University of Georgia Magazine Fall 2019

fall 2019

A Work of Art UGA’s campus in Cortona, Italy, celebrates 50 years

CONTENTS

The College of Education places teachers all over rural areas of the state of Georgia. p. 18

the magazine of the university of georgia fall 2019

INSIDE 5

The President’s Pen

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UGA to Z

President Jere W. Morehead on UGA’s global impact.

For a closer look at UGA’s study abroad program in Cortona, visit page 26.

Although we think this is a nice view too.

Accomplishments and accolades from across the UGA community.

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On the Bulldog Beat The construction fencing is down, and the Business Learning Community is ready for its big debut.

nick bragg

FEATURE

ON THE COVER

16 Working like a Dawg

The Double Dawgs program accelerates degrees and puts

36 Bulldog Bulletin News, events, and photos from the UGA Alumni Association.

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Class Notes UGA alumni are protecting the world’s treasures, from the Great Barrier Reef to a historic chapel in Italy.

56 Faculty Focus Get to know Henry Munneke, Roy Adams Dorsey Distinguished Chair in Real Estate.

students on the fast track to better jobs.

18 A Rural Education

The University of Georgia is helping rural schools meet the needs of students in this generation and the next by preparing teachers with theoretical expertise and practical experience.

22 Containing a Contagion

UGA’s Ralph Tripp is developing a vaccine to fight one of the world’s most common childhood illnesses.

28 Italian Summer

UGA celebrates 50 years of its study abroad program in Cortona, Italy.

Photo by Andrew Davis Tucker

As the sun goes down in Cortona, the fading light sets a perfect mood for third-year painting major Sarah Lee. While in Cortona this summer, two of the many paintings Lee completed were from this exact spot. She painted at different times so she could capture the scene with varied lighting.

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Studio 225

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uga’s renovated student entrepreneurship Center offers a new perspective on collaboration.

The center, better known as Studio 225 as a nod to its W. Broad St. address, represents the first phase of the ambitious Innovation District the university is developing in downtown Athens.

The dynamic 11,000-square foot space will help students of all majors cultivate original ideas, propel business startups, and engage with industry partners and each other.

dorothy kozlowski

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fall 2019

VOLUME 98

ISSUE NO. 4

georgia magazine

Editor · Eric Rangus MA ’94 Associate Editor · Aaron Hale MA ’16 Writers · Kellyn Amodeo ABJ ’09, Leigh Beeson MA ’17 Art Director · Jackie Baxter Roberts Advertising Director · Kipp Mullis ABJ ’93 Office Manager · Fran Burke UGA Photographers · Peter Frey BFA ’94, Rick O’Quinn ABJ ’87, Andrew Davis Tucker, Dorothy Kozlowski BLA ’06, ABJ ’10, Chad Osburn Contributing Writer · Elizabeth Elmore BBA ’08, ABJ ’08 Editorial Interns · Rachel Floyd AB ’19, Mary Calkins, and Madeleine Howell

marketing & communications Vice President · Karri Hobson-Pape Executive Director · Janis Gleason Brand Strategy Director · Michele Horn

administration President · Jere W. Morehead JD ’80 Senior VP for Academic Affairs & Provost · S. Jack Hu VP for Finance & Administration · Ryan Nesbit MBA ’91 VP for Development & Alumni Relations · Kelly Kerner VP for Instruction · Rahul Shrivastav VP for Research · David C. Lee VP for Public Service & Outreach · Jennifer Frum PhD ’09 VP for Student Affairs · Victor Wilson BSW ’82, MEd ’87 VP for Government Relations · Toby Carr BBA ’01, BSAE ’01 VP for Information Technology · Timothy M. Chester

Change your mailing address by contacting e: records@uga.edu or ph: 888-268-5442 Find Georgia Magazine online at news.uga.edu/georgia-magazine Submit Class Notes or story ideas to gmeditor@uga.edu

advertise in Georgia Magazine by contacting Kipp Mullis at e: gmsales@uga.edu or ph: 706-542-9877 fine print

Georgia Magazine (issn 1085-1042) is published quarterly for alumni and friends of UGA. postmaster | Send address changes to: University of Georgia 286 Oconee Street, Suite 200 North Athens, GA 30602

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The University of Georgia does not discriminate on the basis of race, sex, religion, color, national or ethnic origin, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, or military service in its administrations of educational policies, programs, or activities; its admissions policies; scholarship and loan programs; athletic or other University-administered programs; or employment. Inquiries or complaints should be directed to the Equal Opportunity Office 119 Holmes-Hunter Academic Building, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602. Telephone 706-542-7912 (V/TDD).

Fax 706-542-2822. https://eoo.uga.edu/

THE PRESIDENT’S PEN

UGA on the World Stage A state university with a global impact

In June, the University of Georgia celebrated the 50th anniversary of our study abroad program in Cortona, Italy. Over the decades, UGA Cortona has become one of the preeminent international art programs based in Italy and now offers additional courses in business, agriculture, and other disciplines. UGA Cortona is just one of the many ways the University’s mission of teaching, research, and service extends throughout the world.

“I look forward to the many ways UGA’s international presence will continue to expand as we advance our strategic priorities of promoting excellence in teaching and learning; growing research, innovation, and entrepreneurship; and strengthening partnerships with communities across Georgia and around the world.”

UGA ranks 13th among U.S. universities for the number of students who study abroad. We sponsor more than 150 study abroad and exchange programs in 60 different countries; host Language Flagship programs for Portuguese and Russian; and maintain a permanent campus in Oxford, England, as well as Cortona. The sale of our Costa Rica campus earlier this year by the UGA Foundation has created a $4 million endowment that will expand scholarships for students studying abroad in Latin America and Africa. UGA also is among the top producers of students and alumni studying and working internationally through the prestigious Fulbright program.

UGA hosts numerous visiting researchers, scholars, and students on our campus each year. We also assist governments and communities around the world in building their leadership capacity and developing their economies. This summer, UGA served as an institute partner for the Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders, hosting 25 Fellows for a six-week civic engagement institute sponsored by the U.S. Department of State and implemented by UGA’s Office of Global Engagement, J.W. Fanning Institute for Leadership Development, and African Studies Institute.

Our faculty are making a global impact as they seek solutions to grand challenges.

Among them are Jenna Jambeck in the College of Engineering, who recently co-led an international team of scientists on an expedition of the Ganges River to better understand how plastic waste travels from the source to the sea. David Okech in the School of Social Work is leading a team to end human trafficking and support survivors in Africa. And researchers in UGA’s Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases are working to find cures for diseases, such as malaria, that cause tremendous suffering worldwide.

I look forward to the many ways UGA’s international presence will continue to expand as we advance our strategic priorities of promoting excellence in teaching and learning; growing research, innovation, and entrepreneurship; and strengthening partnerships with communities across Georgia and around the world.

Jere W. Morehead President

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UGA Z to

News, accomplishments, and accolades from the UGA community

LEGENDARY DAWG

Between the Hedges The field at Sanford Stadium will be named Dooley Field in honor of legendary Bulldogs head football coach and athletics director Vince Dooley in an official ceremony inside the stadium prior to the team’s home opener on Sept. 7.

On May 2, University of Georgia President Jere W. Morehead JD ’80 and J. Reid Parker Director of Athletics Greg McGarity ABJ ’76 announced the naming proposal, and the University System of Georgia Board of Regents approved it May 14.

“I can think of no better way

to open the 2019 home football schedule than dedicating Dooley Field at Sanford Stadium,” McGarity said. “The event will be a moment for the entire Bulldog Nation to collectively say ‘thank you’ to a man who has devoted much of his life to making the Georgia athletics program one of the strongest in the nation.”

Dooley served as head football coach of the Bulldogs from 1963 to 1989 and as director of athletics from 1979 to 2004. As head coach, he won a national championship in 1980 and six Southeastern Conference

Championships. While Dooley was athletic director, Georgia teams won 23 national championships and 78 SEC team championships.

“It’s a great day for the University of Georgia and its football program,” added former Georgia Bulldogs great and 1982 Heisman Trophy winner Herschel Walker. “Coach Dooley was such a great mentor to me during my career at Georgia and beyond.

Congratulations to Coach on this well-deserved honor.”

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UGA to Z INNOVATION AT UGA A MORE SECURE FUTURE

Meet UGA’s Inventor of the Year

Holly Sellers, a professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine, is UGA’s 2019 Inventor of the Year. A researcher at UGA’s Poultry Diagnostic and Research Center, Sellers’ research has led to 12 invention disclosures and five U.S. patents, with another application pending and a multitude of foreign patents and applications.

Her research led to four commercial poultry vaccines as well as numerous others that together support and secure Georgia’s $22.9 billion poultry industry.

“The poultry industry has been part of my life for as long as I can remember,” Sellers says. “I knew early on that I wanted to pursue a career in science that supported this great industry.”

Sellers pursues clinical and molecular virology research with an emphasis on viruses that cause respiratory, enteric, and musculoskeletal diseases in poultry. Her focus is on the identification, characterization, and control of those viruses.

UGA’s Inventor of the Year award recognizes an inventor for a unique and innovative discovery that has made an impact on the community.

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Holly Sellers’ research in the College of Veterinary Medicine has led to four commercial poultry vaccines.

Public Health Gets New Dean

Marsha Davis, a nationally recognized researcher and leader in community-based health promotion programs, has been named dean of the College of Public Health.

Davis, a professor in the department of health promotion and behavior, joined the UGA faculty in 2006 and has served as interim dean since 2018. Davis has served as the college’s associate dean for outreach and engagement since 2013, where she has been a catalyst for identifying and developing programs that leverage the shared resources of UGA and populations the college serves. In addition, Davis is the founding organizer of the college’s annual State of the Public’s Health Conference and the UGA Public Health Leadership Academy, two programs designed to build the capacity of the public health workforce.

peter frey graphic by lindsay bland robinson

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Grant Saves Students Textbook Costs

A new grant program funded by the Provost’s Office will help save students even more money while improving the quality of their learning experience.

UGA already ranks second in the nation for saving students money through the use of open educational resources, and this grant is expected to save 7,400 students a total of $770,000 in textbook costs each year. Fourteen faculty members in 10 academic units received funding through the Affordable Course Materials Grant program to transition from costly textbooks to online resources, and the free course materials created through the program extend beyond just textbooks.

Some professors are replacing subscr ipt ion-ba sed analytics and data visualization software with RStudio, a free, open-source programming language and software that will save each student almost $100 in subscription fees.

ENHANCING THE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT

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REMOVING BARRIERS AND OPENING DOORS

UGA to Z CALLING ALL DAWGS

Inaugural Giving Week is a Huge Success

More than 3,500 members of the UGA community, including alumni, parents, faculty, staff, students and friends, raised more than $1.4 million in the university’s inaugural Giving Week, supporting UGA’s goals of removing barriers to education, enhancing the learning environment, and solving grand challenges.

During the week of April 20, Bulldogs from 45 states and six countries made gifts in support of many areas of the university, including all 17 schools, athletics, academic affairs, the State Botanical Garden, libraries, research, and an array of student organizations. Most gave to the Georgia Fund, UGA’s unrestricted fund that supports the university’s most pressing needs.

Their donations fully supported student scholarships for the year.

“We called all Dawgs—and they answered,” says Kelly Kerner, vice president for development and alumni relations and executive director of the UGA Foundation. “We are exceptionally grateful for the Bulldog family’s display of generosity and pride during Giving Week. The gifts made in just one week will have an incredible impact in the form of scholarships, new programs, study abroad opportunities, research funds, and so much more.”

3,500 $1.4million

members of the uga community

raised more than

during uga’s inaugural giving week

RESEARCH FELLOWSHIPS

NSF Supports 13 Emerging UGA Scholars

MAKING FRIENDS

Museum Rolls Out New Membership Program

It’s free to become a member of the Georgia Museum of Art: Visit jointhemuseum.info.

This summer, the Georgia Museum of Art launched a new program to connect members of the UGA family to the museum, no matter where they live. Becoming a Friend of the Museum online entitles members to receive digital communications, including the Weekly Brief, event invitations, and the museum’s quarterly newsletter at no cost. Friends who become contributing members by donating to the museum’s Annual Fund receive additional perks such as reciprocal benefits at more than 1,000 museums throughout North America. To become a Friend of the Museum, visit at jointhemuseum.info.

Seven graduate students and six UGA alumni have received National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships. The fellowships support emerging scientists and engineers by providing three years of financial support that includes an annual stipend of $34,000 plus a $12,000 cost of education allowance, as well as networking and professional development opportunities.

“UGA was a wonderful environment to learn about basic science and gain experience presenting my research to others through events like the CURO Symposium,” says Patrick Griffin BS ’15, genetics, who is now studying aging in the department of genetics at Harvard Medical School.

UGA GRADUATE STUDENTS Morgan Ashcraft, bioengineering Philip Michael Newberry, ecology Jordan Chapman, archaeology Isabella Ragonese, ecology Cydney Seigerman, cultural anthropology Trevor Tuma, science education

UGA ALUMNI Gwendolyn Watson BS ’17, industrial/organizational psychology Patrick Griffin BS ’15, genetics Aleia Bellcross BSChem ’17, BSES ’17, environmental chemical systems Hayley Schroeder BSES ’18, BS ’18, ecology Emma Brannon BSBChE ’18, chemical engineering Sarah Robinson BS ’17, biostatistics Dionnet Bhatti BS ’15, neurosciences

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photo courtesy of kyanna simone simpson

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UGA to Z JOINING THE TEAM

Standifer Named Assistant to the President

Alton Standifer joined the staff of the Office of the President in July as assistant to the president. He previously served as director of new student orientation and associate director of undergraduate admissions.

Standifer steps into the role previously held

by Arthur Tripp AB ’09, who left the university to seek public office. Standifer’s primary responsibilities focus on student affairs and community engagement. He serves as the liaison to the Staff Council, Retirees Association, Board of Visitors, and Student Government Association, while also representing the President’s Office in the planning of several annual events.

He is currently pursuing a doctorate in public information and policy in the School of Public and International Affairs.

GEORGIA GROUNDBREAKER

Initiative Launched to Rename the College of Education

The University of Georgia College of Education has launched a special initiative to name its college for Mary Frances Early MMEd ’62, EdS ’71, UGA’s first African American graduate and an accomplished music educator.

Gifts benefiting the College of Education may be dedicated in Early’s honor to go toward the proposed naming, which will be subject to approval by the University System of Georgia Board of Regents.

“The proposed naming of the College of Education in honor of Mary Frances Early is a tribute not only to her trailblazing integration of UGA in the 1960s but also to her lifetime of accomplishment and service to others as a music educator,” says College of Education Dean Denise Spangler PhD ’95.

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Legendary entertainer Rita Moreno received the Peabody Career Achievement Award for her seven-decade career on stage and screen. bryan bedder/getty images for peabody

STORIES THAT MAT TER

Peabody Celebrates Powerful Programming

The Peabody Awards honored the best stories in broadcasting and digital media in May at Cipriani Alton Standifer previously Wall Street in New York. The 78th Annual Peabody served as director of Awards Ceremony featured the traditional slate of new student orientation powerful storytelling—from news and documentaand associate director of ries to groundbreaking entertainment television undergraduate admissions and compelling radio programs and podcasts—as here at UGA. well as special awards for people and institutions that have made an impact on the industry.

Rita Moreno, the Emmy, Oscar, Grammy, and Tony award-winning actress, received the Peabody Career Achievement Award for her seven-decade career. Moreno, whose credits include the films West Side Story and The King and I as well as the groundbreaking PBS children’s show The Electric Company, shattered cultural and color barriers in To learn more about Mary Frances the pre-Civil Rights era, Early, UGA’s first African American becoming one of the few graduate, and how to support the artists of color to reach campaign to rename the College mainstream audiences. of Education in her honor, visit The Peabody Awards are maryfrancesearly.coe.uga.edu. based at the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. A full list of the 2019 Peabody winners is available at peabodyawards.com.

UGA to Z NOT DEBATABLE

Debate Team Tops Rankings

Commencement speaker Deborah Roberts fist bumps a student as she walks in with the platform party during the Spring Undergraduate Commencement Ceremony processional.

A total of 6,962 graduates were welcomed into the UGA alumni family at the university’s spring 2019 Commencement ceremonies. Fifty students were recognized as First Honor Graduates during the undergraduate exercises for maintaining a 4.0 cumulative GPA in all work attempted at UGA, as well as all college-level transfer work.

Joshua Clifford AB ’19, BS ’19, who received bachelor’s degrees in geography and comparative literature from the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, gave the student address, followed by ABC News correspondent Deborah Roberts ABJ ’82, who inspired students to view their graduation as a defining moment in their lives.

“Like so many of you, this was a particularly special moment of pride for me. I represented my parents’ wildest dream,” said the Grady College graduate. “I hope you will hold onto this feeling, this deep-down, in-your-gut reservoir of endless power, happiness, and hope. However you wound up here—whatever privilege you were or were not born with—however difficult your journey here has been, you are your ancestors’ wildest dream.”

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

UGA-Tifton Marks 100 Years of Leadership

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‘Moment of Pride’

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SPRING COMMENCEMENT

(From left) Top-ranked debate duos Advait Ramanan and Swapnil Agrawal, and Nathan Rice and Johnnie Stupek with championship hardware.

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For the first time in the program’s history, the Georgia Debate Union finished the 2018-19 season as the top varsity college debate team in both the American Debate Association and the National Debate Tournament’s end-of-season rankings.

UGA pushed ahead of traditional debate powerhouses Harvard, Emory, and Wake Forest, among others.

“What the University of Georgia debate team has accomplished as a squad this year is outstanding,” says Adrienne F. Brovero, chair of the National Debate Tournament and director of debate at the University of Mary Washington.

“Topping one of the varsity rankings is a testament to the very high degrees of intellectual rigor, rhetorical skills, critical thinking, and quality research that this squad consistently brought to each and every debate throughout the season. Topping two is extraordinary.”

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UGA’s campus in Tifton celebrates 100 years of commitment to agricultural research.

Over the summer, the University of Georgia Tifton campus celebrated 100 years of commitment to agricultural research benefiting the state of Georgia and the world. As the campus turns the page to its next century, UGA-Tifton is focused on cultivating the next generation of agricultural leaders who will help feed and clothe a growing population.

“Since the first class of students graduated from UGA-Tifton in 2004, we have seen some of the brightest scholars in the region grow and explore the science of agriculture on our Tifton campus,” says CAES Dean Sam Pardue. “These students have a tremendous opportunity to earn a UGA degree close to home while working alongside some of the very best agricultural scientists in the world.”

Originally known as the Coastal Plain Experiment Station, UGA-Tifton has been home to many world-renowned scientists, such as National Medal of Science award winner Glenn Burton; peanut researcher Frank McGill, whose package approach to peanut production increased peanut yields in Georgia; turfgrass pioneer Wayne Hanna, who produced cultivars that are grown throughout the world; and peanut scientist Peggy Ozias-Akins, who helped map the peanut genome.

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c o m m i t t o g e o r g i a c a m pa i g n

F

our years ago, the University of Georgia called: Commit to Georgia.

We set an ambitious goal: Raise $1.2 billion by 2020.

Some might have called that the finish line, but not us. Not Georgia Bulldogs.

We blew past the goal 16 months ahead of schedule.

And what did we do?

We didn’t pat ourselves on the back.

We didn’t put our feet up after a job well done.

We continued our relentless pursuit to do even more.

There are still lives to improve, economies to strengthen, communities to transform, and habitats to protect.

We pressed on because it’s what Bulldogs do.

c o m m i t t o g e o r g i a c a m pa i g n

BEN STARKS CLASS OF 2020, FOUNDATION FELLOW, RAMSEY SCHOLAR, UGA MEN’S BASKETBALL STUDENT MANAGER OF ANALYTICS

My scholarships have helped me stand out. I’m able to say that I’ve been to MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference multiple times and that I’ve worked with the basketball team. UGA has put me in the perfect position to reach my goals.

Florida native Ben Starks wanted to follow in his parents’ footsteps and attend the University of Georgia. His scholarships made attending UGA as feasible as enrolling at a university in Florida. Today, those scholarships are sending him beyond Athens—to internships with the Los Angeles Clippers and the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference. What he learns, he applies in the classroom and with the men’s basketball team, as he prepares for a career with the NBA.

Gifts supporting scholarships expose students to career-defining experiences on campus and around the world. Each time we establish one more of these scholarships, we change the world through one more student. GIVE.UGA.EDU/REMOVING-BARRIERS

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c o m m i t t o g e o r g i a c a m pa i g n

SUSAN FAGAN ALBERT W. JOWDY PROFESSOR, DISTINGUISHED RESEARCH PROFESSOR, ASSISTANT DEAN OF THE UGA COLLEGE OF PHARMACY AUGUSTA CAMPUS “In my lab, I work with graduate students, professional pharmacy students, and residents to develop pharmacotherapies that will improve stroke outcomes, by regeneration of blood vessels for improved blood flow and protecting the vascular system following strokes.”

Working with students in her research laboratory, Susan Fagan has developed a model of the progressive memory loss that occurs following a stroke. The team has successfully prevented cognitive impairment following a stroke in an animal model without the harmful side effects of low blood pressure found in other similar drugs. In 2018, she received a five-year, $2 million grant from National Institutes of Health in collaboration with her colleague, Adviye Ergul to continue this work.

Endowed positions attract high-quality faculty members like Susan Fagan and further enable their efforts to solve grand challenges like reducing the effects of strokes on humans. Join in the fight to improve lives around the world. GIVE.UGA.EDU/SOLVING-GRAND-CHALLENGES

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oday is our new starting point, Bulldogs. The Commit to Georgia Campaign continues until June 30, 2020, and there is so much more we can accomplish by then— and beyond.

What if we could help One more student achieve a dream?

One more family’s trajectory change as a child attends college?

One more researcher unearth a solution?

One more life be saved through a breakthrough?

One more community’s transformation through service and expertise?

With every commitment you make, we can achieve more together. It’s time to show the world that every one of us believes in the power of the Bulldog family to change lives.

One at a time.

Commit to Georgia.

GIVE.UGA.EDU

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UGA’s Double Dawgs program accelerates degrees and puts students on the fast track to better jobs written by leigh beeson ma ’17

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ou have more than enough Cheerios.”

It’s 9:30 a.m. at Gaines Elementary School in Athens. The students in Andrea Mooney’s BSFCS ’12 second-grade classroom are working on math, translating equations like 2 x 4 = 8 into words and using Cheerios to solve multiplication problems.

Saba Amirali BSEd ’19, MEd ’19, a master’s student from the University of Georgia’s College of Education, is in the middle of the action, a group of 8-year-olds gathered around her. After assuring one of the boys in the classroom that he didn’t, in fact, need more Cheerios to complete the problems, she moves over to the next group.

As one of 174 students pursuing dual bachelor’s and master’s degrees in early childhood education through a Double Dawgs program, Amirali was spending her last spring semester at the elementary school as a student teacher. The Double Dawgs program enables students to earn both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in five years or less. Each program has a specific advisor who provides guidance on admission requirements and coursework that will fast track their multiple degrees. Being part of the inaugural education Double Dawgs cohort, Amirali and her classmates took advantage of the opportunity.

With more than 500 students enrolled in over 185 programs, UGA offers students one of the nation’s broadest arrays of accelerated master’s programs. The early childhood education track Amirali graduated from this summer is one of the most popular.

The most obvious benefit of Double Dawgs is the advantage students with dual degrees have in the job market. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, occupations that require master’s degrees for entry posi-

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SABA BSEd ’19, MEd ’19

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ASHLEIGH CLASS OF 2020

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tions are growing faster than those requiring only a bachelor’s degree, associate’s degree, or high school diploma.

In many fields, the adBS ’18, MS ’18 vanced degree translates to sp upwards of $10,000 more per ec i al year in earnings.

Traditional graduate education is expensive, though, typically costing anywhere between tens of thousands to more than $100,000 at some institutions. Double Dawgs allows students to maximize their time as undergraduates and minimize additional debt.

TAYLOR

In many fields, the advanced degree translates to upwards of $10,000 more per year in earnings.

“The subject matter and the courses Double Dawgs students take really make them strong individuals who are ready to be leaders when they leave,” says Elizabeth Saylor, clinical assistant professor, who created the College of Education track with colleague Robert Capuozzo. “I was a public educator in elementary school for 10 years, and I didn’t actually start teaching until I got my master’s as well. I feel like this program is preparing students for what they’re going into.”

That additional preparation is what encouraged Ashleigh Burroughs to participate in Grady College’s advertising Double Dawgs program. Almost immediately after the third-year student’s advisor mentioned the chance to stay an extra year at Grady to get her master’s, Burroughs jumped at the chance.

“I knew that if I said I was going to wait and get my

master’s later that later would never come,” says Burroughs, who spends her spare time working as a tour guide for UGA’s Visitors Center, representing the university on social media as a UGA ambassador, and participating in the Public Relations Student Society of America. “I knew it would make me super marketable in any kind of communications job I could possibly want, so I just couldn’t pass up this awesome opportunity.”

During his four years at Georgia, Taylor Smith BS ’18, MS ’18 was able to earn two bachelor’s degrees (one in math, the other in statistics), a master’s in statistics, and a certificate in applied data science. While working on his degrees, Smith took advanced course loads that prepared him for an internship with the Los Angeles Dodgers and eventually his current position as an analyst for the Tampa Bay Rays after graduation.

“The higher-level mathematical preparation those courses gave me put me in a good place to be able to understand new methodology,” he says. “You can only learn so many methodological tricks and practices in school, but learning the foundation of how to understand the building blocks of probabilities really helps you to see new things and understand them a lot better and a lot quicker than you would otherwise.”

As for Amirali, she’ll be putting her degrees to good use this fall as a fourth-grade teacher at Barrow Elementary School in Athens.

“Looking back, I’ve learned so much more in these master’s classes than I could’ve in undergrad alone,” she says.

“That knowledge boost, I can take all that with me into the classroom.” GM

For more information about the Double Dawgs program, visit DOUBLEDAWGS.UGA.EDU. geo rgia maga z ine | fall 2 019

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The University of Georgia is helping rural schools across the state meet the needs of students in this generation and the next by preparing teachers with theoretical expertise and practical experience.

written by aaron hale ma ’16

Students in Mary Claire Giddens’ English class begin their dive into Shakespeare with some toy sword play.

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Challenges and Solutions

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nternational travel isn’t an option for most students in Mary Claire Giddens’ freshman English class at Fitzgerald High School. Even though they live two hours from the Atlantic, some of them have never seen the ocean, much less crossed it. Fitzgerald, about 30 miles northeast of Tifton, is best known for the wild Burmese chickens that strut the downtown streets and, some claim, keep the bugs away. It is a heavily agricultural community with a population under 9,000 and a poverty rate of 38.8 percent (Georgia’s average is 16.9 percent). For some in the town, exploring new places isn’t possible.

But one warm May morning, just a few weeks before the end of school, Giddens takes her students far away from their sleepy hometown, over the ocean, and back a few centuries to Italy’s fair Verona with William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

Capping the year with a play written in Elizabethan English could be a tough sell, but Giddens BSEd ’14 keeps the room engaged with a little dueling (as she has the students act out the fight scenes with foam swords) and an accessible dive into the text. Even though the story is hundreds of years old, Giddens keeps it relevant, comparing the earnest lovers to friends they might know while simultaneously cultivating an appreci-

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After graduating from the College of Education, Mary Claire Giddens (above) returned to her rural roots to teach in Fitzgerald, Georgia.

UGA Associate Professor Sheneka Williams (right) researches the dynamics of rural education.

ation for Shakespeare’s writing.

“I want y’all to pay attention to what smooth game Romeo has,” Giddens says when the class reaches the scene of the star-crossed lovers’ first kiss.

The students eat it up. One remarks that, before meeting Juliet, a forlorn Romeo is acting “cringey.” Another questions whether the two are even in love, really. “He’s 17; she’s 13. They don’t know what love is.”

The skepticism is evidence that the students are paying attention.

In her second year at the school, Giddens is already the kind of inspiring teacher who can direct even the class clowns toward an appreciation for the Bard. She has become a lot like her own English teacher, Brenda Whitley, who teaches across the hall. It was about 10 years ago that Giddens was reading Shakespeare as a freshman in this same school from the same textbooks as her students. It’s one of the experiences that inspired her to earn a teaching degree from UGA’s College of Education.

Although she hadn’t really planned to, Giddens has come back to teach in her rural hometown. But this sort of homecoming has become an increasingly uncommon story.

chools across the nation are facing a number of challenges. A big one is teacher shortages, says Denise Spangler PhD ’95, dean of the College of Education. In a 2018 Gallup poll of K-12 school superintendents, 61 percent said they were concerned about their district’s ability to recruit and retain quality teachers.

The challenges are especially acute for rural and urban schools (two areas associated with high poverty rates). But whereas policymakers often talk about the challenges of urban schools, rural districts tend to be forgotten. That’s also true in the scholarly realm, where there’s fairly little research about the dynamics of rural K-12 education—even though nearly one out of five students attends a rural school in the United States.

Sheneka M. Williams, associate professor in the College of Education, is one of the researchers exploring this issue. For Williams, the topic is personal as well as academic. She grew up in rural Jackson, Alabama.

It was the kind of town where her parents knew her teachers by name before she even started school. Williams rejects the notion that people from small towns are undereducated. For her, it was a quality learning environment. But she does see a growing problem: Too often, a rural community’s brightest minds don’t stay.

“Many are leaving, and those who do go off to college find it difficult to return,” Williams says.

What’s happening in rural communities is part of a larger economic shift.

“As the U.S. has transitioned away from relying heavily on manufacturing and goods production, it’s hit rural communities especially hard and sometimes created a cycle of unemployment,” Williams says.

The College of Education is addressing the needs of these rural communities not only through its research, such as Williams’ scholarship studying rural education, but also with its rigorous teacher preparation program, which equips aspiring teachers to educate a diverse array of students (see theory vs. practice sidebar, page 21). The impact can be felt throughout the state. In the last five years, the college has supplied at least one UGA grad to teach in 153 of Georgia’s 181 school districts.

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Building Community

B

Chuck Arnold is the director of bands at Dawson County High School.

ut it’s not all bad news. K-12 education may be one area that—if fortified with good teachers and the right resources—can be a source of strength for a small community. “What rural areas can offer is a more cohesive community. It’s more familial. There is research that says these smaller learning environments, where you feel like you are part of a community, provide benefits for students,” Williams says.

Already, schools can act as the cultural heart of a community. A place peter frey where generations have shared experiences and have gathered for Friday night football games and school concerts.

That sense of community is what Chuck Arnold MMEd ’10, EdS ’13 is building as director of bands at Dawson County High School. A skilled trumpeter, Arnold served in the U.S. Navy Band overseas and worked as a freelance musician in New Orleans before becoming a school band director, just like his father.

Arnold came to UGA for his postgraduate work. While in Athens, he taught the Redcoat Marching Band trumpet section and acted as rehearsal director for the UGA Jazz Ensemble.

After working at Collins Hill High School in Gwinnett County, Arnold went to Dawson County. He was drawn to two things: the beauty of the area (a tight-knit community nestled in the foothills of the north Georgia mountains) and the challenges that awaited.

When he arrived, the bands program was not in good shape. In a school where 1,100 students were enrolled, only 35 were in the band. The program had not been a priority in the district until a new administration arrived.

Arnold was charged with building a band that could be a point of pride for the community. He had his work cut out for him.

Being a high school bands director is as much about running an operation (fundraising, travel plans, recruitment) as it is about teaching students to play together. Arnold’s coursework and experiences at UGA have been invaluable for helping him manage the load.

And for him, the effort is worth it. Music education, he says, offers an unparalleled experience to prepare students for success.

“It’s life in a nutshell,” he says of the band experience. “It teach-

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es them accountability. They have to be here every single rehearsal because every other member is counting on them. You’ve got to be prepared. It’s very similar to job expectations.”

In his four years at the helm, the band has tripled in size and raised its music grade level from a 3 (which is a medium-skill level) to 5 (advanced). Arnold credits the students and the school administration for the developments. Others might add that Arnold’s musical experience combined with academic chops are a big factor too.

Distance Learning

W

hile teacher shortages are a problem across the board, it is particularly acute in special education.

Julie Rigdon BSEd ’18 was oblivious to the issue until 2011. That’s when a retinal disease damaged her husband Kevin’s vision so badly that he had to quit his job.

To support her family, Rigdon went to work as a bookkeeper for an elementary school in Waycross. There she met the Ware County School District’s visual impairments teacher, Barbara Sonnier. Rigdon was still navigating her new life with a visually

Theory vs.

Practice T

For more information on supporting the College of Education, visit COE.UGA.EDU/ALUMNI/GIVING.

Julie Rigdon teaches visually impaired students in South Georgia. peter frey

Denise Spangler is the dean of UGA’s College of Education.

impaired husband. Sonnier helped Rigdon find some of the resources her family needed to get by. As Rigdon saw Sonnier working with students, helping equip them for a life without sight, Rigdon was inspired. She saw the need, and she wanted to help.

“There aren’t enough vision teachers anyway,” she says. “But in South Georgia, there are practically none.”

In her mid-30s, she enrolled in UGA’s online Bachelor of Science in Special Education program, a two-year degree that offers students the flexibility to complete this degree in a high-need field. In her area of southeast Georgia, bachelor’s programs are limited.

“It was not an option to drive to the nearest on-campus program because I needed to stay close to home for my husband and daughter,” she says. “Having the flexibility to be available for my family and get a degree from UGA was too good to not go for it.”

As soon as Rigdon graduated, she began working on her online master’s degree in visual impairment. This fall, she begins her first job as a visual impairment teacher in Wayne County. She’ll serve 11 students who range from 2nd to 11th grade, helping them learn Braille, making sure they have the right learning materials, and teaching them daily living skills (cooking, cleaning the house, and other daily tasks that they can’t learn from visual cues).

Getting to finally teach will be a relief for her. Just like Giddens, Williams, Arnold, and others who’ve come through UGA’s College of Education, the ultimate goal is helping the younger generations reach their potential.

“I’m so excited to finally get to work with the students and their parents,” Rigdon says. “Just to let them know, there is someone here that can help you.” GM

pe t

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here’s an old debate in teacher preparation about the importance of theory (such as theories about how children learn, how to use technology effectively, how to teach reading) versus practical experience (just getting into a classroom and teaching). Both are extremely important to becoming an effective teacher, says Dean Denise Spangler, especially in a diverse environment.

The College of Education already is a national heavyweight when it comes to teaching theory and research. And it has worked to balance theory and practice with its partnership with the Clarke County School District. The Professional Development School District brings UGA students and faculty into Clarke County schools to contribute to the education of the K-12 students while also giving aspiring teachers an invaluable experiential learning opportunity. More than 500 UGA students participate each year, and eight faculty members serve as professors-in-residence to guide UGA students and provide support to teachers and administrators.

Mary Claire Giddens (see main story, page 19) went through the program and calls it one of her most valuable experiences at UGA. She says the needs of urban students in a high-poverty area are comparable to those in her rural school.

“It gave me a realistic picture of what teaching was going to be like,” she says.

The program also sharpens the expertise of UGA faculty.

“It helps them make sure that what we’re doing is relevant in today’s schools with the kinds of policies that teachers work under, the kinds of students they’re working with, the kinds of constraints there are around testing,” Spangler says.

In 2015, the partnership was recognized for exemplary achievement by the National Association for Professional Development Schools.

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James Gee was only a few months old when he contracted a potentially fatal respiratory virus.

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photo courtesy of the gee family photo illustration by jackie baxter roberts

containing a contagion Infectious disease specialist Ralph Tripp is developing a vaccine to fight one of the world’s most common childhood illnesses. written by leigh beeson ma ’17

T

he 4-month-old had a bit of a cough and wasn’t sleeping well.

But little James Gee wasn’t congested and didn’t have a fever.

The doctor thought it was an ear infection. Give him some antibiotics, and he should bounce right back.

He didn’t.

Instead, he threw up all of the medication along with buckets of phlegm. His mom, Anna Claire Gee, had a bad feeling.

A few days later, James was admitted to Piedmont Athens Regional Hospital, where doctors immediately gave him

oxygen, threaded a feeding tube through his nose because he couldn’t nurse and breathe properly at the same time, and inserted an IV through his forehead because his tiny veins couldn’t accommodate the tubing.

They hadn’t diagnosed it yet, but James had respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, a common, highly contagious respiratory virus that typically causes mild cold symptoms. But in infants, the immunocompromised, and the elderly, it can be fatal.

James was in for a fight.

battling an omnipresent viru s Almost all children in the U.S. will be infected by respiratory syncytial virus by age 2, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most of them will recover on their own, but each year about 60,000 kids under age 5 wind up hospitalized with complications like pneumonia or bronchiolitis, an infection of the lungs that causes inflammation, congestion, and narrowing of the airways.

Several hundred children with the most severe complications die, not to

mention the thousands of people over 65 who also succumb to the virus every year.

There’s no current treatment for the virus itself. Health care workers can provide supportive therapies—oxygen, intubation, and a machine that breathes for the ill—but the only real healer is time.

For now, there’s also no vaccine to prevent kids from getting sick in the first place. But that’s something UGA’s Ralph Tripp aims to change.

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shot s ci ence For more than 60 years, scientists have been working on a safe and effective RSV vaccine. Billions have been spent on development and testing. But so far, nothing’s worked.

For many years in the U.S., making a vaccine was a three-step process: Isolate the organism you’re trying to fight, kill it, and inject it into the patient. “It mostly worked for many pathogens, but we’re way past that now,” says Tripp, Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar and GRA chair of Animal Health Vaccine Development. “We’re taking into account systems biology that includes how the virus replicates, how infections occur that

avoid the immune response, and how one can tailor vaccines to achieve the best results.”

The ultimate goal is to make vaccines safer, more effective, and faster and cheaper to mass manufacture.

But first, vaccine candidates have to cross what researchers often refer to as the “valley of death,” the pre-clinical trial stage to determine efficacy.

That’s where all the RSV vaccines have foundered.

Scientists had explored the virus’ genes and pinpointed a protein (known as the fusion, or F, protein) that allows RSV to infect susceptible cells. It seemed like an

obvious target. If they could stimulate antibody production against the protein, surely it would stop the disease.

Except it didn’t. In clinical trials, the vaccines would knock out the virus’ ability to replicate within patients, but they still suffered all of the disease symptoms.

“Vaccine manufacturers prefer to take the easiest approach,” Tripp says. “The F protein was well documented and well understood. But the vaccine trials have all failed, and a lot of money has been spent and wasted.”

There has to be a better way, he thought.

building better shots As part of UGA’s Center for Vaccines and Immunology, Ralph Tripp studies the mechanisms of immunity and disease progression. Established in 2015, the Center focuses on expanding knowledge of the immunology of infectious diseases and how vaccines work in different populations.

UGA’s Ralph Tripp is developing a vaccine to fight one of the world’s most common childhood illnesses, respiratory syncintial virus, RSV.

Read more stories about life-changing research at GREATCOMMITMENTS.UGA.EDU.

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peter frey

viral overload Every winter, Athens pediatrician Carrie Kelly BS ’00 sees at least one RSV case a day. “Most of the time the patient does well, similar to many patients with the flu,” she says. “But there are many, many times when high-risk or even incredibly healthy people get the flu and die. It’s the same with RSV.” One of RSV’s most frightening complications is respiratory failure.

The baby’s body becomes so tired from the extra work it takes to breathe that it eventually can’t keep up, says Julie Martin, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the Augusta University-University of Georgia Medical Partnership. The infant’s breaths come fewer and farther between. With the drop in blood oxygen levels and buildup of carbon dioxide in the blood, organs begin shutting down.

That’s what was happening with James.

For Anna Claire, the nightmare wouldn’t end. James had been in the hospital for about a week, and he just wasn’t getting better. If anything, he’d taken a turn for the worse. The doctors had to amp up the breathing machine to deliver higher levels of oxygen, but it didn’t appear to be helping much.

Four days after he was first admitted in Athens, James was rushed to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, where doctors in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit began planning their course of action for when his organs shut down.

He’d hit what Kelly calls the peak of the RSV cycle, typically about three to six days after the initial illness presents when symptoms are at their worst and most dangerous.

back to the drawing board Watching vaccine after vaccine fail in clinical trials was discouraging.

But Tripp knew the answer had to be hiding somewhere inside the genetic makeup of the virus.

That’s when it occurred to Tripp and his colleagues that maybe targeting a different protein, the G attachment protein, could be the solution. The Tripp lab previously found a molecule within the G protein that enables it to evade a patient’s immune response, allowing it to infect and replicate throughout the host’s airways. The lab also found that the protein was essential for the virus to attach to the delicate hair-like cells lining a person’s airways, causing the severe respiratory symptoms.

He had a new vaccine target—and a lot of work to do.

next stages

photo courtesy of the gee family

James Gee’s RSV battle was emotionally scarring for his family. Had a vaccine to protect against the virus existed, his mother says she would have had him vaccinated.

Back in Atlanta, James had started to turn a corner. He was alert, and his liver had bounced back from near-failure.

A few days later, he was moved from the PICU to the regular floor; a few days after that he got to go home.

Like most RSV cases, as quickly as the most severe symptoms of the virus came on, they disappeared.

But for Anna Claire, the emotional scars remain.

When she talks about the ordeal, she has to pause and collect herself.

Had a shot existed when James was born, Anna Claire would’ve been the first in line, and any progress in creating one is exciting to her.

“As a mom, you are the biggest advocate for your child,” she says. “If we hadn’t gone to the hospital that day, I don’t know what might’ve happened. I’m just thankful that we did.”

The new vaccine Tripp and his colleagues developed worked well in mouse models and will soon be heading to clinical trials. If all goes well, it could hit the market in a handful of years.

And, if Tripp has his way, stories like James’ will soon be a thing of the past. GM

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ita l i an

Summer

Celebrating 50 years of Bulldogs studying abroad in Cortona. written by eric rangus ma ’94 photographs by andrew davis tucker

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E

ven by the high scenic standards of Tuscany, the views from Cortona, Italy, are stunning. One of the loveliest is looking south from near the top of Monte Sant-Egidio, where the town has sat for more than 2,000 years. The tapestry of rolling fields in the foreground is occasionally interrupted by silvery leaved stands of olive trees whose bounty is still harvested by hand. The blue waters of Lago Trasimeno lie just beyond and just past that are the hills that give the horizon its depth.

“There is something beautiful around every corner in Cortona,” says Margaret Morrison, associate professor of art in the Lamar Dodd School of Art. She has spent this summer teaching painting at UGA Cortona, the university’s oldest and largest study abroad program.

“We go outside and I’ll say to the students, ‘Just look across this valley!’ You won’t see this view anywhere else,” she says.

UGA Cortona’s painting studio dates to the 1640s; it was renovated just over a decade ago.

Among its many previous lives, the studio was a Catholic chapel, now deconsecrated. What was once the living space for the cloistered nuns lies just beyond the far wall, and Morrison’s personal workspace is in the loft where the Mother Superior could look down on the nuns in prayer. The symbolism isn’t lost on her.

“I feel more like a mentor,” Morrison says.

“We have dinner with the students every night.

We walk up the hill together. It’s more like an Old World master/apprentice relationship.”

That gives a lot of freedom to the advanced students, who upon entering class grab their easels and carry them to a spot in town that moves them. The beginners, many of whom are painting for the first time, spread out in chapel.

The high quality of their still-lifes and portraits belies their inexperience.

“This is the most inspiring studio I’ve ever taught in,” Morrison says. She is speaking specifically about the chapel, but her feelings really apply to all of Cortona.

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Landscape architecture majors Caroline Petithomme and Emily Rogers texture rubbing in the Plaza della Repubblica.

City on a Hill UGA’s study abroad destination wasn’t stumbled upon by accident, and it certainly wasn’t chosen for convenience. In 1969, the founder and namesake of UGA’s School of Art, Lamar Dodd, asked faculty member Jack Kehoe to pick a place in Italy to start an art program. Kehoe, who had previously worked as a sculptor in Rome, knew the country, and he knew what he was looking for in a study abroad location.

For three months Kehoe crisscrossed Italy, visiting 34 cities and towns around the country. When he reached the 35th, on the top of a hill in Tuscany, he knew he’d found something special.

History surrounds Cortona. Literally. The wall that encircles it was first built by the Etruscans in the seventh century B.C., and for the next 1,500 years whoever controlled the area—the Romans, the Goths—added onto it. They built things to last back in those days; the wall has stood the test of time and is visible from miles away in the valley.

Inside those walls, Cortona’s patchwork architecture includes Etruscan influence, although many buildings date from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance or sometime after.

A prime example is the Palazzo Communale and its clock tower, which dominates Cortona’s largest space, the Piazza della Repubblica, as well as many tourist photographs. A maze of narrow streets and alleys marked by steep hills stitches it all together.

At the time of Kehoe’s visit, most U.S. study abroad programs, not just in Italy, but around the world, were headquartered in major urban centers. Kehoe wanted something different. He wanted a place that was relatively undiscovered, as students tended to get lost in cities overrun by tourists. Classroom and arts facilities were a must, as was lodging. A friendly local government open to partnership with the university was essential.

Fortunately for everyone involved, Cortona’s new mayor, Tito Barbini, was looking to make a big impact, and building a relationship with Kehoe was a perfect way to do that.

The following summer, UGA Cortona came into being.

Cortona’s first classes were taught in what is now Teatro Signorealli, a beautiful performance space in the center of town. Students lived a few paces away in what had been a monastery. But in reality, the classroom was all of Cortona.

It’s the same way today.

“I wanted to study in a place that felt like

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home, and you can’t do that in a large city,” says Emily Rogers, a second-year landscape architecture major from Augusta. “It’s great to be in a smaller place. You feel connected to it in a way you couldn’t in a larger place. You can see how people walk and listen to how they talk. I wanted to dive in and look at the small details.”

Eventually, the classes were moved to two buildings at the end of Villa Margherita, a short (one-quarter mile), remarkably steep (33 percent grade) avenue that runs along the south wall of the city. The first, the Severini School, is named for modernist painter and Cortona native Gino Severini, and it now includes space for printmaking, book arts, drawing, interior and graphic design, landscape architecture and photography.

The second, just further up the hill, was purchased by UGA in 2002. The bottom floors had housed ceramics, the metal shop, and other facilities for years, but at the time of the purchase, the upper levels were an assisted living facility for elderly Cortonese. The construction of a new hospital in neighboring Camucia meant the residents had a new place to live and the University of Georgia had a new opportunity. After an extensive renovation, the building opened in 2005, and the University named it the John D. Kehoe Cortona Center.

The center now includes housing for nearly 100 students with many of the amenities you might expect (the wi-fi is pretty good and the kitchen serves a mean breakfast), while making allowances for the historic nature of the place. (The Kehoe Center, like most of Cortona, does not have air conditioning.

Still, the rooms are comfortable most hours, even in the middle of summer. Renaissance construction was advanced in more ways than one.)

Kehoe, who died in 2016 at the age of 89, led the program for 20 years and his presence looms large. The main academic building is named for him, there is a bust of him on the terraces behind it and his portrait graces the building’s main hallway.

Art is the definitely the focus of summer programs. Spring and fall semesters include not just art but also theatre, fashion merchandising and women’s studies. The monthlong Maymester is even more wide-ranging and features courses taught only in Cortona, such as science and art history, business and culture, and viticulture and enology.

Hannah Wetzel reviews an exhibit at the Museo delle Sinopie in Pisa.

Cole Muzio learns the art of hanging the laundry.

One of the benefits of studying abroad in Cortona is the closeness to the Cortonese.

Easels in hand, painting majors Madelaine Kinnebrew and Carolyn Bresnahan hike down the hill from the Kehoe Center to the geo rgia maga z ine | fall 2 019 29 center of Cortona.

Jade Long and Emmie Harvard negotiate a price with a Cortonese merchant.

Drawing professor Mark Taggart gives James Davidson some pointers on how to sketch the scenery.

peter frey

Looking at the World in a Different Way It’s a theme that arises frequently in Cortona. Every scene, every overlook, every turn around every street is more mesmerizing than the one before.

“I think I came to Cortona with the intention of being inspired by what I’m seeing.

At home, I don’t really think like that,” says Sarah Lee, a third-year painting major from Valdosta. “That’s definitely something I want to take back with me: to let myself be more aware, even just walking to class in Athens, every day of things around me that I could use for artwork.”

Studying in Cortona requires a watchful eye, a rigorous imagination, and an inquisitive heart.

“There is a lot of pre-selection before anyone even comes out here,” says drawing professor Mark Taggart, a 12-month resident of Cortona. “The average student is not the average student.”

All students are required to take three classes, so they spend six hours every day working on their craft. Studios are open until midnight, and they are almost always occupied.

“I know that most of my students won’t be studio artists, but they will be art collectors,” says Morrison. “They will be patrons; they will go to museums. When we go to Florence, they are the ones who lean in too close and

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set off the alarms.”

If the students are go-getters, faculty members are at least as ambitious. They incorporate Cortona—and Italy in general— into their coursework in all sorts of creative ways. Graphic design professor Moon Jung Jang’s students design Cortona flags for the town, which are submitted to the mayor’s office upon completion. The students in Marty Fielding’s ceramic class use clays and glazes that are specific to Tuscany.

Printmaking professor Melissa Harshman is going for something a little more continental—she asks her class to design personalized Euro notes, an intricate assignment that often includes student self-portraits etched in mirror image. Jewelry and metalworks professor Autumn Brown BFA ’06 encourages her students to seek out interesting designs on stone or tapestry and use them in their jewelry. Thom Houser’s interior design students are tasked with creating a display space for an Italian company they choose.

The classwork includes a visit to a brick and mortar store of that particular product. And Richard Morrison, who co-teaches Chemistry in the Arts with his wife, Margaret, shows students how to create and apply the egg tempera paints using the same ingredients Michelangelo did when he painted the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican.

Photography professor Bridget Conn MFA ’03 had her students document their trip to Rome though photos using long and multiple exposure techniques. The assignment resulted in dreamy, psychedelic works of art.

The faculty are skilled at improvisation, too. For instance, during a trip down the hill to central Cortona, landscape architecture professor Brian LaHaie detoured into an art gallery where students met the painter whose work was on display. LaHaie had met her at a café a few days before and asked if she’d be interested in speaking to his class. He finished up the trip with an impromptu lecture in a park where he pointed out first-hand the differences between European and American landscaping traditions.

“The landscape is your constant companion,” says Caroline Petithomme, a third-year landscape architecture major from San Luis Obispo, California. It’s very reassuring, and it’s a bonus that it’s flat-out beautiful and really unlike anything you’d see in the United States.”

This summer, Cortona hosted nearly 100 students who are taking classes in art and landscape architecture. An additional 30 students in the Terry College of Business, stay down the hill in town.

Painting professor Margaret Morrison is always nearby if her students need her.

Jewelry and metals professor Autumn Brown fires up her latest creation.

Teaching in Cortona For faculty, the application process to teach in Cortona often begins at least a year before classes start. Many of summer’s faculty members have taught in Cortona before, but each of the rookies has a built-in affection for the Tuscan town.

Brown, Conn, and book arts professor Amy Pirkle all attended Cortona as students, and they returned to teach there for the first time this year.

“I recently found some notes I wrote in graduate school that included a list called ‘Five Indicators of Success.’ One of them was ‘Teaching in Cortona.’” says Brown, who is now teaching in the same metal shop where she once practiced, albeit with some updated equipment.

Italian language professor Gilles Antonielli has even closer ties to Cortona. He grew up there. After graduating from the University of Siena, Antonielli taught first in France, then came to the United States, where he taught French and Italian at UGA for more than a decade. When he moved back home, it made perfect sense to teach at UGA Cortona.

Teaching in Italy is not without its advantages, but Cortona is no vacation.

The majority of faculty teach two two-hour classes, five days a week, but the job extends far beyond the classroom. While faculty do not live in the Kehoe Building with students—they have apartments scattered around Cortona—they see students all the

time on campus, in the studio, and across town. Over the eight-week summer semester faculty become far more than just teachers. At one time or another, Cortona faculty are tour guides, hall monitors, cheerleaders, sounding boards, problem solvers, and counselors. They are on all the time.

And somewhere they need to find time work to on their own art, which they present alongside the best student work at La Mostra, the final Cortona-wide exhibition that wraps up the semester. In January, La Mostra comes to the Lamar Dodd College of Art on campus, so Bulldogs stateside can enjoy it.

Ceramics professor Marty Fielding offers advice to Caroline Petithomme.

Book arts professor Amy Pirkle demonstrates the papermaking process.

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Managing Things Nowhere in Associate Director Kristine Schramer’s job description does it read “landscaping.” Yet there she is, along with a few willing students, pulling weeds and ivy outside the Severini Center on point for the UGA Cortona Campus Beautification Society, which she started a few years ago after the campus handyman died.

“The thing is, I’m not a gardener and I don’t really like yard work,” says Schramer, who is a painter and teacher by trade.

“But I’ve done it for so long and learned so much about landscaping that it’s nice to get away from the paperwork and go outside for a couple hours.”

Schramer’s outdoor activities are just one example of how the interdependent staff members at UGA Cortona make it through a year on the hill.

Schramer moved to Cortona six years ago and lives there tear-round with her husband, drawing professor Mark Taggart.

Art history professor Jennifer Griffiths also lives in Cortona full time. She and Schramer take the lead in planning and executing the Saturday excursions students and faculty take to cities like Florence, Rome, Siena, Bologna, and Pisa. Enza Valente, whose office is just off the Piazza della Repubblica, is the liaison with Cortona’s city officials and businesses.

Zoey Wilson and Bryan Parnham are both Cortona graduates who work for the program as assistants. That assistance ranges from pouring concrete and fixing sinks to helping students adjust to life an ocean away from home.

Along with Director Christopher Robinson MFA ’01, Valente, and Schramer are the key players in the keeping the relationship between UGA Cortona and the town of Cortona moving forward.

“Authentic experiences can be hard for students to find,” Schramer says. “One of the things I try to do is come up with ways the students can integrate into the town.” It may be hard, but there has been a lot of success. For instance, students host a radio show on one of the local stations, and they hold an auction for student-made art with the proceeds given to local charities.

Sarah Northrop and Xiao Tan shop for hidden treasures at Cortona’s monthly antiques market.

Clint Granros and Jairus Romano stroll down Via Nazionale, Cortona’s main boulevard.

Painting major Lauren Schuster picked a perfect spot for a landscape.

Meet Cortona students and faculty and see more photos from UGA’s Italian Summer at NEWS.UGA.EDU/ITALIAN-SUMMER.

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From left: Cortona mayor Francesca Basanieri, UGA Cortona Director Chris Robinson, and UGA President Jere W. Morehead take part in 50th anniversary festivities.

The centuries-old Kehoe Center gets a new sign. peter frey

An Unforgettable Experience “The relationship between UGA and Cortona has transcended the term ‘study abroad,’” says Robinson, who became UGA Cortona’s director in 2011 following stints as a faculty member and associate director. “For UGA students and faculty, the Cortona experience is more than travel. It’s discovery.”

Tradition is important in Cortona. Today’s students and faculty eat together four nights a week at Tonino’s, a family-owned restaurant that is one of Cortona’s largest, with one of the town’s best views, to boot.

Just as they did in the 1970s.

“The University of Georgia has been here all my life,” says owner Marco Molesini, who was born four years before the campus was founded, but that’s close enough. Molesini is also a Georgia alumnus, having studied English and economics in Athens in the late 80s/early 90s. His grandfather opened the wine store in 1937 and his family also owns the town bakery and grocery store. As far as his relationship to UGA: “Where else would I go to school?”

These days when he isn’t running the store, he partners with UGA Cortona during its Maymester viticulture program.

Much of today’s Cortona experience has its roots in its founding, but there are differences. Increased tourism brought by

the Frances Mayes’ best-selling book Under the Tuscan Sun: At Home in Italy and the hit movie based on it changed Cortona’s vibe.

Fewer than 1,000 live in the town all year, but during tourist season, the population can swell to 20,000. English, although sometimes with a British accent, is heard almost as often as Italian. So is Russian, German, and French. Shops line Cortona’s bustling main drag, Via Nazionale, where Italian leather goods, locally made kitchenware, men’s and women’s fashions, and foodstuffs of every delicious sort all comfortably co-exist.

Mayes, a native of Fitzgerald, still has a home in Cortona and attended some of UGA Cortona’s 50th anniversary activities in June. They included the return of some 100 Cortona alumni, former Cortona administrators, and representatives from the University of Georgia, including Jere W. Morehead JD ’80. A 50th Anniversary celebration in Atlanta on August 10 was even more popular, drawing about 500 attendees.

Each student, each faculty member, and each visitor experiences Cortona in their own way. Somewhere around 10,000 alumni have attended UGA Cortona. Many were UGA students, but quite a few came from other institutions, eager to experience life

at one of the world’s leading art schools.

Everyone who’s been to Cortona will take their memories with them everywhere they go, but they also have the realization that the Cortona experience and the people they shared it with is a distinct moment in time.

“Cortona changed my life,” says Pirkle, who came to Cortona during the spring of 2001 as a painting student from Mercer University. For one of her electives, she enrolled in a book arts class (taught by current School of Art faculty member Eileen Wallace) and loved it. After returning to the States, Pirkle completed her degree in painting, but immediately looked for book arts and papermaking programs. She found one at the University of Alabama, earned her MFA, and joined the faculty there, where she has taught since 2007.

When the opportunity came to teach at Cortona, she didn’t hesitate and returned this summer for the first time in 18 years.

“When I came back, it really felt like home,” Pirkle says. “There are experiences in life that you will never forget,” Pirkle says.

“Ones that forever put you on a different path. For me,” she says, verbalizing the thoughts of the thousands of members of this study abroad family.

“That’s Cortona.” GM

geo rgia maga z ine | fall 2 019

33

ON THE BULLDOG BEAT

business learning community Built in three phases stretching back more than five years, the new Business Learning Community is one of UGA’s most ambitious construction projects. This fall, all the fences have come down, the bulldozers have gone home, and the Terry College of Business is ready to show off its new home. Here is what you will see.

4 2

5

7

1. CORRELL HALL

Named for: Ada Lee BSEd ’63 and A. D. “Pete” Correll BBA ’63 Home of: Terry’s dean, associate deans, MBA program, and development and alumni relations.

Also houses classrooms, project team rooms, a business innovation lab, and a graduate commons.

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2. AMOS HALL

Named for: Daniel P. Amos BBA ’73 Home of: Casey Commons, Rothenberger Café, Benn Capital Markets Lab, two auditoriums, undergraduate classrooms, Undergraduate Academic Services, and Terry’s finance and economics departments.

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3. BENSON HALL

Named for: W.H. (Howard) Benson, son H.E. (Ed) Benson BBA ’42, and grandson Larry R. Benson BBA ’74 Home of: Terry’s management, marketing, and management information systems departments and six undergraduate classrooms.

4. MOORE-ROOKER HALL

Named for: Family of Dudley L. Moore Jr. BBA ’57 and family of John W. Rooker BBA ’60 Home of: Terry’s insurance, legal studies, and real estate department as well as the Tull School of Accounting, the Institute for Leadership Advancement, International Business and Music Business program, a recording studio, and Stelling Family Study.

1 8

3

6

5. SANFORD AND BARBARA ORKIN HALL

Named for: Sanford and Barbara Orkin Home of: Godfrey Auditorium, four undergraduate classrooms, a behavioral lab, a computer lab for marketing research, Undergraduate Student Services, interview rooms, and spaces for formal and casual interaction among faculty, students, alumni, and employers.

6. IVESTER HALL

Named for: M. Douglas (Doug) Ivester BBA ’69 Home of: A 350-seat auditorium, three undergraduate classrooms, a seminar room, two conference rooms, the Selig Center for Economic Growth, Terry College’s marketing and communications, information technology, and business offices.

7. COCA-COLA PLAZA

Named in recognition of the many UGA alumni and friends associated with the Coca-Cola family of companies, Coca-Cola Plaza serves as the front entryway into the Business Learning Community.

8. FOLEY COURTYARD

A mezzanine overlooks Foley Courtyard and connects Benson Hall and Moore-Rooker Hall to Correll Hall. Thanks to a consistent Neo-Georgian architectural style, all 300,000 square feet of the new learning environment feels interconnected.

andrew davis tucker and dorothy kozlowski

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35

THE NATION

news and events

from the uga alumni association

UGA Mentor Program

New Leadership

Helping a student is an amazing feeling, but with today’s busy schedules and alumni scattered around the world, it can be difficult to know where to start.

The new campuswide UGA Mentor Program is a way for alummi to invest in a student’s future on their schedule no matter where they are.

Getting started is easy: Simply create a profile at mentor.uga.edu. Students will request mentors based on their interests, career paths, and experiences.

You can shape the next generation of leaders.

Visit mentor.uga.edu to sign up today.

Brian Dill AB ’94, MBA ’19 began his twoyear term as the 76th president of the UGA Alumni Association on July 1. Dill is the vice president of external affairs for Tanner Health System and the executive director of the Tanner Foundation and has been on the UGA Alumni Association Board of Directors since 2007. He and his wife, Carmen BSFCS ’95, live in Carrollton with their son, Mason.

Dill was a political science major and a member of the Redcoat Band.

A BULLDOG BARK TO ...

richard bell photography

CHAPTER SPOTLIGHT

In addition, seven new alumni have joined the UGA Alumni Association Board of Directors: • Anne Beckwith BBA ’90 • Travis Bryant BBA ’99 • T.J. Callaway BBA ’07 • Cathy Fish BSA ’93, DVM ’96 • Kevin A. Gooch JD ’04 • Camille Kesler BSFCS ’94 • Mark Mahoney BBA ’83 Thank you to Brian Dill and these new alumni volunteers for helping coordinate and advance the programs and services provided by the UGA Alumni Association to the Bulldog family.

The UGA Alumni Association brought the Bulldog faithful together in Savannah and Charleston in May. More than 250 alumni joined in for these evenings of food, fun, and updates from campus.

Randy Travis ABJ ’82 is an investigative reporter with WAGA-TV FOX 5 in Atlanta whose work earned him a Peabody Award during the 78th Annual Peabody Awards Ceremony in New York City.

getty images for peabody

CHAPTER NAME: Colorado CHAPTER PRESIDENT: Linda Fernekes BS ’05 NUMBER OF ALUMNI IN THE AREA: 3,000+ The Colorado Dawgs know how to make the most of their state’s great resources by hosting a variety of indoor and outdoor gatherings for local alumni and friends.

These include hikes, service projects, dog sledding, ladies’ brunches, an annual SEC Ski Day, and, of course, game-watching parties. If you’re in the area, join in the fun throughout the year!

Find your chapter: ALUMNI.UGA.EDU/CHAPTERS special

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SOCIAL MEDIA

Stay connected with @ugaalumniassoc on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. #AlwaysADawg In May, the Women of UGA affinity group hosted a Mentorship Monday in Atlanta. Cheri Leavy BSEd ’97 (far left), co-founder of The Southern Coterie, led the panel of alumnae entrepreneurs from across the Southeast, including (from left): Amanda Wilbanks BBA ’09, Courtney Khail BFA ’07, Christie Shepard BSFCS ’95, and Sirmantha Ellison BBA ’00.

DON’T MISS OUT Game-Watching Parties Bulldogs never bark alone! This fall, head to a game-watching party hosted by one of UGA’s 80+ alumni chapters. alumni.uga.edu/gamewatching/gm

@womenofuga

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 13 2019 40 Under 40 Awards Luncheon Join alumni and friends in Athens to celebrate 40 of UGA’s most outstanding young alumni.

The New York City Alumni Chapter hosted a Harlem Renaissance Tour on April 6—the first in the chapter’s #NeighborhoodSeries of events— and offered NYC Dawgs the chance to learn about this historic neighborhood while getting to know fellow alumni.

alumni.uga.edu/40u40/gm

MONDAY-SATURDAY, OCTOBER 14-19

@marlyjuice The Louisville Alumni Chapter hosted a Women of UGA lunch in May for local UGA alumnae.

Homecoming Week Head to Athens for a week of spirited festivities, and be sure to stick around as the Bulldogs play the Kentucky Wildcats on Saturday, Oct. 19, in Sanford Stadium. The UGA Black Alumni Leadership Council will host its annual Homecoming tailgate on campus prior to the game. www.ugahomecoming.com

@ugaalumnilouisville

For more events, visit alumni.uga.edu/calendar.

Many thanks to outgoing Alumni Association President Bonney Shuman BBA ’80, pictured here with President Jere W. Morehead JD ’80 prior to Spring Commencement in Athens.

contact us: Moved? Changed your name? Added a new Bulldog to the family? Let us know! alumni.uga.edu/myinfo or (800) 606-8786. @bonshuman

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37

class

notes Compiled by Rachel Floyd AB ’19, Madeleine Howell, and Mary Calkins

1965-1969

the chairman of the Georgia

Tom Hudson BSEd ’67, MEd ’68

Ports Authority.

updated and co-authored CAR-

Mark Hall BS ’84, MS ’91 is a

LAW F&I Legal Desk Book (8th

Georgia/Florida state geol-

Edition). The book is a guide

ogist at the USDA Natural

to auto, boat, and RV dealer

Resource Conservation Service

finance laws and regulations.

in Athens.

Tina Roddenbery ABJ ’84, JD ’87

1970-1974

was named an equity partner

Don Kimberly BSFR ’72 retired

at Boyd Collar Nolen Tuggle

from Resource

& Roddenbery. She was also

Management Service in Bir-

named president of the Geor-

mingham, Alabama in January

gia chapter of the American

2018.

Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers.

1975-1979 Andy Williams ABJ ’75 retired

1985-1989

from his position as North

Jeffrey Watkins BBA ’87 was

Georgia regional president for

appointed to the Superior

United Community Bank in

Court of the Cherokee Judicial

June.

Circuit in Cartersville.

Guy Womack AB ’77 is an at-

Todd Kelly AB ’88 is a business

torney in his private practice at

consultant at International

Guy L. Womack & Associates

Services in Athens.

in Houston, Texas.

Mikel Vann AB ’78 is president

1990-1994

of the Master Gardener Vol-

Shondeana Morris ABJ ’92

unteers of Cobb County at the

was appointed to the Superior

Cobb UGA Extension Service.

Court of the Stone Mountain Judicial Circuit. She has served

1980-1984

on the DeKalb County State

William McKnight ABJ ’81 is

Court since August 2017. Mor-

38

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special

BIG APPLE ALUMNI

Welcome to New York In June, more than 100 Bulldogs took over Brooklyn. Every year, UGA’s New York City Alumni Chapter rolls out the red and black carpet for local students and new graduates who have recently moved to the City That Never Sleeps. The chapter’s Welcome to the City event is one of the year’s biggest, and the UGA alumni volunteers who organize it are among the university’s most effective and engaging ambassadors.

As the NYC Chapter’s professional networking chair, Helen Farmakis ABJ ’12 takes the lead in planning the event and is among the first to greet New York’s newest residents. She is ideally suited to the role.

Less than 72 hours after she graduated from Grady College with her degree in public relations and certificate in new media studies, Farmakis started a job as an assistant account executive in New York.

Connections she met through UGA, especially as a Grady Ambassador, helped open the door for her. She charged through it and hasn’t stopped moving forward since.

Farmakis is now an account supervisor with the PR firm FleishmanHillard and currently serves on the NYC Chapter board where she’s able to contribute in several areas across the network. A native of Savannah, Farmakis says it was always her dream to move to New York.

Now it’s her goal to help other Bulldogs make the move. Recently, her office brought in two Grady grads as interns. And through the chapter, Farmakis is able to reach out to many more.

“It’s very important for me to give back,” Farmakis says. “Everyone in the Georgia community supports one another here in New York City.

We are a family. While every school has an alumni network, there’s something truly special about the UGA community – our bonds are richer and more meaningful. It truly is second to none.”

CLASS NOTES APPLAUSE FOR ALUMNI

Entrepreneurial Journey

Michelle Blue BBA ’13

andrew davis tucker

M

ichelle blue was always a planner.

But after doing a corporate internship following her freshman year at the University of Georgia, she felt uninspired and reevaluated the blueprint she had laid out for her life.

“No plan is definitive, so you have to learn that as life throws you different things, you have to be able to flow with it and adjust accordingly,” says Blue BBA ’13.

Since then, Blue has found inspiration in enjoying the journey rather than following a rigid plan.

The summer following her sophomore year, she headed to Ghana on a fashion merchandising and social work study abroad program with UGA. There, the group visited an organization called SISTAWorks, which helps support young Ghanaian women and girls’ education.

Inspired by their stories, Blue wanted to be a catalyst for change.

After graduating with a bachelor’s in marketing and a minor in fashion mer-

chandising, she co-founded Bené, a luxury scarf company based in Atlanta that partners with SISTAWorks. “With each scarf we sew, we sponsor tuition, books, supplies, and uniforms for the girls to continue their education,” she says.

Since starting the company, Blue and her co-founder have been able to return to Ghana and see students that they supported graduate.

Blue’s dedication to social entrepreneurship has grown since then. In 2017, she released The Journey With Blue, an online talk show and community on YouTube and its namesake website on which entrepreneurs from all walks of life share their stories. The series urges would-be entrepreneurs to enjoy the process of starting a business rather than singularly obsessing over the end result.

Blue hopes to foster a community of entrepreneurs built around “sharing those transparent stories of the journey, the lessons, the sacrifices, the failures along the way, and finding the beauty in it

special

all,” she explains.

This past summer Blue rolled out another program, Millionaire Mentors Mastermind, where business owners tune into a group video call for advice from millionaire entrepreneurs. The participants learn habits of success and the essential mindset needed in order to expand their ideas of what is possible for their businesses and for themselves. “Sometimes, it just takes seeing it to know that it is possible and in reach for you, too,” she says.

Since that disappointing internship changed her life, Blue doesn’t allow failures to keep her down. It’s a philosophy she tries to share with anyone who will listen. “If you let every mistake and every bump in the road keep you from your dreams. How bad do you really want it?”

written by madeleine howell

geo rgia maga z ine | fall 2 019

39

CLASS NOTES was appointed to the Superior Court of the Macon Judicial Circuit. He has served on the Bibb County State Court since August 2017 and was previously a partner at Jones Cork in Macon.

Tripp Morgan BSPHR ’96, PharmD ’97 and his father, Harris Morgan BSA ’69, BSPH ’75, opened Pretoria Fields Collective, a brewery and taproom specializing in beer using fresh, local ingredients, in Albany.

Marlo Leatherwood BS ’97 was selected as the National Association of Elementary School Principals’ National Outstanding Assistant Principal of the Year, representing middle level administrators in the state of Georgia. She is the assistant principal of Harlem Middle School in Harlem, Georgia.

Brian Smith BSEd ’97 is the regional president of CoastalStates Bank in Savannah.

Robin Richards AB ’98, MEd ’07 won $50,000 on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire in October 2018.

Marla Vickers AB ’98 was named assistant vice president of advancement at Emory University in Atlanta.

ris previously was deputy dis-

Resources in Columbia.

The firm was named to the

trict attorney in Fulton County

Michael Burnett BS ’93 is the

2019 edition of U.S. News and

and an assistant solicitor for

CEO of Piedmont Athens

World Report’s Best Law Firms

2000-2004

the City of Atlanta.

Regional Medical Center.

as a Tier 1 Atlanta law firm in

Jaclyn Dixon Ford BSA ’00 was

Al Story AB ’92 is director of

Mistikay Phillips BSFCS ’93 is

three practice areas: family

named to the Georgia Depart-

threat assessment for the

senior interior designer for

law, family law mediation, and

ment of Economic Develop-

University of Alabama in

Georgia Power in Atlanta.

arbitration.

ment board of directors. She is

Tracey Adams AB ’96 is director

the vice president and COO of

Johnny Stowe BSFR ’92, MFR

1995-1999

of academic affairs at Robert

Dixon Gin in Enigma.

’95 is a wildlife biologist and

Jonathan Tuggle BBA ’95 is a

Toombs Christian Academy

Ryan Sarks BBA ’00 is human

forester at the South Caro-

shareholder at Boyd Collar

in Lyons.

resources/risk management/

lina Department of Natural

Nolen Tuggle & Roddenbery.

Jeffery Monroe AB ’96, JD ’00

fleet safety manager for Cher-

Tuscaloosa.

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CLASS NOTES APPLAUSE FOR ALUMNI

The Silicon Valley Connection

Jill AB ’11, MPA ’12 and Lucas Puente AB ’10, BBA ’10

rudney novaes photography

F

inding a tech sector job in Silicon Valley, where egos are big and competition is stiff, can be pretty daunting. But Jill and Lucas Puente carved out success in the industry. The key is making connections.

For Jill, the head of environment and sustainability marketing at Google, and for Lucas, a senior survey scientist for the collaboration platform Slack, the connections started at the University of Georgia.

Jill AB ’11, MPA ’12 and Lucas AB ’10, BBA ’10 met at UGA through the Model U.N. team, which simulates the kind of give-and-take

problem-solving that happens through the United Nations.

“It encourages students to compromise and build diplomacy,” Jill says. Looking back fondly, she admits, “it’s a pretty nerdy extracurricular” and “I took it way too seriously.”

“That’s her way of saying she’s way better at it than I was,” Lucas throws in.

Jill, an international affairs major in the School of Public and International Affairs, and Lucas, an international affairs and finance double-major, bonded through their shared interests. They started dating.

There were other connections too. Lifelong friendships. Meaningful mentorships with administrators and faculty, including Jere W. Morehead JD ’80, before he became the university’s president.

“It’s pretty cool what a family feel UGA has, despite it being so large,” Lucas says.

Through an internship on Capitol Hill in UGA’s Washington Semester Program, Lucas found his calling. He was inspired by the idea of getting answers to complicated questions. “The people I wanted to emulate had research backgrounds and Ph.D.s.,” he says.

So, after graduating, Lucas went to Stanford University to work on a master’s in economics and a doctorate in political science.

A year later, Jill started looking for a job in Silicon Valley. A UGA classmate knew someone at the rapidly growing startup Wildfire, a social media marketing company. She was hired, and within a year Wildfire was acquired by Google.

Now Google’s head of environment and sustainability marketing, Jill promotes the tech giant’s commitment to sustainability.

For example, Google is the largest purchaser of wind and solar energy in the world, she says, which powers Google’s data centers.

Lucas finished at Stanford and recently started a new job at Slack, where he translates survey data into valuable insights across the company.

They’re happy in San Francisco with their 1-year-old son, Nico, and they encourage fellow Bulldogs to join the tech scene.

Just be ready to reach out to a lot of people to get started. And don’t let the fear of bothering people get in the way of making connections, Jill says. Most of the companies have referral programs that offer incentives for existing employees to bring in new talent.

“Reach out to anyone and everyone you know to get introductions and create conversations,” she says. “People were super eager to help me. Not to mention, people are just happy to help out fellow Bulldogs.”

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CLASS NOTES okee County Water and Sewerage Authority.

Wendy White BS ’00, MS ’02 is a food safety project manager with the Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership at Georgia Tech Tiffany Tedder BSA ’01 is a community pharmacist at Eagle Pharmacy in Millen.

Justin Reese BBA ’02 received the Business Insurance 2019 Break Out Award. He currently serves as vice president, senior risk consultant, and the risk services lead, for HUB international.

Jake Carter BBA ’03 was named to the Georgia Department of Economic Development board of directors. He is part owner of Southern Belle Farm in McDonough.

Catherine Morrison Harris AB ’03, JD ’06 was promoted to director of legal technology transactions at FedEx. Matthew Johns BBA ’03 was named president of the Home Builders Association of Greater Savannah. He and his wife, Christy Johns BBA ’03, own and operate Matthew Johns Construction in Savannah.

Andy Grabel ABJ ’04 was named vice president of communications at the NEA Foundation, a public education nonprofit organization, in Washington, D.C. Chris Konke AB ’04 is an immigration officer with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in Washington, D.C. 2005-2009 Christina Hufford BS ’05 is a doctor of physical therapy at Brooks Rehabilitation in Jacksonville, Florida.

Brandon Jordan BBA ’05 is a certified financial planner and chartered financial consultant at Arch Advi-

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CLASS NOTES APPLAUSE FOR ALUMNI

Opening a Door

T

he unremarkable, ramshackle doorway is easy to ignore. Over many, many years, untold numbers of visitors to the Tuscan town of Castiglion Fiorentino have done exactly that.

But Rita Morgan Richardson BSEd’80, MEd’83, EdS’86 didn’t. She fell in love with what was behind it.

Richardson and her husband, Tim AB ’87, MA ’89, visited Tuscany in 2010 while their son, Zach BLA ’12, MLA ’14, was studying abroad at UGA’s campus in Cortona. At that time, they took a side trip to Castiglion Fiorentino, about 15 minutes north. They became enamored with a small 600-yearold apartment in the center of town and bought it a year later.

“Italy was always calling me. It was my dream to one day have a place there,” says Richardson, whose mother was born in Naples. Her parents met when her father was stationed in Italy following World War II. When Richardson was in grade school, the family moved to Marietta, and when she enrolled at the University of Georgia, she studied French education. (Her high school in Marietta didn’t offer Italian, which is why she started studying French and continued with French and Italian at the university.)

Rita Morgan Richardson BSEd ’80, MEd ’83, EdS ’86

peter frey

The trilingual Richardson eventually earned three degrees from the university and taught French at schools in Hartwell and Marietta. Following a move to Nashville and Zach’s birth, she started her own business, French for Fun, and taught the language to hundreds of children around the city.

Since buying their Tuscany apartment, Rita and Tim have visited Italy several times a year, and it was on a trip in 2015 that Rita took a longer look at that crumbling doorway in Castiglion Fiorentino. What lay behind it was a historic baroque chapel named San Filippino.

Richardson learned that the Catholic Church still owned the property, and after speaking with the nearby archbishop, she received the go-ahead to lead a project to renovate San Filippino. However, five centuries of off-and-on neglect can’t be erased in a fortnight, nor can it be done on the cheap.

The renovation includes the chapel and the apartments above it, where its priests once lived. Richardson foresees the chapel hosting weddings and other events. She is working to make the apartments into a retreat center for visiting artists, writers and scholars who will engage the town with

readings, lectures and exhibitions. All of this would provide an economic boost to the town, which is a part of the Richardsons’ mission. The price tag: 500,000 euros (about $560,000). To help with fundraising, Richardson created a foundation, Save San Filippino, and she has become quite an effective, self-taught marketer.

Richardson learned how to create and edit video to leverage the effectiveness of electronic storytelling, and she developed the confidence to cold-call anybody in Italy and the U.S. That led to an account of the San Filippino project in a new book by best-selling author Dianne Hales called La Passione: How Italy Seduced the World. Richardson even joined Hales on recent book tours in the southeastern U.S and Florence, Italy.

So far, Richardson has raised about 10 percent of her monetary goal. That’s enough to put a new roof on San Filippino, and work on that project should begin later this year.

“We’re in this for the long term,” Richardson says. “San Filippino is part of me now. This is my mission in life. Learning languages at UGA has opened many doors for me throughout my life. Hopefully, with this project, I can pay some of that good fortune forward.”

written by eric rangus MA ’94

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43

CLASS NOTES sory Group in Tyrone.

Georgia Student Finance

and CEO of National Insur-

2010-2014

Douglas Kaliher AB ’05 works in

Commission. Perez is the COO

ance Consulting Group in Fort

Lauren Claridge BBA ’10 is a

the fermentation department

of the Carroll Organization, a

Lauderdale, Florida.

national key account manager

at Boeringer Ingelheim

private real estate company

Laura McGuire AB ’09 graduat-

for Michelin North America in

in Athens.

based in Atlanta.

ed from the University of Mi-

Greenville, South Carolina.

Todd Taranto BBA ’05 opened

Ryan Dobrin BBA ’09 is a digital

ami Miller School of Medicine.

Kate Worthey ABJ ’11, BS ’11

his firm, the Law Office of

specialist at See.Spark.Go, a

She is now a resident of neuro-

completed the 2018 New York

Todd C. Taranto, in Mandeville,

digital strategy and commu-

logical surgery at the Universi-

City Marathon. Worthey is

Louisiana.

nications marketing agency in

ty of Illinois in Chicago.

director of strategy at Giant

Daniel Perez BBA ’06 was

Athens.

Spoon in New York City.

named to the board of the

Zain Hasan BS ’09 is founder

Caitlyn Lindsey-Hood AB ’12 was named an associate at Boyd Collar Nolen Tuggle & Roddenbery in Atlanta.

Perri Campis BSA ’13 is a project director at the Flint River Soil and Conservation District.

Teresa Davis AB ’13, ABJ ’13 was appointed special assistant to the Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs in Washington, D.C. Margaret Krhut AB ’13 is pursuing a doctorate in Spanish at Vanderbilt University.

Annette Naranjo-Tew BSEd ’13, MEd ’17 is a teacher at West Central Elementary School in Rome, Georgia.

Karen Robbins BBA ’13 is senior brand marketing manager at SPANX in Atlanta.

Janessa Alvarez AB ’14 is pursuing a master’s degree in publishing at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Alexandra Bonomo BSFCS ’14 is an account manager for Weber Shandwick in Atlanta, where she leads programs and product launches for Oreo, M&Ms, Twix, and Powerade.

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CLASS NOTES APPLAUSE FOR ALUMNI

Music City Man

John Ozier AB ’02

special

N

ashville’s music industry has a well-earned reputation for machine-like efficiency. John Ozier doesn’t disagree, but he encourages listeners to probe a bit deeper.

“This town is really built by songs,” says Ozier AB ’02, a Nashville native who returned home after graduating from UGA to become one of the industry’s top executives. “They have to be authentic.

The truly great ones make the hair on the back of your neck stand up. It’s all about feeling and emotion.”

A state-champion pole vaulter in high school—one of three sports he competed in—Ozier came to the University of Georgia to compete for the men’s track and field team. But he soon burned out on athletics and pivoted toward his true

love: music. As a student, Ozier spent many nights playing in bands across Athens and learned he had a knack for songwriting.

He graduated from Georgia with an English degree, and after a few months working part time for a record company in North Carolina, an acquaintance called and offered him a job at Curb Records in Nashville. He packed his bags and moved home.

At Curb, Ozier worked directly with superstar country artists like Tim McGraw and LeAnn Rimes and also wrote a lot of songs. His creative contributions to Curb culminated in 2012 when he cowrote two No. 1 songs—“Hard to Love”

by Lee Brice and “Whiskey in My Water”

by Tyler Farr.

In 2013, while seemingly at the top of his game, Ozier quit writing professionally. He took an executive position with ole, a Toronto-based music rights management company. Ozier’s responsibilities included representing some 45 songwriters, and he felt that it would be unethical to compete with them.

That decision, along with his increasingly savvy leadership skills, made Ozier someone to watch in Nashville’s quickly diversifying music community. All the while, he kept his ties to UGA strong, too, mentoring several students in the university’s Music Business Program. Some, he even helped find jobs after graduation.

Ozier’s work earned him a lot of admirers. One of them was Reservoir, the largest independent music publisher in the world. For more than a decade, they had been looking to expand into Nashville, and following an early 2019 meeting with Ozier, Reservoir found the right man to lead the way.

Ozier started his new role as Reservoir’s executive vice president of creative on April 1, and the company opened its physical space in early May. Ozier will have the opportunity to build the office from the ground up. On opening day, the three-story, 1920s-era house just a few blocks from Music Row was without furniture save Ozier’s desk.

Ozier’s excitement is palpable, and he knows exactly where he wants to start: with great songs.

“Songs become the storybook of our lives,” Ozier says. “Everybody has a song that makes them remember their first girlfriend or when they got married or when their first kid was born. That’s what makes music so great.

“And then to watch it from the creator’s standpoint, they’re going to write songs back there that are going to change the world,” he continues, pointing to the eight songwriter rooms that are currently empty except for some freshly unrolled carpeting. “It’s pretty awesome to be a part of it.”

written by eric rangus MA ’94

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CLASS NOTES Jon Goodfriend AB ’14 married Laura Elaine Ross in Atlanta.

Sarah Hughes AB ’14 is an Olympics researcher for NBC Sports in New York.

2015-2019 Tyler McMartin BS ’15 is pursuing a degree at the Loyola Stritch School of Medicine in Chicago.

Corey Coffey BBA ’16 is a territory sales manager at Honeywell International.

Hayley Hall mBBA ’16 is a partner at Maverick & Maven Consulting in Alpharetta.

Nicole Holden BSA ’16 is a cost proposal coordinator at the Normal Borlaug Institute of International Agriculture at Texas A&M University in College Station.

Reilly McDonnell ABJ ’16 is senior counselor at Dezenhall Resources in Washington, D.C. Corey Parham BBA ’16 is a senior accountant at AMB Sports & Entertainment in Atlanta.

Mobs Robertson ABJ ’16, BFA ’16 is managing editor of Butter.ATL, a social media channel dedicated to covering Atlanta’s culture.

Elizabeth Trent ABJ ’16, AB ’16 is a brand marketing specialist with Groupon in Chicago.

Austin Schulte BSEd ’17, BBA ’17 is pursuing a master’s degree in sport administration at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Austin Stone BS ’17 is the communications senior fellow for the NASA DEVELOP Na-

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CLASS NOTES

our georgia commitment research to improve lives

Leonard W. Poon and his wife, Marie, are funding opportunities to enhance our knowledge of the aging process.

A centenarian is an individual who has lived to at least 100—approximately 20 years longer than the average life expectancy. Leonard W. Poon, director emeritus of the UGA Institute of Gerontology, dedicated much of his career to understanding the characteristics that enable centenarians and other long-lived individuals to live longer and better.

Poon spearheaded the Georgia Centenarian Study through funding from the National Institutes of Health from 1988 through 2008 to learn more about the oldest of the old. He knew there was much to learn from them about survival, disease, frailty, and independence in the pursuit of maintaining health and a positive quality of life in older adulthood. The study brought together a team of biologists, psychologists, sociologists, and health care professionals from nine universities to identify genetics and environmental factors that contribute to living long and well. These factors include the absence and presence of specific genes, family longevity, nutrition, health, cognitive functioning, personality, and social support.

When the Distinguished Research Professor retired in 2011, he did not slow down.

He continues to be involved with the annual meetings of the International Consortium of Centenarian Studies that he founded 25 years ago and is still going strong. Poon and his wife, Marie, also help to support the annual Southeastern Student Mentoring Conference on Gerontology and Geriatrics that he established in 1987. They are passionate about growing mentorship opportunities for students.

In 2018, the Poons elevated their support for UGA and for those working and studying in the field of gerontology by establishing the Leonard W. Poon Professorship for Innovation in Public Health and Aging Fund.

Professorships are important vehicles in

GIVE.UGA.EDU

edwin hammond

today’s competitive academic environment to attract elite faculty members, recognize research accomplishments, and provide financial assistance for research and travel needs. They are a key priority in the university’s Commit to Georgia campaign and help UGA continue to pursue solutions to some of society’s great challenges through research.

“We want to give a booster shot to the gerontology program,” Poon says. “I give back to ensure the important work going on in the Institute of Gerontology continues and that innovations are made in how we work and study the aging population.”

They also established the Leonard W. and Marie A. Poon Student Mentoring Award

Endowment. This gift will create a perpetual fund to provide cash prizes to the best students during each annual mentoring conference.

Just like the legacies left by centenarians around the world and Poon’s groundbreaking research, Leonard and Marie Poon’s legacy will live on at UGA through their generous gifts that will support aging research and mentorship.

“When I was the director of the Institute of Gerontology, we were a leader in teaching and research within the university system and the Southeast,” Leonard Poon says.

“I give back to ensure this remains the case for years to come.”

Join the Poons in supporting the College of Public Health’s Institute of Gerontology by making a gift today at GIVE.UGA.EDU/GERONTOLOGY. GIVE.UGA.EDU/GEORGIA-COMMITMENT.

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CLASS NOTES

tional Program at the Langley

Consulting in Alexandria,

singles recently began a house-

on the impact of advancing

Research Center in Hampton,

Virginia.

show tour across the U.S.

technologies.

Virginia.

Skyler Tuholski BSA ’18 is a

Asia Asberry BSHP ’19 is an

Haley Dunigan BSFCS ’19 is

Danielle Bartling AB ’18 is asso-

physician assistant student at

ORISE fellow at the Centers for

owner and CEO of Chokers

ciate publisher of Milton Maga-

Philadelphia College of Osteo-

Disease Control and Preven-

and Charms, a start-up jewelry

zine at Local Life Publishing.

pathic Medicine in Suwanee.

tion.

company, and VAUT retail

Brooke Carter BBA ’18 is a

Nicole Williams BS ’18 is an

Rachael Dier AB ’19 is pur-

apparel company.

recruiter for Liquidnet, a global

ESL teacher at VIPKid, an

suing a master’s degree at

Megan Houston BSFCS ’19,

institutional investment net-

online teaching and education

Boston University, where she

MS ’19 is a registered dietitian

work in New York.

company.

is working with the director of

intern at the Medical Universi-

Matthew Monday AB ’18 is a

Brendan Abernathy AB ’19 is a

the division of Emerging Media

ty of South Carolina.

research analyst at TargetPoint

musician who has released two

Studies, assisting in research

Brandon Hyeung BBA ’19 is a SAP SuccessFactors consultant for Exaserv in Atlanta.

Cassie Koes BSEd ’19 teaches math at Creekview High School in Canton.

Christopher Mays AB ’19 is a cars analyst at Citibank in New York.

Andrew Nolan BBA ’19 is a connected services analyst in the Graduate Rotational program at Volkswagen Group of America.

gradnotes agricultural & environmental sciences Sangtoon Song MFT ’19 is a quality control manager for Morn Food Co in South Korea.

arts & sciences Lauren Hunt DMA ’16 is an assistant professor of horn at the Caine College of the Arts at Utah State University in Logan.

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CLASS NOTES APPLAUSE FOR ALUMNI

Force of Nature

Chandler Sharp BSFR ’15

special

A

s a kid, chandler sharp loved dinosaurs.

Many little boys do, but for Sharp BSFR ’15 it was more than just a phase.

“I wanted to know every dinosaur,” he says. While that love started with prehistoric creatures, it soon blossomed into a love of all things nature. “As I got a little older, I started learning more about animals and plants we see today. I found out that many of them are endangered or going extinct, just like the dinosaurs did.”

Sharp didn’t want those endangered animals to meet the same fate.

His concern for biodiversity, and the well-being of nature in general, led him to the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources at the University of Georgia.

As an undergraduate, he interned for Zoo Atlanta, helping staff provide enrichment and care for all its lions, tigers, bears, and other carnivores. He started volunteering there during high school, and he got to do a little bit of everything, from teaching guests about the animals they were seeing, to preparing animal diets, to cleaning their

special

habitats.

After graduating with his bachelor’s in wildlife biology, Sharp began working at the Georgia Sea Turtle Center on Jekyll Island through AmeriCorps, the national and community service nonprofit. He helped in veterinary procedures, interacted with visitors, and provided care for sick and injured wildlife, which included everything from sea turtles to bald eagles. During the busy season, the staff would sometimes end up working 12-hour days, but it was worth it when they gathered to release rehabilitated animals into the wild.

After stints on Tybee Island and in the Smoky Mountains, Sharp landed in Texas.

As a conservation educator at the Dallas Zoo, he engages zoo visitors through small animal encounters and educates them about the zoo’s various conservation initiatives from prairie restoration for monarch butterflies in Texas to rainforest conservation for gorillas in the Congo.

But that’s just his day job. Sharp is also pursuing a master’s degree in biology from Miami University in Ohio. The best part of

the program is the field work requirement that sent him to Baja, California to learn the basics of field methods in the Sea of Cortez and Baja desert and to the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia to discover the threats facing coral reefs and the animals that call them home. Next up is Namibia to work with the Cheetah Conservation Fund to learn about solutions for inevitable human-wildlife conflicts between farmers and big cats making their way further into human settlements as their habitat disappears.

For Sharp, though, all his experiences boil down to one thing: helping others get back to nature.

“Everything we need—from the food we eat to the air we breathe—is all tied to nature,” Sharp says. “A lot of the natural world is in danger due to human activities ranging from land conversion to plastic pollution. Yet many people are unaware of the severity of the problem. Connecting people with nature and inspiring them to take action for its benefit, that’s what I really love doing. By saving nature, we save ourselves.”

written by leigh beeson MA ’17

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49

CLASS NOTES business

Rick Rasmussen MEd ’98 is an

Vicki Edmondson PhD ’96 wrote

English teacher at Newton High

The Thinking Strategist: Unleashing

School in Covington. Rasmussen

the Power of Strategic Manage-

has been the coach of the boys

ment to Identify, Explore and Solve

basketball team for 14 years and

Problems, which was published in

surpassed the 300 career wins

October 2018.

mark in January.

Matt Summers MBT ’19 is the

Michael Nixon MEd ’00 is the

compliance director at CorCom in

executive director of the Georgia

Greenville, South Carolina.

High School Mock Trial Competition and is a member of the

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education

board of directors of the National

Gary Green MEd ’94, EdD ’00

High School Mock Trial Competi-

was honored as a Josiah Meigs

tion. The Georgia chapter hosted

Distinguished Teaching Professor.

the National High School Mock

He is a professor in the University

Trial Championship in Athens

of Georgia’s Warnell School of

in May.

Forestry and Natural Resources.

Marques Dexter MS ’09 is

Richard Hill EdD ’94 retired from

pursuing a doctorate in kinesi-

his position as associate su-

ology from UGA and was the

perintendent for personnel for

keynote speaker at San Jose

Hall County School System in

State University’s Institute for

Gainesville.

the Study of Sport, Society, and

CLASS NOTES

APPLAUSE FOR ALUMNI

Hungry for Change

B

ryan schroeder never thought he’d end up in the food industry.

He certainly never thought he’d win a James Beard Award, the Oscar of the culinary world.

He grew up in the deli his parents owned in Rome, Georgia, experiencing firsthand the culture of the industry.

“I got to see what life is like for people in food service—from dishwasher to owner— how great it is and how terrible it can be,” he says. “When I left Rome, I didn’t think I’d ever do anything in restaurants, but here I am. It’s a special kind of homecoming.”

Schroeder MA ’06 serves as executive director for the Giving Kitchen, an Atlanta-based nonprofit organization that provides support to those working in restaurants, catering, concessions, and food trucks. This March, the organization received the James Beard Humanitarian Award, the most coveted trophy in the industry, celebrating an individual or organization focused on giving back to the culinary community.

Giving Kitchen provides financial assistance to food service workers through crisis grants that cover emergencies such as illness,

Bryan Schroeder MA ’06

peter frey

injury, death, or natural disaster. So far, more than $2.6 million in financial aid from Giving Kitchen has paid rent, utilities, medical bills, and funeral expenses for food industry workers across Georgia.

“Once or twice a week, we’re stopping someone from getting evicted,” Schroeder says. “We’re providing stability to some of the hardest working men and women in our economy and helping keep people off the streets.”

Giving Kitchen also has a stability network, a group of professionals and specialists who provide care free of charge or on a sliding scale to those recommended by the organization. Support ranges from dental needs to child care to mental health counseling.

“We realized these people needed more than a check,” Schroeder says of the network.

“We’ve referred more than 1,000 workers to vital community resources.”

The food services industry is one of the largest sources of jobs in the country. Jobs are typically available to anyone regardless of background, education, or criminal history. With the nuances of the industry come struggles such as low pay and irregular hours,

peter frey

things not common in a more traditional working environment. Schroeder understands those struggles well.

“It’s a culture of its own, and we want to make sure that culture is healthy, safe, and stable,” he says. “Part of serving this community is understanding the community.

My parents’ restaurant was our one shot.

We were helped by so many people in the restaurant community.”

The organization is now reaching outside of the state. At the James Beard Foundation’s award ceremony in Chicago, the Giving Kitchen announced a nationwide effort to provide training and tools for restaurants to create safer working environments. This toolkit will include courses on suicide prevention and building and implementing a sexual harassment policy. Schroeder and his team were thrilled to win the culinary world’s highest honor, but they also hope it brings awareness to their cause.

“The award is great. We will get a lot of positive recognition,” he says. “But people can help us more than any award by telling our story and getting our mission out there to help as many people as possible.”

written by kellyn amodeo ABJ ’09

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CLASS NOTES

special

AWARD WINNING

Accomplished Creatives When it comes to telling compelling stories, UGA Grady College alumnae Karin Pendley Koser ABJ ’81 and Solyee Kim MA ’16 are no strangers to producing and marketing engaging material.

Pendley Koser’s company, KPKinteractive, is a digital branding and PR hub that services clients in need of sound marketing strategies based on their specific stories.

Director/co-producer Pendley Koser and logistics and social media coordinator Kim were two of five members of the production team for the company’s recent award-winning video marketing campaign, The People of Forestry, which documented the daily lives of nine forestry professionals.

The recognitions included two Bronze Telly Awards in the Branded Content and Motivational Video categories as well as a Public Relations Society of America Bronze Anvil Achievement Award for the social media distribution of the series.

Based in Atlanta, KPKinteractive specializes in creating and marketing various forms of content including video, photography, copy and podcasts for a diverse group of clients whose mission, products, or services inspire them.

Grady influenced me deeply, and I’m glad to pay it forward by mentoring the young people who work with KPKinteractive and through my teaching college students what I know,” says Koser, who also teaches at the University of North Georgia.

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CLASS NOTES Social Change’s student research fair. Dexter also spoke on a panel at New York University about the intersections of race, sport, and social justice during its 2019 MLK Week.

Joy Hules MEd ’09 is founder and director of A+ Tutoring, an Ohiobased private tutoring service that offers a variety of personalized teaching for unique learning needs.

Martha Bongiorno MEd ’15, EdS ’17 was named the Coastal Georgia Library Media Specialist of the Year in 2018 as well as the Fulton County Media Specialist of the Year in 2019. She founded #GaLibChat, a monthly chat for Georgia School Library Media Specialists, and co-founded Edcamp GA School Library. She is the president of the Georgia Library Media Association and helps maintain its website.

Artesius Miller PhD ’16 was named to the State Board of the Technical College System of Georgia. He is the superintendent of Utopian Academy for the Arts in Ellenwood and an adjunct professor of education at Morehouse College.

Jose Tijerina MEd ’17 is the coordinator of recruitment and retention for Gwinnett County Public Schools.

Nicole McCluney PhD ’18 is a clinical assistant professor at Georgia State University in the Department of Kinesiology and Health.

engineering Divya Jakkam MS ’18 is associate mechanical engineer at Schweitzer engineering laboratories in Pullman, Washington.

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CLASS NOTES APPLAUSE FOR ALUMNI

Complex Caregiver

special

R

aising kids is tough.

With newborns, parents are sleep deprived. With toddlers, they’re exhausted from chasing curious children.

Middle and high school years bring a whole host of other stressors.

But for some families, parenting revolves around much more than a toddler tantrum or an angsty teen.

Take the Smith family, whose 8-year-old daughter was born with structural abnormalities in her brain. She suffers from seizures and breathing problems and requires a written by kellyn amodeo ABJ '09

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feeding tube and wheelchair. For years, her parents never left her side, administering medications and breathing treatments, their only rest being when one ran quick errands around town while the other stayed home.

Then they found the Complex Care Program at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta (CHOA), which matched them with in-home nursing.

“It was tough for them to let someone into their world, but the nurses give them a few hours of respite each day,” says Margaux Charbonnet Murray BS ’02, medical director

Margaux Charbonnet Murray BS ’02

of the program and a practicing pediatrician.

“I’m humbled every day by families who take care of kids with chronic complex illnesses,” she says. “If you don’t know one of these families, you don’t understand what their day-to-day life is like. They have great needs and great love for their kids. They want to provide a good life for their children, but they need help.”

Murray’s team effectively acts as medical project managers for children with rare, complex illnesses, such as genetic disorders, developmental delays from premature birth, or brain injuries. The team navigates everything from scheduling treatments and in-home care to teaching families how to take care of certain things at home. The goal is to reduce the amount of time these families spend in the hospital and to give families an ally in navigating their children’s healthcare needs.

There are 90 kids currently enrolled in the pilot program, with an equal number on the waiting list and hundreds of kids across the state in need. Although these children represent just 4 percent of the pediatric population at the hospital, they require 40 percent CHOA’s resources.

Murray previously served as a hospitalist, which is a physician who works exclusively at a hospital treating admitted patients at CHOA. She realized she was treating the same kids over and over.

“I felt like if we’d done a little better in the outpatient setting, maybe they wouldn’t have needed to be admitted,” she says. “We’re coordinating their care better, so they’re not coming to the emergency room and we can free up some of that 40 percent for them and for other kids.”

Her experiences with the Complex Care Program have given Murray perspective.

“This job is a reminder to not worry about the little things,” she says. “Be thankful every day for your health because these families are dealing with stresses at a level that are completely different from the little stuff that everyone else gets bogged down with.”

CLASS NOTES

law Sloane Perras JD ’02 is the vice president, general counsel, and chief ethics officer of Foss Maritime in Seattle.

William Crozer JD ’12 is a special assistant to the president and deputy director in the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs. Previously, he was vice president of the BGR Group, a government relations firm.

public & international affairs Douglas Cheshire MPA ’15 is an analyst for Georgia’s Public Service Commission in Atlanta.

social work Maeghan Pawley MA ’13 married Kevin Beahm in Aiken, South Carolina.

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55

FACULTY FOCUS

Henry Munneke Associate Dean for Undergraduate Programs Roy Adams Dorsey Distinguished Chair in Real Estate Terry College of Business

“The goal of researchers in higher education is the creation, dissemination, and application of knowledge. Having an active research agenda provides me with an avenue for continual learning and stretching the boundaries of knowledge. It is particularly rewarding to introduce students to new ideas and help current and future business leaders to have a better understanding of the world around us.”

A top researcher in the areas of land prices and urban economics, Henry J. Munneke is prolific in publishing for his field of real estate. He also remains dedicated to educating the next generation of business leaders, even winning Terry College’s Outstanding Teaching Award. In addition to learning the principles of his field, Munneke encourages students’ understanding of the entrepreneurial nature of the real estate industry. Munneke also serves on the launch team for University of Georgia’s Innovation District, where he hopes students will find resources and connections to industry leaders.

dorothy kozlowski

Endowed chairs, positions that receive supplemental support generated from private donations, are essential to recruiting and retaining leading faculty who are committed to world-changing research and preparing the next generation of problem-solvers, pioneers, and leaders. Learn more about supporting UGA’s leading faculty at give.uga.edu/gm.

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