Fall 15 - UGAGS Magazine

The University of Georgia

Graduate School M A G A Z I N E

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" S OM EW H E R E , S OM E T H I N G I N C R E D I B L E I S WA I T I N G TO B E K N O W N . " — C A R L S A G A N

FALL 2015 TABLE OF CONTENTS

2 Karolina Heyduk 8 Brett Bawcum 12 Boggs Academy 24 Art Cars 32 Melissa Miller 38 Donors COVER PHOTO BY NANCY EVELYN

©2015 by the University of Georgia. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any way without the written permission of the editor.

a m e s s a g e f ro m

I cannot tell you how excited I am to join the team at the University of Georgia Graduate School! For more than a hundred years, the UGA Graduate School has been at the forefront of graduate education, providing exceptional educational experiences and professional development for tens of thousands of talented and diverse students. Our remarkable graduate students and alumni are innovative, creative thinkers who have the potential to change our lives in immeasurable ways. The Graduate School contributes to development of these emerging leaders by supporting innovative and comprehensive training in programs that are tailored to suit the interests of UGA students and meet the needs of their eventual employers. I am honored to lead those efforts as we move forward.

As evidenced by the outstanding individuals featured in this issue, graduate students are vital to the mission of the University of Georgia to preserve and enhance the intellectual, cultural, and environmental heritage of our state and the nation. They are the backbone of the original scholarship, basic and applied research, and creative activities that underscore our mission. Their efforts support the signature research themes of the University: inquiring and innovating to improve human health; safeguarding and sustaining our world; and changing lives through the Land Grant Mission. Through their roles in cooperative extension, continuing education, public service, and experiment stations, our students engage the public, enhance the well-being of the citizens of Georgia, and contribute to economic, social, and community development in our region. Our students are the leaders of tomorrow. They are the researchers who will cure diseases, tap into new sources of energy, and identify actions from our past that inform the steps we take in the future. They are the performers who will enrich our culture and change the way we look at ourselves, our state, and our planet. They will lead our government, teach our children, entertain our families, and change our world.

On behalf of our students and everyone in the Graduate School, I thank you for your continued support and look forward to working with you as we continue to grow graduate education at the University of Georgia.

Dorothy Kozlowski

Suzanne Barbour, Dean

SUZANNE BARBOUR Dean

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KAROLINA HEYDUK: DEEP INSIDE A HOT HOUSE, A RESEARCHER CAPTURES

BY CYNTHIA ADAMS PHOTOS BY NANCY EVELYN

If UGA researchers are correct, plants native to the Southwest adapted to photosynthesize at the optimal time, allowing them to conserve their need for water. Findings on how these plants have adapted matters greatly in a water-stressed environment.

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HOW LONG CAN YOU HOLD YOUR BREATH?

Yuccas, hostas and agave are workhorse plants that nearly every common gardener knows well. But it appears these plants have a valuable secret—a breathtaking one, actually.

Say what?

Magician Harry Houdini was legendary for holding his breath underwater for nearly four minutes. But ordinary plants may hold theirs for much, much longer. If UGA researchers are correct, the plants adapted to essentially photosynthesize at the optimal time, allowing them to conserve their need for water. It’s almost as if they have evolved and hold their breath, according to lead scientist, UGA plant biologist Jim Leebens-Mack.

Why does that matter?

Conserving water is swiftly becoming one of the defining issues of the century. Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute, describes a water crisis in his book, Full Planet, Empty Plates: The New Geopolitics of Food Scarcity. “The world has quietly transitioned into a situation where water, not land, has emerged as the principal constraint on expanding food supplies.”

Enter Karolina Heyduk, a doctoral student who works on Leebens-Mack’s research team. “I’m interested in how photosynthesis works, and how it will be applied. There are projects right now trying to make plants more water efficient.

We’ve known for 40 plus years this photosynthetic pathway helped plants conserve water. But nobody thought to look at this huge water conserving option.” The findings on how these plants have adapted matters greatly in a water-stressed environment.

“Droughts are making it super relevant…most people focus on drought resistance without looking at how photosynthetic pathways might be (one source of water conservation).”

To look at the petite Heyduk, who describes herself as an active science promoter, you might think she spends her nights dancing—another favorite avocation. She moves with spritely grace. But instead, she is often found at late hours conducting research inside a greenhouse, taking measurements of plants throughout various cycles. Heyduk’s work with a Yucca hybrid native to the southeastern U.S. allows her to look at the evolution of the plant’s photosynthesis. Her research integrates evolutionary genetics, genomics and bioinformatics.

The plants do their water-conserving breath-holding on

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an unforgiving schedule.

“I’m monitoring a plant—a different sort of photosynthesis— taking in carbon monoxide at night. So, to see this variation and study how these plants respond to an increase in night stress, I have to take measurements every four hours.”

When not scrutinizing plants inside a greenhouse at odd hours of the night, Heyduk uses her free time to volunteer at a local middle school, teaching children about science. The volunteer experience began thanks to a friend.

Fellow scientist, Stephanie Pearl (see the Fall 2014 issue of the Graduate School Magazine) was one of the original founders of the Athens Science Café. Pearl was also involved with Hilsman Middle School in Clarke County, and encouraged Heyduk to join.

“When she was almost in her last year of graduate school, I took over because nobody else stepped up,” says Heyduk. Four years later, Heyduk still volunteers along with a group of fellow graduate students in plant genetics. “We go to a seventh grade agri-science class weekly, from winter to spring.” Topics the volunteers teach are usually plant biology-driven subject matter.

“We talk about plant anatomy biomes, etc.”

The children’s teacher initiated the planting of an outdoor garden. “Dr. Stratton, their teacher, embraces the idea of kids embracing agriculture,” says Heyduk.

Heyduk working with two young students (Aaliyah Nowell and Lemetrius Howard) to demonstrate how water has unique properties allowing for movement through plants.

RECORDED CLIMATE CHANGE (1900-2000) Global average surface temperatures, ˚Celsius 14.5

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PHOTOSYNTHESIZING A NEW CAREER Heyduk’s parents immigrated to the U.S. from communist Poland in the 1980s after her father sought and received asylum. Her father had a doctorate in philosophy, and her mother was a chemist. She began her formal education at the University of Wisconsin in the field of economics.

Although Heyduk’s mother worked in a laboratory, she was also a gardener and frequently outdoors. Heyduk took a job which changed her career course. “I had always had an interest in a natural environment…had this random job with an entomology prof looking at something like potato beetles…outside, hot, but I loved it…in the fall, I applied for a job at the USDA.” And as for changing course of study, Heyduk discovered that her own evolutionary timeline has worked well. She finds that having begun in another discipline is an advantage, in that it allows her to view things from a different perspective. “A lot of people scoff at the non (science) majors…but it gets me to think about how people perceive science,” she explains.

Heyduk adds, “I think my research is relatable because I say I am working on photosynthesis.”

She breaks down the research in lay terms: “I’m monitoring

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1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000

Global surface temperature reconstructions show that Earth has warmed since 1880.1 Most of this warming has occurred since the 1970s, with the 20 warmest years having occurred since 1981 and with all 10 of the warmest years occurring in the past 12 years.2 1

https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/indicators/

T.C. Peterson et.al., "State of the Climate in 2008," Special Supplement to the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, v. 90, no. 8, August 2009, pp. S17-S18.

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Karolina Heyduk conducting research in a growth chamber in both night and daylight conditions.

"I cut leaf samples and use them for RNA analysis. This gives us an idea of what genes are expressed in tissue at the time I harvested them.

"I take gas measurements because it tells us when the plant is conducting gas exchange – CO2 into the leaf, water vapor out. For C3 plants, this happens during the day. For CAM plants, gas exchange happens at night. Gas exchange patterns are a way for us to assess whether a plant is C3 or CAM," says Heyduk.

Green light is needed at night because plant stomata (pores on the leaves that allow for gases to enter and exit) respond to blue and red light. Plants are green to us because they reflect green light back while absorbing red and blue!

yucca plants for a different sort of photosynthesis. The plants under study take in carbon dioxide at night. So to see this variation and study how these plants respond to an increase in night stress, I have to take measurements every four hours…I do this every other day so that I can sleep.”

The project runs for 10-day cycles, which she has done five times in the past year and studied 50 plants. The sabal palm was her focus during the first two years. The plants are all maintained within a controlled setting on the UGA campus inside the plant biology greenhouse.

“My advisor had me dive headfirst into research,” Heyduk says. “I didn’t know anything about programming or bioinformatics…and it has been surprisingly fruitful.”

Do plants evolve as slowly as people? Heyduk thinks “it might be faster because plants cannot affect their environments.”

In contrast, Heyduk seems to have fully adapted to life in the Deep South in short order. She says she much prefers the Georgia heat versus the Wisconsin cold, even when she is deep inside a greenhouse in the summer. But during winter months, the scientist must conduct research inside a cooling greenhouse. So be it.

On a frosty January morning after a long night of monitoring the yucca plants, Heyduk shivered slightly and pulled her sweater around her.

“It’s really hot in the day, but was 65 degrees inside the greenhouse last night,” she announced. Heyduk married a fellow plant biologist last July on a farm outside Watkinsville, Ga. She will finish her doctoral work in May of 2016, but plans to remain at UGA for postdoctoral research.

“The last cycle I finished was the last one for my dissertation.

My professor got a bigger grant to do more of this.”

Her dreams have synthesized; now she, too, can breathe.

A key trait of CAM photosynthesis is that plants

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take up carbon at night and fix it then, as

Postscript:

opposed to doing it during the daytime, like C3

Karolina Heyduk was selected to attend the Graduate School’s Emerging Leader’s

plants. Because CAM is active at night, we have

workshop in the fall of 2014. Emerging Leaders is a prestigious leadership opportunity

to check for gas exchange and gene expression

for outstanding scholars who are recommended by their professors. “I loved it,” says

throughout the day/night cycle to capture both

Heyduk. I learned more about how to interact with the world around you. And I set

C3 and CAM traits.

goals for myself.”

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KEEPING TIME WITH

BRETT BAWCUM, UGA’S MUSIC MAN

ost days, Brett Bawcum drops his three-yearold daughter Evie at a Montessori school and commutes to the UGA campus from Jackson County in 30 minutes of welcome silence. Occasionally, Steely Dan may be playing. “Almost Gothic” was a recent favorite pop song. Or, it might be Jason Isbell. Another favorite, Miles Davis, is beloved but difficult to hear in the car.

By the time he parks his burgundy Honda CR-V, a 15-hour work day begins if there is a home game during football season. Soon after his arrival, a fleet of trucks arrive at Stegeman Coliseum. It is 6:45 a.m. And that's for a late game.

Early games require an hour earlier start. Bawcum is assistant director of bands and his legions await.

“There are 313 wind players, 45 percussionists, 62 auxiliary personnel, 12 properties crew members, and four drum majors. In addition to these performing members, the Redcoat Band has a staff of 35 (not all of whom attend every game), bringing the total number of personnel to 471,” says Bawcum.

Everything is planned with military precision. By 8:25, winds warm up. By 9:10, there is a half time review. By 9:55, there is a pre-game review. Rehearsals end at 10:30, and lunch is served. By 2:00 p.m., trucks arrive at Tate Student Center and unload. By 2:45, the Drum and Sousa Shows begin. The call time for all other Redcoats is at 3:00. At 3:35, they move into the Dawg Walk, followed by the Chant into the Stadium. The 5:15 Pre-Game Show precedes the 5:40 kick off. A Halftime Show at 7:00 is capped by the Post Game Show at 9:30.

It will be 10:00 p.m. before the Redcoats are dismissed.

Sometime after that, Bawcum is back on the road to Jackson County, alone in his Honda after 15 hours spent with thousands and thousands of people.

The instruments and uniforms are heavy, but imagine the challenge involved when it is 98 degrees of steaming heat, even in the shade. And as for steam, you don’t even want to know how rain complicates Bawcum’s planning. (But of course, there is every provision for rain.) There are 440 matching rain coats to organize; performers must have their cases; it is a whole other bother, and also smelly, Bawcum says. Think heat, the weight and mustiness of rain and sweat adding to a trifecta of sensory and physical overload for the uniformed musicians.

“The brass instruments typically fare okay in the rain,” he says. “The woodwinds have to be put away in case we get

Rise at dawn. Ride on one of eight buses to game day. Shepherd hundreds of UGA musicians through drills, into formation, and through performances. All in a day’s work for double Dawg Brett Bawcum.

Meanwhile, he is also earning a DMA (Doctor of Musical Arts) in Music Education.

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1905

Founded in 1905 as a 20-member cadet band, today’s REDCOAT BAND numbers over 430 members and is among America’s elite collegiate marching bands.

The Redcoats perform at all home football games, select road games (including the annual Georgia-Florida game in Jacksonville), and at other university and community events.

rain; almost any moisture severely damages those. Some of our percussion instruments can handle it.” So the woodwinds take their cases with them. One more thing to carry, he says.

“On occasion, we won’t perform on the field at pregame or halftime during or immediately after heavy rain,” he emails on the eve of a home game with rain forecasted.

“That’s just to protect the playing surface. It’s honestly pretty disappointing to spend five hours preparing, only to find out that you’re not going to perform drill.”

Yet Bawcum is game for it all: affable, gifted, and likely tired. His toddler, Evie, sometimes joins him at rehearsals, as his job often requires him to be hundreds of miles away. The job—overseeing hundreds of musicians, designing routines, writing music and being compulsively involved in creative logistics and preparations—culminates in performances for thousands of observers—at least, if it doesn’t rain.

If you are a Dawg, you may have seen Bawcum, a calm figure presiding in a sea of tightly orchestrated performance at any of many sports events, including football, basketball, or volleyball.

Unlike some musicians, who play in dark bars for a handful of semi-conscious patrons, Bawcum must pass muster before an audience of 91,000 in Sanford Stadium. He must ride spectator’s emotions—which swell and expand in a way that is mercurial and dramatic—anticipating tension, jubilation, or defeat. And he must carry the audience along that journey with the sound of music to soothe or celebrate the emotions of the masses.

Here’s the skinny from Bawcum’s website: He is assistant director of Bands and associate director of athletic bands at the University of Georgia. He shares responsibility for design, instruction, and administration of the Redcoat Marching Band and serves as its primary drill writer. He also directs the Basketball and Volleyball Pep Bands, conducts the Concert Winds, serves as associate Conductor of the Symphonic Band, supervises student teachers, and teaches courses in a variety of areas including Instrumentation/Arranging and Marching Band Techniques.

Highlights include being a key member of the committee which developed the Dawg Walk. He arranges and composes

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for other bands throughout the U.S. and his work has been recorded on the Mark, Summitt, and Naxos labels.

As Bawcum slides into a booth for morning coffee at Walker’s on College Avenue in Athens, the question is this: How does Bawcum—also doctoral student, lecturer, and family man—do it? Not even Bawcum is sure except that it requires discipline squared. Concentration. He is working on relaxing more.

How many band members go on to be full-time musicians and how many end up directing bands themselves?

“I don’t have hard numbers. But about 25 percent of band members are music majors,” he answers. “That includes Music Performance, Music Education, Music Composition, Music Therapy, Music Theory, and the Bachelor of Arts in Music. My perception is that the vast majority of those who graduate with music degrees go on to careers in the field.

Many of the region’s outstanding band directors (and music educators in general) are Redcoat alumni.”

Draining his cup, he checks the time. He mustn’t be late; Bawcum has a class to teach. He walks out with the perfect bearing and timing of a musician, one who must always lead with his chin up, come rain, shine, victory or defeat. n

DOUBLE DAWG BRETT BAWCUM'S 15 HOUR DAY 6:45 a.m.

On the road to Stegeman Coliseum

3:00 p.m.

8:25 a.m.

Winds warm up

9:10 a.m.

Half time review

3:35 p.m.

Move into the Dawg Walk,

followed by the Chant into the Stadium

9:55 a.m.

Pre-game review

10:30 a.m.

Rehersals end and lunch is served 2:00 p.m.

Trucks arrive at Tate Student Center and unload

2:45 p.m.

Drum and Sousa Shows begin

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Call time for all other Redcoats

5:15 p.m.

Pre-Game Show

7:00 p.m.

Halftime Show

9:30 p.m.

Post Game Show

10:00 p.m.

Redcoats are dismissed

10:00 p.m.

Back on the road to Jackson County

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saving historic boggs academy

How an accidental email, a charrette and the idea of preserving a piece of georgia ,s educational • history utterly and • completely captivated educator Stephanie Jones.

BY CYNTHIA ADAMS PHOTOS BY NANCY EVELYN

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“This was about African-Americans, this was about literacy, this was about education…I needed to do this.”

—STEPHANIE JONES, GRADUATE STUDENT, UGA COLLEGE OF EDUCATION

tephanie Jones credits a happy accident with falling into an absorbing research venture. Possibly due to the fact that a faculty member on campus shares the same first and last name—Jones received a general announcement e-mail from the College for Environmental Design, or CED. The email, which immediately grabbed her interest, concerned a charrette (more later on what that is) to be held at the site of the former Boggs Academy in southeastern Georgia. As she read, Jones realized that, by a stroke of fate, she was destined to become involved.

The former Atlanta high school English teacher (also the Stephanie Jones distinguished by the middle name “Patrice”) read just enough of the email to hit reply. She was joining the CED experience. Then, Jones

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began researching exactly what she had just gotten herself into. First of all, she wanted to know everything about Boggs Academy. (She learned that it was an historic boarding school for African-Americans with an astonishingly low profile located in Keysville, Ga.) Secondly, Jones wanted to know what the heck a charrette was. (In essence, it is a very compressed research experience.) As a graduate student in the College of Education, one who studies literacy and education, the term was new to her despite her strong vocabulary.

Without hesitation, Jones cleared her schedule.

CED was equally delighted—they could use an educator in the mix with three of their own graduate students to strong advantage.

Afterward, Jones says the charrette

at Boggs changed preconceived ideas about education in the Deep South then and now.

She speaks admiringly of the multi-racial faculty at Boggs and how innovative the Academy was: “I still would love to be affiliated with this remarkable place.”

THE WORD CHARRETTE—unless you are a designer or are French—probably doesn’t ring a bell. But it does ring a bell for any student in UGA’s College of Environment and Design. The word is at the heart of an experience that is succinct, intense, and fiercely deadlineoriented, by deliberate design.

As Jennifer Lewis, who works in CED, explains, the literal definition of the French word charrette translates into “little cart”. And—wait for it—there’s an actual bell involved.

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JENNIFER LEWIS

The Boggs Rural Life Center design charette included doctoral student Jones and three CED masters students: Chencheng He, a Landscape Architecture student from China, James Anderson, an Environmental Planning and Design student from Macon, Ga., and Ross Sheppard, an Historic Preservation student, from Sandersville, Ga.

The idea of a charrette was coined

by Parisian architecture professors whose assistants would push a little cart through the studio between the drafting tables when a project was due or a model was due. A bell signaled that time was up as assistants collected students’ work.

Lewis says, “Hearing the cart coming, trying to finish a project, helped develop a public design project in a compressed amount of time—operating on the theory that some of us do our best work under pressure.”

As coordinator for the Center for Community Design & Preservation, it is Lewis’s job to match community needs within Georgia with available resources at CED. She also coordinates design charrettes.

Charrettes are great planning exercises, Lewis says, with discrete boundaries of time and energies. The school offers two each semester. (In the winter 2012 Graduate School Magazine we covered a charrette at historic Stratford Hall on the James River in Virginia.)

“If you commit to this project (ours is three days long) at some point in the process, everybody needs to clear their desk, come to the place they are working and dedicate themselves.”

Designers, the public, stakeholders,

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and students break off and come back together as they work through a project, or charrette. “Through this, we have a clear beginning point and end point,” she explains.

UGA’s Graduate School Magazine became interested in the extraordinary charrette which took place at historic Boggs Academy in April—a merger of interdisciplinary research, community service, outreach, and pooled resources.

Plus, the former Boggs Academy, now reinvented as the Boggs Rural Life Center, provided for a charrette encapsulating an amazing aspect of post-Civil War education.

THE STORY OF BOGGS ACADEMY Boggs Academy operated from 1906 to 1986. The last class graduated in 1984, as the school’s purpose changed with integration.

The school was founded and operated by the Presbyterian Board of Missions for Freedmen, a committee organized in the final year of the Civil War. The mission, largely supported by women, anticipated the educational needs of thousands of AfricanAmerican children. Boggs Academy was created because public schools remained stubbornly segregated

after the Civil War. As a whole, the educational needs for African-American children were ill met, if at all, unless provided for by private charitable interests. (Only one black school existed in all of Burke County, Ga.) Boggs Academy was prompted by the desperate need for educational opportunities within Burke, which mirrored the needs throughout the entire South.

Founded by the Reverend Dr. John Lawrence Phelps, both a church and school were built upon two acres of donated land in Keysville, Ga. Only five children entered Boggs Academy when the school opened its doors in early 1907. It was initially concerned with providing education to local students, but later became a popular preparatory school for students throughout the Southeast.

“It afforded people opportunity to get an education. Middle class and professional black families had no place to send their children,” says Jones.

Over the years, the Boggs student body and campus flourished with additional acreage, buildings and capabilities.

Eventually it encompassed a complex of industries that supported the school, with a work/study program teaching skills like farming and food canning.

In its heyday, more than 100 students boarded at Boggs, occupying three dormitories. Boggs students worked in the dairy, cannery, and on the farmlands.

As UGA's Pratt Cassity says, Boggs Academy was farm-to-the-table before it was en vogue.

“Hearing the cart coming, trying to finish a project, helped develop a public design project in a compressed amount of time—operating on the theory that some of us do our best work under pressure.”

—JENNIFER LEWIS, UGA CENTER FOR COMMUNITY DESIGN & PRESERVATION

They also taught social skills and graces along with academics.

“The teachers had high expectations of the students,” Jones adds. “They were expected to get A’s in everything.”

The students also learned sports, music and other arts.

When Boggs Academy closed in the late 1980s, the U.S. Presbyterian Church Association worked to transition the school to an organization that still fit its original mission. The Academy morphed into the Boggs Rural Life Center.

“AN INFINITE LABORATORY” Ovita Thornton is executive director of the Georgia Clients Council, or GCC. GCC provides public assistance to disenfranchised communities statewide.

She first became aware of Boggs 13 years ago, serving initially as a resource person. Thornton was not a Boggs

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alumnus, but is completing a term this year as president of the board of Boggs Rural Life Center.

She met Pratt Cassity, director of Public Service and Outreach at CED, when they worked together on a corridor planning project years earlier.

Last fall, Thornton contacted Cassity, this time with a different project in mind. She solicited the help of the CED to create a cohesive vision for the Boggs Rural Life Center. Thornton ultimately led Cassity to examine the former Boggs Academy as a potential charrette.

Present-day Boggs faced the dual challenge of forging a new identity while maintaining its historic legacy and chartered covenant with the church. In a truly rural, sparsely populated setting, the alumni and board members were struggling to redefine themselves as an organization and find a way to meet

their defining mission: to help people in need.

Thornton was interested in Boggs’ mission, which overlay with that of GCC, one of the oldest grassroots organizations. “It is through my job that I can share my contacts, build new collaborations, provide training, assistance—and write grants and find funding for Boggs,” she says. Thornton estimates that 90 percent of the resources paired with Boggs are due to the GCC. Her colleague, Jackie Bosby, has helped create a museum at Boggs.

“I assumed the position as board president because there were internal things needing to be addressed, but could only be addressed through a position on the board,” Thornton explains. Her goal has been to make Boggs “stable or sustainable.”

Sustainability was a complicated

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HISTORICAL PHOTOS FROM BOGGS YEARBOOK

Scenes from Boggs while still operational.

“I so appreciate what the students do during this process— this charrette is a microcosm of history, gender, class."

—OVITA THORNTON, GEORGIA CLIENTS COUNCIL

project to tackle. The campus alone, as it exists today, is a large property comprised of 1,200 acres. There are buildings and amenities in various states of repair. And there were two extant groups with sometimes different visions for the future. Those two groups comprised the Boggs Alumni Association and the board of the Boggs Rural Life Center.

In the past, the two groups were contentious, according to observers. They did agree on two points, however. One, the history of Boggs was not well known.

And two, they had to find a new way to sustain the campus and a newer vision.

Would they become a retreat center? Should they revert to their agricultural roots? What about management and sale of the timber on the property? They needed expertise in many areas—agriculture, design, planning and education. “We (CED)

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had expertise to answer some of their questions,” Lewis says.

The CED faculty decided to reach out to a variety of disciplines given the challenge: how to adapt the former boarding school into a community resource? Cassity and Lewis agreed to take on Boggs as a project, finding support from the top-down after Cassity approached UGA president Jere W. Morehead last spring.

“We received generous funding for the charrette from President Jere W. Morehead's Venture Fund and the support of our dean, Daniel Nadenicek,” says Cassity. The idea was to use a field team to gather information, something that the Kettering Foundation calls “concerns gathering,” says Cassity.

They composed a solicitation targeting a variety of UGA programs and sent the message out on list serve.

The initial response to a proposed charrette at Boggs was disappointing.

One of the email recipients was Stephanie Jones, a doctoral student studying language and literacy education in the College of Education. Initially puzzled by receiving that particular email, she quickly knew why. “There is a professor in the College of Education named Stephanie Jones as well,” she says. “Now, I use my middle initial, P.” Boggs was only a couple of hours away and yet it might as well have been on the far side of the moon—Jones had never heard of it. “I found out it was an African-American boarding school.

I thought, ‘How could I not know about this place?!’ I was immediately interested.”

Jones wanted to know more about Boggs Academy. “This was a high school, and a middle school. And 90 percent of the students went on to

post-secondary school, matriculating right into college!”

The idea of joining the charrette was irresistible. “This was right up my alley.

This was about African-Americans, this was about literacy, this was about education…I said, ‘I’m here! I need to do this.’” Jones cleared her schedule and rearranged meetings in order to attend her first charrette.

Lewis recalls Jones’s immediate reply. “Stephanie emailed me and said, ‘I’m African-American. I’m interested in education. I’ve never even heard of this place and I want to come see it!’ And, I definitely wanted her there.”

The eventual trip to Boggs also included three CED graduate students representing each of their specializations.

CED masters students included Chencheng He, a Landscape Architecture student from China, James Anderson, an Environmental Planning and Design student from Macon, Ga., and Ross Sheppard, an Historic Preservation student, from Sandersville, Ga. As a prelude to the Boggs experience, Jones interviewed her mother about her integration experience as a young girl.

“She was involved in the second wave of students who integrated her school. The first boy and girl integrated Newton County in 1966. She went in the second wave in 1967.”

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Jones was ready for Boggs.

In mid-April, 10 people boarded vans in Athens and travelled to Keysville.

THREE DAYS AND 70 NEW FRIENDS LATER… None of them were there by chance.

Each was carefully chosen for their respective abilities.

This charrette would involve three days spent on-site at Boggs, with alumni, faculty, and community members meeting for an exchange of ideas and information. “We pulled students from Education, and an African-American farmer who had worked with community agriculture programs,” says Lewis. A group of Boggs Academy alumni gathered onsite.

Their numbers swelled. When the UGA vans pulled onto the campus, nearly 70 people in total had assembled for the charrette’s opening event.

They would discuss Boggs and hold discussions about rural America.

They took meals together and even shared a fish fry—all arranged by Thornton.

Boggs is remote—wooded and somewhat difficult to find, it is an island within a network of rural communities.

That remoteness had been both a saving grace and a detriment. Its isolation might have been part of its protection. At one time, it afforded

some protection from the outside, especially hostile groups like the Ku Klux Klan, who burned crosses more than once on the campus.

And post segregation, its remoteness also saved it; otherwise, it might have been razed for agricultural or corporate development if not for being an inconvenient 45 minutes from Augusta, the largest nearby city.

All of which fed neatly into the message from CED’s Cassity, who has been working with the Kettering Foundation in conjunction with their National Issues Forum. Cassity’s role with Kettering specifically concerns rural America, and how to prompt dynamic inquiry, “using creative and cultural tools,” he writes.

Lewis recalls, “Pratt asked, ‘What is good about rural Georgia; what is working against it? If you could make changes, what would you put in place?’”

Jones says those intensive days in Keysville allowed her to do research and spend face time with graduates and former faculty. She threw herself into interviewing them for first-person ethnographic accounts, knowing she was directly participating in the historic school’s metamorphosis.

Watching her interact with people, then get up and make presentations— Well!” Lewis laughs and shakes her head. “Anything that didn’t fall neatly

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“Boggs was a place of hopes, dreams, advancement—you could have been talking about Harvard, about Berkeley," says Cassity. “We received generous funding for the Boggs charrette from President Jere W. Morehead's Venture Fund and the support of our dean, Daniel Nadenicek.”

into design, preservation, or agriculture, we gave to Stephanie.”

As an educator, Jones found it a thrilling and singular experience. “I was looking at the archives on campus, and looking at what was it like to be a student there?”

She interviewed former Boggs faculty, meeting one who lived next door to the Academy. As she steeped herself in the experience, Jones discovered that the people at Boggs had a prescient sense of destiny.

“They foreshadowed what happened to them. They wrote in one of their yearbooks that it was an incredible laboratory, ‘an infinite laboratory’.” Jones pauses, collecting her thoughts. “I pull this aside as an example of what happened there.”

The former maintenance supervisor at Boggs opened up to Jones during an interview, offering his thoughts about its future.

“He was candid with me; I asked him, ‘What do you think should happen?’ He said, ‘We need a place where kids can play. That is a part of education, too.’”

Then there was the question of the infrastructure of the remaining buildings. While most of the unused buildings were in ill repair, some could

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be rehabilitated. The fact that so much had survived in the 30 years since the school closed seemed remarkable. Jones noted that the large education room was in relatively good shape—but needed a new roof. The gym needed some work, but could be resurfaced—and also needed a roof and other repairs.

Jones took special note of the swimming pool, still in relatively good condition. To her, the pool was more than a nice amenity. It was emblematic of the surprising opportunity that Boggs had created for minorities in the segregated South. Having access to a pool was nearly impossible for most minorities, regardless of education or class.

“It was very, very rare to have a swimming pool for the AfricanAmerican community,” she stresses.

“Most African-American people didn’t learn how to swim because the pools were segregated.

“As an educator, the question was, ‘How can we remake this, how can we have courses built around it? Can we have basketball camps? Swimming lessons? Summer enrichment?’ All those are things are things every kid needs.”

But Jones knew her limits. She was an educator, neither a designer nor preservationist. “There were things I

was unable to see, because my eye was not trained.”

Jones says what she knew from the first reading of the accidental group email had proven true: the experience was one not to miss.

“I am still making contact with people I met there…and maintaining relationships.” And, Jones had a central role to play in the Boggs charrette, one that she couldn’t have realized initially.

Lewis found her to be the perfect go-to resource.

“We had all these issues swirling around, but there were only 10 of us,” says Lewis. “Stephanie took all this information, our discussions about the future of the campus, as an outreach center, etc., then she set it up. I thought this is why we needed a teacher—a good teacher.” The group was struck by Jones’s ability to distill the many issues and help explain them.

“THERE AS AN ADVOCATE OF EDUCATION…” Jones was attracted to the Boggs project as one with staying power. “You sometimes do graduate level research and go into a community, and then you leave.”

In subsequent months, each graduate student wrote a chapter for

“The love you have for this place is going to make this place return.” ­ —PRATT CASSITY, DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC SERVICE AND OUTREACH, UGA COLLEGE OF ENVIRONMENT AND DESIGN

a consolidated report. “The charrette is at a point that they have to make a decision,” says Lewis. “We will have a report and help them get started. But it is an ongoing relationship.”

Next steps will potentially involve a land management plan concerning the timber on the property. The people involved in the Boggs charrette will help with the next iteration, including longterm issues.

BACK TO THE FUTURE One of Boggs’s purposes is to be a living museum, and offer its space for ongoing programs. Towards that end, they have established a relationship with the Burke County school system, and a legacy mentoring program with Burke County students.

While only a few buildings are rehabilitated now, the condition of many of the facilities is still salvageable.

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There was once a drug store, canteen and dance hall. The dining hall remains, and there were four houses for faculty accommodations. Across the street is the church, still in use since 1926, and a manse. “Rehabilitation of the manse is wrapping up now,” says Cassity.

There were farmlands, agricultural buildings and fields. The students studied and worked in an on-site cannery, working dairy and laundry. The faculty on campus was international and multiracial, says Lewis.

Some of the alumni were the children of the famous. One student’s father was a musician with the Commodores. Another student was the son of a Gambian ambassador. Martin Luther King’s relatives are said to have attended Boggs.

The alumni shared endless comingof-age stories with the UGA researchers.

Boggs students worked long hours,

and were assigned “duty work” that had to be completed every day, says Cassity.

Many returned to their families only at Christmas or during summer vacation. It was isolated, and the obligations were steep.

Yet, the alumni wept with happiness when the UGA team showed archival pictures from times when Boggs Academy still thrived. Jones took note of both the Boggs experience, and the CED’s approach.

“One thing I did not expect a charrette to do for me, was that it made me think about my teaching more,” observes Jones, sitting in the CED studio months later.

As her eyes scan the space, she comments about how the studio is configured to be shared. This contributes to consensual learning, she says.

“When we think about Google, or these interesting tech startups,

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Boggs alumni include the children of the famous, including musicians, politicians, and an ambassador.

this is what their offices look like. It’s collaboration. They don’t have private space. It’s like a studio. It’s a place where ideas are made.”

She grows animated as she connects people, resources, and materials in a studio-like environment, designed to be collaborative. “If there was some collaboration between the School of Design and College of Education…that would be powerful.”

Cassity observes that this type of “design thinking” is a current cover topic for Harvard Magazine. “It’s also the basis of some aspects of UGA’s THINC lab and the entrepreneurial certificate program.”

It will be the spring of 2016 when Jones completes her doctoral program, and will seek a tenure track position involving teacher education and literacy.

If not that, well, then, Jones muses, and thinks of other possibilities.

For example, in this literacy teacher’s view, we could use more brick-andmortar bookstores. “So I might open one of those!”

Meanwhile, educator Jones is still reflecting on the future of education in

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general, while processing how she can remain part of Boggs future.

As the future of Boggs unfolds, Jones says, “I still would love to be affiliated with this remarkable place…” n

For Further Information about Boggs and other CED Charrettes: tinyurl.com/BoggsCharretteFbook www.ced.uga.edu/services_outreach/designcharrettes/ Seven years old and going to Boggs (1937) – YouTube www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tbZYD2mIQ4 To view a promotional film for the Presbyterianoperated Boggs Academy (Keysville, Ga.), produced by the PCUSA Board of National Missions, 1937. [Motion Picture A104, Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, Pa.] www.facebook.com/pages/Boggs-AcademyNational-Alumni-Association-Inc/ 141279679275735 The Facebook page for the Boggs Academy National Alumni Association, Inc. For Further Reading about News Events Following the Supreme Court Ruling Brown V. Board of Education: The Race Beat, by Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff.

boggs alumni see rows of seats in classrooms, neatly made beds in the dormitories • and set tables in the dining halls. instead of collapsed rooftops and the invasion of nesting insects, they see basketball games and assemblies held in the beloved gym, and savory meals of fried chicken and hot biscuits taken with their friends, after grace was gustily sung a capella.

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boggs academy in their own words: The alumni described their years at Boggs as nearly idyllic. Boggs Academy graduates matriculated in college at the rate of 95 percent, according to a 1975 Ebony magazine article.

BARBARA PHILLIPS WILLIAMS, CLASS OF 1968 "It was the best thing that ever happened.” She went on to become the first college graduate in her family. “It gave me my start, opened up doors. I knew I wanted to be something.”

ALSIE DELORES (DEE DEE) PARKS, CLASS OF 1966 Parks excitedly recalls her first memories of September of 1961 when she was dropped off at Boggs. “I was a good girl—an A student,” she says.

“We were one great family,” Parks notes. After 30 years in human resources at a major corporation, she counts Boggs as instrumental in her life success.

WINSTON COOK, CLASS OF 1962 Although he had resisted attending Boggs in the beginning, Cook recalls using his military leave to visit his alma mater. After leaving service, Cook entered college to study business and accounting. “When Boggs closed, I closed, because it hurt.”

GEORGENE SILLS MUSLIM, BOARD MEMBER “People are saying in the community that Boggs will never come back, may not be the same. Don’t be discouraged…people from the University of Georgia are here upholding a dream. It keeps the life blood pumping.”

ALTON WEST, CLASS OF 1968 “Boggs represents what education needs today—that was family, that was a culture, an organization, a plethora of things…everything in my whole life was planned.” West describes learning oration, character, and manners.

“We became each other’s parents.”

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SABRINA LEWIS-BRADLEY, NEE SMITH, CLASS OF 1975 At age 12, Lewis-Bradley entered Boggs. She later studied art at the University of Georgia, graduating in 1977. “I was a scared 17-year-old when I went to the University of Georgia and graduated in three years...”

"My father and mother went to Boggs. It has been, and always will, be a part of me.”

YVETTE HATCHER, CLASS OF 1983 “The Boggs curriculum was ahead of the curve,” Hatcher says. “Boggs graduates are outspoken. They have a drive; it was instilled in us, the unspoken, but it was there. Going forward, I think, ‘What can I do for Boggs?’

Boggs means to me, a never-ending story but a beautiful ending.”

EMMA GRESHAM, CLASS OF 1940 Gresham reiterates that in her view, “This is holy ground.” She retired from teaching after 32 years and for 17 years worked as the mayor of Keysville, Ga. Today, she is president of DIVAS, a social club. She is also a member of DEALERS, which she helped found. The clubs fundraisers help provide high school graduates with a laptop computer.

RYAN THOMPSON, PRESIDENT, THE CENTRAL SAVANNAH RIVER AREA “It has been a while since I’ve seen them [fellow alums], but once we get together, time is erased. There is a string between us, and all of it stems from Boggs.”

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J E R E M I A H A L E C R OY P I Ñ A

T R A N S L AT I N G M O B I L E C A N VA S E S

BY CYNTHIA ADAMS PHOTOS BY NANCY EVELYN

his year, photographer Nancy Evelyn took on an especially challenging assignment: to take a ubiquitous subject—then set about capturing that well-known object in a different light.

The assignment became a photo series, with Evelyn capturing “art cars” in the vicinity of the University of Georgia. Afterward, Jeremiah Alec Roy Piña a graduate student working in creativity studies, translated these works of art as photographed. His professor, Bonnie Cramond, is an educational psychologist, and recommended him for the creative exercise. According to Cramond, “Piña is an advanced doctoral student studying creativity who also knows a lot about cars.”

Who better to help us translate these mobile canvases?

Public art and art making is so topical that the media, including the New York Times, devote articles to this and the concept of “outsider” art. The term itself has evolved to generally include the work produced by self-taught artists. It also describes work that incorporates fantasies or work outside the mainstream, or even work that expresses unconventional ideas.

The take away may be this: few agree on what art is, whether conventional or not, especially “outsider” art. Does it happen that art exists in relation to its opposite, something posited by the New York Times this year? And this exercise posed other questions, such as, when does a mere car become an art car?

Further, why do artists create art to begin with? And why select a car as their medium in the first place?

So we turned to Piña for answers.

But first: a few thoughts about automobiles, and cars and drivers, themselves.

That sedan, van, or SUV in your driveway may not say much to you at first glance.

But take a closer look.

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Cars are bound up in our human histories. Writer James Harithas says, “The history of the privately owned vehicle is fundamental to this (the twentieth) century.”

In the year 1903, critics remained stubbornly convinced that cars were a dangerous idea. One British magistrate suggested that pedestrians take aim with a shotgun if they encountered a passing motor car. The Great Gatsby drew upon the theme of a car as a vehicle for violence. But by the 1930s, the United States was transformed by more cheaply produced cars, which meant that car ownership was not merely for the wealthy. By the 1950s, the automobile was a solid mainstay, viewed now as transport from childhood to adulthood, emblematic of crossing over a threshold to young adulthood and freedom. At a certain age, taking the wheel is a rite of passage.

Drivers express themselves in sometimes subtle ways.

We prefer certain colors (automobile sales of gray or silver predominate at the present) and we like certain features.

Americans prefer cup holders, for example. Europeans do

ABOVE: Henry Ford’s revolutionary advancements in assembly-line automobile manufacturing made the Model T the first car to be affordable for a majority of Americans.

RIGHT: Doctoral student Jeremiah Piña is postulating about the creative motivations of those who create art cars.

PIÑA APPRECIATES NONCONFORMITY. IT SO HAPPENS THAT HE DRIVES A VERY COLORFUL CAR HIMSELF—NOT AN ART CAR, BUT DEFINITELY ONE THAT MAKES A STATEMENT. PIÑA’S BRIGHT GREEN CHEVROLET CAMARO IS MEANT TO BE NOTICED.

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not. We are progressively invested in our vehicles as rolling billboards. We slap bumper stickers and emblems onto our cars. New parents warn there is a “baby on board” with miniature caution signs. Marathoners proudly emblazon their cars with 26.2 and 13.1 mile decals. Come political cycles, we often declare our political allegiances or vested interests.

Yet for a creative few among us, the relationship between car and driver far exceeds this pragmatic notion of practical transportation with space for personal expression on bumpers or rear windows. The cars they drive take on a deeper, far more artistic, significance: for these expressive individuals, a car becomes a blank canvas.

For a select few, an assembly line car is insufficient to fulfill its role as an extension of the self. It isn’t just a chassis and some metal, a motor, and accessories of the moment. A car cries out to be altered, modified, and artistically manipulated.

It cries out to become a rolling art exhibit.

Take car enthusiast David Davis, who wrote in Car and Driver about his many car modifications: “I see cars as a means of self-expression—canvases for the eighth-grade automotive fantasies that never went away.”

The art world famous, such as artists Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, once designed art cars for German car manufacturer BMW. Warhol, who designed everything from album covers to cars, selling paintings of literal objects and even autographing (and selling) actual soup cans, introduced an ongoing debate concerning art in the 1960s.

The advent of pop culture, largely credited to Warhol, challenged the public’s perceptions of art and renewed the ongoing debate: What is art?

“The art car is a revolutionary extension of this history and is in the process of transforming the automobile into a potent new personal symbol,” says Harithas. He writes on the website for Houston’s Art Car Museum on Heights Blvd., which is described as dedicated to contemporary art.

“An art car is a motor-driven vehicle which a car artist alters in such a way as to suit his own aesthetic. In other words, the artist either adds or subtracts materials of his own choosing to or from the factory model or he may renovate an earlier model to revive a beauty and style that once was. The result is a vehicle which conveys new meaning through design, mechanical or structural changes, renovation, and/or the addition of new images, symbols or collage elements.”

At its simplest, the art car—half art exhibition, half vehicle— is a mobile art installation that catches our eye.

And given that they challenge our general ideas about cars as we know them, we need to make sense of seeing the familiar in such an unfamiliar way.

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TRANSLATING THE CREATIVE IMPULSE AND LIFE OF THE IMAGINATION Like art car creators, some are impelled toward creative selfexpression, and to even make a study of it.

Enter Jeremiah Alec Roy Piña.

This creativity researcher comes from a richly diverse background, and is delighted by the idea of seeing the world through a creative lens. Piña is the oldest of five children, originally born on the Round Valley Nomlaki reservation in Northern California.

There are fewer than a thousand tribal members on the 32 square mile reservation near Mendocino in the town of Convelo. He explains that the Round Valley Indian Tribes, or RVIT, is his tribal designation. “I'm half Nomlaki, but because there are, and have been, so few Nomlaki for such a long time, the reservation land is shared among several intermarried tribes collectively known as the Round Valley Indians.”

Piña’s life as a study in creative adaptation was kick-started by early years as a tribal outsider, living with his Caucasian mother. “The details are hard to know,” he says quietly. “My mother was white, and not easily accepted.”

Ultimately, Piña wound up relocating to Georgia along with his mother. He became interested in creativity studies at the University of Georgia. As a doctoral student studying human imagination and creativity, Piña is exploring the phenomenon called a paracosm. The notion of a paracosm was identified in the 1980s. “That means world-building,” he explains.

The literary Bronte sisters shared an imaginary world, or paracosm, from childhood. It was an elaborate creation Piña says. In early life, he believes imaginary friends and worlds are adaptive, as he describes in the Brontes’ example. “I think the imagination can last beyond those years,” he observes.

Piña, who wears a short-sleeved navy shirt, covered with white birds, immediately mentions the creativity studies of Paul Harris.

Harris is a developmental psychologist and faculty member at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He is frequently cited in the media for his studies of the human imagination. He says in an interview on the subject of "magical thinking"­—which asked whether it was helpful for children to believe in such things as a Tooth Fairy­—that when you are contemplating history, theology, or a real life garbage man, you must employ the imagination Harris writes: "The imagination is absolutely vital for contemplating reality, not just those things we take to be mere fantasy." In another article, Harris said, “The work of the imagination is to solve problems. It allows us to postulate alternatives.”

CHRIS HUBBARD: "THE HEAVEN AND HELL" CAR

Now, Piña is postulating about the creative motivations of those who created art cars as photographed by Evelyn.

Evelyn’s photographs depict four art cars with their owners.

Piña notes, upon first examination, “I am interested in the enthusiast culture.”

He is immediately captivated by what he sees.

ZOOMING PAST THE BLACK MODEL T: PINA'S TAKE ON THE ART CAR Piña, who has intense dark eyes and hair, pushes his glasses back and leans into the photographs Evelyn fans before him. He recognizes the true trajectory of these elaborately adorned art cars—they are fast on the track of creativity.

Speaking in generalities, Piña offers this immediately about art cars: “My general impressions? One is humor. Each of them is trying to make a statement. Think of the ‘Snakes on a Plane’ film. A parody. The Hot Wheels car is some work. Maybe doing some form of racing?”

In Piña’s view, each of the art car creators is taking a risk. “It’s a vulnerable position to be in…I really salute them on this!” He adds, “We can all benefit from them if we understand what they bring. They engender a pioneering spirit that is also part of the American spirit.”

“THE HEAVEN AND HELL” CAR OWNED

BY CHRIS HUBBARD “Seldom do I get a chance to encounter objects as symbolically rich as the Heaven and Hell car. This vehicle seems to me an attempt to approach concepts of syncretism, aesthetics, and the underlying moral themes associated with

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good and evil as a form of mobile altar or tabernacle. Which is funny, really, because some Judeo-Christian tabernacles were mobile, so it’s an echo of history?

“Underlying the symbols themselves is a sort of slapdash or, for lack of a better term, devil-may-care mode of presentation which is cool, weird, and fun all at once,” says Piña. “Because it concerns religion, it’s controversial and it grabs the imagination. I can get a sense that not every place that Hubbard has driven through with the Heaven and Hell car has been open-minded to the work, and maybe that’s the point. By putting religious icons (and not just religious icons, but strange religious icons) out there where the world can see them, Hubbard is starting a conversation with the public.

It’s the type of thoughtful creative risk-taking that I can really appreciate.” Then he elaborates further.

“The Heaven and Hell art car,” observes Piña, which was, incidentally, created by a scientist, “looks like he has created saints. It’s an idiosyncratic pantheon. These are all these deities he knows about. It’s a drivable shrine. “

“BOTTLE CAPS” OWNED BY JIMMY STRAEHLA (THE “CAP MAN”) “There’s something nostalgic about bottle caps,” says Piña.

“They’re somehow fascinating despite being relatively mundane. They’re basically junk, but interesting junk and they remain useful beyond their allotted span because they hold our interest.

“Straehla’s Bottle Caps truck, sheathed as it is in old bottle caps, is an amalgamation of that nostalgia and fascination. If you look at it in the right light, it almost looks like the truck is bejeweled, or perhaps frosted in rusted metal and coated with the strange, half worn symbols that carry with them an

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Jimmy Straehla (the “Cap Man”): Bottle Caps

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infinitesimally tiny speck of history. Every time I look at the truck, I find my eye drawn to some new detail and I wonder if there’s a story I’m missing. It may not actually be the case that each of the bottle caps is as important as I imagine, of course, but it does speak to a certain sentimental authenticity and intrinsic motivation on behalf of the artist to make us feel like there just might be.”

According to Evelyn, the car was featured in Houston at the art cars parade.

“All of them want to say something,” says Piña. “There’s another aspect of time in all of this…because most of these people grew up in a period where they hold onto their vehicle.”

“HOT WHEELS” OWNED BY LIZ LARSON “I don’t know her relationship with Hot Wheels,” says Piña.

“But this is a sharp quip.

“I like to think about this one first because it’s the one that stands out the most. Unlike some of the other art cars I’ve seen, the creativity of the Hot Wheels car isn’t in the elaboration of the design, nor necessarily in the authenticity of the work, but it instead comes from the humor associated with the message emblazoned on the vehicle. Such a simple thing, and elegant in its own way.

“It is the essence of a bon mot, a quip or witty statement, which might be prized not on the merit of its complexity, but for its sophistication and self-awareness. In the study of creativity, we sometimes emphasize the originality of an idea at the expense of the equally important, though sometimes less glamorous, requirement of appropriateness. Larson’s Hot Wheels car is an example of why this overly simplistic, novelty-preoccupied way of looking at creativity doesn’t always capture truly sparkling and inventive modes of selfexpression which are excellent precisely because they say the right thing in just the right way.”

“SNAKES ON A VAN” OWNED BY PETER LOOSE “I’ll be honest, unlike most people I know, I don’t have a particular aversion to snakes,” says Piña. “And I think it’s for that reason I get a sense of the simple, optimistic expression of avidity that lies at the heart of Loose’s artistic work. Like with Hubbard’s Heaven and Hell car, the art car in question is full of details, but in contrast I don’t get a sense that Loose is trying to be particularly controversial. Rather, I get an almost herpetological feeling about the vehicle, as if Loose

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were evoking the image of some rogue natural philosopher rambling around and instructing folks about all the good snakes do for the world.

“Just looking at the variety of snakes presented and the attention to detail in the markings and crisp presentation of each icon, I am willing to bet that Loose has an advanced knowledge of snake physiology and can point out particular species embedded along the side of the vehicle. This speaks to both the creative thinking skills we refer to as fluency, that is to say the ability to produce many ideas along a theme, and elaboration, or overall complexity, which accounts for the intricacy of the work.

“The pennies on the truck—decorated with head side up (known as copperheads) are an extension of this person’s story.” Piña continues, “the role of the car—it’s a piece of the American legend. The Model T only came in black,” he laughs, “and we have been reacting against that since it happened.” Scanning the cars one by one more intensely, Piña adds, “All of this says we love diversity. These people say it’s not enough to just have a crazy color car.”

DREAMING OF A CLASSIC Pina appreciates nonconformity. It so happens that he drives a very colorful car himself—not an art car, but definitely one that makes a statement. Piña’s bright green Chevrolet Camaro is meant to be noticed. His “around town” practical car is a 2004 Volkswagon Beetle, which he describes as dingy gray.

Does Piña have a dream car of his own, given his personal love of vehicles? In fact, he does.

“My dream car would be a 1967 Jaguar E-Type Hearse, which is the car from the movie Harold & Maude. If not that, a 1969 GTO Judge in Inferno Red would be my second choice.

The first is classic because it tells a unique story in the film, the second is a classic because it tells a story about American cars during the height of the muscle car era.”n

For Further Reading: The Art Car Museum: www.artcarmuseum.com/ Chris Hubbard: www.heavenandhellcar.com/ Liz Larson: flagpole.com/arts-culture/everyday-people/2012/08/01/ everyday-people-10 Peter Loose: www.marciaweberartobjects.com/loose.html Jimmy Straehla: thecapman.us/ Jeremiah Piña: www. flagpole.com/arts-culture/calendarpicks-1/2014/08/27/joel-rosenburg-mural-reception

LIZ LARSON: "HOT WHEELS"

PETER LOOSE: "SNAKES ON A VAN"

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ME E T I N G MELISSA MILLER ON

Meaty Matters 20

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M E AT S C I E N C ES , INFE CT I O U S D I S E A S ES A

PARA S I T E C O N T R O L

BY CYNTHIA ADAMS PHOTOS BY NANCY EVELYN

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Miller’s present and future work allows for a return to her favorite environment since childhood—the life of a farm.

L

ast year, Melissa Miller stood in a grocery store demonstrating how best to cook beef to anyone with a few minutes to watch or chat. It was a meet-thepublic stint for a woman who had spent much of her young life around horses and cattle. And she had spent many such hours promoting beef. It wasn’t a glorious job, but as Georgia Cattle Woman of the Year, the consumer education role went with the title.

She wasn’t complaining either; the conditions were actually posh compared to cattle lots, where Miller has logged many hours—now years.

If Miller could engage a passing shopper, which wasn’t too hard because she knows her subject, given even half a chance, she would exchange ideas or tips. It was generally to offer preparation ideas, or sometimes just to suggest her favorite easy beef dish (a beefy cheesy salsa dip). The recipe? Just Velveeta cheese, ground beef, onion, salsa. I did that at the State Fair,” Miller says with a smile.

“I went to grocery stories, talked with housewives about how to cook beef, answered questions, and discussed temperatures for optimal cooking.”

She gave pointers and pushed the advantages of one cut over another.

“Ribeyes or higher quality cuts with a greater amount of marbling are great for grilling. All that intramuscular fat adds flavor.” There is a part of her, she admits, that would have loved to have

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her own television show, cooking and teaching the public.

It happens that Miller, who is in the dual DVM/PhD program, will complete her doctorate in Infectious Disease next year and immediately begin her DVM studies, and is more often in a lab, classroom, or cattle lot than anywhere else. (Or she is working with UGA’s Meat Judging Team, which Miller started in 2010 when she came to UGA from the University of Florida.) Under her tutelage, the team shot to first place at the Southeastern Intercollegiate Meat Judging Contest for their knowledge of beef judging, lamb judging, specifications, total placings and reasons. They came in second in overall beef, third in beef grading and fifth in pork judging, competing against

10 teams from eight universities.

“I’ve always had a passion for livestock,” says Miller, who grew up in central Florida in Brandon, where her family had Angus cattle and horses. Her parents had other jobs, and helped run a family legacy farm. “I loved showing Angus cattle across the country.” She has worked as a ranch assistant at Partisover Ranch, assisting with the daily care of approximately 200 head of Angus/Simmental cattle. She also works closely with youth who purchase show heifers to ensure a positive show experience for them. Halter breaking calves, and working with youth in preparation for show events is one aspect of that mentoring.

Miller grew up riding English and liked jumpers. By the time she was a

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HAM

P ORK, BEEF teenager, she knew she wanted to be a veterinarian. She won the title of Miss Florida Angus when 16, and was a runner up for Florida Cattleman’s Sweetheart. “I think it made me fall in love with agriculture even more. I met more farmers. They love what they do and want to produce better food and take care of their animals.”

As an 18-year-old undergraduate in Gainesville, Fla., Miller was up before dawn working 6:00 a.m. shifts on a 70-acre farm. She was responsible for the daily care of nearly 60 horses as a student team’s worker in the University of Florida Horse Teaching Unit. “It’s kind of hard but kept you out of trouble for sure. I went there five days after high school graduation and lived in a double wide trailer for women students.” She learned to work elbow-to-elbow with other women eager to prove their mettle.

Miller also proved to be a team player. She has worked on numerous teams, learning to manage farms and hire people. In Florida, she wound up on a horse judging team, traveling the country visiting horse farms and learning to evaluate horses. Miller studied animal science and learned to evaluate cattle, pig, and lamb. She

RUMP

LO IN

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E R IB S PA R SIDE

SHORT LOIN

BR EA ST

LOIN

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BLADE

RIB

NEC K SHO ULD

CHUCK

BRE

AST

CHUCK

LEG

LAMB CUTS Miller competes in country-wide events which led to her becoming the 2009 National Beef Grading Champion.

attended a meat cutting school to master beef, pork and lamb carcasses and cuts. In 2009, Miller won top honors when she became the National Beef Grading Champion.

“I was challenged to determine the quality and yield grade of beef carcasses as compared to an official USDA meat grader,” Miller explains. “I had to provide written reasons why one meat carcass was better than another.

I learned about the end product of the livestock industry, how meat is made from farm to fork.”

In January of 2009, Miller was introduced to the top echelon of meat associations. “I served as an intern for the cattle industry annual convention in Phoenix, Az., as well as being part of the convention.” That summer, she became

an intern for the American Angus Association, and assisted with national contests. She traveled across the country to events as a representative of the association. Visiting packing plants, Miller realized “how much science goes into producing a good, safe food product, and how to produce this much protein efficiently.” All her fellow meat judging team members in Florida went on to graduate school. By now, Miller had all the prerequisites to apply to veterinary school.

In coming to UGA in 2010, Miller found a true mentor when she met her major professor, T. Dean Pringle. “Dean Pringle is in the department of animal science. He is a one-in-a-million type person—one of those people that is life changing,” she praises. Pringle took Miller out to the University-owned farm. She says he helped foster her passion for agriculture, going the extra mile.

“Dr. Pringle helped me find a farm to live at where I could trade work for rent.”

Visiting packing plants, Miller realized “how much science goes into producing a good, safe food product, and how to produce this much protein efficiently.�

www.grad.uga.edu

UGA Graduate School Magazine F A L L 2 015

35

She wound up writing a master’s thesis under Pringle on how pork tenderness, juiciness, and flavor are enhanced through the use of a pork protein solution—which sounds very like the basics of a good barbecue.

But personally, Miller likes nothing better than eating a good steak. If she wants to impress someone, she cooks her personal favorite, a good ribeye.

Youthful looking at age 27, Miller frequently gets carded when she orders a glass of wine when dining out.

The locavore movement has also influenced Miller. “Beforehand, my family had a small farm but I didn’t know much about the farm to food movement.” Back home, Miller’s mother is a letter carrier and her father a watch engineer for Tampa Electric Co. The family kept 20 head of cattle on a farm that was originally her great grandparents’.

Miller returned to the farm for her doctoral research after a dual degree track. “I transitioned back, focusing on effective parasite control in livestock.”

36

www.grad.uga.edu

She studies worms that infect the gastrointestinal tract of cattle, sheep, and goats, causing animals to eat less, absorb nutrients less efficiently and potentially become anemic. Miller says “When we effectively control parasites, livestock grow more rapidly and are healthier, producing meat more efficiently, which is essential to feeding a growing world.”

Her experience with research through a veterinary medical scientist training program has given her both the intensive understanding of parasitology, and a far-reaching grasp of animal science as a generalist. It also feeds the underlying passion that led Miller to science from the start—the great outdoors and her love of animals.

Miller’s present and future work allows for a return to her favorite environment since childhood— life on a farm.

For Miller, an ideal day would be exquisitely simple—and, yes, one spent on a farm. She fantasizes about her future once graduate studies are done.

“I would be living on a farm, waking up at 5:00 a.m. I still love to check my farm and see if anything exciting happened and to be outside, spending time there. Enjoying a beautiful sunrise; spending time with the horses.”

After her morning outdoors, Miller says she would still devote the balance of her day to ongoing research in meat sciences, infectious disease, and parasite research. “It doesn’t matter—I want to be touching, learning.”

After lunch with good friends and family, Miller says she would probably attend a seminar in the afternoon, or a conference, networking with researchers “Or people excited about what they doing.”

The ideal day would end with the perfect evening, she says with a broad smile. “That night, I would cook a great steak!” This, in Miller’s educated opinion, would either be a prime steak or a ribeye. n

MELISSA MILLER AT A GL ANCE

2015

Melissa Miller is chosen as one of six students to represent the United States livestock

industry in a congress focused on animal protein production sufficient to feed a growing world;

2014

Miller is named Outstanding Beef Promoter of the Year by the American National Cattle

Women and also becomes Georgia Cattle Woman of the Year;

2013 Miller wins the People’s Choice Award at the UGA Graduate School’s 3MT Competition; 2012 Miller is selected as an Outstanding Teaching Award Winner; 2011 Miller is named National Beef Quiz Bowl Champion and also coaches the National Champion Meat Judging Team at the Southeastern Intercollegiate Meat Judging Contest;

2009-2012

Miller assists with numerous 4-H, Future Farmers of America and collegiate meat

judging contests, clinics and extension events, including Taste of Atlanta; Miller also speaks on behalf of the Georgia Beef Board at a Georgia Nutrition Council meeting; Miller also worked with the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association to host a convention for approximately 5,000 cattlemen.

t T H E LO CAVO R E M OV E M E N T Locavores shop at farmers markets, roadside and farm stands, winter markets, food cooperatives, community supported agricultural groups (CSAs) and sometimes at supermarkets, just like the rest of us. Some local food movement followers even maintain their own gardens.

Since there is no clear-cut definition of what's local and what's not, many locavores use a 100-mile radius as their guide. Supermarket pro­duce purchased by people in the United States travels, on average, 1,300 to 2,000 miles from the farm to the store [source: ATTRA]. Produce that is considered local is usually sold within 24 hours of being harvested [source: Eat Local].

SUPERMARKET FARM

TRANSPORTATION

DISTRIBUTOR

FARM

FARM MARKET

YOUR TABLE

FARM

YOUR TABLE

SUPERMARKET

YOUR TABLE

FARMER'S MARKET

LOCAL CSAs

www.grad.uga.edu

37

Graduate School Donors The Graduate School gratefully acknowledges all who have made a financial commitment to graduate education at the University of Georgia—from alumni to corporate sponsors to faculty and friends. By supporting graduate students, you are enabling research and creative works that affect so many facets of our lives.

You are investing in our future and our children's future, as well as our nation's economy and security. You are also contributing to undergraduate education, enhancing our workforce, and advancing discoveries that benefit us all.

Dean’s List of Donors to the University of Georgia Graduate School July 1, 2012–June 30, 2015 LEGACY SOCIETY

DEAN’S CIRCLE

Mrs. Almarene P. Hardeman

Dr. Nancy Midgette

(PLANNED GIFTS)

($5,000-$9,999)

Dr. Charles F. Hobby

Dr. Edward V. Milton III and

Dr. Marc J. Ackerman and

Stephanie and Marc Ackerman

Dr. Ann Hughes

Mrs. Stephanie Ackerman Dr. David C. Coleman and Mrs. Frances E. Coleman

Family Fund Dr. Michael B. Bunch and Mrs. Kathryn A. Bunch

Dr. Carlton L. Jackson* and Mrs. Patricia A. Jackson Ms. Jia Liu

Dr. Prabhu Rajagopalan and Ms. Vandana Rajagopalan

Dr. Christopher G. Cooper

Greater Milwaukee Foundation, Inc.

Mr. Jianxiang Liu

Dr. Marion M. Reeves and Mr. George F. Reeves

Mr. Frank R. Etchberger*

Mrs. Susan S. Lanigan and

MP Structured Credit Partners

Dr. Paul G. Robertie and

Dr. Maureen Grasso Dr. Robert G. Gillen and Mrs. Lee A. Gillen Dr. Sylvia M. Hutchinson Mrs. Muriel A. Lokey*

Mr. Gregory A. Lanigan Mr. John F. McMullan and Mrs. Marilyn J. McMullan Murphy Oil Corporation

Dr. Young W. Park

Mrs. Elizabeth M. Robertie

Dr. William A. Person

Mr. Andrew J. Sherbo

Mr. Christopher W. Ruffner and

Dr. Ronald D. Simpson

Mrs. Wendie Ruffner

Mr. James A. Sommerville and Mrs. Frances D. Sommerville

Murphy-Brown, LLC

Mrs. Jill D. St. Louis

1910 SOCIETY

Mrs. Doris A. Ramsey

Dr. Joanne M. Sharpe

Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin Thomas Taylor Jr.

($50,000+)

Shannon Foundation

Dr. Uma Sinha

Dr. Li Ubois and Mr. Jeffrey Ubois

Mr. and Mrs. Craig Barrow III

Mr. Liam M. Shannon

Dr. Sangram S. Sisodia and

Dr. Ronald L. Vaughn and Mrs. Renée Vaughn

Dr. Hardy M. Edwards III

Wells Fargo and Company

Dr. Diane Van Hoof-Sisodia Spring Creek Ranch

FRIENDS OF THE

CENTENNIAL CLUB

Dr. John E. Stewart II

GRADUATE SCHOOL

LAUREATE SOCIETY

($1,000-$4,999)

Mr. James S. Tardy* and Mrs. Claire S. Tardy

($100-$499)

($25,000-$49,999)

Stephanie and Marc Ackerman

Verizon Foundation

Abbott Laboratories Fund

Dr. Larry R. White and Mrs. Louise F. White

Ms. Amelia Adams

Dr. Todd E. Arnold

Dr. Otto P. Wielan

Dr. Jackie Adams and Mr. David E. Adams

Dr. Phillip J. Brantley and

Mr. James A. Wilbanks and

Mr. William S. Addy and Mrs. Paula L. Addy

Mrs. Celeste N. Wilbanks

Dr. Lawrence A. Adjei and Mrs. Dora Adjei

Wormsloe Foundation Inc.

Mr. James E. Baine and Mrs. Charlotte Baine William S. and Elizabeth K. Boyd Foundation Mrs. Martha Thurmond

Family Fund

Dr. Paula Brantley

BENEFACTORS

Dr. Hishameldin O. Ahmed and

Mr. Larry M. Callaway and Ms. Mary Callaway Dr. Benjamin B. Carson and Mrs. Mary G. Carson

GRADUATE CLUB

Dr. Khawlah A. Abu Izzah

($500-$999)

Mr. James L. Aiello and Ms. Crystel Gabrich

($10,000-$24,999)

Coca-Cola Company

Dr. Dennis P. Bauer and Mrs. Doris M. Bauer

Alda Medical Center

Dr. Lindsay R. Boring and

Mr. Eric J. Collier and Mrs. Jerri Collier

Mr. Edward R. Bee and Mrs. Carole Bee

Dr. Gilles O. Allard and

Mr. Earl J. Connolly and

Mr. Donald R. Betts

Dr. Lelia K. Kirkman Dr. William Ford Calhoun Dr. M. Terry Coffey and Mrs. Elizabeth Coffey

Mrs. Patricia A. Connolly Ms. Dorinda Dallmeyer and Dr. R. David Dallmeyer

Mrs. Bernadette M. Allard

Mr. Carl A. Burris and Ms. Jane Burris

Mrs. Geraldine Davis Alligood*

Mr. Walter E. Dance Jr.

Dr. Jacqueline Allison and

Dr. Martha J. Greer

Mr. Jerry D. Allison

Farm Credit Bank of Texas

Dr. Kathleen L. Davis

Mr. James R. Gurley

Mr. David K. Alonso

Hopeline-South

Ms. Mary Frances Early

Mr. Arthur Johnson and

American International Group, Inc.

Ms. Sheryl Sellaway

Dr. George O. Hallman and

Mr. Victor C. Sullivan III and Mrs. Jane Anne Sullivan University Woman's Club Verizon Wireless

Mrs. Eileen M. Hallman Dr. Joseph W. Hamer Jr. and Dr. Carol E. Hamer Dr. Charles E. Hamner Jr. and Mrs. Sharon K. Hamner

Mrs. T'Leatha R. Suitt-Johnson

www.grad.uga.edu

Dr. Charles L. Andrews

Mrs. Kay Jones and Mr. Burke C. Jones

Anonymous

Mr. Stuart W. Kent and Mrs. Karolyn S. Kent

Anonymous

Mrs. Lynn Malone and

Mr. James M. Applefield

Mr. Raymond J. Malone Dr. Rob R. McGregor Jr. and Mrs. Kathryn McGregor

38

Mrs. Henri C. Milton Mr. Robert B. Moss Sr. and Mrs. Betty H. Moss

Mr. John C. Argo and Mrs. Glenda Argo Dr. Jerry W. Arnold and Ms. Judith A. Arnold

“...the improvement in UGA’s stature among its peers and aspirational peers depends on the quality of its graduate programs and research. Better programs require outstanding graduate faculty and excellent graduate students. Graduate fellowships are essential to attracting those students...”

Dr. Grace S. K. Arto and Mr. Vincent Arto Dr. Cyrus P. Aryana Dr. Christopher Asaro Dr. Paul A. Asunda

Ms. Maureen A. Brown and

Dr. Stephen A. Feuerborn and

Dr. James G. Connell Jr.

Mr. Norbert C. Brown Jr.

Mr. Kingsley G. Corbin and

Mr. Robert M. Brown Sr. and

Mrs. Penelope K. Corbin

Mrs. Joelen Brown

­— S U S A N L A N I G A N ( A B J , ' 8 4 ; J D , ' 8 8 )

Mrs. Vicki R. Feuerborn Dr. Lindsey D. Few Jr. Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund

Ms. Patricia A. Cresswell and

Dr. Nikolay M. Filipov and

Ms. Susan Bagwell and Mr. Benny Bagwell

Mr. Rodney A. Brown

Mr. Robert A. Cresswell

Mr. Solomon Barge Sr. and

Ms. Kristen E. Burgers

Mr. Albert C. Cunningham

Dr. Harold E. Burkhart and

Dr. Roy J. Daigle and Ms. Kathryn G. Gradle

Mrs. Deloris G. Barge Dr. Philip G. Bartley Jr. and Ms. Mary E. Bartley

Mrs. Katherine Burkhart Ms. Anna L. Burns

Ms. Anjela K. Filipova Dr. William P. Flatt and Dr. Marihope S. Troutman

Mrs. Julia C. Damore and

Dr. Stephen R. Flora

Mr. Joseph F. Damore

Dr. Lenette Burrell

Ms. Karen F. Daniel and Mr. David L. Daniel

Dr. Cecil G. Foster Jr.

Mr. Jeffery M. Butler and Ms. Sophia L. Butler

Mr. Lee B. Daniel

Mr. Todd F. Fowler and Mrs. Delia Fowler

Dr. Colin F. Baxter and Mrs. Tamara M. Baxter

Dr. Sloan D. Caldwell and Dr. Alice A. Caldwell

Dr. Donald C. Davis and Mrs. Jolene R. Davis

Mr. Robert L. Franklin and

Dr. Robert E. Bazzle and Mrs. Joan Bazzle

Dr. and Mrs. Scott Andrew Callison

Ms. Frances Davis and Mr. Donell Davis

Dr. Francis F. Beideman Jr. and

Mr. Blaine G. Camp

Dr. Paul F. DeLargy and Dr. Carolyn DeLargy

Miss Leslie A. Freeman

Dr. Nancy L. Canolty

Deloitte Foundation

Ms. Leanne S. French

Mr. Richard M. Carlisle and

Ms. Doris D. DeLorme and

Dr. Frank T. Friedberg

Dr. Benjamin R. Bates and Ms. Elizabeth H. Morley

Mrs. Ann C. Beideman Mrs. Carolyn E. Bell Dr. Carole R. Bencich Mrs. Carolyn E. Bennett and Mr. Thomas L. Bennett

Mrs. Rebecca S. Carlisle Professor Ronald L. Carlson and Mrs. Mary Carlson

Mrs. Nancy K. Franklin

Mr. Ronald L. Fritchley and

Dr. Charles D. DeLorme Jr. Mrs. Denise J. Demick and Mr. Paul A. Demick

Mrs. Martha L. Fritchley

Dr. Juenchin Deng

Dr. Mercedes R. Galobardes Dr. Charles L. Gardner and

Mrs. Betty Benson

Ms. Lara Carlton and Mr. Ernest H. Carlton

Dr. Ouida Dickey

Dr. Gajanan Bhat

Dr. Mae Carpenter

Mr. Leland L. Dishman

Dr. David B. Birnbaum and

Mr. James R. Chambers Jr. and

Dr. Ako Doffou

Dr. Lisa Garrett

Mrs. Kay Dominy

Ms. Paula Gault

Mr. Mark W. Dorgan and

Mr. William R. Gibson and

Mrs. Denise J. Birnbaum

Mrs. Nell Chambers

Judge Joe C. Bishop and Dr. Carol Bishop

Mr. Don E. Chandler

Dr. Phyllis K. Blair

Mr. Lynwood F. Chandler Jr. and

Dr. Matej Blasko

Mrs. Kathleen Chandler

Dr. Cecile R. Doroff

Dr. Paul J. Giles Jr. and Mrs. Elaine Giles Mrs. Sandra A. Gjertsen and

Dr. Kun-Yu Chang and Mrs. Hsiao-Lan Chang

Mr. James M. Draper

Dr. William D. Bostick and

Dr. Baowei Chen and Mrs. Sujuan Chen

Mr. Samuel C. Dyess Jr. and

Dr. James E. Bottoms and Mrs. Helen P. Bottoms Dr. Lori H. Bowen and Mr. Jason L. Bowen

Mr. Yinpu Chen and Ms. Yin Shi

Ms. Carol A. Gibson

Ms. Stephanie Dorgan

Mr. Randolph L. Booth

Mrs. Debra Bostick

Mrs. Faye L. Gardner

Mr. Douglas S. Gjertsen Dr. Brian A. Glaser and Mrs. Judy Glaser

Mrs. Arline Y. Dyess

Mr. Robert M. Chernow and Ms. Patricia L. Sly

Miss Peggy J. East

Mr. Jimmy A. Godwin and Mrs. M. I. Godwin

Robert Chong, DPM Podiatric Physician

Ms. Pamela S. Edmonds and

Ms. Janine D. Gordon

and Surgeon

Dr. Imogene L. Gouveia

Mr. Franklin S. Edmonds Jr.

Dr. Robert K. Chong

Mr. Jerry G. Eidson and Dr. Sandra Eidson

Mr. John L. Green and Mrs. Ellen G. Green

Ms. Anne M. Chotvacs

Mr. William A. Elgee

Mr. Paul Gruber

Mrs. Jane Bowery

Dr. Joanne Christaldi

Ms. Martha Elton

Dr. Beverly J. Haeger and Mr. Paul H. Haeger

Mr. Walter H. Boyett III and

Dr. Hugh A. Christie and Mrs. Janet Y. Christie

Enable Insight, LLC.

Mr. John T. Haggerty and

Dr. Johnnie Clark and Mr. Charles E. Clark

Mr. Richard M. Eppihimer and

Mr. Andrew E. Bowers Sr. and Mrs. Edna A. Bowers

Mrs. Elizabeth Boyett

Mrs. Susan J. Haggerty John Haire and Family

Mr. Henry H. Boyter Jr.

Mr. William H. Cobb

Dr. David A. Bradbard and

Ms. Carole Cobb and Mr. William C. Cobb

Mr. Wayne D. Ervin and Mrs. Kay J. Ervin

Mr. Jeffrey S. Hall and Dr. Lucy J. Bush

Ms. Margaret G. Cole and Dr. Ronald S. Cole

Lt Col Joseph W. Evans Jr. and

Mr. James E. Halpin Jr. and

Ms. Michelle P. Lukse Ms. Kathleen M. Bridges

Mr. David B. Collins and Mrs. Kay Collins

Mrs. Stephanie Eppihimer

Mrs. Debra H. Evans

Ms. Elinor C. Halpin

Due to space constraints, we were unable to print all donor names. For the complete listing of our generous contributors, please visit our website: www.grad.uga.edu.

UGA Graduate School Magazine F A L L 2 015

39

FRIENDS OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL (CONT.)

Mrs. Natalia Jagannathan

Mr. Meyer Lichtenstein and Mrs. Sondra Lichtenstein

Dr. Malcolm C. Modrzakowski Jr. Dr. Mahmood Monshipouri

($100-$499)

Mrs. Gloria A. James

Dr. Zhulu Lin and Dr. Siew H. Lim

Mr. Edgar R. Moore Jr.

Mr. and Mrs. R. Joseph Hamilton

Mr. Harold P. James and Dr. Grace James

Ms. Joanne Lincoln

Dr. Louise E. Moore

Mr. James M. Hansen and

Mr. Brian D. Jester

Ms. Dianne E. Little

Ms. Sarah J. Morgan

Dr. George W. Joe

Ms. Karen F. Long

Brad Morton Studio, Inc.

Mrs. Enid M. Hanson and

Miss Fidelia G. Johnson

Dr. Marvin L. Long Jr. and Mrs. Sue B. Long

Mr. Bradford T. Morton

Mr. Thomas C. Hanson

Mr. Handy Johnson Jr.

Dr. Jerry D. Lord and Mrs. Elaine S. Lord

Dr. Vamanmurti G. Mudgal and

Dr. Charles N. Harris III

Dr. Keith A. Johnson

Mr. William E. Loughner and

Dr. Brian M. Harward and

Dr. Melanie E. Johnson

Mrs. Carolyn Hansen

Ms. Ashley E. Harward Mr. William K. Hassell and Mrs. Linda Hassell Dr. Dorothy J. Hausman and Mr. Gary J. Hausman

Ms. Elisabeth Edwards Jones and Mr. James M. Jones Mrs. Genevieve M. Jones and Mr. Ralph T. Jones

Ms. Helen H. Wilkes Mr. Joseph E. Lowe and Ms. Edith L. Lowe

Mrs. Neela V. Mudgal Dr. James W. Mullins and Dr. Vivian B. McMillan

Mr. David P. Luke III and Mrs. Jo A. Luke

Mr. Matthew T. Myatt

Mr. Lawrence E. Lykins Jr. and

Dr. Whitney L. Myers

Dr. Holly S. Lykins

Mr. Albert F. Nasuti and Mrs. Betty H. Nasuti

Mr. Akio Hayashi

Dr. Gloria L. Jones

Ms. Elizabeth M. Mann

Ms. Mary E. Negley

Dr. Jishen He and Dr. Peihua Sheng

Dr. Joan A. Jordan

Mrs. Doris Marshall and Mr. Howard L. Marshall

Dr. Thomas G. Nemetz and

Dr. Sue E. Henderson

Dr. Samuel J. Juett III and Dr. JoAnne Juett

Ms. Angela C. Martin

Dr. Howard H. Hendley

Dr. Billy J. Jump and Mrs. Mary A. Jump

Dr. Bradley C. Martin and Mrs. Melissa Martin

Ms. Mary E. Herrin

Mr. Cord-Patrick Kammholz

Dr. Philip M. Mathis and Mrs. Marilyn Mathis

Mrs. Elizabeth Nipper

Mr. Nelson O. Herrin and

Mr. Chandrashekar Karnum

Dr. Anup Mathur and Dr. Alexandra Kapatou

Mr. Robert V. O'Kelley and

Dr. Cheick M. C. Keita and

Dr. John M. Mbaku and Mrs. Theresa Mbaku

Mrs. Allison D. Herrin Mr. Wade W. Herring and Mrs. Fredrice Herring Mr. Ralph E. Hickman Jr. Mr. Alfred A. Hiers

Ms. Maimouna Toure Dr. Mo Kian and Mrs. Martie Kian Mr. Thomas J. Killeen Jr. and Dr. Maureen C. Killeen

Mr. John T. Hiers and Ms. Phillis A. Hiers

Ms. Faye R. Kirschner and Ms. Chris Addy

Dr. Virginia C. Hinton

Mr. Michael J. Kramer

Dr. Paul M. Hirsch and Mrs. Elaine Hirsch

Dr. Ik-Whan G. Kwon and

Dr. Fredric M. Hirsh and Mrs. Donna Hirsh

Mrs. Jacqueline Kwon

Ms. Hsin-Hsin Ho and Mr. Tak S. Ho

Ms. Cheryl E. Laine and Mr. James R. Laine

Dr. James T. Hogan and Mrs. Judith T. Hogan

Dr. Glenda Lappan and Mr. Peter A. Lappan Jr.

Ms. Sondra L. Holtzman and

Ms. Ann Lawrence and

Mr. Adam K. Holtzman

Mr. Steven J. Leinwand

Ms. Rhonda B. Horton and Mr. Carl J. Horton

Dr. Linda G. Lawson

Mr. Joseph L. Howard and

Mrs. Schwinne C. Lee and Mr. Cheng F. Lee

Dr. Katrena D. Howard

Ms. Allison M. Leigh

Dr. James D. McAlister and Mrs. Patsy McAlister

Mrs. Susan H. Nemetz Mr. James E. Nipper Jr. and

Mrs. Marcheta B. O'Kelley Dr. Lawrence L. Oldaker Mr. Lewis P. O'Neal Jr. and Mrs. Emma O'Neal

Ms. Elizabeth McBrayer

Dr. Judith H. Ozug and Mr. Paul D. Ozug

Mr. Timothy P. McCabe and Mrs. Kelly McCabe

Dr. Rose A. Pace

Dr. Hoyt M. McCachren Jr. and

Dr. Margaret K. Park

Mrs. Minnie A. McCachren Dr. Louise McCommons Mr. Matt L. McCormick and Dr. Heather A. McCormick Mrs. Beverly E. McGowan and Mr. John A. McGowan Mr. James H. McGown* and Ms. Jane McGown Mrs. Anna McLeod McKay and Mr. John Donald McKay

Dr. Hasmukhbhai B. Patel and Mrs. Anita H. Patel Dr. Jitendrakumar R. Patel and Mrs. Jaimina Patel Mr. James H. Patterson and Dr. Judith Patterson Ms. Jamie L. Patterson Mrs. Janie J. Peacock and Mr. Hugh C. Peacock Ms. Jeri E. Pearson

Mr. Xiaolei Hu and Ms. Lisi Huang

Dr. Anderson S. Leiper

Mr. Joe M. McKelvey Jr.

Dr. Helen N. Perry

Mr. Keith M. Hume and Mrs. Heidi E. Hume

Dr. Joan D. Leonard

Mr. David L. McLeod

Pfizer Foundation

Mrs. Virginia P. Huseby

Mrs. Joyce A. Letts

Ms. Antoinette M. McMillan

Mr. Homer L. Phillips and

Mr. Connie L. Ivester and

Dr. Paul A. Leynes and

Mrs. Brinkley McNeal and

Mrs. Martha I. Ivester

Mrs. Jennifer D. Leynes

Mr. Walter P. McNeal

Mrs. Donna Leigh Jackins

Mr. Futing Liao

Dr. Lisa Mendel and Mr. Maurice I. Mendel

Dr. Patrick R. Jackson and

Dr. Alice Libet and Dr. Julian M. Libet

Dr. Shaila M. Miranda

Mrs. Donna A. Jackson

40

Dr. Vasudevan S. Jagannathan and

www.grad.uga.edu

Mrs. Frances E. Phillips Mr. Joe H. Phillips Jr. Dr. Rolffs S. Pinkerton and Mrs. Helga A. Pinkerton

“Your contributions to the Graduate Education Advancement Fellowship Fund are vital to attracting the best and brightest students, who in turn help to raise our profile and sustain the reputation of UGA as a premier public research institution. I urge you to become a supporter of graduate education at UGA.”

­— S U Z A N N E B A R B O U R , D E A N O F T H E G R A D U AT E S C H O O L

Swearingen Family Fund

Dr. Angeline P. Williams-Brown

Mr. Henry W. Swift Jr. and Mrs. Jeanne R. Swift

Miss Betty L. Williford

Dr. Walter F. Schmidt

Mrs. Patricia Tankersley

Dr. Arthur L. Wilson and Ms. Barbara Bryant

Mr. Eric T. Sconyers

Dr. Mary N. Tanner

Ms. Emily E. Winship

Dr. Kenneth W. Pool and Dr. Jonelle Pool

Dr. Ralph C. Scott Jr.

Mrs. Mary Darden Tarczynski and

Dr. Anne P. Winsor and Mr. Mark R. Winsor

Dr. Rachel S. Poretsky

Mrs. Barbara Seaberry and

Dr. Joe F. Pittman Jr. and Ms. Jennifer L. Kerpelman Mr. Abe Plummer Jr. and Mrs. Deborah Plummer

Dr. Gary C. Powell and Ms. Kiris J. Powell Dr. Nancy D. Prendergast Mr. Anthony L. Price and Mrs. Buff Price Dr. Catherine A. Price and Mr. George T. Price Sr. Mr. Joseph D. Procopio Professional Arrangements Dr. Junfeng Qu

Mrs. Paula Saunders and Mr. Eddie Saunders III*

Mr. MacArthur Seaberry* Dr. Cynthia A. Searcy and Mr. Timothy P. McGonigle Dr. Edward L. Shaw Jr. and Mrs. Diana Shaw Dr. Kenneth L. Sheldon and Dr. Barbara L. Perry-Sheldon Mr. Edward J. Sherwood and Mrs. Shirley Sherwood

Mr. David L. Rainer and Mrs. Yvonne Rainer

Dr. Grady F. Shumake and

Dr. Dharam S. Rana and Mrs. Sunita S. Rana

Mrs. Hildred Shumake

Mr. Gregory J. Tarczynski

Mr. Michael I. Woltering and

Dr. Patrick L. Taylor and Mrs. Sallie B. Taylor

Mrs. Margaret R. Woltering

Dr. Donald M. Thieme

Dr. Audrey Wood and Mr. Isaac L. Wood

Dr. Siriporn Thipkong

Mr. Alex O. Wood

Dr. Frances A. Thompson* and

Mr. Bobby G. Woodall and

Mr. Claude Thompson

Mrs. E. M. Woodall

Dr. Mary L. Todd and Mr. Daniel B. Todd

Ms. Faith J. Woodley

Mr. Walter G. Troutman and

Ms. Ladda Woravitlikit

Mrs. Leigh Troutman

Ms. Jean Wright

Ms. Melissa C. Tufts and Mr. Kenneth M. Hill Mr. Stephen M. Tyler and Mrs. Margaret S. Tyler Mrs. Deborah Urquhart and

Dr. Shiow-Shong Yang and Mrs. Fei-O C. Yang

Mr. Comer H. Randall III

Dr. Eleanor K. Sikes

Dr. Carol A. Reeves and Mr. Philip A. Zweig

Dr. Joan M. Silver and Mr. Michael P. Silver

Dr. Sandra S. Reeves

Dr. Sadie V. Simmons

Dr. Mary E. Vahala

Mr. Ronald G. Young

Mr. Darryl W. Revenew and

Dr. Marion A. Skelton and

Dr. Robert R. VanKirk

Dr. Peter S. Yun and Mrs. Sandy Yun

Mrs. Michelle L. Revenew

Mrs. Frances S. Skelton

Dr. Barbara Nan Vosk and

Dr. Xinping Zhao and Mrs. Xiaoling D. Zhao

Mr. Charlie H. Skinner and

Dr. Howard L. Shareff

Dr. John J. Rhee and Mrs. Leone D. Rhee Dr. Louise Rice

Mrs. Mary H. Skinner

Ms. Donna L. Yesner

Mr. Richard V. Urquhart

Dr. Janice B. Yost

Mr. Daniel D. Zheng and

Mr. Kenneth A. Voss and Mrs. Mary J. Voss

Ms. Ming Zheng

Mr. Ronald M. Riggs and Mrs. Manina J. Riggs

Mrs. Anita Smith and Mr. Daniel P. Smith

Dr. Susan Voss

Mr. Ke Zheng

Mr. Elias R. Rigsby

Mr. Lawrence B. Smith

Dr. Benny B. Wade

Dr. Tingyao Zheng and Ms. Youlian L. Zhu

Dr. James M. Riordan and

Mrs. Patricia S. Smith

Dr. Susan T. Walraven

Dr. Young-Dahl Song and Mrs. J. K. Song

Dr. Feng Wang

Mr. Robert M. Speer

Dr. Suyun Wang and Mr. Hongbin Wang

Dr. Michael S. Spencer

Mrs. Ruth L. Webb

Dr. Daphne N. Stassin

Mrs. Jimi-Lee Weber and

Mrs. Rebecca Riordan Dr. Jessica W. Rivers and Mr. Jeffrey M. Hardin Ms. Cathy A. Robison and Mr. John M. Coggeshall Ms. Margaret Rodgers Mr. John C. Rogers and Mrs. Norma A. Rogers Mr. Stephen C. Rogers and Mrs. Tina M. Rogers

Mrs. Ruth M. Steegmann and Mr. Albert T. Steegmann Jr. Dr. Carolyn Stephens and Dr. Robert G. Stephens III

Mrs. Melanie Roper and Mr. Wendell H. Roper

Mr. Michael I. Stephenson

Ms. Joan Ross

Dr. James C. Stolzenbach and

Mr. Kazuro Saito

Mrs. Christine Stolzenbach

Ms. Dorothy N. Sampson

Dr. Steven G. Stoops and Mrs. Gail T. Stoops

Dr. Johnny Sanders Jr. and

Dr. Betty J. Strickland

Dr. Rubye L. Sanders

Mrs. Elsie Strother

Dr. Alexei Sankovski

Dr. Xinzhuan Su and Ms. Anna Liu

Miss Annice M. Saunders

Mr. and Mrs. Carl E. Swearingen

*deceased

Lt Col James P. Weber Dr. David Huntington Wertz Ms. Fausta Rodriguez Wertz Dr. Richard S. Whatley and Mrs. Marilynn M. Whatley Ms. Carolyn White Mr. Stephen L. White Dr. Richard G. Wiggins and Mrs. Larna Wiggins Dr. Robert E. Williams and Mrs. Virginia H. Williams Mrs. Thelma Williams and Mr. McDonald Williams

Due to space constraints, we were unable to print all donor names. For the complete listing of our generous contributors, please visit our website: www.grad.uga.edu.

UGA Graduate School Magazine F A L L 2 015

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The University of Georgia Graduate School Terrell Hall 210 South Jackson Street Athens, Georgia 30602-4401 (706) 542-1739

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The Graduate School at the University of Georgia has been enhancing learning environments and inspiring scholarly endeavors since its formal establishment in 1910. Through our professional development programs and funding opportunities, we promote excellence in graduate education in all disciplines.

Editor/Writer Cynthia Adams inklyadams@aol.com

MY

Design Julie Sanders jsandersdesign@gmail.com

Photo Editor Nancy Evelyn evelynn@uga.edu

SPACE

DA N I E L ST R E I C K E R :

T R AC K I N G PAT T E R N S of DISEASE TRANSMISSION

DANIEL STREICKER, an infectious disease ecologist pictured above, was featured in the Winter 2011 Graduate School Magazine while he was a UGA doctoral student. He was photographed at dusk that year by our photographer, Nancy Evelyn. This picture reappeared on the National Geographic website this past summer.

Today, Streicker is a Wellcome Trust/Royal Society Sir Henry Dale Fellow in the National Geographic Society.

According to their website, he joins a group of 14 inspiring trailblazers from around the world as a member of their Emerging Explorers program. Nat Geo describes these explorers as “gifted and inspiring adventurers, scientists and innovators—all early in their careers—whose achievements are making a difference in the world.” Streicker’s research in disease transmission continues at the University of Glasgow and in locales such as Peru and the Amazon.

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