The University of Georgia Magazine March 2012

GEORGIA The University of

March 2012 • Vol. 91, No. 2

The big picture Christopher Whalen is forging new methods for preventing tuberculosis, a disease that affects one third of the world's population

In this issue: • The Richard B. Russell Building Special Collections Libraries opens to the public • Some UGA alumni are top dogs in the federal government

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To learn more about the important work of our students and faculty, visit www.givingtouga.com.

GEORGIA The University of

Magazine

March 2012 • Vol. 91, No. 2

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ADMINISTRATION Michael F. Adams, President Jere Morehead, JD ’80, Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost Tom S. Landrum, AB ’72, MA ’87,

Senior Vice President for External Affairs Tim Burgess, AB ’77, Senior Vice President for Finance and Administration PUBLIC AFFAIRS Tom Jackson, AB ’73, MPA ’04, PhD ’08, Vice President Alison Huff, Director of Publications GEORGIA MAGAZINE Editor, Kelly Simmons, MPA ’10 Managing Editor, Allyson Mann, MA ’92 Art Director, Lindsay Bland Robinson, ABJ ’06, MPA ’11 Advertising Director, Pamela Leed Office Manager, Fran Burke Photographers, Paul Efland, BFA ’75, MEd ’80; Peter Frey, BFA ’94; Dorothy Kozlowski, BLA ’06, ABJ ’10; Robert Newcomb, BFA ’81; Rick O’Quinn, ABJ ’87; Dot Paul; Andrew Davis Tucker Editorial Assistants, Brittany Biddy, Emily Grant and Grace Morris

GEORGIA MAGAZINE ADVISORY BOARD VOLUNTEER MEMBERS

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Cecil Bentley, BBA ’70, UGA journalism staff; Valerie Boyd, UGA journalism faculty; Bobby Byrd, ABJ ’80, Wells Real Estate Funds; Jim Cobb, AB ’69, MA ’72, PhD ’75, UGA history faculty; Richard Hyatt, Columbus Ledger-Enquirer; Brad King, MMC ’97, BVK Communications; Fran Lane, AB ’69, MEd ’71, retired director, UGA Visitors Center; Bill McDougald, ABJ ’76, MLA ’86, Southern Living; Nicole Mitchell, UGA Press; Leneva Morgan, ABJ ’88, Georgia Power; Donald Perry, ABJ ’74, Chick-fil-A; Swann Seiler, ABJ ’78, Coastal Region of Georgia Power; Robert Willett, ABJ ’66, MFA ’73, retired journalism faculty; Martha Mitchell Zoller, ABJ ’79

Forecasting the financial future

Features 16 The big picture 22 Federal Dogs From protecting consumers to fighting the war on terrorism, these UGA alumni hold critical positions in the federal government

30 No place like home A 30,000-square-foot vault houses UGA’s rare collections at the new Richard B. Russell Building Special Collections Libraries

Class Notes 34 Alumni profiles and notes Senior recreation and leisure studies majors Kacy Cargile

and Maggie Grim teach “English Word Scramble” to Russian campers during their 2011 studies abroad service-learning class. The game helps campers gain confidence by making words they know from the English letter tiles. Nine UGA students participated in the camp program, led by Professor Gwynn Powell and located in the Mari-El Republic of Russia, 400 miles east of Moscow.

Photo by Peter Frey

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Photo by Andrew Davis Tucker

Closeups 12 Animal ambassador

With 20 years of research in tuberculosis behind him, Christopher Whalen is searching for a way to prevent the spread of the disease

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Christopher Whalen holds the x-ray of a patient with tuberculosis. Though TB is not big news in the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control estimates that one third of the world’s people are infected with TB.

Campus news and events

Since 1983, the Terry College has provided the state with its economic forecast for the coming year

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ON THE COVER

Around the Arch

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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 30602-5582

In compliance with federal law, including the provisions of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Sections 503 and 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, the University of Georgia does not discriminate on the basis of race, sex, religion, color, national or ethnic origin, age, disability, or military service in its administration of educational policies, programs, or activities; its admissions policies; scholarship and loan programs; athletic or other University-administered programs; or employment. In addition, the University does not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation consistent with the University nondiscrimination policy. Inquiries or complaints should be directed to the director of the Equal Opportunity Office, Peabody Hall, 290 South Jackson Street, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602. Telephone 706-542-7912 (V/TDD). Fax 706-542-2822.

President Michael F. Adams on the state of the university

African Grey parrot Cosmo helps Betty Jean Craige educate others about animal behavior and language development

EX-OFFICIO MEMBERS

Tom S. Landrum, AB ’72, MA ’87, Senior Vice President, ­External Affairs; Tom Jackson, AB ’73, MPA ’04, PhD ’08, VP, Public Affairs; Deborah Dietzler, ­Executive ­Director, UGA Alumni Association; Alison Huff, Director of Publications; Eric Johnson, ABJ ’86, Director of UGA Visitors Center How to advertise in GEORGIA MAGAZINE: Contact Pamela Leed: 706/542-8124 or pjleed@uga.edu Where to send story ideas, letters, Class Notes items: Georgia Magazine 286 Oconee St., Suite 200 North Athens, GA 30602-1999 E-mail: GMeditor@uga.edu Web site: www.uga.edu/gm or University of Georgia Alumni Association www.alumni.uga.edu/alumni Address changes: E-mail records@uga.edu or call 888/268-5442

Departments 5 Take 5 with the President

MARCH 2012 • GEORGIA MAGAZINE

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Congratulations!

2012

Top Ten

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View the class of 2012 ranked list and nominate a company for the 2013 class by visiting www.alumni.uga.edu/b100

TAKE

5

— President Michael F. Adams on the State of the University

On Jan. 26, 2012, UGA President Michael F. Adams presented his 15th annual State of the University speech. In it, he cited five things that must happen for UGA to remain strong and contribute to the success of the state.

“First, the (state funding) formula must be funded fully and fairly. While I am sympathetic to the legislature in its efforts to prioritize the allocation of scarce resources, another year without funding the formula will do significant damage to UGA and the [University System of Georgia] as a whole. We owe the governor another round of thanks for including the system’s formula funding request in its full amount in his budget proposal. I assure you that we will play strong defense to protect that effort throughout the legislative session. When the increase in the formula was not funded at all last year, it meant the loss of some $15 million at UGA. That pattern is clearly not sustainable.”

Michael F. Adams

“We must—absolutely must—have help on faculty and staff salaries. I have made the case in Atlanta to the point that some members of the Legislature turn away when they see me coming—but I chase them down! They need to know that we have lost ground to our peer institutions, our aspirational institutions and our competitors, both domestic and global.

And when UGA loses ground, Georgia loses ground, and none of us can afford that. One of the strongest statements of the commitment of UGA’s faculty and staff to the mission of this place is the continued high level of productivity despite the recession, despite the lack of a salary increase pool, despite the increased work load as a result of unfilled positions. I am deeply grateful for that.”

“Third, as successful as we have been, we need yet more help from our alumni—now 280,000 strong, with thousands added each year—and friends. Our most pressing need is a significant infusion of current and endowed funds to support faculty positions, with an equal commitment to student scholarships and fellowships. I am proud that over the past 15 years we have moved from 92 endowed positions to 219, but that is not enough. In fact, we could use twice that many.

The number of student aid applications we receive has increased 34 percent in the past five years, with two-thirds of that growth occurring in the past two years. UGA families are hurting, and we need help in helping them achieve the dream of a University of Georgia education.”

“Fourth, we must remain diligent in self-examination. While a flagship should provide the broadest curriculum in the state—the full symphony—we do not fulfill our obligation to the state if we do not ask the necessary, and often difficult, questions about what we do and how we do it. Those questions should include but are not limited to enrollment and admissions; placement of students; the quality and qualities of the student body; student satisfaction; scholarly production; teaching effectiveness and proficiency; meaningful service to the state; and research productivity. That is what mature, confident institutions do.”

“Finally, we must remain true to our roots and to our heritage as the first state-chartered university in America.

Out-of-state and international students will always be welcome and will always be an important part of the UGA family. But the flagship institution is supposed to be reflective of its home state. It is supposed to be the place that sets the academic standard for the state, a standard that demands strong college preparatory curricula in Georgia’s high schools. It should say to the people of the state that it will not tolerate the existence of any program that is not first class.”

PETER FREY

This historical marker, erected by the Georgia Historical Commission and the Department of Natural Resources, commemorates UGA as the first state-chartered university.

It is located on North Campus, near the Arch at the intersection of Broad Street and College Avenue.

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ARCH AROUNDTHE

David Toczko

UGA students got prime seats on the stage in January when world-renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma performed a solo recital at the Performing Arts Center. Ma further delighted the crowd by wearing a Georgia sweatshirt for the second half of the performance.

More childcare options for UGA employees, students A new University Childcare Center on the UGA Health Sciences campus opened in January with room for 146 children. Run by Prodigies Child Care Management LLC, which operates the Athens-based Little Prodigies day care center, the facility accommodates children ages 6 weeks to 4 years. University employees and students have priority for the spots, with some part-time spaces available. Up to 20 percent of the children may qualify for a discounted rate, based on family income. The center is the result of a 2008 comprehensive childcare needs assessment study that showed a demand for additional childcare options among UGA employees and students. UGA already has one childcare facility on campus, the McPhaul Child Development Lab, which accommodates children ages 8 weeks to 5 years and also serves as a research facility for students studying early childhood development. Both facilities are licensed by the Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning and meet the National Association for the Education of Young Children standards in the areas of curriculum and staffing including student-to-teacher ratios, group size and continuing education for teachers. Learn more about the University Childcare Center at www.universitychildcarecenter.uga.edu.

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UGA up on value list UGA ranks sixth on the Kiplinger’s Personal Finance list of 100 best college and university values for 2012 for in-state students.

It ranks ninth for out-of-state students. Schools in Kiplinger’s 100 are selected from a pool of more than 500 public four-year colleges and universities. They are then ranked according to academic quality—admission and retention rates, student-faculty ratios and four- and sixyear graduation rates— as well as cost and financial aid. Two other Georgia institutions made the list: The Georgia Institute of Technology ranked 31st for in-state value, and North Georgia College and State University in Dahlonega came in 88th. The rankings appear in Kiplinger’s February issue and online at www.kiplinger. com/tools/colleges.

UGA gets first Undergraduate Flagship Program in Portuguese The rapid growth of the Brazilian economy has caused demand for Portuguese speakers to surge, prompting the National Security Education Program to award UGA a grant to establish the nation’s first and only Undergraduate Flagship Program in Portuguese.

The Flagship Program, which is open to students from any major seeking to internationalize their education, offers intensive language instruction that includes one-onone tutorials and innovative curriculum, such as regular communication via Skype with partners in Brazil’s São Paulo State University. Flagship students will spend a year in Brazil, where they will reach professional-level Portuguese proficiency through language and content courses as well as an internship.

UGA enrolled its first students in the program in January.

Brazil has the largest economy in Latin America and this year ranked as having the world’s fifth largest economy, putting it ahead of France and Britain. Although Portuguese currently is the seventh most spoken language in the world, very few U.S. high schools and only a select number of university programs offer instruction in the language.

The NSEP, established by Congress in 1991 to increase the ability of Americans to communicate and compete globally, awarded UGA a renewable $225,000 grant for the first year and is expected to provide more than $1 million, pending Congressional approval, during the first full grant cycle.

Learn more about the program at www.lacsi.uga.edu/docs/ PortugueseFlagshipProgram.pdf.

Algae as fuel source?

UGA researchers are partnering with the University of Puerto Rico to create a renewable energy center to grow algae-based biofuels. Algae is considered one of the most promising sources of renewable fuels because it grows rapidly, it can be grown in a variety of aquatic environments, including wastewater and salt water, and it does not compete with food agriculture for resources. Funded by a $4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Defense, the renewable energy center in Rio Piedras, San Juan, Puerto Rico, will help address the energy needs of the Caribbean territory and help the U.S. reduce use of fossil fuels. UGA will receive $1.2 million, and the UPR will receive $2.8 million. Learn more about biofuel research at UGA at http://bioenergy.uga.edu.

SPECIAL

Jay Robinson’s painting “Billie Holiday Singing the Blues.”

GMOA gets African-American art collection The Georgia Museum of Art has a new collection of prominent works by African-American artists, a gift from Larry D. and Brenda A. Thompson. The couple also will fund an endowment to support a new curatorial position.

The Thompsons’ gift initially includes 37 works, many of which appeared in the exhibition “Tradition Redefined,” which was on display at the museum in early 2011 as part of UGA’s celebration of 50 years of desegregation.

The new curatorial position, named for the Thompsons, will be a full-time academic professional who will oversee the museum’s collection of paintings, sculpture, prints, drawings and archives by African and African-American artists.

Larry Thompson joined the UGA School of Law last fall as the John A. Sibley Professor in Corporate and Business Law. He is a former deputy attorney general for the U.S. and former senior vice president of government affairs, general counsel and secretary for PepsiCo. Brenda Thompson joined the Georgia Museum of Art’s board of advisors in fall 2011.

Learn more at www.georgiamuseum.org.

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ARCH BEST IN SHOW A

Grant targets municipal employees

BARK out to … College of Education Professor Ron Butchart, whose book, Schooling the Freed People: Teaching, Learning and the Struggle for Black Freedom, 1861-1876, was named Outstanding Book of the Year by the History of Education Society.

BUTCHART

… Richard T. Watson, the J. Rex Fuqua Distinguished Chair for Internet Strategy in the Terry College of Business, who received the Lyons Electronic Office (LEO) Award from the Association for Information Systems for “exceptional lifetime achievement in information systems.”

… Dr. Mark Ebell, an associate professor in the College of Public Health, who was appointed to the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force. … College of Education Professor Gayle Andrews, who received the John H. Lounsbury Award for Distinguished Service from the Association for Middle Level Education. … Genetics Professor Jonathan Arnold, who was named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. … Henry F. Schaefer III, Graham Perdue professor of chemistry and director of the Center for Computational Chemistry, who was awarded a Humboldt Research Award from Germany’s Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. … Darnell Tate, manager of the Oglethorpe Dining Commons, who received the Patriot Award from the National Committee for Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve. … The School of Law, which took the top trophy at the eighth annual Buffalo-Niagara Mock Trial Competition and the second annual Mercer University School of Law Legal Ethics and Professionalism Moot Court Competition.

SCHAEFER

… Linda Campbell, director of the Center for Counseling in the College of Education, who was one of 10 psychologists in the nation to receive a Presidential Citation from the American Psychological Association. … College of Education Professor Deryl Bailey, who received the 2011 Courtland C. Lee Social Justice Award from the Southern Association for Counselor Education and Supervision.

CAMPBELL

… Joachim Walther, assistant professor of engineering, who received a National Science Foundation CAREER Award he will use to develop improved methods for studying engineering education.

… Franklin West, assistant professor of animal and dairy science in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, who was named one of the nation’s top scholars under 40 years old by Diverse: Issues in Higher Education magazine.

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A UGA public health researcher has received a $3 million, five-year grant to fund a six-month weight management program aimed at reducing caloric intake and bolstering physical activity among employees of municipal governments in Georgia. Mark Wilson, head of the department of health promotion and behavior in the College of Public Health, will use the grant to test different versions of a diabetes prevention program in workplace settings. Funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, the grant will enable Wilson to implement three separate diabetes prevention programs in Athens-Clarke County, Columbus and Macon. Wilson notes the correlation of the increase in overweight Americans and the rise in the number of instances of type II diabetes. The more diabetics in the workplace, the more treatment and medication required to manage the disease. As a result, many organizations have seen their health-care costs increase in the past three decades. Additionally, Wilson said overweight workers in labor-intensive environments are more injury-prone—particularly to neck and back injuries—which further drives up costs to the employer.

Mentoring less beneficial to black men?

A study co-authored by a UGA psychology professor finds that AfricanAmerican men don’t benefit as much as white men from having professional mentors. Professor Lillian Eby says the finding emphasizes the need for women and minorities to think broadly about the mentors they choose and with whom they network.

People tend to have professional and social networks that are composed of people who are similar to them, she explains, and African Americans remain underrepresented in high-level positions. The study was published in the December issue of the Journal of Vocational Behavior.

Abstinence education not working, study finds States that prescribe abstinence-only sex education programs in public schools have significantly higher teenage pregnancy and birth rates than states with more comprehensive sex education programs, a UGA study has found. Researchers from the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences looked at teen pregnancy and birth data from 48 U.S. states to evaluate the effectiveness of those states’ approaches to sex education, as prescribed by local laws and policies. The study is the first large-scale evidence that the type of sex education provided in public schools has a significant effect on teen pregnancy rates, researchers said. Along with teen pregnancy rates and sex education methods, they also looked at the influence of socioeconomic status, education level, access to Medicaid waivers and ethnicity of each state’s teen population.

Even when accounting for these factors, which could potentially impact teen pregnancy rates, the significant relationship between sex education methods and teen pregnancy remained. The full article, published in the online journal PLoS ONE is available at www.plosone.org.

$1 million for Tull faculty, students The J.M. Tull School of Accounting in the Terry College of Business received pledged gifts of $1 million from the Deloitte Foundation to establish an endowment that will be used to attract and retain outstanding faculty. The Deloitte Foundation Endowed Accounting Support Fund will fund faculty fellowships and scholarships for students. UGA’s School of Accounting was one of the first in the nation to be established as a separate professional school within a college of business. The Deloitte Foundation, founded in 1928, is a not-for-profit organization that supports teaching, research and curriculum innovation in accounting, business and related fields within the U.S. Learn more about the Tull School of Accounting at www.terry.uga. edu/accounting.

Battling obesity

UGA Research magazine explored the issue of obesity in Georgia and the financial costs to the state in the fall 2011 issue. This illustration, by Jay B. Bauer, first appeared on the cover of that publication. Read the story at http://issuu.com/ugaresearch/docs/ugaresearchmagazine_fall2011/3.

UGA has launched a major campus-wide initiative to help the state address its growing epidemic of adult and childhood obesity.

To develop this initiative, UGA will blend obesity-related instruction and research activities with public service and outreach components to develop obesity prevention and treatment programs that interested Georgia communities, employers and healthcare providers can implement.

Georgia ranks among the worst in the nation for adult and childhood obesity.

Over 65 percent of adults and 40 percent of children are overweight or obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Obesity increases the risk of heart disease, stroke, diabetes and some cancers, costing the state an estimated $2.4 billion annually—the equivalent of $250 per Georgian each year—in direct health care costs and lost productivity from disease, disability and death, according to the CDC. People who are obese have average annual medical expenses $1,400 higher than those who aren’t overweight.

More than 75 UGA faculty members are active in collaborative teams with activities ranging from basic research on obesity, metabolism, genetics and disease to the development of pharmaceuticals, weight management interventions, gaming and mobile technologies for health messaging and innovative after-school exercise programs. The initiative will be based at UGA’s newly opened 56-acre Health Sciences Campus, which will eventually be home to the Georgia Health Sciences University/UGA Medical Partnership, the College of Public Health and other health-related programs.

Learn more at www.obesity.uga.edu.

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ARCH Evolution on a massive scale For the first time, scientists have measured how fast large-scale evolution can occur in mammals, showing it takes 24 million generations for a mouse-sized animal to evolve to the size of an elephant. Research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences describes increases and decreases in mammal size following the extinction of dinosaurs 65 million years ago. An international team of 20 researchers, including Odum School of Ecology Dean John Gittleman and Assistant Research Scientist Patrick Stephens, discovered that size decrease rates are much faster than growth rates.

It takes only 100,000 generations for very large decreases, leading to dwarfism, to occur. Most previous work has focused on microevolution, the small changes that occur within a species.

The paper looked at 28 different groups of mammals, including elephants, primates and whales, from various continents and ocean basins over the past 70 million years. The research furthers understanding of conditions that allow certain mammals to thrive and grow bigger and circumstances that slow the pace of increase and potentially contribute to extinction.

Shepherd to lead meteorologists association Geography Professor Marshall Shepherd was voted president-elect of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) and will begin his one-year term in 2013.

Shepherd, who directs the university’s Atmospheric Sciences Program, has done research that shed new light on urbanization-precipitation relationships, hurricanes and extreme weather events such as the devastating SHEPHERD Atlanta floods of 2009.

Before coming to UGA, he spent 12 years as a research meteorologist at the NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center.

The first African American to receive a doctorate from Florida State University’s meteorology program, Shepherd is only the second African American to head the AMS.

For his research assessing the effects of urbanization on precipitation, Shepherd received the highest federal award given to the nation’s young scientists and engineers, the Presidential Early Career Award, at a White House ceremony. Shepherd is a Fellow of the AMS and recipient of the 2011 AMS Charles Anderson Award.

Learn more at www.ggy.uga.edu/people/faculty/marshgeo/Welcome.html.

Grady College legend passes away Conrad Fink, Regents Professor of Journalism in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, died Jan. 14 in Athens after a battle with prostate cancer.

He was 80. Known simply as “Fink” to his colleagues and former students, he came to UGA 30 years ago after a successful career as a journalist and news executive with the Associated Press in the U.S., southeast Asia and London. Following the AP, Fink served as executive vice president for Park Communications, a newspaper, television and radio company operating in 18 states. He graduated in 1954 from the University of Wisconsin with a bachelor of science degree in journalism and was the School of Journalism Outstanding Graduate. He was also a first lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps. Fink was appointed professor at the Grady College in 1983. In 1990 he became director of the James M. Cox Jr. Institute for Newspaper Management Studies. He was named William S. Morris Professor of Newspaper Strategy and Management in 1995 and held the Morris Chair at his death. Among his many teaching honors he was a Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor, recipient of the Regents Teaching Excellence Award and was named Freedom Forum’s 2002 National Journalism Teacher of the Year. Last year, Fink was the first faculty member to be inducted into the Grady Fellowship, a society of Grady’s most accomplished alumni and friends.

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GOING GREEN Students receive sustainability grants

Rick O’Quinn

“Voice of the Bulldogs’’ Larry Munson 1922-2011 Larry Munson, the legendary voice of the Georgia Bulldogs for 42 years, was memorialized Dec. 10 in a ceremony at Sanford Stadium that drew thousands of fans. Munson died at his home on Nov. 21 of complications from pneumonia. He was 89. Munson resigned from his UGA broadcasting position in 2008 because of his declining health. A native of Minneapolis, Munson was a graduate of Moorehead State Teacher’s College in Minnesota. After World War II he used his military discharge pay to enroll in broadcasters school in Minneapolis. Prior to coming to Georgia in 1966, he worked as a broadcaster in several states, including North Dakota, Wyoming, Oklahoma and Tennessee. In addition to football, Munson called Georgia basketball games from 1987-96 and Atlanta Falcons football games from 1989-92. In 1983, he was recognized by the Georgia General Assembly for his role in the Georgia championship football program. Fourteen years later the same legislative body, led by Governor Zell Miller, honored him with a proclamation celebrating his 50 years in broadcasting. In 1994, Munson was inducted into the Georgia Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame, and in 2005, he won a similar induction into the State of Georgia Sports Hall of Fame. He was inducted into the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association Hall of Fame on May 2, 2009.

In its second round of grants, the Office of Sustainability awarded $20,000 to six students to develop proposals designed to protect the campus environment.

The six selected from 21 grant proposals address priorities outlined in UGA’s 2020 Strategic Plan to conserve resources, educate the campus community about environmental issues and provide research to further sustainability at the university. Recipients are: • Brandi Bishop, a senior agricultural education major at the Tifton campus, who will develop a recycling program there, installing 60 waste reduction stations in 15 of the busiest buildings on the campus and implementing a public relations campaign to encourage recycling.

• Katie Shepard, a master’s student in the department of crop and soil sciences, who will monitor the effectiveness of an East Campus rain garden at filtering pollutants from storm water runoff. Shepard’s project will take soil moisture and water quality measurements to determine how well the rain garden does its job.

• Chris McDowell, a master’s student in the College of Environment and Design, who will work with authorities to collect waste items from construction sites and, with the help of volunteers, reuse materials to complete construction projects that benefit the campus and local community.

• JoHannah Biang, a master’s student in horticulture, who will construct a living wall of seasonal herbs and vegetables at UGArden on South Milledge Avenue to research and demonstrate the effectiveness of vertical gardening. The herbs and vegetables will be harvested

by Campus Kitchens for distribution to the Northeast Georgia Food Bank and community members in need.

• Graham Pickren, a doctoral student in geography, who will expand a program that collects, donates and recycles unwanted items from student residence halls during move-out week. Pickren will be working with Dawgs Ditch the Dumpster Move-Out Donation Program to implement an electronic waste collection to go along with the clothing and furniture donation program.

• Zach Richardson, a senior landscape architecture student, who will create a prescribed grazing program using goats to remove exotic invasive plants and restore native forest adjacent to Tanyard Creek.

Last year, the office awarded $13,000 to fund four projects: to install water bottle refilling stations in the Miller Learning Center, to create a rainwater harvesting system at the UGArden, to establish the Dawgs Ditch the Dumpster move-out donation program and to start a bike share program on East Campus, a project that is still in progress.

Learn more at UGA at www.sustainability.uga.edu.

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CLOSE UP

Animal ambassador Retired professor keeps teaching with the help of a feathery friend

by Allyson Mann (MA ’92) In August, Betty Jean Craige retired from UGA. After 38 years, the University professor of comparative literature and director of the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts was ready for a change.

“I wanted to retire before I deteriorated in front of my students,” she says, smiling. “It was a race against time!”

Craige hasn’t lost her passion for education. She’s no longer in the classroom, but she’s still teaching. And she has a partner—Cosmo, her 10-yearold African Grey parrot.

Last year Craige published the memoir Conversations with Cosmo: At Home with an African Grey Parrot. The book details how Craige’s relationship with Cosmo began as an exploration into language acquisition and turned into something more profound.

“I got Cosmo thinking I’d have a hobby,” Craige says. “What I got was a housemate, and a good friend.”

“I find myself arguing with this little feathery person that’s six inches tall.”

Like most African Greys, Cosmo was 1 year old when she spoke her first word, “bird,” quickly followed by a sentence, “Cosmo is a bird.” By the age of 6 she had expanded her vocabulary to include more than a hundred words and two hundred phrases. She also learned to play jokes, like imitating a ringing telephone and announcing “Telephone for bird!”

ROBERT NEWCOMB

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Betty Jean Craige poses with Cosmo, her 10-year-old African Grey parrot and the inspiration for her 2010 book Conversations with Cosmo: At Home with an African Grey Parrot. Cosmo has more than 4,700 Facebook friends (search Cosmo Talks).

PETER FREY

Craige and Cosmo interact with students at the Freedom to Grow Unschool in Hull. Visiting schools and retirement communities with Cosmo gives Craige a chance to educate people about the intelligence and emotional lives of animals.

These days Cosmo and Craige have conversations like the following, included in Conversations with Cosmo: Cosmo: Cosmo is a birdy! Cosmo has feathers.

Craige: Yes, bird has feathers.

Cosmo: Bird has feathers. Cosmo is a bird.

Craige: Mary is a dog. Mary has fur.

Cosmo: Mary has fur. Mary is a doggy. Woo woo woo woo.

Cosmo’s facility with English made her a perfect subject for Erin ColbertWhite (MS ’09), a graduate student in psychology who wanted to explore language development for her master’s thesis. With Craige’s blessing she recorded video of Cosmo speaking in various contexts, analyzing how Cosmo vocalized in each. There was some trial and error— during early shoots the camera wasn’t zoomed in enough to see Cosmo’s beak moving, and Colbert-White wasn’t able to distinguish between Cosmo’s and Craige’s

voices, which sound very similar.

In addition to serving as a research subject, Cosmo is something of an unofficial ambassador for the animal world. For years Craige has taken her to visit schools and retirement communities.

Cosmo particularly enjoys being around children.

“When Cosmo hears children, Cosmo laughs and says, ‘Cosmo wanna poop.’ And the children laugh at ‘poop,’ and then Cosmo says ‘Poop!’ and the children laugh some more. And then she rings the phone,” Craige says. “She really shows off for children.”

Cosmo has her own website and more than 4,700 Facebook friends (search Cosmo Talks). In December Craige began writing “Cosmo Talks,” a column for the Athens Banner-Herald, a project that allows her to reach a large audience and explore topics like animal behavior, language development and environmental issues by using Cosmo as a starting point.

“I really want for people of all ages, but especially children, to know that other nonhuman animals have feelings and ideas and thoughts and can feel happiness and pain and that sort of thing,” Craige says.

“The younger the child is when the child understands that, the better a citizen of the biotic community he or she may be.”

Cosmo wears a lot of figurative hats but her most important role is at home, where she is a lively companion for Craige and her two American Eskimo dogs.

Cosmo chases the dogs, investigates the contents of drawers, tells jokes to get the attention of dinner guests and converses constantly with Craige.

“Sometimes I have two dogs barking, a bird barking and my cell phone barking,” Craige says. “I’m not sure whether to answer the phone or check for a burglar.”

GET MORE www.cosmotalks.com

MARCH 2012 • GEORGIA MAGAZINE

13

CLOSE UP

Forecasting the future The Terry College of Business has been providing the state with an annual economic forecast for 29 years

by Kelly Simmons photos by Andrew Davis Tucker The good news for Georgians this year is that the state will likely lose fewer jobs than in previous years. The bad news is that the recovery here will lag behind that of the U.S., which is seeing overall job growth.

That is the message representatives from the Terry College of Business are giving business leaders throughout the state as they present the Georgia Economic Outlook 2012, an annual event that has been a trademark of the college since 1983.

The kickoff event, at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, was followed by presentations scheduled in nine Georgia cities, as well as Charlotte and Jacksonville, between Nov. 29 and March 7. The Atlanta event, which drew a crowd of about 800 in November, was sponsored by some of Georgia’s biggest businesses including AT&T, Gas South, Hardin Construction Company and PrivateBancorp Inc. In the audience and at the head table were representatives from businesses small and large, higher education, state and local governments and nonprofit organizations—all of them heavily dependent on the state economy, as well as that of the nation and the world.

“While the news may not be as encouraging as we might like to hear, it is very important to bring comparisons to the discussion,” says Mike Gaymon, president and CEO of the Greater Columbus Georgia Chamber of Commerce, which hosted the forecast event in January.

In presenting the state forecast Terry College Dean Robert Sumichrast tells the crowd that Georgia’s dependence on construction, land development and retail development—areas hit particularly hard during a recession—makes the state less likely to quickly recover.

14 GEORGIA MAGAZINE • www.uga.edu/gm

Director Jeffrey Humphreys of the Selig Center for Economic Growth talks with colleagues during the Georgia Economic Outlook 2012 luncheon.

“We continue to suffer from the technology bubble that burst as the millennium began,” he says.

Jobs lost in Georgia since 2007 likely will not be replaced until 2020, according to Terry’s Selig Center for Economic Growth, directed by Jeffrey Humphreys (PhD ’88).

Georgia Chamber President and CEO Chris Clark says that businesses across Georgia rely on the comprehensive analysis UGA provides in addition to the numbers.

“The report is an honest, reliable resource used by companies throughout the state each year as they make decisions critical to their bottom line,” Clark says.

UGA continues to be a major force in the state, President Michael Adams told the audience in Atlanta.

“The simple truth is that the road to change leads through Athens,” Adams says.

“We educate Georgia at UGA. We produce the leadership class. We produce the people who make their communities better, thereby making the state better. We produce the producers, the creators, the innovators, the change agents. We send into the world people equipped for success.”

Dean of the Terry College of Business Robert T. Sumichrast gives the state outlook during the Georgia Economic Outlook 2012 luncheon at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta.

Georgia and U.S. Economic Measures 12.0 10.3 1 0.1 9.2 9.0

10.0 8.0 6.0

2011 2012

4.0 2.0 -­‐

Source: Selig Center for Economic Growth, Terry College of Business, University of Georgia, November 2011.

1.0

1.5 1.8

1.5

Georgia GDP (Percentage Change)

U.S. GDP Georgia U.S. (Percentage Unemployment Unemployment Change) (Percentage) (Percentage)

Source: Selig Center for Economic Growth, Terry College of Business, University of Georgia, November 2011.

Georgia's Employment Forecast for Metropolitan Areas Percentage Change in Employment from Previous Year 2.5% 2.0%

2.0%

1.7%

1.5% 1.1%

1.0% 0.9%

1.0% 0.5%

0.5%

0.3%

0.4%

0.5%

1.2%

1.1% 1.0%

0.9%

0.9%

0.6%

0.4% 0.5%

0.5%

0.2%

0.2%

-­‐0.2%

-­‐0.3%

-­‐0.3%

-­‐0.4%

-­‐0.6% -­‐1.0%

2011 2012

0.0% -­‐0.5%

0.3%

-­‐0.9%

-­‐0.9%

-­‐0.9%

Source: Selig Center for Economic Growth, Terry College of Business, University of Georgia, November 2011.

MARCH 2012 • GEORGIA MAGAZINE

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The big picture

Once focused on treating individual patients with tuberculosis, Christopher Whalen now is determined to prevent the disease from spreading in populations

by Allyson Mann (MA ’92) photos by Andrew Davis Tucker

16 GEORGIA MAGAZINE • www.uga.edu/gm

I

t’s a Thursday morning in early December, and Christopher Whalen is on the phone. The halls outside his office in UGA’s Coverdell Center are quiet—final exams are under way, and students are scarce. An academic gown hangs on the door of his office, a reminder of next week’s commencement ceremony. But at the moment, Whalen is not preparing to celebrate the academic successes of UGA students.

Instead he’s delivering news to Moses Joloba, a microbiologist colleague based at Makerere University in Uganda.

There’s good news and bad news. The good news is that the grant proposal they submitted to the National Institutes of Health placed in the 10th percentile.

The bad news is that despite the high rating, they’re not getting funded. Last year the top 10 percent automatically received funding, but budget cuts mean that this year only the top 8 percent will be funded.

The project in question is one that evolved from Whalen’s line of research for the last 20 years—the interaction of tuberculosis (TB) and HIV. The project, which would allow Whalen and Joloba to study how TB is transmitted in Ugandan communities, has long been in development, but they will have to make substantial changes before resubmitting it. Speaking about it later, Whalen is disappointed but philosophical.

“Good ideas need to be followed through, and eventually people recognize good ideas,” he says.

Whalen, the Ernest Corn Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at UGA’s College of Public Health, has become accustomed to looking at the big picture. He began his career by earning a degree in medicine, learning how to treat disease in individual patients. Since then he’s shifted to a public health perspective—looking at how to prevent disease in large populations. In addition to medical treatment, public health can involve tackling politics and cultural norms.

It’s a big challenge, and he’s accustomed to losing a few battles on the way to winning the war.

“You never give up,” Whalen says. “That’s the bottom line.”

Epidemiology Professor Christopher Whalen (left) talks with graduate student Stephen Asiimwe (middle) and Simon Luzige (MPH ’11) as they examine an x-ray of a patient with tuberculosis.

During the past 20 years Whalen has trained more than 65 graduate students like Asiimwe and Luzige, who are Ugandan physicians.

I

n the early 1900s TB killed one out of every seven people living in the United States and Europe, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

Starting in the 1940s, scientists discovered the first of several medicines now used to treat TB, and the rates declined in the U.S. until control efforts were neglected in the 1970s and early 1980s. There was an increase in the number of TB cases between 1985 and 1992, but more funding and attention led to a steady decline since 1993.

MARCH 2012 • GEORGIA MAGAZINE

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Above, Whalen teaches an Introduction to Epidemiology class in the Biological Sciences Building on campus. Whalen is the Ernest Corn Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology. The professorship was established in 2010 with a gift from Abby and John Irby and other family members in honor of Abby’s grandfather Dr. Ernest Corn, who practiced medicine in Macon for more than 50 years.

18 GEORGIA MAGAZINE • www.uga.edu/gm

Although TB is still present in the U.S., it doesn’t usually make the news except in the context of airline travel. In 2007 an Atlanta man with drug-resistant TB traveled to his wedding in Greece and back via seven flights on three airlines.

The U.S. government ordered him quarantined—the first since a smallpox case in 1963—and health officials around the world scrambled to round up any passengers that may have had contact with him for testing. Despite a no-fly list created by the CDC after the 2007 incident, similar episodes happened in 2008, 2009 and 2010. There is some disagreement about the risk of TB transmission while flying, but the CDC recommends that anyone with active TB not travel by commercial airplane.

Duncan Krause, director of UGA’s Faculty of Infectious Diseases, says erring on the side of caution is a good policy when compared to the threat of an epidemic.

“If we’ve learned anything in the

area of infectious diseases over the last 60 years, it’s that given the opportunity these sorts of things are going to happen,” he says.

He gives several reasons why TB research is relevant at UGA and in Georgia.

“We can’t restrict our vision to our own backyards, our own communities, our own state, because the world is such a small place now. That’s answer one.

Answer two is it’s extremely difficult to get rid of. The treatment is prolonged and miserable, and it’s difficult on the patient,” he says. “And answer number three is we’ve seen time and time again how drug resistance is going to happen. You’re talking about an individual with active TB—if it’s not controllable, the outcome is death.”

C

hristopher Whalen grew up in Windham Center, Conn., a small town with a population of less than 1,000 that he describes as “classic New

England.” He was the second of three known as the AIDS epidemic. At Case stay on the team, though he missed the boys and two girls born to parents who Western Whalen became interested in camaraderie and rejoined as a senior. met at Yale medical school—his father infectious diseases and epidemiology, a Also during his sophomore year, was a surgeon, and his mother was a quantitative science built on probabilities Whalen found that theoretical math nurse. Whalen and his brothers started and calculus. He found himself pulling no longer held his interest. He looked swimming at summer camp and later out his old math textbooks. And he around for a new major and made a joined a swim team; at age 14, Whalen earned a master’s degree in epidemiology surprising decision. Rather than taking was ranked top 10 in the country in his and biostatistics while he completed his something that would be easy, he chose specialty events. His father was a Rotary medical training. an old nemesis—English.

During his fourth year of medical member, and during summers the family “I was determined to leave college school, Whalen worked at an infectious opened their home to exchange students. being a good writer,” he says. disease clinic. The clinic had been around Most were from Europe—France, Looking back, that was a fortuitous for years and typically encountered England, Wales, Switzerland—but there choice. patients who were international travelers, was also a woman from Tanzania who “I ask myself what prepared me the who had unusual or chronic infections had a dramatic impact on the family. best for what I do today,” Whalen says. or who needed hospital follow-up. But “She really loved my sisters and “The writing that I did was incredibly spent a lot of time with them and taught helpful because really what I’m paid to do the clinic suddenly was overwhelmed them African dances,” Whalen says. “I is write papers and grants as well as teach, with patients, many of them young homosexual men. Since Whalen and think my parents opened up our house but teaching really involves quite a bit of his colleagues were infectious disease in an international sense. They weren’t writing.” specialists, it fell upon them to care for xenophobic in any way, and so as kids we were growing up with people from other these patients. halen first encountered HIVparts of the world.”

“I was actually on the front lines associated TB in medical school “I think that’s when the seeds were of the epidemic, before we knew what at Case Western Reserve University. sown of interest in a global view of During his senior year at Stanford, he had HIV was, as a medical student,” he things.” applied to 15 medical schools and received says. “There was no standing behind Despite a childhood that sounds the attending [physician] while they 15 rejections. idyllic, Whalen’s adolescent years examined a patient. The line was out the “That really kind of rocks your door, so it was all hands on deck.” were not without adversity. He was confidence,” he says.

After medical school Whalen took On the advice of a mentor, Whalen successful in the pool and in his classes— a fellowship and worked on research took some time before reapplying. He particularly math—but the one subject that explored survival issues in HIV enrolled in courses at Stanford’s medical he could not conquer was English. He school and worked in a sleep lab. He patients. One predictor was infection struggled with writing assignments in volunteered to work with a new faculty with a mycobacterium that was a close high school and later at Stanford. member establishing a neurobiology relative of TB, which had a growing “In college, and to some extent presence nationally. in high school, The coexistence virtually every You’re talking about an individual with active TB— of HIV and TB assignment I was a familiar turned in was used if it’s not controllable, the outcome is death. topic. In the late as the example of

Duncan Krause, director of UGA’s ’80s Case Western how not to write,”

Faculty of Infectious Diseases had established he says. “So I a research and was embarrassed training program in Uganda, where HIV lab, eventually getting his results regularly in front of my peers.” and TB were closely intertwined. Back published in Science. The second time Whalen had chosen Stanford both then 65 percent of TB cases in Uganda around Whalen’s applications were more for academics and for the swim team. He involved patients who were also HIV successful, and he chose to attend Case joined the team as a walk-on and trained positive; these days the rate is about 35 Western in Cleveland, Ohio. hard, but during his sophomore year he percent.

He began medical school in 1980, a didn’t make the cut to compete at the Though TB is not big news in the year before the CDC published the first trials for the 1976 Olympic Games. The U.S. these days, that’s not the case around official report of what would become disappointment ended his motivation to

W

“

”

MARCH 2012 • GEORGIA MAGAZINE

19

“

I felt as though to control TB I needed to move up from individual patient care to broader interventions at a systemic level.

Christopher Whalen, UGA’s Ernest Corn Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology

the world. The CDC estimates that one third of the world’s people are infected with TB. Each year nearly nine million people become sick with TB, and there are almost two million TB-related deaths worldwide. TB is the leading killer of people who are HIV infected.

Caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis, TB is spread through the air when a person with active TB of the lungs or throat coughs, sneezes, speaks, sings or spits. People nearby that breathe in these bacteria can become infected, but not everyone that is infected becomes sick. Some have a latent infection—they test positive but don’t have symptoms and can’t spread TB. Without treatment for the latent infection, however, they may become sick years later if their immune system is

compromised by another condition like HIV or diabetes.

“The interface with the general population is more regular than you might think,” Krause says. “[Tuberculosis] doesn’t spread particularly well, that’s the good news, but it does spread, and when it does you’ve got problems.”

I

n 1991, Whalen began working with Ugandan students who were studying epidemiology at Case Western. He became director of the training program, working to secure additional grant funding and traveling to Uganda several times a year.

In the 20 years since, he’s developed a strong philosophy about conducting research in a foreign country. He works

Asiimwe and Juliet Sekandi, a doctoral student in epidemiology, work on a board in their office in Miller Hall. Sekandi was trained as a physician in her native Uganda, but her work with Whalen has led her to adopt a public health perspective. “If you were to summarize public health in one sentence, or in one word, it’s prevention,” she says. “As a clinician we think about, ‘How do I cure this patient that’s in front of me? How do I cure this disease?’

The public health paradigm is, ‘How do I prevent this patient from getting the TB?’”

20 GEORGIA MAGAZINE • www.uga.edu/gm

”

in partnership with Ugandan researchers because a native is more likely to get accurate information and because he wants the work to be valuable for the host country.

“Going in, taking and coming out is safari research,” Whalen says. “But if you train and you leave more than what you take, leaving a trained individual is leaving the country the capacity to build and the capacity to do research.”

He’s also committed to helping Ugandan students who earn degrees at UGA. “You can’t train a lab scientist here and send him back to no lab,” Whalen says. “So if you train a lab scientist you’re kind of committing to helping him build a lab when he gets back.”

Whalen has two training grants— one on TB and one on HIV—that focus on capacity building in Uganda.

During the past 20 years these grants have allowed him to train more than 65 graduate students. One such student is Juliet Sekandi, a native Ugandan who was trained as a physician in her home country and then earned a master’s degree under Whalen at Case Western.

She’s now enrolled in the epidemiology doctoral program at UGA. “He’s such an excellent mentor, I can tell you,” Sekandi says. “He really pours his whole experience and life and all the knowledge that he has into his students.”

Many of Whalen’s graduates have returned to Uganda, where they’re making a difference. Five trainees now have appointments in Makerere University’s Medical School and School of Public Health. Others have leadership positions in the Ministry of Health, and one was voted into Parliament on a public health platform.

“The depth of Chris’s passion is unusual, and the commitment in time and energy that he makes to advancing that passion,” Krause says. “Most of us train graduate students—he developed the

Whalen prepares for a ride with the Winter Bike League in December. He rides several times a week, sometimes more than 50 miles. “If there’s something that I decide I need to try to resolve, I can do it on the bike,” he says.

doctoral program in epidemiology and is actively involved in training epidemiology students in Uganda.”

Grants come and go, says Whalen. What remains are the papers he published that shape the field.

“The other thing that shapes the field is people that you train,” he says. “They last a long time, and they have this amplifying effect. If you train one person, they go back and train 10 more.”

I

n 2005 UGA began recruiting for seven faculty positions that were part of a Board of Regents initiative to grow the university’s capacity for research in infectious diseases. Christopher Whalen was a perfect fit for the new College of Public Health and the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, founded the same year, and later the Faculty of Infectious Diseases, founded in 2007.

“Hiring Chris added an important new dimension… in that now we’ve got an interface with the people that are actually contracting and suffering from tuberculosis,” Krause says. “The ability to expand our perspective on TB and move from the basic science at the bench to applications in the field I think is significant.”

Whalen was impressed with the strategy and set of ideas that were being implemented at UGA. “It was something that was extremely unique to me, to see that a school was making that kind of commitment to the study of infectious diseases,” he says.

Over time he’d come to believe that he could make more of a difference by approaching TB from a public health perspective. It lacked the more immediate gratification of treating patients, but it offered an opportunity to effect more significant change long term.

“I felt as though to control TB I needed to move up from individual patient care to broader interventions at a systemic level,” Whalen says.

Whalen and Sekandi have completed a project in Uganda that emphasized getting health care providers out of their comfort zones and into communities to find TB patients before they typically come in—when they’re already sick and have spread the disease to those around them. Whalen is convinced that moving TB case detection into the community, where the transmission occurs, is the best way to address the problem.

Many of his current projects address this issue from different perspectives.

“Chris is reassessing dogma in ways that move outside the box, to borrow an overused expression, to rethink patterns of spread and address the question, ‘Why aren’t we doing better?’”

Krause says.

I

n January Whalen returned to Uganda to teach a course on grant preparation at Makerere University’s Medical School.

And in February, he got good news. The NIH grant proposal that initially got rejected will be funded after all. The original decision to fund the top 8 percent was expanded to cover the top 10 percent, so he will be able to move forward with his project.

Whalen is looking forward to investigating whether Ugandan social networks—not the online kind, but the social interactions that make up daily life—promote TB transmission.

“To me it’s critical that we rethink how we control tuberculosis,” he says.

“If you can block transmission, the disease will go away.

But if you don’t block transmission, it just keeps rumbling on.”

WANT TO GIVE? To donate to the College of Public Health, contact Director of Development Kate Lindsey O’Reilly at krl@uga.edu or (706) 542-2590.

MARCH 2012 • GEORGIA MAGAZINE

21

Federal Dogs From protecting consumers to fighting the war on terrorism, these UGA alumni hold critical positions in the federal government

Consumer watch dog Alumnus Inez Tenenbaum’s job is to protect consumers, particularly children, from dangerous products

by Kelly Simmons

SPECIAL

Above: As head of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, Inez Tenenbaum oversaw legislation that tightened safety regulations for toys and nursery equipment. At left: Danny Keysar, whose death prompted the changes.

I

nez Tenenbaum keeps a lot of pictures in her Bethesda, Md., office. Computer printouts of her staffers’ children are taped to the walls, and photographs peer out from under the glass on her conference table.

One photo is particularly special, and Tenenbaum (BSEd ’72, MEd ’74) keeps it close to remind her of why her job is so important.

The snapshot of Danny Keysar was taken when he was a toddler, not long before the top rail of

“It has really been a wonderful opportunity to see how the global market works.”

22 GEORGIA MAGAZINE • www.uga.edu/gm

the defective portable crib at his childcare facility collapsed, trapping and strangling him. At 16 months old, Danny was dead.

As a result of his death, Danny’s parents, Boaz Keysar and Linda Ginzel (University of Chicago professors), began a nonprofit organization called Kids in Danger, and began lobbying for stricter regulations on products designed for children. In 2008, Congress passed the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, which bans lead and other dangerous materials from products made for children, toughens testing requirements for manufacturers and importers, and requires mandatory federal standards for toys and durable nursery equipment.

“As of this year, we have the strongest crib standard in the world,” says Tenenbaum, since 2009 the chairman of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. “That’s what makes this work so rewarding.”

Tenenbaum was nominated to the post by President Barack Obama, who she met in 2004 when he was a candidate for the U.S. Senate from Illinois, and she was a candidate for the U.S. Senate from South Carolina. Obama campaigned in South Carolina for Tenenbaum, who lost to Jim DeMint. She later was the first statewide elected official to endorse Obama’s presidential candidacy in South Carolina and worked on his behalf in South Carolina and in other states.

Though she grew up in tiny Pineview, Ga., near Hawkinsville, and earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education from UGA, Tenenbaum has spent most of her adult life in the Palmetto State. After working for a short time as a public school teacher in Georgia, she moved to South Carolina to work for the Department of Social Services licensing federally funded Head Start programs. While there she helped push through a state child care licensing law. She later worked as the director of research for a standing committee in the South Carolina House of Representatives before deciding to go to law school at age 32.

After graduating from the University of South Carolina law school, she worked in a private practice law firm for five years in the areas of health, environmental and public interest law. In one of her last cases, she was appointed the guardian of 600 incarcerated youth involved in a federal juvenile justice class action lawsuit.

Based on that experience, in 1992 she began a nonprofit organization, the South Carolina Center for Family Policy, to help reform the state’s juvenile justice system.

In 1994, she ran for lieutenant governor, but lost the Democratic primary. Four years later she ran for state superintendent of schools and won. During her two terms in that position, she oversaw a public school system in which student achievement improved at the fastest rate in the nation, based on state, national and international test scores.

Also during her tenure, the South Carolina legislature passed the Education and Economic Development

SPECIAL

Tenenbaum and U.S. Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) cut the ribbon for the grand opening of the CPSC’s National Product Testing and Evaluation Center in Rockville, Md.

Act, creating programs to better prepare students for postsecondary education and the workforce, and passed a $1 billion state school bond for school facilities.

Her current job at the CPSC “really opened my vistas,” she says, taking her around the world to promote new safety standards and regulations for exports to the U.S. Rules effective January 2012 include requiring companies to have independent third party testing done on toys exported to the U.S. Having taken the reins of the CPSC during a time when there were significant recalls of products made in China, Tenenbaum has had to be vigilant to restore consumers’ trust. In addition to the new regulations governing lead levels and safety testing, the agency also has worked with U.S. customs officials to identify products coming in to the country that have not met stringent standards.

“It has really been a wonderful opportunity to see how the global market works,” she says.

With a home and husband in Columbia, S.C., Tenenbaum commutes, flying home most Fridays and back to Bethesda, where she has an apartment just blocks from her office, on Mondays. Her appointment ends in 2013, but it could be extended into 2014, or she could be reappointed to another seven-year term.

“It’s not clear to me where I’ll be next,” she says. “I think about it, but I’m always amazed at how the doors have opened. Opportunities present themselves in the least expected ways.”

MARCH 2012 • GEORGIA MAGAZINE

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Investor watch dog One of thousands of child immigrants to the U.S., alumnus Luis Aguilar now holds a prominent post in federal government

by Kelly Simmons

SPECIAL

T

he year was 1960 and 6-yearold Luis Aguilar’s parents were hearing the rumors in their native Cuba: Fidel Castro planned to have all of the Cuban children sent to camps. Over the next two years, parents would send 14,000 children to Miami to escape the educational indoctrination they feared.

“Operation Pedro Pan” (Spanish for Peter Pan) was the largest exodus ever of children from a country in the Western Hemisphere.

Aguilar and his brother, like many kids, went to live with relatives and friends until their parents were able to join them several years later.

Others were taken in by Catholic churches and the community of Cubans in Florida City, just south 24 GEORGIA MAGAZINE • www.uga.edu/gm

of Miami, which provided lodging, food, clothes and support for the immigrant children.

Four decades have passed since Aguilar made that trip, but it remains one of the reasons he cites for his work in public service today.

“I arrived in this country with three pairs of underwear and a couple of changes of clothes,” says Aguilar (JD ’79), now a commissioner with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. “I had a debt to pay back to this country.”

In December, Aguilar was sworn in to his first full term as an SEC commissioner, a seat he has held since 2008 when he was appointed by President George W. Bush to fill the remaining years of a vacancy. He was

Federal Dogs

reappointed by President Barack Obama to the position that he will hold at least until June 2015.

The post has allowed him to use the skills he built as a lawyer with the SEC, his first job out of law school, and later in corporate and securities law with several prominent Atlanta firms. He also saw it as a way to give back in his career as a public servant in addition to the work he had been doing as a volunteer with organizations in Atlanta.

“It had a strong appeal to me emotionally,” he says.

He had no idea how tumultuous the next few years would be. In September 2008, just six weeks after he was sworn in, the nation saw a volatility in the financial markets the likes of which had not been seen since the Great Depression, he says. The prominent securities firm Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy, while Merrill Lynch, another major player in the financial industry, agreed to be sold to Bank of America as a way to stem its downward financial spiral.

“Then Madoff shows up in December,” he says, referring to Bernie Madoff, the New York financier who cheated investors out of $50 million through an elaborate Ponzi scheme.

It was clear then, Aguilar says, that the status quo had to change. For the past three years, he has helped craft legislation to prevent future financial crises of that magnitude.

“It’s important that we do it right,” he says. “My job here is to protect the investors.”

His life now is a far cry from his childhood, which included moving around with his family as his father, a physician, found jobs with state and federal hospitals, first in Ravenna, Ohio, later in cities like Little Rock, Ark., and Rome, Ga. In Little Rock, Aguilar and his family felt the tension between white and black Americans, and the discrimination

“The U.S. was made stronger by diversity, by immigrants that have come to our shores. I’m really the product of the generosity of the American people.”

SPECIAL

In December, Luis Aguilar, his wife Denise by his side, is sworn in to his first full term as an SEC commissioner.

against Latinos.

“We, at the time, couldn’t speak the language,” he says. “At the time we were not embraced by either of the communities.”

However, just a year later in Rome, he found a more welcoming community. “I was actually fitting in,” he says.

When his parents moved again Aguilar was a rising high school junior and didn’t want to leave Rome. He was invited to stay and live with a friend’s family.

“They treated me just like their son,” he recalls.

A chance conversation when he stopped for gas in Statesboro led him to Georgia Southern University, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in political science. It was then on to UGA for law school, where he became interested in corporate law, taxes and securities.

When he graduated, he went to work for the SEC regional office in Atlanta. After three years there, where he gained tremendous experience in a lot of different areas, he went into private practice, and in the 1990s became involved with a number of nonprofit organizations in Georgia including the Latin American Association, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund and the Girl Scouts Council of Northwest Georgia, among others.

He also served a term as a member of the UGA Alumni Association board.

Because of his background, Aguilar has often spoken out about the need for more diversity in the SEC and on Wall Street.

“The U.S. was made stronger by diversity, by immigrants that have come to our shores,” he says. “I’m really the product of the generosity of the American people.”

MARCH 2012 • GEORGIA MAGAZINE

25

Military watch dog Grady alumnus Bryan Salas oversees U.S. Marines’ efforts to tell stories about the military to American civilians

by Grace Morris

SPECIAL

U.S. Marine Col. Bryan Salas measures the heat of summer in the shade outside his office at Camp Fallujah, Iraq.

H

“I went to Iraq right before the surge.

My job as a storyteller was to share the courage of young Marines with the American people.”

26 GEORGIA MAGAZINE • www.uga.edu/gm

eads turn as Col. Bryan Salas (ABJ ’87) walks into an Athens coffee shop. His decorated uniform, cropped hair and straight posture command a sense of respect. But as the director of public affairs for the U.S. Marine Corps slides into a booth, his smile is at ease.

Salas pulls out a folder of pictures and begins to talk about earthquake relief in the Philippines and the time he spent in Iraq. He pauses on a blackand-white photo of rugby players.

“This was at UGA,” he says. “I joined the Marines right out of high school, but I got to come here while I trained.”

He was part of the Platoon Leaders Class, a program that offers college students summer training and a commission after graduation. He came

in not knowing what to study but soon found a major.

“When I took intro to journalism I was floored by the opportunities to have adventures and write about them,” says Salas, who studied public relations at the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication.

He accepted his commission as a second lieutenant on graduation day, and 12 months later he was stationed in Japan as a young combat engineer.

“A lot of people don’t realize that about 70 percent of Marines are younger than 25,” he says. “I was surrounded by guys just like me.”

Salas and his fellow Marines spent time in Japan, the Philippines and South Korea. They traveled through villages, training with the local military,

Federal Dogs

offering humanitarian aid and spending time with locals.

When he returned to the U.S. he employed his public relations skills and spent time recruiting for the Marines at high schools in the Midwest.

“After coming back from Japan, I learned that these small-town high schoolers had the same dreams as kids from Korean farming families and Iraqi insurgent families I visited later in my career,” Salas says. Like families from America, they all wanted their children to be safe and prosperous.

After a few years, Salas decided to move to the Marine Corps public affairs division from his position in engineering.

“Public affairs is different from PR,

PETER FREY

Salas speaks last fall to students in a public relations class at the Grady College about the importance of public affairs work concerning national security issues.

SPECIAL

Salas accompanies troops in an armored vehicle close to the Syrian border in order to share stories about the courage of Marines in Iraq.

because you’re not trying to influence people,” he says. “Your moral and legal [obligation] is to provide facts so people can make well-educated decisions.”

Salas honed his reporting skills at the Defense Information School, the journalism-training field for military public affairs officers.

“We learned everything from photography to broadcasting, but the most important thing was writing— writing and storytelling,” he says.

“Through storytelling you reveal the human condition [of our military] to Americans.”

As a public affairs officer, Salas covered various regions including Eastern Europe and South Africa. While serving in Asia, he was part of the public affairs advisory team to William Cohen, President Bill Clinton’s secretary of defense.

“I advised on what the press was interested in so that he would know what to focus on at press conferences,” he says. “I would say, ‘They’re going to ask you about this or they’re critical of this policy.’”

During the Bush administration he protected U.S. interests in Haiti as a United Nations representative. From

2006 to 2007 he went to Iraq, where he served as the Multi-National Force West spokesman.

“I went to Iraq right before the surge,” he says. “My job as a storyteller was to share the courage of young Marines with the American people.”

In 2009 Salas was promoted to director of Marine Corps public affairs.

Working out of the Pentagon, Salas supervises a five-section, 62-person headquarters and more than 50 field offices with 1,000 personnel, including permanent field offices in the Far East and Europe.

“I look at the big picture and express the commander’s intent,” he says. “Right now under tough economic times our main intent is to demonstrate the value of the Marine Corps to the nation.”

Salas passes this intent on to public affairs officers throughout the world. He plans to retire this year, but until then he’s committed to the mission of military public affairs.

“It’s like maintaining a vehicle,” he says. “Constant maintenance is less expensive than repairing a part. We’re constantly engaging and informing Americans and people in the countries where we’re stationed.”

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Advertising watch dog SPECIAL

Alumnus Mamie Kresses feeds her inner scientist while protecting consumers from deceptive practices

by Kelly Simmons

T

he Internet is a safer place for children, thanks in part to Mamie Kresses.

An attorney with the Federal Trade Commission, Kresses (BA ’79, JD ’82) heads the effort to prevent businesses and organizations from collecting personal information about children, like their full names, addresses, email addresses and social security numbers, without their parents’ permission.

“Parents should know these things are going on and have a right to say no,” Kresses says.

It is Kresses’ second run with the Child Online Privacy Protection Act, which was enacted in 1998. Now she is overseeing efforts to update the law to keep up with technology.

The Atlanta native has been with the FTC since 1988, after four years of working with her father in Atlanta as an associate at Birnbrey, Kresses & Benda. Though she had anticipated practicing environmental law, a move to Washington, D.C., with her husband opened the door to the FTC. Her first assignment with the commission was with the Division of Marketing Practices. In that role she brought cases against telemarketers and businesses that were soliciting models and representing themselves falsely to 28 GEORGIA MAGAZINE • www.uga.edu/gm

consumers. She discovered many of the cases were in the Sun Belt states.

“It’s just as easy to rob people in a nice climate as it is in a poor climate,” she says, remembering one guy who was running a scheme from New Jersey. “He didn’t know he could sit on a beach and rip people off.”

The prevalence of the Internet changed the focus of her caseload. As an attorney for the Division of Advertising Practices she handled cases involving online privacy and data security. One area of focus was commercially sold spyware that could capture a consumer’s personal information from his computer without his knowledge. It was a very simple scheme, she says, in which one person would send another person an email with

downloading spyware on their computers.

Kresses also has cases involving mainstream advertising, where the product is legitimate but does not do what its ads promise.

One case, against Schering Plough, challenged the company’s claim that its sunscreen product “Coppertone Kids” provided all-day sun protection for active children with just one application.

The science did not back the claim, Kresses says.

In a case she is particularly proud of, Kresses worked with U.S. cigar manufacturers to establish a warning label on cigar advertisements, much like that on cigarettes and smokeless tobacco.

“There was a perception that cigars are a safer alternative,” Kresses says.

“I’ve been able to get a glimpse into these other worlds I wouldn’t know much about. It’s allowed me to be a lawyer and get my feet wet in the sciences.”

an attachment, indicating a photo or memo. When the recipient opened the attachment the spyware would silently download on his or her computer.

“The recipient had no way of knowing,” she says.

Though the company’s defense was that the product was intended for parents and employers to check up on their children and employees, the FTC argued that it was being used in an unfair or deceptive way.

Prior to trial, the spyware company agreed to an order requiring them to alert recipients and get permission before

“They come with cancer risks just like any other tobacco product.”

The project was a great example of industry, the state attorneys general offices and the FTC working together, amicably, to address an issue, she says.

Part of the thrill of her work, says Kresses, who admits she is a want-to-be scientist, is getting to look at the data behind a product to determine whether it supports the manufacturer’s claims.

“I’ve been able to get a glimpse into these other worlds I wouldn’t know much about,” she says. “It’s allowed me to be a lawyer but get my feet wet in the sciences.”

Federal Dogs

Homeland security watch dog SPECIAL

Law alumnus Valerie Caproni has a diverse background, prosecuting mafia criminals, redeveloping a vital area of Manhattan and helping restore confidence in the FBI after the 9/11 attacks

by Kelly Simmons

V

alerie Caproni moved back to New York from Los Angeles to begin a new job in a private law firm in August 2001, just a few weeks before the attacks on the World Trade Center.

Two years later, she was general counsel of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, one of the main organizations investigating the terrorist attack and how to prevent another attack.

“When I first got there it was in such disarray,” Caproni (JD ’79) says. “The bureau had historically managed by saying ‘do this,’ but no one was really making sure [the message was conveyed and understood] down through the ranks.”

Over the next few years it would be part of Caproni’s job to help set policies and procedures for the agency so that it accomplished what it intended and was consistent with the Constitution and U.S. law.

“It was fascinating,” she says. “It was a really interesting job. I was very connected to the mission of the FBI.” Growing up in Columbus, Ga., Caproni always wanted to be a lawyer, she says. After earning her undergraduate degree from Tulane University, she came back to Georgia to law school.

“I loved to argue,” Caproni says. “I was on the debate team in high school.”

Her first job out of Georgia Law was clerking for the Hon. Phyllis Kravitch, the first woman appointed to what would become the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. It was a great job, she says, and allowed her to return to New Orleans every few weeks for court.

After the clerkship she joined a corporate law firm in New York and at first was a little intimidated.

“I very quickly learned I’d gotten a splendid legal education at Georgia,” she says. “I felt confident I could go toe-to-toe with anyone.”

Even so, she knew she wanted to be back in the public sector.

She moved to Brooklyn for a job in the U.S. attorney’s office there. Her caseload was diverse, ranging from small postal cases and narcotics to white-collar and organized crime.

It was a job she calls an extraordinary experience. But then came another offer, a far cry from the mafia drug-dealing cases she had been prosecuting. She became general counsel for the N.Y. State Urban Development Corporation (UDC), which was begun in 1968 to address the shortage of low-income housing in New York. One of the projects during her time there was the redevelopment of 42nd Street, which was at the time a blighted,

“I’m learning a whole new industry, a whole new area of the law. It’s fascinating.”

crime-ridden area in the center of Manhattan.

“I thought, ‘what the heck, it would be fun,’” she says. “It was fascinating. I learned things that otherwise I never would have known about city planning.”

The lure of criminal law was too much and soon she was back in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, this time rising to the level of chief of the criminal division. She oversaw about 100 prosecutors but always kept at least one case for herself.

Her next move seems as much a detour as her job with the UDC. In 1998 Caproni moved to Los Angeles to work for the Securities and Exchange Commission. While the work was interesting, the lure of New York was too strong so three years later she moved back to New York and back into private practice, where she was just before 9/11. After a couple of years of whitecollar crime work, she got the call from the FBI. After eight years with the bureau, Caproni recently returned to private practice, this time as the deputy general counsel of Northrop Grumman Corporation in Falls Church, Va. Northrop Grumman designs and manufactures military aircraft, defense electronics and precision weapons, among other things.

Customers include government agencies, such as the U.S. Air Force.

“I’m learning a whole new industry, a whole new area of the law,” she says. “It’s fascinating.”

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No place like home From civil rights era footage to the Confederate Constitution, UGA’s Special Collections come together in a long-awaited new facility photos by Peter Frey

Paul Van Wicklen accesses materials in the Russell Building’s 30,000-square-foot vault, capable of holding four million volumes or 220,000 cubic feet of archival boxes.

Staff members use a motorized picker to reach items on the 30-foot-high shelves.

30 GEORGIA MAGAZINE • www.uga.edu/gm

U

GA celebrated the official opening of the new Richard B. Russell Building Special Collections Libraries in February.

Located on Hull Street, the $46 million, 115,000-squarefoot building houses the Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, the Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, and the Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection. Workers spent months painstakingly moving the collections from their previous quarters in the Main Library on North Campus, where they were housed in cramped spaces.

Constructed around a 30,000-square-foot storage area built largely below ground level, the new building features customized climate control, integrated security, exhibit galleries, classrooms and event space as well as room for the collections to expand during the next 40 years. One third of the building’s cost was raised from private sources, along with $7 million in gifts for program endowments. UGA is gathering documentation for LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold Certification, a third-party verification that a building was designed and constructed with attention paid to sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor environmental quality.

Near right, a Babylonian clay tablet, part of a collection of 15 tablets dated from 560527 B.C. Far right, Mary Ellen Brooks, director emeritus of Hargrett and curator of rare books, arranges a display featuring a portrait of Sequoyah, part of the collection Southeastern Native American Documents, 1730-1842. Both collections are part of the Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

Formerly housed in cramped quarters at the Main Library, UGA’s three Special Collections Libraries have a new home in the $46 million Richard B. Russell Building. UGA broke ground for the project in January 2010; the building was dedicated at a celebration in February.

MAARCH 2012 • GEORGIA MAGAZINE 31

Above, Mari Crabtree, a Ph.D. student in history from Cornell University, reviews the constituent correspondence of Herman Talmadge from the Russell Library for Political Research and Studies.

Below, an image from a home movie of Georgia fans at the 1943 Rose Bowl (UGA defeated UCLA 9-0), part of the Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection.

The Pathé “Baby” 9.5 mm projector dates back to c. 1923. Enjoying a shortlived popularity, the Pathé is on display as part of the Brown Media Archives, which preserves more than 200,000 titles—film, video, audiotape and more—as well as the artifacts used for projection.

32 GEORGIA MAGAZINE • www.uga.edu/gm

In this photo from the Russell Library, Mr. and Mrs. Elijah Booker pose at their farm in Madison.

Forty-seven of the farm’s 114 acres were planted with cotton in 1961.

Right, a 1948 freshman rat cap donated to the UGA Archives—part of the Hargrett Library—by Dean William Tate. Tate was an assistant professor of English who served as dean of freshmen and later dean of men; the Tate Student Center is named in his honor.

Sheila McAlister, associate director of the Digital Library of Georgia, explores a video kiosk during a visit to the Brown Media Archives. The kiosks include a national collection showcasing interviews with national and international figures; a Georgia collection featuring the people and places of Georgia; and the Peabody Awards Collection, featuring history and winners shown through artifacts and audiovisual clips.

MAARCH 2012 • GEORGIA MAGAZINE 33

NOTES CLASS

Field of dreams Ellen McRaney

Former Georgia fullback Des Williams (BSFCS ’07) can relive his glory days on the gridiron anytime he wants... in his own backyard! Williams transformed his lawn into a mini Sanford Stadium as a gift for his 2-year-old son. The 23-yard replica includes field goal posts, painted lines, Georgia logo, field lights and hedges. He spent three months and devoted more than 200 hours of work to the project, also calling in vendors and subcontractors to help. Williams is co-owner of Outdoor Advantage, a landscape contracting firm based in Dacula.

CLASS NOTES

Rev. Warren L. Jones (ABJ ’41, MA ’42) celebrated his 90th birthday on Nov. 26.

an alumni lifetime achievement award from the Animal Science Department at Purdue University, where he earned master’s and doctorate degrees in genetics. Frank Marvin (BSA ’59) of Hollywood, S.C., retired after 50 years in the meat business. Marvin was the owner of Marvin’s Meats on S.C. Highway 162.

1950-1954

1960-1964

Compiled by Emily Grant and Grace Morris

1940-1944

Jim Tucker (BSEd ’51) of Cleveland, Tenn., was inducted into the Tennessee Hall of Fame for more than 20 years of work as executive director of the Cleveland Boys and Girls Club.

Jack Perryman (BBA ’63) of Macon was appointed to the Composite Board of Professional Counselors, Social Workers and Marriage & Family Therapists

by Gov. Nathan Deal.

1955-1959

1965-1969

Louis Scharff (BS ’55) of Augusta was named the 2011 Jewish Humanitarian of the Year. This annual award is presented to a man, woman or couple who has demonstrated generosity, charity and volunteerism. Gene Eisen (BSA ’59) of Raleigh, N.C., received

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Max C. Brown (BSPh ’65) of Dublin received the 2011 C.A.R.E. Pharmacy Award from the Alzheimer’s Association for his caring nature and knowledge of the effects and symptoms of Alzheimer’s patients. He owns Max Brown Pharmacy in Dublin.

1970-1974

Charles J. Vickery (BBA ’70) of Athens was picked as one of Atlanta Magazine’s 2011 Five Star Wealth Managers. Fewer than 2 percent of wealth managers in Atlanta receive this distinction. Richard A. Jacobson (BBA ’71) of Tampa, Fla., was re-elected to the TerraLex board of directors. TerraLex is a global legal network with firms in 100 countries and 45 states. Bobby G. Miller (BBA ’73) of Lula was elected to the AgGeorgia Farm Credit board of directors.

1975-1979

Steve McCoy (BBA ’75) of Atlanta was selected by Gov. Nathan Deal to become Georgia’s state treasurer. He oversees receipt and disbursement of state funds and manages state cash resources.

Greg Parker (AB ’75) of Savannah was named the Southeast C-Store Innovator of the Year by The Parker Companies, a fuel retailer at convenience stores

ALUMNI PROFILE

Wide world of sports Former sports information student assistant at UGA now oversees international broadcasts of the Olympic Games

by Karen Rosen Like many of us, Mark Parkman (BA ’87) will watch the 2012 Summer Olympics on television.

The difference is that Parkman will be in London helping oversee 5,000 hours of coverage that will be viewed by more than 4.5 billion people in 200-plus countries.

As vice president of operations for International Sports Broadcasting and the operations executive for Olympic Broadcasting Services, Parkman will monitor a bank of televisions, just as he’s done in Atlanta; Nagano, Japan; Sydney, Australia; Salt Lake City; Athens, Greece; Turin, Italy; Beijing and Vancouver.

“People assume that in between the Olympics there’s nothing going on,” says Parkman, who won an Emmy Award for his work in Salt Lake City. “But in reality, it takes four or five years to plan one Olympics.”

Parkman helps decide where the huge international broadcast center will be located and the camera placements in the venues. About 5,000 people must be hired to work on the host broadcast, which will produce seven feeds from a single gymnastics session.

“When I left Athens, I never thought that I would actually live in another Athens,” says Parkman, who spent two years in Greece prior to the 2004 games.

A speech communications major who worked as a sports information student assistant at UGA, Parkman was in public relations for Cohn & Wolfe and Turner Broadcasting before joining veteran Olympic broadcaster Manolo Romero’s company in the run-up to the 1996 games.

“For me to be around him and soak up some of that knowledge has made my career so fulfilling,” Parkman says.

It has also given him the resources to give back. In 2007, Parkman helped found Morale Entertainment, a nonprofit organization that stages major events for U.S. military troops.

“A few of us were talking about what we can do for the troops based upon our connections and expertise,” Parkman says. “We said if we can provide them with some sort of diversion from the enormity of their task and their responsibility, that’s something we should all try to do.”

Their first project sent college football coaches, including UGA’s Mark Richt, to Iraq in 2008.

Parkman couldn’t make the trip; he had meetings about the 2012 Olympic contract. But he was on board for the latest venture, the Carrier Classic in San Diego in November that

SPECIAL

Mark Parkman

pitted North Carolina against Michigan State in a basketball game on the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson. It was such a success that another edition is planned next year.

“I’ve been involved in every Olympics since 1996, but that event was truly one of the most memorable ones I’ve ever been a part of,” Parkman says.

He also helped bring about one of the most patriotic moments of the Salt Lake City Olympics.

During the initial planning meeting for the opening ceremony, the producers mentioned having an eagle fly into the stadium and land on the field. “I kind of sat there wondering whether or not I should speak up,” Parkman says.

“I said, ‘Um, do you have this bird?’ And they said, ‘No, we’re looking for one.’ And I said, ‘Well, I think I might know where you can find one.’”

And that’s how Auburn University’s War Eagle made his dramatic Olympic entrance. “I was able to put aside my longheld upbringing to do what was best for the country,” Parkman says. “I did have a bit of pride when I saw that damn bird flying into the stadium.”

It made for some good TV, too.

—Karen Rosen is a freelance writer living in Atlanta.

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CLASSNOTES

®

As spring brings warmer temperatures and budding flowers back to our beautiful campus, the Alumni Association continues its most important work—recognizing the excellence of UGA’s 275,000 graduates.

In January, we gathered in Atlanta to celebrate the third annual Bulldog 100. Deborah Norville ’79 delivered a captivating keynote address and led us to the highlight of the evening—the countdown of the 2012 class. Congratulations to Anthony Moore ’93 of jobTopia, this year’s Fastest Growing Bulldog Steve Jones Business. The Association is proud to salute the entrepreneurial spirit of Anthony and his fellow honorees. Visit our website to view the class rankings and pictures from this year’s banquet. In September, we will present the second annual 40 Under 40, a selection of 40 outstanding UGA alumni under the age of 40. We are accepting nominations for this year’s class through April 11. Visit www.alumni.uga.edu/40u40 to nominate a deserving young graduate today!

The Alumni Association also honors distinguished alumni, faculty and friends at its annual Awards Luncheon. This year, we are delighted to recognize former state Rep. Bob Argo ’50 with the Alumni Merit Award, retired Dean of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Bill Flatt with the Faculty Service Award and the Frank W. “Sonny” Seiler (’55, ’56) family as Alumni Family of the Year.

Make plans to join us April 15 on campus in the Tate Student Center Grand Hall to recognize the contributions of these deserving recipients. More information about these and other Alumni Association programs can be found at www.alumni.uga.edu.

The Bulldog 100, 40 Under 40, and Alumni Awards are a few of the many programs that give us opportunities to express gratitude to those who are representing the greatness of the University and its graduates. In that same spirit, I would like to proclaim my appreciation to you, UGA alumni and friends, for your role in maintaining the preeminence of Georgia’s flagship university. Together, we are working to ensure a bright future for UGA, and thanks to you, the future looks great. Go Dawgs!

—Steve Jones (BBA ’78, JD ’87), president UGA Alumni Association

UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA ALUMNI ASSOCIATION Deborah Dietzler, Executive Director ALUMNI ASSOCIATION OFFICERS Steve Jones BBA ’78, JD ’87 President, Athens Tim Keadle BBA ’78 Treasurer, Lilburn Ruth Bartlett BBA ’76 Asst. Treasurer, Atlanta Harriette Bohannon BSHE ’74 Secretary, Augusta Vic Sullivan BBA ’80 Immediate Past President, Albany ALUMNI ASSOCIATION WEBSITE www.uga.edu/alumni

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800/606-8786 or 706/542-2251 To receive a monthly e-newsletter, enroll at: www.uga.edu/alumni ADDRESS CHANGES E-mail records@uga.edu or call 888/268-5442

across southeastern Georgia and South Carolina. Parker is president and CEO of The Parker Companies. Charles A. Fuller (AB ’76) of Gainesville, Ga., was appointed to the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council by Gov. Nathan Deal.

Walter Harrison (AB ’78) of Moultrie was a finalist for Colquitt County School System’s Teacher of the Year.

Harrison is a history teacher at Colquitt County High School. Kristine L. Cato (ABJ ’79) of Columbia, S.C., was named to Greater Columbia Business Monthly’s 2011 Legal Elite for her work at Rogers Townsend & Thomas PC, a labor and employment law firm.

1980-1984

Sen. Buddy Carter (BSPh ’80) of Pooler was awarded the Legislator of the Year Award by the Georgia Rural Health Association. He also received the 2011 Distinguished Alumnus Award for his work in promoting the profession of pharmacy and in promoting the College of Pharmacy. Karen Waldon (BSEd ’80) of Conyers is the deputy superintendent of instruction for Atlanta Public Schools. Thomas Edward Jackiewicz (BBA ’82) of San Diego, Calif., was appointed to the position of senior vice president and chief executive officer for USC Health at the University of Southern California.

1985-1989

Mike Duvall (BSA ’86) of Dacula was elected to the American Floral Endowment board of trustees. He worked as a Home Depot store manager for more than 20 years, and now he is a senior live goods merchant at the company. Tony Hullender (AB ’86) of Signal Mountain, Tenn., was named senior vice president and general counsel for BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee. Susan Kozak Mondello (BSEd ’86) of Sarasota, Fla., joined the St. Amands Circle II real estate office of Michael Saunders & Co. Timothy A. Lake (BLA ’88) of Dublin was appointed by Gov. Nathan Deal to the State Board of Landscape Architects. Lake is the president of T. Lake

ALUMNI calendar Saturday, March 17, 2012 Fifth Annual Dawg Trot 5K 7:30 a.m.

Get your shoes laced up for Athens’ largest 5K run/walk! The course provides a refreshing early spring run through UGA’s campus.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012 40 Under 40 Nominations Deadline

We are recognizing some of UGA’s outstanding young alumni at a celebration in September. Visit our website to submit your nomination so that your deserving graduate can be considered for this year’s class.

Saturday, April 14, 2012 The Official Class Ring Ceremony

In front of family and friends, ring recipients take part in a celebration that includes presentations by the president and executive director of the UGA Alumni Association, as well as the president of the Student Alumni Council.

Friday, April 20, 2012 Class of 1962 50th Reunion

The Class of 1962 will gather back in Athens for a campus tour, lunch, and other opportunities to reminisce.

Friday, April 20, 2012 Annual Alumni Awards Luncheon 12 p.m.

For more than 60 years, the UGA Alumni Association has annually recognized distinguished alumni and friends who have demonstrated outstanding loyalty and service to UGA. For more information on these and other exciting programs for UGA alumni and friends, visit www.alumni.uga.edu, email alumni@uga.edu, or call (706) 542-2251.

To learn more about the UGA Alumni Association or find a chapter or club in your area, go to www.uga.edu/alumni.

Environmental Design, a landscape architecture firm with offices in Dublin and Macon. Melanie P. Moore (BSEd ’88) of Austin, Texas, is the editor of Austin Fit Magazine. Walter M. Kimbrough (BSA ’89) of Little Rock, Ark., was named president of Dillard University. Kimbrough previously served as president of Philander Smith College for seven years. Andrew Sullivan (BBA ’89) of Alpharetta was appointed a member of the Annual Fund Committee for Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta.

1990-1994

Sarah Kelley Ward (BSA ’90) of Barrington, N.H., received the Honorary American Degree for teachers at the National FFA Convention in October for her work as a teacher and FFA advisor at Coe-Brown Northwood Academy.

The National FFA Organization is a youth program that promotes and supports agricultural education. Sterling Fennell Eason (ABJ ’91) of Mt. Pleasant, S.C., is the director of corporate communications for Garden & Gun, an award-winning national magazine based in Charleston, S.C. Jonathan Belk Brinson (BBA ’94) of Alpharetta was chosen to lead the sales and marketing for JETT Business Technology in Roswell. William P. Defino (BSFR ’94) of Clarkesville, Ga., was appointed to the Board of Examiners for Certification of Water and Wastewater Treatment Plant Operators and Laboratory Analysts by Gov. Nathan Deal. Richard Lee Tucker (AB ’94) of Lawrenceville was elected to the board of directors of Brand Group Holdings. He is a founding partner of Mahaffey Pickens Tucker LLP.

1995-1999

Pamela Nix Elms (BSEd ’95) of Jacksonville, Fla., was selected by the National Council of Kappa Delta as the sorority’s executive director. Stephanie Power-Carter (BSEd ’95) is the director of the Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center at the University of Indiana Bloomington. She is also an

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I

WHY give “I give because I want the best care possible should I darken [my veterinarian’s] door with an ailing or injured beagle in my arms.”

—Rebekah Stewart

associate professor in the IU School of Education. Drew Prante (BBA ’97) of Suwanee was named director of SMB Sales for Atlanta-based PGi. Prante returned to Georgia after leading sales efforts for Careerbuilder.com in Seattle and Boston over the past five years.

Jocelyn D. Rogers (BS ’97) of Americus was appointed to the South Georgia Technical College board of directors.

She is one of three practicing physicians at Phoebe-Sumter OB/GYN Associates, where she serves as chief of obstetrics and gynecology, chair of the surgery department and medical director of women’s services. Margaret Maurice Owen (BFA ’98) traveled to Marrakech, Morocco, to teach a painting workshop.

She earned her master’s in fine arts at the New York Academy of Art, and she lives in Providence, R.I., where she paints and teaches. Jason (AB ’98) and Manuela (AB ’98) Shepherd of Marietta welcomed their first son, Alexander Marshall Hamilton, on Aug. 6. Brian Brooks (AB ’99) of Athens was named vice president and community banker for Regions Bank in the Athens area.

2000-2004

SPECIAL

Rebekah Stewart with her beagles, Buster (left) and Little Bit.

Special

One of Rebekah Stewart’s beloved beagles, Buster, was the catalyst for her gift to the ophthalmology department at the UGA College of Veterinary Medicine’s Veterinary Medical Learning Center. When Buster lost his sight, she brought the dog from her home in Clarkesville, about 50 miles from Athens, to the UGA campus for treatment. Living in the mountains of North Georgia can mean a long ride for animal owners looking for emergency veterinary care, Stewart notes. But for her, the main goal is to provide the resources that will further enhance the high quality of rural veterinary medical care.

Want to give? Go to www.externalaffairs.uga.edu/os/makegift.

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Claire Pearson Perry (AB ’00) of Atlanta was one of the top 5 contestants in the We R Indie Showdown, a singer/ songwriter competition, in Knoxville, Tenn. Margaret Spalding (M ’00) is a graphic designer at Jackson Spalding Image Creation, Cultivation and Communication. Nikki Boatwright (AB ’01) of Athens joined OnlineAthens.com and the Athens Banner-Herald as a digital media sales consultant. Michael R. Childs (BBA ’01) is an associate attorney of counsel at Alexander & Saxon in Oconee County. Don Crider (AB ’01) of Griffin was named the 2011 Griffin-Spalding County Young Man of the Year by the Kiwanis Club of Griffin. Jesse Michael Keenan (AB ’01) of New York City was named director of research for the Center for Urban Real Estate at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University.

Keenan also received a visiting appoint-

ALUMNI PROFILE

A head for education Former UGA senior vice president now runs the state’s university system

by Patti Ghezzi When Hank Huckaby grabbed the helm of the University System of Georgia, he assumed a crucial role in improving the state’s economic outlook.

“We have always had a need for an educated citizenry,” says the chancellor, who began leading the 35-college system in July. “It will be even more critical in the future, and all our schools have a role in helping meet the goal of an educated citizenry.”

Higher education has never been more closely tied to economic development, says Huckaby, citing a Georgetown Hank Huckaby University study showing more than 60 percent of new jobs will require some college education. In Georgia, only about 40 to 42 percent of adults have some type of college degree, he notes.

With decades of experience in state government, Huckaby is confident he can lead the university system toward bridging that gap, while managing a growing enrollment and lean budgets.

Huckaby (M ’06) has deep ties to Athens and UGA, where he studied for a doctorate in public administration. He later served as director of the Carl Vinson Institute of Government and then senior vice president for finance and administration.

Within a year of moving to Oconee County in 1997, he and his wife, Amy, knew they had found the ideal place to retire.

“We like the people and the amenities,” says Huckaby, who has two grown children and six grandchildren. “It’s difficult to find anything bad to say about the University of Georgia.”

Huckaby shifted into semi-retirement in 2006 after six years overseeing UGA’s finances. He continued working part time as a special assistant to the president at UGA. But semi-retirement didn’t stick.

In 2010, he was elected to the Georgia General Assembly. Just three months into his term, he was tapped to head the university system, replacing Erroll Davis, who retired and now heads Atlanta Public Schools.

Huckaby was chosen as part of a national search that

SPECIAL

included several college presidents. His experience at UGA and as state budget director under former Gov. Zell Miller gives him insight into areas where the system can run more efficiently, he says.

His supporters, who include Gov. Nathan Deal, believe Huckaby can accomplish another key goal: strengthening communication between the university system and the General Assembly.

Huckaby spent his first three months as chancellor visiting every university, college and research center. “I met with staff who are enthusiastic in the face of budget cuts and students who are committed to their work and pleased with the education they are receiving.”

Yet students across the state expressed concerns with job prospects, he says. Those concerns motivate him to work hard.

“I’m a product of the university system,” says Huckaby, who has an associate’s degree from Young Harris College, where he is now a trustee, as well as a bachelor’s degree and an MBA from Georgia State University. “I love a challenge, and I’m committed to it.”

He still plans to retire, for real, in Oconee County.

Someday.

—Patti Ghezzi is a freelance writer living in Avondale Estates.

MARCH 2012 • GEORGIA MAGAZINE

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NEWBOOKS Chain Gang Elementary Thornbriar Press (2011)

By Jonathan Grant (AB ’76) A tale of war between the PTA president and principal at Malliford School—home to vast right-wing conspiracies, 3rd-grade gangsters and bake sale embezzlers, where toxic childhood secrets fester, reformers go mad and culture wars escalate into armed conflict.

The Ideas of a Plain Country Woman Old Fogey Publishing Company (2010)

By Rachel Harper (BSHE ’74) and Sally Stephens A compilation of the writings of Mrs. Genie Maude Baldwin Wilson from her community column “Fairview Notes” in The Madisonian, the newspaper for Georgia’s Madison and Morgan counties.

Sleight Coffee House Press (2011)

By Kirsten Kaschock (PhD ’06) A novel about two sisters who are performers of sleight, an art form that combines dance, architecture, acrobatics and spoken word.

After years of estrangement, the sisters must figure out how their performances fit into a moment of national tragedy.

Welcome to the Club!

Surviving Cancer, One Laugh at a Time CreateSpace (2011)

By Myles Beskind (BBA ’88) Beskind shares his belief that humor, along with good medicine and good soup, helped him beat cancer twice.

Nothing is off limits, from doctors and nurses to the fictional UGA risk management grad responsible for the crazy rules at HMOs.

There Is More Than One Way to Spell Wiener: The Story of Nu-Way Mercer University Press (2011)

By Ed Grisamore (ABJ ’78) For almost 75 years, one of Macon’s most famous eating establishments has intentionally misspelled the word W-E-I-N-E-R on its marquee. Thanks to a sign-maker misplacing those vowels in 1937, NuWay has had a conversation piece on the plate along with its legendary hot dogs.

Miss Dimple Rallies to the Cause St. Martin’s Press (2011)

By Mignon Franklin Ballard (ABJ ’56) The second book in the Miss Dimple mystery series. It’s September 1943, and the town of Elderberry, Ga., is preparing for the Bond Rally to support the troops fighting the war abroad. But when children discover a skeleton at the edge of a field, and Buddy Oglesby disappears along with the war bond money, it’s clear that something is amiss.

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Media Literacy In The K-12 Classroom International Society of Technology in Education (2011)

By Frank W. Baker (ABJ ’77) Using examples and classroom activities, Baker shows how to bring media literacy into any classroom and teach skills that enable students to become knowledgeable media consumers and producers. ¡Ciencia Boricua! Ensayos y Anécdotas del Científico Puertorro Ediciones Callejón (2011) Edited by Wilson J. González-Espada (PhD ’01), Daniel A. Colón-Ramos and Mónica Feliú-Mojer This book presents 61 short essays by 23 Puerto Rican scientists, role models for Latino youth, who share their experiences becoming professional researchers and discovering the hidden secrets of nature.

Messages from Home: The Art of Leo Twiggs Claflin University Press (2011)

By Leo Twiggs (EdD ’70) Messages covers Twiggs’ 40-year career with more than 150 reproductions of his paintings, intertwined with essays and family photos.

ONLINE Find more books by UGA graduates at www.uga.edu/gm SUBMISSIONS Submit new books written by UGA alumni to simmonsk@uga.edu. Please include a brief description of the book and a hi-res pdf or tiff of its cover.

ALUMNI PROFILE

Pushing an unpopular cause Law school alumnus spends his days defending student journalists’ right to free speech

by John W. English Journalists get little public support, says Frank LoMonte, and student journalists get even less.

“A free student press doesn’t have much public support,” he says.

Executive director of the Student Press Law Center in Arlington, Va., LoMonte (JD ’00) tackles the first amendment issues at colleges and universities as well as K-12 schools. The center provides legal assistance for student journalists across the Frank LoMonte nation.

“Educators often have little regard for the constitutional rights of students, particularly freedom of speech,” he says. Cases in the courts now include civil speech codes on campuses, what students can and can’t say on social networking sites, sunshine laws involving public records and privacy issues.

“Censorship comes from people not secure in their authority,” he says, adding that school officials will try to punish students for saying or writing anything that might affect the orderly operation of the school.

“Schools generally are not very good at punishing. Sometimes good teachers are punished for something students did.”

The courts must protect young whistleblowers and investigative reporters, just as they would professional journalists, LoMonte says. Only two states—Arkansas and Kansas—have progressive laws protecting the student press, he noted.

As part of his job, LoMonte travels often around the country to serve as an “an advocate for a somewhat unpopular cause.”

“I try to promote student engagement in civic life and help students improve their communities, starting with their schools,” he says. “There are lots of opportunities for student journalists. For example, we’re now training them to cover school boards.

From a national perspective, LoMonte says he’s optimistic about the college press, many of which are transitioning from print to online publications.

“The mood in college newsrooms is electrifying because there is a lot of experimentation,” he says. “Innovation comes from challenging assumptions. If you empower students, they usually do amazing things. Student investigators are breaking big national stories. UGA, for example, has shown leadership in using open records law.”

Student journalists can have an enormous effect on public service journalism— serving as a watchdog for their community, he says.

“There are too many shenanigans of state and local government that are grossly under covered by the press and that need watching.”

The Student Press Law Center is largely staffed by student interns from across the country. The students produce a newsletter as they learn about press law, journalism and nonprofit operations. The center also maintains a phone line and online contact for students who have media law concerns. LoMonte also takes the students on “geek outings,” field trips to places like National Public Radio and the Supreme Court.

“It’s crazy fun,” he says. “I can’t believe I’m getting paid to do this. It’s incredibly rewarding working for people who are appreciative. Even if you don’t win a case, you still empower students and earn moral victories.”

—John W. English, a professor emeritus of journalism at the University of Georgia, is a frequent contributor to GM.

SPECIAL

ment at the Bauhaus Academy in Dessau, Germany. Josh Roland (BBA ’01) owns record label Songs and Crowns, and one of his label’s releases by The Classic City Collective was named one of the Top 5 Indie Releases in 2011 in Worship Leader Magazine’s October issue. Mike Colombo (AB ’02) of Rome, Ga., was named managing editor of the Rome NewsTribune. Ben Cucuzza (BBA ’02) was named district manager for Wells Fargo in Athens. Will Hodges (ABJ ’02) of Athens was named the branch manager of Athens First Bank and Trust’s Barnett Shoals branch. Kelly Saxon (BBA ’02) of Athens is the branch manager of the downtown Athens First location. Josh Schlieman (BBA ’02) of Alpharetta was appointed a member of the Annual Fund Committee for Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. Stephanie Stenglein (ABJ ’02) is the chief development officer at the Community School of the Arts in Charlotte, N.C. Eric Gunderson (BSEd ’03) began a one-year fellowship in orthopedics at Emory University Medical Center in June 2011. He has worked as an athletic trainer in baseball at the University of Central Florida, a trainer for UGA football and as director of a wellness center for Delta Airlines since graduating. Kristin Gunderson Holland (BS ’03) was recognized with a monetary award by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta for her work in prevention of violence among youth. This is the second award she has received in the two years she has

MARCH 2012 • GEORGIA MAGAZINE

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ALUMNI PROFILE

Run, run, run as fast as she can A competitive spirit and a lot of energy have driven alumna Monica Huff to complete 55 marathons (maybe more by the time you read this)

by Grace Morris In December Monica Huff (PhD ’02) put a check mark beside the last item on her to-do list. She ran the Zappos. com Rock and Roll Las Vegas Marathon in Nevada, the last of the 50 states in which she had vowed to run.

It was her 55th marathon overall, most of them since 2006 when a friend bet her she couldn’t run a marathon in each of the 50 states.

To celebrate, Huff, who will be 42 in April, invited friends and family to accompany her to Las Vegas. About 55 people, including husband Reign Streiter (BSEd ’93), children Gabby, 11, Scout, 10, and Wyatt, 6, her mom, dad and siblings, were there to cheer her on or run themselves, several in their first marathon.

“I’ve run so many that now it’s really fun for me to see people run one for the first time,” she says. “A lot of people get nervous before their first one, but I tell them to just enjoy it.”

Huff, a psychologist with the U.S. Navy Manpower Analysis Center, ran her first marathon in San Diego in 1999. A tennis player growing up in Clemson, S.C., she didn’t start running until she was in graduate school at UGA. “I was working on completing my doctorate, and I’d heard that you should treat time on your dissertation like training for a marathon,” she says.

She took that idea and ran with it, creating methodical schedules for running and writing to structure her life.

She ran her second marathon in 2003 as a reward for earning her doctorate.

“For me racing is like a treat or vacation,” she says. “I go to run a marathon, but I also get to rest, relax and read magazines.”

After her second race, Huff qualified for the Boston Marathon by 14 seconds. Since 2006, Huff has run about 10 marathons a year, occasionally running two in a weekend.

“At first I thought I would need more rest between marathons, but now I think the ideal is three weeks between each one,” she says.

Three weeks gives Huff time to rest, go on a few mediumlength runs and race again.

“If I’m going to run more than 20 miles, I’d rather it be part of a race than just a training day,” she says.

Her favorite marathons are the “quirky, smaller ones,” she says.

“Some of them only have about 100 runners, so you get

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Monica Huff

Andrew davis tucker

to know people better and you feel more of a bond.”

In October 2011 she ran the Big Sur Trail Marathon in California with a woman she met on the course. They connected over their similar careers (the other woman worked for the New Zealand Air Force), motherhood and a cow that charged across the course in front of them.

“That was probably the hardest marathon I’ve ever run,” she says. “We had to hike up this huge hill just to get to the starting line, and I was walking within the first two minutes.”

Still, Huff tied for fourth place in the women’s division and was first in her age group.

A competitor at heart, Huff is on to her next challenge: to rerun the races in the five states in which she did not finish in four hours: California, Illinois, Delaware, Tennessee and New York. According to the 50sub4 club, a support group for marathon runners, if Huff accomplishes her goal she will be only the fourth woman to finish a marathon in each state under four hours.

“For me it’s more important to be able to run than to run faster,” she says. “If I’m having a bad day running makes it better, and if I’m having a good day it makes it even better.”

worked for the CDC. Also, she and her husband, Jarret Holland (ABJ ’02), an English teacher at Gainesville City High School, welcomed their first child, Layla Marie, on March 31, 2011.

2005-2009

Oonagh Benson (BBA ’05) of Athens is the branch manager of the Athens First location on Atlanta Highway. Matt Moore (BBA ’05), Colin Newberry (AB ’05), and Charlie Holderness (BSFCS ’05) collaborated to create a men’s cologne called Moonshine. Eliot Bradford Peace (AB ’05) of Columbia, S.C., accepted clerkship with the Honorable Timothy M. Cain, district judge, District of South Carolina. Deanne Smith Rosso (BSFCS ’05) of Bishop was picked as one of Atlanta Magazine’s 2011 Five Star Wealth Managers. Fewer than 2 percent of wealth managers in Atlanta receive this distinction. Brandon Medley (BSFCS ’06) of Norman Park was named the Colquitt County School System’s Teacher of the Year.

Medley is a special education teacher at Cox Elementary School. Haley Chura (BBA ’07, ABJ ’07) of Atlanta competed in the Ironman Championship in Kona, Hawaii, in October and placed second in the Female 25-39 division. She is a senior manager at Bennett Thrasher PC. Lisa Michelle Floyd (ABJ ’07) of Social Circle and her husband Tony welcomed their daughter, Maesyn, on Nov. 1.

Michelle Phillips Jones (BFA ’07) of Bogart was named Teacher of the Year for Social Circle City Schools. She is the art teacher for Social Circle Primary and Social Circle Elementary. Tyler P. Stevens (BBA ’07) of Nashville is a member of Burr & Forman LLP’s banking and real estate practice group, where he practices in the firm’s corporate section. Rashaad Singleton (M ’08) plays basketball for the Sendai 89ers in Japan.

He played professionally in Jordan last season.

2010-

Drake Bernstein (BSEd ’11) is the assistant women’s tennis coach at the

First new Bulldog of

the year?

At 6 pounds, 14 ounces, Jacob Isaac Jarnicki weighed a fraction of the crystal ball that fell in Times Square at midnight, but arrived just as the ball touched down, making him potentially the first baby born in the United States this year. Brent special Jarnicki (AB ’01) and his wife Jacki weren’t expecting Jacob for another two weeks, but when she went into labor New Year’s Eve they headed to Bethesda Hospital in Cincinnati. Jacob’s time of birth was 12:00 a.m., Jan. 1, 2012, and he was heralded by local media as Cincy’s first born.

Once released on Jan. 2, the Jarnickis hurried home to watch the Outback Bowl, which UGA lost to Michigan State—Jacki’s alma mater.

University of Alabama. Dyci Manns (AB ’11) was one of four women under 25 who received the M.A.D. (Making A Difference) Girl Award at BET’s Black Girls Rock! Awards. She accepted her award on national TV in November.

Alexandru Muresan (BBA ’11) of Warner Robins started a business called Time for Arts to give artists the chance to share their talents with others.

GRAD NOTES Agriculture

Thomas Franklin Rodgers (BSA ’67, MS ’69) of Athens was honored by the National Association of Extension 4-H Agents when it inducted him into the National 4-H Hall of Fame on Oct. 7.

Karen Elizabeth Sechler (MS ’03) of Fair Play, Md., was named extension educator in horticulture at the University of Maryland Extension in Washington County.

Arts & Sciences

Diane Gambill (MS ’83, PhD ’88) of Garland, Texas, was named the chief

Serving

GEORGIA

nourishment with culinary spirit

75 NATIONAL AWARDS

University of Georgia Food Services foodservice.uga.edu (706) 542-1256 MARCH 2012 • GEORGIA MAGAZINE

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CLASSNOTES

ALUMNI PROFILE

Film focused Conservation ecology alumna now runs annual EcoFocus Film Festival

by Grace Morris Sara Beresford sets a stack of papers on her recycled wooden desk. It’s tall enough for her to stand behind, and as a woman on the move that suits her perfectly. While she talks about her job as EcoFocus Film Festival director, Beresford turns to the giant sheets of paper that adorn her wall. She’s covered them with charts, calendars, tallies and film titles.

“I’m trying to find the best form for attracting the most people,” she says. “One nice thing about being pretty autonomous is that I can experiment with the festival.”

EcoFocus is an annual environmental film festival in Athens, held March 23-31 this year. The Odum School of Ecology initiated the idea in 2007 and asked Beresford, an Odum graduate, to make it a reality.

Beresford eagerly accepted the project and in doing so assumed total responsibility. She’s a one-woman staff, and she depends on grant money and local sponsors for financial support.

“I’m not employed by the University,” she says. “I’m a contractor so I have a vested interest in gathering funds and the success of the festival.”

Since 2007 Beresford has committed herself to defining the festival and determining the best formula for its success.

“I go to a conference every year with 400 other people who do what I do, and the first year I walked away feeling totally intimidated,” she says.

“Now I’ve learned to be comfortable saying, ‘this is us.’

We don’t have to be glitzy, red carpet with celebrities. We’re an environmental film festival, and we show people good films.”

This year Beresford plans to show 10 to 12 feature films.

Each feature will open with a short film and close with a related speaker or panel discussion. Beresford hosts showings all over Athens, and she puts a lot of care into deciding which films, locations and speakers will work best together.

She also puts a lot of time into watching more than 100 films and figuring out what audiences will want to watch.

“I try to offer something for everybody,” she says. “I’m appealing to people who are and are not environmentally conscious.”

When the festival first started, Beresford met criticism from people who thought she was just preaching to the choir.

She’s happy for the choir to come, but Beresford believes movies are conducive to drawing a range of audiences.

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Sara Beresford

Peter Frey

“Film is a creative way to talk about the environment, because everyone likes to go to the movies,” she says. “A person might not go to a ballet or an opera because they feel intimidated, but they will still go see a movie.”

Beresford says new people come up to her every year and share a change they made after watching a film. Sometimes it’s as life altering as joining the Peace Corps, and other times people just switch from bottled to tap water. Either way Beresford’s satisfied.

“We want people to see the films, think on them and discuss them,” she says. “It’s kind of up to the audience where to go from there.”

With that goal in mind, Beresford feels her responsibilities as director, programmer, promoter and fundraiser are worth the effort. When all is said and done, her favorite part is settling in her seat and watching it all play out.

“The most rewarding part of this job is when I get it right,” she says. “When I sit in the back of a theater and see people laughing and leaving inspired.”

GET MORE For more on the EcoFocus Film Festival, go to www.ecofocusfilmfest.org.

Photo by Jason Thrasher

learning officer for the American Society of Anesthesiologists. Robert “Tony” Rojas (MPA ’87) of Macon was appointed to the Board of Examiners for Certification of Water and Wastewater Treatment Plant Operators and Laboratory Analysts by Gov. Nathan Deal.

Nancy Chick (MA ’92, PhD ’98) of Rice Lake, Wis., was named the assistant director at the Center for Teaching at Vanderbilt University. Carmen Trammell Skaggs (MA ’02, PhD ’06) wrote Overtones of Opera in American Literature from Whitman to Wharton, a book that examines opera in 19th and early 20th century American literature. Lara Knight (AB ’03, MA ’05) and Tom Cull (BBA ’03) welcomed their second child, Archer Josiah Cull, on Nov. 16. Kristen Kaschock (PhD ’06) of Philadelphia, Pa., published her first novel, Sleight, in September. She has also published two poetry collections, A Beautiful Name for a Girl (2011) and Unfathoms (2004). Knox Summerour (MM ’06) co-composed the score for a documentary film, “The Legend of Pancho Barnes,” with Nathan

Wang. The film received a 2011 L.A. Area Emmy for the best film in the arts and culture/history category. Eial Dujovny (PhD ’10) is the resident director for the South India Term Abroad Program in Madurai, India. Janie Askew (MFA ’11) is the executive director of the Redux Contemporary Art Center in Charleston.

Business

Fred Hammond Campbell (MBA ’66) of Concord, N.C., co-authored Dangerous Hoops: A Forensic Marketing Action Adventure. Marketing courses use the mystery novel as a supplementary text, but audiences also read it as a free-standing novel. John Patterson (AB ’75, MBA ’79) of Ogden, Utah, was selected by the Casper City Council as Casper’s city manager. M. Michele Burns (BBA ’79, MAcc ’80) of New York was named to the board of trustees at Goldman Sachs.

She is also a board member at Wal-Mart Stores, Cisco Systems and the Elton John AIDS Foundation, and she was the chief executive of Mercer, a human

resources consulting firm, before joining Goldman Sachs. Wayne Anthony (MBA ’85) of Columbus left Asbury United Methodist Church after more than 19 years to lead Lake Park United Methodist Church near Valdosta.

Ken Kaufman (MBA ’03) of Pleasant Grove, Utah, published a financial handbook, Impact Your Business: An Allegory of An Entrepreneur’s Journey to Clarity, Cash, Profit, Family and Success, in 2010. He is the president and CFO of Aribex, a portable x-ray manufacturing company.

Ecology

Carla Atkinson (MS ’08) of Norman, Okla., received the 2011 Environmental Protection Agency Science to Achieve Results Fellowship and was awarded up to $42,000 for three years for her research into freshwater mussels in North America.

She is a doctoral student in ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Oklahoma.

MARCH 2012 • GEORGIA MAGAZINE

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CLASSNOTES

ALUMNI PROFILE

The Tim Gunn of type Arts school alumnus makes a living designing lettering and creating fonts

by Emily Grant If you need to know which lipstick works best for writing Neil Summerour can tell you. It’s Revlon’s “Super Lustrous.”

A type designer, lettering artist and calligrapher in Athens, Ga., Summerour (BFA ’97) tried out several brands while working on a lingerie ad.

“Victoria’s Secret asked for some custom lettering for a code-named ‘bra book’ they were making for their top-tier customers,” he says. “All of the lettering Neil Summerour was done by hand, and predominately was made using lipstick.”

In addition to Victoria’s Secret, Summerour has created fonts and lettering for such companies as id Software, Panera Bread, ABC, MTV and Sony.

In both 2010 and 2011, the Type Director’s Club (which Summerour calls the “Oscar of type design”) awarded him the Certificate of Excellence for two of his fonts, “Fugu” and “Nori.”

“I like to get that critical feedback,” Summerour says. “It influences what I do in the future.”

Summerour has been lettering and designing type since 2000. Lettering, Summerour explains, creates a special design for a word or a collection of words, whereas type design is the development of a reproducible font, which can be anywhere from 400 letters to more than 1,000 and can accommodate multiple languages and alternate characters. One font in particular that Summerour created for a design magazine in Poland has about 930 characters, and another font he released called “Lush” has 1,673 characters.

“The hobby became the obsession,” he says. “I live in a dichotomy with what I do. My happy place is doing both: designing letters and creating fonts.”

His interest in typeface began even before he got into the graphic design program at UGA. His first experience with fonts was one he did for the 1996 Olympics. It was a modified form of a font called “Souvenir.”

He has yet to design a favorite.

“I have it in my head. I just haven’t designed it yet,” he says. “I’ve had this idea for five years, and eventually I’ll take a year off to pay attention to it, but for now I want to keep it in my mind.”

He also uses his talents to give back. The earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan in March 2011 hit close to home for Summerour, who has friends and family living there. He partnered with Athens Area Community Foundation to release a font and limited edition hand-lettered poster to raise money and awareness. The poster, limited to 100, depicts the Japanese flag lettered in Japanese with the names of each city affected in the disaster. All proceeds are going to Donor Advised Fund and the victims in Japan. Summerour says this project was gratifying.

“Using my talents to give back in an impactful way is overwhelmingly motivating.”

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SPECIAL

Education

Norman Kent (BSEd ’69, MEd ’71) of Athens retired in last January after 26 years as Clarke County State Court judge. Maxine H. Burton (BSEd ’72, MEd ’78) of Athens was named the Girl Scouts of Historic Georgia’s 2012 Athens Woman of Distinction. This distinction honors a woman who reflects the values in the Girl Scout Promise and Law and who serves as an excellent role model for girls. Melanie Bell Blackwood (BSEd ’79, MEd ’80) of Acworth was appointed by Gov. Nathan Deal to the state board of examiners for speech and language pathology and audiology.

Blackwell is a speech language pathologist and rehab director for RehabCare Group. William Schofield (BSEd ’86, MEd ’92, EdS ’94) of Gainesville was appointed by Gov. Nathan Deal to the Education Commission of the States.

Schofield has served in public school education for 24 years and is the Hall County Schools superintendent. John Green (EdD ’93) was hired as principal of James Clemens High School in Madison, Ala., after retiring from a 30-year career in Georgia state schools.

He served as Gwinnett County superintendent for three years, and in 2008 he received the Georgia Association of Educational Leaders Educator of the

Year Award. Raymond Castleberry (BMus ’98, MMEd ’99) of Bishop organized Athens’ TubaChristmas concert on Dec. 1. Traci Jackson (EdS ’99) was one of seven educators nationwide who received the Terrel H. Bell Award for Outstanding School Leadership at the 2011 National Blue Ribbon Schools Awards Ceremony. She is the principal at Shirley Hills Elementary School in Houston County. Margaret Carmody Hagood (PhD ’02) is an associate professor of literacy at the College of Charleston, and she was named co-editor of The Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy from this fall through 2016.

Bonnie Stewart Holliday (BSEd ’03, MEd ’04) of Atlanta was named by Gov. Nathan Deal as executive director of the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement, an agency that provides stakeholders with education information.

Jonathan Eakle (PhD ’05) was named to the faculty editorial advisory board of the Johns Hopkins University Press.

He is an associate professor and director of the reading education program in the Johns Hopkins University School of Education. Chris Caswall (AB ’04, MEd ’07) of Athens is the owner of Junk South, a division of Athens-based Athena Enterprises that offers residential and commercial junk removal in a 30-mile radius around Athens. Bryna Bobick (BFA ’97, EdD ’08) of Memphis was selected as the 2012 Tennessee Art Education Association Art Educator of the Year. She is an assistant professor of art education at the University of Memphis. Katherine Raczynski (BSEd ’02, MA ’08) of Athens was named a 2011 David Watts Scholar for her research in adolescent social development and bullying.

LIKE

NOWHERE

ELSE

One-of-a-Kind Shopping, Delicious Dining, and a World-Class Music Scene… all in our Historic Downtown!

Environment and Design

Nancy Aten (MLA ’03) was part of a team, Landscapes of Place, recognized by the American Society of Landscape Architects with a 2011 Honor Award in Analysis and Planning for their project Making a Wild Place in Milwaukee’s Urban Menomonee Valley.

Find us on

Gift certificates available – more than 75 retail and dining locations!

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MARCH 2012 • GEORGIA MAGAZINE

47

CLASSNOTES

GO DAWGS! Shop the UGA Bookstore for the best selection of apparel and gifts!

Find us on Facebook

facebook.com/TheHornetBookstore /ugabookstore

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GEORGIA MAGAZINE • www.uga.edu/gm

Law

George H. Carley (AB ’60, LLB ’62) of Atlanta will lead the state Supreme Court in place of Chief Justice Carol W. Hunstein for a year to close his career of more than 30 years on the bench.

J.D. Smith (JD ’72) of Atlanta retired from his position as presiding judge in the Georgia Court of Appeals. Neil Gordon (JD ’79) of Atlanta is president of the National Association of Bankruptcy Trustees. Carole L. Bassett (JD ’80) of Keedysville, Md., was inducted as a fellow of the American Society for Horticulture Science in the class of 2011. Robert P. Hall III (AB ’82, JD ’85) of Washington, D.C., is the senior manager of energy government relations at GE Energy, where he’s responsible for domestic government relations strategy.

Wayne R. Allen (BSFR ’79, JD ’92) of Douglasville was elected as legislative council for the Georgia General Assembly. Heath Garrett (AB ’92, JD ’95) of Marietta was appointed by Gov. Nathan Deal to the Government Transparency and Campaign Finance Commission. Todd Stanton (JD ’02) of

ALUMNI PROFILE

The buzz on Mike Lester Conservative cartoonist finds success in editorial cartooning—and drawing the logo for UGA’s in-state rival

by Kelly Simmons It was 1984 and Mike Lester had been out of college for seven years, doing charts and illustrations for the Atlanta Journal and Constitution and picking up freelance illustration jobs where he could get them.

When Georgia Tech called and asked for his help in designing promotional materials for athletics, Lester (BFA ’77) said sure. In addition to more than 130 football program covers (Tech gave him a plaque in 1999 during halftime of a football game after he did the 100th cover), Lester also designed the Ramblin’ Wreck’s stinging mascot, Buzz the yellow jacket.

“I created Buzz because Jack Davis was Mike Lester already doing the bulldog,” Lester jokes. Davis was one of Lester’s childhood idols. “I’m proud of it. It in no way diminishes my love for my alma mater.”

Since then, Lester has done illustrations and animations for scores of companies, including those marketing beer, flea and tick repellants for animals, and arthritis medications, in addition to a steady job as editorial cartoonist for the Rome News-Tribune.

In the fall of 2011, his editorial cartoons were syndicated by the Washington Post Writers Group, which distributes to print and electronic publications around the world.

“Be careful what you wish for,” he says.

He began drawing as a child during the time between school and dinner when his parents were working.

“I was just able to express myself on a piece of paper,” he says. “I’m not sure I’ve learned to draw as much as I’ve learned to communicate.”

A native Atlantan, when it came time for college he was accepted to art school in another state, but his father said no. “He didn’t really think you could make a living drawing pictures,” Lester says.

Instead he came to UGA to major in art. His dad was all right with that. Lester says he told him, “If it doesn’t work out you can just go to the other side of campus.”

When he married his first wife, he followed her home to Rome, Ga., where along with his current work he began drawing editorial cartoons for the Rome News-Tribune. It was there

Special

This strip by Lester ran nationally the week Larry Munson died.

he found his niche.

“I didn’t see anyone saying anything staunchly conservative (in editorial cartoons),” says Lester, whose point of view wasn’t reflected in the marketSpecial place of ideas.

“I’m sort of the Ann Coulter of editorial cartoons.”

In a town the size of Rome, however, an opinion can sometimes get you in trouble.

“When you live in a small town, sooner or later you’re going to be standing in line (at a store) with a commissioner you’ve just lit up,” Lester says. “I’m not sure I’d like me either.

However, he likes the exchanging of ideas and understands that not everyone agrees with him.

Framed drawings and copies of ads and cartoons fill the wall space of his home in downtown Rome. Awards hang above his computer. Soon he’ll add the most recent, a 2010 award for book illustration from the National Cartoonist Society (he’s won a total of five awards from the organization), and a 2010 Sigma Delta Chi Award for Excellence in Journalism from the Society of Professional Journalists.

“Other than the Pulitzer those are the two I’m proud to have won,” he says.

Still he knows it’s Buzz people will remember.

“They’ll put on my headstone, ‘Went to Georgia, drew Buzz for Tech,’” he predicts, and pauses for a second.

“It’s not like I drew the Gator for Florida. I’d hate me too for that.”

GET MORE Learn more about Lester at www.mikelester.com.

MARCH 2012 • GEORGIA MAGAZINE

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CLASSNOTES

ALUMNI PROFILE

One “lucky dog” Law School alumnus has spent more than three decades doing what he loves—defending public school employees

by Kelly Simmons Michael Simpson’s presentation to public school educators starts with a projected image of a 1974 Playgirl photo of a California teacher who was fired after appearing nude in the magazine.

“Back in the day you really had to try hard to get yourself in the media,” Simpson says he tells his audience.

“Then I compare that to what teachers have been putting on their Facebook pages.”

A lawyer for the National Education Association in Washington, D.C., for the past 31 years, Simpson helps public school employees understand their rights within the law as well as the pitfalls that can cost them their careers—and represents those in court who are dismissed from their positions.

Coming from a family of educators—his mom was a professor in UGA’s College of Education—Simpson understands the challenges facing 21st century public school employees. Among the issues facing the association these days: the rights of public school teachers to free speech, the abolition of bargaining rights for teachers in Wisconsin, Idaho and Ohio and immigration laws that threaten students’ rights to public education.

On the association’s agenda: A challenge to various state laws that reward and punish teachers based primarily on students’ scores on standardized tests.

Born and raised in Athens, Simpson went out of state to Davidson College in North Carolina for his undergraduate degree in German. He considered teaching, but decided being a German teacher was not the right fit. He wanted to do something to bring about change.

After graduating from UGA’s Law School in 1975, Simpson took a job as a legal aid attorney in Rome, Ga. Caught up in the excitement of Jimmy Carter’s presidential victory in 1976, he moved to Washington.

He spent several months as a day laborer before applying for and receiving a fellowship from the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Foundation. On that fellowship he ran a small nonprofit organization, the Student Press Law Center, which is an advocate for student First Amendment rights,

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for freedom of online speech and for open government on campus.

In that position he met the general counsel for the NEA. He went to work for the association as SPECIAL Michael Simpson soon as his fellowship was over.

During his first couple of years he worked on federal appellate cases. Local and state lawsuits by public school employees are handled by the local and state arms of the education association (in Georgia the Georgia Association of Educators). The NEA counsel steps in if the case reaches the federal courts of appeal.

In the years since, he has become more of a resource for some 500 attorneys in the U.S., defending public school employees, maintaining a database of briefs and memos, and advising NEA-affiliated attorneys on issues such as constitutional law, employment discrimination, free speech and due process.

In the early 1980s he began writing a column for the publication NEA Today. “Rights Watch” focuses on timely legal issues that face teachers and other public school employees. Topics have included bullying, helping school employees understand their legal responsibility to address reported bullying as well as how to handle it when they are bullied themselves, and social networking issues.

“I learn something every day I come here,” says Simpson, who is planning to retire in the next few years, possibly to Athens. “It’s never dull. It’s never stale.”

“I’m a lucky dog. I work in areas of the law I find very interesting to me, stimulating and challenging. I work for the good guys. Teachers are undervalued and underpaid.”

Inspiring the next generation

James H. Shepherd Jr. (BBA ’73) receives an honorary Doctor of Laws degree at UGA’s Dec. 16 commencement ceremony from (left to right) Terry College Dean Robert Sumichrast, Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost Jere Morehead and President Michael F. Adams. Shepherd, founder and chairman of the Atlanta-based Shepherd Center, delivered the keynote address to more than 2,200 undergraduates. When he graduated from UGA in 1973, Shepherd set out on a backpacking trip around the world. While bodysurfing at a beach in Rio de Janeiro he was slammed to the ocean floor by a wave, sustaining a spinal cord injury that left him paralyzed from the neck down. Two years later he founded the Shepherd Center, which specializes in medical treatment, research, and rehabilitation for people with spinal cord or brain injury.

Atlanta opened Stanton Law LLC, a law firm focused on employment law from an employer’s perspective, in November.

Elizabeth Allgood Blalock (AB ’00, JD ’03) of Atlanta was promoted to general counsel for the Georgia Conservancy, an environmental nonprofit organization. Catherine Morrison Harris (ABJ ’03, JD ’06) of Memphis is an attorney in FedEx Corporation’s technology transactions group. Kathryn Elizabeth Rhodes (AB ’02, JD ’06) of Columbus, Ga., is a stay-at-home lawyer, enabling her to work on cases while taking care of her 6-month-old son, Evan. Meghan C. Dougherty (JD ’07) of Nashville is an associate at Neal & Hartwell PLC. Shana Webb Pennywell (JD ’08) of Conyers and her husband Styron welcomed the birth of their daughter, Emerson Grey, on Jan. 29. Melanie Colvert Walker (JD ’09) joined Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz PC’s Chattanooga office as an attorney and associate in the advocacy department.

Dorothy Kozlowski

Pharmacy

Marie Chisholm-Burns (BSPh ’92, PharmD ’93) is the dean of the College of Pharmacy at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center.

Public and International Affairs

Kellie Brownlow (MPA ’00) of Decatur is the director of economic development at Partnership Gwinnett, where she manages the business development team. Robert S. Thompson (JD ’00) of New Bloomfield, Mo., is the business development director of MMIC Group Inc., a medical liability insurer. Carol Reger Lowman (PhD ’08) of Alexandria, Va., was appointed by President Obama to serve on the Committee for Purchase From People Who Are Blind or Severely Disabled. She is also the deputy director of the U.S. Army Contracting Command.

Social Work

Ben P. Marion (AB ’73, MSW ’83) of Moultrie was appointed to the Composite Board of Professional

MARCH 2012 • GEORGIA MAGAZINE

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ALUMNI PROFILE

Becoming Walter Alumnus brings a new character to life in “The Muppets”

by Allyson Mann (MA ’92) Peter Linz’s earliest memory is of a squirrel puppet he discovered in preschool.

“I just loved being able to make the other kids laugh with this little puppet,” he says.

And with the debut of “The Muppet Show” in 1976, his fate was sealed. At the age of 10, Linz (AB ’89) knew he wanted to be a puppeteer.

At UGA he majored in psychology, planning to use puppets in practice Scot t Garfield ©Disney Enterprises as a counseling psychologist or family Peter Linz (right) poses with Jim Parsons and Walter, the newest member of the therapist. But during his junior year, Muppet family. Parsons plays the human version of Walter in “The Muppets.” he had an epiphany that he says sounded something like this: “No, I don’t want to do that. I would just much rather play with dolls Gary (Jason Segel) and Gary’s girlfriend Mary (Amy Adams) reunite the Muppet gang to try and save the original Muppet on television.” theater. After his first audition, Linz was sure he didn’t get the After graduation he returned to his native Atlanta and part. But after a second audition, Linz was visiting relatives in worked at the Center for Puppetry Arts, where he was an Georgia when he got the call. intern, an usher, assistant to the museum director, a docent “I was sitting on their sofa, and I got the phone call, and I and a performing puppeteer. He used the Center’s library and museum to study different forms of puppetry from around the remember just kicking my legs in the air and screaming like a little girl,” he says. “It’s just an absolute dream come true.” world. And he watched films of Muppet creator Jim Henson’s To prepare for shooting “The Muppets,” Linz studied the work. script for clues to Walter’s personality. And he experimented A couple of years later, Linz was hired for his first season with different voices—actor Michael Cera’s was an early on “Sesame Street.” model—but ended up using his own. His method is the same “I was surrounded by people who were just masters at as any actor’s, Linz says. their craft,” he says. “My early days at ‘Sesame Street’ kind “It’s the same process except instead of acting through of felt like graduate school to me.” my body and facial expressions, I have to channel all of that Twenty years later Linz lives in New York state with his energy through my hand.” wife, Marlene, and their three children. He still puts in at “If people are really huge fans of the Muppets, they’re least one day of work every season at “Sesame Street,” but actually huge fans of the Muppet performers,” Linz says. he left the regular ensemble years ago to create his own “Part of our job is to be invisible… but I think it’s important characters. Tutter, an “apoplectic and neurotic” mouse, for people to know that behind these characters are some was created for the Disney Channel’s “Bear in the Big Blue really amazingly talented actors.”

House.” And Theo, a father lion he describes as “a kid at Linz says it’s “mind blowing” to be part of a cultural icon heart,” came to life on PBS’s “Between the Lions.” Tutter and like the Muppets. And though he’s now part of the Muppet Theo have long been Linz’s favorites among the characters universe, Linz himself remains a fan—of the Muppets, of the he’s performed—but then Walter came along. performers who bring them to life and especially of the newWalter is a new Muppet born in the script for “The Mupest Muppet. pets,” a film that brought the puppets’ special brand of “I love Walter,” he says. “I’ve just absolutely fallen in love musical comedy back to the big screen for the first time since with that character, and I’m really looking forward to the next 1999. Released in November and available on DVD March time I get to perform him.”

20, “The Muppets” tells the story of how Walter, his brother

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2012Alumni Association Awards Luncheon FRIDAY, APRIL 20 TATE STUDENT CENTER GRAND HALL For reservations, please visit www.alumni.uga.edu

2012 Honorees Alumni Merit

Faculty Service Award

Alumni Family of the Year

Bob Argo ’50 Former State Representative

Bill Flatt Retired Dean of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences

Frank W. “Sonny” Seiler ’56, ’57 and Family

A program that recognizes and celebrates UGA’s outstanding young alumni.

Nominations will close APRIL 13

under forty The UGA Alumni Association

www.alumni.uga.edu MARCH 2012 • GEORGIA MAGAZINE

53

CLASSNOTES

Do you want to change your drinking habits?

The University of Georgia is conducting a study on a medication for treating alcohol problems. Participation will include an initial assessment, followed by four sessions of individual outpatient treatment for alcohol problems if you are accepted in the study.

There is no cost for participation. You will be asked to take a medication or placebo on two occasions. Call 706-542-8350 for more information.

This study is being conducted by the Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology Laboratory at the University of Georgia

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Published quarterly and mailed to the household, your advertising message reaches your audience directly, giving you one of the strongest demographic buys in the region.

For information on advertising in the award-winning Georgia Magazine, contact Pamela Leed at 706/542-8124 or pjleed@uga.edu.

Counselors, Social Workers and Marriage & Family Therapists

by Gov. Nathan Deal. David Lee Schantz (MSW ’84) of Greenville, Ill., is the vice president academic of Algoma University. Susan McCarthy Strickland (MSW ’87, PhD ’04) of Decatur was reappointed by Gov. Nathan Deal to the Sexual Offender Registration Review Board. Strickland is a supervisor of social services for acute mental health at the Atlanta VA Medical Center.

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Veterinary Medicine

Robert M. Cobb Jr. (DVM ’81) of Dublin was appointed the state veterinarian for Georgia by state Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black. Jean Elizabeth Sander (MAM ’89) is the veterinary health sciences dean at Oklahoma State University. She was formerly the associate dean at Ohio State University, where she earned the nickname “Bulldog” for sticking up for students. Heather Wilson Barron (BSA ’89, DVM ’95) is director of the Clinic for the Rehabilitation of Wildlife on Sanibel.

SEND US YOUR NOTES! Help UGA and your classmates keep up with what’s happening in your life—both personally and professionally—by sending Class Notes items to one of the addresses listed below.

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sit

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obey your instincts.

Sit. plan your weekend getaway to athens. you deserve it.

Stay at the Georgia center. it’s a great on-campus hotel with renovated rooms, upscale furnishings, and free WiFi. ask for the alumni discount.

Eat. you have four dining choices at the Georgia center—offering everything from huge sandwiches in the café to delicious meals in the highly acclaimed savannah room. numerous other eateries are within a 10-minute courtesy van ride.

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BACK

PAGE

“A lot of the cultural changes have to do with self-esteem and putting the self at the center of things. People say, ‘Be creative, express yourself.’ When did creativity start having to do with self-expression? Was the light bulb self-expression? Was Copernicus self-expression? Maybe the Mona Lisa was self-expression, Freud wrote about that. But generally we kind of put the self in the midst of a lot of things.

We’ve seen that in education and parenting. And then you add consumer culture. You know, nobody ever made money from humility.”

—Keith Campbell on the evolution he’s witnessed in narcissism since he began researching the topic some 15 years ago.

W. Keith Campbell Professor and Head of the Department of Psychology in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences B.A., psychology, University of California, Berkeley M.A., psychology, San Diego State University Ph.D., psychology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Creative Research Medal, 2010 Psi Chi Undergraduate Teaching Award for Excellence in Teaching, 2006 and 2004 Photo shot on location at the UGA Marine Sciences Center swimming pool by Peter Frey

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