UGA Columns Jan. 30, 2017

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Warnell School bird study: ­White ibis salmonella shedding increases with urbanization RESEARCH NEWS

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Feb. 9 ‘Extravaganza’ at Hodgson Concert Hall to celebrate piano dynamism Vol. 44, No. 23

January 30, 2017

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2017 State of the University

UGA GUIDE

4&5

UGA President Jere W. Morehead shares his vision for America’s first state-chartered university.

Savannah woman leaves UGA nearly $1 million estate gift

Dorothy Kozlowski

WenZhan Song, UGA’s Georgia Power Mickey A. Brown Professor of Engineering, predicts that expanding smart grids will pave the way for the widespread use of electric cars and smart appliances.

Get smart(er)

A lifelong animal lover has left a gift of nearly $900,000 to benefit the UGA College of Veterinary Medicine.

Betty Lorraine Butler, a Savannah resident who retired from Union Camp in 1990, died at her home Sept. 10, 2015. Friends say she owned dogs throughout her life and cared for stray animals near her home. She was always fascinated by the interface between animals and humans in health and disease.

The gift will initiate an annual seminar that will be known as the Butler Seminar Series. Butler’s estate gift will be used to bring

world-renowned scholars to the UGA campus to lead a discussion about the benefits and risks of human-animal interactions. The college also will establish the Betty Butler Scholarship Fund, which will be awarded annually to students dedicated to companion animal medicine.

“The College of Veterinary Medicine is grateful for this generous bequest from Ms. Betty Butler.

We are honored to direct this wonderful gift toward the causes Ms. Butler was passionate about,” said Dr. Sheila Allen, former dean

See GIFT on page 8

OFFICE OF RESEARCH

New informatics professor working to develop Award to help fund New Materials Innovation Center at university ‘smart grid’ energy systems

By James E. Hataway “The es-

By Mike Wooten

mwooten@uga.edu

WenZhan Song wants to make smart technology even smarter.

His work to develop “smart grid” energy systems has the potential to increase the use of renewable energy sources and is an example of how the work of the university’s faculty will create a more secure future for Georgians.

Song predicts that expanding smart grids will pave the way for the widespread use of electric cars and smart appliances while facilitating increased input from renewable energy sources and communitybased micro-grids.

“Integrating renewable energy

into our power grid has the potential to reduce our impact on the environment, and the use of smart technology has the potential to reduce the world’s overall energy consumption,” he said. “The benefits are significant.”

Song is one of eight new faculty hires whose expertise and research interests reside in the realm of “big data,” also called informatics, where massive data sets are collected and analyzed. According to Song, who joined UGA in the fall as the Georgia Power Mickey A. Brown Professor of Engineering, academic interest in the internet has shifted over the past decade.

“In the 1990s, the focus was on building the internet’s information

infrastructure, which was like building a circulatory system to enable information to flow from one place to another,” he said. “What we are doing now is building a nervous system so we can sense information, analyze that information and make decisions based on the information.”

Song’s research focuses on advances in cyber-physical systems and security in energy, environmental and health applications. ­ Cyber-physical systems, See INFORMATICS on page 8

ACADEMIC AFFAIRS

Internationally prominent speakers will visit university for spring 2017 Signature Lectures

By Camie Williams camiew@uga.edu

UGA’s Signature Lecture series for spring 2017 will feature visits from nationally and internationally recognized figures in fields ranging from artificial intelligence to public health and dance.

“We are truly honored to have these speakers visiting our campus this spring, and I hope that students, faculty and the entire community will take advantage of this outstanding lineup,” said Meg Amstutz, associate provost for academic

programs. “There is something for everyone on this list.”

Signature Lectures are designated at the beginning of each semester by the Office of Academic Programs to highlight campus talks by some of the world’s most prominent thought leaders. Many of the lectures are supported by endowments, while others honor notable figures and milestones in the university’s history.

The spring 2017 Signature Lecture are open free to the public.

The series opened Jan. 17 with the talk “A Life in Art” by Alonzo King,

founder of Alonzo King LINES Ballet.

The series continued Jan. 23 when Charles S. Bullock III, UGA’s Russell Professor of Political Science, gave this year’s Founders Day Lecture,“Highlights and Lowlights of the 2016 Election.”

The next Signature Lecture will take place Feb. 2 when Keith Parker, general manager and CEO of the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority, gives the Holmes-Hunter Lecture at 2 p.m. in the Chapel.

See LECTURES on page 8

jhataway@uga.edu

Thanks in part to support from the U.S. Department of Commerce, UGA will create a New Materials Innovation Center, which will fulfill the local and regional need for a large-scale testing facility for new materials being developed by entrepreneurs, startups and researchers.

UGA is one of 35 organizations selected from a pool of more than 215 applicants to receive funding through the Economic Development Administration’s Regional Innovation Strategies program.

The i6 Challenge award of nearly $500,000 will be matched by UGA to create the new facility.

tablishment of the New Materials Innovation Center highlights the importance of federal investment in research,” said Ian Biggs UGA President Jere W. Morehead. “This center also exemplifies the University of Georgia’s commitment to improving health, security, sustainability and economic vitality. It will strengthen existing partnerships while creating new opportunities for students, faculty, entrepreneurs and industry.”

See CENTER on page 8

FRANKLIN COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

Evolutionary biologist receives Presidential Early Career Award

By Alan Flurry

aflurry@uga.edu

UGA assistant professor Andrea Sweigart is among 102 scientists announced as recipients of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, or PECASE, the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on scientists and engineers in the early stages of their research careers.

Established in 1996 by former President Bill Clinton, awardees are selected for their pursuits of innovative research at the f­ rontiers

of science and technology and their ­c ommitments to ­community service as demonstrated through scientific leadership, Andrea Sweigart public education or community outreach. The recipients receive the awards in person each spring at the White House.

Sweigart is an assistant professor

See AWARD on page 8

2 Jan. 30, 2017 columns.uga.edu

DIVISION OF STUDENT AFFAIRS

Around academe

Northwestern University’s Faculty Senate resolution suggests syllabi include mental health note

A new resolution passed in Northwestern University’s Faculty Senate recommends professors include information on available mental health services in their syllabi, according to a recent article from Inside Higher Ed. The resolution was passed in response to a recommendation from the university’s student government, which cites student mental health as a major concern. The resolution suggests professors add a note to their syllabi saying that a student struggling with mental or physical health issues should feel comfortable speaking with them about it and that the professors will do their best to accommodate those needs.

$20 million grant aims to increase job preparation for high schoolers

The Council of State School Officers and JP Morgan Chase & Co. are teaming up to provide almost $20 million in grants to 10 states to boost career preparation in high school, according to a U.S. News & World Report article.

The goal is to increase the number of students who graduate from high school with necessary skills to immediately fill positions that don’t require advanced degrees. Each of the states, including Rhode Island and Kentucky, will receive $2 million to help train students for available jobs.

Resolve to become heart healthy

News to Use

To promote heart health, the American Heart Association encourages Americans to increase physical activity with the aim of achieving 150 minutes of aerobic activity per week combined with strength training a couple of days per week. (Note: It may be advisable to check with your health care provider before beginning a new physical activity routine.)

As part of American Heart Month, the University Health Center will host its inaugural Heart Health Fair Feb. 8 from 1-4 p.m. at the health center.

Aligning with the University Health Center’s mission, the goal of the fair is to provide education. Much of the education will address the value of prevention in reducing the risks for heart disease. The health center and various UGA campus departments have partnered to deliver a comprehensive, interactive health fair.

The fair will include tasting tours, mindfulness classes, BMI and VO2 max testing, blood pressure, glucose and cholesterol screenings for at-risk participants by UHC Medical Clinic employees.

All activities are free, except the $10 fee assessed for cholesterol screenings for nonfees paid UGA students, faculty, staff, spouses, domestic partners and UGA retirees. To provide best results on screenings, participants must have no food or drink except water after midnight the night before the event.

More information about the Heart Health Fair is at www.uhs.uga.edu.

Source: University Health Center

INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCE

More than 2,600 UGA students participated in a studyabroad program in the 2014-2015 academic year.* The top 10 countries in which those students studied are: rank

location

1. Italy 2. Australia 3. New Zealand 4. Costa Rica 5. United Kingdom 6. France 7. Spain 8. Austria 9. Poland 10. China

students

338 286 284 243 230

192

182

97

79

74

*The most current year for which information is available Source: 2015 UGA Fact Book

Third-year public relations student named Miss University of Georgia

By Don Reagin

dreagin@uga.edu

Hanna Holley, a third-year public relations student from Dublin, was crowned Miss University of Georgia 2017 at the annual scholarship pageant held Jan. 21 in the UGA Fine Arts Auditorium. A 2014 graduate of West Laurens High School, she is the daughter of Dennis and Dawn Holley.

Fourth runner-up in the pageant was Karson Pennington, a first-year health, political science and journalism major from Martinez; third runner-up was Kaylee Ewing, a third-year marketing major from Monroe. Nia Hampton, a fourth-year communication studies major from Snellville received second runner-up honors, and Alexa Giloman, a third-year journalism major from Suwanee was named first runner-up.

The Floreida Harrell Miss Congeniality Scholarship, voted on by the contestants, was awarded to Brooke Carter, a third-year business

Hanna Holley, center, was named Miss UGA 2017. Pictured from left are Kelly Donoghue, Karson Pennington, Nia Hampton, Alexa Gilomen, Kaylee Ewing and Brooke Carter.

­ anagement major from Kingsland. m Carter also received the People’s Choice Award voted on by the audience. An award for Best Interview was given to Kelly Donoghue, a third-year marketing major from Marietta.

Holley will compete in the 73rd annual Miss Georgia Scholarship Pageant

CENTER FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING

June 13-17 in Columbus. The winner of that pageant will represent Georgia in the Miss America Pageant, a nonprofit civic corporation.

The Miss UGA Scholarship Pageant is a program of the Tate Student Center within UGA’s Division of Student Affairs.

DIVISION OF DEVELOPMENT AND ALUMNI RELATIONS

Alumni Seminar will CTL’s spring national speaker series, workshops examine ‘sense of place’ to give fresh spin on topics By Matt Chambers

By Tracy Coley tcoley@uga.edu

The Center for Teaching and Learning’s spring speaker series and accompanying workshops will feature a fresh spin on teaching and learning topics such as active learning, writing, digital learning, educational and survey research, and programmatic assessment.

CTL’s 2017 spring National Speaker Series kicks off Feb. 17 with Valerie Otero, professor and co-director of the Learning Assistant Program at the University of ColoradoBoulder. Otero’s presentation on learning assistants is co-sponsored by the Office of STEM Education and will explore models where undergraduate students who, through the guidance of course instructors and a pedagogy course, facilitate discussions among groups of students in a variety of classroom settings that encourage group interaction.

The next event in the spring series on Feb. 23 features Rachel Toor, a former acquisitions editor at Oxford and Duke university presses and now a professor in the graduate creative writing program at Eastern Washington University.

Toor’s presentations, co-sponsored by the English department, the Writing Intensive Program, the Graduate School and Franklin College, draw on her experiences both as an editor of scholarly books and a creative writer. Her presentations include “Writing for Love, Money and Applause (and to Snag Academic Jobs, Tenure and Promotions),” “Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor: Workshop for Graduate Students on Revision,” and “Crafting a Nonfiction Book Proposal: Workshop for Faculty.”

On March 15, Helen Chen (Stanford University) will present “Redesigning Representations of Student Learning in the Digital Era” and “Design Thinking—Using Design Thinking to Promote Innovation in Assessment and Curriculum Redesign.” The last national speaker of the spring is Mark McDaniel (Washington University, St. Louis), co-sponsored by the SEER Center. Co-author of Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning, McDaniel will discuss “Persistent Student Tendencies to Memorize versus Abstract: Effects on Learning in Science Courses” and “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of ‘Best’ Practices: Some Lessons from the Memory Laboratory” April 13.

The CTL is offering new workshops including “Teaching Naked Techniques: A Practical Workshop for Designing Better Classes,” a workshop on Jan. 31 providing new insights into how we learn as well as practical advice regarding how this information can be applied in the college classroom. Other sessions will include “Pedagogy and Practice” (flipping the classroom, active learning, writing assignments in large classes, web conferencing, eLC); “First-Year Odyssey” (designing an FYO course, mentoring first-year students, teaching small classes); “Scholarship of Teaching and Learning” (IRB, survey research, performing educational research) and “Programmatic Assessment” (writing learning outcomes, measuring student learning, using rubrics).

For more information or to register, visit http://ctl.uga.edu/events.

mattdc@uga.edu

From virtual reality to the tiny house movement, alumni and others interested in lifelong learning will examine “A Sense of Place” during the 2017 Alumni Seminar Feb. 17-18.

The seminar, an educational gathering that will allow participants to experience firsthand what has changed— and what will always stay the same—at the birthplace of public higher education in America, will include lectures, interactions with students and other exclusive events such as behind-the-scenes tours.

This year’s theme encourages participants to explore how individuals and communities build and experience a sense of place in today’s changing world.

“The University of Georgia is a meaningful and important place for our alumni,” said Meredith Gurley Johnson, UGA executive director of alumni relations. “This year’s Alumni Seminar experience will not only bring alumni and friends back to this special place but will also share with them how research, service and teaching at UGA are helping redefine what ‘place’ means.”

Noted UGA faculty, including J. Marshall Shepherd, a Georgia Athletic Association Professor; Sun Joo “Grace” Ahn, an assistant professor in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication; Kim Skobba, an assistant professor in the College of Family and Consumer Sciences; and others will introduce participants to ongoing research related to place.

Participants will consider the role that place plays in community and identity, from the nation’s 100-year history of national parks in a presentation by Lucy Lawliss, a College of Environment and Design alumna and former historical landscape architect for the U.S. National Park Service.

The keynote speaker for the 2017 Alumni Seminar is Roy Blount Jr., the author of 24 books; a columnist for Garden and Gun, Esquire, The New York Times and many others; and a panelist on NPR’s Wait, Wait ... Don’t Tell Me. Blount is a 2016 Georgia Writers Hall of Fame inductee.

“We are pleased to have Roy Blount Jr. returning to campus to serve as the keynote speaker during the Alumni Seminar,” Johnson said. “We’ve seen how inspiring speakers like him can stimulate great conversation, put other sessions into context for attendees and ultimately inspire involvement with the University of Georgia community among our most loyal supporters.”

The seminar also will include a lunch with UGA President Jere W. Morehead during which he will discuss his perspective on UGA and its role in meeting the needs of the state and nation and a campus tour highlighting UGA’s new and recently renovated facilities.

Registration for the two-day seminar is $275 per person, and space is limited. Those unable to attend the entire seminar may purchase individual dinner reservations for Friday evening with Lawliss or Saturday evening with Blount for $75 per evening. Lodging for the seminar is available at the UGA Hotel and Conference Center.

For more information or to register online, see alumni.uga.edu/alumniseminar.

RESEARCH NEWS

columns.uga.edu Jan. 30, 2017

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Digest Finalists for UGA College of Veterinary Medicine dean to visit campus

Dorothy Kozlowski

Birds into beggars

Sonia Hernandez and fellow researchers looked at how urbanized white ibises might be shedding salmonella.

White ibis salmonella shedding increases with urbanization, new Warnell School study finds

By Sandi Martin

smartin@warnell.uga.edu

The more urbanized a place is, the more white ibis birds there are carrying salmonella—the same kind that can make people sick, a new UGA study has found.

In a recently published paper, Georgia researchers looked at how urbanized white ibises might be shedding salmonella, particularly as people feeding birds at public parks has become a concern for wildlife biologists.

“White ibises likely become infected with salmonella from environmental sources and then have the potential to transmit it to people visiting urban parks,” said Sonia M. Hernandez, an associate professor with a joint appointment at UGA’s Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources and the Southeastern Wildlife Disease Study at the College of Veterinary Medicine.

“People feed ibises in these parks, and these birds form large flocks that drop a lot of feces on picnic tables, benches and other surfaces,” she said.

Salmonella is one of the most common causes of intestinal diseases for both people and animals. Found worldwide, Salmonella enterica sickens 1.2 million people and kills 450 each year.

Salmonella also can be deadly to wildlife, and researchers have found

instances of avian salmonellosis on the rise, even causing “catastrophic outbreaks,” Hernandez said.

People feeding white ibises at public parks turns the birds into beggars and changes their health, ecology and behavior. Hernandez and other Georgia researchers are looking into the overall effects of this problem.

For this study, they collected fecal samples from white ibises at 17 sites in Palm Beach County, Florida—two were within natural areas, but the other 15 were urban parks, zoos or neighborhoods. They also collected feces from ibis nestlings in Broward and Miami-Dade counties, ultimately collecting a total of one sample each from 333 birds.

They found that 55 of the birds they collected samples from were shedding salmonella and the rate of salmonella shedding went down as the percentage of wetlands and grasslands around the sample site increased. The opposite was also true: The more developed the surrounding area was, the higher the salmonella rates they found in the ibises.

Of importance is that even urbanized ibises have to go back to natural areas to breed, thus, they can move various strains of salmonella from cities to natural areas, Hernandez said.

By testing the serotypes of salmonella the ibises carried, researchers learned that 33 percent of them were in

the top 20 that infected humans during the years of the study, 2010 to 2013, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Fifteen percent of those were most frequently reported in Florida for human infections the same years they conducted the study.

“Probably the most important finding with regards to public health is that 44 percent of the strains of salmonella we found exactly matched strains in the PulseNet Database managed by the CDC that had caused disease in people and which were not associated with food outbreaks,” Hernandez said.

Co-authoring the paper with Hernandez were Catharine Welch, Shannon Curry, Michael Yabsley and April Conway from the Warnell School; Valerie Peters with Ohio’s Miami University; Erin Lipp with UGA’s environmental health science department; Susan Sanchez, Whitney Kistler, Tiffany Kwan and John Maurer with the College of Veterinary Medicine; Andrea Presotto and Marguerite Madden with the UGA geography department; Peter Gerner-Smidt and Kelley Hise with the CDC; and Elizabeth Hammond with Lion Country Safari Park.

The article, “Urbanized white ibises (Eudocimus albus) as carriers of Salmonella enterica of significance to public health and wildlife,” was recently published in PLOS One.

FRANKLIN COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES Study: Narcissistic people use social media for self promotion

By Alan Flurry

aflurry@uga.edu

A new statistical review of 62 studies more than 13,000 individuals found that narcissism has a modest but reliable positive relationship with a range of social media behaviors. The largest effects were with the number of friends/followers narcissists had and frequency of status updates, followed by selfie postings, according to UGA psychology researchers.

The two strains of narcissistic behavior, grandiose narcissism and vulnerable narcissism, showed different relationships to social media use. Grandiose narcissism, the more extroverted, callous form, positively related to time spent on social media, the frequency of updates, number of friends/followers and the frequency of

posting selfies. Vulnerable narcissism, the more insecure form, did not show any relationship to social media, but there was relatively little research on this form of narcissism.

“The stories you have heard about grandiose narcissism on social media are probably true,” said the study’s senior author, Keith Campbell, a professor of psychology in the UGA Franklin College of Arts and Sciences.

Campbell, co-author of the bestselling The Narcissism Epidemic, notes that “when you engage with social media, you will be engaging with more narcissism than might really exist in the world. This might distort your view of the world as being more narcissistic than it is.”

“It is important to remember that these are only correlations, however,” said the study’s lead author, Jessica

McCain, a graduate student in the Behavioral and Brain Sciences Program in the UGA Franklin College of Arts and Sciences psychology department.

“This is not evidence that social media causes narcissism or vice versa.

Theoretically, we suspect that individuals with pre-existing narcissism are drawn to social media, but the present evidence only establishes that the two are related.”

“Networks on social media aren’t designed by people in Silicon Valley,” Campbell said. “They are built one link at a time by users. And narcissists seem to be central to this build-out.”

The study, “Narcissism and Social Media Use: A Meta-Analytic Review,” was published in the early online edition of Psychology of Popular Media Culture and is available at http://psycnet.apa.org/ psycinfo/2016-54178-001/.

Four finalists for the position of dean of the UGA College of Veterinary Medicine will visit campus in the coming weeks to meet with members of the university community.

A committee chaired by Dale Greene, dean of the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, conducted a national search to identify the finalists. The committee was assisted by the UGA Search Group in Human Resources.

Each finalist will make a public presentation from 9:30-10:30 a.m. in Room H237 of the College of Veterinary Medicine main building. The finalists and the dates of their presentations are: • Carolyn Henry, professor and associate dean for research and graduate studies at the University of Missouri College of Veterinary Medicine, Jan. 31.

• David Bristol, professor and senior associate dean for administration in the College of Sciences at North Carolina State University, Feb. 2.

• Elizabeth Hardie, professor and head of the department of clinical sciences in the College of Veterinary Medicine at North Carolina State University, Feb. 13.

• Lisa Nolan, professor and Stephen G. Juelsgaard Dean in the College of Veterinary Medicine at Iowa State University, Feb. 15.

The CVs of the finalists, along with their full campus visit itineraries and candidate feedback forms, are at https://t.uga.edu/2Wa.

Landscape architect will give College of Environment and Design lecture

The College of Environment and Design will host a lecture Feb. 2 at 5 p.m. in Room 123 of the Jackson Street Building.

Thomas Rainer, who received his master’s degree in landscape architecture from UGA in 2002, will discuss new prospects and possibilities for plants in the landscape in a world that is increasingly urban.

He recently co-authored the book Planting in a ­Post-Wild World: Designing Plant Communities for ­Resilient ­Landscapes with Claudia West.

The lecture is open free to the public. For more information, visit https://t.uga.edu/2Vx.

Spring semester OLLI Bash Activity Fair to be held Feb. 3 with displays, information

The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at UGA will host its next OLLI Bash Feb. 3 from 1-3 p.m. at Tuckston United Methodist Church, located at 4175 Lexington Road. An event for current and ­prospective members and guests, the fair is open to the public. It will feature displays and information about the spring semester’s 180 classes in 24 categories, 14 luncheon programs, and travel/study trips, as well as OLLI@UGA’s social events and 30 special interest groups. Free hearing screenings will once again be ­offered on a first-come, first-serve basis by OLLI sponsor, the UGA Speech and Hearing Clinic. For more i­nformation, visit www.OLLI.uga.edu.

CNN’s Richard Griffiths serving as Industry Fellow at Grady College’s Cox Institute

Richard T. Griffiths, vice president and senior editorial director at CNN, is serving as an Industry Fellow with UGA’s James M. Cox Jr. Institute for Journalism Innovation, Management and Leadership during the spring 2017 semester.

Griffiths, who has worked for CNN for 25 years, has announced his CNN retirement effective Feb. 28. CNN is sponsoring Griffiths’ role at Grady College where he will guest lecture in the investigative ­journalism and journalism ethics and diversity courses, and will be available to students as an editor and coach on investigative reporting projects. His planned ­lectures for the journalism ethics and diversity course will be held in Studio 100 at 12:20 p.m. Feb. 3, 10, 17, March 3, 17, 31 and April 7 and 14.

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

Artists of the New York School. Through March 19. ­Georgia Museum of Art. 706-542-4662. hazbrown@uga.edu Driving Forces: Sculpture by Lin Emery. Through April 2. ­Georgia Museum of Art. 706-542-4662. hazbrown@uga.edu Advanced and Irascible. Through April 30. ­Georgia Museum of Art. 706-542-4662. hazbrown@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 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 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, JANUARY 30 WORKSHOP In the Promoting Active Learning Using eLC workshop, participants will explore an eLC course, including a checklist, selfenrollment groups, single-user groups, discussions and quizzes.

As a group, participants will select several of these tools to learn step-by-step. 1:30 p.m. 372 Miller Learning Center.

706-542-0525. sac@uga.edu

TUESDAY, JANUARY 31 WORKSHOP “Teaching Naked Techniques: A Practical Workshop for Designing Better Classes” will provide new insights into how we learn as well as practical advice about how this information can be applied in the college classroom. 10 a.m. N6 Instructional Plaza. edwatson@uga.edu SEMINAR “Translating Ecology: From Public Art to Climate Action,” Timothy Carter, president of Second Nature. A reception will follow

Performing Arts Center to present National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine

the seminar at 4:30 p.m. in the ecology building lobby.

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

UNIVERSITY THEATRE Paula Vogel’s experimental play The Long Christmas Ride Home uses a contemporary version of bunraku puppetry in its haunting deconstruction of an “All-American” family’s road trip to their grandparent’s house for Christmas. Runs at 8 p.m.

Jan. 31- Feb. 5 and 2:30 p.m. Feb. 5. $12; $7 for students.

Seney-Stovall Chapel. 706-542-4400. (See story, below right).

SWING DANCE NIGHT IN THE GARDEN 8 p.m. Visitor Center, State Botanical Garden. 706-542-6014. connicot@uga.edu

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 1 RESEARCH SEMINAR SERIES “Recognition and Inhibition of Protein N-terminal Methyltransferases,” Rong Huang, Virginia Commonwealth University. 11 a.m. 201 Pharmacy South. 706-542-7385. meganjs@uga.edu TOUR AT TWO 2 p.m. Georgia Museum of Art. 706-542-4662. hazbrown@uga.edu WORKSHOP “Active Learning in STEM Courses.” 3 p.m. North Plaza Conference Room. 706-542-6603. ehoran@uga.edu

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 2 ONESOURCE TOWN HALL A town hall is planned to advise the university community of recent activities related to UGA’s OneSource Project, a multi-year project that will engage faculty and staff from every college, school and unit. 10 a.m. Mahler Hall, Georgia Center.

WORKSHOP “Student Learning Outcomes Assessment at UGA.” 1:30 p.m.

North Plaza Conference Room. lcoco@uga.edu HOLMES-HUNTER LECTURE Speaker: Keith T. Parker, general manager and chief executive officer of the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority. Part of the Signature Lecture series. Sponsored by the Office of the President. 2 p.m. Chapel. (See story, page 1).

LECTURE “Planting in a Post-Wild World,” Thomas Rainer, UGA alumnus, landscape architect and author. 5 p.m. 123 Jackson Street Building. 706-542-8972. mcobrieb@uga.edu (See Digest, page 3).

IRASCIBLES FILM SERIES Pollock, starring Ed Harris as Jackson Pollock, follows the artist in the early 1940s as he struggles with self-doubt, engaging in a lonely tug-of-war between needing to express himself and wanting to shut out the world. 2000, 122 mins. Sponsored by UGA Parents and Families Association. 7 p.m. Georgia Museum of Art. 706-542-4662. hazbrown@uga.edu

The National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine will perform Feb. 1 at 8 p.m. in Hodgson Concert Hall.

By Bobby Tyler btyler@uga.edu

The UGA Performing Arts Center will present the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine Feb. 1 at 8 p.m. in Hodgson Concert Hall. The program will include Dvorak’s Carnival Overture, Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5.

Founded in 1918, the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine is considered to be one of the finest symphony orchestras in Eastern Europe. Over its long history, the NSOU has premiered the works of renowned composers such as Sergei Prokofiev, Dmitri Shostakovich and Aram Khatchaturian.

After a performance in Moscow, Shostakovich said, “This orchestra has as distinguished a group of performers as one would be likely to find anywhere. The ensemble of the orchestra is of the highest level. In addition, the various soloists and instrumental groups within the orchestra play exceptionally and complement each other beautifully—as would the greatest of the world’s symphony orchestras.”

The NSOU has released more than 100 recordings, winning international honors that include Grammy Award nominations in 2005 and 2009.

The orchestra’s Athens concert will be conducted by artistic director Volodymyr Sirenko, a 1997 Honored Artist of Ukraine and 2003 Honored Artist of the Russian Federation.

Award-winning pianist Alexei Grynyuk will join the orchestra as special guest for the Prokofiev Piano Concerto.

Tickets for the concert are $31-$52 and can be purchased at the Performing Arts Center, online at pac.uga.edu or by calling the box office at 706-542-4400. UGA students can purchase tickets for $6 with a valid UGA ID, limit one ticket per student.

A pre-concert lecture will be given at 7:15 p.m. in Ramsey Concert Hall of the Performing Arts Center.

CONCERT Levon Ambartsumian, UGA’s Regents Professor and Franklin Professor of Violin. $12; $6 with UGA student ID. 8 p.m. Ramsey Concert Hall. 706-542-4752. ccschwabe@uga.edu

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 3 MORNING MINDFULNESS WORKSHOP The Georgia Museum of Art invites you into the galleries to participate in free guided mindfulness meditation sessions, held every other Friday during the spring semester. Sessions include instructor-led meditation followed by a period of reflection.

Stools (without backs) are provided; please bring a cushion if desired. Reservations are encouraged; please call 706-542-0448 or email sagekincaid@uga.edu. 9:30 a.m.

Georgia Museum of Art. FRIENDS FIRST FRIDAY: BRINGING RARE PLANTS INTO HOME LANDSCAPES Jennifer Ceska, conservation coordinator, and Heather Alley, conservation horticulturist, will perform a skit enacting strong opinions regarding the problems and benefits of selling rare plants for use in home landscapes, and why they feel this is so important. They will engage in a mock argument starring Captain Conservation played by Alley and the Cavalier Plant Buccaneer played by Ceska. $12. 10:30 a.m. Visitor Center, Gardenside Room, State Botanical Garden. 706-542-6138. lpbryant@uga.edu INTERNATIONAL COFFEE HOUR 11:30 a.m. Memorial Hall Ballroom. 706-542-5867. isl@uga.edu LECTURE “Ditch Disney! Indigenous Women’s Political Animation,” ­Channette Romero, English department. Part of the Women’s Studies Friday Speaker Series. 12:20 p.m. 214 Miller Learning Center. 706-542-2846. tlhat@uga.edu JOLLE WINTER CONFERENCE The Journal of Language and Literacy Education, housed in UGA’s language and literacy education department, invites all artists, gamers, techies, makers, remixers, educators and students to register for and attend the winter conference “Out of the Box and Into the Margins.” $150; $115 for students. Georgia Center.

ROMANCE LANGUAGES GRADUATE STUDENT COLLOQUIUM “Learning about Brazilian Serialized Fiction: My Experience in the Telenovela Studies Center in Brazil,” Rebeca Coelho; “Possible Challenges of Interinstitutional Collaboration and Research,” Viviane Klen Alves; and “Looking into History to Figure out the Future: Experience Visiting Museums and Libraries in Brazil,”

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/.

columns.uga.edu Jan. 30, 2017

4&5

Feb. 9 ‘Extravaganza’ celebrates piano dynamism

By Clarke Schwabe ccschwabe@uga.edu

Five piano faculty members, 20 piano students and 440 keys will fill the Hodgson Concert Hall stage when the Thursday Scholarship Series brings the Hugh Hodgson School of Music Piano Extravaganza to life Feb. 9 at 7:30 p.m.

An historic assemblage of talent for the Hodgson School, Georgia’s first All-Steinway school, the Piano Extravaganza brings together the school’s entire piano department and nearly all of its students to perform some of the instrument’s most unique, challenging and entertaining works.

The music for the program spans an array of styles, from virtuosic classics like Flight of the Bumblebee to ragtime interpretations of Mozart, a “One Handed Battle” section infused with Latin American rhythms and one part of the concert that might just have an audience member making music.

“Five grand pianos on one stage, 50 fingers playing at once, covering 440 keys, audience participation, a ‘battle of the hands:’ what else could possibly be more fun?” said Pete Jutras, professor of piano.

Jutras is part of the Hodgson School’s internationally renowned faculty, which includes Evgeny Rivkin, professor of piano; Liza Stepanova, assistant professor of piano; Martha Thomas, the Despy Karlas Professor of Piano; and Richard Zimdars, the Despy Karlas Professor Emeritus of Piano.

Their students—from as near as Athens and Monroe and as far as Moscow and Seoul—have garnered considerable acclaim themselves, including the Dunamis Piano Duo, which was founded in spring 2015 and has since been honored in numerous international competitions and played Carnegie Hall in May. Tickets to the concert are $20 each or $6 with a UGA student ID and can be purchased at pac.uga.edu or the PAC box office.

Those unable to attend can watch the concert live on the Hodgson School’s website at music.uga.edu/streaming.

UGA piano students talk while inspecting Steinway pianos on stage at Hodgson Concert Hall.

Juliano Saccomani. 4:30 p.m. 118 Gilbert Hall. 843-324-7618. lexjulia@uga.edu GYMNASTICS vs. Kentucky. $10 adults; $6 youth. 7 p.m. Stegeman Coliseum.

706-542-1621.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 4 ORCHID MADNESS OPENING RECEPTION Celebrate Orchid Madness throughout February, starting with this reception that includes hors d’oeuvres, live music and special orchids on display for this evening’s fundraiser for the garden’s plant collection. $50; $80 for all four Orchid Madness events. 6 p.m. Visitor Center, State Botanical Garden.

706-542-6014. connicot@uga.edu

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 5 ART SKETCHING PLAYDATE FOR ADULTS Laurel Genteman, local artist and owner of the Painted Voice Studio in Athens, will teach a fun way to sketch using doodles and color. $35. 1:30 p.m. Visitor Center, Classroom 2, State Botanical Garden. 706-542-6156. ckeber@uga.edu WOMEN’S BASKETBALL vs. Tennessee. $5. 4 p.m. Stegeman Coliseum.

COMING UP 2017 MENTAL HEALTH SYMPOSIUM Feb. 7. The symposium will explore current concepts in pharmacy practice as well as advances in pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic treatment of mental health and other associated chronic diseases. $45-$50 per session. 8:30 a.m. Holiday Inn Express, 513 W. Broad Street. 706-542-6232. elisef@uga.edu WORKSHOP Feb. 7. In “Creating Portable, Hands-On Activities,” participants will learn about the benefits and discuss the challenges of incorporating portable, cooperative learning activities in large, lecture-hall classes. 9:30 a.m. N6 Instructional Plaza. zoe.­morris@uga.edu ECOLOGY SEMINAR Feb. 7. “The Phytochemical Landscape: Linking Trophic Interactions and Nutrient Dynamics,” Mark Hunter, University of Michigan. The seminar is followed by a reception in the Odum School lobby at 4:30 p.m. 3:30 p.m. Auditorium, ecology building. 706-542-7247. bethgav@uga.edu CONCERT Feb. 7. The first-year horn students at the Hugh Hodgson School of Music will each perform a solo work as part of a studio recital. Each solo work is from a different country. 5 p.m. Hugh Hodgson School of Music. 706-542-4752. ccschwabe@uga.edu CONCERT Feb. 7. The UGA Philharmonia, one of the Hugh Hodgson School of Music’s large orchestral ensembles, will be conducted by Mark Cedel. 8 p.m. Hugh Hodgson Concert Hall. 706-542-4752. ccschwabe@uga.edu TEST OF THE UGA EMERGENCY NOTIFICATION SYSTEM Feb. 8. 9 a.m. 706-542-5845. jmnewton@uga.edu HEART HEALTH FAIR Feb. 8. 1 p.m. Main lobby, University Health Center. ­706-542-8690. smithj@uhs.uga.edu.(See News to Use, page 2).

University Theatre presents The Long Christmas Ride Home by Paula Vogel in the Seney-Stovall Chapel Jan. 31-Feb. 5 at 8 p.m. and Feb. 5 at 2:30 p.m.

University Theatre brings Paula Vogel’s ‘The Long Christmas Ride Home’ to life Jan. 31 Scout Storey

hobbit87@uga.edu

University Theatre presents The Long Christmas Ride Home by Paula Vogel Jan. 31-Feb. 5 at 8 p.m. and Feb. 5 at 2:30 p.m. in the Seney-Stovall Chapel.

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

The Long Christmas Ride Home, directed by T. Anthony Marotta, an assistant professor in the theatre and film studies department, takes the audience on an emotionally rocky, and highly theatrical, holiday road trip with a dysfunctional family.

Inspired by Vogel’s brother, who passed away in 1988 from AIDS, the play explores the complicated dynamics of a family plagued by loss and broken relationships. Audiences often recognize themselves in the way the children poke and irritate each other or the holiday bickering between generations.

“It’s a story with accessible characters, moments, ideas and relationships,” Marotta said.

The production experiments with puppets, shadows, masks, sounds, media and physical acting techniques such as Japanese Butoh dance theatre.

“It creates an experience that’s only possible in theater,” Marotta said. “Not many plays have masks

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.

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and puppets written in. Usually it’s just goofy puppet plays for kids or academic theater for actors using masks. Good theater pays attention to using objects in a meaningful way and invites the audience to use their imaginations.”

The parents, played by MFA acting candidates Mark McManus and Ami Salee, are near the breaking point of their marriage. The oldest child, Rebecca (theatre major Taylor Bahin) teeters on the edge of adulthood. Stephen (theatre and English major Brian Chenard) is an effeminate boy who cannot understand why his father does not love him. Claire (theatre and advertising major Melanie Sheahan), the lone recipient within the family of their father’s coveted affection, wrestles with brazen desires and self-doubt.

Lukas Takeru Woodyard, the production’s ­dramaturg, describes the play as “a strange and new experience.”

Vogel takes inspiration from playwright Thornton Wilder, and The Long Christmas Ride Home follows this season’s production of Wilder’s The Skin of Our Teeth.

“Paula Vogel, who’s won both the Pulitzer Prize and Obie Award, is one of America’s most treasured living playwrights,” said David Saltz, head of the theatre and film studies department. “We’re excited to explore this formally ingenious and psychologically razor-sharp play.”

NEXT COLUMNS DEADLINES Feb. 1 (for Feb. 13 issue) Feb. 8 (for Feb. 20 issue) Feb. 15 (for Feb. 27 issue)

6 Jan. 30, 2017 columns.uga.edu

Jori N. Hall, an associate professor in the College of Education’s lifelong education, administration and policy department, was recently named associate editor of the American Journal of Evaluation, a peer-reviewed publication that focuses on evaluation methodology, theory and practice.

Sponsored by the American Evaluation Association, AJE features diverse viewpoints in evaluation practice related to a multitude of disciplines, including health, sociology and education.

As the journal’s associate editor, Hall will be responsible for determining the appropriateness Jori Hall of submitted manuscripts and supervising the review process. If revisions are needed, her recommendations may include guidance on what the author needs to focus on before resubmitting the article for publication.

Hall will work with the AJE editorial team for two years and apply her expertise in the fields of educational accountability, qualitative inquiry, mixed methods research and evaluation theory and practice.

Clark Alexander, interim executive director of UGA’s Skidaway Institute of Oceanography, has been honored by the coastal environmental group One Hundred Miles as one of the group’s One Hundred Miles 100. The list is the first recognition of its kind to honor 100 individuals and organizations for their efforts to support the health, vitality and future of Georgia’s 100-mile coastline. Alexander was selected within the researchers and innovators category.

A coastal geologist, Alexander was cited for his research efforts, which he began on the Georgia coast in 1989 when he joined the UGA Skidaway Institute.

He also was cited by the environmental group for helping to advance the work of institutions across the coast. Alexander served on the Sapelo Island National Estuarine Research Reserve Advisory Board, the Gray’s Reef National Marine Sanctuary Advisory Council, and the Georgia Coastal Marshlands and Shore Protection committees.

Alexander and the other honorees were recognized Jan. 7 with a reception immediately following the One Hundred Miles’ Coastal Conservation in Action: Choosing to Lead Conference on Jekyll Island.

Peng-Wah Chee, a professor of crop and soil sciences in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, received the 2016 Cotton Genetics Research Award during the 2017 Beltwide Cotton Improvement Conference. In recognition, Chee received a plaque and a monetary award.

One nominator, Don Jones, director of agricultural research at Cotton Inc. in Cary, N.C., said cotton producers have benefited from newly released commercial varieties resistant to root-knot nematode based on findings from Chee’s research. He said a variety that Chee developed in 2016 and licensed to one of the leading cotton seed providers is proof Peng-Wah Chee that “his research drives innovations in both the science and grower communities.”

Jones also noted that Chee has a stellar professional record as evidenced by 46 peer-reviewed manuscripts, four book chapters, three germplasm releases and two varieties developed. He also was part of the U.S.-led effort that published the Gossypium raimondii genome sequence in Nature, the first cotton centric paper in more than 50 years in the science journal.

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

FACULTY PROFILE

Chad Osburn

Laine Bradshaw’s work is focused on developing and leveraging diagnostic psychometric methodology not currently used in assessment systems in order to design assessments that are both detailed and efficient.

College of Education faculty member develops assessment tool

By Kathryn Kao kathk1@uga.edu

In education, learning is often viewed as a straight continuum of ability that represents a student’s understanding of a particular subject area.

But with newly developed diagnostic assessments, Laine Bradshaw, an associate professor in UGA’s College of Education, said learning is more like a developing toolbox, and assessments can be designed to determine which tools, or skills, students have and which ones they still need to acquire.

“Every educator, administrator and teacher you talk to wants diagnostic assessments that tell them what their students’ strengths and weakness are,” Bradshaw said.“One of the biggest issues in education is developing brief assessments that can be administered quickly in the classroom and also provide reliable and accurate feedback about what students know and what they don’t know.”

While interning with the U.S. Department of Education as a graduate student in mathematics education, Bradshaw noticed there was a disconnect between assessment results and teacher practice. Educators wanted the information from assessments to be more timely and detailed in order to use the feedback to inform instruction and help students succeed in the classroom.

“Quality research shows that assessments can be a really effective learning tool if we can get feedback to teachers in a fast and efficient manner,” said Bradshaw. “You also have to tell teachers something they don’t already know.

Teachers know who is generally high or low performing, but they often don’t know what specific skills each student may be struggling with.”

Traditional psychometric methodology is not designed to give detailed feedback on student strengths and weaknesses. Giving detailed or diagnostic feedback using traditional methods would require administering a lot of items—more items than schools have time to administer—to yield accurate and reliable feedback.

Bradshaw’s work is focused on developing and leveraging diagnostic psychometric methodology not currently used in assessment systems in order to design assessments that are both detailed and efficient.

“My research focuses on assessments that provide a multivariate profile of what students understand,” she said.“It’s a different way to look at assessment while providing the kind of information that resonates with teachers. That’s my goal: To provide teachers with information they need, value and trust.”

Bradshaw currently is an investigator on three federal grants—two from the National Science Foundation and one from the Institute of Education Sciences. For each of these projects, Bradshaw is advancing the psychometric methodology needed to design diagnostic assessments that will help researchers better understand the complex structures of how students and teachers reason mathematically.

“We’ve learned from research and have been able to advance the psychometric methodology to the point where

FACTS

Laine P. Bradshaw

Associate Professor Educational Psychology College of Education Ph.D., Research, Evaluation, Measurement and Statistics, University of Georgia, 2011 M.Ed., Mathematics Education, University of Georgia, 2007 B.S., Mathematics Education, University of Georgia, 2007 At UGA: 4.5 years

we are ready to use psychometrically diagnostic assessments in practice,” said Bradshaw. “Research allows us to test the limits of assessment design and usability.”

To connect her research with practice, Bradshaw collaborated with Parcc, Inc., a testing company that began as a large assessment consortium, to design a first-of-its-kind psychometrically diagnostic classroom assessment system in reading and mathematics comprehension for students in grades two through eight. After students complete a short assessment online, teachers get immediate feedback on whether the they are on-track or need improvement in certain areas. Students can retake assessments as needed, and the system tracks the areas in which they have demonstrated mastery in over the year.

“We can better refine the design of the system to make it more useful for teachers and students once we have data to understand how it works in practice,” said Bradshaw.

OFFICE OF THE VICE PRESIDENT FOR INSTRUCTION

New Office of Online Learning director named

By Tracy Coley tcoley@uga.edu

Following a national search, Stephen P. Balfour has been named director of the UGA Office of Online Learning. Balfour will begin his new position Feb. 1.

Balfour will provide the leadership for the Office of Online Learning and 10 full-time staff to improve development and delivery of high-quality undergraduate and graduate courses and degree programs for academic departments. UGA currently has two undergraduate online degree programs, 16 online graduate degree programs

and more than 700 online courses.

“Dr. Balfour has been on the forefront of the latest technology and pedagogy in his teaching and research roles at Texas A&M UniStephen Balfour versity and therefore has a big picture of how online learning should connect with today’s students,” said Rahul Shrivastav, vice president for instruction. “He brings the vision that the Office of Online

Learning needs to advance and compete in a global online academic market.”

Balfour held teaching, research and administrative positions at Texas A&M University for 24 years, most recently director of Instructional and Research Computing in the College of Liberal Arts, an office that he built from the ground up. Balfour also is a consultant for grants and contracts involving technology for both instruction and research. He authored the Liberal Arts Online Course Creation Guide and was project manager in building Texas A&M’s first Lightboard technology to enhance distance learning.

SCHOOL OF LAW

Inaugural holders Two law school faculty members first to be named to Brumby, Wilner/UGA Foundation professorships

By Emily Johnson lawprstu@uga.edu

Two faculty members in the UGA School of Law have been named to endowed professorships.

Sonja R. West is the inaugural holder of the Otis Brumby Distinguished Professorship in First Amendment Law, a post shared by the law school and UGA’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. Harlan G. Cohen has been named the inaugural holder of the Gabriel M. Wilner/UGA Foundation Professorship in International Law. “Sonja is a distinguished scholar in media law, and it is fitting that she be named to this professorship, which is devoted specifically to teaching and research about the First Amendment,” Georgia Law Dean Peter B. “Bo” Rutledge said. “Both law and journalism students will benefit from her experience and insight on this important American right, and this appointment continues the university’s commitment to equipping our students with the tools to be successful once they graduate. We are grateful to the Brumby family, including Georgia Law graduates Lee Dobbs Garrett and Otis A. Brumby III, two of the late Otis Brumby’s children, for their support of this professorship.”

“We’re indebted to the Brumby family, one of the great names in Georgia journalism history, for their support, and delighted that Professor West has joined the faculty of Grady College,” said Charles N. Davis, dean of Grady College. “We’re assembling a world-class team of First Amendment scholars at Grady and at the law school, and the benefits to students are

Two faculty members in the School of Law have been named to endowed professorships. Sonja West, left, is the Otis Brumby Distinguished Professor in First Amendment Law. Harlan Cohen, right, is the Gabriel M. Wilner/UGA Foundation Professor in International Law.

immense.”

West joined the Georgia Law faculty in 2006 and specializes in media law, constitutional law and the U.S. Supreme Court.

Her scholarship has appeared in various publications including the Harvard Law Review, the UCLA Law Review, the Michigan Law Review and the Washington University Law Review. She is the recipient of the National Communication Association’s 2016 Franklyn S. Haiman Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Freedom of Expression. She also was invited to address more than 100 judges from 19 European countries on the issue of press and court communication at the annual European Conference on Courts and Communication in Budapest, Hungary. She has authored articles about legal issues and the U.S. Supreme Court for a variety of popular news outlets such as Slate and Huffington Post, and she frequently provides commentary for various news media outlets such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall

Street Journal,The Economist,The Guardian and National Public Radio, among others.

The professorship was created by the late Otis A. Brumby Jr., a Georgia Law graduate who desired to help law and journalism students better understand the importance of First Amendment guarantees and to be able to convey that understanding to the public. A veteran journalist, Brumby was publisher of the Marietta Daily Journal for 45 years.

Cohen joined the Georgia Law faculty in 2007, and he specializes in international law.

He teaches courses on international law, global governance, international trade, U.S. foreign affairs and national security law, and human rights, and advises the student editors of the Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law, a role long played by Gabriel M. Wilner.

His scholarship has appeared in the George Washington, Tulane, Iowa and New York University law reviews and the Yale, Berkeley, NYU

WEEKLY READER

and Michigan journals of international law.

“Harlan has established his reputation as an intellectual leader in international law,” Rutledge said. “His appointment as the inaugural holder of the Wilner/UGA Foundation Professor in International Law will help further the law school’s commitment to providing our students with a strong foundation that will assist them as they join the legal profession in law, business or public service in the United States as well as abroad.

The law school is grateful to our alumnus Ken Klein and the UGA Foundation for their support of this professorship.”

Cohen has worked hard to expand the field of international law and draw new voices into its ranks through his role as managing editor of AJIL Unbound,the online extension of the American Journal of International Law, as co-chair of the American ­Society of International Law’s 106th annual meeting, as founding co-chair of ASIL-Southeast, and as co-chair of the Junior International Law Scholars Association. Cohen also serves on the executive committee of the American Society of International Law’s International Legal Theory Interest Group and has previously served as a member of the Society’s Executive Council. Cohen was elected to membership in the American Law Institute in 2013.

Named in memory of former associate dean and holder of the Kirbo Chair of Law Gabriel M. Wilner—a Georgia Law faculty member for more than 35 years— the professorship was created through a gift from Georgia Law alumnus Kenneth “Ken” Klein and matching funds from the UGA Foundation.

columns.uga.edu Jan. 30, 2017

COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

Engineering students’ startup receives VentureWell grant

By Mike Wooten

mwooten@uga.edu

An idea for a new surgical device to assist physicians treating cancer, developed by two students in the UGA College of Engineering, has been awarded $5,000 in the initial stage of the VentureWell Entrepreneurship Team (E-team) program.

VentureWell is a nonprofit organization that funds and trains student inventors and entrepreneurs who want to address significant problems through new technology-based ventures. Its E-team program helps student teams move new technologies out of the lab and classroom and into the marketplace. The UGA team is one of 50 nationwide to receive funding in the latest round of E-team grants.

Austin Taylor, a doctoral candidate, and ChaKaria Hunter, an undergraduate, are developing an assistive surgical arm for interventional oncology. The device is designed to be a low-cost, high-precision tool for surgeons performing procedures such as biopsies or ablation.

“We put our plan together quickly so I was excited it stood up to the competition,” said Hunter, who drew on her experience as an intern with the National Institutes of Health this past summer to develop the idea for the surgical arm.

Both Taylor and Hunter work in the Medical Robotics Lab of Zio Tse, an assistant professor in the College of Engineering.

They’re also collaborating with the NIH Center for Interventional Oncology on the assistive surgical arm project. Braford Wood, Reza Seifabadi and Sheng Xu of the NIH serve as the UGA team’s clinical advisers.

The VentureWell award includes seed money to help the students refine their early stage prototype. In addition, Taylor, Hunter and Tse attended a three-day workshop at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology this month, where they learned how to refine their business plan.

Teams completing VentureWell Stage 1 training have the opportunity to apply for the next two stages. Stage 2 teams receive an additional $20,000 in grants and attend a workshop to help them develop and validate their business model. The teams also receive six monthly coaching sessions. In Stage 3, the ASPIRE program, students receive their final training, designed to help them develop a case for partners and investors to invest in the business.

CYBERSIGHTS

ABOUT COLUMNS

Guide brings better learning to classroom Teaching Naked Techniques is a practical guide of proven, quick ideas for improving classes and essential information for designing anything from one lesson or a group of lessons to an entire course.

Co-authored by Jose Antonio Brown, president of Goucher College, and Charles Edward Watson, director of UGA’s Center for Teaching and Learning, Teaching Naked Techniques is a companion to the award-winning book Teaching Naked, which flips the classroom by placing the student’s first contact with the Teaching Naked Techniques: course material outside of class.

Teaching Naked Techniques helps higher A Practical Guide to Designing education faculty design more effective Better Classes and engaging classrooms. There is a

By Jose Antonio Brown and chapter on each step in the cycle with an Charles Edward Watson abundance of discipline-specific examples Jossey-Bass plus the latest research on cognition and Paperback: $32 technology, quick lists of ideas and addiKindle: $20.79 tional resources. By rethinking the how, when and why of technology, faculty are able to create exponentially more opportunities for practical student engagement.

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 Art Director Jackie Baxter Roberts

Site hosts employee/student job network

http://career.uga.edu/hireuga

The UGA Career Center has partnered with the Office of Work/ Life Balance to create an online employment database of UGA students looking for work.

The website is designed for faculty and staff at the university who need help and wish to hire students to help with projects and

chores like baby-sitting, pet care and lawn maintenance.

UGA faculty and staff can post their jobs to a secure job board, and students can then apply for those jobs.

Students also can use the website to find work that suits their needs.

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 Jan. 30, 2017 columns.uga.edu LECTURES

INFORMATICS from page 1

from page 1

Keith Parker

Deborah Birx

Viet Thanh Nguyen

George Nash

Viet Thanh Nguyen, the Aerol Arnold Chair of English and professor of English and American studies and ethnicity at the University of Southern California, will deliver the Betty Jean Craige Annual Lecture Feb. 13 at 4 p.m. in the Chapel.

Rick Ridgeway, vice president of environmental affairs for Patagonia clothing company, will discuss “The Elephant in the Room” Feb. 21 at 6:30 p.m. in Grand Hall of the Tate Student Center.

Irish author, essayist and journalist Colm Toibin will give this year’s Delta Visiting Chair Lecture, “Staying Home, Leaving Home: Ireland and America,” March 16 at 3:30 p.m. in the Chapel.

Deborah L. Birx, ambassador-at-large, U.S. Global AIDS coordinator and U.S. special representative for global health diplomacy, U.S. Department of State, will discuss “The War Against AIDS, 35 Years and Counting: Are We There Yet?,” March 21 at 5:30 p.m. in the Chapel. The lecture also is part of the Global Diseases: Voices from the Vanguard series.

George H. Nash, senior fellow with

Rick Ridgeway

Colm Toibin

Barbara Grosz

Joycelyn Elders

the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal, will discuss “The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America” March 22 at 6 p.m. in Room 248 of the Miller Learning Center.

Barbara Grosz, Higgins Professor of Natural Sciences at Harvard University, will discuss “Intelligent Systems: Design and Ethical Challenges” as the Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar March 27 at 3:30 p.m. in Mahler Hall of the Georgia Center for Continuing Education.

The final Signature Lecture for spring semester will be given by Dr. Joycelyn Elders, former surgeon general of the U.S. and ­professor emerita at the University of Arkansas School of Medicine. She will give this year’s Mary Frances Early Lecture, “Bridging the Gap in Higher Education,” April 5 at 3 p.m. in the M. Smith Griffith Auditorium of the Georgia Museum of Art. The Early Lecture is sponsored by the Graduate School, Graduate and Professional Scholars and the Office of Institutional Diversity.

For more information about Signature Lectures at UGA, visit https://t.uga.edu/2Vo.

Bulletin Board Income tax prep assistance

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

VITA offers free income tax preparation to low- and middleincome individuals who do not have depreciable property or extensive stock or asset transactions.

Sessions will be offered at the credit union’s 190 Gaines School Road branch by appointment Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings until April 13, and Saturdays until April 8.

A list of available appointment dates and times is online at gucu.org/­ membership/vita-tax-prep. Anyone who does not have internet a­ ccess should call 888-493-4328, extension 1486 to schedule an appoinment.

Emergency assistance form

To be effective in the event of an emergency situation, the university seeks to identify and support students, faculty, staff and visitors with disabilities who need assistance during an emergency.

If you are a person with a disability—even if you have not otherwise self-identified or asked for an accommodation—the university encourages you to complete an Emergency

Assistance Referral Form if you may need assistance in the event of an emergency.

The university’s emergency procedures for students, faculty, staff and visitors with disabilities and the Emergency Assistance Referral Form are at http://t.uga.edu/1MZ. For more information, contact the UGA Office of Emergency Preparedness at 706-542-5845 or by email at prepare@uga.edu.

Student employee recognition

The UGA Career Center, in coordination with the National Student Employment Association, is accepting nominations until Feb. 7 for the university’s Student Employee of the Year.

The top 100 student employees will be invited, along with their nominating faculty/staff member, to an awards luncheon April 12 at the Tate Student Center.

All undergraduate students enrolled at UGA and employed on campus and all graduate students who are on the student employee payroll and are performing student employee jobs can be nominated.

Visit bit.ly/SEOTYUGA for more information. Contact Aaron Brown at agb@uga.edu or 706-583-5475 with questions.

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

also known as the Internet of Things or IoT, are “smart” systems that link the physical world with the virtual or cyber world of information processing through sensor technology. Examples of cyber-physical systems include energy systems, security systems, robotic systems, factory automation, medical devices and systems, and building and environmental control systems.

“Informatics and cyber-physical systems are vital for the 21st century,” Song said. “It’s all about making our systems more intelligent and improving efficiency and sustainability.”

Song also develops innovative, real-time subsurface imaging systems that help make the oil and gas exploration and production process more efficient. Such a system monitors subsurface dynamics and potential hazards in geological structures and has a range of applications besides energy, including evaluations of underground utilities, civil infrastructure conditions, mining, agriculture, and border security.

Song grew up in Taizhon, a small city in China’s Jiansu province that’s about the size of Athens. From an early age, he was drawn to mathematics, physics and chemistry. After completing his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in computer science at Nanjing University

of Science and Technology, Song earned his doctorate in computer science from the ­Illinois Institute of Technology.

His research into wireless sensor networks while at Illinois Tech piqued his interest in cyber-physical systems. That research first led him to Washington State University, where he served as an assistant professor and established his Sensorweb Research Laboratory, and then to Georgia State University.

There, he served as an associate professor and professor. In 2010, Song received a National Science Foundation CAREER Award for his efforts to design a system that allows sensor networks to operate reliably and efficiently in challenging environments.

UGA’s focus on informatics—and its reputation for interdisciplinary research—played a major role in attracting Song to Athens.

“I like the multidisciplinary perspective of the university and the engineering college because informatics research must be multidisciplinary to advance,” he said. “Almost everything people do today relies on data in some form.”

Editor’s note: This story is the first in a series about faculty who joined UGA as part of the Presidential Informatics Hiring Initiative.

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of the College of Veterinary Medicine.

Butler was born in Savannah on Dec. 21, 1924. She graduated from Savannah High School and Armstrong Junior College before transferring to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She majored in dramatic arts and music and was also a member of Alpha Delta Pi sorority. After graduating in 1946, she joined Union Camp Corp. in its Industrial Relations Employment Office for five years, where she tested and interviewed job applicants. In 1951, she moved to New York City, where she lived for four years and worked in personnel before transitioning to a position as a retail buyer. She returned to Savannah in 1955, following the death of her father, and a year later, resumed her former role at Union Camp.

By the early 1960s, Union Camp promoted her to its college recruiting staff, where she focused on recruiting both recent college graduates and also experienced personnel.

She would later be promoted to manager of employment and recruiting, a position she held until her retirement.

Butler was active in the Savannah Little Theatre, and she held leadership positions in the United Way. She was also a member of the Pilot Club, the area Republican Women’s Club and the First Baptist Church of Savannah.

The center will provide equipment and facilities focused on the design and largescale testing of new materials, including advanced textiles, plastics and coating technologies.

“UGA already has excellent facilities to test materials at the laboratory scale, but we don’t currently have the equipment and space to perform the larger-scale testing required to move products toward the marketplace,” said Ian Biggs, senior associate director of UGA’s Innovation Gateway startup program and NMIC project leader. “NMIC will help fill these gaps, and in so doing, it will help us forge new relationships with local entrepreneurs and businesses.”

Biggs said he expects high demand for NMIC facilities, equipment and services from both inside and outside the university, which will ultimately make the center selfsustaining by 2020.

“The NMIC will add an important new dimension to the support the University of Georgia already provides to entrepreneurs,” said UGA Vice President for Research David Lee. “In particular, it will allow us to meet the needs of those who wish to push the commercial boundaries in engineering and materials science. It will further boost our continuing efforts to encourage economic development in Georgia by accelerating the creation of new products, businesses and jobs.”

UGA’s Innovation Gateway and Idea Accelerator will provide support to NMIC patrons through their Lean Startup-based curriculum. Centered on a customer discovery process, this program will help patrons learn about marketing and the legal and financial realities of their proposed businesses.

The proposed NMIC received strong support from local, regional and state economic development practitioners, who are enthusiastic about its mission.

“Nurturing and diversifying economic development in our community and the surrounding region is the highest priority for the Athens-Clarke County Economic Development Department,” said Ryan Moore, the department’s director, in his letter of support for the center. “We believe the NMIC will have a dynamic impact on business and community development, and we are excited about the potential value NMIC will bring to our local innovation ecosystem and the regional and state economies.”

While Athens-Clarke County already boasts a diverse business mix of Fortune 500 companies and local entrepreneurial startups, it still meets the Economic Development Administration’s criteria for a distressed county experiencing high poverty and unemployment.

The NMIC will address these issues by helping to diversify the local economy, form new startup companies and attract additional industries to the area, Biggs said.

AWARD from page 1 in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences department of genetics.

Sweigart joined the UGA faculty in 2011 following postdoctoral positions at the University of Rochester and the University of Montana after completing her doctorate at Duke University. Sweigart’s research program is focused on understanding how natural populations evolve into reproductively isolated species.

She and her lab have spent years collecting data on the genetic basis of adaptation and reproductive isolation in Mimulus, an ecologically diverse genus of wildflowers found throughout western North America.

Their work has provided insights into the genetic and evolutionary mechanisms of speciation, the formation of new and distinct species.

“I am deeply honored and humbled to receive this award,” Sweigart said. “It certainly wouldn’t have happened without a hardworking team of very talented students and postdocs and a tremendously supportive UGA community.”

In 2014, Sweigart was awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Program. The five-year, $1 million grants support junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organizations.

SPECIAL SECTION • JANUARY 30, 2017

2017 STATE of the UNIVERSITY To everyone joining me in the Chapel this afternoon or watching by livestream, thank you for taking part in this special tradition. I am honored to be with all of you to deliver the 2017 State of the University Address.

During my more than 30 years of service to this institution, I have attended a great number of these speeches, sitting where you now sit, interested to hear the President’s message, while at the same time—to be candid—secretly hoping for brevity, as I am sure many of you are today.

Of course, looking back over my years as a faculty member and administrator, I can remember some of these speeches more vividly than others, but one in particular made a lasting impression on me. The setting was the Law School Auditorium, Wednesday, November 2nd, 1988. In those days, the State of the University Address was delivered during the fall. Dr. Charles Knapp was giving his second address as President. I was in the audience, in the midst of my third year as an assistant professor at this institution.

Dr. Knapp spoke to us that day about the bright future he envisioned for the University of Georgia, and he closed his remarks with a passage that bears repeating today. He said: “The University of Georgia is ready to join together as a community of scholars—one powerful University moving steadily on the course toward academic excellence. I see nothing to hold us back.”

In retrospect, I think Dr. Knapp’s words were nothing short of prophetic. His statement also captured, in the simplest of terms, the essence of this place: our strong sense of community, our relentless pursuit of academic excellence, our belief that the potential of this University is boundless.

Time and again I have observed these qualities during my career at the University of Georgia, and most especially in my role as President. Over the past four years, we have worked together—united by a deep sense of commitment— to blaze a new path for America’s first state-chartered university, a path to reach even greater heights. And much like Dr. Knapp in 1988, “I see nothing to hold us back.”

The state of the University of Georgia is strong and growing stronger—that I can say with complete confidence.

Consider for a moment the following accomplishments from the past year.

This fall, we enrolled the most academically qualified class of first-year students in our history—for the fourth consecutive year.

Our four-year graduation rate reached an all-time high of 66 percent, while our six-year rate remained at a record level of 85 percent, both substantially higher than the average of our peer institutions. We implemented our new experiential learning initiative, ensuring that our undergraduate students participate in a high-impact, hands-on learning opportunity prior to graduation.

Laura Courchesne, an Honors Program student and Foundation Fellow, was named a Rhodes Scholar, the 24th UGA student to receive this prestigious international fellowship. Over the past two decades, the University of Georgia has proudly produced more Rhodes Scholars than all but two other public institutions in the nation.

Delivered by

President Jere W. Morehead January 25, 2017 The Chapel at the University of Georgia We opened our new Science Learning Center in the fall and completed or advanced a number of other critical capital projects, from Amos Hall to the Center for Molecular Medicine, the Food Technology Center on the Griffin Campus, and the Indoor Athletic Facility.

Major hiring initiatives were completed to reduce class sizes and continue building our robust research enterprise.

Funds were established to create 13 new endowed chairs and professorships. We now have 272 endowed faculty positions on campus, up from 227 when I became President four years ago—an increase of 20 percent.

Research expenditures—a key measure of productivity—surged 14 percent in 2016, following the previous year’s increase of seven percent, and plans to elevate graduate and professional education, announced during last year’s State of the University Address, moved forward with great success this year.

The Graduate School established new fellowships to recruit outstanding master’s and doctoral students and launched an innovative leadership program—funded by

the National Science Foundation—to prepare graduate students for a broad range of career choices that transcend disciplines. Our Law School named the inaugural class of Alston Distinguished Law Fellows and led Georgia with a bar exam passage rate of 88 percent—13 points higher than the state average.

UGA’s overall academic reputation continued to climb, rising in national rankings of the best public research universities—up to number 18 in U.S News and 17 in Forbes.

The University also moved into the top 10 on Kiplinger’s list of public colleges with the best value.

And for the third consecutive year, we received the INSIGHT Into Diversity Higher Education Excellence in Diversity Award for our strong and enduring commitment to fostering an inclusive academic environment. Let me take just a moment to emphasize the importance of this last achievement.

Diversity and inclusion are core values of this institution, and we will continue to provide the support and resources necessary to form an even more connected and enriching academic community for all of our faculty, staff, and students.

Dr. Freeman Hrabowski, President of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, whom I met for the first time in 2013 at a presidential leadership conference, put it best when he stated: “The way we think about ourselves as a society, as a university, and as human beings—the language that we use, the way we interact with each other, the values that we hold—will shape not only who we are today, but who we will be in the future.” I believe this very astute observation frames quite well our ongoing commitment to strengthen the bonds that tie our University family together.

Returning to our recent accomplishments, over the summer, all of us watched and cheered with pride as 37 current and former UGA student-athletes and coaches competed on an international stage in the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Rio, earning 12 medals. If this University were a country, our Olympic medal count would have ranked 27th among the 207 nations that competed in the summer games—an astounding feat for the Bulldog Nation.

The Peabody Awards, which is hosted by the University of Georgia and bestows the world’s highest honor in electronic media, celebrated its 75th anniversary at an awards ceremony in New York City.

And our Small Business Development Center, which boasts 17 offices across the state, assisted Georgia companies in creating more than 3,300 new jobs. I am pleased to share that the latest report indicates that UGA’s annual economic impact on Georgia is $5.25 billion. Indeed, this University is more invested now than ever before in the communities of this state.

In November, we joined together to launch the public phase of a $1.2 billion campaign to amplify the impact of the University of Georgia on this state and around the world.

We also received the single largest donation in our history and set a new record in annual fundraising, bringing in more than $183 million in new gifts and pledges, up 28 percent over last year’s record total.

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THE 2017 STATE OF THE UNIVERSITY

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This list of achievements could go on and on—I have only scratched the surface of what we have achieved together this past year—but let me pause, to say thank you.

To our faculty, our staff, our students, and our alumni and friends—these achievements are your achievements, our rise in prominence is the result of your ongoing hard work and dedication. Thank you for all that you continue to do to move our beloved University forward. Please join me in a round of applause to celebrate the collective work of so many that has led to another outstanding year for the University of Georgia.

Let us turn now from our achievements of the past year to our vision for the future. What will the next chapter look like in the great story of the University of Georgia? Answering this question is the central purpose of my address today.

Our next chapter will be guided by three shared priorities: 1. To increase scholarship support for our students; 2. To further enhance our learning environment; and 3. To solve the grand challenges of our time.

By committing to these priorities—as one powerful University—we can expand our impact on individuals, on families, on communities not only in Georgia but also across our nation and around the world.

Increasing Scholarship Support for Our Students

First, I would like to discuss the need to increase scholarship support for our students. At the very heart of this priority is a commitment to ensuring that academically qualified students have access to a UGA education—regardless of their financial background. Georgia’s generous HOPE Scholarship Program and federal and private grants provide critical financial support to our students, but for many, a gap still remains to cover the full cost of attendance.

This gap, if unaddressed, can be detrimental. It can undermine our efforts to recruit the very best and brightest students by dissuading some from even considering this great institution or perhaps driving others to a competitor, where merit-based scholarships and need-based aid are more abundant.

Equally important, however, unmet financial need can diminish a student’s overall educational experience on our campus. Some internships, study abroad opportunities, and other high-impact learning experiences may be inaccessible, and a student’s progress toward a degree could even be hindered.

Overcoming these challenges is especially difficult for our students from low-income backgrounds, who may be forced to work extra hours or take out multiple loans. You may be surprised to learn that one in four UGA undergraduate students receives the Pell Grant, a federal subsidy for students with financial need. Of that population, more than one in three comes to this University from a family that is unable to contribute any significant financial resources to their education.

For all of these reasons, we must increase scholarship support. Our commitment to recruiting top-tier students depends on it. Our commitment to creating a vibrant and diverse campus community depends on it. And our commitment to preparing the next generation of leaders depends on it.

Scholarships are life-changing. They remove barriers and open doors. They create for our students and their families pathways to futures that would otherwise be unreachable.

The Robert W. Woodruff Foundation understands the importance of this priority, and we remain grateful for the foundation’s transformative $30 million gift in November to expand need-based financial aid—a gift that will echo across Georgia for generations to come.

I hope this amazing donation serves as a catalyst, inspiring our alumni and friends to new levels of support for need-based aid. And toward that end, I am pleased to announce today an exciting new initiative—called the Georgia Commitment Scholarship Program—designed to grow dramatically the number of need-based scholarships awarded by this institution each year. Through this program, the UGA Foundation will match—dollar for dollar—any gift in the amount of $50,000, $75,000, or $100,000 to establish an endowed need-based scholarship.

Imagine: a donation of $100,000 transforms into an endowment of $200,000, an endowment that will provide a significant grant, every year, to support a deserving student with unmet financial need. The size of the scholarship award will increase over time as the endowment grows, and the endowment will live on forever, helping student after student to earn a degree from the University of Georgia.

This matching program has the potential to create as many as 400 to 600 new need-based scholarships—a giant step toward eliminating the financial obstacles facing many of our students.

Today, I am asking our alumni and friends, and the entire Bulldog family, to band together to make the Georgia Commitment Scholarship Program a tremendous success. Your generosity will create a permanent legacy of support that will alter the course of countless students and their families far into the future. This is an opportunity we simply cannot afford to miss.

Andrew Tucker

UGA recently completed a major faculty hiring initiative to reduce class sizes and to enhance student learning and success.

Georgia Commitment Scholarship Program Created to help eliminate financial obstacles facing many students • Matches any gift of $50,000, $75,000, or $100,000 • Establishes as many as 400 to 600 new need-based scholarships • Builds permanent legacy of support to help generations of UGA students earn degrees

President’s Interdisciplinary Seed Grant Program Introduced to support research that tackles grand challenges • Provides $1M to fund grants for interdisciplinary research projects • Positions teams to be competitive for new external funding • Fuels momentum surrounding UGA’s growing research enterprise

Further Enhancing Our Learning Environment

Let us now turn to the second priority: further enhancing our learning environment. Since 2013, we have made remarkable strides in this area—expanding experiential and entrepreneurial learning; reducing class sizes; bolstering academic advising; cultivating our vibrant campus life; and building state-of-the-art academic facilities.

Just last month, The Chronicle of Higher Education featured the University of Georgia in its series on innovation in teaching—one of several instances in recent years when UGA has been the focus of a national story on excellence in teaching and learning. In addition, the University once again received an “A” rating from the American Council of Trustees and Alumni for the strength of our core curriculum.

UGA was one of only 25 institutions in the nation to receive this high mark.

We should be very proud of these achievements. Above all else, they reflect the steadfast commitment of our faculty, our Deans, our Vice Presidents, and our Provost to promoting the highest levels of student learning and success. But these

Two new GRA Eminent Scholars joined UGA this year, Dr. Dennis Kyle and Dr. Karen Norris.

achievements also reflect an enduring tendency within our intellectual culture to innovate and to perfect—a tendency that dates back to the inception of this University.

Periodically throughout our history, we have leveraged this pioneering spirit to conduct deep and far-reaching self-examinations to improve the quality of undergraduate education.

Some of you may remember, for instance, the President’s Task Force on the Quality of the Undergraduate Experience, which was convened in 1997. I had the privilege of chairing that task force 20 years ago. The group’s report laid the early groundwork for major initiatives to come in first-year seminar programs, experiential learning, and academic advising.

Seven years later, in 2004, the Task Force on General Education and Student Learning was assembled. Former Vice President for Instruction Del Dunn and I co-chaired that effort, and—once again—the group produced a number of meaningful insights that led to further improvements in undergraduate education.

THE 2017 STATE OF THE UNIVERSITY

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In the midst of our changing world, however, one reality has remained constant over time: communities—near and far—still need strong, committed, and ethical leaders to face a growing number of complex challenges, and as a land-grant institution, we have an obligation to prepare our students to meet this need. That is why, this time, the task force will focus not only on our instructional programs but also on activities outside of the classroom that prepare our students for lives of service and leadership in our communities.

The work of the task force, which should be completed

by December 1st of this year, will guide our longstanding commitment to create the highest quality undergraduate experience possible at the University of Georgia.

I hope this task force, like those before it, will spark new ideas and inspire new approaches, so that we can, to quote University of Virginia President Dr. Terry Sullivan, “make education an even greater force for good in the lives of students.” I look forward to receiving and reviewing the observations of the working group at the year’s end.

Solving the Grand Challenges of Our Time

Andrew Tucker

The Science Learning Center, which opened this fall, features state-of-the-art teaching laboratories and classrooms.

2016 Key UGA Accomplishments Opened Science Learning Center Implemented Experiential Learning Initiative Special

Laura Courchesne is the University’s 24th Rhodes Scholar.

Completed faculty hiring initiatives to reduce class sizes and expand informatics research Established funds to create 13 endowed faculty positions Increased research expenditures by 14% Generated $5.25B economic impact on Georgia Received largest single donation ($30M) in UGA history

Andrew Tucker

For the fourth consecutive year, UGA’s first-year class set a new record for academic quality.

These intensive studies have helped transform this campus into the dynamic learning environment we celebrate today. But, it has been more than a decade since we last conducted a systematic evaluation of this nature, and I believe the time has come to launch the next iteration.

Today, I am announcing the formation of the President’s Task Force on Student Learning and Success, chaired by Vice President for Instruction Rahul Shrivastav and Vice President for Student Affairs Victor Wilson. Members of this working group will be charged with taking a fresh look at our undergraduate learning environment to identify opportunities to further enhance the rigorous educational experience for our students—inside and outside the classroom—and to strengthen the vital bridge between our academic programs and other student learning opportunities.

They also will be asked to examine whether the expectation for academic performance and achievement at the undergraduate level has kept pace with the dramatic rise in academic quality of our student body. Do our classrooms

Launched $1.2B fundraising campaign

and laboratories consistently reflect the highest standards of rigor? How do we ensure all of our students learn at peak levels? Are there better pathways to allow more students to pursue combined degree programs that link undergraduate and graduate degrees? These are questions the working group will carefully consider.

The working group also will reflect on the relation between our core curriculum and the world around us, which is changing rapidly, becoming more data- and information-driven, propelled by an endless groundswell of new technologies with extraordinary reach.

To innovate; to communicate effectively across different platforms and cultures; to think critically; to analyze and interpret various forms of data; to see problems from an interdisciplinary perspective—these are the kinds of competencies that our graduates must possess to be successful in the 21st Century. The task force will contemplate whether our academic programs deliver on these outcomes at a sufficiently high level to ensure our graduates are prepared for an evolving global economy.

The third priority of the University is solving the grand challenges of our time. The challenges facing our global society are daunting. Protecting against infectious diseases, eliminating food insecurity, preserving our natural resources— these are but a few of the serious issues confronting the world today. We need additional research and scholarship. We need greater understanding. We need solutions. The quality of life of future generations hangs in the balance.

We can find hope in the American public research university, with its deep reservoir of expertise and technology; its unlimited capacity to generate new knowledge and discoveries; and its longstanding commitment to improve the human condition.

Moreover, to quote a recent report from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Lincoln Project, “Public research universities are dedicated to the public: that is their mission; it is the value that animates all of their activities.” I would ask: What organizations today are better positioned to lead in the search for solutions than our nation’s public research universities?

As the University of Georgia’s standing advances among this important group of major institutions, we will be expected to contribute even more to solve the grand challenges of our time. I have no doubt that we will.

One of the University’s greatest assets moving forward is its comprehensive nature. The broad array of academic disciplines represented on this campus, coupled with vast resources in teaching, research, and service, allow UGA to approach complex problems holistically.

Take as an example our aging infrastructure systems.

This area is particularly important to the state of Georgia.

Questions like how to strengthen our roadways, our energy grid, or our water treatment processes—these are questions that transcend any single discipline or any one part of the University’s mission. This mindset was the impetus for the creation of a new Institute for Resilient Infrastructure Systems in the fall.

Directed by Dr. Brian Bledsoe, Georgia Athletic Association Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, this Institute will bring to bear on our many infrastructure challenges the best tools from engineering, ecology, environmental design and planning, atmospheric science, law and policy, and public health. Our Public Service and Outreach units have been engaged from the start to ensure this work will be relevant for local leaders, policymakers, and practitioners in Georgia who must implement new infrastructure solutions. The Institute also will offer graduate and professional certificate programs to expand the pipeline of scientists and industry leaders in this critical field.

Let us also consider the University’s comprehensive approach to human health—indeed, a challenge of global scale. We have established interdisciplinary research centers on campus to expand our impact in this crucial area.

Our Center for Molecular Medicine, directed by Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar Dr. Steve Dalton, is a case in point. A new facility to house the Center will open later this year and provide space for up to 10 research groups focused on the development of new therapies, cures, and diagnostics.

The Center for Vaccines and Immunology, launched by GRA Eminent Scholar Dr. Ted Ross, opened this fall and already has recruited an additional GRA Eminent Scholar, Dr. Karen Norris, who specializes in immunology and translational biomedicine. Dr. Norris is one of two GRA Eminent Scholars to join UGA in recent months—and one of five in the past two years.

We also welcomed Dr. Dennis Kyle to the University this year as the GRA Eminent Scholar in Antiparasitic Drug Discovery and the new director of our world-renowned Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases. Dr. Kyle will work with a superb team of scientists that includes—among others—Dr. Jessie Kissinger, an expert in the bioinformatics of infectious diseases. Dr. Kissinger also leads the Institute of Bioinformatics, a major component of our informatics initiative established in the fall to position UGA on the leading edge of the information revolution.

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And just last month, we learned that a team of UGA faculty led by GRA Eminent Scholar Dr. Steve Stice will be part of a consortium of universities funded by the U.S. Department of Commerce to establish the nation’s latest Manufacturing Innovation Institute. This new Institute will pursue the vital goal of making the commercial production of biological therapeutics—including stem cells—efficient, scalable, and safe.

After all, the full promise of any new vaccine, drug, or treatment lies not only in its discovery but also in its affordable production and delivery to patients on a global scale. Dr. Stice and his colleagues here and around the country will be on the forefront of ensuring that health-related discoveries achieve maximum benefit for the world’s population.

I challenge our faculty, staff, and students to continue finding new synergies—across disciplines, missions, and institutions—to unleash the full range of this University’s capabilities on the grand challenges facing our state, nation, and world.

In the years and decades ahead, our greatest impact will occur when we apply this comprehensive, integrated approach.

To continue encouraging this type of collaboration, today I am announcing a $1 million interdisciplinary seed grant program. This program will award competitive grants to multidisciplinary teams of researchers and scholars who submit winning proposals to tackle grand challenges aligned with UGA’s research strengths as a land-grant institution.

A principal goal of this initiative is to generate new external funding in order to feed the exciting momentum surrounding the research enterprise at the University of Georgia. Proposals should add interdisciplinary dimensions to existing research or encourage new partnerships around the most pressing issues confronting humankind.

Whenever it is appropriate, we encourage the inclusion of outreach components in these seed grant proposals, which will be evaluated jointly by Vice President for Research David Lee and Vice President for Public Service and Outreach Jennifer Frum.

Uniting Around Our Priorities

Let me close today with a quote from Archimedes—a leading mathematician and scientist in ancient Greece: “Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand, and I will move the earth.”

He was reflecting, of course, on the laws of physics, but his words invoke a deeper message about the tremendous power of the human will to shape the world around us. I believe the University of Georgia, the birthplace of public higher education in America, offers both the lever and the place to stand and that working together we will continue to change the world for the better.

So let me return to the central question of today’s address: What will the next chapter look like in the great story of the University of Georgia? Our next chapter will be defined by three priorities: 1. Increasing scholarship support for our students; 2. Further enhancing our learning environment; and 3. Solving the grand challenges of our time.

Today, I am asking our faculty, our staff, our students, and our alumni and friends to unite around these priorities—to help write this next chapter and magnify the impact of the University of Georgia to a scale never before imagined.

And as we forge ahead, we do so supported by our great tradition but untethered to it—reaching beyond the status quo, soaring toward greatness at the highest level, guided by the belief that the University of Georgia is essential to a strong state of Georgia, to a vibrant nation, and to a better world.

Thanks again for joining me this afternoon and for your unwavering commitment to excellence at the University of Georgia. I look forward to all that we will accomplish this year and in the years ahead. Thank you for your continued support.

President’s Task Force on Student Learning and Success Formed to further strengthen undergraduate education Dr. Eric Atkinson, Associate Vice President for Student Affairs Dr. Peggy Brickman, Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor of Plant Biology Dr. Charles Bullock, Richard B. Russell Chair in Political Science, University Professor and Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor of Political Science Mr. Jacob Fucetola, Student Government Association Vice President Dr. Silvia Giraudo, Associate Dean for Academic Programs and Associate Professor of Foods and Nutrition Dr. Michele Howard, Associate Vice President for Student Affairs Ms. Judy Iakovou, Director for Academic Advising Services Dr. Don Leo, Dean and UGA Foundation Professor in Engineering Dr. Jean Martin-Williams, Associate Dean for the Fine and Performing Arts, Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor of Music and Director of Lilly Teaching Fellows Program Dr. Libby Morris, Director of the Institute of Higher Education, Zell B. Miller Distinguished Professor of Higher Education and Teaching Academy Executive Committee Member Dr. Annette Poulsen, Augustus H. “Billy” Sterne Chair of Banking and Finance Dr. Tom Reichert, Department Head for Advertising and Public Relations and Georgia Athletic Association Professor of Advertising Dr. Greg Robinson, UGA Foundation Distinguished Professor in Chemistry Dr. Rahul Shrivastav (Co-Chair), Vice President for Instruction and Professor of Communication Sciences and Special Education

Mark E. Johnson

The experiential learning initiative provides undergraduate students with high-impact learning opportunities.

Dr. Denise Spangler, Senior Associate Dean for Faculty and Staff Services, Bebe Aderhold Professor in Early Childhood Education and Teaching Academy Executive Committee Member Dr. Kyle Tschepikow, Assistant to the President Dr. Franklin West, Associate Professor of Animal and Dairy Science Dr. Shannon Wilder, Director of the Office of Service-Learning Dr. David Williams, Associate Provost and Director of the Honors Program, Jere W. Morehead Distinguished Professor and Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor of Religion

Peter Frey

ABOVE: The Center for Vaccines and Immunology aims to develop new and improved vaccines to address existing and emerging diseases.

RIGHT: UGA’s four-year graduation rate reached an alltime high of 66 percent, and the six-year graduation rate remained at a record level of 85 percent.

Mr. Victor Wilson (Co-Chair), Vice President for Student Affairs Andrew Tucker