UGA Columns Sept 8, 2015

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Congressional staffers get firsthand look at UGA programs during retreat CAMPUS NEWS

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The University of Georgia Native American art exhibition starts two-year national tour in Athens

Vol. 43, No. 7

September 8, 2015

www.columns.uga.edu

Athletic Association supports critical academic initiatives

[Q&A]

By Stephanie Schupska

Law dean working to ensure students achieve career goals

schupska@uga.edu

Peter B. “Bo” Rutledge, center, said he tries to meet with units within the law school to formulate goals and to discuss how to realize them.

‘World-class scholarship’

By Heidi Murphy

hmurphy@uga.edu

On Jan. 1, 2015, the UGA School of Law welcomed its 13th dean, Peter B. “Bo” Rutledge. A leading scholar in the fields of international dispute resolution, arbitration and the U.S. Supreme Court, Rutledge had served on the faculty of the law school since 2008 and been associate dean for faculty development since 2013.

Rutledge discussed his career and his plans for the law school in this interview, which is reprinted from the fall 2015 issue of the Advocate, Georgia Law’s alumni magazine.

The Advocate: How important is the law school’s role within the overall university? How does it contribute?

Dean Rutledge: The law school is an important partner to the university’s mission. It helps to train some of the state’s future leaders.

Its scholarship helps advance the university’s research goals and, at times, can build bridges with other units on campus.

The Advocate: In your communications thus far, you have emphasized the school’s need to provide first-rate legal training and produce world-class scholarship in service to both our state and nation. Can you elaborate on this statement?

Rutledge: These are some of the pillars that make our law school special.

First-rate legal training comes in forms such as the law school’s clinics and its nationally renowned advocacy programs.

World-class scholarship comes from our professors whose work helps inform decisions by judges and policymakers. And service is a quality built into many of our

UGA GUIDE

students when they are here and manifested when they go on to serve as judges, lawmakers, civil servants or in other public service capacities.

There are only so many hours in the day so you just try your best to build bridges with them to help take the institution forward.

The Advocate: What do you think is the biggest challenge facing law schools today? How do we overcome this challenge?

Rutledge: To be a good return on investment for students. Recall that students applying to law school already have had an undergraduate experience. So, by applying, they are committing themselves to additional years of schooling and a profession.

Law schools constantly need to be sure that they are providing programs designed to help students achieve their professional goals.

The Advocate: How would you describe your leadership style?

Rutledge: Collaborative. I try to meet with the various units within the school to formulate goals and to discuss how to realize them. We have a tremendous team here, and they are an important part of the process of developing those goals.

The Advocate: What do you think distinguishes Georgia Law in legal education today?

Rutledge: It is a community where professors get to know their students and many alumni and alumnae feel a close connection to the place even after they graduate.

The Advocate: How has being dean been different than what you anticipated?

Rutledge: There are always surprises. What’s been most heartening has been to see the sense of loyalty among the law school’s alumni and alumnae base.

The Advocate: What has been your biggest personal challenge since becoming Georgia Law’s dean?

Rutledge: Trying to get to know everyone. Even coming from within the school, you quickly realize the vast number of alums, colleagues, students and university officials who are bound to the school in some way.

The Advocate: How do you handle the stress of your work? How do you relax after a stressful day?

Rutledge: Spending time with my family—whether reading with them, playing board games or a quick pickup sport in the backyard.

The Advocate: What do you consider your greatest academic contribution?

Rutledge: Helping students realize their professional dreams.

The Advocate: What did you want to be when you were younger?

If it was not a lawyer, how and why did you decide to pursue the study of law?

Rutledge: I vacillated between being a lawyer (especially after reading To Kill a Mockingbird) and a professor (near the end of my years in college). Eventually, I learned there was a vocation out there that allowed me to combine both passions.

The Advocate: What is the best advice you have ever received?

Rutledge: Treat everyone with respect.

See DEAN on page 8

While the UGA faithful are singing “glory, glory to old Georgia” this fall, hundreds of UGA students are singing the praises of the UGA Athletic Association for providing funding for their college educations.

The Athletic Association has a strong track record of supporting the university’s academic enterprise. Each year, the association makes a contribution to the UGA Foundation to support significant institutional priorities. Recent annual contributions have ranged from $4 million to $5 million, and the association has provided more than $28 million in financial support to the university since fiscal year 2007.

Since fiscal year 2010, a substantial portion of these funds has been

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used to strengthen two important student scholarship programs at UGA: the Georgia Access Scholarship and the Presidential Leadership Scholarship. Initially, these programs received $500,000 from the association. The allocation to each scholarship program was increased to $1 million when UGA President Jere W. Morehead took office in fiscal year 2014.

“The Athletic Association has been a strong partner in advancing the academic mission of the University of Georgia,” Morehead said. “These annual contributions to merit- and need-based scholarship programs help the institution to attract academically talented students and to make the worldclass education we provide more affordable.”

This fall, the merit-based Presidential Leadership Scholarship

See INITIATIVES on page 8

CENTER FOR TROPICAL AND EMERGING GLOBAL DISEASES

$1.25M NIH grant will train global disease researchers

By Donna Huber donnah@uga.edu

UGA’s Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases was awarded $1.25 million by the National Institutes of Health to continue training graduate and postdoctoral students over the next five years who can help address the growing threats of parasitic diseases.

Every year, diseases caused by protozoan and helminth parasites are responsible for more than a million deaths and cause hundreds of millions more cases of severe or subtle morbidity due to chronic infections lasting years.

“The University of Georgia is uniquely positioned as a training ground for the next generation of parasitology and tropical diseases

Silvia Moreno

Boris Striepen

researchers,” said Silvia Moreno, a professor of cellular biology in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences and co-director of the center’s T32 trainee program.

The internationally recognized research center brings together the largest number of laboratories in the U.S. that collectively conduct research on the full gamut of parasitic diseases. These diseases are highly prevalent in sub-Saharan

See GRANT on page 8

BLACK FACULTY AND STAFF ORGANIZATION

President of Georgia NAACP to speak at BFSO luncheon

By Ricky Roberts rickyrob@uga.edu

The Black Faculty and Staff Organization will present the 13th annual Founders’ Award Scholarship Luncheon Sept. 29 at noon. This year’s luncheon will be held in the Grand Hall of the Tate Center. Tickets for the luncheon are $45 per person or

$360 for a table of eight. Tickets, sponsorship and program booklet advertisement opportunities are still available.

The Rev. Francys Johnson, state president of the Georgia NAACP, will be the keynote speaker.

Johnson graduated from the UGA School of Law in 2004. He is the youngest person to be elected See LUNCHEON on page 8

2 Sept. 8, 2015 columns.uga.edu

OFFICE OF GOVERNMENT RELATIONS

Around academe

Stanford researchers find new way to improve critical thinking skills

Physicists at Stanford University and the University of British Columbia uncovered a new way to improve critical thinking skills in students studying scientific evidence in the classroom.

According to a study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, guiding students through independent decision-making during lab course experiments significantly advanced their ability to interpret data.

Researchers studied students while they worked in the classroom. They had students gather their own data—having them translate that data and make their own predictions about what it means. This not only improved students’ ability to critically think, but it also better prepares them for future courses.

Pennsylvania colleges no longer require SAT, ACT essays

The University of Pennsylvania and Swarthmore College, a private institution located in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, announced that they will require admission tests but not the writing scores for the exam, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Although both have decided to continue requiring applicants to submit SAT or ACT scores, the colleges will no longer ask students to show the writing portions of their exam. Admissions administrators for both colleges cited evidence that essay components on the exams were not predictive of student performance.

Sign-up available for academic service-learning workshops

News to Use

Service-learning can be a powerful teaching and learning tool that provides opportunities for students and faculty to apply academic concepts to authentic community needs, issues and problems.

This semester, the Office of ServiceLearning, a public service and outreach unit, will hold several workshops open to faculty, graduate students and others in academic service-learning. This workshop series is for those interested in exploring the nuts and bolts of designing and implementing service-learning enhanced coursework.

Opportunities include the following workshops: • Sept. 10, “Introduction to Service-Learning Course Design,” 2-4:45 p.m.

• Sept. 30, “Improving Student Learning Outcomes with Critical Reflection,” 10 a.m. to noon.

• Oct. 21, “Graduate Portfolio in Community Engagement Information Session,” 3:30-5 p.m.

• Tuesdays during the semester, there will be an online short course on Service-Learning Course Design in STEM Disciplines. It will be held from 2-4 p.m.

The series is offered each semester. All workshops will be held at the Office of ServiceLearning at 12421/2 S. Lumpkin St. Workshops are free and open to any interested faculty member or graduate student.

Register for this semester’s workshops at http://tinyurl.com/ol2r9ux To see the full calendar of workshops, visit http://servicelearning.uga.edu/workshops Source: UGA Office of Service-Learning

Nutritious and delicious

UGA’s Food Services options ranked third in a list of the top 50 U.S. schools with the best food. The top 10 colleges and universities making the list are:

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Washington U. in St. Louis Virginia Tech UGA New York U. UCLA Rice U. Skidmore College Bowdoin College Cornell U. U. of Texas at Austin

Source: Business Insider

Janet Beckley

Lawmaker, agency director visit UGA’s Complex Carbohydrate Research Center

By Aaron Hale

aahale@uga.edu

UGA’s Complex Carbohydrate Research Center showcased its research potential when a U.S. congressman and a U.S. Department of Energy agency director visited the university’s Athens campus Aug. 26.

U.S. Rep. Rob Woodall of Lawrenceville and Ellen Williams, the director of the Advanced Projects Research Agency for Energy, or ARPA-E, were given a tour of the CCRC complex and met with faculty and administrators to discuss faculty research and potential energy solutions that CCRC is developing.

ARPA-E advances high-potential, high-impact energy technologies that are too early for private-sector investment.

The agency’s projects have the potential to radically improve U.S. economic security, national security and the well-being of the environment. ARPA-E supports these researchers with funding, technical assistance and market readiness.

“ARPA-E invests in the best ideas that have the potential to change how we use, generate and store energy,”Williams said.

“I was thrilled to visit the University of Georgia with Congressman Woodall to hear about the exciting research underway that’s helping to solve our nation’s energy challenges.”

Aaron Hale

Alan Darvill, right, director of the Complex Carbohydrate Research Center, led U.S. Rep. Rob Woodall and Ellen Williams, ARPA-E director, on a tour of the center. Also pictured at left is Michael Cassidy, president and CEO of the Georgia Research Alliance.

Woodall, a supporter of UGA and the CCRC in Washington, D.C., joined the tour to learn more about CCRC’s energy capabilities.

“The research being done here at UGA and in this facility doesn’t just move us closer to long-term energy solutions across the country—it grows our economy, creates jobs in our communities and drives innovation even further,” Woodall said. “I’m excited to see that kind of progress right here in our own backyard.”

The tour and follow-up discussion between Williams, Woodall and UGA faculty helped build connections between UGA researchers and decision-makers in Washington, D.C., said David Lee, UGA’s vice president for research.

“Having such visits by those responsible for major research and development funding programs is a great way to make them aware of strengths at UGA and also for us to learn more about their programs and their developing priorities,” Lee said.

OEP

FRANKLIN COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

Events to be held on campus for National Preparedness Month

By Aaron Hale

aahale@uga.edu

Alan Flurry

Five international educators—from left, Hamzah Toraby, Ganjina Davlatmandova, Shahnoza Mirabzalova, Tayyaba Murtaza and Ayse Akpinar—are on campus to enhance their teaching skills.

Fulbright FLTAs bring their cultural experiences to campus

By Alan Flurry

aflurry@uga.edu

Five young educators from Asia and the Far East are spending the 2015-16 academic year on the UGA campus as part of the Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant program. The educators hail from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkey and Uzbekistan. For all five Fulbright TA grantees, their UGA residency represents their first trip to the U.S. The FLTA program enables UGA to offer classes in Urdu, Turkish, Uzbek, Tajiki and Pashto, languages deemed critical to national security. By their involvement in the program, these educators enhance their skills by serving as instructors at an accredited post-secondary U.S. educational institution and by auditing classes as non-degree students.

The Fulbright TAs on campus are Ayse Akpinar, an English teacher at a state university in Istanbul, Marmara University, who has taught English for seven years; Shahnoza Mirabzalova, from Tashkent, Uzbekistan, who has taught English for five years; Hamzah Toraby, from Afghanistan, studied English literature at Kabul University and has taught for seven years. He will teach Pashto at UGA. Tayyaba Murtaza is from Lahore, Pakistan, where she teaches at the

University of Central Punjab. She will be teaching Urdu. Ganjina Davlatmandova is from Tajikistan and she teaches at the University of Central Asia.As a Fulbright TA, she will teach Tajiki but her actual native language, Shughnani, is nearly extinct and spoken by only a small number of people in Tajikistan.

“Teaching here has two benefits for us.

First of all, it really helps us become better teachers by experiencing the diversity of a different culture,” Toraby said. “It also gives us the opportunity to improve our English and learn about the culture of the United States from our interactions with the students here.”

The Fulbright FLTA’s faculty adviser during their stay at UGA is Alan Godlas, an associate professor in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences’ religion department, who teaches courses on Islam, Sufism,Arabic, world religions and emotions and emotional intelligence in the world’s religions. Godlas supervises the FLTAs’ instruction and syllabi for the courses they teach, visiting their classes and providing feedback. He also arranges outreach activities to broaden their experience with students and campus life.

Throughout the year, each of the Fulbright TAs will present talks on their country and its language. Godlas also will make the students available to speak in individual classes to augment and enrich a particular section of an existing course.

UGA’s Office of Emergency Preparedness will observe National Preparedness Month in September with events and expert speakers to remind the university community how to be ready if disaster strikes.

National Preparedness Month is promoted by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.The Office of Emergency Preparedness, which provides comprehensive emergency preparedness, homeland security programs and services to the university community, is hosting preparedness month events for a 10th year.

This year the office will host a presentation about the use of social media in terrorism recruitment. Two government intelligence analysts will discuss social media as a terrorist recruitment tool, how a person transforms from a patriotic citizen to become a terrorist and patterns in the use of social media related to terrorist organizations.

This presentation will be held Sept. 11 from 1:30-3 p.m. in the Chapel.

The Office of Emergency Preparedness also will host its annual Resource Fair at the Tate Student Center Sept. 11 from 10 a.m. to noon. The event will include representatives from the UGA Police Department, the American Red Cross, the UGA chapter of the American Meteorological Society, the Georgia Emergency Management Agency, the local public health office, the National EMS, Athens-Clarke County Emergency Management, the University Health Center, the Office of Information Security as well the College of Public Health and College of Pharmacy.

On Sept. 24 at 10:45 a.m., the Office of Emergency Preparedness will test the UGAAlert system. In advance of the test, faculty, students and staff are encouraged to verify and update their notification information at www.ugaalert.uga.edu.

RESEARCH NEWS

columns.uga.edu Sept. 8, 2015

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Digest UGA alumna and civil rights advocate to discuss ‘stand your ground’ laws

Rich Addicks

Franklin West, left, an assistant professor in the animal and dairy science department, and Steven Stice, a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar and director of the Regenerative Bioscience Center, were part of a study that found a possible solution for multiple virus issues in poultry.

Fowl health

Developing disease-resistant poultry may be solution for multiple virus issues

By Charlene Betourney cbetourney@uga.edu

Poultry disease is an international issue, especially when there is an outbreak close to home. However, it’s a particularly costly problem in developing countries.

Developing animals resistant to disease may be one of the long-term solutions. UGA researchers in the Regenerative Bioscience Center have spent the last four years gathering data that could make the process a reality.

The team, which includes Steven Stice and Franklin West in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and Claudio Afonso at the Southeast Poultry Research Laboratory of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service, used a technology platform called shRNA—single strands of RNA that fold back on themselves—to selectively stop the production of nucleic acids that cause disease, such as the Newcastle disease virus.

A worldwide problem, Newcastle disease is caused by one of the most deadly of all viruses that spreads between

birds. Exotic Newcastle virus, the most devastating form of the virus, has been eradicated in the U.S. and Canada. The milder forms of Newcastle are kept under control using vaccines.

The research team’s tooling process for enhancing disease resistance, published recently in the Journal of the International Alliance for Biological Standardization, is potentially a much better way of disease protection than vaccination, because it introduces permanent genetic resistance that is transmittable to a bird’s offspring, the researchers said. In contrast, many vaccines provide protection for a given period of time and must be re-administered periodically.

“With this technology, we can target specific regions used by the Newcastle disease virus that are critical for its survival,” said Stice, a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar and director of the Regenerative Bioscience Center.

“Preventing these lethal viruses from replicating in individual chickens may in the end reduce the overall level of virus transmission from one chicken to the next.”

Multiple types of animals and disease could be targeted. This technology also could be applied to avian influenza and swine flu.

“Ultimately, you could have birds that are both avian influenza resistant and Newcastle disease virus resistant,” said West, an assistant professor in the animal and dairy science department.

“Theoretically, you may never have to vaccinate again.”

Organized distribution of vaccine products can present problems, especially in countries where farmers may not have a refrigerator or other means to store the vaccines at the temperature needed to keep them alive. This is particularly true in rural areas where backyard flocks may be a farmer’s main source of income.

Shipping disease-resistant chickens produced here in the U.S. could be the best possible solution for many countries, according to Stice.

“We’ve taken many years to prove that this technology is viable, and we’re now ready to expand our work to the next stage,” he said.

SAVANNAH RIVER ECOLOGY LABORATORY Collaboration finds toxic chemical in birds outside of Superfund site

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

Researchers at UGA’s Savannah River Ecology Laboratory have found that a contaminated mixture called Aroclor 1268 has spread beyond a former chemical plant, now a Superfund site, near Brunswick.

SREL scientists and colleagues from UGA’s Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources and the College of Veterinary Medicine published their findings recently in the journal Environmental Science: Processes and Impacts.

Study co-author Gary Mills, a biogeochemist at SREL and an adjunct associate professor in the geology department, used advanced analytical tools to detect the individual chemical components of the contaminant in egg and tissue samples of least terns, a shortrange migratory seabird. The samples were taken over a two-year period from six nesting populations at various sites along the Georgia coast.

This is the first study to investigate the presence of Aroclor 1268 in

fish-eating birds, said the study’s senior investigator Sonia M. Hernandez, an associate professor in the Warnell School and the Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study at the College of Veterinary Medicine.

Aroclor 1268 is composed of a suite of toxic chemical compounds known as polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs.The chemical was used to produce insulation materials at the Linden Chemical Plant at the Turtle Estuary near Brunswick until 1994.

“Because its only use in the Southeast was at the now-closed Linden Chemical Plant, we know this is the original source of the contaminant,” Mills said.

In 1996, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency placed the 550-acre site on the National Priorities List after finding PCBs, mercury and other contaminants. The area later was designated a Superfund site by the federal government—allowing for intensive cleanup.

The study sites ranged from 68 miles north of the Linden Chemical Plant to Savannah to 43 miles south near

Kingsland and Cumberland Island.

Tissue samples taken from birds in these areas contained enough Aroclor 1268 to cause a number of adverse effects, including lower egg production, physical and physiological abnormalities in offspring and immune system disorders.

The findings indicate that the least tern ingests the contaminant when it forages on fish. Hernandez said because shore birds are at the top of the food chain, they are important indicators of the health of coastal environments.

Mills agrees, and said it is clear Aroclor 1268 has spread beyond the Superfund site via the food web because it is the most likely explanation for its presence in the species at the various sites. Because it is hydrophobic, or nonsoluble in water, the contaminant naturally bonds to sediments.

Additional study co-authors include Gabrielle L. Robinson, Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, Cape Cod Natural Seashore; Angela Lindell, SREL; and Sarah Schweitzer, North Carolina Wildlife Commission.

The Institute for African American Studies will host the lecture, “I Am Trayvon Martin: Hoodies Up—How One Case Changed a Nation and Ignited the World,” by Jasmine Rand, UGA alumna and civil rights advocate. Open free to the public, the lecture will be held Sept. 10 at 5 p.m. in the Chapel.

Founder of Rand Law LLC and an adjunct professor at the University of Miami School of Law, Rand is a practicing attorney and legal analyst known for her representation of the families of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown.

A 2015 Scholar in Residence at Harvard Law School, Rand has been a guest lecturer at Harvard University on “stand your ground” laws. A 2004 UGA graduate with dual degrees in AfricanAmerican studies and political science, Rand currently is involved in police brutality cases throughout the nation.

While “I Am Trayvon Martin” became a plea for social justice in the aftermath of the young man’s murder in Florida in 2012, Rand’s lecture will frame the battle cry in terms beyond race.

OLLI to kick off fall with activity fair

The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at UGA will kick off its fall programming Sept. 11 with the OLLI Bash–An Activity Fair. Open to all members, prospective members and guests, the fair will be held from 1-3:30 p.m. at Central Presbyterian Church, 380 Alps Road.

OLLI Bash will include displays and information on the group’s fall offering of 165 courses in 22 categories, 18 luncheon programs and 25 special interest groups as well as travel and study trips, social events and volunteer opportunities. The activity fair also will give attendees a chance to talk with OLLI committee members, enjoy refreshments provided by sponsor Talmage Terrace/ Lanier Gardens, meet other community sponsors and sign up for a free hearing screening.

As part of the fair, supplies will be collected for distribution at local schools. Needed items include pencils, pens, paper, crayons, colored pencils, markers, construction paper, safety scissors, notebooks, folders, glue sticks, small bottles of hand sanitizers, etc.

2 UGA departments to host travel expo

The Accounts Payable and University Business and Accounting Services departments will host a travel expo Sept. 23 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Grand Ballroom of the Tate Student Center.

A drop-in event, the expo is an opportunity for members of the UGA community to meet and interact with travel service providers and learn more about the services they offer.

Representatives from the following providers will be in attendance: Athena Travel, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Global Escapes, Hertz Corp., Joy of Travel, McCormick Travel, Preflight Parking, the Parking Spot, Travel By Design, Travel Incorporated using Concur solution and Universal VAT Services.

Representatives from the following Athensarea hotels also will be in attendance to provide information about accommodations and billing arrangements for UGA visitors: Hilton Garden Inn, Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Hotel Indigo, Springhill Suites Marriott and the Graduate.

In addition, the following UGA units will have representatives at the expo: Accounts Payable/ Travel, Campus Transit (charter bus options), Facilities Management Division’s Fleet Services, the Office of International Education, Procurement (studies abroad travel) and the Georgia Center’s UGA Hotel and Conference Center.

Contact Andre Simmons at asimmons@uga.edu with questions or for more information.

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4 Sept. 8, 2015 columns.uga.edu

RESEARCH NEWS

Digest Horticultural ecologist to give College of Environment and Design lecture

James Hitchmough, a horticultural ecologist from the United Kingdom, will visit UGA to discuss ecologically based planting design.

Open to the public, the talk is part of the College of Environment and Design’s fall lecture series. Hitchmough’s lecture, “The Ecology, D ­ esign and Management of Sustainable Meadow and Prairie Plantings,” will be held Sept. 25 at 12:30 p.m. in Room 125 of the Jackson Street Building.

Hitchmough is a professor of horticultural ecology and head of the landscape department at the University of Sheffield, the largest landscape architecture unit in the United Kingdom. His groundbreaking work combines perennials and grasses to create ecologically diverse and visually stunning planting designs. He is perhaps best known for his landscape design of the 2012 London Olympics.

Hitchmough’s current projects include the Oxford Botanic Garden and the new Drakensberg Meadow at RHS Wisley, the Big Sky Meadow Project at RHS Hyde Hall and projects in Copenhagen, San Sebastian and western China.

UGA Athletic Association board approves addition of indoor facility

The board of directors for the UGA Athletic Association approved a proposal Aug. 31 for an Indoor Athletic Facility. The proposal is being forwarded to the University System of Georgia Board of Regents for consideration.

If the IAF is approved by the regents, construction would begin after the conclusion of the 2015 football season.

The IAF will be located on the Woodruff Practice Fields and will be connected to Butts-Mehre Heritage Hall. The connection of the indoor facility to the current facility involves the removal of the Nalley Multipurpose Room and the renovation of approximately 6,000 square feet of adjacent space.

The project will cost an estimated $30 million and will be funded through a combination of donor support and athletic department reserves.

144 students join College of Pharmacy

The UGA College of Pharmacy welcomed 144 new students at its annual White Coat Ceremony. Held Aug. 15 for the Class of 2019, the event featured students receiving white lab coats to mark the beginning of their pharmacy careers.

Of the class’s 144 members, 66.7 percent are female; 31.9 percent are minorities; 50.7 percent have a bachelor’s degree or higher; 45.1 percent previously attended UGA; and 6.9 percent are from out of state. The students’ GPA is 3.43, with an average Pharmacy College Admission Test score in the 80th percentile.

College of Veterinary Medicine welcomes 114 students at White Coat Ceremony The UGA College of Veterinary Medicine welcomed the Class of 2019 during its annual White Coat Ceremony held Aug. 16. Sponsored by the Georgia Veterinary Medical Association, the event officially recognized 114 members of the incoming class by having them don lab coats to be worn during their veterinary education.

The hourlong ceremony was held in the Hodgson Concert Hall at the UGA Performing Arts Center.

“The white coat is a symbol of medical professionalism and of acceptance of the responsibilities, obligations and sacrifices that go with the privilege to study and practice veterinary medicine,” said Dr. Karen Cornell, the college’s associate dean for academic affairs. “Reciting the Veterinarian’s Oath for the first time denotes the beginning of their official journey in one of the most respected professions.”

The incoming class includes 88 women and 26 men. This class features a variety of focuses, including 31 percent interested in companion animal medicine; 37 percent in mixed-animal medicine; 11 percent in zoo animal and wildlife medicine; 4 percent in food animal medicine; 11 percent in public health; and 6 percent in equine medicine.

Peter Frey

C.J. Tsai, a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in UGA’s Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources and Franklin College’s department of genetics, was part of a team that reduced the concentrations of two naturally occurring plant polymers using a mechanism that evolved in bacteria.

Poplar science UGA researchers edit plant DNA using mechanism that evolved in bacteria

By James E. Hataway jhataway@uga.edu

UGA researchers have used a geneediting tool known as CRISPR/Cas to modify the genome of a tree species for the first time. Their research, published recently in the early online edition of the journal New Phytologist, opens the door to more rapid and reliable gene editing of plants.

By mutating specific genes in Populus—a genus of deciduous trees that includes poplar, aspen and cottonwood—the researchers reduced the concentrations of two naturally occurring plant polymers. One is called lignin, which traps sugars and starches used for biofuel production inside the tree’s sturdy cell walls. The other is known as condensed tannin, and its presence in leaves and barks of the tree deters feeding by ruminants, such as deer, cattle, goats and sheep.

“CRISPR is a relatively new technology, but it could improve our ability to produce novel varieties of food crops, animal feeds and biofuel feedstocks,” said the study’s lead researcher C.J.Tsai, a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in UGA’s Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources and Franklin College’s department of genetics. “Compared to

some other gene-editing techniques, this is incredibly simple, cost-effective and highly efficient, and it could serve as the foundation for a new era of discovery in plant genetics.”

CRISPR technology is derived from a defense mechanism evolved by bacteria and other single-celled organisms.When a bacterium is attacked by an invader like a virus, it captures some of the virus’s DNA, chops it up into pieces and incorporates a segment of the viral DNA into its own genome.

As the bacterium experiences more threats, it accumulates a bank of past infections in a special part of its genetic code called CRISPRs—short for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats—which act as a kind of immune system to protect against future invasions.

“This is a mechanism that evolved naturally, but we can borrow the bacteria’s gene-cutting abilities and use it to edit very specific genes in all kinds of organisms, including plants and animals,” said Tsai, who is also director of UGA’s Plant Center. “It’s like using a pair of scissors with GPS tracking to locate and snip out tiny bits of DNA—enough to nullify the gene you don’t want, while leaving everything else unchanged.”

Tsai gives credit to her collaborator,

Thomas Jacobs, a former doctoral student in UGA’s Institute of Plant Breeding, Genetics and Genomics, who adapted the CRISPR system for plant genome editing.

“Tom was a student in my class a few years back, and we were testing some of the gene silencing systems he developed for soybean in poplars,” Tsai said. “It was a side project, also involving Xiaohong Zhou, a visiting doctoral student from Nanjing Forestry University, to test the new CRISPR system, and its high efficiency exceeded all of our expectations.”

Every single poplar plant Zhou produced from the lignin-gene-targeting experiment had red-colored wood. Red stem is a known side effect of lignin modification found in natural mutants of maize, sorghum and pine, Tsai said, so the researchers knew the CRISPR system worked when they saw the telltale red stems on their Populus plants.

“I was blown away by the results,” Jacobs said. “This is one of the highest efficiencies ever reported, even in mouse and other animal models where the technology has been more extensively tested.”

The modified Populus plants contained about 20 percent less lignin and 50 percent less condensed tannins than wild trees.

COLLEGE OF VETERINARY MEDICINE, COLLEGE OF PUBLIC HEALTH Study finds South’s water sources pose risk for salmonella infection

By Kat Yancey Gilmore and Rebecca Ayer

kygilmor@uga.edu, alea@uga.edu

UGA researchers have determined that various freshwater sources in Georgia could feature levels of salmonella that pose a risk to humans. The study recently was featured in the journal PLOS One. Faculty and students from four colleges and five departments partnered with colleagues from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Georgia Department of Public Health to establish whether strains of salmonella exhibit geographic trends that might help to explain differences in rates of human infection.

“In this study, salmonella isolated from water and wildlife were collected over a period of 10 years from distinct rural areas in Georgia, both geographically—north versus south—and in terms of prevalence of salmonellosis in humans—lower versus higher,” said study co-author Erin Lipp, a professor

of environmental health sciences in the UGA College of Public Health.

Salmonella infections are one of the top causes of gastrointestinal disease in the U.S., and while agencies have made progress in reducing foodborne transmission of the pathogen, other infection sources, including exposure to water, have not been examined as thoroughly.

To complete this research, the scholars collected samples from two different geographic regions of Georgia: the lowlying coastal plain and the piedmont, which is higher in elevation.

Data was collected from six stations in the Little River watershed near Tifton, which has one of the highest case rates for salmonellosis in the state, and along the North Oconee River in Jackson County, a lower case rate area in Georgia. Water samples from all sites were gathered from December 2010 to November 2011.

Samples from surrounding wildlife also were collected, and archived samples from these areas dating back to 2005

also were included.

The team found that water sources could be an underestimated source of salmonella exposure to humans.Though the frequency that salmonella was found in north and south Georgia was similar, salmonella strains with DNA fingerprints matching those found in humans were more commonly found in south Georgia.

UGA researchers who collaborated with John Maurer, the paper’s principal author and a professor of population health in UGA’s College of Veterinary Medicine, and Lipp on this project include Gordon Martin and Steven Valeika from the College of Public Health; Dana Cole from the College of Public Health and CDC; Ying Cheng and Susan Sanchez from the College of Veterinary Medicine; Sonia Hernandez from the College of Veterinary Medicine and the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources; and Marguerite Madden and Andrea Presotto from the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences.

UGAGUIDE

columns.uga.edu Sept. 8, 2015

For a complete listing of events, check the Master Calendar on the Web The following events are open to the public, unless otherwise specified. Dates, times and locations may change without advance notice.

Los Angeles artist to speak at art school

Native American art exhibition starts two-year tour in Athens

By Drema Nicole Montgomery drema@uga.edu

By Alan Flurry

aflurry@uga.edu

The Lamar Dodd School of Art will present a lecture by artist Farrah Karapetian Sept. 15 at 2 p.m. in Room S151 of the art school.

This lecture, open to the public, is part of the Visiting Artist/Scholar Lecture Series.

Karapetian is an award-winning artist from Los Angeles, who uses a photogram technique as well as sculptures to explore interconnected ideas of human vulnerability, human effort and surrender to chance.

In her upcoming exhibition, Step Twice, Karapetian connects her own interactions with water, through sailing, with those of the nautical immigration of Syrians, North Africans and Cubans into both Europe and the U.S. This can take the form of re-enacting actions, or reconstructing objects that become negatives for producing photograms.

Karapetian received her B.A. in fine art from Yale University and her MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles.

For the last 500 years, and particularly since they began to be displaced and removed from their ancestral homelands, Native American tribes of what is now the southeastern U.S. have returned annually for ceremonial rites on the autumnal equinox in late September.

Return from Exile, an art exhibition of more than 30 contemporary Southeastern Native American artists timed to coincide with annual homecomings, is on view through Oct. 10 at the Lyndon House Arts Center. The exhibition, which will begin a two-year tour of museums throughout the U.S., is sponsored by the UGA Institute of Native American Studies and the Lyndon House.

An opening reception for the exhibition will be held Sept. 10 at 6 p.m. and is sponsored by the institute. The exhibition features art representing the five tribes removed from the Southeast in the 1830s: the Creek, the Cherokee, the Choctaw, the Chickasaw and the Seminole.

Return from Exile is curated by Jace Weaver, the Franklin Professor of Native American Studies and director of the UGA Institute of Native American Studies; Bob Martin, an associate professor at John Brown University; and Tony Tiger, former chair of the art department at Bacone College in Muskogee, Oklahoma.

Following its run at the Lyndon House, the exhibition will travel to the Collier County Museum in Naples, Florida. It will then travel the country through 2017.

Return from Exile is supported by the UGA Institute of Native American Studies, the Southeastern Indian Artist Association, the Lyndon House Arts Center, the UGA President’s Venture Fund, the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation, the Cherokee Nation and the Muscogee Nation.

EXHIBITIONS El Taller de Grafica Popular: Vida y Arte.

Through Sept. 13. Georgia Museum of Art. 706-542-1817, hazbrown@uga.edu Art Hazelwood and Ronnie Goodman.

Georgia Museum of Art. Through Sept. 13. 706-542-1817, hazbrown@uga.edu Afloat. Through Oct. 2. Circle Gallery.

Ralph Chesse. Through Oct. 4. Georgia Museum of Art. 706-542-1817, hazbrown@uga.edu Return from Exile. Through Oct. 10.

Lyndon House Arts Center, 293 Hoyt St. 706-542-5356, baflaher@uga.edu (See story, above).

Infiltro: In-Vitro. Through Nov. 30. Gilbert Hall. bkaplan@uga.edu

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 8 TUESDAY TOUR 2 p.m. Special collections libraries.

706-542-8079, jclevela@uga.edu ECOLOGY SEMINAR “Integrating Resource Distribution, Animal Movement and Infectious Disease Dynamics,” Richard Hall, an assistant research scientist in the Odum School of Ecology. Reception precedes seminar in the lobby. 4 p.m. Ecology building auditorium. 706-542-7247, bethgav@ uga.edu CLASS “Concrete Leaf Casting.” Registration is required. $35. 6 p.m. Greenhouse, State Botanical Garden. 706-542-6156, ckeber@uga.edu

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9 WORKSHOP “Encouraging Collaboration with Blogs,”

Carrie Bishop, coordinator of emerging learning technologies at the Center for Teaching and Learning. 10 a.m.

372 Miller Learning Center.

706-583-0067, tchagood@uga.edu BROWN BAG CONVERSATION Faculty and students from all colleges and departments across UGA are invited to bring a brown bag lunch and learn more about the UGA College of Education and Clarke County School District Professional Development School District Partnership. Noon. 114 Aderhold Hall. ericag@uga.edu

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 10 LECTURE “I Am Trayvon Martin: Hoodies Up— How One Case Changed a Nation and Ignited the World,” UGA alumna Jasmine Rand. 5 p.m. Chapel.

706-542-5157. (See Digest, page 3).

OPENING Opening for Return from Exile. 6 p.m.

Lyndon House Arts Center, 293 Hoyt St. (See story, above).

CONCERT The UGA Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Mark Cedel, will perform this 2nd Thursday Concert Series concert. $18; $5 with a UGACard.

7:30 p.m. Hugh Hodgson Concert Hall.

706-542-4752, musicpr@uga.edu FILM Memento. $3 for non-students. 8 p.m.

Tate Student Center Theatre.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 11 MEN’S TENNIS SOUTHERN INTERCOLLEGIATE CHAMPIONSHIPS Through Sept. 14. Dan Magill Tennis Complex. 706-542-1621.

MORNING MINDFULNESS Instructor Jerry Gale will lead a free meditation session to enhance mindful

Calendar items are taken from Columns files and from the university’s Master Calendar, maintained by Public Affairs.

Notices are published here as space permits, with priority given to items of multidisciplinary interest. The Master Calendar is available on the Web at calendar.uga.edu/.

practice in an environment of creative energy. RSVP to 706-542-0448 or branew@uga.edu . 9:30 a.m. Georgia Museum of Art. 706-542-4662, hazbrown@uga.edu. (See Bulletin Board, page 8).

WOMEN’S SOCCER vs. South Carolina. 7 p.m. Turner Soccer Complex. 706-542-1621.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 12

NATIONAL PREPAREDNESS MONTH RESOURCE FAIR Hosted by the Office of Emergency Preparedness. 10 a.m. Tate Student Center plaza. 706-542-1289, broadnax@uga.edu (See story, page 2).

CLASS “Life without Flowers: Mosses, Liverworts, Ferns and Horsetails.” $50.

8:30 a.m. Classroom 2, State Botanical Garden. 706-542-6156, ckeber@uga.edu

INTERNATIONAL COFFEE HOUR 11:30 a.m. Memorial Hall ballroom.

706-542-7911, cheeia@uga.edu.

HALF-MOON OUTFITTERS TRAIL RUN 9 a.m. $30-$40. Nature Trails, State Botanical Garden. 706-542-6014, connicot@uga.edu

WOMEN’S STUDIES FRIDAY SPEAKER SERIES LECTURE “The New Paradox of Women’s Citizenship: Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s Postconflict Presidential Rhetoric,” Belinda Stillion Southard, department of communication studies. 12:20 p.m. 150 Miller Learning Center. 706-542-2846, tlhat@uga.edu.

DISCUSSION “Use of Social Media in Terrorism Recruitment.” Two government intelligence analysts will discuss the use of social media in terrorism recruitment, how a person transforms from a patriotic citizen to become a terrorist as well as patterns in the use of social media related to terrorist organizations.

1:30 p.m. Chapel. 706-542-5845, prepare@uga.edu (See story, page 2).

ROMANCE LINGUISTICS COLLOQUIUM Fenton Gardner will present his paper “Double Trouble: Why clitic-doubling of strong pronouns is obligatory in Romance.” 3 p.m. 303 Gilbert Hall.

706-542-4730, gupton1@uga.edu FILM The Dark Knight. $3 for non-students.

6 and 9 p.m. Tate Student Center Theatre.

FAMILY DAY: LINE, SHAPE AND FORM Participants will explore the ways artists use these elements to compose works of art in the permanent collection, then create their own masterpiece to take home. 10 a.m. Georgia Museum of Art. 706-542-4662, hazbrown@uga.edu CREATED EQUAL FILM SERIES SCREENING Film: Freedom Riders. Hosted by OLLI@ UGA and the Athens-Clarke County Library. 2 p.m. Athens-Clarke County Library, 2025 Baxter St. 706-542-7715, kcrapo@uga.edu FILM Inception. $3 for non-students. 6 and 9 p.m. Tate Student Center Theatre.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 13 FILM The Prestige. $3 for non-students.

6 and 9 p.m. Tate Student Center Theatre.

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 14 ROSH HASHANAH Jewish religious observance.

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

WORKSHOP “Free Textbooks and Resources, Access on Day One for You and Your Students,” Nicole Finkbeiner, associate director of institutional relations at OpenStax College. 9 a.m. Instructional Plaza.

706-583-0067, tchagood@uga.edu WORKSHOP Lunch and discussion with David Harris, editor in chief at OpenStax College.

OpenStax College also will share information on future projects.

11:30 a.m. Instructional Plaza.

706-583-0067, tchagood@uga.edu WORKSHOP “Institutional Models to Increase Student Success through the Use of Open Educational Resources,” Nicole Finkbeiner, associate director for institutional relations at OpenStax College.

1 p.m. Instructional Plaza.

706-583-0067, tchagood@uga.edu FILM SCREENING Merchants of Doubt followed by a question-and-answer session with former U.S. Congressman Bob Inglis.

7 p.m. 101 Miller Learning Center.

706-542-1693, mfarmer@uga.edu

COMING UP ARTIST LECTURE Sept. 15. A lecture by Farrah Karapetian.

2 p.m. S151 Lamar Dodd School of Art. kgeha@uga.edu. (See story, above).

UNIVERSITY LECTURE Sept. 15. “The Climate Conscience of a Conservative,” Bob Inglis, a former U.S. congressman. Co-sponsored by the Division of Biological Sciences, Georgia Initiative for Climate and Society, the School of Public and International Affairs, the College of Engineering, the Odum School of Ecology, the College of Public Health and the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. 3:30 p.m. Chapel.

706-542-1693, mfarmer@uga.edu

NEXT COLUMNS DEADLINES Sept. 9 (for Sept. 21 issue) Sept. 16 (for Sept. 28 issue) Sept. 23 (for Oct. 5 issue)

6 Sept. 8, 2015 columns.uga.edu

UGA faculty member Alan Covich and alumnus Marcelo Ardon were recognized for outstanding contributions to ecology at the centennial annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America in Baltimore.

A professor in the university’s Odum School of Ecology, Covich was awarded the ESA Alan Covich Distinguished Service Citation in recognition of his more than 40 years of volunteer service to ESA and the scientific community at large.

A past president of ESA from 2006-2007, Covich also served as president of the North American Benthological Society, now called the Society for Freshwater Science, in 1996, the American Institute of Biological Science in 2000 and the International Association for Ecology, known as INTECOL, from 2009 to 2013. He was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1999 and was named an inaugural ESA Fellow in 2012.

His research interests include the impacts of natural and human disturbances on tropical stream food webs and the impacts of drought on food webs in the Flint River in Georgia.

Covich was director of the UGA Institute of Ecology, the forerunner of the Odum School of Ecology, from 2003 to 2007.

Ardon was a recipient of the George Mercer Award, given in honor of an outstanding research paper by a young scientist. He was lead author of “Drought-induced saltwater incursion leads to increased wetland nitrogen export,” published in Global Change Biology. Ardon, who received his doctorate in ecology from UGA in 2006, is an assistant professor in the biology department at East Carolina University. His research focuses on wetlands and streams, ecosystem ecology and biogeochemistry in the context of land use and climate change.

Founded in 1915, the Ecological Society of America is the largest professional society for ecologists in the world, with more than 10,000 members.

Dr. John R. Fisher, a professor in the population science department at the College of Veterinary Medicine and an adjunct professor of pathology, is one of 19 new members appointed

by U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to the Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Animal Health.

Fisher, who also is the director of the Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study, will serve on the committee through June 2017.

The committee will provide outside perspectives on USDA strategies, policies and programs to prevent, control and/or eradicate animal health diseases. The committee also will lead broader dialogue on public health concerns and the stability of the livestock economies.

Lindsey H. Welch, Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experience director in the College of Pharmacy, is the 2015 Distinguished Young Pharmacist of the Year in Georgia. The award was conferred on Welch at the recent meeting of the Georgia Pharmacy Association.

Sponsored by Pharmacists Lindsey Welch Mutual Companies, the award is presented annually to a pharmacist in each state for individual excellence and outstanding contributions in state pharmacy association activities, community affairs and in professional practice.

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.

CAMPUS CLOSEUP

Robert Newcomb

Dan Evans, facilities manager for the Carl Vinson Institute of Government, had his own photographic color lab for more than 26 years.

‘Whatever it takes’: Facilities manager tackles projects of all shapes, sizes

By Matt Chambers mattdc@uga.edu

A sign on Dan Evans’ office door reads in part “We can do great things, if it matters not who gets the credit.”

And Evans, the facilities manager for the Carl Vinson Institute of Government, lives and works by that phrase.

He’s willing to do anything from vehicle fleet policy writing to unclogging toilets to fixing air-conditioning units.

“I do whatever it takes to keep the faculty and staff here equipped to do their jobs,” Evans said. “That means my job is never dull and never really the same thing in any given day.”

Evans’ job duties are to manage the day-to-day operations of the facilities at the institute’s Lucy Cobb campus and the Cobb and Schretter Houses. He also works with the Vinson Institute’s offices in Atlanta to ensure things are running smoothly.

“My job’s very interesting in that it’s so wide in scope,” Evans said. “I call handling those things that come up, ‘putting out fires.’ I have to put out the fire before it hurts the scope of work here.”

Evans also acts as what he calls the “de facto” tour guide for visitors to the Lucy Cobb campus and the historic Seney-Stovall Chapel. He took on that role several years ago after the historian retired. Now Evans handles a couple of tours a month speaking to everyone from students in First-Year Odyssey classes to “folks who walk in

off the street.”

Evans, who has been facilities manager for nine years, learned a lot of the skills he uses today from owning and running his own photographic color lab business for more than 26 years. He and his wife, Martha, worked in the Athensbased business until he was “ready for a new challenge.”

Ever since he worked at a local photography studio in high school, Evans has had a passion for being behind the camera or processing images. He opened his business after completing an apprentice program and taking several classes at Athens Technical College.

“I knew then that photography was going to be my passion,” Evans said. “I never knew that I would turn it into the first part of my lifelong career.”

The highlight of his photography career, Evans said, was working closely with Vince Dooley, former head football coach and director of athletics at UGA. Evans started working with Dooley and the UGA Athletic Association around 1988 as a contract photographer to photograph, document and archive his work at the UGA Athletic Association.

“He has been like a mentor to me in that I’ve watched him work and make (some of his) decisions,” Evans said.“Just being able to watch him taught me a lot about the university, but also how to manage on a day-to-day basis. I consider myself a lucky man just to have been able to have known an iconic figure and to work with a man like coach Dooley.”

As he reflects on his photography

FACTS Dan Evans Facilities Manager Carl Vinson Institute of Government At UGA: 9 years

career, Evans takes pride in all he’s accomplished, but feels a lot of satisfaction for being the 2011 recipient of the Bill Powell Service Award, which is presented for outstanding service to the UGA Athletic Association by someone who is not a full-time employee.

Evans also takes great pride in the work he’s doing now. He especially was honored to receive the Public Service and Outreach Staff Award for Excellence in 2013.

Evans said that his current job shares a lot of surprising similarities with being the owner of a photo studio.

“This job is not very different from being in business for yourself because if it has to be done and you’re the only one around who can do it, then you roll up your sleeves and do it,” he said.

While managing five buildings that are more than 150 years old can be challenging at times, Evans said he enjoys his job mainly because of the constant need to learn.

“One of the reasons I fit in this position as well as I do is that I don’t think there’s anything wrong with saying ‘I don’t know that, but I’ll find out,’ ” he said. “It’s never-ending learning.”

UGA ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION

Former Ole Miss administrator joins UGA Athletic Association as associate athletic director for development Monica Lebron, a former associate athletics director for development at the University of Mississippi, has been named associate athletic director for development at UGA. “We are thrilled to have Monica join our staff,” said Greg McGarity, the UGA J. Reid Parker Director of Athletics. “She is very passionate about college athletics, and we know her personality and determination will be a tremendous asset to our team.”

Lebron was assistant athletics director for development at Ole Miss from 2012-2014. Before that, she was senior associate director of major gifts

and senior major gifts officer at the University of California, Berkeley.

Lebron also was associate director and assistant director of Gator Boosters Inc. at the University of Monica Lebron Florida.

“Over the past decade, Monica has been involved at the highest levels of development at three outstanding institutions, and we know she will be an outstanding leader for our program,”

McGarity said.

Lebron received her bachelor’s degree in women’s and gender studies from Yale University in 2001, her master’s in sports administration and an MBA from Ohio University in 2003, and she had been working on her doctorate in higher education at the University of Mississippi.

As an undergraduate at Yale, Lebron was a three-time All-Ivy League softball player and a GTE CoSIDA District All-Academic and Academic All-Ivy League selection. She also served as team captain.

OFFICE OF GOVERNMENT RELATIONS

columns.uga.edu Sept. 8, 2015

Show and tell

OFFICE OF SUSTAINABILITY

2015 Federal Legislative Retreat highlights UGA programs in animal health, infectious diseases, engineering

By Stephanie Schupska schupska@uga.edu

In the race for federal funding, UGA has several strong advantages, and on Aug. 20-21, more than 30 congressional legislative staffers got a firsthand look at many including UGA’s programs in veterinary medicine, infectious diseases and engineering.

“The university is proud of our outstanding students and faculty. We truly enjoy the opportunity to highlight their work and the impact they are having on our state,” said UGA President Jere W. Morehead.

In Athens as part of the annual Federal Legislative Retreat, the staffers’ footsteps echoed down intersecting hallways as they stepped into the Veterinary Teaching Hospital. Representing both Georgia senators and 12 of the state’s 14 congressional districts, they were learning how the College of Veterinary Medicine serves Georgia through animal health and disease research.

Their afternoon was packed. The staffers had just come from an engineering session on transitioning research into industry technology, led by Don Leo, dean of the College of Engineering, and were stepping off a UGA bus after a 3.8-mile ride from campus.

“When you see how much of an impact our students are making in engineering, it’s just incredible,” said Arthur Tripp, who graduated from UGA with a degree in political science in 2009 and serves as Rep. David Scott’s senior policy adviser.

“What I hope to take back is the message that we need to continue to uplift not only our engineering school but all of our schools,” he said.

“Funding is a huge part, I think, of why we’re here, of what we can provide.”

Dr. Nicole Northrup led Tripp and other staffers through the College of Veterinary Medicine’s newest facility. As the service chief for outpatient medicine and an associate professor of oncology, she is part of a team that conducts clinical trials on new cancer therapies.Animals are only included in trials with the informed consent of their owners.

“The types of cancer we diagnose in dogs are similar to those in people,” she told the staffers after they moved in waves through the hospital. UGA is part of the national Comparative Oncology Trials Consortium, and what they learn about treating dogs can help not only canines but also potentially translate into helping humans with cancer.

In one of the college’s fastest-growing departments—infectious diseases—researchers are studying ways to prevent and treat both humans and animals. One professor in particular—Biao He—is using a virus common in dogs, known as

Dorothy Kozlowski

Cindy Rice, right, public relations coordinator at the Veterinary Teaching Hospital, leads congressional legislative staff members on a tour of the new building and its amenities.

parainfluenza virus 5, as a way to safely deliver vaccines to humans.

“We’re taking a virus from human’s best friend, the dog, that’s harmless to humans, and we’re re-engineering it and using it in humans to train our bodies to recognize certain antigens,” said He, who is a Georgia Research Alliance Distinguished Investigator.

He’s lab is researching PIV5’s use in vaccines for diseases such as rabies, HIV, influenza, tuberculosis and malaria, and as a novel anti-cancer therapy. His colleague, Ted Ross, who joined the UGA faculty in August as a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar, is working to develop a flu vaccine that will last a lifetime, instead of a year.

“Flu affects people all year long,” said Ross, whose research focuses on designing, developing and testing vaccines for viral diseases. “There’s a constant level of flu mortality. Our goal is to find a better way to vaccinate people.”

The Veterinary Medical Center tour and presentations were two of the many sessions the legislative staffers attended during their day and a half on campus.

They also heard an overview of UGA’s research from Pamela Whitten, senior vice president for academic affairs and provost; toured the Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies with director Sheryl Vogt; discussed climate and weather with professor Marshall Shepherd, director of the Atmospheric Sciences Program; learned more about research being conducted at the Complex Carbohydrate Research Center and

WEEKLY READER

Book focuses on Civil War re-enactors The Richard B. Russell Building Special Collections Libraries’ Rest of the Story Book Club will continue in September with Tony Horwitz’s Confederates in theAttic.

When prize-winning war correspondent Horwitz leaves the battlefields of Bosnia and the Middle East for a peaceful corner of the Blue Ridge Mountains, he thinks he’s put war zones behind him. But awakened one morning by the crackle of musket fire, Horwitz starts filing front-line dispatches again this time from a war close to home, and to his own heart.

Propelled by his boyhood passion for the Civil War, Horwitz embarks on a search for places and people still held in thrall by America’s greatest conflict. The result is an adventure into the soul of the Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished unvanquished South, where the ghosts of the Lost Cause are resurrected through Civil War ritual and remembrance.

By Tony Horwitz Vintage The book club meeting will take place Paperback: $16.95 Sept. 24 from 5:30-7 p.m. at the Special Collections Building.

promoted through UGA’s Innovation Gateway from directors Alan Darvill of the CCRC and Derek Eberhart of Innovation Gateway; and toured Carrier Transicold with Dean Leo. “The University of Georgia appreciates the strong and consistent support we receive from the staff members of the Georgia delegation in Washington, D.C.,” Morehead said. “Without their support and assistance, the key functions of this institution would be adversely impacted.”

“This annual event is an opportunity to demonstrate UGA’s faithful stewardship of federal research dollars and our service to Georgians and our nation,” said Andrew Dill, UGA’s director of federal relations. “This is a unique opportunity to showcase the great work of our faculty to the leaders of our congressional delegation.”

Staffers meet with 30-plus people daily as they serve their legislator’s congressional district. For Dill, who works daily with UGA faculty members traveling to Washington, D.C., hosting legislative staff in Athens makes his job easier.

“To see the growth that’s continuing to happen at UGA is really incredible,” said Virginia Dent, who graduated from UGA in 2011 and is now communications director for Rep. Rick Allen. UGA has a great impact “on the state, outside of an academic perspective. To find out it has a $4 billion impact on the economy is really eye opening. That over 500 products were put on the market as a result of UGA research—the research aspect, too, is really, really impressive and really incredible.”

Testing underway for solar-powered charging station

By Andrew Lentini alentini@uga.edu

UGA students, faculty and staff now are able to power up their electronic devices without attaching to the grid by connecting to a new solar-powered charging station near Herty Field.

This pilot energy conservation program is the first offered by a university in Georgia. The station has eight USB ports and four standard plugins and can support up to 75-150 hand-held mobile device charges per day, even on overcast days.

The ConnecTable solar charging station uses renewable solar energy, and it features a 530-watt solar array and a 225 amp hour gel cell battery. The off-grid design offers year-round charging power without tapping into the university’s electrical supply.

Brian Holcombe, a senior majoring in anthropology, wanted to help solve the ever-growing problem of finding electrical outlets to charge mobile devices and laptops in public areas, and he wanted to meet that need through renewable solar energy. With help from the UGA Campus Sustainability Grants program administered by the Office of Sustainability, Holcombe worked with the Facilities Management Division grounds department and the Office of Sustainability to set up the charging station.

“I’m hopeful that (people) will enjoy using the station,” Holcombe said. “And that it might encourage them to think more about their own energy usage and personal choices, especially in terms of individual impact on climate change ... we all should be thinking about our personal energy consumption and understanding that our consumptive decisions have local and global effects.”

Holcombe said he hopes that UGA will consider expanding to multiple stations across campus.

“That’s the most rewarding part of this process for me—to have played a part in helping develop solar power at UGA especially in a highly visible and interactive way,” he said.

ABOUT COLUMNS

CYBERSIGHTS

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

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

Editor Juliett Dinkins Art Director Janet Beckley Photo Editor Dorothy Kozlowski

‘Ramsey Renewal’ includes new website

Senior Reporter Aaron Hale

http://recsports.uga.edu

As part of Ramsey Renewal, a commemoration of 20 years since the opening of the Ramsey Student Center and a physical revitalization of the facility itself, Recreational Sports has redesigned its website to include informational videos, more easily searchable programs, sports and facilities and improved usability across

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all devices.

“From club sports to open recreation, students now will be able to easily learn about and register for activities, classes and trips, enhancing UGA’s vision to offer the nation’s premiere student recreation experience,” said Stan Jackson, director of Student Affairs communications.

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

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

I

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8 Sept. 8, 2015 columns.uga.edu GRANT from page 1 Africa, South America and Asia. Often they are the consequence and cause of poverty.They are increasingly emerging or re-emerging in the U.S. and other industrialized nations.

The CTEGD training program is in its 10th year. Past trainees have gone on to successful careers as staff scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and as faculty, postdoctoral scholars or medical and veterinary scientists at leading universities and research institutes.

“The breadth and culture of our program instills trainees with the ability to not only translate basic scientific findings into tools development and the implementation of interventions, but also to identify and formulate fundamental research questions beyond the context of parasitic disease itself,” Moreno said.

“This program is very attractive to students,” said Boris Striepen, Distinguished Research Professor of Cellular Biology in the Franklin College and co-director of the training grant. “We have had many more strong candidates than training slots.”

To address this issue, the new NIH award will double the number of postdoctoral trainees from one to two each year, and matching funding from UGA’s Office of the Vice President for

Research will support two predoctoral trainees in addition to the three graduate students supported by the training grant each year.

“This institutional matching support is tremendously important when competing for NIH training grants,” said Dan Colley, CTEGD director, who was the T32 training grant program director for its first 10 years.

Trainees in the program build upon their background in biomedical sciences through specialized courses and research mentored by one or more CTEGD faculty. The program is unique in that students also can broaden their perspective on the global aspects of parasitic diseases through a capstone experience, which typically takes them away from the UGA campus for four to eight weeks. Many of the previous trainees have conducted field studies in a disease-endemic country.

The many international collaborations of the center’s faculty provide a variety of opportunities to the trainees. Over the last nine years, graduate students have worked in Haiti, Tanzania,Argentina,Thailand and Kenya.The Office of the Vice President for Research also has committed funds over the next five years to assist in the provision of these experiences on the T32 training grant.

INITIATIVES from page 1 program is providing renewable funding for 271 undergraduates, including 46 first-time recipients. These students were chosen for $3,000 renewable scholarships based on a record of strong academic achievement and a history of accomplishment and leadership in co-curricular activities.

Contributions from the Athletic Association have funded 1,233 need-based awards through the Georgia Access Scholarship, with more awards to come this year. This scholarship program provides much-needed financial assistance to undergraduate students from Georgia who are both eligible for the federal Pell Grant and are from families with annual incomes of $40,000 or less.

“It is a privilege for the Athletic Association to support the academic mission and priority initiatives of the institution,” said Greg McGarity, the J. Reid Parker Director of Athletics at UGA. “To be able to assist our students in such a meaningful way is especially rewarding.”

Contributions from the Athletic Association also were used last fall to launch an innovative undergraduate research assistantship program through the Center

for Undergraduate Research Opportunities. This assistantship program provides $1,000 stipends to 300 outstanding undergraduate students to conduct research in close partnership with faculty and graduate students as part of established research teams.

CURO, which is open to all undergraduates at UGA regardless of major, GPA or Honors Program status, has seen an increase in student participation due to this expanded support. During the 2014-2015 school year, UGA students registered for 688 CURO courses for a total of 2,253 credit hours—a 17 percent increase in courses from the 2013-14 academic year and a 13 percent increase in credit hours.

The Athletic Association provided an additional $1 million in fiscal year 2015 to support students through the university’s new experiential learning initiative, which will promote undergraduate research, study abroad, service-learning, internships and other high-impact experiences. UGA will become the largest public university to integrate experiential learning fully into the undergraduate curriculum when the program is implemented in fall 2016.

Bulletin Board OVPR office moves

Units of the Office of the Vice President for Research that currently are located in Boyd Graduate Studies Research Center have begun moving to Tucker Hall, located at the corner of East Campus Road and Green Street. Current plans call for the moves to be completed during September.

These offices include the Research Compliance offices for Animal Care and Use, Human Subjects Office, Export Control and Compliance Training; GrantSmart; the Research Communications Office; the Office of Research Information Systems; and the Office of Research Analytics and Online Administration In addition, the Office of Biosafety, located in Riverbend North, and the Office of Research Safety, located in the Electronics Shop, will relocate to Tucker Hall.

Anyone who needs to contact personnel in these units should email or phone ahead (see http://research.uga.edu/directory/) to determine if they already have moved.

Innovation Gateway will remain on the eighth floor of Boyd. The Office for Sponsored Programs, now merged with Contracts and Grants to form the new

Sponsored Projects Administration, relocated to Tucker Hall earlier this summer.

Free meditation sessions

The Georgia Museum of Art is hosting a new program of free meditation sessions led by instructor Jerry Gale.

Sessions take place in the museum’s galleries on Fridays this semester from 9:30-10:30 a.m.

Gale will lead participants in meditation, followed by a period of reflection and discussion. Reservations are encouraged and can be made by calling 706-542-0448 or sending an email to branew@uga.edu . Participants should meet in the museum’s lobby.

A professor in the human development and family science department of the College of Family and Consumer Sciences, Gale also is director of the family therapy doctoral program. He has been involved in meditation and yoga for more than 40 years. He presently is teaching a UGA First-Year Odyssey course on mindfulness.

Remaining sessions this semester will be held Sept. 11 and 25, Oct. 9 and 23, Nov. 13 (gratitude and mindful eating) and Dec. 4 (dealing with stress). There is no session Thanksgiving week.

Dorothy Kozlowski

COOKIE BRAKE—Corey Klawunder, an environmental engineering major, gives a cookie to a

cyclist who was biking safely. The UGA Office of Sustainability, with sponsorship from UGA Food Services, distributed cookies on Sanford Drive between the UGA Bookstore and Grady College of Journalism to students who exhibited safe walking and biking habits during class changes.

LUNCHEON

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to the office of state president of the Georgia NAACP. Johnson is a minister, attorney and educator. He is a recognized “thoughtleader” having testified before Congress, lectured across the country and written about the concepts of race, measuring equity and understandings of power in public policy.

Proceeds from the luncheon benefit the BFSO Scholarship fund and programming. BFSO awards scholarships annually.

This year, BFSO is offering three funded

DEAN

opportunities to students: the Founders’ Award Scholarship, the Myron Burney Service Award and the Mark Dawkins Leadership Award.

The Black Faculty and Staff Organization was founded in 1982 at UGA as a source of support, fellowship and resource sharing for black members of the UGA community.

Membership is open to all UGA faculty, staff members and students.

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The Advocate: Which individuals in your life have influenced you the most? In what ways?

Rutledge: My wife. She is the best teacher I know and a pillar in our relationship.

The Advocate: What advice do you have for current law students?

Rutledge: Use your resources. Approach your professional training proactively. Some of you may have a plan upon entering law school—invest your time in pursuit of that plan. Others may not. I was that way. In that case, be sure to seek out advice and guidance from faculty, alums and others who can help you make the most of your time here.

University Woman’s Club

The University Woman’s Club will hold its annual welcome back coffee Sept. 15 from 10-11:30 a.m. at the UGA President’s House, 570 Prince Ave. Open to current and prospective UWC members, the coffee is an opportunity to explore, learn and sign up for one of the organization’s interest groups.

For more information, email Kim Argo, UWC publicity chair, at argo1230@att.net .

Graduation application

UGA undergraduate students now are required to apply for graduation in the semester they expect to receive their degree. Fall 2015 undergraduate degree candidates must apply by Oct. 22.

Advisers previously initiated the graduation application process for undergraduate students. Students now can apply to graduate on their own by logging into Athena and selecting “Student” and “Apply to Graduate.” Advisers should direct their undergraduate degree candidates to the new application process located at http://www.reg.uga. edu/files/applytograduate/gradappl.pdf Undergraduates who complete the application by the deadline will

The Advocate: What is your favorite thing about living in Athens?

Rutledge: The people are unfailingly friendly.

The Advocate: What is the one thing that will surprise people the most to learn about you?

Rutledge: I was once hypnotized in front of a crowd at a state fair and made to believe I was Miss Piggy from The Muppets.

The Advocate: If you could travel back in time and give the younger you one piece of advice, what would it be?

Rutledge: Never pass up an opportunity to learn.

be listed in the Fall Commencement program except students with FERPA restrictions. To appear in the program, students with FERPA restrictions must contact the Office of the Registrar to have the restrictions removed.

For questions or assistance in completing a graduation application, contact the Office of the Registrar at reghelp@uga.edu or 706-542-4040.

Service-learning mini-grants

Funding support is available from the UGA Office of Service-Learning for expenses relating to implementing academic service-learning courses.

Grants of up to $500 are available for expenses including supplies, background checks or travel to off-campus service-learning sites.

Funds, which are limited, are available on a rolling basis. To apply online, visit http://t.uga.edu/1Kr . For more information, contact the Office of Service-Learning at osl@uga.edu or 706-542-8924.

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