum, partly because of the scale of the works (we’ve shown mostly smaller paintings lately) and partly because of Ligare’s neoclassical influences,” said Sarah Kate Gillespie, the museum’s curator of American art. “Whether landscape, still-life or character-based in subject, his paintings and drawings are precise, beautiful and timeless. We think students and visitors will be able to draw connections to many eras in art history from contemplating his work.”

Ligare’s work is also inspired by the poetry of Robinson Jeffers, which is the focus of the upcoming Big Read in Athens, organized by the College of Education’s language and literacy education department. A program of the National Endowment for the Arts, the Big Read encourages communities to read the same book and participate in related programs and discussion. The museum will have a small display of Jeffers-related works of art in conjunction with both the Big Read and David Ligare: California Classicist.

ccschwabe@uga.edu

EXHIBITIONS Stirred Fiction. Through Feb. 26. Circle Gallery.

Georgia’s Girlhood Embroidery: “Crowned with Glory and ­Immortality.” Through Feb. 28. Georgia Museum of Art. ­hazbrown@uga.edu

from the energy of rock and pop music as well.”

MOD[ular] Ensemble performs the second half of the program.

Formed in spring 2014 by the School of Music’s Josh Bynum and Connie Frigo, associate professors of trombone and saxophone, respectively, the ensemble is dedicated to the creation of new works in unique, mixed chamber settings.

“The core instrumentation is clarinet, saxophone, trombone, piano and percussion and is modified according to the imaginations of individual composers we commission and the performers with whom we would like the opportunity to play,” Frigo said.

MOD[ular] Ensemble’s commitment to new music is evidenced by its program for the night: three world premieres of works commissioned specifically for this concert. Written by School of Music faculty member Peter Van Zandt Lane, DMA student Fernando Deddos and recent DMA graduate John Hennecken, each composition has, at its core, the spirit of exploration and originality that informs the ensemble itself.

CONCERT The Hodgson Symphonic Band and the Hodgson Wind Symphony. 8 p.m. Hugh Hodgson Concert Hall, Performing Arts Center. 706-542-4752, ­ccschwabe@uga.edu

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 16

Lucy Hargrett Draper Center and Archives Exhibit. Through March 31. Gallery hallway, special collections libraries. ­706-542-8079, jclevela@uga.edu

WORKSHOP “Writing in the FYO.” This workshop, designed for those who teach a seminar as part of the First-Year Odyssey Program, will focus on creating successful and appropriate writing assignments for one-hour FYO seminars. 11 a.m. 372 Miller Learning Center. 706-583-0067, tchagood@uga.edu

Pictures of Us: Photographs from the Do Good Fund Collection.

Through March 31. Hargrett Gallery, special collections libraries.

706-542-8079, jclevela@uga.edu (See story, page 2).

LUNCHTIME TIME MACHINE “Why Did Americans Visit Cemeteries for Fun?” 12:30 p.m.

221 LeConte Hall. 706-583-8180, jhrobert@uga.edu

Cherokee Basketry: Woven Culture. Through April 17. Georgia Museum of Art. 706-542-1817, hazbrown@uga.edu .

GUEST LECTURE* Billy Weeks, a two-time winner of the Gordon Parks International Photography award, will speak. The talk will focus on “the moment where the photographer past interacts with the subject present. In other words, what is it that attracts the photographer to make an image?” 2:30 p.m. 285 special collections libraries.

706-542-8079, jclevela@uga.edu (See story, page 2).

Tools of the Trade. Through March 16. Georgia Museum of Art. hazbrown@uga.edu .

David Ligare: California Classicist. Through May 8. Georgia Museum of Art. hazbrown@uga.edu (See story, above right).

Seeing Georgia: Changing Visions of Tourism in the ­Modern South. Through July 30. Special collections libraries. ­706-542-5788, jhebbard@uga.edu

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 15 PRESIDENTS DAY Classes in session; offices open.

SCHOOL OF SOCIAL WORK DEAN FINALIST PRESENTATION Michael Fendrich, professor and associate dean for research at the University of Connecticut School of Social Work, will make a public presentation. 9:30 a.m. 480 Tate Student Center.

WORKSHOP “Set Them Up for Success: Motivating and Guiding Students with Advanced eLC Tools.” Participants will learn how to create checklists, release conditions and intelligent agents. 2 p.m.

372 Miller Learning Center. 706-583-0067, tchagood@uga.edu GRU/UGA MEDICAL PARTNERSHIP CAMPUS DEAN FINALIST PRESENTATION Dr. Michelle “Shelley” Nuss, campus associate dean for graduate medical education at the GRU/UGA Medical Partnership, will give a public presentation. 5:30 p.m. 228 Russell Hall (HSC).

(See Digest, page 3).

GUEST ARTIST RECITAL Performance by Claudio Merlo, Alessandria Conservatory in Alessandria, Italy. 6 p.m. Ramsey Concert Hall, Performing Arts Center. 706-542-4752, ccschwabe@uga.edu ANIMAL VOICES FILM FESTIVAL SCREENING Blackfish tells the story of Tilikum, a performing captive killer whale who has taken the lives of several people, underscoring problems within the sea-park industry. 7 p.m. 171 Miller Learning Center. 706-224-3796, sos@uga.edu

4&5

Anais Mitchell

inspires us to see the orchestra as an instrument capable of breathing as one—of singing, dancing, crying, laughing, wherever the moment leads us,” said Eric Jacobsen, conductor and co-artistic director of The Knights.

Shaham has been called “the outstanding American violinist of his generation,” by Time magazine. He has more than two dozen concerto and solo CDs to his name, including bestsellers that have topped the charts in the U.S. and abroad, earning multiple Grammys, a Grand Prix du Disque, Diapason d’Or and Gramophone Editor’s Choice awards.

The Knights chamber orchestra is an orchestral collective, flexible in size and repertory, dedicated to transforming the concert experience. The orchestra evolved from late-night chamber music reading parties with friends at the home of violinist Colin Jacobsen and cellist Eric Jacobsen. The Jacobsen brothers serve as artistic directors of The Knights with Eric as conductor.

The Knights’ Hodgson Hall concert will be recorded for national broadcast on American Public Media’s Performance Today, heard by 1.4 million listeners across the county.

A pre-concert lecture will be offered 45 minutes prior to the performance.

Ensembles to put new spin on chamber music for Second Thursday concert

February’s Second Thursday Scholarship Series event challenges conventional notions of chamber music with MOD[ular] Ensemble and Revien (right) in Hugh Hodgson Concert Hall Feb. 18, at 7:30 p.m.

Tickets are $18 each or $5 with a UGA student ID and are available at pac.uga.edu, by calling 706-542-4400 or by visiting the Performing Arts Center box office.

Leading off the concert is Revien, a trio of UGA Hugh Hodgson School of Music graduates. Kyle Dawkins and Brian Smith alternate between guitars and electronics and Phil Snyder, assistant professor of guitar at the School of Music, plays cello.

“Though I am the classical guitar professor at UGA, I perform cello with this trio,” Snyder said. “Cello was my first instrument as a child, but I picked up the guitar as a teenager, so both instruments are close to my heart.”

Dawkins, Smith and Snyder are also members of the Georgia Guitar Quartet, a group with a 20-year history and roots at the School of Music, having been formed under the guidance of former guitar professor John Sutherland.

Revien, in keeping with the theme of the concert, approaches the idea of the chamber ensemble in a different way. Works from Bach and Mendelssohn find their way into their setlists just as easily as music by bands like Portishead or Grizzly Bear. As they describe it, “the trio embraces the classical repertoire and draws

columns.uga.edu Feb. 15, 2016

ECOLOGY SEMINAR “Three Dimensions of Amphibian Conservation: Disease, Diversity and Deforestation,” C. Guilherme Becker, a postdoctoral research associate in the biology department at Sao Paulo State University, 4 p.m. Ecology building auditorium. 706-542-7247, bethgav@uga.edu VOICES FROM THE VANGUARD LECTURE Thomas W. Scott, a Distinguished Professor of Entomology and Nematology at the University of California at Davis, will give a lecture titled “The Human Factor: People, Places and The Fight Against Infected Mosquitoes.” 5:30 p.m. Chapel. freemans@uga.edu PERFORMANCE Grammy winner Patty Griffin joins forces with Sara Watkins and Anais Mitchell in a celebration of American songwriting and performance. $25-$45. 8 p.m. Hugh Hodgson Concert Hall, Performing Arts Center. 706-542-4400. (See story, top right).

MEN’S BASKETBALL vs. Florida. $15. 9 p.m. Stegeman Coliseum. 706-542-1231.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 17

Proliferation Project, or A-4P, a group of printmaking, painting and drawing graduate students invested in embracing and investigating the rapid advancement of green practices in the contemporary art studio. 3 p.m. Suite Gallery, Lamar Dodd School of Art. kgeha@uga.edu MEETING: UNIVERSITY COUNCIL 3:30 p.m. Tate Student Center Theatre. 706-542-6020, hathcote@uga.edu DISTINGUISHED LECTURER Darby English will be giving a lecture on “Abstraction in the Defense of Society.” English is Carl Darling Buck Professor of Art History and the College at the University of Chicago. 5 p.m.

S150 Lamar Dodd School of Art. davemarr@uga.edu GUEST ARTIST RECITAL The UGA Hugh Hodgson School of Music will host guest artist Jared Hauser, an associate professor of oboe and chair of the woodwind department at the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt University, for a special recital. 6 p.m. Ramsey Concert Hall, Performing Arts Center. 706-542-4752, ccschwabe@uga.edu ‘BLACK PEARLS: INFLUENTIAL AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN IN OUR COMMUNITY’ A historical look at the influence of black women in the U.S. along with a panel of influential black women from UGA and Athens-Clarke County discussing their pathways to success.

Sponsored by University Housing. 6 p.m. Multipurpose room, Building 1516.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 18 SCHOOL OF SOCIAL WORK DEAN FINALIST PRESENTATION Judy Postmus, associate professor of social work and director of the Center on Violence Against Women and Children at Rutgers University, will make a public presentation. 9:30 a.m.

480 Tate Student Center.

SEPARATION OF POWERS CONFERENCE Through Feb. 20. Hosted by the School of Public and International Affairs. Prominent scholars such as Jon Bond, Will Howell, Kenneth Mayer, Nolan McCarty, Terry Moe, Jeffrey Segal and Charles Shipan have tentatively agreed to participate in the conference. Georgia Center. mlynch@uga.edu HOLMES-HUNTER LECTURE* Sanford Bishop, U.S. congressman representing Georgia’s Second District, will speak. Sponsored by the Office of the President. Part of the Signature Lecture Series. 2 p.m. Chapel.

WORKSHOP “Facilitated Peer Review: A Means to Generate Meaningful Reflection and Revision Skills.” This workshop will demonstrate the use of facilitated peer review to train students to be better reviewers and emphasize self reflection through peer review as a means to improve one’s writing. 1:15 p.m. 372 Miller Learning Center. 706-583-0067, tchagood@uga.edu

GUEST LECTURE “The Storied South: Voices of Writers and Artists,” William Ferris, Joel R. Williamson Eminent Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and senior associate director of UNC’s Center for the Study of the American South.

Co-sponsored by the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts.

4 p.m. M. Smith Griffith Auditorium, Georgia Museum of Art. 706-542-4662, hazbrown@uga.edu (See story, page 2).

‘PRESERVATIONIST’ ROUND TABLE DISCUSSION A discussion with artists and students in relation to Preservationist, an exhibition spearheaded by the Air Purifying Plants

ECOLOGY SEMINAR “Tree Cover Dynamics in Tropical Savannas: From Leaves to

Calendar items are taken from Columns files and from the 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 on the Web at calendar.uga.edu/.

Ecosystems,” Ricardo Holdo, an assistant professor in the division of biological sciences at the University of Missouri. 4 p.m.

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

LECTURE Artist Paul Pfeiffer, who holds the 2015-2016 Dodd Professorial Chair, will speak. 5:30 p.m. S151 Lamar Dodd School of Art. (See Digest, page 3).

SECOND THURSDAY CONCERT SERIES Two diverse ensembles—MOD[ular] Ensemble and Revien— will bring their approaches to chamber music to this performance. $18; $5 with a UGACard. 7:30 p.m. Hugh Hodgson Concert Hall, Performing Arts Center. (See story, above left).

PERFORMANCE The spirit of famed jazz musician, composer, poet and band leader Sun Ra is alive and well in the present-day manifestation of the Sun Ra Arkestra under the direction of Marshall Allen. $15. 8 p.m. The Morton Theatre, 195 West Washington St. 706-542-7270, markcall@uga.edu

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 19 INTERNATIONAL COFFEE HOUR 11:30 a.m. Memorial Hall ballroom. 706-542-5867, cheeia@uga.edu WOMEN’S STUDIES FRIDAY SPEAKER SERIES LECTURE “To Be Butch: Understanding Masculinity without Misogyny,” Meg Evans, UGA LGBT Resource Center. 12:20 p.m. 248 Miller Learning Center. 706-542-2846, tlhat@uga.edu PHILOSOPHY LECTURE Speaker: Oliver Sensen, Tulane University. Talk on “The Defense of Kantian Free Will.” Reception will follow lecture. Hosted by Kleiner Series. 3:30 p.m. 205S Peabody Hall.

BASEBALL vs. Georgia Southern. $5-$8. 5 p.m. Foley Field. 706-542-1231.

AFRICA NIGHT* The African Student Union will host its annual celebration of the continent of Africa with song, dance and poetry. 7 p.m. Fine Arts Theatre. Also Feb. 20 at 7 p.m.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 20 UGA MIRACLE DANCE MARATHON To benefit Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. This is a 24-hour event that will start Feb. 20 at 10 a.m. and end Feb. 21 at 10 a.m. Grand Hall, Tate Student Center.

WORKING IN PUBLIC INTEREST CONFERENCE Registration is required. 9 a.m. Larry Walker Room, Dean Rusk Hall. (See Digest, page 3).

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

TO SUBMIT A LISTING FOR THE MASTER CALENDAR AND COLUMNS Post event information first to the Master Calendar website (calendar.uga.edu/). Listings for Columns are taken from the Master Calendar 12 days before the publication date.

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

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

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 21 EXHIBITION OPENING Georgia’s Diverse Flora. Through March 6. State Botanical Garden. 706-542-6014, connicot@uga.edu BASEBALL vs. Georgia Southern. $5-$8. 1 p.m. Foley Field. 706-542-1231.

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL vs. Florida. $5. 1 p.m. Stegeman Coliseum.

CONCERT This concert includes the new “Concerto for Violin” composed especially for Gil Saham by Jonathan Leshnoff. $25-$60. 3 p.m.

Hugh Hodgson Concert Hall, Performing Arts Center.

706-542-4400. (See story, top left).

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 22 CENTER FOR SIMULATIONAL PHYSICS WORKSHOP Through Feb. 27. Hosted by the UGA Center for Simulational Physics. Room 322, physics building. (See story, page 2).

SCHOOL OF SOCIAL WORK DEAN FINALIST PRESENTATION Anna Scheyett, professor and dean of the University of South Carolina College of Social Work, will make a public presentation.

9:30 a.m. 480 Tate Student Center.

ANIMAL VOICES FILM FESTIVAL SCREENING Virunga. The Peabody Award-winning true story of the rangers risking their lives to protect Virunga National Park. 7 p.m.

171 Miller Learning Center. 706-224-3796, sos@uga.edu

COMING UP CED LECTURE Feb. 25. Jeffrey Hou, professor and chair of landscape architecture at the University of Washington, will speak. 4 p.m.

123 Jackson Street building. (See Digest, page 3).

DOCUMENTARY SCREENING* Feb. 25. American Denial. The story of Swedish researcher Gunnar Myrdal, whose landmark 1944 study, An American Dilemma, probed deep into the U.S. racial psyche. A panel discussion will follow. 6:30 p.m. Miller Learning Center.

RED CLAY CONFERENCE Feb. 26. “Making a Sustainable Lifestyle Accessible to All.” $10 for non-UGA members. 9 a.m. Larry Walker Room, Dean Rusk Hall. (See story, page 2).

STEM INSTITUTE ON TEACHING AND LEARNING Feb. 26. 9 a.m. Georgia Center. (See story, page 1).

ART MUSEUM BLACK HISTORY MONTH DINNER* Feb. 26. The Larry D. and Brenda A. Thompson Award and the Lillian C. Lynch Citation will be presented. RSVP to gmoarsvp@ uga.edu or 706-542-4199. $55-$75. 6 p.m. Georgia Museum of Art. 706-542-4662, hazbrown@uga.edu *PART OF BLACK HISTORY MONTH

NEXT COLUMNS DEADLINES Feb. 17 (for Feb. 29 issue) March 2 (for March 14 issue) March 9 (for March 21 issue)

6 Feb. 15, 2016 columns.uga.edu

CAMPUS CLOSEUP

The fracas continues

A recent landmark study by the Environmental Protection Agency concluded that fracking, a controversial method for extracting natural gas, poses no widespread harm to drinking water.

However, members of the EPA Science Advisory Board, which included UGA’s James V. Bruckner, a professor of pharmacology and biosciences in the College of Pharmacy, said the EPA’s conclusion needed clarification.

Bruckner was quoted in Bloomberg Business as saying, “I do not think that the document’s authors have gone far enough to emphasize how preliminary these key conclusions are and how limited the factual bases are for their judgments.”

Monumental changes

In an essay for Time, James C. Cobb, emeritus professor of history in UGA’s Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, considered the debate about removing memorials to Confederate soldiers and leaders.

While acknowledging the problematic history to these monuments, many of which were built decades after the Civil War as a rally to uphold racial segregation, Cobb argued that these symbols are important reminders of a past that still has repercussions today.

He wrote, “At a time when the nation needs urgently to acknowledge the enduring consequences of its racially unjust past, we seem increasingly intent on sweeping aside many of the most vivid reminders of why there is still so much to overcome.”

Over-kale

Kale has grown increasingly popular as a “superfood.” That surge in demand has put a strain on the supply of kale seeds and caused the price to shoot up.

But Timothy W. Coolong, an associate professor of horticulture in UGA’s College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, told CBS News that demand for kale may be reaching a plateau.

“Overall, we are growing much more kale than we ever did, but increases in acreage are slowing down compared to the very rapid increase observed a few years ago,” he said. “However, keep in mind that there is still much more kale grown now than in the past. I think it probably will probably stay somewhat static from here out for the next few years.”

Southern spat

National Public Radio reported that an “oyster renaissance in the Southeastern U.S. is underway,” and UGA’s Marine Extension will be a leader in making that happen in Georgia.

The NPR story examined how Southern states from Virginia to Florida are working to restore an oyster industry that once thrived in the South.

Georgia launched its first oyster hatchery at Skidaway Island, and Thomas Bliss, public service associate and director of UGA’s Shellfish Research Laboratory, shared the progress with NPR. “The hatchery produced 200,000 seedlings in 2015, which were handed out to 10 different oyster growers to raise in heavy mesh bags laid in the coastal waters,” Bliss said. “We hope to be producing 5 million a year by 2018.”

To screen or not to screen

In a Reuters article, Dr. Mark H. Ebell, a professor of epidemiology in UGA’s College of Public Health, explained a recent conclusion by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force on skin cancer screenings.

“After an in-depth review of the benefits and harms of this preventive service, the task force found that there isn’t enough evidence to know with adequate certainty whether a full-body visual skin screening exam by a doctor does or does not prevent deaths from melanoma,” said Ebell, who was a task force member.

Dorothy Kozlowski

Elizabeth Willimon, undergraduate corporate relations manager for the Terry College of Business, coordinates the Employer of the Day program, which brings a different company to campus every Tuesday through Thursday.

Corporate relations manager connects Terry College students, employers

By Matt Chambers mattdc@uga.edu

Elizabeth Willimon is a connector.

Whether it’s connecting alumni with students or Terry College of Business students to employers, she’s constantly seeking to put the right people in touch with each other.

“The ultimate goal of my job is to have our students hired,” said Willimon, Terry’s undergraduate corporate relations manager. “Anything I can do to make it as easy as possible to hire our students, I’ll do.”

Willimon, who started in this role in 2011, is working to encourage Terry alumni to hire current students for internships or jobs. Her job is “very customerservice oriented” in that she’ll post positions to Dawglink—UGA’s job board—on the employer’s behalf, promote opportunities to targeted groups of students, schedule on-campus interviews, share collected resumes and anything else she can to encourage employers to hire from Terry College.

One of her biggest responsibilities is coordinating the Employer of the Day program, which brings a different company to campus every Tuesday through Thursday.

“It’s similar to a career fair but only one company is our spotlight employer on campus that day,” she said. “It’s a fun and more laid back way for students

to engage with recruiters or potential employers.”

The program started as a way to bring major accounting firms to campus and has expanded greatly from there.

Twenty-two companies came to campus during fall semester.

“Now, thankfully, people know about the EOD program and our office and spread the word,” she said. “It’s kind of a win-win, because the students get to learn about hiring companies and the companies get to create more brand awareness while engaging with our students.”

Willimon and others in her office work with more than 2,500 Terry students and a few thousand prebusiness majors to connect them to opportunities off campus.

“One thing our office really hones in on is getting our students connected outside of the classroom, helping them start to build those networks,” Willimon said.

Doing that often includes meeting one-on-one with students and helping them polish their resumes or find the right internship or job.

“There’s a big university-wide push for this experiential learning concept and that’s what our office has done from the get go, help broaden students’ experiences and connections outside the classroom,” Willimon said. “I love

“Anything I can do to make it as easy as possible to hire our students, I’ll do.”

FACTS

Elizabeth Willimon

Undergraduate Corporate Relations Manager Terry College of Business B.A., English, Converse College, 2001 At UGA: 10 years

being able to look at a student’s interests and resume and help him or her think through various career options—that is a fun challenge.”

The goal of Willimon’s office is to have 90 percent of Terry graduates in a job within three months after graduation. Last year 86 percent of grads had positions; that rate was the highest in the college’s history, up 2 percent from 2014. Part of what helped boost that number is reaching out to alumni and asking them to hire Terry students.

“It’s been so fun to work with former students and see how they’re succeeding,” she said. “I have the best of both worlds since I get to work with alumni, too. Hiring our students is another way for them to give back to Terry.”

Willimon said it’s so important for students to set themselves apart doing work outside the classroom before they graduate. She said she’s seen students “come out of their shells” and really grow by attending events and interacting with alumni. Those experiences become invaluable as students prepare to leave campus.

“I have such great pride in all our students,” she said. “They’re so ­impressive.”

RETIREES February

Twelve UGA employees retired Feb. 1.

Retirees, their job classification, department and length of employment are: Paula M. Brooks, research professional/high containment, infectious diseases, 16 years, 3 months; Susan E. Caldwell, public service assistant, Small Business Development Center, 16 years, 10 months; Ellen M. Ford, building services worker II, Facilities Management Division-Building Services, South Campus, 10 years;

Michael Thomas Heath, research professional I, plant pathology research coastal, 31 years, 8 months; Linwood Hill, parking services supervisor, East Campus parking deck, 31 years, 3 months; G. Darin Hooper, maintenance worker, Facilities Management DivisionZone Maintenance Shop-East, 29 years, 8 months; Elmar Kannenberg, senior research scientist, Complex Carbohydrate Research Center, 11 years, 9 months; Robert A.

Kennamer, research professional I, Savannah River Ecology Lab, 33 years; Michael P. Lacy, department head, poultry science, 30 years, 7 months; Carol Nunn McGinnis, clinic manager,University Health Center,23 years, 9 months; Larry O. Sims, building services worker II, Facilities Management Division-Building Services (second shift), 24 years, 9 months; and Shirley R. Toney, program specialist I, Athletic Association, 20 years.

Source: Human Resources

OFFICE OF THE VICE PRESIDENT FOR PUBLIC SERVICE AND OUTREACH

columns.uga.edu Feb. 15, 2016

7

GRADY COLLEGE

Simon Kilmurry, Monica Pearson join Peabody board

Karen Payne, a geographic information systems expert at the Carl Vinson Institute of Government, trains information management officers with the U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in collecting and applying critical GIS data. Relief organizations rely on this information to set up facilities like emergency shelters and medical clinics.

Coordinated effort Institute of Government faculty member trains United Nations humanitarian responders

By Roger Nielsen nielsen@uga.edu

When catastrophe strikes, relief organizations rely on accurate maps and relevant local data from United Nations specialists trained by a team that includes a faculty member with UGA’s Carl Vinson Institute of Government.

Karen Payne, one of the institute’s geographic information systems experts, trains information management officers with the U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in collecting and applying critical GIS data. The data includes locations of towns, roads, rivers and administrative boundaries. Relief organizations rely on this information to set up facilities like emergency shelters and medical clinics.

The U.N. specialists provide maps, population data and other basic facts to help individual humanitarian agencies work together to coordinate disaster responses in parts of the world where reliable information is scarce or nonexistent. They also prepare reports about humanitarian emergencies such as the refugee crisis in Syria and develop

plans that help the U.N. and its partners organize aid operations.

The U.N. inaugurated its Information Management Preparedness and Coordination Training program last year to better prepare field staff stationed in far-flung places like Pakistan, Kenya and Colombia.

All of the trainers except Payne are U.N. personnel. Each weeklong session covers a variety of increasingly complex subjects, concluding with a disaster simulation.

Payne provided GIS training in Egypt at a session in September about the regional consequences of the war in Syria. In late November, she traveled to Cape Town to lead classes focused on displaced civilians in Sudan and South Sudan.This year, trainings are planned in Bangkok, Dakar and Geneva.

Payne’s assignment is to help the information management officers better understand and apply GIS information to prepare for humanitarian emergencies and to respond effectively when one occurs.

Participants study ways to assess the accuracy of data, clean the data and provide consistent and precise information for other U.N. offices and partner agencies.

WEEKLY READER

Alumnus’ debut novel set during Civil War

Fallen Land

By Taylor Brown St. Martin’s Press Hardcover: $25.99 E-book: $12.99

Fallen Land is UGA alumnus Taylor Brown’s debut novel set in the final year of the Civil War. In the novel, a young couple on horseback flees a dangerous band of marauders who seek a bounty reward.

Callum, a seasoned horse thief at 15 years old, came to America from his native Ireland as an orphan. Ava, who lost her father and brother to the war, hides in her crumbling home until Callum determines to rescue her from the bands of hungry soldiers pillaging the land, leaving destruction in their wake.

Ava and Callum have only each other in the world and their remarkable horse, Reiver, who carries them through the destruction that is the South. Pursued by a murderous slave hunter, tracking dogs and ex-partisan rangers, the couple race through a ruined land, surviving on food they glean from abandoned farms and the occasional kindness of strangers.

Payne has worked with GIS and other spatial and information technologies since joining the Institute of Government’s Information Technology Outreach Services division in 2007. Her faculty position includes managing the Geographic Information Support Team repository, an online archive of global data hosted by UGA and supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The U.N. and fellow members of the humanitarian community such as USAID, theWorld Health Organization and Doctors Without Borders access the GIST repository to retrieve and share data they use for emergency preparedness and humanitarian responses. USAID supports the repository and funds Payne’s work training information management officers.

“We provide critical GIS and data management services to government agencies throughout Georgia, and our collaboration with USAID is evidence that confidence in our expertise extends to national and international organizations as well,” said Laura Meadows, director of the Institute of Government.

The Peabody Awards at UGA has appointed Simon Kilmurry, executive director of the International Documentary Association, and Monica Pearson, television news journalist, to its board of jurors. Additionally, Fred Young has been appointed chair of the board of jurors and Eddie Garrett the new vice chair. Both are already jurors, and Young previously served as vice chair.

Kilmurry became executive director of the International Documentary Association in 2015 after a tenure as executive producer of POV, the long-running, much acclaimed PBS showcase for documentaries, and as executive director of American Documentary, POV’s nonprofit parent organization.

Under Kilmurry’s leadership, American Documentary received a $1 million MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions in 2013. Kilmurry was educated at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, and Columbia University Business School’s Institute for Not-for-Profit Management.

The POV documentaries that Kilmurry has executive produced have won numerous honors, including five Peabodys, a primetime Emmy, 14 News and Documentary Emmys, three DuPont Columbia Awards and two Overseas Press Club Awards.

Pearson, the first woman and first minority to anchor a 6 p.m. newscast in Atlanta, retired in 2012 after 37 years with WSB-TV. She now hosts a weekly radio show on KISS 104.1 FM, writes a column,“Monica Matters,” for Southern Seasons Magazine and continues her “Closeups” interviews on www.wsbtv.com/monica.

She received numerous accolades and honors for her TV work, including 33 local and regional Emmys. In March 2012, the bipartisan Georgia delegation to the U.S. Congress honored her on the floor of the U.S. House as “a true pioneer and a trailblazer in television news.” She taught part-time at Atlanta Metropolitan State College.

In addition to her degrees from the University of Louisville and UGA, she holds an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Atlanta University (now Clark Atlanta University), Oglethorpe University, American Bible University and a Doctor of Public Service from Young Harris College.

The Peabody Board of Jurors is made up of media industry professionals, media scholars, critics and journalists, each appointed by the Peabody director for a renewable three-year term of service. This mix of top-level thought leaders from varied backgrounds, all versed in media excellence, ensures that the list of winning programs will reflect the interest of a broad cross-section of audiences, rather than just media insiders.

ABOUT COLUMNS

CYBERSIGHTS

Columns is available to the campus 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 Art Director Janet Beckley Photo Editor Dorothy Kozlowski

GS Studies launches redesigned site

Senior Reporter Aaron Hale

gsstudies.uga.edu

The Germanic and Slavic studies department in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences recently launched a redesign of its website.

The clean, new look on the Drupal content management system includes great images and easy-tonavigate links to news, information

for students and about events.

Study-abroad opportunities and the department’s travel grants and awards are alongside course descriptions, program information and a directory of faculty, staff, graduate students and the department’s Max Kade Visiting Professor.

Reporter Matt Chambers The University of Georgia is committed to principles of equal opportunity and affirmative action.

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

I

7 8 5

8 Feb. 15, 2016 columns.uga.edu

SUMMIT from page 1

Laurie Anderson

BUILDING SUCCESS—Iris Ochoa and Avery Finley, members of The Snorkling Sparrowbots

team from Puckett’s Mill Elementary School in Dacula, work on a robot challenge during the FIRST LEGO League State tournament, which was hosted Feb. 6 by the College of Engineering.

SCIENCE from page 1

hands-on learning.

• SCALE-UP, which stands for StudentCentered Active Learning Environment for Undergraduate Programs, promotes collaboration between students to discover solutions to problems in a team format.

• Even the tiered lecture halls have rows with flexible seating that can be turned to promote active learning.

Timothy Burg, director of UGA’s Office of STEM Education, said active-learning instruction—which emphasizes fewer in-class lectures and more discussion and activities— has proven to be effective in teaching STEM courses.And while UGA instructors have been adapting active-learning techniques to older classrooms, the SLC is designed with active instruction in mind.

“The idea is to build a physical space that matches the teaching style,” Burg said. “This is an exciting opportunity to focus resources on new teaching methods.”

In addition to the classroom space, the SLC will feature informal meeting rooms and study spaces that will offer learning opportunities and collaboration for all levels of students. However, formal instructional rooms will primarily be used for introductory courses in chemistry, physics, biological sciences and ecology.

The building, which will cost $48 mil-

lion, was funded through the support of the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia, Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal and the Georgia General Assembly. Cervero said the SLC’s construction is a sign that state leaders are putting a priority on STEM education.

When UGA broke ground on the building in 2014, Deal noted the increase in jobs created in STEM areas and the importance of training college students for those jobs.

“The Science Learning Center is a game changer in instruction for UGA,” said Rahul Shrivastav, vice president for instruction.“The process of active learning will help students develop strong reasoning skills, which are transferable not only to their other courses, but to life beyond college.”

The goal is for the building’s features— paired with effective instruction from UGA faculty—to provide a strong foundation in science for all majors, but there is also an expectation that this building will bolster the number of graduates in STEM majors. In 2015, nearly 21 percent of degrees awarded to undergraduates at UGA were in the STEM fields—an increase from 15.1 percent a decade earlier. With updated instructional spaces able to facilitate the most effective STEM teaching methods, the SLC is geared toward retaining and recruiting more STEM majors.

STEM from page 1 by sharing the impact of CIRTL in preparing future STEM faculty, emerging trends in undergraduate and graduate STEM education and other insights about the current higher education landscape.

Susan Singer, director of the National Science Foundation Division of Undergraduate Education and the Laurence McKinley Gould

Professor in biology and cognitive science at Carleton College, will conclude the day by sharing information about NSF funding opportunities and areas of focus related to STEM. A continental breakfast will be provided from 8-9 a.m. in addition to lunch at noon.

Attendance is free, and registration is open until Feb. 17.

Bulletin Board Summer tennis camp

Registration is currently open for the 2016 Bulldog Tennis Camp.

Open to boys ages 9-17 at all levels of playing ability, the camp will be held June 19-23, June 26-30 and July 10-14.

Prices are $675 for resident campers (12 and older) and $475 for day campers.

Coach Manual Diaz and his staff will provide camp participants with the same championship instruction used to lead UGA to the national championships.

The camp will be held at the Dan Magill Tennis complex, which has 12 outdoor courts as well as four indoor courts.

For more information or to register, visit BulldogTennisCamps.com or call 706-542-9348.

Lilly Fellows deadline

The Center for Teaching and Learning currently is accepting applications

production agriculture, from agribusiness, academia, government and much more.”

One of the goals of this summit, which was sponsored by the UGA President’s Venture Fund, the UGA Women’s Leadership Initiative and the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, was to put these agriculturally minded women together to share their leadership experiences and document the barriers they have overcome.

“The university’s role as host of this extraordinary gathering underscores our commitment to increasing the number of women in leadership roles in agriculture,” said Pamela Whitten, senior vice president for academic affairs and provost.

Agriculture is slightly behind the curve in cultivating female leaders, said Krysta Harden, U.S. Department of Agriculture deputy secretary and UGA alumna, who told the audience that she was only the third female deputy secretary at the USDA in 150 years. In boardrooms, on commodity commissions and in state growers’ associations, the track record is not much better.

“How many bright, talented women have been passed over (through) the years? That’s why we’re here,” she said. “Young women need to hear, ‘You can do it, don’t wait to be asked. Step up and be counted and make a difference.’ This our responsibility and our obligation.”

Harden moderated a panel of female agricultural leaders to kick off the summit, and each shared key events and struggles that

had shaped her path. They urged women to step out of their traditional roles and to take a seat at the table.

Panelists, delegates and Harden continually touched on the need for today’s leaders to support young women—and for professional women to support one another—through formal advocacy organizations and informal mentoring relationships.

The summit concluded with facilitators from UGA’s J.W. Fanning Institute for Leadership Development asking delegates to discuss three questions on what is needed to support leadership activities for women in agriculture; what people should stop doing that causes barriers to women having leadership roles; and what people should start doing to support leadership activities for women in agriculture. The results of the institute’s findings from the summit will be compiled and released as a formal public report within the next three months, in addition to academic papers describing their data.

Summit organizers will also release a how-to blueprint for women who want to hold similar women’s leadership summits in their hometowns and counties and a best practices guide for policymakers and agricultural stakeholders about how to support female leadership. A similar guide will be developed for women working in agriculture to help develop their leadership skills and to support other women in doing the same.

These documents will be publicized and circulated as they become available.

VACCINE from page 1

GRANT from page 1

body’s immune system attacks the nervous system. The virus is anticipated to spread to countries throughout the Western Hemisphere, with the exception of Canada and Chile.

There is no proven vaccine or treatment for Zika, which is closely related to yellow fever, dengue and chikungunya viruses, also transmitted to people by mosquitoes.

Ross’ research group focuses on designing, developing and testing vaccines—including what are called VLP-based vaccines—for emerging viral diseases including dengue, chikungunya and Ebola as well as influenza, respiratory syncytial virus and HIV/AIDS. VLPs—virus-like particles—mimic a live virus but do not contain genetic material; they cannot replicate or cause infection, yet they elicit a strong immune response in the cells of the person being vaccinated. Ross said that vaccines made with VLPs give the immune system a head start in fighting infection.

“When a person vaccinated with a VLP virus is infected by the real virus, the immune system is ready to fight back,” he said.

In addition to Ross, UGA researchers working on the Zika vaccine include Ralph Tripp, who holds the Georgia Research Alliance Chair in Vaccine and Therapeutic Development; Biao He, Georgia Research Alliance Distinguished Investigator and holder of the Fred C. Davison Distinguished University Chair in Veterinary Medicine; and Mark Tompkins, associate professor of infectious diseases.

the Ernest Corn Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology in the UGA College of Public Health. “What is in Africa today could be in the U.S. tomorrow. Remember the concern about Ebola? It is better to contain infectious diseases at their source.

To do this, you must build capacity in areas where the disease is most serious.”

UGA will use the five-year grant to enhance computational and molecular epidemiology training in tuberculosis and HIV in Uganda. The program will train two predoctoral students in molecular and computational epidemiology, offer ­nondegree technical training in computational epidemiology and bioinformatics and support a variety of additional research and training activities in Uganda. Training will be integrated into ongoing research projects Whalen is leading to investigate how social interactions that make up daily life in Uganda contribute to TB transmission in the context of a mature HIV epidemic.

“Disease transmission is difficult to study because it involves a community,” Whalen said. “Since it is not possible to study everyone in a community, we use the molecular and computational approaches to infer patterns of transmission within the community.”

Andreas Handel, an associate professor, and Ming Zhang, an assistant professor in the epidemiology and biostatistics department at the UGA College of Public Health, also will contribute to the program’s training efforts.

for the 2016-2018 Lilly Teaching Fellows program.

Faculty in their first, second or third year of a tenure-track position at UGA are eligible to apply. The application deadline is 5 p.m. March 11. Information and application materials can be found at http://t.uga.edu/22b .

For more information, contact Jean Martin-Williams, the director of the program, at jfmartin@uga.edu .

courses throughout the college.

Faculty who teach WIP courses are supported by a Writing Intensive Program teaching assistant, who is specially trained in writing-in-the-disciplines pedagogy.

Visit www.wip.uga.edu for proposal forms and guidelines as well as additional information about the program.

Direct questions to the Michelle Ballif, WIP director, at mballlif@uga.edu .

WIP course proposals

Moss fellowship applications

The Franklin College Writing Intensive Program is accepting proposals until March 4 from arts and sciences faculty in all disciplines for innovative courses that encourage writing.

The WIP aims to enhance undergraduate education by emphasizing the importance of writing in the disciplines by offering “writing-intensive”

Applications are being accepted until March 25 at 5 p.m. for the Sarah H. Moss Fellowships for 2016-17, beginning with summer semester.

Administered by UGA’s Center for Teaching and Learning, the fellowships provide up to $10,000 for travel and related expenses for faculty pursuing advanced study in institutions of higher

learning in the U.S. and abroad.

Applicants should be tenure-track faculty at the UGA Athens campus and show promise of unusual accomplishment in study at universities other than in Southern states including and contiguous to Georgia.

Approval is required by the nominee’s department head and dean if a leave of absence during the academic year is requested. Recipients must agree to return UGA for one year after receiving a scholarship or re-pay the amount of the award.

More information about the fellowship and the application process is at http://t.uga.edu/235 .

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