UGA Columns Oct. 29, 2018

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Training allows responders to provide better management of emergency operations RESEARCH NEWS

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Rosetta Theatre Project brings together several art forms for Nov. 2-3 shows Vol. 46, No. 14

October 29, 2018

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UGA GUIDE

4&5

Farmers, leaders and UGA president gather for Sunbelt Expo

By Clint Thompson cbthomps@uga.edu

Andrew Davis Tucker

High school seniors look on as Jenay Beer, an assistant professor in the College of Public Health and the School of Social Work, demonstrates a robot in the Assistive Robotics and Technology Lab as part of the pre-collegiate summer institute.

‘Incredible impact’ Grants broaden access for students through innovative programs

By Krista Richmond krichmond@uga.edu

“UGA has been my dream school for so long,” Justin Edge said. “This is the school for me. It’s a great institution.”

That dream became a reality for Edge and three other first-year law students named to the initial group of Benham Scholars thanks, in part, to a New Approaches to Promote Diversity and Inclusion grant, which supports the program by funding the students’ participation in the school’s early start program in addition to offering academic support and professional development opportunities.

The Benham Scholars program, named for Robert Benham, the first African American to serve on the Supreme Court of Georgia and the second African American

graduate of UGA’s School of Law, is just one of the 21 grant proposals funded through the program, which was announced by UGA President Jere W. Morehead in August 2017.

A total of $300,000 was awarded in January 2018 as part of the program. The $10,000 to $25,000 grants are used for the development or adoption of new projects that support the recruitment, retention and success of underrepresented, underserved and first-generation students at UGA. “The New Approaches grants are making an incredible impact on broadening the access, success and engagement of students from a range of backgrounds through innovative programs and initiatives,” said Michelle Cook, vice provost for diversity and inclusion and strategic university initiatives. “The effect is being felt across the state as young

people are being exposed to the opportunities for exploration and growth through higher education.”

Jenna Jackson, the law school’s associate director of admissions and diversity programs, and Greg Roseboro, the law school’s executive director of admissions and diversity programs, are using the grant to support various opportunities for the Benham Scholars throughout their time in law school.

“We’ve created something that not only will help students now, but, looking forward, also will help us to open the profession to more people,” Jackson said. “We intend to have our fingers on their pulse to see how they’re adjusting emotionally and academically. With the students in mind, we can do some really great things.”

The program includes academic See GRANTS on page 8

The Sunbelt Agricultural Expo opened its doors Oct. 16 with agricultural experts, farmers, state and local leaders and University of Georgia President Jere W. Morehead in attendance.

Much of the talk during the expo and Morehead’s visit focused on the devastation wrought by Hurricane Michael, which leveled buildings and destroyed untold acres of crops—including peanuts, pecans and vegetables—across much of Georgia’s most fertile farmland.

Morehead spoke at length with attendees about the effects of the

storm and what could be done to ease the burden on the state’s farmers, some of whom have lost everything.

“I visited this area only a few weeks ago on my annual farm tour and talked with farmers who were eagerly anticipating peak harvests of pecans, peanuts and other crops. Now many farms have been wiped out and yields have been substantially impacted due to the hurricane,” said Morehead.

“I want South Georgia’s farmers to know that the University of Georgia stands with them and is committed to supporting their recovery from this devastating storm.”

See EXPO on page 8

COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES

Georgia farmers face more than $2B in losses from Hurricane Michael

By Sharon Dowdy sharono@uga.edu

Hurricane Michael blew across southwest Georgia on Oct. 10, causing more than $2 billion in losses to the state’s agriculture industry, according to estimates from University of Georgia Cooperative Extension agricultural economists and Extension agents.

“These are our best estimates on information from UGA Extension agents in the field, as well as our Extension specialists,” said Laura Perry Johnson, associate dean of UGA Extension. “They have traveled many miles and seen many fields to gather this data and worked with economists to come up with these estimates. As we learn more, these estimates could change.”

The state’s pecan industry suffered a $100 million loss from this

year’s crop plus $260 million in lost trees. An additional $200 million in future profits will be lost over the next decade as new orchards are planted and existing orchards are re-established, said Lenny Wells, UGA Extension pecan specialist.

Between 30 and 40 percent of the pecan trees were destroyed in Dougherty, Lee and Mitchell counties, where 30 percent of Georgia’s pecan crop is produced. In areas less severely affected by the storm, growers with trees that are still standing will be able to harvest a lot of the nuts that were blown to the ground, Wells said.

Overall, Wells believes that half of Georgia’s pecan crop has been lost for this year.

Cotton fields that promised near-record harvest were destroyed by the hurricane; some fields in See HURRICANE on page 8

ACADEMIC AFFAIRS

PUBLIC SERVICE AND OUTREACH

University helps sustain state’s coastal economy Symposium guides solutions While he logs in the orders, opportunities. He replaced BlackBy Kelly Simmons simmonsk@uga.edu employees on the dock wash the beard, his shrimp boat that caught to national opioid epidemic Orders come in overnight by emails and through messages left on Charlie Phillips’ phone.

By 7:30 a.m., he’s behind the desk in his cramped office—its walls papered with maps of Georgia barrier islands and marshes—entering orders by hand on a paper spread sheet.

A restaurant in Charleston, South Carolina, wants about 1,600 clams, while a regular customer on Long Island orders 3,000 to 5,000. By midday Phillips has taken orders for tens of thousands of clams, all farm-raised in the mud flats adjacent to Sapelo Island.

small clams that have just been pulled from the marsh in their mesh grow-out bags. Other employees gently empty baskets of harvested clams into a machine that will sort and route them by size into colorcoded bags that will be packaged in boxes lined with bubble wrap.

Then the clams will be shipped to businesses from south Florida to Canada.

A second-generation Georgia fisherman, Phillips began shrimping as a teenager alongside his father and later captained the boat when he took over the business. When the shrimp industry began to take a hit in the 1980s, he explored other

fire and sank, with snapper boats.

But then a study showed overfishing had severely diminished the red snapper population in the Atlantic Ocean, and government regulations effectively closed red snapper fishing.

Phillips already had been exploring aquaculture and had taken UGA Marine Extension up on its offer of grow-out clam seed for fishers looking to diversify their investments.

By 2009, he was in full production, harvesting 500,000 clams annually. Last year, his harvest was 2 million.

See ECONOMY on page 7

By Abbey Miner

abbeym36@uga.edu

The University of Georgia recently hosted a day-long symposium that brought faculty members and policymakers together to explore current research and seek solutions to the nation’s opioid epidemic, a widespread issue that, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, resulted in almost 50,000 deaths nationwide in 2017.

Fazal Khan, an associate professor in the School of Law who chaired the planning committee for the symposium, opened the dialogue with the current state of

the national epidemic and emphasized the need for interdisciplinary partnerships. “[The opioid epidemic] is predicted to get worse before it gets better,” said Khan. “It’s really imperative that we address this problem. Part of this effort is to catalyze collaboration, catalyze discussions.”

The keynote lecture at the Oct. 20 symposium was presented by journalist Beth Macy, author of the New York Times bestseller Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America.

Macy has spent decades following

See SYMPOSIUM on page 8

2 Oct. 29, 2018 columns.uga.edu TERRY COLLEGE OF BUSINESS

Executive MBA ranks best in state and top US program

CAMPAIGN FOR CHARITIES

Associate professor helps local youth succeed one book at a time

By Matt Weeks

By Kathryn Kao

mweeks@uga.edu

kathk1@uga.edu

The Executive MBA Program at the Terry College of Business is ranked among the nation’s best in a global EMBA survey published by the Financial Times.

The program ranks No. 12 among U.S.-based EMBA programs overall and is the highest ranked EMBA program in the state of Georgia. Among U.S. public business schools, the Terry EMBA ranks No. 4.

The Financial Times survey found Terry’s EMBA ranks No. 8 among U.S. programs in terms of percentage salary increase for graduates—at 53 percent more than their pre-EMBA average salary.

“This ranking is a strong indication that our Executive MBA Program offers significant value to graduates in terms of career momentum and return on investment,” said Terry College Dean Benjamin C. Ayers. “Our goal is to help all of our students achieve their potential by challenging them academically, finding opportunities tailored to their interests and connecting them to our alumni network.”

Terry’s Executive MBA is an 18-month degree program geared toward mid- to senior-level professionals, with weekend classes taught at the college’s Executive Education Center in Buckhead.

The Financial Times rankings are based on surveys of Class of 2015 graduates. The salary increase measured the average difference in the salaries of alumni prior to the EMBA program and now.

Growing up in Jackson, Alabama, Sheneka Williams saw firsthand how living in a rural community could hinder access to something most people take for granted—books.

Today, her passion for increasing access and narrowing the opportunity gap with the nonprofit organization, Books for Keeps, is helping thousands of at-risk youth combat the effects of “summer slide,” the learning loss many students experience while they are away from school.

“It wasn’t about Sheneka feeling great about herself, it was about seeing the book distributions and how many people were being helped by what we do,” said Williams, an associate professor in UGA’s College of Education. “I can thank BFK for getting me involved in the Athens community beyond UGA. That has been invaluable to me.”

BFK is one of the more than 1,100 organizations supported by UGA’s annual Campaign for Charities, which ends Dec. 7.

As board president of BFK, Williams serves the organization in a variety of ways, from acting as a liaison between the 12 board members and BFK’s executive director, Leslie Hale, to building relationships with the Clarke County School District, where BFK is currently present in 13 elementary schools, as well as five others across Georgia.

Every spring, Williams looks forward to distributing thousands of books—which are collected, inspected and sorted in boxes by volunteers throughout the year—to students on Books for Keeps Day. This event gives each child the opportunity to choose 12 books to take home and read to help prevent summer slide.

“It’s like a badge of honor for these

WILLSON CENTER

Artist Rebecca Rutstein named Delta Visiting Chair

By Dave Marr

davemarr@uga.edu

The Willson Center for Humanities and Arts will welcome Rebecca Rutstein, an artist whose work spans painting, sculpture, installation and public art and explores abstraction inspired by science, data and maps, to the University of Georgia as the third Delta Visiting Chair for Global Understanding.

Rutstein will visit UGA twice during the current academic year: in November as part of the national conference of the Alliance for the Arts in Research Universities, and again in March 2019. During each of her visits, Rutstein will give public presentations with oceanographer Samantha Joye, Athletic Association Professor in Arts and Sciences in the marine sciences department at UGA. The first presentation, a public plenary event on the second day of the a2ru conference, will take place Nov. 2 at 9 a.m. in Mahler Hall of the UGA Center for Continuing Education & Hotel.

Beginning Nov. 1, Rutstein will display a 64-foot-long interactive sculptural installation made with laser cut steel and LED lights, and a large-scale, four-part painting installation at the Georgia Museum of Art, as well as a mural-sized banner in the Lamar Dodd School of Art (see story, page 4).

In the process of creating works inspired by geology, microbiology and marine science, Rutstein has collaborated with scientists aboard research vessels sailing from the Galapagos Islands to California, Vietnam to Guam, and in the waters surrounding Tahiti. She has exhibited widely in museums, institutions and galleries, and has received numerous awards including the Pew Fellowship in the Arts. She has held more than 25 solo exhibitions at venues across the U.S. The Delta Visiting Chair, established by the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts through the support of The Delta Air Lines Foundation, hosts outstanding global scholars, leading creative thinkers, artists and intellectuals who teach and conduct research at UGA. Its first honoree was Alice Walker in 2015, followed by Colm Toibin in 2017.

The chair is founded upon the legacy of the Delta Prize for Global Understanding, which from 1997-2011 was presented to individuals, including Nelson Mandela, Mikhail Gorbachev, Ted Turner, Desmond Tutu, and Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter, whose initiatives promoted world peace by advancing understanding and cooperation among cultures and nations.

Each holder of the Delta Visiting Chair engages the Georgia community through lectures, seminars, discussions and programs. They present global problems in local context by addressing pressing contemporary questions about the economy, society and the environment with a focus on how the arts and humanities can intervene in major contemporary issues.

Dorothy Kozlowski

Sheneka Williams, associate professor in UGA’s College of Education, also serves as the board president of Books for Keeps.

little ones to have a bag they can barely carry full of books,” she said. “It also says something about access and that if a child has access to educational opportunity, then that can be a game changer for their future.”

As part of BFK’s research committee, Williams is particularly interested in securing funds to study the organization’s impact on students. Thanks to this partnership between UGA and BFK, faculty at the university can acquire the necessary data to see if children who participate in Books for Keeps Day actually experience a boost in their vocabulary and reading comprehension skills.

“Athens has a lot of poverty, and there are a lot of children in need, so I think it’s a beautiful thing that we have faculty across the university, who like myself, donate and have an interest in BFK because we see the connection,” said Williams.

This past August, BFK held its most successful annual book sale to date. In addition to raising funds for the organization, the event also gives local teachers the opportunity to stock their classrooms with any remaining books from the fundraiser.

While Williams is currently focused on making sure all children in Athens have a book they can read at home—no matter their socioeconomic standing—she is eager to expand BFK’s efforts across the entire state.

“When I think broadly about the work I do, whether it’s for BFK, my classroom or my research, the work is always larger than me,” said Williams.

“I have to do work I think matters to generations beyond me, otherwise what good am I to be in these positions. It’s about the generations behind me, and so I choose to give my time, energy, resources and work life to making the next generation better.”

GRADY COLLEGE

FRANKLIN COLLEGE

Partnership helps expand research, training support

NSF program director: Make cyberscience accessible to all

By Jennifer Nelson

By Emily Webb

Trusting News, a project intended to empower journalists to earn consumers’ trust, is adding research and training support from a partnership with Grady College.

The Trusting News project, which was founded at the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, has worked with more than 50 news outlets since 2016 to find out what news consumers trust and to test strategies intended to build trust.

“Trust is the single most important issue facing journalism today—we must work in concert to help our colleagues in the industry or risk losing our institution entirely to the forces of disinformation and cynical manipulation of the news,” said Charles Davis, dean of Grady College.

Davis said he and the college “wanted to help and be recognized as a member of what I hope becomes a movement.”

Engagement strategist Joy Mayer, who founded the project, is preparing to share the latest round of findings this fall at TrustingNews.org and to train more newsrooms in how to earn trust with the help of the Grady College.

Faculty members will recruit newsrooms in the Southeast to participate and train them on how to implement Trusting News strategies, said Davis. The college will also provide researchers and resources with the goal of producing at least one research study a year.

“Their research is so needed as we try to figure out what the factors are that lead to trust and as we try to understand how news consumers respond to different types of news and different messages,” Mayer said. “The research is crucial, so that we can be able to say with more authority what works and what should be repeated.”

The Trusting News Project is also supported by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and Democracy Fund.

On Oct. 12, Sushil Prasad, program director at the National Science Foundation, visited UGA to talk about making cyberscience accessible to everyone.

Prasad’s lecture, “Innovations in NSF Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Research Workforce Development and Education Programs,” was designated one of the university’s fall 2018 Signature Lectures.

“Advanced computing and large-scale data handling, networking, cybersecurity—these are not necessarily only for computer scientists,” said Prasad, who is the program director of the Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure at NSF. “We, the computer scientists, only do part of it. We do a lot of innovation, but the real use is by the entire STEM and nonSTEM industry.”

During the lecture, he summarized research and education opportunities with OAC. The office funds infrastructure that allows for “big science,” and the five areas OAC deals with are advanced computing, data, software, cybersecurity and learning and workforce development.

“OAC’s main mission is to support robust cyberinfrastructure for science,” Prasad said. “Mission number two is to support forward-looking research and education, which is needed for all this innovation work.”

NSF has multiple departments that fund research, and the OAC has awarded more than $1 billion to 50 U.S. states and the territories of Guam and Puerto Rico. According to Prasad, the OAC focuses on funding research that addresses gaps in research and education programs and would help to create change in the structure of computer science departments and how the subject is taught and learned.

“Think about computational and data science for all,” he said. “How do we make it happen? This is important for our own education, for the entire pipeline and also for the research that’s done.”

nelsonjenn@rjionline.org

sew30274@uga.edu

RESEARCH NEWS

columns.uga.edu

Oct. 29, 2018

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Digest Early voting to be held at Tate Center

GREAT COMMITMENTS Dorothy Kozlowski

A senior public service associate in UGA’s Carl Vinson Institute of Government, Karen Payne trains U.N. responders to collect and apply geographic information systems data that enables relief organizations to select the best locations for aid relief and emergency shelters.

Filling the data void

Research restores order to emergency operations

By Leigh Beeson lbeeson@uga.edu

Forecasters see a storm system forming in the Atlantic that’s headed straight for the islands dotting the Caribbean. They predict high amounts of rain, storm surges that will flood miles inland and winds that will tear homes apart. Islanders brace for impact, the storm hits and, almost as quickly as it came, it’s gone, leaving destruction and casualties in its wake.

Now it’s up to international and local aid organizations to bring relief and start to rebuild. But first they have to know what they’re walking into.

Enter Karen Payne, a senior public service associate in UGA’s Carl Vinson Institute of Government.

Payne trains U.N. responders to collect and apply geographic information systems data. GIS data includes critical information—like the locations of towns, rivers, governmental boundaries and more—that enables relief organizations to select the best locations for aid relief and emergency shelters “If you’re doing an emergency ­ response—to a hurricane or

e­ arthquake, for example—aid workers need to have maps of where the impact is and know how many people were affected, what the path of the storm was and how big the devastation was,” said Payne. “Most developing countries don’t have the kinds of data sets that the U.S. has, though. Their geographic and governmental boundaries tend to change more than ours do. So it becomes an issue of getting all the relief workers to refer to the same city in the same place, to know which local governments they need to liaise with and to know where territorial boundaries are.”

But gathering and compiling all the information into a comprehensive system is a challenge, especially because a country in crisis tends to lack resources and personnel. Payne and her team step in to fill those data voids.

“If they don’t have staff in the office, they can send data to us and have us do the vetting a technician normally would do. If they don’t have the capacity to train people on how to gather and input the information, we can go out into the field and do training with them,” she said. “Our involvement really depends on what the country needs

and where they’re trying to go; we try to figure out how to get them there.”

That often means creating data sets, setting up an online service where people from different agencies can access data, or analyzing data and helping to develop plans for emergency aid operations.

Through her partnership with the U.S. Agency for International Development, Payne has traveled the globe training people on the best practices for managing and using geographical and population information. The more she does it, the stronger she believes in what she’s doing.

“We live in a global world,” Payne said. “We need partners. We need alliances. We need those relationships with other countries, and they come from doing things like this. We’re incredibly fortunate to be born in a rich country, and we have a responsibility to bring up those around us. It’s the right thing to do.”

Editor’s note: This story is part of the Great Commitments series, which focuses on cutting-edge research happening on UGA campuses. Read more about UGA’s commitment to research that changes lives at greatcommitments.uga.edu.

COLLEGE OF VETERINARY MEDICINE

Study provides more insight into antibiotic resistance

By Lisa Hermann

lisa.herrmann@uga.edu

A recent study by a team of researchers at the University of Georgia provides insight into how and why bacteria become resistant to commonly used antibiotics over time.

Antibiotic resistance is an increasing threat to public health. If new antibiotics are not discovered by 2050, deaths caused by drug-resistant bacterial infections will surpass 10 million per year, according to the World Health Organization.

The UGA team, led by Dr. Stephen Trent, showed that a human pathogen, Acinetobacter baumannii, can modify its surface to become resistant to commonly used antibiotics.

A. baumannii is considered a critical priority human pathogen by the WHO for new antibiotics. It primarily causes soft tissue infections and historically has been a problem in war zones and hospitals. These infections became so

prevalent in war-zone medical facilities the bacterium was also known as “Iraqibacter.”

“This study contributes to our general understanding of cell envelope biology in bacteria and how bacteria can become resistant to commonly used antimicrobials,” said Trent, UGA Foundation Distinguished Professor in Infectious Diseases in the College of Veterinary Medicine. “The more we understand about how bacteria can alter their outer surface, the better we will be able to solve the growing problems of antibiotic resistance.”

One of the major limitations for antibiotic discovery is the ability for antibiotic compounds to enter the bacterial cell. One class of bacteria, Gram-negative bacteria, have an outer membrane that functions as a remarkable barrier to the environment.

This membrane, or bacterial armor, prevents the cell from encountering toxic chemicals, including the drugs we try to treat them with. However,

the more we learn about this armor, the better we are suited to invent ­treatments against it.

Graduate student Matthew Powers and Trent utilized an evolution-based approach to look at how A. baumannii alters its armor to increase resistance to a variety of antibiotics. Evolution in the laboratory setting involves continual growth of the bacteria over time, allowing them to accumulate changes to their DNA that can impact their physiology.

“What is really cool about this method is that it harnesses the beauty of evolution and lets the bacteria do the brunt of the work,” said Powers, the first author of the study.

From the evolution experiment, they identified two unique pathways that function deleteriously to a cell with a certain type of outer membrane. ­Disruption of these pathways shed light on how changing the bacteria’s armor impacted antibacterial resistance.

Registered Athens-Clarke County voters will be able to take part in advance voting for the Nov. 6 general election on Oct. 30 and 31 at the Tate Student Center from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Voters in elections are required to show one of the following six forms of photo ID when voting: a Georgia driver’s license, even if expired; any valid photo ID issued by the state or federal government, including a free voter ID card issued by the county registrar or Georgia Department of Driver Services; valid U.S. passport; valid employee photo ID from any branch, department, agency or entity of the U.S. government, the state of Georgia or any county, municipality, board, authority or other entity of Georgia; valid U.S. military photo ID; or valid tribal photo ID. A precinct card lists an individual’s voting districts and precincts. It is not required to vote. Those who have misplaced or have not received their precinct card within three to four weeks of submitting their voter registration application should contact the Athens-Clarke County Board of Elections office at 706-613-3150 to request a new precinct card or to check their applications status. Applicants may also check their status through the Georgia ­Secretary of State website at http://sos.ga.gov.

College of Pharmacy to co-sponsor ‘Friendsgiving’ cancer program

Uninsured women ages 21-59 are invited to a free Friendsgiving program, which will feature a cancer prevention cooking class and information on cancer screenings in the area. Sponsored by UGA’s College of Pharmacy, the American Cancer Society and the Athens-Clarke County Extension Office, the program will be offered on Nov. 6 from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and on Nov. 13 from 5-7:30 p.m. Interested participants may choose their preferred session; both will be held at the East ­Athens Community Center, 400 McKinley Drive.

The program also will include a Thanksgivingstyle meal, recipe tastings and door prizes. ­Attendees will be entered into a drawing for $25 in groceries for a holiday meal.

To register or for more information, contact the Athens-Clarke County Extension Office at ­706-613-3640 or Athens Neighborhood Health Clinic at 706-543-1145.

Georgia Museum of Art wins awards at Southeastern Museums Conference

The Georgia Museum of Art at the University of Georgia won two awards in publications design and two for exhibitions at this year’s Southeastern Museums Conference annual meeting, held Oct. 8-10 in Jackson, Mississippi.

The museum’s quarterly newsletter Facet, designed by Athens firm The Adsmith, took home the gold in the newsletters and calendar of events category. Clinton Hill, an exhibition catalogue that surveyed the artist’s career as a printmaker, painter and pulp-paper pioneer, received gold in the book and catalogues category. William U. Eiland, the museum’s director, wrote the book and served as curator for its accompanying installation. Almanac, a firm based in St. Louis, Missouri, was responsible for the book’s design.

The museum received awards for two exhibitions. Crafting History: Textiles, Metals and ­Ceramics at the University of Georgia, which included works by dozens of UGA faculty members, received a gold award. The museum also received a bronze award for Modern Living: Gio Ponti and the 20th-Century Aesthetics of Design, an exhibition that presented more than 50 objects, representing some of Ponti’s most outstanding furniture and decorative objects.

SEMC is a nonprofit organization comprising museums, museum staff, independent professionals and corporate partners who work to provide educational and professional developmental opportunities, improve the exchange of ideas and information and encourage respect and collegiality.

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.

EXHIBITIONS

UGAGUIDE

For Home and Country: World War I Posters from the Blum Collection. Through Nov. 18. Georgia Museum of Art. 706-542-4662. gmoa@uga.edu.

Vernacular Modernism: The Photography of Doris Ulmann.

Through Nov. 18. Georgia Museum of Art. 706-542-4662. gmoa@uga.edu.

Berkeley Boone. Through Nov. 25. Visitor Center, State Botanical Garden. 706-542-6014. connicot@uga.edu.

Nature Speaks: Artworks by Katherine Mitchell and Diane Kempler. Through Dec. 7. Jackson Street Building. mtufts@uga.edu.

Poppies: Women, War, Peace. Through Dec. 14. Special collections libraries. 706-542-7123. jclevela@uga.edu.

War of Words: Propaganda of World War I. Through Dec. 14.

Special collections libraries. 706-542-7123. jclevela@uga.edu.

WE: American Thanksgiving Conflict and Communion.

Through Dec. 22. Special collections libraries. 706-542-5766. jsevern@uga.edu.

One Heart, One Way: The Journey of a Princely Art Collection. Through Jan. 6. Georgia Museum of Art. 706-542-4662. gmoa@uga.edu.

Fighting Spirit: Wally Butts and UGA Football, 1939-1950.

Through May 10. Rotunda, special collections libraries.

706-542-8079. jclevela@uga.edu.

TUESDAY, OCT. 30 ECOLOGY SEMINAR “The Dynamics of Bovine Tuberculosis at the Wildlife/Livestock Interface,” Liliana Salvador, assistant professor, Institute of Bioinformatics and infectious diseases department. Host: Pej Rohani. Reception follows seminar at 4:30 p.m. in the ecology building lobby. 3:30 p.m. Auditorium, ecology building.

706-542-2968. bethgav@uga.edu.

PANEL DISCUSSION: ARMISTICE: 1918/2018 This panel discussion of the agreement to end the fighting of World War I features John Morrow Jr. (history department chair), Alex Nordlund (history), Whitney Priest (history) and Adam Parkes (English). Refreshments to follow. Sponsored by the Transnational European Studies Program and the history department. 3:30 p.m. 285 special collections libraries.

706-542-2520. behlers@uga.edu.

WEDNESDAY, OCT. 31 TOUR AT TWO Join Shawnya Harris, the Larry D. and Brenda A. Thompson Curator of African American and African Diasporic Art, for a tour of Richard Hunt: Synthesis. 2 p.m. Georgia Museum of Art. 706-542-4662. hazbrown@uga.edu.

LECTURE “The Case for Collaboration: How NRDC Works with Artists to Bolster Environmental Advocacy,” Elizabeth Corr, director of art partnerships at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an international environmental nonprofit organization. Corr launched the NRDC’s artist-in-residence program, an innovative platform for thoughtful and sustained collaboration between artists and environmental leaders. Supported by the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts and Ideas for Creative Exploration.

3:30 p.m. S160 Lamar Dodd School of Art. 706-542-7270. mark.callahan@uga.edu.

THURSDAY, NOV. 1

WORKSHOP Universal Design for Learning principles encourage a more holistic and proactive mindset that focuses on reducing barriers and building flexibility into classes for everyone but without sacrificing standards or lowering expectations. This interactive workshop will introduce participants to UDL principles and provide concrete examples and suggestions for how these principles can be put into practice. 9:30 a.m. 372 Miller Learning Center. 706-542-1940. mhhoque@uga.edu.

STUDENT SPOTLIGHT* An event featuring performances from student organizations and individuals displaying their talents in music, theater, dance and creative writing. 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Plaza, Tate Student Center. 706-583-0728. camiew@uga.edu.

FILM SCREENING AND DISCUSSION Documentary filmmaker John Carter will premiere and discuss his new documentary, American Exploitation: The Slaves Among Us. After the film, Carter will talk about the process of making American Exploitation and engage in a discussion with the audience. 3 p.m. Studio 100, Journalism Building.

706-542-8365. julie.nolen@uga.edu.

MEN’S BASKETBALL Exhibition vs. West Georgia. 7 p.m. Stegeman Coliseum.

SPOTLIGHT ON THE ARTS OPENING CELEBRATION* To celebrate the start of the Spotlight on the Arts festival, UGA’s arts programs present a kaleidoscope of student performances and presentations. This collage of the arts provides a window into the scope of the creative work on campus, from dance to music, theater, creative writing and art. Sponsored by the UGA Arts Council. 7:30 p.m. Performing Arts Center. 706-583-0728. camiew@uga.edu.

SPOTLIGHT ON THE ARTS AFTER-PARTY* The event celebrates four new exhibitions and includes performances by Dodd graduate student Lambda Celsius and Los Angeles-based composer and multi-media artist Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs. 8:30 p.m. Lamar Dodd School of Art.

FRIDAY, NOV. 2 WOMEN’S TENNIS Through Nov. 4. Bulldog Classic. Dan Magill Tennis Complex.

FRIENDS FIRST FRIDAY Join Gareth Crosby, Heritage Garden curator, and Cora Keber, director of education, to learn about the Heritage Days Fall Festival. Includes a full breakfast. Sponsored by Friends of the Garden. $12, general admission; $10, members. 9 a.m.

Visitor Center, Gardenside Room, State Botanical Garden.

706-542-6138. lpbryant@uga.edu.

WOMEN’S STUDIES FRIDAY SPEAKER SERIES “A Murdering, if Penitent, Philandress: Queen Elfthryth’s Reputation at Wherwell Abbey,” Cynthia Turner Camp, English.

12:20 p.m. 214 Miller Learning Center. 706-542-0066. tlhat@uga.edu.

PHILOSOPHY COLLOQUIUM “Free Speech and the Embodied Self,” Japa Pallikkathayil, University of Pittsburgh. 3:30 p.m. 115 Peabody Hall.

706-542-2823.

CONCERT* Hear Gustav Mahler’s music performed by Deryck Cooke.

Donald Runnicles, ASO principal guest conductor, directs the program. 8 p.m. Tickets start at $20. Hugh Hodgson Concert Hall, Performing Arts Center. 706-542-4400. ugaarts@uga.edu.

UGA Theatre presents ‘Equus’ Nov. 2-11

By Amy Cole

amy.cole25@uga.edu

UGA Theatre presents Equus by Peter Shaffer on Nov. 2–3 and 7–9 at 8 p.m. and Nov. 4 and 11 at 2:30 p.m. at the Fine Arts Theatre in the Fine Arts Building.

Tickets are $16 or $12 for UGA students. Tickets can be purchased online at www.ugatheatre.com/ equus, via phone at 706-542-4400 or in person at the Performing Arts Center or Tate Center box offices.

Equus tells the story of Alan Strang, a 17-year-old boy charged with violently blinding six horses in a seemingly unprovoked fit of rage. Strang is submitted to an extended psychiatric evaluation at the hands of Martin Dysart in an effort to discover why a welladjusted young man would commit such an abhorrent act of violence. Through their sessions, Dysart grows increasingly envious of the passion that drove Strang to his horrific act and develops deep misgivings about the cost of his soul-deadening “cure.”

Equus was based in part on a news story encountered by Shaffer that involved a boy blinding multiple horses near Suffolk in England. Shaffer used this real-life incident as a springboard to explore what director Ray Paolino refers to as the “ritualistic roots” of theater. Equus holds a unique sentimentality for Paolino, who saw the play on Broadway in 1974 as a young man.

“Shaffer created a world of limitless possibilities on stage. Equus poses ancient, yet essential, questions that we all face: What is our purpose? Can we ever know another person? Is there a god?” said Paolino.

“I believe these questions are the reason this show has remained relevant for so long.”

With an ethereal narrative that juxtaposes reality with memory, the action of the play is somewhat

dream-like—a quality that informs UGA Theatre’s production in all of its various design elements.

For costume designer Kelsey Albright, the show’s journey through the minds of its characters lends itself to an expressionistic design.

“Equus pulls the audience out of the real world and into Dysart’s troubled mind and reflects his interpretation of events, which are more like heightened memories than reliable accounts of the play’s narrative,” said Albright.

Sound designer John Gibbs sees the dichotomy of repression and passion as equally vital to Equus, especially with respect to the role religion plays in the show.

“Whereas codified religions (in this case, the traditional Church of England) represent a repressive presence, a more primitive spirituality, filled with pain and suffering but alive to intense feeling, is trying to burst through,” said Gibbs.

M.F.A. candidate Liz Gubler’s scenic design echoes this sentiment by using “daunting sleek Gothic arches and a stone altar to evoke a feeling of dreadful, God-like power.”

UGA Theatre’s production of Equus is a featured event of the University of Georgia’s Spotlight on the Arts, a festival highlighting the work of students and faculty involved in the arts at UGA. “Equus is the perfect vehicle to showcase the department of theatre and film studies during the Spotlight event,” said David Saltz, head of the theatre and film studies department. “It’s a towering work of unbridled theatricality that is psychologically astute, philosophically penetrating and physically demanding. It’s one of the most ambitious plays of the modern era, and I think our production lives up to that ambition in direction, acting and design without question.”

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 Oct. 29, 2018

4&5

Payne Memorial Concert scheduled for Sept.

Georgia Museum of Art exhibition to 12 celebrate meeting of art and science

By Micah Hicks

micah.hicks25@uga.edu

The exhibition Out of the Darkness: Light in the Depths of the Sea of Cortez by Rebecca Rutstein will be on view at the Georgia Museum of Art beginning Nov. 1.

Rutstein is both an award-winning artist and an ocean explorer. This fall, as UGA’s Delta Visiting Chair for Global Understanding (see story, page 2), she will embark on her fifth deep-sea expedition/artist’s residency, with a team of scientists led by the University of Georgia’s Samantha Joye and the University of North Carolina’s Andreas Teske.

While the scientists study hydrothermal vents and the unique carbon-cycling processes occurring in Mexico’s Guaymas Basin in the Sea of Cortez, Rutstein will set up her studio on the ship and create new works inspired by the data they’re collecting in real time. The works on display in the year-long exhibition were commissioned as part of her tenure as Delta Visiting Chair.

An immersive 64-foot-long steel sculpture installation will be on display in the museum’s Patsy Dudley Pate Balcony through October 2019. It contains hexagonal sculptural forms and reactive LED lights that will create trails mimicking the movements of the viewer. Its forms were inspired by data Joye previously collected on the hydrocarbon structures and bioluminescence present in the Guaymas Basin.

The exhibition also will include “Progenitor Series,” a 22-foot-tall painting installation spanning two stories in the museum’s M. Smith Griffith Grand Hall and on view through March 31. The vertical orientation is inspired by the water column and Joye’s 2,200-meter descent to the ocean floor at Guaymas Basin. In each canvas of the series, Rutstein shifts scale and orientation while utilizing various data collected at sea, including sonar maps of hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor.

Through the lens of abstraction and with her continued interest in the fractal geometry of nature, Rutstein sheds light on the little-known processes at Guaymas Basin,

SATURDAY, NOV. 3 HERITAGE DAYS FALL FESTIVAL* Heritage Days Fall Festival celebrates local horticultural and agricultural history with crafts, stories, music and hands-on education classes. Enjoy the leaf pile, apple cider press, The Old Timey Seed Swap, educational classes and workshops (fees for workshops) centered on heritage plants and their uses, local musicians, demonstrations and local actors playing historical figures in the garden. 9 a.m. Visitor Center and Heritage Garden, State Botanical Garden. 706-542-6136. cscamero@uga.edu.

SATURDAY MORNING CLUB* Students and faculty from the theatre and film studies in UGA’s Franklin College of Arts and Sciences conduct an interactive workshop and performance. Tickets not required. All ages welcome (babies included). 10 a.m. Hodgson Concert Hall, Performing Arts Center.

FAMILY DAY: TRANSFORMING METAL* Explore the impressive sculptures and linear prints by Richard Hunt, a contemporary African American artist at this free, dropin program. After drawing inspiration from gallery activities and the exhibition Richard Hunt: Synthesis, create a metal sculpture in the Michael and Mary Erlanger Studio Classroom. Sponsored

by Heyward Allen Motor Co., Inc., Heyward Allen Toyota and the Friends of the Georgia Museum of Art. 10 a.m. Georgia Museum of Art. 706-542-4662. hazbrown@uga.edu.

SWIMMING & DIVING vs. South Carolina. Noon. Gabrielsen Natatorium, Ramsey Student Center.

WORKSHOP* In “Paper Making with Plants and Flowers: A Beautiful Tradition,” participants will explore all the creative possibilities of making recycled paper from cotton scraps, discuss the history of cotton as a heritage plant of Georgia and learn how to make sheets of recycled paper from sheet-forming and designing to pressing and drying. Participants will make their own paper creations using colored pulp, stencils, flowers and plants.

Participants should wear clothes they don’t mind getting wet or bring an apron and are encouraged to bring things they may want to include in their paper such as pressed flowers, thread or confetti. This workshop is geared towards adults but is open to ages 10 and older who are accompanied by an adult. Limited to 20 participants. $35, general admission; $31.50, Friends of the Garden. 1 p.m. Visitor Center, Gardenside Room, State Botanical Garden. 706-542-6156. cscamero@uga.edu.

CLASS* Soap Making 101 is a beginning-level class designed to teach students to make soap by hand at home. The main focus of this class is the “cold process” soapmaking method. The class will cover what soap is, the soap process, choosing fats and lye safety. Each student makes one pound of soap to take home. $55 general admission; $49.50 for Friends of the Garden.

2 p.m. Visitor Center, classroom 2, State Botanical Garden.

706-542-6156. cscamero@uga.edu.

A MOVEABLE FEAST* Guest artist Micaela Hobbs, who created the WE: American Thanksgiving Conflict and Communion exhibition, will lead attendees on a tour of her Thanksgiving Table on display in the Russell gallery. Attendees will then gather to make their own WE Thanksgiving tablescapes or sculpture. The event is

Karen Mauch

Works by Rebecca Rutstein, including part of her “Progenitor Series,” will be on display at the Georgia Museum of Art beginning Nov. 1.

connecting us with this hidden realm.

“We are fortunate to work with an artist so expertly skilled in the languages of both art and science,” said Annelies Mondi, the museum’s deputy director. “Rebecca is gifted in translating the veiled mysteries of the natural world so that through her sculpture and painting, we can all experience the wonder of our surroundings.”

The exhibition opens during UGA’s annual Spotlight on the Arts festival, and coincides with the Alliance for the Arts in Research Universities (a2ru) conference, at which Rustein and Joye will take part in a public conversation moderated by Willson Center director Nicholas Allen on Nov. 2 at 9 a.m. in Mahler

appropriate for families of all kinds, ages, sizes or anyone who wants to have fun and make a piece of crafty art that they can take home. 2 p.m. 285 special collections libraries.

SUNDAY, NOV. 4 GEORGIA WRITERS HALL OF FAME* The Georgia Writers Hall of Fame celebrates the life of Pat Conroy, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2004. The panel discussion features Our Prince of Scribes contributors Terry Kay, Cynthia Graubart and Cliff Graubart and is moderated by the book’s editor, Jonathan Haupt. The University of Georgia Press will have books available for purchase. 3 p.m. Auditorium, special collections libraries.

GEORGIA WRITERS HALL OF FAME AUTHOR DISCUSSION* Featuring science fiction and fantasy author Michael Bishop and novelist Cynthia Shearer. Reception to follow. 5 p.m. Auditorium, special collections libraries.

MONDAY, NOV. 5 GEORGIA WRITERS HALL OF FAME INDUCTION* Five authors comprise the 2018 class of Georgia Writers Hall of Fame inductees: Michael Bishop, Tayari Jones and Cynthia Shearer will be inducted at the ceremony; Furman Bisher and Frances Newman will be honored posthumously.

10 a.m. Auditorium, special collections libraries. 706-542-8079. jclevela@uga.edu.

COMING UP ECOLOGY SEMINAR Nov. 6. “Considering Critical Transitions of Functional Extinction in Carnivore Systems,” Nyeema Harris, assistant professor, ecology and evolutionary biology department, University of Michigan. 3:30 p.m. Auditorium, ecology building.

706-542-2968. bethgav@uga.edu.

CLASS Nov. 6. Learn the essential steps in starting a photography business such as basic equipment needed, developing a business plan and goals and obtaining a license. Attendees will also hear from photography business owners. $179. Georgia Center.

706-542-3537. questions@georgiacenter.uga.edu.

4 MINUTES, 33 SECONDS: SPOTLIGHT ON SCHOLARSHIP* Nov. 7. This fifth annual competition features student research in the arts. Poster competition entries will be on display Nov. 1-7 at the Georgia Museum of Art, and prizes will be awarded in the poster and presentation categories. Georgia Museum of Art. 706-583-0728. camiew@uga.edu.

TA CAFE Nov. 7. TA Cafes are opportunities to meet other graduate and professional students from across campus and find resources for teaching. These events are hosted monthly in departments across campus and are open free to all graduate students. This month’s event is hosted by graduate students in the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources. This event series is supported by the Center for Teaching and Learning and the Graduate School. 9 a.m. 132 Forestry Resources Building 4.

706-542-1355. gradteach@uga.edu. *Part of UGA’s 2018 Spotlight on the Arts festival.

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.

Hall in the Georgia Center for Continuing Education & Hotel. Rutstein will return for a second event with Joye in the museum’s M. Smith Griffith Auditorium on March 28, 2019.

Related events at the museum include Family Day on Dec. 1 from 10 a.m. to noon; Toddler Tuesday on Dec. 4 at 10 a.m. (register via sagekincaid@uga.edu or 706-542-0448); 90 Carlton: Winter, the museum’s quarterly reception, on Feb. 8 ($5, free for members); a public tour with Mondi on March 20 at 2 p.m.; and a lecture by Rutstein on March 28 at 5:30 p.m.

All programs are open free to the public unless otherwise indicated.

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

The Rosetta Theatre Project brings together several artistic forms for performances Nov. 2 and 3 at the Dancz Center in the Hugh Hodgson School of Music.

Rosetta Theatre Project scheduled for Nov. 2-3

By Amy Cole

amy.cole25@uga.edu

The theatre and film studies department of UGA’s Franklin College of Arts and Sciences will present an experimental work with the Rosetta Theatre Project on Nov. 2 from 3:30-7:30 p.m. and Nov. 3 from 5:30-7 p.m. at the Dancz Center in the Hugh Hodgson School of Music.

The performances are open free to the public.

The Rosetta Theatre Project is a unique performance experience structured like an exhibition in an art gallery, allowing guests to come and go at will and experience an immersive, ever-changing theatrical art installment. The project uses live motion-capture technology to present two short scenes, one from Shakespeare and the other from Moliere, on a continuous loop. Each scene will be instantaneously translated into four different versions, two in English and two in French. Using a real-time motion capture system, live performances will be transformed digitally into four different computer animations, each representing a distinct time period and culture: 16th century England, 17th century France, modern-day Paris and modern-day Athens, Georgia.

A part of UGA’s Spotlight on the Arts festival, this project is an interdisciplinary collaboration among many departments. David Saltz, the head of the theatre and film studies department, worked closely with Sujata Iyengar, professor of English, and Peter Lane, assistant professor of composition in the Hugh Hodgson School of Music. Lane is composing a score for the event.

The project is presented in collaboration with two conferences: the national conference of the Alliance for Arts in Research Universities (a2ru) and the international conference Scenes in the Other’s Language/Scenes dans la langue de l’autre.

NEXT COLUMNS DEADLINES Oct. 31 (for Nov. 12 issue) Nov. 7 (for Nov. 26 issue) Nov. 21 (for Dec. 3 issue)

6 Oct. 29, 2018 columns.uga.edu

COLLEGE OF ENVIRONMENT AND DESIGN

Provider patterns

Joan Koonce, a professor and extension financial planning specialist in the College of Family and Consumer Sciences, was quoted in Bankrate about how parents overspend on their children.

According to the article, many parents give into weakness when it comes to spending money on their children because parents want their children to be happy, and children are good at making parents feel that if they don’t get what they want, they are terrible parents. These impulses can have serious financial consequences.

“Parents are trying to provide [kids] with these things, and sometimes it’s a bad situation because they really can’t afford it,” said Koonce, who researches the financial behavior of youth and family communication about finances.

This pattern of giving in can lead to higher stakes for the children.

“When they leave their parents’ household for the first time, many of them end up in a lot of debt,” Koonce said.

Turtle-y awesome

Whit Gibbons, professor emeritus of ecology and former head of the environmental outreach and education program at UGA’s Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, was quoted in National Geographic about a world without turtles.

A number of turtle species already are at risk of vanishing, with 61 percent of the 356 turtle species having become extinct or threatened in the modern era. The overexploitation for meat, the pet trade and habitat destruction have helped contribute to the turtles’ decline. A new study in the journal Bioscience looked at the decline of turtles, which are among the most threatened of the major groups of vertebrates. Turtles contribute to the world’s ecology and different cultures worldwide.

“Turtles are great scavengers, the garbage patrol of an area,” said Gibbons, who was co-author of the study. “They do no harm, and they do a lot of good.”

CEWoes

Timothy Quigley, an associate professor of management in the Terry College of Business, was quoted in Bloomberg about data that determined the majority of chief executive officers are not recession-tested.

Bloomberg approximated the length of leadership for regional equity markets by tallying up the number of years CEOs of benchmark index members have been in the role, and even the longest-serving CEOs from Greece, Hong Kong and Thailand have yet to reach 10 years. CEOs differ between regions, countries and industries, including the cultural norms about when someone can become a CEO. “In the U.S., it was once the norm that you had to be mid-to-late 50s before coming CEO,” said Quigley, who researches managerial discretion or the influence of CEOs and top managers on organizational outcomes.

Today, the norm has shifted with a person becoming a CEO in his late 30s or early 40s.

“Similarly, it used to be that lots of companies had mandatory retirements ages,” he added, which also changes how old the CEO is and how long he stays in that position.

Workaholic worry

Malissa Clark, an assistant professor of psychology in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, was quoted in ABC Life about workaholism.

The key difference between someone who works very hard and someone who is a workaholic is motivation. If someone is working hard because he loves his work, then that’s work engagement. If someone is working hard because he feels like he ought to be, that’s workaholism. Workaholism is related to negative outcomes for individuals, their families and their wellbeing.

Workaholism is “an inner compulsion to work that makes someone feel they always ‘should be’ working,” said Clark, who is in the industrialorganizational program in the psychology department. “This involves feeling anxious or guilty when not working, having consistent thoughts about work and working long hours.”

Sonia Hirt became the dean of the College of Environment and Design on July 1.

Dorothy Kozlowski

College of Environment and Design dean explores differences in cities

By Krista Richmond krichmond@uga.edu

What makes cities so different from each other?

“This is the fascinating question that has always driven me,” said Sonia Hirt, who became dean of the College of Environment and Design on July 1.“Is it economics that drives these differences?

Or social factors? Or demographics? Or cultural factors? Of course, the answer is all of the above. I’m trying to shed light on one factor as compared to others. It’s a process of never-ending exploration.”

As an undergraduate, she was initially interested in architecture. In fact, that was her area of study for her bachelor’s degree from the University of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Geodesy in Sofia, Bulgaria. But in 1993, she won a competition that brought her to the U.S. for a six-month internship in the Midwest. That internship led to a change in focus.

“The internship triggered my interest in how urban areas grow,” she said.

“Being a person who thought individual buildings were my future, I began to see myself as a someone who would be interested in the relationship between spaces, buildings and the spaces between buildings.”

Then, it was simply chance, she said. Hirt meet some professors in urban planning from the University of

Michigan and went on to get a master’s degree and doctorate in urban and regional planning from that school. In between those degrees, she worked for a firm that does land-use planning and consulting.

The design of cities and landscapes is crucially important, Hirt said, because “it may be obvious, but nonetheless worth emphasizing, that we all function in spaces—buildings, settlements and other areas that someone has designed.

Almost all social interactions occur in human-made, designed space, whether in urban areas or suburbs or towns.What these settlements have in common is that they all reflect the physical, social and cultural patterns of those who made them and who inhabit them.

“Everything reflects on urban form,” she added. “We shape settlements, and they shape us. They set a certain pattern of behavior, they make certain choices impossible or possible, and they make people think that certain things are customary. They set expectations. We become the product of settlements just like settlements are the product of humans.”

It’s an area Hirt continues to study, writing more than 75 scholarly publications, including three books. She says she writes to satisfy her own curiosity.

“Settlements at any level—cities or towns—are potentially the most complicated artistic product that people

make because no other physical product is so collective and so complicated to understand,” she said.

When students graduate from a College of Environment and Design program, Hirt wants them to be ready to imagine spaces and implement them.

Hirt added that they also should come out of the programs with confidence because they are the makers of spaces where people live, work and play. Furthermore, the designs they create have enormous impact on the environment and on the well-being of the whole planet.

First on Hirt’s plate of short-term projects is the College of Environment and Design’s 50th anniversary, which she is using as “a window of opportunity to set the path for the future.” The celebrations will continue throughout the 2019-20 academic year with a diverse range of symposia, lectures, special displays and more.

In the long term, Hirt said that she’s interested in a variety of crossdisciplinary collaborations. One of those might be with public health programs to look at how land use can have a positive impact on health, such as making areas more walkable to encourage exercise.

She also pointed out strong ties between design and business—specifically in real estate development.

“It’s important to respect tradition in design but still move forward,” she said.

ADMINISTRATIVE CHANGES

Public Service and Outreach makes interim appointments

By Kelly Simmons

simmonsk@uga.edu

Matthew Bishop, director of the J.W. Fanning Institute for Leadership Development and senior public service faculty member, was appointed by Vice President for Public Service and Outreach Jennifer Frum to serve as interim associate vice president for PSO through the end of the calendar year.

Bishop temporarily replaces PSO Associate Vice President Steve Dempsey, who is on medical leave.

Maritza Soto Keen, a senior public service faculty member at the Fanning Institute, will serve as interim director of the Fanning Institute in Bishop’s absence.

“Matt has several years of significant senior administrative experience in Public Service and Outreach and will easily step into the associate vice president’s role in the interim,” Frum

said. “Likewise, Maritza’s many senior roles at UGA and the Latin American Association make her perfect for our PSO leadership team.”

Bishop was named director of the Fanning Institute in December 2012.

In that role, he is responsible for the institute’s statewide work to strengthen communities, organizations and individuals through leadership development, education and training.

Prior to that, he served as an operations coordinator for the UGA Archway Partnership from 2008-2012, assisting with the program’s overall strategic direction and day-to-day management.

He oversaw startup and operations in several Archway communities.

As a public service faculty member from 2003-2008, Bishop served as the institutional coordinator for the UGA Initiative on Poverty and the Economy.

Bishop holds a Ph.D. in public administration and a Master of Public

Administration from UGA and a B.A. in political science from Presbyterian College.

Soto Keen has been a senior public service faculty member at the Fanning Institute since 2002 and served on the institute’s senior leadership team and as co-lead of the nonprofit team. Her work focuses on leadership for nonprofit organizations and communities.

She led several initiatives as a public service faulty member in the Office of the Vice President for Public Service and Outreach from 2005 to 2011. Soto Keen served as director of the Latin American Association in Atlanta from 1984 to 2002, where she managed a staff of 55 and an annual operating budget of $4.5 million.

Soto Keen holds a Ph.D. in higher education from UGA, an M.A. in psychology from the University of West Florida and a B.A. in Spanish and psychology from Queens College, City University of New York.

OFFICE OF COMMUNITY RELATIONS

Increasing college awareness

Athens Tutorial Program has long history of results

By Kellyn Amodeo

kwamodeo@uga.edu

Thirty-seven years ago, Aaron Heard started a program that would affect hundreds of Clarke County students for years to come.

Since its inception, the Athens Tutorial Program has become a vital part of the community, providing academic assistance and cultural enrichment opportunities to low-income, at-risk students.

“Our aim is to try to help decrease high school dropout rates and increase college awareness,” said Heard, who is originally from Athens.

Heard, president of the program, was serving as the director of the Athens Community Center in 1981 when he realized there was a massive need for supplemental academic programs to help combat the area’s rising dropout rate. Born as an after-school initiative to help students with their homework, the Athens Tutorial Program enlisted the help of UGA students to serve as tutors, but soon grew to offer so much more.

Today, Heard schedules UGA students to visit local elementary schools where they work one-on-one with students. He also manages a tutorial center where children can get help after school.

Each week, more than 130 students are mentored in the schools and about 50 visit the tutorial center.

Each UGA student works with a child who is in need of tutoring for the duration of the school year. This yearlong partnership creates a personal connection between the UGA and Clarke County students.

“Some of the UGA students get class credits through their programs, but even after their program is over, they still come back to tutor,” Heard said. “Once they get here and see the need and develop a relationship with their student, I think it touches them in a different way and they come back.”

Building those relationships has been one of the most effective parts of the Athens Tutorial Program. Donarell and Freddrell Green, brothers and personal

Dorothy Kozlowski

UGA students work one-on-one with children at local elementary schools as part of the Athens Tutorial Program, started 37 years ago.

injury attorneys practicing in Athens, participated in the program more than 30 years ago as students and are still reaping the benefits today.

“I received tutoring when I was in middle school. The tutors would find a way to demonstrate to me that—no matter what the subject is—you can learn it, overcome it and master it if you’re willing to invest the time and focus,” said Freddrell. “That mentality I found in the program followed me the rest of my life. I built upon that.”

His brother agreed.

“It takes a village to raise a child,” Donarell said. “It’s more than feeding and sheltering; it’s also nurturing. It takes the whole gamut to make a productive, decent citizen. I know, for me, the Tutorial Program was a big part of the village that made me who I am today.”

For the Green brothers, the Athens Tutorial Program was also a way to connect with UGA. “We attended elementary school right next to the university,” Donarell said. “The university was a part of the community. The university, the city of Athens, school system—they were all

WEEKLY READER

working together to make sure the children had the best education possible.”

As a senior in high school, Freddrell was a tutor in the program, and he now sits on the board, frequently attesting to the program’s impact on local students.

The program has moved beyond just tutoring, now also offering field trips to sites across the state like the UGA Veterinary Teaching Hospital, the Martin Luther King Jr. Center and the Atlanta Aquarium. For three years, it’s also hosted a summer camp focused on STEM subjects with guest speakers and hands-on projects.This year, a new grant will allow them to extend the STEM activities beyond a summer camp and into the classroom.

For Heard, the program is more than just a job. It’s a personal commitment.

“I grew up in Athens. When I was growing up, we didn’t have anything like this program. Because of that, a lot of students that came along with me fell by the wayside,” he said. “I was lucky enough to get an athletic scholarship to go to college. When I came back home, I wanted to help my community.”

columns.uga.edu Oct. 29, 2018

ECONOMY

from page 1

Spend time with the boat captains who have worked the waters off the coast of Georgia for decades, and they’ll regale you with stories about the good old days, back in the 1960s and ’70s, when fuel was cheap and shrimp were plentiful. Back then, shrimp sold for up to $7 a pound.

In those days, there were more than 60 shrimp boats working the Georgia coast, bringing in upwards of 6 million pounds of shrimp a year, said Marty Higgins, a marine resource specialist for UGA Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant and first mate on the R/V (Research/ Vessel) Georgia Bulldog.

The industry struggled in the 1980s, as fuel prices increased and foreign countries began exporting farm raised shrimp that sold for less than fresh shrimp from the Atlantic. Boats went out of business, and commercial docks closed. Businesses supported by the fishing industry left town.

UGA Marine Extension became the go-to stop for a variety of needs. Higgins, marine resources specialist Herbert “Truck” McIver and Lindsey Parker, captain of the R/V Georgia Bulldog, sewed holes in fishing nets, welded parts back onto boats and fixed mechanical issues when they could so that the shrimpers could get back on the water as quickly as possible.

Marine resources specialists in Brunswick held a net-mending class for shrimpers during the winter, and consultants from the UGA Small Business Development Center offered workshops to help fishers make financial projections and plan for the future.

Looking toward the future, Bryan Fluech, associate director of Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant, and McIver are working with McIntosh County Academy and Coastal Pines Technical College to develop a career academy program for high school students who want to pursue a career in commercial fishing.

Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant also helps fishers expand into other areas. For example, Georgia shrimpers, who have boats with sturdy reinforced hulls, can make money by catching and selling cannonball jellyfish, a seafood delicacy in some Asian countries.

In 2002, entrepreneur Terry Chuang decided to take advantage of the abundant cannonball jellies in the south Atlantic, and he opened a jelly ball processing plant in Darien, about 40 miles north of Brunswick.

At 6 cents a pound, the shrimpers have to catch a lot of jellyfish to make money. But it’s fairly easy work.

They scoop the jellies up in their nets and drop them off at the dock. An ambitious boat captain can catch 110,000 pounds, earning $6,600 every other day, said April Harper, who manages the plant where they dry and salt the jellies before exporting them to Japan and China.

“A boat that normally would be sitting at the dock for six months is now active 12 months out of the year,” Harper said.

The UGA Food Product Innovation and Commercialization Center also bought some for product development on a project proposal using jelly balls, said Kirk Kealey, FoodPIC director.

UGA Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant offered another opportunity to diversify in 2015 with the launch of an oyster hatchery on Skidaway Island. About 10 people working in the fishing industry were given oyster seed, or spat, created at the hatchery, to grow out to maturity as single shell oysters. The 5 to 6 million spat, produced as of this year, are expected to have a harvest value of $1 million to $1.2 million.

CYBERSIGHTS

ABOUT COLUMNS

Book studies Sicilian flavor in Creole food

Creole Italian: Sicilian Immigrants and the Shaping of New Orleans Food Culture

By Justin A. Nystrom University of Georgia Press Hardcover: $79.95 Paperback: $26.95

Creole Italian explores the influence Sicilian immigrants have had on New Orleans foodways. The book follows author Justin Nystrom’s culinary journey of these immigrants from their first impressions on Louisiana food culture in the mid-1830s and along their path until the 1970s.

Each chapter touches on events that involved Sicilian immigrants and the relevancy of their lives and impact on New Orleans. Sicilian immigrants cut sugarcane, sold groceries, ran truck farms, operated bars and restaurants and manufactured pasta. Nystrom posits that the significance of Sicilian influence on New Orleans foodways has been undervalued and instead should be included, along with African, French and Spanish cuisine, in the broad definition of “creole.”

Creole Italian chronicles how the business of food, broadly conceived, dictated the reasoning, means and outcomes for a large portion of the nearly 40,000 Sicilian immigrants who entered America through the port of New Orleans.

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

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

Editor Juliett Dinkins

USG provides info about benefits choices

http://usg.edu/hr/benefits

The University System of Georgia’s website has information about benefits choices for 2019. Benefits enrollment is Oct. 29-Nov. 9.

Visit the website to explore benefit options, including health care, dental, vision and more.

Find a schedule of benefit fairs, and enroll using the OneUSG Connect-Benefits system.

Employees who choose health

7

care coverage for 2019 also will need to certify tobacco use status for themselves and their enrolled dependents who are age 18 and older. A $75 tobacco surcharge will be applied to the employee’s health care plan premium for each tobacco user.

Questions? Phone the new One USG Connect-Benefits call center toll free at 1-844-587-4326.

Communications Coordinator Krista Richmond Art Director Jackie Baxter Roberts Photo Editor Dorothy Kozlowski Writers Kellyn Amodeo Leigh Beeson 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 Oct. 29, 2018 columns.uga.edu GRANTS

HURRICANE

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support and professional development opportunities such as mentorships, meetings with law school alumni and transportation to and from Atlanta for those opportunities.

The intention is that these students graduate, pass the bar exam and then serve the state as attorneys.

Edge plans to eventually make an impact in his hometown. “I can see myself going back to Americus. I’d like to learn, get my training and go back home as a polished attorney to assist the community,” he said. “With the tools I’ll learn here, I’ll be able to go home and serve whomever needs help.”

Other New Approaches grants focus on recruiting prospective undergraduate students. During the week of July 9, the College of Public Health brought 22 rising high school seniors from across Georgia to campus for a pre-collegiate summer institute.

The program, funded in part through a New Approaches grant, serves as an introduction to what life is like for UGA’s public health students. In fact, current public health students served as counselors and mentors to participants and led them through a variety of sessions that included public health classes, seminars and workshops on financial aid and admissions essay writing.

The goal, according to Brittani Harmon, coordinator of the institute and clinical assistant professor of health policy and management, is to give participants an experience “as close to freshman year as possible.” That experience included staying in dorms, eating at Bolton Dining Commons and learning about campus culture.

“This is a good primer for them to be able to practice their skills in a controlled environment,” she added. “They’re the next generation of go-getters.”

John Kang, one of those go-getters from Lawrenceville, learned much more than facts and figures at the institute. “After this week, I can say with confidence that my eyes have been opened to new perspectives and new career pathways. After seeing the range of majors and routes the student counselors have been through, I now understand the true nature of college and its purpose: to promote growth.”

Another program funded through a New Approaches grant teams Grady sports media students with Cedar Shoals High School students to help them learn sports broadcasting skills.

Since the beginning of the school year, Grady sports media students have traveled to Cedar Shoals a few times a month for after-school training sessions focusing on all parts of sports broadcast journalism, from producing and camera work to play-by-play announcing, building in-game graphics and tracking game statistics. Friday nights are spent in the stadium press box where the high school students, under the leadership of the college students, practice what they have learned by producing a live broadcast of Cedar Shoals football games.

Both sets of students learn from each other. Cedar Shoals students gain practice through this on-the-job training experience. Grady College students gain valuable mentorship skills and have an opportunity to share their collegiate experiences.

“We are grateful that this idea we’ve had in our minds for a while is coming to fruition because of this grant,” said Vicki Michaelis, who helped write the grant and serves as the John Huland Carmical Chair in Sports Journalism and Society and director of Grady Sports Media.

SYMPOSIUM from page 1 families affected by the epidemic in rural, suburban and farmland cities, documenting the harrowing realities of opioid abuse and opioid-related deaths.

Her lecture explored various facets of the epidemic, the unique solutions needed and steps necessary to instill change in policies that go beyond one single discipline. From relaying the haunting stories of loved ones lost to exploring policy change, Macy urged listeners to unite and take action.

“We’ve got to do better than this,” Macy declared. “We need to get out of our silos, just like you guys are doing. The big problem is not that there aren’t efforts, but it’s like they’re not working in tandem with each other.”

Following Macy’s lecture, the symposium included panel discussions that featured faculty members from the university’s College of Public Health, College of Pharmacy, College of Veterinary Medicine, School of Law, School of Social Work, School of

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UGA men’s and women’s basketball single-game, flex-plan and group tickets are now on sale to the public.

Tickets can be purchased in advance by going online to https://bit.ly/2ApRDqV or by calling Georgia Bulldogs ticket sales at 877-542-1231. Fans can purchase men’s basketball single-game reserved seats for $15, while women’s basketball general admission seats are $5 each.

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Public and International Affairs and Terry College of Business. Additional panelists included representatives from the CDC, Georgia Department of Public Health and Northeast Georgia Health System.

Rita Noonan, who oversees the majority of opioid addiction prevention efforts that are funded by the CDC, delivered the lunchtime keynote. Noonan described efforts of the CDC to aid in the prevention of opioid addiction and tactics to combat the epidemic that she described as “the largest public health problem of our lifetime.”

The symposium concluded with poster presentations, during which faculty members and students from UGA, Emory University, Augusta University and other organizations highlighted results of their research and discussed current projects.

The Interdisciplinary Opioid Epidemic Symposium was sponsored by the School of Law, School of Social Work, College of Public Health and Office of Academic Programs.

EXPO

Andrew Davis Tucker

Nan Bostick, UGA Cooperative Extension agent for Decatur County, talks with farmer Bobby Barber Jr. about Hurricane Michael, which tore through southwest Georgia, causing widespread property damage and more than $2 billion in agricultural losses.

southwest Georgia have been declared a complete loss with all the cotton now blown off the plants and lying on the ground.

The hurricane crushed the prospects of 1,500 to 1,800 pounds of dryland cotton for some cotton growers, who suffered losses of 80 to 90 percent in some fields.

“It’s much worse than I thought it would be,” said Jared Whitaker, UGA Extension cotton agronomist. “Southwest of (Tifton, Georgia), it’s terrible, in Bainbridge and Donalsonville … pictures I’ve received from Washington County will make you feel sick.”

While farmers in southeast Georgia slipped by with as little as a 15 percent loss, some southwest Georgia farmers are looking at total losses in some fields, he said.

“I think what we do from here on out is going to vary in a lot of places. In some places I’ve seen, I don’t think we’ll even pull a picker in there to harvest the crop. I think we lost so much cotton that it wouldn’t be profitable to even harvest it,” Whitaker said.

The fact that the storm struck when the cotton was near harvest made the impact even more severe. Whitaker estimates that only 15 percent of this year’s crop was already picked before Hurricane Michael arrived, while a small portion of the crop was planted late enough to be relatively safe. Georgia cotton crop loss estimates vary widely, from $550 million to $600 million in lost lint and seed.

The loss to Georgia’s peanut crop is estimated to be between $10 million and $20 million. The hurricane dealt a devastating blow to local buying points and peanut shellers when it traveled through Bainbridge, Donalsonville, Camilla, Albany and Cordele, which represent a significant portion of the state’s peanut-producing community.

Before the storm, 40 to 45 percent of Georgia’s peanut crop was still in the field.

Now growers must harvest the remaining crop without losing too much in weight and quality. Some nuts will be lost due to overmaturity or disease as growers could not dig peanuts due to the storm, said UGA Extension peanut agronomist Scott Monfort.

Georgia’s late summer and fall vegetable crop was also close to harvest or in the midst of harvest when Hurricane Michael arrived.

The damage varies significantly across

southwestern Georgia counties, but the loss is estimated at more than $480 million.

Some vegetable farmers in the direct path of the storm lost close to 90 percent, while others on the edges of the storm lost around 20 to 30 percent. A 20 percent loss is quite significant for an individual farmer, said Greg Fonsah, the UGA Cooperative Extension agricultural economist who was charged with calculating the crop loss and its economic impact.

Sweet corn producers, many of whom were in the direct path of the storm, were hardest hit, with losses of up to 100 percent of their remaining crop. In Mitchell and Decatur counties, where the bulk of the state’s fall sweet corn is planted, much of the crop was destroyed, said Timothy Coolong, UGA Extension vegetable horticulture specialist.

Because of the long growing season, southwest Georgia farmers are able to produce spring and fall crops of vegetables like tomatoes, sweet corn, eggplants, green beans, peppers, cucumbers and squash. Harvest occurs in June and October for spring and fall crops, respectively. Many of the state’s cool-season vegetables, which were just transplanted, were spared. Although some damage is expected, most of the plants were small enough to be somewhat sheltered from the hurricane’s winds.

Georgia’s nursery production industry, which produces trees and ornamental plants for landscapes across the Southeast, suffered $13 million as nurseries in the southwest corner of the state were damaged.

The Georgia Forestry Commission reported that the hurricane damaged about 2 million in acres in timberland, valued at $374 million. About 79,000 acres of forestland are a complete loss, according to Georgia Forestry Commissioner Chuck Williams.

The poultry industry losses are estimated at $25 million in lost birds and houses.

Soybean growers suffered a $10 million to $20 million loss. Livestock and dairy farmers suffered infrastructure losses, like fencing and forage, but UGA Extension economists have no real estimate for livestock losses. Dairy farmers lost milk production due to power outages, which prevented them from milking cows and storing their milk safely.

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Estimates place agriculture and timber losses in excess of $3 billion (see story, page 1).

Extension agents from UGA are working with individual farmers across the state to assess crop and equipment damage, and Extension facilities were used as staging grounds for utility companies working to restore power.

Representatives from UGA’s College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences participate in the Expo every year, but this year many Extension officials remained in their counties helping Georgia residents recover.

Despite smaller numbers than usual, in the UGA building at the expo, some students, faculty and staff greeted visitors who wanted to learn more about the land-grant mission of Georgia’s flagship university. Student ambassadors talked about why they love the college and the world-class education they are receiving. Faculty and staff discussed the college’s research and Extension programs.

“UGA’s College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences plays a significant role in Georgia’s agricultural sector being the No. 1 industry in the state. We do so by

Clint Thompson

A UGA contingent joined President Jere W. Morehead on his trip to the 2018 Sunbelt Agricultural Expo in Moultrie.

educating the future agricultural leaders in our academic programs, conducting worldrenowned research that impacts different commodities that comprise the diverse ag industry of Georgia and through our Extension programs, which serve as a bridge for specialists to bring the research information

to farmers,” CAES Dean Sam Pardue said.

Morehead’s visit included a tour of the CAES building, a meeting with key agricultural leaders in Georgia and a conversation with CAES student ambassadors. Morehead has visited the three-day event every year since becoming the university’s president in 2013.