University of Georgia Magazine September 2009

the university of

GEORGIA September 2009 • Vol. 88, No. 3

MAGAZINE

Bridging a divide

UGA’s extensive public service and outreach in China has led to an array of opportunities for students

GEORGIA MAGAZINE • SEPTEMBER 2009

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GEORGIA THE UNIVERSITY OF

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; Chuck Reece, ABJ ’83, consultant; Swann Seiler, ABJ ’78, Coastal Region of Georgia Power; Robert Willett, ABJ ’66, MFA ’73, retired journalism faculty; Martha Mitchell Zoller, ABJ ’79, WDUN-AM

September 2009 • Vol. 88, No. 3

photo by Peter Frey

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Campus news and events

There’s a wealth of information online to keep alumni connected—you just have to look for it

by Kelly Simmons

A College of Education service learning program is one way the state is trying to draw more students into the STEM fields

by Kelly Simmons

24 Bridging the divide

UGA’s extensive public service and outreach in China has led to an array of opportunities for students to study in a country that was once off limits to outsiders

by Allyson Mann (MA ’92)

28 Leading by example

UGA alumni create a study abroad program with emphasis on service

by Kelly Simmons

CLASS NOTES 36 Alumni profiles and notes Olivia Mullis, a senior fashion merchandising and marketing major, walks down the Long Corridor at the Summer Palace in Beijing, China. photo by Peter Frey

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Amanda Williamson, a junior international affairs and magazine major, rides a bicycle along the top of the city wall of Xi’an China.

Around the Arch

20 Hula Hoops, bubbles

and plate tectonics

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ON THE COVER

Student life

FEATURES 18 Clicking into UGA

FINE PRINT Georgia Magazine (ISSN 1085-1042) is published quarterly for alumni and friends of UGA. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: University of Georgia Alumni Records, 394 South Milledge Avenue, Suite 100, 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.

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EX-OFFICIO MEMBERS

Tom S. Landrum, AB ’72, MA ’87, Senior Vice President, E­ xternal Affairs; Tom Jackson, AB ’73, MPA ’04, Ph.D. ’08, VP, Public Affairs; Art Dunning, VP, Public Service and Outreach; 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

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GEORGIA MAGAZINE ADVISORY BOARD VOLUNTEER MEMBERS

MAGAZINE

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ADMINISTRATION Michael F. Adams, President Arnett C. Mace Jr., 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, Ph.D. ’08, Vice President Alison Huff, Director of Publications GEORGIA MAGAZINE Editor, Kelly Simmons Managing Editor, Allyson Mann, MA ’92 Art Director, Cheri Wranosky, BFA ’84 Advertising Director, Pamela Leed Office Manager, Fran Burke Photographers, Paul Efland, BFA ’75, MEd ’80; Peter Frey, BFA ’94; Robert Newcomb, BFA ’81; Beth Newman, BFA ’07; Rick O’Quinn, ABJ ’87; Dot Paul; Andrew Davis Tucker Editorial Assistant, Caroline Buttimer

GEORGIA MAGAZINE • MAY 2009 GEORGIA MAGAZINE • SEPTEMBER 2009

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GeorgiaC lub

CLASSIC LIVING IN THE HEART OF BULLDOG COUNTRY

Make a Complete Weekend Out of Your Visit to Athens

.Golf our 27-hole Chancellors Course

.Enjoy Clubhouse Dining for lunch, dinner or Sunday Brunch (Reservations recommended!) .Tour our Model Homes Sundays 1 p.m. to 4:00 p.m For more information please call 770.725.8100 or visit www.LivinginBulldogCountry.com 4 SEPTEMBER 2009 • GEORGIA MAGAZINE

The Georgia Club is located off University Parkway (Hwy 316), 12 miles west of campus. Homes of distinction from the $300,000s to $1+ million.

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—President Michael F. Adams on student life

Q: In the broadest sense, how are today’s college students different from those of the 60s, 70s and even the 80s?

A: They’re very different. On the positive side, they are more focused academically and more goal-oriented. On the side of changes from their counterparts in the 60s and 70s, they are less socially active, more prone to overschedule themselves and, of course, more technologically savvy. On the not-so-positive side, they are a little more insulated from the affairs of the world than I would like and a little more concerned about professional goals and less about societal needs.

Michael F. Adams

Q: How has that changed the way the administration does its job?

A: We keep our eyes and ears open a little more. We listen to the student leadership more. We don’t assume anything. And we provide more around-the-clock services. There are lots of lights on around here at 2 and 3 in the morning.

I have seen as many as 300 students eating dinner at 2 a.m. in Snelling.

Q: What services are available to students to address these issues?

A: We have some dining halls, as I mentioned, open 24 hours a day. The Miller Learning Center is open virtually around the clock. We have research facilities that are open all the time. That means we need full police and security operations 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and there are expenses that come with that that we didn’t have 30 years ago.

Q: Are there measures in place to identify problem behaviors before they get out of hand?

A: We have recently expanded the University Health Center, virtually doubling the space available to address student health needs, particularly the counseling function. We have more and more students, both in number and percentage, who show up here in need of social, psychological and behavioral counseling. This is the most heavily medicated generation in American history. After the Virginia Tech shootings, we created the Behavioral Assessment Response Council, which provides an avenue for faculty and staff to report students who might need help or could be a danger to themselves or others. Many of these young people come here with behavioral issues that, frankly, have never been addressed.

Q: How does the university handle alcohol violations? Are parents notified?

ANDREW DAVIS TUCKER

Students gather on the steps of the Holmes-Hunter Academic Building before heading downtown for lunch.

A: Parents are currently notified of violations of the university’s alcohol policy, but that process is under review. I don’t think we’ve made much progress, particularly with binge drinking, which remains far too prevalent to suit me. Nothing we have tried thus far has worked. I will receive a report soon from the Vice President for Student Affairs, who has been working with the Student Government Association, which wants to make changes to the policy. I don’t know if we will make changes, but I will listen to what they have to say.

GEORGIA MAGAZINE • SEPTEMBER 2009

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ANDREW DAVIS TUCKER

Junior horticulture major Kate Cassity of Rome trims back plants as she works in the Trial Gardens at UGA.

Full bloom

MED ED The MCG/UGA Medical Partnership is on track to enroll its first class of 40 students in Athens in August 2010. The initial class of medical students will be taught in the recently renovated Interim Medical Partnership Building on Williams Street. In 2012, the Partnership Campus is scheduled to move to the 58-acre campus near Prince Avenue

currently occupied by

the Navy Supply Corps School. To learn more about the MCG/ UGA Medical Partnership, see http://medicalpartnership.usg.edu.

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SEPTEMBER 2009 • GEORGIA MAGAZINE

What began as a vacant lot of land and one man’s dream has blossomed into world-renowned research gardens, where materials from plant breeders across the world are tested and displayed each year.

The UGA Trial Gardens, created in 1982 by horticulture Professor Allan Armitage, are open to visitors free of charge. Located between Snelling Dining Hall and the R. C. Wilson Pharmacy Building, the gardens include many plants that Armitage has introduced to the ornamental industry. His work with heat- and humidity-tolerant crops resulted in the national marketing program Athens Select. Approximately 30 plants have been introduced under the label, including Princess Pennisetum, Ragin Cajin Ruellia and Bonita Shea Begonia.

Advanced and novice gardeners visit the gardens throughout the year to gather ideas for their own gardens and to view the latest plant releases. College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences faculty and staff use it for research and teaching. The gardens are also a resource for breeders, retailers, growers, landscapers and consumers.

To learn more about the Trial Gardens, go to http://ugatrial.hort.uga.edu/.

Historic past unearthed Remnants of a former building and artifacts dating back more than 200 years have been uncovered beneath the foundations of New College on the University of Georgia’s North Campus, allowing a glimpse into a forgotten chapter of UGA history.

Workers unearthed the finds in the midst of a $3 million renovation to update the building and restore its look to an approximation of what it looked like when it was built in 1822.

The oldest university-related find is a brick floor discovered about seven feet beneath the New College’s present-day ground level.

Sandwiched between two stone walls that still bear scars from the 1830 fire that destroyed the original building, the cross-laid floor may have been part of a kitchen or other room used

by the first students or faculty at UGA. Among the other artifacts found are a handmade spoon, wrought iron nails, blown-glass bottles, glazed cookware and an instrument that resembles a modern fire poker. The crew also found a pottery bowl that dates from the late prehistoric Lamar Period (1350-1600 A.D.), suggesting that someone at the university found and kept the piece of Native American culture.

UGA archaeologist Erv Garrison and his students used groundpenetrating radar to pinpoint other relics beneath the building. However there is little danger that the additional artifacts will be damaged during the construction. The radar has given workers a good idea of where artifacts are located and when something new is found, Garrison, who is at the site almost every day, is called to investigate.

Students spend a year on world’s longest book Two dozen students, under the guidance of English professor Andrew Zawacki, are believed to be the first class at UGA to study the full text of French writer Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time— at 4,211 pages the longest novel believed ever written.

The year-long study began in August 2008 and ended in May. Zawacki, an acclaimed poet, translator and editor, who is part of the creative writing faculty in the English department, said he decided to offer the course when he learned that no one had ever taught the full text at UGA. Also known as Remembrance of Things Past, the full text is composed of seven novels.

ANDREW DAVIS TUCKER

UGA architect Danny Sniff stands on a pre-1830 brick floor which was discovered seven feet underneath New College.

Also found under New College was this pottery bowl, believed to be from the Lamar Period in Georgia history, which ran from A.D. 1350 to 1600.

ANDREW DAVIS TUCKER

HOMICIDAL POISONINGS ON THE RISE Infants and the elderly are most likely to be affected by homicidal poisonings, which are rare but on the rise, according to UGA researchers. Pharmacy professor Greene Shepherd and recent graduate Brian Ferslew examined seven years of recent federal mortality data and found that while homicidal poisonings are often portrayed in the media as premeditated acts, infants, and more specifically African-American infants, are at the greatest danger due to negligence from parents and caretakers, not premeditation. In addition, the study also found that the elderly in various institutions are at a higher risk of abuse in the form of excessive doses of sedatives or medications.

GEORGIA MAGAZINE • SEPTEMBER 2009

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BEST IN SHOW A BARK OUT TO

…Kirk Cureton, professor and head of the department of kinesiology, who received a Citation Award from the American College of Sports Medicine. …Shelly Hovick, a doctoral student in speech communication, who is one of 11 recipients nationwide to receive a Kellogg Health Scholars Fellowship for engaging in health disparities research. …Hilary Conklin, an assistant professor in the College of Education, who received a National Academy of Education/ Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship.

KIRK CURETON

…Michael F. Adams, UGA president, and Mary Stakes, a retiring senior public service associate from the Carl Vinson Institute of Government, who received 2009 Governor’s Awards in the Humanities. …Tulsi Patel (AB ’09) of Acworth, who received a 2009 American Dream Fellowship from the Merage Foundation. …Roger Hill, a professor and head of the College of Education’s department of workforce education, leadership and social foundations, who was named the 2009 Technology Teacher Educator of the Year and received the Wilkinson Meritorious Service Award at the annual conference of the International Technology Education Association.

TULSI PATEL

…Judith Preissle, a professor in the College of Education, who was named a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association. …E. Ann Puckett, professor of law and Alexander Campbell King Law Library director, who was named a recipient of the Marian Gould Gallagher Distinguished Service Award—the most prestigious award presented by the American Association of Law Libraries. …The Georgia Review, which earned six gold honors and a total of 13 citations at the Magazine Association of the Southeast’s 2009 GAMMA Awards. … Wanda Stitt-Gohdes, a professor in the College of Education, who was the first individual to receive both the Collegiate Teacher of the Year and the John Robert Gregg Award in the same year from the National Business Education Association. … Michael Ferrara, professor in the College of Education’s department of kinesiology, who is being inducted into the National Athletic Trainers’ Association Hall of Fame.

WANDA STITT-GOHDES

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… Susan White, professor emerita of veterinary medicine, who was recently awarded the Robert W. Kirk Award for Professional Excellence at the 2009 American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine Forum.

SEPTEMBER 2009 • GEORGIA MAGAZINE

NANCY EVELYN

MEL GARBER AND ART DUNNING

Arch Partnership wins award UGA’s Archway Partnership was selected as the southeastern winner of the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities outreach scholarship award and will compete for the national award this fall. The program, which began in 2005 in Colquitt County and has now been extended to five additional counties in Georgia, was the recipient of the APLU’s W.K. Kellogg Foundation Engagement Award. Archway, along with other regional award winners from around the country, will be showcased at the National Outreach Scholarship Conference at UGA in September. The national winner will be selected during that conference and announced in November during the APLU’s annual meeting in Washington. The Archway Partnership, developed by Vice President for Public Service and Outreach Art Dunning and Mel Garber from the UGA extension office, is an initiative to help local communities identify and meet their economic development needs.

Grass that thrives in sun and shade Good news for Georgians who struggle to keep a green lawn in both summer and winter. A UGA researcher has developed a turf grass that will thrive in both sun and shade. Wayne Hanna, professor of plant breeding and genetics in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, has developed TifGrand, a new Bermuda grass that can survive on less than half the light normally required. TifGrand is licensed by the UGA Research Foundation Inc. to Concept Turf and will soon be available to homeowners, developers and urban area landscapers.

PICTURE THIS! WAYNE HANNA

TifGrand turf grass is keeping this Roswell lawn green in both sun and shade.

A decade old and going strong The Office of International Education celebrates its 10th anniversary this year, counting among its accomplishments a more than 100 percent increase in students who study abroad while at UGA. However, the history of international education at UGA dates back to 1835 and the first foreign UGA graduate, John Diomatari, from Ipsara, Greece. Later, in the mid-1940s, the Georgia Rotary was instrumental in increasing UGA’s presence internationally, sponsoring four foreign students for a year’s study in Athens. By 1968, more than 200 international students were enrolled at UGA. Spearheaded by UGA President Michael F. Adams, the OIE in 1999 was formed through a merger of the Office of International Services & Programs and the Office of International Development, intended to create a more centralized institution-wide focus on international programs. Today, UGA offers study abroad programs in 37 different countries and sends 2,000 students a year to a foreign country to study. For more information, go to www.uga.edu/OIE.

Taking photos at the UGA Arch is commonplace, but passersby got a different view one morning this summer as students in the Family and Consumer Sciences fashion merchandising program set up mannequins on North Campus to model styles they had designed. The students, in Charles Gilbert’s apparel manufacturing and sourcing course, oversee design, production and sale of clothing items. Not only do the students have to learn to work with production facilities located throughout the U.S., they also have to keep their costs low enough and their designs edgy enough to appeal to their clientele—UGA students.

STAY CONNECTED WITH UGA Are you a UGA parent? A great way to get involved with the university is through the Parents & Families Association, which was founded in 2000 as a support system for parents with children at UGA. Parents, who make a tax-deductible gift of $75 or more to support the work of the association, will receive regular updates on campus news, events and activities. In addition, they are invited to special events such as the Parents and Families weekend and spring Parents Day at UGA. Parents who contribute $2,500 or more to the association are invited to serve on its leadership council. For more information on the association, go to www.externalaffairs.uga.edu/pfassociation.

GEORGIA MAGAZINE • SEPTEMBER 2009

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GOING GREEN

CAN’T SEE THE CAMPUS . . . FOR THE TREES

ANDREW DAVIS TUCKER

Turned off for more than a year, the Herty Field fountain flows again.

DORMANT FOUNTAINS FLOW AGAIN Two fountains on UGA’s North Campus that have been turned off for more than a year began running again May 1, this time using recirculated water to conserve the fresh water supply. The water now circulating in the fountains beside Old College and on Herty Field is non-potable water collected from air conditioner condensation and from lakes and wells on campus. The fountains were turned off in late summer of 2007 as a water-saving method in response to the drought.

GOING GREEN WITH STEAM The UGA Physical Plant modified the operation of its steam plant over the summer and shut down its coal-fired steam boiler, saving the university $100,000 and helping protect the local air quality at a time when ozone levels are at their highest. Instead of using coal, the steam plant operated on natural gas that was purchased when natural gas prices dropped to historically low levels. In addition, the physical plant is researching the best long-term alternative to replace the coal-fired burner and use new technologies that will reduce both the operating costs of the plant and the environmental impact of its discharge.

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UGA will receive a $1 million tree donation from the Select Sustainable Tree Trust to “re-green” the campus with shade trees.

The donation, which will take place over a 10-year period, will provide more than 300 sustainable shade trees a year to the campus over the next decade. The trees will range in size from 4 to 6 inches in trunk diameter and from 15 to 25 feet tall.

The tree trust was established

by Select Trees, the leading grower of large sustainable shade trees in the Southeast, and exists to create significant long-term positive impact in the urban environment. The organization’s founders and most of its partners are UGA alumni who majored in horticulture, forestry or environmental design. Former UGA horticulture professor Mike Dirr lent his research on trees that thrive in urban conditions to the effort.

The tree trust will partner with the UGA grounds department to plant the trees. UGA will be in charge of installation and ongoing maintenance.

GET MORE To learn more about the tree trust, go to www.selectsustainabletreetrust.org.

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DOT PAUL

Associate psychology Professor Jonathan Crystal with one of his subjects.

Lab rats and episodic memory A recent study by UGA researchers indicates that rats possess “episodic-like memory” and are able to recall the time, place and content of an event they experience.

Until now, most scientists believed that only humans possess this kind of memory, perhaps limiting research in the area. The study, co-authored by associate psychology professor Jonathan Crystal and Wenyi Zhou, a doctoral student in Crystal’s program, was published in the online edition of The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Researching PTSD and drug abuse The National Institute on Drug Abuse has awarded UGA $839,735 to research the connection between Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and substance abuse treatment services. The grant was awarded to Brian Bride, the master’s of social work program director. Bride hopes to integrate two areas of interest—substance abuse treatment and secondary traumatic stress—into a single study using the funds provided by the grant.

Despite the flagging economy UGA saw another record year in fundraising, recording $110.8 million in gifts and commitments for the fiscal year that ended June 30.

The previous record of $108.3 million was set HISTORY OF PRIVATE in fiscal year 2006 during GIFTS TO UGA the university’s Archway to Excellence Campaign, Fiscal year* Amount in millions $110.8 2009 which ended in 2008 and $103.9 2008 raised more than $653 million over seven years. $106.4 2007 Fiscal year 2009 marks 2006 $108.3 the fourth consecutive 2005** $96.9 year that private giving $77.8 2004 to the university topped $72.05 2003 $100 million.

The number of $62.7 2002 individual contributors to $54.5 2001 UGA in FY ’09 increased 2000 $48.3 by about 3,000 to 53,907.

1999 $53.9 Notable gifts include a $18.7 million grant from *Fiscal year ends July 1 **Public phase of Archway to Excellence the Bill and Melinda Capital campaign begins Gates Foundation to the UGA Research Foundation to fund research on schistosomiasis, a parasitic disease that infects more than 200 million people worldwide, mostly in tropical areas of Africa, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, the Caribbean and South America.

The UGA Athletics Association received a $10 million gift from a private donor to help pay for the $40 million expansion of the Butts-Mehre Building.

Priority ticket contributions to the Athletic Association dropped slightly to $27.4 million, a $1.6 million decrease from the previous year. However, donations to the association totaled $14.9 million, a $6.4 million increase from last year.

Gifts to the university last year included a sun dial to replace the original, which disappeared from North campus in 1971.

ANDREW DAVIS TUCKER

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Accreditation for Public Health The College of Public Health, founded at UGA in 2005, has been awarded full accreditation by the Council on Education for Public Health. With this announcement, the college becomes one of only 41 accredited colleges of public health in the nation and the only accredited public health college in the University System of Georgia. The college joins the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University as the only two accredited colleges of public health in Georgia.

A view from above shows the gutted interior of the theater.

PAUL EFLAND

The day the music died

TYUS BUTLER

SPECIAL

FORMER ALUMNI RELATIONS DIRECTOR DIES Tyus Butler (ABJ ’35), director of UGA alumni relations from 1956 until 1983, died on April 28. He was 94. Butler was known for his modernization of the alumni office, then called the UGA Alumni Society, organizing records and creating a statewide alumni network. Butler earned a master’s degree in journalism and history at Louisiana State University and returned to UGA in 1939 to teach journalism. He then served as alumni director for 27 years until his retirement. Butler is survived by his wife of 62 years, Eugenia, and his three sons.

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The Georgia Theater, an Athens institution as much beloved by many alumni as the university itself, was destroyed by fire in the early morning hours of June 19. As of early August, investigators had not determined the cause of the fire, but have said they believe it was accidental.

The 74-year-old theater at the corner of Lumpkin and Clayton Streets was renovated in the 1970s as a music venue and has hosted an impressive array of entertainers, including REM, the B-52s, B.B. King and Muddy Waters.

Current owner Wilmot Greene, who bought the theater for $1.5 million five years ago, has spent about $500,000 to restore it. Greene had not yet determined whether he would try to rebuild the landmark.

New Dawgs get taste of service learning Incoming freshman got a jump on their UGA experience this summer by participating in a community service project to provide school supplies to needy kids. The project, called PAWS for a CAUSE, took place in the summer and involved admitted students who were on campus for orientation and prospective students who attended Explore Georgia campus visitation events. The project was promoted through a kiosk in the student bookstore and on social networking sites Facebook and Twitter. PAWS for a CAUSE collected two large tubs of supplies—141 boxes of crayons, 390 spiral notebooks, 250 glue sticks, for example—that were then given to Clarke County Schools. The project, sponsored by the Office of Undergraduate Admissions, is intended to get students thinking about community service before they get to college. To learn more about the project, go to www. admissions.uga.edu/article/orientation_service_project.html.

Stimulus money funds curator The Georgia Museum of Art will hire a curator of decorative arts using federal money designed to stimulate the economy. The $50,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts will provide a year of salary and benefits for the curator. The funding comes from the 2009 NEA Direct Grants: Museum-Recovery Act, which recognizes the importance of the nonprofit arts industry on the economy. The curator of decorative arts directs the museum’s Henry D. Green Center for the Study of the Decorative Arts, founded in 1998, which has as its primary focus the decorative arts and material culture of Georgia. GMOA is one of only nine nonprofit arts organizations in Georgia to receive a stimulus grant to provide salary support for positions deemed critical to an organization’s artistic mission. Only organizations that were awarded NEA funding over the past four years were eligible. To learn more about the GMOA go to www.uga. edu/gamuseum.

BILL PETERMAN

TINY SALAMANDER MAKES A BIG SPLASH A tiny salamander is making a big splash at UGA where researchers are studying the new species discovered in northeast Georgia. A team of researchers, including John Maerz, an assistant wildlife professor at

UGA presence in the high court UGA alumna Merritt McAlister this fall will become the fourth UGA law school graduate in five years to serve as a clerk for a U.S. Supreme Court justice. McAlister (JD ’07) will begin working for Justice John Paul Stevens in October.

The opportunity to serve in the Supreme Court is considered one of the highest honors for law school graduates and the positions are SPECIAL filled by students who MERRITT MCALISTER were in the top of their class at the best law schools in the country. UGA law graduates have been selected to clerk for the Supreme Court in 2007, 2006, and 2005. UGA also had law school graduates clerking in the U.S. Supreme Court in 1980, 1985, 1986 and 1989.

the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, and Joe Milanovich, a Warnell graduate student, have located both male and female specimens and larvae of the salamander near Toccoa. The same species has since also been found at a nearby site in South Carolina.

The new species is the second smallest salamander in the U.S. Details of the discovery were published in the Journal of Zoology.

Arch news Andrew M. “Jack” Head was elected chairman of the Arch Foundation Board of Trustees, effective July 1.

Also elected were F. Sheffield Hale, vice chair; Keith W. Mason, treasurer; and Sarah Corn “Abby” Irby, secretary.

Three new advisory trustees were selected to begin serving in July. They are Henry D. “Greg” Gregory Jr. of Atlanta, Sarah A. Lorberbaum of Chattanooga and Robert H. Stolz of Charlotte.

In addition to these three new advisory trustees, six trustees who completed their first terms this year were elected to a second term: Otis A. Brumby Jr.; Frederick E. Cooper; Norman S. Fletcher; Jack Head; Abby Irby; and John Spalding.

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Autism education program expands An innovative UGA graduate program in special education that prepares Georgia teachers to work with elementary-age students with autism will continue, thanks to a new four-year, $793,000 federal grant that will take the work into the secondary schools.

Autism is a complex developmental disability, defined by significant impairments in social interaction and communication and the presence of unusual behaviors and interests. Today, one in 150 individuals is diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), making it more common than pediatric cancer, diabetes and AIDS combined.

Special Education Professor David Gast, who developed the original program, will co-direct the new program called the Collaborative Adolescent Autism Teacher Training project, with Kevin Ayres, an assistant professor of special education. Much of the U.S. Department of Education grant will fund fellowships for up to a dozen graduate students. The programs include school districts in Gwinnett, Clarke and Madison counties.

The new program will help put more qualified teachers into Georgia schools, which like other schools across the nation face increasing numbers of students with ASD. One large Georgia school system reported eight classrooms for students with autism in 1994; today they have 180.

For more information, see www.coe.uga.edu/csse/spe/caatt.html.

No fish tales here A new Georgia Museum of Natural History Web site offers a comprehensive BYRON J. FREEMAN look at Georgia fishes and Robust redhorse, Moxostoma robustum where to find them. Fishes on the state endangered list of Georgia was created by Brett Albanese, a senior aquatic zoologist with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Museum of Natural History Director Bud Freeman, and Carrie Straight, a research professional with the Odum School of Ecology.

It features a database with more than 159,000 fish records from 19,028 collections, showing 265 native freshwater fishes in Georgia—up from the 219 recorded in 1997. Georgia now stands among the top three most diverse states in terms of freshwater fish. The user-friendly site lists species by scientific and common names. Maps show where each fish lives by basin.

(Drainage systems often have different fishes.) A tab allows viewers to submit new records. Anglers who log in will find more bass than expected. The site lists Bartram’s bass, an undescribed species in the Savannah River basin, and splits redeye bass into a species in the Chattahoochee and Flint River basins and another in the Ocmulgee, Oconee and Ogeechee basins, based on Freeman’s research. Of the fishes, 57 are state or federally protected. The project was funded by the museum, which is part of the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences at UGA, Georgia DNR’s Nongame Conservation Section and a State Wildlife Grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. You will find the site at http://fishesofgeorgia.uga.edu/.

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PUTTING THE HEAT ON HIGH SCHOOL SPORTS UGA kinesiology researchers have launched a study of 2,500 football players at 25 high schools across the state to collect scientific data that will help schools set effective heat-related policies and hopefully save lives.

Since 1995, there have been 39 football deaths from heatrelated injuries, according to the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research. In 2003, the National Collegiate Athletic Association enacted heat-related football practice restrictions during early August, when teams tend to practice twice a day. However, no such restrictions exist for high school football pre-season practice.

In response to the frequency of heat-related deaths, the Georgia High Schools Association (GHSA) mandated that all schools develop a written policy for practice in extreme weather conditions. However, many schools are struggling to develop this policy due to limited data that show the relationship between sports participation in various weather conditions and the risk of exertional heat illness.

The study, conducted by researchers Mike Ferrara and Bud Cooper, is funded by a $150,000 grant from the National Athletic Trainers’ Association Research and Education Foundation, GHSA, Georgia Athletic Trainers Association and the National Federation of State High Schools Foundation.

For more on the Department of Kinesiology in UGA’s College of Education, go to www.coe.uga. edu/kinesiology.

Nationwide Tour comes to UGA golf course The UGA Golf Course will be the new site for a Nationwide Tour event, which has been held in the Athens community for the past four years. The Athens Classic at UGA will be operated by the University’s Auxiliary Services Department. Proceeds from the event will support need-based scholarships for UGA students.

The Nationwide Tour, which is a product of the PGA Tour, was held at the Jennings Mill Country Club from 2006-2009. Alumni participants have included Chip Beck, Matt Peterson, Brendon Todd, Justin Bolli, Ryan Hybl, Erik Compton, Bubba Watson, Chris Kirk, Franklin Langham, Tommy Tolles, Tim Simpson, David Denham, Scott Parel, Kevin Kisner and the Nationwide Tour’s first million dollar earner, Paul Claxton.

The Athens Classic at UGA will be played in 2010 from April 26 through May 2.

The UGA Golf Course opened in 1968 to fulfill the golfing needs of University students, faculty, alumni and guests. Designed by world-renowned architect Robert Trent Jones Sr., the course underwent a major renovation in 2006 by Love Golf Design, headed by 20-time PGA TOUR winner Davis Love III. In 2009, the course was named one of the top-10 public courses in Georgia by Golfweek and one of the 25 best university courses in the nation

by Links Magazine. The 7,240-yard course previously played host to a PGA TOUR Qualifying School stage, the women’s NCAA Golf Championships, the men’s Southeastern Conference Golf Championships, and annually hosts one of the longest-running competitions in women’s intercollegiate golf, the Liz Murphey Collegiate Golf Classic. For more information on the UGA Golf Course, visit www.golfcourse.uga.edu. To learn more about the Nationwide Tour, go to www.pgatour.com/h/.

ANDREW DAVIS TUCKER

Golfers putt out on the 9th green at the UGA Golf Course, which will host a Nationwide Tour event next year.

UGA SPORTS COMMUNICATION

COURTNEY KUPETS

KUDOS TO KUPETS The honors poured in this summer for UGA gymnast Courtney Kupets as the May graduate was awarded the 2009 Honda-Broderick Cup, given to the nation’s top collegiate female athlete.

She also was chosen as the Southeastern Conference female athlete of the year. Kupets, who received the Honda Award in 2007, finished her collegiate career as the NCAA record-holder with nine individual titles in three years, missing the 2008 season due to injury. She is the only gymnast to win NCAA titles in each event and was a three-time NCAA all-around champion.

A 15-time All-American, she has received NCAA and SEC postgraduate scholarships and has been named to the College Sports Information Directors of America/ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America Teams. She was also given the Russell Student Award by the Blue Key National Honor Society.

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A view of the expanded Tate Center from the northwest; a bridge (at left) links the building to the second floor of the Miller Learning Center, providing easy access for students.

the expanded

Tate Center

photos by Paul Efland (BA ’75, MEd ’80) Students have more dining options in the expanded center, with a food court that includes popular franchise restaurants and specialty offerings from UGA Food Services.

Graduate students Vonnie Hunnicutt and Breanne Dawkins find a quiet place to study on the mezzanine overlooking the third floor of the expanded student center.

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ummer school students got the first glimpse of the Sexpanded Dean William Tate Student Center in June. The

$58 million project, funded by a student-approved increase in student activity fees, adds 100,000 square feet to the Tate Center, which first opened in 1983.

The Tate expansion includes a 12,000 square-foot ballroom that can be subdivided into seven smaller rooms; six conference rooms; multiple lounges and seating areas; a small amphitheater with a projection system and 17-foot screen; Print & Copy Services; and the Dawg Pen, a sports lounge.

New restaurant offerings include Barberitos Southwestern Grill; Larry’s Giant Subs; Hotei’s, an Asian eatery developed

by UGA Food Services; and the Taste of Home Café, which serves breakfast and lunch and features recipes submitted by families of UGA students.

A signature feature of the expansion is a 15-foot tile UGA arch embedded in the floor just inside the main entrance off the new Alumni Plaza. The two-story open lobby features dramatic lighting and floor-to-ceiling windows allowing natural light to flood the building. GM

The Tate expansion provides many comfortable places for students to hang out, socialize or study. Here, graduate student Jamie York works on an assignment in a lounge area on the building’s third floor.

GET MORE For more photos and information about the Tate expansion go to www.uga.edu/campuslife/tate2/ welcome/ GEORGIA GEORGIA MAGAZINE MAGAZINE •• SEPTEMBER SEPTEMBER 2009 2009

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Clicking into There’s a wealth of information online to keep alumni connected—you just have to click for it

by Kelly Simmons Wanted to attend the spring commencement but couldn’t get to campus?

No problem. You can find excerpts from the ceremony on YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/user/UniversityOfGeorgia

Interested in what alumnus Maxine Clark (ABJ ’71), founder CEO of Build-a-Bear Workshop, has to say about Building a Company with Heart?

Check out her presentation on iTunes. http://itunes.uga.edu

Need the latest on construction at the Georgia Museum of Art or upcoming exhibits, go to Twitter. www.twitter.com/gmoa

More and more UGA departments and organizations are turning to social networking sites to reach out to students and alumni.

Electronic media offers an immediacy that can’t be matched by print publications. And as state budgets continue to dwindle, magazine Web sites, Facebook pages and blogs are a more financially efficient way to stay in touch with alumni.

Funding cuts have forced Georgia Magazine to trim its distribution list significantly in the past year. Fortunately, all of the content in the print magazine, as well as slide shows, additional photos and web-exclusive stories, is available on the magazine’s Web site. www.uga.edu/gm

The UGA Alumni Association also has been using electronic media to reach graduates. The association sends out a monthly e-newsletter as well as occasional reminders and updates about events. The emails are available to any alumnus, not just association members. www.uga.edu/alumni

The Visitors Center maintains one of the university’s most active institution-wide social media sites.

The Visitors Center Facebook page is updated frequently with fun facts about the university as well as helpful information for students, alumni and potential new Bulldogs. You can see it at http://facebook.com/visitUGA.

For a list of social media outlets produced by UGA schools, colleges and departments, go to www.uga.edu/gm.

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Hula Hoops, bubbles and

plate tectonics

A College of Education service-learning program is one way the state is trying to draw more students into the STEM fields

by Kelly Simmons photos by Andrew Davis Tucker

Yasmin Hudson’s hips move ever so slightly as the Hula Hoop twirls around her waist. As she sways, she chants, “Ninety percent of all volcanoes erupt at the bottom of the ocean where plates are spreading apart.”

She repeats the sentence again and again, as many times as possible in one minute—or before the hoop hits the floor.

“One minute,” says Nia Clark, as Yasmin lets the hoop fall. “You said it 13 times.”

That task completed, the sixth graders run to the next “station” set up in the Hilsman Middle School media room. This time they’re at a computer terminal answering questions about the layers of the Earth. During the twohour program, the girls, along with a dozen of their schoolmates, will dissect chocolate bars, blow bubbles and putt golf balls—all in the name of science.

The after-school program is a hands-on experience for students in UGA’s College of Education, who may one day go into teaching in the area of science, technology, engineering or math (known as the STEM fields.) Funded by the University System Board of Regents, it is one of several efforts under way to encourage education majors to pursue teaching careers in the STEM fields.

Starting in 2010, first-year certified secondary school math and science teachers in Georgia will be paid at the level of a fifth-year teacher, an incentive approved Sixth grader Natalie Stanley tries to Hula Hoop for a full minute while she recites a science fact she may need to know for the CRCT.

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Above: UGA instructor Marianne Causey cheers sixth grader Tre Thomas’ accomplishment during a competition to see which students can answer the most questions correctly in the least time.

Right: UGA junior Megan Edel watches as sixth grader Antoinette Starks blows bubbles toward a target illustrating the layers of the Earth.

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UGA senior Ngoc Tran, a finance major, helps sixth-grader Hannah Sweetser answer questions about the Earth on the computer.

by the state legislature.

Twice a week the STEM Dawgs, as the UGA class is known, travel to two schools in the region, Hilsman in east Athens and Benton Elementary School in Jackson County, to help the kids prepare for the science portion of the Criterion Referenced Competency Test, which is given to Georgia public school students each spring.

Unlike student teaching assignments, which all education majors must fulfill before graduating, this program is an elective. It gives students a chance to get a real feel for teaching science and math by creating innovative programs for the children and implementing them.

“You get involved with the kids.

That’s cool,” says Fidel Agbor, a junior finance major. “It’s a nice perk.”

Agbor is at a table with plastic knives and fun-size Snickers bars. He

tells the students to put the blade of the knife against the top of the candy bar and push down.

“We’re simulating breaking the (earth’s) crust,” he says.

“The crust is the chocolate,” observes Trey Thomas, a sixth grader at Hilsman. He and Agbor then rub the two pierces of the candy together simulating the way the earth’s plates move during an earthquake.

Junior education major Cindy Jones, who wants to teach science, appreciates the hands-on experience she’s getting at the same time as she’s earning class credit. For her class “project”—each of the UGA students is expected to come up with one—she had the students create moons using glitter paint. They then held them up and turned in a circle in front of a beam of light to show the phases of the moon.

“They’re amazing, ” she says of the students. They’re so much more advanced than I was at that age.”

The class is a living laboratory for the students, says Marianne Causey, an adjunct lecturer at the College of Education, who designed the course’s objectives in accordance with the Georgia Performance Standards.

Causey taught in the Clarke County public schools for 31 years.

“I’m a veteran teacher,” she says.

“They get to see me interact with the kids. They have to figure out ‘how do you take something as dry as plate tectonics and engage kids?’ ” GM GET MORE For more information on math and science education at the UGA College of Education, go to www.coe.uga.edu/mse

GEORGIA MAGAZINE • SEPTEMBER 2009

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UGA’s extensive public service and outreach in China has led to an array of opportunities for students to study in a country that was once off limits to outsiders

China has undergone an unprecedented building boom in the past decade, adding 500 million square feet of commercial space in Beijing alone. Some historic preservationists fear the new modern development will wipe out what’s left of old China.

Bridging a divide

by Allyson Mann (MA ’92) photos by Peter Frey (BFA ’94)

M

en and women whirl with colorful parasols and fans,

moving in a line that wanders steadily across the plaza to the beat of drums. It’s Friday night in the city of Yan’an, in the Shaanxi province of China, and people of all ages have congregated to celebrate the start of the weekend.

A group of newcomers arrives in the square—Westerners, who pause to take in the sights and sounds. When the drumming stops, they’re surrounded by locals who stare curiously. There are a few tense moments as the strangers contemplate each other, but the shyness evaporates with the first tentative “Ni hao” (knee how), which means “Hello.”

For the next 20 minutes, eight UGA political science students pose for photo after photo with the people of Yan’an, bridging the language and cultural gaps with smiles.

“It was like a bonding experience with the people,” says senior Marlene Otero.

UGA Law student Monika Dobbs walks up stairs on the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall of China in June. Dobbs spent several weeks in Beijing and Shanghai with 22 other law students participating in the law school’s annual study abroad program.

When the music starts again, Otero and juniors Peyton Edwards, Lucy Weathers and Amanda Williamson join the dancers, following a woman who leads them in a series of movements similar to line dancing. From the sidelines three young Chinese women shoot video of Edwards on their cell phones.

During the months of May and June, 72 students from five UGA colleges and schools traveled in China, studying in disciplines as diverse as law and genetics, political science and fashion merchandising. It is just the fourth year that UGA has offered study abroad in China, and they already are among the most popular programs of international study at the university.

Though the programs are new, UGA’s relationship with China is not. For 10 years, the Carl Vinson Institute of Government has provided government training to Chinese officials. The institute was one of the first to develop training programs for China after the country opened its doors in the 1980s.

During the past decade, almost 900 Chinese government officials have attended Vinson Institute programs in a variety of locations including Beijing, Tianjin, Jiangxi ProvGEORGIA MAGAZINE • SEPTEMBER 2009

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Virginia Newman, an intern with UGA’s Carl Vinson Institute of Government, works with Howard Tan, 17, to prepare classroom materials for a seminar in Nanchang, China.

Language UGA senior Virginia Newman sits in the back of a classroom, writing words like “angry,” “talkative” and “demanding” in both English and Chinese on flash cards. An hour later, Newman acts out the words, helping seminar leader Ross King teach the audience—Chinese government officials—how to deal with difficult customers.

Helping with support materials and classroom activities is part of Newman’s job as an intern with the Carl Vinson Institute of Government’s training program in Nanchang, China. Newman spent two weeks there in June, where she was able to practice her Chinese—she’s studied it for two and a half years at UGA—and interact with the students, who are government officials in Jiangxi Province.

“It’s really cool. I love it,” she says. “I’ve had like the best trip ever.”

During her stay Newman became friends with the Chinese students, even traveling to Guang Feng County to meet Jiang Yi’s family and visit the city Yi oversees.

And like other UGA students in China, Newman maximized her experience by enrolling in a second program that extended her visit. After leaving Nanchang, Newman studied with Princeton’s eight-week, Beijing-based Chinese program, where she made a pact to speak only Chinese and spent six hours a day on her studies. She was one of few public school students enrolled in the program.

“It’s given me a little bit more motivation to work hard and represent UGA well,” she says.

The Beijing program offered sightseeing opportunities—the Great Wall, acrobat shows—but Newman has fond memories of her stay in Nanchang. The students she met there will visit UGA in the fall.

“I already can’t wait for them to come to Georgia and see Athens,” she says.

“Interacting with the Chinese people and learning about the culture—hands-down, that has been the best part.”

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ince and Qinghai Province, and have traveled to Georgia for training as well.

Those connections have led to significant economic development opportunities for the state of Georgia and UGA study abroad.

“Dealing in China is such a personal matter. You build relationships and that’s how you get things done,” says political science professor Bob Grafstein, whose Maymester in China was UGA’s first regular study abroad program in that country. “With the Vinson Institute’s help, some of that spadework was already done.”

The political science program is carefully structured to balance academic and experiential learning. The program also adds an insider’s perspective through a native instructor like Rioxi Li. In Li’s class on Chinese society and culture, the students gain an understanding of the complex cultural dynamics that surround them—something they can’t get by reading a book or visiting a tourist site.

By leveraging the Vinson Institute’s ongoing relationships with Chinese administrative institutes—government training schools—Grafstein is able to give his students a more complete experience that includes lectures from officials, a visit to the National Administrative School (“their Harvard of government training,” he says) and the pleasure of meeting students their age who are being trained for positions in government.

For senior Emily Yeager, the best part of the trip was meeting Cleo Sue, a student at Beijing Administrative College who wants to be a translator—like her. Both speak French, so they spoke in multiple languages.

(Left to right) Sheena Zhang, grad student Becky Shirk and Matt Schultz enjoy a traditional meal at the home of a local family in Mane, a Dai village in southern China.

Cobb County Manager David Hankerson leads a seminar on behalf of the Carl Vinson Institute of Government at the Jiangxi Administrative Institute in Nanchang, China.

Right: Chinese government officials tour campus during a two week visit last winter that included training with the Carl Vinson Institute of Government, sightseeing and a trip to Washington D.C.

While she and Sue had a lot in common, Yeager found that there were also a lot of differences between the American and Chinese students.

“Seeing how they see America is different than I thought it would be,” Yeager says. “They respect the U.S., but are also extremely proud of their history and culture.

They respect us, but don’t want to be us.”

Compared to traditional semester-long study abroad programs, these Maymester trips to China are short, usually three to four weeks. Groups try to pack as much as possible into the time there. They visit the obvious tourist attractions, like the Great Wall and the Forbidden City, but they also explore the commerce and culture of the country.

In Beijing, students traveling with the College of Family and Consumer Sciences get a lesson on freshwater pearls, one of China’s exports. The Chinese freshwater pearl industry boomed in the mid-1990s when the Chinese began producing gems that rivaled neighboring Japan in quality. China now produces 1,500 tons of freshwater pearls a year, 99.9 percent of the world’s supply.

Local markets are popular with students. In south China, where genetics professor Rodney Mauricio took his group to explore native invasive species, the students would return from the village laden with bags of fresh mangoes, lychees and mao dan, a fruit surrounded with a skin of soft, pinkish-red spikes about an inch long. Some of the girls visited a local seamstress to order handmade outfits—long skirts and modest tops in colorful fabrics with embroidery or gold foil.

“It’s fun to watch others experience Asian culture for the first time,” says Kina Le, an August graduate, who emigrated to the U.S. from South Vietnam at age 5. “I think it’s

Above, Elizabeth Worley, a senior at the University of Florida, shops for jewelry at New City in Beijing after learning about freshwater pearl cultivation (left). Worley was part of the Family and Consumer Sciences study abroad program.

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The University of Georgia has six programs in China during Maymester.

Family and Consumer Sciences

Beijing Hong Kong Nanjing Shanghai www.fcs.uga.edu/ss/sa_china

Genetics Beijing Nanjing Xishuangbanna Botanical Garden www.genetics.uga.edu/pire/ Political Science Beijing Shanghai Xi’an Yan’an www.uga.edu/pol-sci/ undergrad/china.htm

Law School

Beijing Shanghai www.uga.edu/ruskcenter/china/

Terry College

Beijing Dalian Shanghai www.terry.uga.edu/ib/ study_global_china.html

Vinson Institute

Beijing Nanchang www.cviog.uga.edu/ intlcenter/china

Red candles, representing the light of Buddha’s teaching, burn in front of a Buddhist shrine at the Great Goose Pagoda in Beijing.

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Dean Wang Zhen-Min of the Tsinghua University School of Law in Beijing holds a copy of the U.S. Constitution during a seminar with UGA law students on China’s political structure.

Political science students viewed the Terracotta Army in the tomb of Qin Shi Huang near Xi’an. Discovered in 1974, the figures date back to 210 B.C. and include more than 8,000 soldiers as well as chariots and horses.

Genetics students identify the location of and measure the size of stands of kudzu—native to China and invasive to the southeastern United States—in southern China near the borders of Laos and Myanmar.

Rodney Mauricio (right), assistant professor of genetics, points out an area for Ted Wenner, a senior at New Mexico State University, to survey for stands of kudzu plants.

Political Science students with Professor Robert Grafstein (far right) leave the Shaanxi Province Party School of the Communist Party of China after eating lunch.

From a tour bus, students observe a bicycle modified for cargo transportation.

Although there has been an increase in personal car and truck ownership in China over recent years, bicycles, mopeds and motor scooters—modified or not— provide much of the day-to-day hauling in China.

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Senior Leslie Buchanan, part of the College of Family and Consumer Sciences’ study abroad program, enjoys a visit to the Summer Palace—Kublai Khan’s summer resort— in Beijing.

Quarantine Senior Leslie Buchanan was not sick—her sinuses were acting up after being exposed to pollution in Shanghai. But it was May and China was on high alert for the H1N1 virus, known popularly as swine flu, after confirmed cases in Mexico and the United States. So when Buchanan arrived in Beijing with students from UGA’s College of Family and Consumer Sciences, officials used an armpit thermometer to measure her temperature.

Buchanan’s was consistently elevated: 37.5 degrees Celsius (99.5 degrees Fahrenheit), so she and faculty member Patricia Hunt-Hurst were taken to the hospital. When the staff wanted to draw blood Buchanan objected, and they tested her using throat and nasal swabs instead.

About five hours later, Buchanan woke from a nap to find that she’d tested negative for H1N1. The Chinese doctor walked them to the street and hailed a cab.

Soon they were reunited with their group.

an eye-opening experience.”

Dining is an adventure. The students learn early on that what passes for Chinese food in the U.S. is not traditional Chinese. The Chinese use the whole chicken as food, for example. It is not uncommon to see a chicken head or chicken feet floating in a bowl of soup.

Chopsticks can be tricky, as law students with Don Johnson’s study abroad program found when they stopped for lunch at a restaurant near the Great Wall. On the table before them was the wheel of fortune (a lazy susan) filled with dishes of shredded pork, eggplant, chicken and peppers, and zongzi (sticky rice and dates wrapped in bamboo 30 SEPTEMBER SEPTEMBER 2009 2009 •• GEORGIA GEORGIA MAGAZINE MAGAZINE

leaves). The wheel turns constantly so the students have to serve themselves quickly, which is difficult with chopsticks.

Mauricio’s group got to have lunch with a Dai family— an ethinic minority prevalent in the Yunnan province near the Laos border. The daughter, Janice Yi, was a graduate student working at the Xishuangbanna Botannical Gardens (XTBG), where the genetics students spent two weeks doing research. Yi’s father took the class on a walk through the neighboring rainforest before they sat down to the 12-course meal her mother had prepared.

“The cultural education involved with this program has been done very well, and that’s a crucial part of study abroad,” says Tim Wang, a senior at Ohio State University.

“It helped broaden my perspective of what an academic culture could be like.”

Understanding each other’s culture is important in developing relationships, says Steve Wrigley, director of the Carl Vinson Institute of Government. That’s why public officials from Georgia who travel to China to lead training classes also visit historical and cultural landmarks. When the Chinese officials come here for training, they learn about American history, society and food as well as government. The training in Georgia takes the Chinese to cities like Savannah, Macon and Dalton, where they meet officials who hold positions similar to theirs.

“We really make an effort to involve public officials in Georgia in the work because it makes it more relevant and more applied and hands-on to the Chinese,” Wrigley says.

“They always enjoy interacting with a mayor or a council member.”

Cobb County Manager David Hankerson traveled to Nanchang in June to lead a seminar on support services.

Though the audience understood a lot of English, Hankerson used an interpreter to explain how information services, purchasing and property management are handled in Cobb County.

The Chinese were impressed with Hankerson’s experience.

“The group admires that in your 16 years as county manager you never reduced the budget for education,” Qiu Qimin, an associate research fellow in the general office of Jiangxi provincial government, told him.

It is Hankerson’s first trip to China, and though he’s still adjusting to cultural changes—he doesn’t speak Chinese and prefers to use a fork rather than chopsticks at meals— he’s impressed with the students.

Genetics students cross a foot bridge over the Luosuo River from the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden to the village of Menglun. The Luosuo river is a tributary of the Lancang, or Mekong, river as it is known once it crosses into Myanmar.

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Law School students Myada El-Sawi, Bobby McMillin and Thomas Lei head to class in the Tsinghua University School of Law in Beijing. They also attend Fudan University in Shanghai.

The program’s emphasis is on commercial and international trade and intellectual property law and provides students with four ABA approved credit hours.

Middle: Genetics students Aisha Mahmood, a UGA sophomore, and Tim Wang, a senior at Ohio State University, look at the variety of spices available at the market in Menglun. The students take Chinese language classes as part of the program and are encouraged to learn about Chinese culture.

“They’re quick. They’re sharp. The IQ level is really high,” he says. “If I don’t explain well enough or they don’t understand, they’ll keep on it.”

During a class break, Liu Zhiqiang, a deputy chief in the Jiangxi provincial public safety department, says he’s grateful to be able to continue his education.

“I graduated 16 years ago and haven’t had a chance to train,” he says. “It’s very important to us.”

Stretching across 3,728 miles with 9,010 miles of coastline, China is a massive and diverse country. The most populous in the world, it accounts for 21 percent of the human population. It is divided into five regions and 23 provinces. Most of the places the students visit are urban and the people speak Mandarin, China’s official language.

The XTBG, in south China, is in an area heavily 32 SEPTEMBER SEPTEMBER 2009 2009 •• GEORGIA GEORGIA MAGAZINE MAGAZINE 32

populated with Dai, one of 55 ethnic minorities recognized by the Chinese government. Most of the 1.5 million Dai in China live in the Yunnan Province. They have their own written and spoken language.

At XTBG, Mauricio’s students engage in field work using the garden as their laboratory. Their program, focused on the genetics of invasive species, is funded by a National Science Foundation PIRE (Partnership for International Research and Education) grant and includes three components—research, graduate training and undergraduate study abroad. For five years, Mauricio and his students will explore four plants that are native to the southeastern U.S. and invasive in China (Carolina geranium, tall morning glory, pokeweed and smooth cordgrass); four plants that are native to China and invasive in the southeastern U.S. (mimosa, Chinese privet, Nepalese browntop and kudzu); and two bacterial species (watermelon bacterial blight and citrus greening disease).

“I’m from New Mexico. I’d never seen kudzu till I got here,” says Ted Wenner, a senior at New Mexico State University, who was part of the UGA study abroad program.

Wenner holds a kudzu leaf to help him identify the plant; he and UGA sophomore Morgan Ackley are mapping stands of kudzu at XTBG. When they find one, they pace off the perimeter to get a size estimate and then record how high it grows (ground, shrubs or trees) and whether there are signs that animals have been eating it.

The teams are spread throughout the garden, and Mauricio moves between them to check progress.

“There are two patches on either side of the road. Is this one patch or two?” he asks. “If it’s directly across the

street, is it the same patch?”

The answer is less important to Mauricio than the process of finding an answer. Fieldwork at XTBG is designed to teach the students basic ecological field techniques and get them thinking about evolutionary questions and how they might conduct research to answer them.

“We’re not teaching students what the facts are and having them memorize them,” Mauricio says. “The essence of a research university is that we don’t know the answer.”

The students are also contributing to the larger research project, collecting kudzu samples that get shipped back to Mauricio’s lab at UGA.

This “research abroad” program offers an unusual combination: genetics and language. Students began an intensive study of Mandarin Chinese in January, cramming two courses into one semester and exploring Chinese movies and books four months before arriving in China.

“I really liked the idea that I could be in grad school for science but still learn a language,” says Becky Shirk, UGA graduate student in plant biology. “Most of the time you don’t get to do that.”

It’s a brisk morning in Yan’an, and Bob Grafstein has just finished a lecture on Mao Zedong’s Long March—the 6,000-mile trek the communist leader and his 100,000 followers made in 1934 to escape the Nationalists in Jiangxi.

This afternoon the students will visit Yang Hill and explore the homes Mao and his followers built in the caves there. They’re still overwhelmed by culture shock, but over

Genetics students take a moto-taxi, a common means of local transport, for a day trip to Mane, a Dai village just outside of Menglun.

the next week will begin to feel more comfortable in their surroundings and venture out on their own.

That, says Art Dunning, vice president for public service and outreach, may be the biggest benefit of the program—getting students out of their comfort zones.

“One of the challenges for students is they get stretched culturally when they spend time in a non-Western country,” Dunning says. “They see clearly and up close that things we take for granted are not universal.”

“There are more dramatic differences in Asia. NonWestern countries push their thinking more.”

For some, the experience can be life-changing.

By her third week in China with the poli sci program Yeager knew she wanted to come back. While in Xi’an, she went to the Happy Paradise Internet café next door to her hotel and applied to return to China to teach English after graduating in August. By the end of the trip she learned that she was accepted to the program; she plans to be back in Beijing by the end of the year.

“China just blindsided me in the best possible way,” Yeager says. “There was no one thing—it was a million little things.” GM

GET MORE For more photos from China, go to www.uga.edu/gm.

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From left, Courtney Doran, Robbie Reese, Garrett Gravesen and Kevin Scott in one of their Atlanta “offices,” The Lodge coffeehouse in Buckhead.

Leading by example UGA alumni create a study abroad program with emphasis on service and leadership

by Kelly Simmons

34 SEPTEMBER SEPTEMBER2009 2009 • • GEORGIA GEORGIAMAGAZINE MAGAZINE 34

“I thought it was

S

ANDREW DAVIS TUCKER

o you’re a few years out of college and still living at home with your parents. What do you do?

If you’re Garrett Gravesen (BBA ’03) and Kevin Scott (BA ’07) you start an international leadership program designed to change the lives of young adults.

In June, Gravesen and Scott, in partnership with two other UGA grads, Robbie Reese (BBA ’02) and Courtney Doran (BBA/ABJ ’07), took the inaugural class of 50 students to Cape Town, South Africa.

While there the students, nearly all from UGA, swam (protected by cages) with great white sharks off the coast of Cape Town, toured Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden and Victoria Falls, and went on safari in Kruger National Park. But they also visited schoolhouses and orphanages and spent time in the slums of the cosmopolitan city, living side-by-side with typical South African families and watching their daily struggle to survive.

The adventure draws in the students, Gravesen explains. The focus on service and leadership transforms their lives.

“This is our generation’s way to see the world,” he says.

The Global L.E.A.D. program, as it’s called, is designed to offer students more than a traditional study abroad program, which many students take advantage of during their time in college. A small number—about two percent, Gravesen says—do service learning work in foreign countries during their time at UGA.

“We don’t want to reach that two percent,” he says. “We want to find a way to reach normal students who would backpack through Europe or would go to Spain, France or Italy.”

UGA Provost Arnett Mace says Global L.E.A.D. offers students something that they may not get through other study abroad programs at UGA—an opportunity to learn from leaders in those countries where they travel.

“It provides another venue for our students,” he says. “And a very different format.”

L.E.A.D. stands for Leadership, Education, Adventure and Diplomacy and during the six-week trip, students spend one week focusing on each.

During morning classes, speakers often are brought in to talk to the students about their experience. In

amazing that although these kids have close to nothing, they are still so joyful and full of life.”

—Jordan Drake Cape Town, the L.E.A.D. students heard from former Kennesaw State University President Betty Siegel, who heads the Oxford Conclave on Global Ethics, designed to renew higher education’s commitment to the development of ethical leadership; and former UGA Athletic Director Vince Dooley and wife Barbara, who became friends of Gravesen through UGA HERO(s). They also met and talked with Ahmed Kathrada, a cellmate of former South African president Nelson Mandela, when both were imprisoned for advocating civil rights and opposing apartheid in the 1960s.

At one point during education week, the students were sent to live with host families in their shacks in the slums of the city. They were each given a dollar a day on which to live—a typical amount for the poor in Cape Town.

What the students saw surprised them. Despite their lack of wealth the people were happy.

“Our host mother’s name was Rosa, and she kept telling us “as long as I’m alive I’ll have hope,’ ” UGA student Joanna Harbin recalls.

“It re-inspired me to stay focused (on helping others),” Harbin says.

“There is an opportunity to make a difference in people’s lives every day.”

Student Jordan Drake posted this entry on the group’s blog for that day:

“I thought it was amazing that although these kids have close to nothing, they are still so joyful and full of life. Our (host) mother walked us around to other

GEORGIA MAGAZINE • SEPTEMBER 2009

35

AMANDA ABBOTT

UGA senior Maureen Scott, center, claps and sings during a name game with children at a South African school.

“It doesn’t just change their minds but transforms their hearts. ” —Kevin Scott

houses of her relatives and friends. We would walk in and see another group of LEAD students singing or dancing with the people. It was very apparent to me how much these people valued friends and family and are content with what they have. One may say ignorance is bliss, but I think these people really know what life is all about. This experience will likely be one that many of us take the most away from.”

That’s the feedback the Global L.E.A.D. organizers are looking for.

“If they have these experiences, they can’t help but leave there different people than they were before,” Scott says. “It doesn’t just change their minds but transforms their hearts.”

G

ravesen and Scott each made a name for himself at UGA. Gravesen was elected student body president his sophomore year and later was the May 2003 commencement speaker. Scott made the December 2007 commencement address.

Gravesen along with fellow

SEPTEMBER 2009 2009 •• GEORGIA GEORGIA MAGAZINE MAGAZINE 36 SEPTEMBER

student Ryan Gembala in 2003 founded UGA HERO(s) (Hearts Everywhere Reaching Out) as a philanthropic organization on campus to raise money to provide quality of life programs for children affected by HIV and AIDS.

A few years later, Scott, as executive director of UGA HERO(s), took the program to a new level, increasing membership from 700 members to 1,500 and raising $306,000—four times more than the group raised the previous year.

Meanwhile, Gravesen and Gembala, who graduated in 2003, went on to found H.E.R.O. for Children Inc., a non-profit organization based in Atlanta that provides mentoring and life skills programs to children with HIV/AIDS. Gravesen has since given up his staff position in the organization but still sits on its board of directors, which also includes UGA head football coach Mark Richt and Dooley.

In 2007, Gravesen was named one of the nation’s 10 Outstanding Young People by the U.S. Jaycees.

Previous honorees were John F. Kennedy and Bill Clinton. He was later selected as one of the world’s 10 most outstanding young people and traveled to New Delhi to receive that honor.

It is Gravesen’s passion for adventure and travel and his commitment to public service that led him to create Global L.E.A.D.

In 2008, he connected with Robbie Reese, who had been working at the Lane Company, to co-found Global L.E.A.D. The two of them then brought on board Scott, who had been working on former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee’s presidential campaign, and Courtney Doran, who had been teaching school in the Marshall Islands through a Harvard University program. They worked together to plan the program and line

“We’re talking about up potential advisors and investors.

When Gravesen and Scott traveled to Sao Paolo, Brazil, in 2008 to speak to more than 1,100 students at an international youth conference, they took the opportunity to find out what the students were looking for in an international program.

Gravesen also went to Harvard Business School to meet with Associate Dean David Thomas to discuss his idea. Thomas helped him work through the leadership model that would form the basis of the program.

They sought and got UGA approval for their study abroad GET MORE For more information on Global L.E.A.D., go to www.globalleadprogram.org For information on UGA study abroad, go to www.uga.edu/oie/studyabroad.htm

program, which means students can earn course credit for the experience.

When they looked for a first site, Cape Town seemed a logical choice.

It was a relatively safe and cosmopolitan place that would be attractive to students, they reasoned, but might not be the first they would think of visiting.

“It’s really about getting them out of their comfort zones,” Scott says.

Since the trip, Assistant Professor Sandra Whitney has been reading through term papers and journals submitted by Global L.E.A.D. participants. Some show such growth and insight that “I have been moved to tears,” Whitney says.

The students “got it,” she says.

They understand that doing service projects and reaching out to the people in South Africa on their terms is what is needed—it’s not a problem that can be solved with money.

“You have to see what people perceive their needs to be,” says

AMANDA ABBOTT

Senior Danielle Crawford, front, and other UGA students have a sack race with students from an after school program funded by the Amy Biehl Foundation Trust, an organization that works to develop and empower youth and discourage violence in Cape Town.

totally shifting the way our generation sees the world.”

—Garrett Gravesen

Whitney, who accompanies students to Tanzania on service-learning projects during the summer. “You can’t just go in and give each kid a Nintendo.”

Though they claim success with their first trip, Gravesen and Scott admit pulling together the program hasn’t been easy. Gravesen took out a $70,000 personal loan to cover startup costs, which include traveling to recruit students and generate private financial support for the program.

Each of the staff agreed to take a minimal salary—their total annual company payroll is just $36,000.

However, their sights are high.

They hope to broaden the horizon next year by showcasing their documentary of the Global L.E.A.D. program at colleges and universities across the U.S. They plan to take student groups to four countries next year: Brazil, Panama and Greece, as well as back to South Africa.

They manage by living at home with their parents and using local coffee shops—with free wireless Internet—as office space.

“I left a paying job for this,” Scott jokes, without regret.

They’re already beginning to see the payoff from the first trip.

After their return to the U.S., several students in their group this summer began planning a service-learning project for Athens.

“How hypocritical if you just talk about it and don’t do it,” Gravesen says. “We’re talking about totally shifting the way our generation sees the world.” GM

GEORGIA MAGAZINE • SEPTEMBER 2009

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NOTES CLASS

SWEET Lantana It was an accident, really, the bittersweet discovery of a new breed of Lantana behind alumna Susy Dirr’s house in Chapel Hill, N.C., where she lived in 2004 after a second lung transplant.

Dirr’s father, retired-UGA horticulturist Mike Dirr, recognized the flowering yellow shrub as a different breed and named it after the town where Susy later died. Dirr now breeds the Chapel Hill Lantana at his Watkinsville company, Plant Introductions Inc., with proceeds going to the Sweet Melissa Fund, a non profit established by Mike and Bonné Dirr to raise money for lung transplant recipients and their families. The fund is named for Melissa Alexander, a friend of Susy, who died from cystic fibrosis in 2005.

Susy Dirr (ABJ ’99) died on Jan. 24, 2008, at age 31 after a lifetime battle with cystic fibrosis, a genetic condition affecting the cells lining the lungs and digestive system.

GET MORE The Chapel Hill Lantana is sold commercially at Cofer’s Home & Garden Showplace in Athens and at Home Depot. For more information on the Sweet Melissa Fund, please visit http://sweetmelissafund.org.

ANDREW DAVIS TUCKER

CLASS NOTES Compiled by Caroline Buttimer

1940-1944

James O’Donald Mays (ABJ ’40, MSEd ’41) celebrated his 90th birthday by publishing his memoir, Sweet Magnolias & English Lavendar: An Anglo-American Romance, which highlights his youth in Millen and Louisville as he worked his way through college during the Great Depression, his adventures in the American foreign service and his eventual retirement in England’s New Forest National Park.

1945-1949

David C. H. Hsi (MS ’49) of Albuquerque, N.M., received the Sprirt of America Award at the 49th National Biennial Convention of the Chinese American Citizens Alliance in San Francisco in 2007. He was honored as an agricultural scientist, educator, senior Olympian, volunteer and goodwill ambassador.

38 SEPTEMBER 2009 • GEORGIA MAGAZINE

1950-1954

Walter Mitchell (ABJ ’51) is living in retirement with his wife, the former Evelyn Edge, who was a member of the 1953 Pandora Beauty Review.

1960-1964

Doyle G. Shaw (BBA ’64) of Decatur retired from DeKalb County government after 33 years of service. Shaw was director of purchasing and contracting and chief procurement officer for the county.

1965-1969

Ellis W. Evans (BS ’66) of Macon practices general surgery, oncologic surgery and endocrine surgery at the Medical Center of Central Georgia, where he is the senior surgeon and the chairman of the board of directors. In addition, he is actively engaged in farming. Wynn Teasley (AB ’66, MA ’69, PhD ’73) of Pensacola, Fla., won the 2009 Distinguished Faculty Service Award at the University of West Florida. The award is given annually

to the faculty member who has the most distinguished record of service to the university, professions and community.

Allen Kirk Hazlett (AB ’68) of Belmont, Mass., received the Publicity Club of New England’s John J. Molloy Crystal Bell for Lifetime Achievement. The award recognizes New England communications veterans. Hazlett is an assistant professor of communication at Curry College.

1970-1974

Priscilla Ruth Danheiser (AB ’70, MS ’76, PhD ’79) of Macon is dean of the College of Continuing and Professional Studies at Mercer University. She is a professor of pyschology and previously served as vice president for academic affairs and dean of the college at Wesleyan College. James C. Huckaby Jr. (AB ’70) of Birmingham, Ala., is a partner at Christian & Small LLP. He was named to the 2009-2010 Alabama Super Lawyers for class action/mass torts. In addition, he was selected by his peers for inclusion

ALUMNI PROFILE in the 2009 edition of The Best Lawyers in America for commercial litigation and mass tort litigation.

1975-1979

Andrew B. Adler (ABJ ’77) is the new owner of The Atlanta Jewish Times. Elizabeth Wallace Fleming (AB ’78, JD ’81) of Anchorage, Alaska, is working as a civilian with the U.S. Air Force as legal advisor to Joint Task Force - Alaska, located at Elmendorf AFB. Marcia Hauler (ABJ ’78) was named national occupational health consultant for AllOne Health.

Lynn Rodgers (BBA ’79) is one of 10 women who have been selected by the young girls of Girls Inc. to be recognized as outstanding role models in the Chattanooga area as part of the organization’s 2009 UnBought and UnBossed Awards.

1980-1984

John Culbertson (ABJ ’80) of Landrum, S.C., has a new play, “Messiah on the Frigidaire,” being published by Samuel French in New York. The comedy has been produced around the U.S. and recently had its Canadian premiere at the Workshop Theatre in Calgary. The play also hit the stage in Iraq, where it was performed by U.S. soldiers stationed in Umm Qasr. Samuel French is the oldest and largest publisher of plays in the world.

Paul Hanna (BBA ’81) of Athens joined The Staubach Company in Atlanta as director in 2006. When Staubach merged with Jones Lang LaSalle in 2008, Hanna became vice president. Daniel D. Sparks (AB ’81) of Birmingham, Ala., was named to Birmingham Magazine’s 2009 Top Lawyers for bankruptcy. Art Barry III (BBA ’82) of Macon was named the 2008 Number One Industrial Sales Professional Worldwide for Coldwell Banker Commercial and has also earned a spot in the company’s Platinum Level Circle of Distinction, an honor bestowed on the top eight percent of producers among the almost 3,000-member Coldwell Banker Commercial network of professionals.

Rolando Morales (BSPh ’82) wrote “Two Roles Examined: The Pharmacist’s Responsibility in Adverse Reactions and

All in the family A UGA vet med alumnus continues the Savannah practice her family began generations earlier

by Tracy Giese (ABJ ’90)

Carla Case McCorvey (DVM ’99) was born to practice veterinary medicine. The fourth generation veterinarian worked with her father, Jerry Case (DVM ’75), as a young girl, making cotton balls and sterilizing equipment in the animal hospital her great-grandfather Erle Case founded in 1909. Today, Case-McCorvey practices beside her father, using some of the most KIM THOMSON innovative techniques available.

CARLA CASE MCCORVEY “Obviously, I learned as much from Dad as I did from UGA’s College of Veterinary Medicine, but I learned a lot from Papa too,” Case-McCorvey says of her grandfather, Dr. Francis Case Sr. “He had retired by the time I began working with Dad in 1999, but he lived right around the corner from the hospital, and he and my grandmother had me over for lunch more than once a week. I’d tell them all about what surgeries I had done that day, and they’d tell me stories about how it used to be.”

This year marks the 100th anniversary of Case Veterinary Hospital in Savannah. In late 2008 Case-McCorvey was named one of Georgia Trend magazine’s “Top 40 Under 40.” Also in 2008, the Savannah Small Business Chamber of Commerce named her family’s practice Business of the Year.

It is one of the oldest family veterinary practices in the country to have operated continuously, but it had modest beginnings. Erle Case received his veterinary training in Ontario, Canada, and accepted a job through correspondence in Savannah. He packed up all his belongings and spent his savings on a one-way steamship ticket to Savannah, only to find when he arrived that there was no job. He approached the town’s only veterinarian, who offered him a single stall in a building where large animals were treated. Case began treating the growing number of small animals brought into the clinic for care.

From there, Case—the only degreed veterinarian in Savannah at the time— grew his business and established Case Veterinary Hospital.

Today Case-McCorvey continues to push Case Veterinary Hospital to the forefront of veterinary medicine. By investing in continuing education and training for herself and her staff, Case-McCorvey has positioned her family’s business as one of the only hospitals in the region to routinely offer endoscopic and laparoscopic procedures to its patients. This technology is comparable to human medicine, enabling less invasive procedures with faster recovery time and fewer complications.

“When you work with family in a business begun by your family, the quality of your work reflects on them,” says Case-McCorvey. “If Grandpa Erle could look down and see how we are practicing veterinary medicine today, I think he’d be impressed, but I know he’d be proud.”

—Tracy Giese is the former director of public relations for the College of Veterinary Medicine.

GEORGIA MAGAZINE • SEPTEMBER 2009

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CLASSNOTES

For many of us, the University of Georgia is a big part of our families. The prospect of visiting campus, especially on a football Saturday, brings with it thrilling anticipation. I’ll never forget my first Georgia football game as a child when an old man sitting in front of me yelled to the team, “Are you dogs or puppies?” then proceeded to bark with all his might.

Like many of you, UGA graduates are scattered throughout my family, starting with my dad who has a ’51 BS and ’59 MBA, and my mother’s ’56 BFA. Uncles, aunts, brothers, cousins and a new sister-in-law are proud UGA alumni as well. But I probably take the Vic Sullivan most pride in saying that I’m also a Georgia parent with my son, Victor, having just graduated last spring from the College of Family and Consumer Sciences, and my daughter, Margaret, in the same college and enjoying her junior year.

The friends I made while at UGA and the ones I’ve made through staying involved with the university are among the blessings I hold dear, with the UGA Alumni Association being a big part of that. I am truly humbled to have the opportunity now to lead the Alumni Association as president, especially considering the outstanding legacies of the leaders who came before me. Special thanks to immediate past president Trey Paris ’84, ’85 as he helped lay the groundwork for some of the Association’s greatest efforts, including the opening of our new Atlanta Alumni Center location and the upcoming inaugural recognition of the 100 Best Bulldogs Businesses which will be held January 30, 2010. For information about this exciting new program, including nominations and sponsorships, please visit www.uga.edu/alumni/100bbb.

The Alumni Association is not only your conduit for ties to college days past, but a network of benefits—both social and tangible—for today and in the future. The collective voice of more than 250,000 living graduates is something special, and your membership in the UGA Alumni Association can assure that the bonds of being a Georgia Bulldog will never be broken. If you are not a member, I hope you will consider joining. Our web site address is www.uga.edu/alumni.

“Are you dogs or puppies?” the old man asked. I’ll answer with “Bulldogs!” and proud to say it.

—Vic Sullivan (BBA ’80), President

UGA Alumni Association

UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA ALUMNI ASSOCIATION Deborah Dietzler, Executive Director ALUMNI ASSOCIATION OFFICERS Vic Sullivan BBA ’80 President, Albany Steve Jones BBA ’78, JD ’87 Vice President, Athens Tim Keadle BBA ’78 Treasurer, Lilburn Harriette Bohannon BSFCS ’74 Secretary, Augusta Trey Paris BBA ’84, MBA ’85 Immediate Past President, Gainesville

40 SEPTEMBER 2009 • GEORGIA MAGAZINE

ALUMNI ASSOCIATION WEB SITE www.uga.edu/alumni To receive a membership brochure, call: 800/606-8786 or 706/542-2251 Annual membership: $35 (single), $50 (joint) To receive a monthly e-newsletter, enroll at: www.uga.edu/alumni ADDRESS CHANGES E-mail records@uga.edu or call 888/268-5442

Medication Abuse,” which was published in the Journal of Legal Nurse Consulting spring 2009 edition. He also writes a pharmacy column in the Medical Legal News.

1985-1989

Marc David Bonagura (AB ’85, MA ’88) of Green Brook, N.J., recently received tenure and is associate professor of English at Brookdale Community College in Lincroft, N.J. George B. Monk (BBA ’85) is senior director of underwriting for the Georgia Farm Bureau Insurance Company. Ira Bershad (BBA ’87) is partner of national executive search firm Kaye/Bassman International. He is the firm’s practice leader for its consumer products specialty practice. Kaye/Bassman International is a top 10 search firm in the U.S. Jennifer Webb Hauck (BSEd ’87) and Gregory Hauck (BSEd ’88) of Santa Rosa, Calif., are celebrating the fifth year of business of Hauck Cellars in Sonoma County, Calif. A boutique winery, they currently produce 1,500 total cases of vineyard-designate cabernet, zinfandel, syrah and sauvignon blanc. Get more info at www.hauckcellars.com. Lisa Bantley Yannet (BBA ’89) of Savannah is a realtor with Keller Williams Realty Coastal Area Partners. She received her real estate license in 2007. She is also vice president and co-owner of Horizon Staffing Inc., a full-time service temporary staffing company specializing in temorary, temp-tohire and direct hire placements.

1990-1994

Aaron Calloway (BSEH ’93) is the brand manager of Axe Personal Wash. Sharon Hesterlee (BS ’93, BFA ’93) of Tuscon, Ariz., is vice president and executive director of MDA Venture Philanthropy.

Hesterlee played a key role in the formation and launching of MVP. Mark Spain (BBA ’93) and his RE/MAX Greater Atlanta real estate team were again honored as the number two team in the U.S. for closings with RE/MAX International.

This marks the eighth consecutive year the Mark Spain team has broken the $100 million annual sales mark. As one of the top-producing real estate teams in busi-

ALUMNI calendar ness today, the Mark Spain team regularly ranks in the top 10 worldwide out of nearly 100,000 RE/MAX agents in more than 65 countries. Scott Grant (ABJ ’94) and Lisa Wilbanks Grant (BSEd ’94) of Gainesville, Ga., welcomed the birth of their first child, Anna Lea Grant, on Jan. 7. Scott serves as a staff writer for the Crown Financial Ministries, specializing in broadcast media. Lisa teaches kindergarten at Flowery Branch Elementary School. Michelle Swords McGlamery (BSW ’94) of Powder Springs graduated from Kennesaw State University in May with a master’s of social work. Hanna Norton (ABJ ’94, MA ’98, PhD ’01) won a 2009 Faculty Award of Excellence during Arkansas Tech’s spring commencement ceremonies. Norton is an associate professor of journalism at the university and is the advisor to the school’s Public Relations Student Society of America chapter. Kathleen Turaski (AB ’94) has been tapped to serve on Appleton Papers prestigious Design Council for 2009.

Turaski is the first representative from the state of Georgia to serve on the council since its creation in 1995. In 2006, Turaski co-founded Decatur-based Resonance, which develops corporate identity and print and Web communications for a wide range of companies and organizations.

1995-1999

Lori Cranford Whatley (BSEd ’95, MEd ’01) of Dearing is 2010 Teacher of the Year for Dearing Elementary School and McDuffie County Teacher of the Year for 2010. She has been teaching at Dearing Elementary School for 14 years and is currently teaching special education. Ty Wheeler (BSA ’95) of Woodstock is a staff pharmacist at CVS/pharmacy in Roswell and has authored a book, published

by Brentwood Christian Press, titled Evil Men & Imposters. Chris Fowler (AB ’97) of Stone Mountain is the senior audio engineer for NBA-TV. Andrew C. Miller (ABJ ’97) is director of public relations at Bulldawg Illustrated. Lesley Murphy Cahalan (BS ’98) and her husband, Lee, of Greensboro, N.C., welcomed a son, Reid Alexander, on May 2, 2008. He joins big

LOCAL EVENTS: Friday, September 11, 8 - 9 a.m.

Bulldog Breakfast Club with Coach Mark Richt Start your day with fellow Alumni Association members at our Bulldog Breakfast Club with guest speaker Coach Mark Richt.

Friday, September 11, 11:30 a.m. - 1 p.m.

Lunch with Kathryn Richt and friends Join UGA Alumni Association members as we gather for lunch with Kathryn Richt and other football coaches’ wives.

Tuesday, September 15, 5:30 - 7 p.m.

Alumni Gathering at Beef ‘O’ Brady’s Join fellow alumni and friends for a free networking event at Beef ‘O’ Brady’s.

Wednesday, September 23, 3 - 5 p.m.

Faculty and Staff Authors Reception Meet faculty and staff who have published a book within the past 24 months.

Books authored by our own faculty and staff will be displayed for viewing and purchasing. Authors should contact the bookstore by September 11th at genbook@uga.edu to be included.

For more information about events in the Athens area, please contact Wanda Darden at wdarden@uga.edu or (706) 542-2251.

REGIONAL EVENTS: NEW YORK: Saturday, September 5, 7 p.m.

Attending the U.S. Open has become a chapter tradition.

BOSTON: Thursday, September 24, 6 p.m.

Bulldogs After Business Hours Find out about what’s going on with other Boston area Bulldogs. Join fellow UGA alumni and friends the first Thursday of every month.

ATLANTA: Saturday, January 30 100 Best Bulldog Businesses—Save the Date A banquet honoring the 100 fastest growing businesses that are owned or operated by UGA alumni will be held in Atlanta.

For more information on programs and events in the Atlanta area, please contact Meredith Carr at mcarr@uga.edu or (404) 266-2622. For programs in all other areas, please contact Tami Gardner at tgardner@uga.edu or (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.

GEORGIA MAGAZINE • SEPTEMBER 2009

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CLASSNOTES

From left, Erika Parker of Midlothian, Va.; Dr. Thomas Frieden, CDC director; Kelsey Jones, Atlanta; and Darryl Tricksey, Atlanta.

SPECIAL

ARCH TRUSTEE OVERSEES PUBLIC HEALTH INTERNS IN NEW YORK UGA Honors students interned this summer with the Greater New York Hospital Association under the direction of Arch Foundation Advisory Trustee Susan Waltman (AB ’73, MSW ’75), senior executive vice president and general counsel of GNYHA. The students, who are all studying in the College of Public Health, had the opportunity to attend the Public Health Association of NYC’s annual awards ceremony where Dr. Thomas Frieden was honored.

Frieden was appointed by President Obama in May to head the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

sister Lauren, age 2. Kimberly Feldman (AB ’98, MEd ’00) is Howard County Teacher of the Year for 2009. She teaches English 9 at Oakland Mills High School in Columbia, Md. Heather Duerre Humann (AB ’98) of Tuscaloosa, Ala., earned a Ph.D. in English from the University of Alabama in May 2009. She teaches in the English department at the University of Alabama. Marla Vickers Layton (AB ’98) of Hillsborough, N.C., married Jim Layton of Washington, D.C. The wedding took place in Athens, Marla’s hometown, at the UGA chapel. They live in North Carolina, where Marla is a regional director at Duke University School of Law in the alumni and development office and Jim is a vice president with the commercial real estate firm of Grubb & Ellis.

Lane Garwood (BSFR ’99) of Smyrna is a certified hazardous materials manager

42 SEPTEMBER 2009 • GEORGIA MAGAZINE

and works as an underwriter of environmental insurance with AIU Holdings Inc. in Atlanta.

2000-2004

Toby Carr (BBA ’01, BSAE ’01) is the executive director of the Georgia Republican Party. Carolyn Miller Huresky (BBA ’01) launched a line of upscale fitness and sports accessories named Qteaze. The products are available at www.qteaze. net. Chris Elliot Marsh Jr. (BSA ’02) of Statesboro was selected for the 2009 Class of Leadership Bulloch. He was also recently included in the 40 Under 40 list of The Savannah Business Report and Journal. Kevin Jeffrey Bunn (BSEd ’03) of Durham, N.C., graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine on May 10. He will remain at UNC Hospitals for his

residency training in orthopedic surgery.

Tara Brant (BSA ’04) is living in Sudan, working for the Carter Center on the Guinea Worm Eradication Program. Erin Frick (BS ’04) of Columbus graduated from Ohio State College of Medicine with a doctorate of medicine degree on June 14. She resides in Orlando, Fla., with her fiance and is doing her pediatric residency with Orlando Regional Medical Center.

Her fiance is doing his orthopedic surgery residency with the same institution. Ross J. Yasin (BBA ’04, BS ’04) of Perry is an ERP deployment specialist with Pro-Build in Denver, Colo. He is working on a project designed to integrate Pro-Build’s 550+ locations to one uniform system over the next two years.

is dean of the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies. Jeff Lovich (PhD ’90) of Flagstaff, Ariz., is co-author of the revision of the book Turtles of the United States and Canada, published by Johns Hopkins University Press. At 827 pages with 5,200 citations, it is the most comprehensive review of the 56 native turtle species in the region ever produced. David Stein (MM ’95) of Los Angeles, Calif., and wife Tanya Stein welcomed the birth of their daughter, Hadassah Shifra, on March 7. Kelly Carolyn Gordon (PhD ’01) of Brevard, N.C., is the 2009 recipient of the Robert A. Schanke Research Award, presented by the Theatre History Symposium of the Mid-America Theatre Conference. Gordon was a 2008 Fellow of the Leadership

Institute of the Association for Theatre in higher education and is the coordinator of theater studies at Brevard College. Jaime Durley (PhD ’06) received an Excellence in Program Evaluation Award from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Inspector General.

The evaluation for which she won the award was titled “FDA’s Generic Drug Review Process,” which highlighted inefficiencies in the FDA’s review process for generic drugs and provided recommendations on how the FDA could potentially get generic drugs on the market faster, leading to possible cost savings for federal healthcare programs as well as private consumers.

2005-2009

Chase Martin (BSFCS ’06) of Augusta is a sales representative with Southern Spine. Bryan Stanforth (BSEd ’06) is director of operations for Carter Logistics Group in Atlanta. Joshua Roberts (AB ’06) of Social Circle graduated from Emory University with a master’s of divinity degree on May 11. Kali Justus (ABJ ’08) of Oxford, Ga., is editor of Lakelife magazine, a quarterly lifestyle publication of Smith Communications Inc., covering the Lake Oconee and Lake Sinclair region of Georgia.

GRAD NOTES Arts & Sciences

Karen Jeanenne Anderson Gravely (MA ’76) retired in July 2008 after 28 years with Michelin North America—the last five spent as supply chain planner in corporate Michelin North America in Greenville, S.C. She is now taking aerobics classes, becoming reacquainted with neighbors and spending time at her condo in Tybee Island. Tom Ryan (PhD ’77) is the sole author of four 600-page statistics books, with a fifth book in progress.

Two of the books are in a second edition.

Ryan is an elected Fellow of the American Statistical Association, Royal Statistical Society and the American Society for Quality. W. Bartley Hildreth (DPA ’79)

GEORGIA MAGAZINE • SEPTEMBER 2009

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CLASSNOTES

Business

IN MEMORY OF CAYLE BYWATER Before grad student Cayle Bywater (BBA ’02) disappeared early last year she started a project to benefit Nuci’s Space, a musicians’ resource and support center where she volunteered in Athens. She hoped that the largescale database she was compiling would significantly increase the efficiency and range of the center’s rehearsal room reservation system.

After Bywayter was found dead Jan. 11, 2008, her classmates in the master of Internet SPECIAL technology program at the Gwinnett campus decided to continue the project in her honor.

Bywater’s endeavor became a final project for five of her classmates.

The new system, which they named the Cayle Project, is an internal web application that assists staff members with practice room and equipment reservations, as well as with vital customer reporting data. As of May 2009, the database is an integral part of business at Nuci’s Space.

—by Caroline Buttimer

Wesley Alexander Griffin (MBA ’01) of Chesapeake, Va., is an active duty naval supply officer and is currently assigned as military cooperation division fund manager, NATO headquarters, Supreme Allied Command Transformation, Norfolk, Va. He won first place in the 2008 Defense Acquisition University Alumni Association Hirsch Research Paper competition. The winning paper was titled “The Future of Integrated Supply Chain Management Utilizing Performance Based Logistics” and focused on current logistics concepts that operate in traditional, hierarchial command and control structures.

Education

Barbara Gartin (EdD ’82) received the Burton Blatt Humanitarian Award from the Council for Exceptional Children’s Division on Developmental Disabilities.

Gartin is a professor of special education at the University of Arkansas. Brian Culp (EdD ’05) of Indianapolis, Ind., was awarded a Fulbright-Hays scholarship to Kenya in order to study Kenyan government and education in the summer of 2009. Culp is an assistant professor of physical education.

Environment & Design

Erik Nelson (MLA ’95) of Portland, Ore., is a principal in Yellow Mountain Stoneworks Inc. and supplied cladding material for the Microsoft West Campus in Redmond, Wash.

Journalism

Robert K. Kramer (MA ’72) of Lawrenceville retired from NCR Corporation, where he last served as corporate media relations director.

Law

Edward T.M. Garland (AB ’63, LLB ’65) was recognized among lawyers who have been listed in Best Lawyers for 25 years.

He also received the third most votes for the top 10 among Georgia’s Super Lawyers 2009 and was included in Georgia Trend magazine’s Legal Elite for his work in criminal defense law. Barbara Mendel Mayden (JD ’76) of Nashville, Tenn., is

44 SEPTEMBER 2009 • GEORGIA MAGAZINE

Where are

theynow?

Full of beans Former UGA golfer and head golf coach Beans Kelly has traded the turf for the surf

by Kelly Simmons Beans Kelly holds the small stingray up for her campers—ages 6 to 11—to observe.

“That’s what killed the Crocodile Hunter,” Kelly (BSEd ’90) tells them as they stare fascinated. “Only that one was much bigger.”

She deftly unhooks the ray from the line and tosses it back into the surf off North Litchfield Beach, S.C. The youngsters check their own lines, re-bait and cast back out.

By noon, all but one will have caught something, most of them small whiting that can be seen jumping in the waves just off shore.

It’s a different venue for Kelly, a former UGA women’s golf coach who has spent the past decade teaching kids to play golf. Her mission is the same—to get children outdoors and teach them an activity they can enjoy the rest of their lives.

“I get kids to realize the resources available to them, really at very little cost,” Kelly says. “You can buy a fishing pole for $25 and can fish anywhere for free until you’re 16. After that you can get a fishing license for very little money.”

Over the week, Kelly—whose real name is Eileen, but has been called Beans since she was 2— shows the children, most of them from the nearby communities, how to dig up sand fleas to use as bait, cast a fishing line, and how to reel in the big one. The also spend a morning on a pier in Murrell’s Inlet trolling for blue crabs in the murky water below. She even shows them

KELLY SIMMONS

Beans Kelly helps one of her campers reel in a catch from the surf off of North Litchfield Beach, S.C.

how to clean and prepare the fish so that they can take them home and eat them.

Many of the fish and crabs caught are tossed back—too small to legally be kept for food. Other things they catch that won’t be used as food, like the stingray, also are set free. Kelly emphasizes the need to protect the ocean and its delicate ecosystems.

The idea for the camps arose last winter, when Kelly was looking for a change in her life. She moved to North Litchfield Beach in 2005 to work at a golf school, which has since gone out of business. After that, she began her own golf instruction business, but that took a hit when the economy turned south.

“I did a lot of soul searching,” she says. A friend and former adviser of Kelly’s from her days at UGA encouraged her to capitalize on the love of fishing she developed as a child on the Maryland coast. She launched Beans@TheBeach LLC earlier this

year, advertising “beach concierge services” for vacationers and lining up nine weeks of summer camps for kids. She plans to offer an afterschool program for children this fall.

“I guess I’m always a coach,“ she says. “I just changed my venue.”

Kelly played golf at UGA from 1981 to 1983, leaving without her degree to play professionally. After two years on the pro circuit, she returned to Georgia as an assistant pro at an Atlanta golf course. In 1986, she was approached by UGA to consider the position as head coach. There was one catch: She had to finish her degree while she was here. She received her bachelor’s degree in 1990 and stayed on to coach women’s golf until 2000.

As big a part of her life as golf has been, Kelly admits she prefers to fish.

“Right now, if you gave me a choice to go play Augusta (National) or go fishing,” she says. “I’d go fishing.”

PERRY MCINTYRE

Kelly is all smiles during the 1999 Liz Murphey Collegiate Classic at the UGA Golf Course, which Georgia won.

Where are they now? is a feature in GM that spotlights students who made a name for themselves while at UGA. Have a standout classmate you’d like to catch up on? Email Kelly Simmons at simmonsk@uga.edu.

GEORGIA MAGAZINE • SEPTEMBER 2009

45

CLASSNOTES

a founding member of Young Mayden LLC, a legal search and consulting firm for lawyers and law firms nationwide.

Mayden has been practicing law for over 30 years. Donald F. Samuel (JD ’80) was selected by his peers for inclusion in the Top 100 Georgia Super Lawyers 2009, was listed in Best Lawyers, and was recognized in Georgia Trend magazine’s Legal Elite for his work in criminal defense law. Joseph T. Farrell (JD ’90) of Orlando, Fla., is judge of compensation claims for the Orlando district. As JCC, he is responsible for adjudicating workers compensation cases in Orange, Seminole, Osceola and Lake Counties. Gregory M. McCoskey (MBA ’93, JD ’95) of Tampa, Fla., was selected for inclusion in Florida’s Super Lawyers 2009. McCoskey is president of the Tampa-based law firm Glenn Rasmussen Fogarty & Hooker. Super Lawyers is an annual listing of outstanding lawyers who have attained a high degree of peer recognition and professional achievement.

A legend retires Larry Dendy (ABJ ’65) left UGA June 30 after nearly four decades of service

The joke, repeatedly tirelessly over the years, is that Larry Dendy wrote the story when Abraham Baldwin founded the University of Georgia in 1785.

Not quite. But when Dendy (ABJ ’65), assistant to the vice president for public affairs, retired in June his career had spanned nearly 40 years and four UGA presidents—Fred C. Davison, Henry King Stanford, Charles B. Knapp and Michael F. Adams.

PETER FREY LARRY DENDY

He covered a lot of ground in his 37 years in public affairs, witnessing and writing about everything from streakers to stem cell research. He’s seen about 70 commencements and sat in on countless University Council and Staff Council meetings.

A journalism student at UGA in the 1960s, Dendy was editor of The Red & Black newspaper. After graduating in 1965, he and his wife Gail spent two years as Peace Corps volunteers in India. After that he worked for a few years as a newspaper journalist, first at the Winston-Salem Journal in North Carolina and later at the Tifton Gazette, before coming to UGA as a science writer in 1972. He was later news director of the UGA News Service and was promoted to assistant to the vice president for public affairs in 1989.

He too jokes about his longevity at UGA and from that his vast knowledge of university history.

“I’ve lived through most of it,” he jokes. “I’m pleased to have seen and been involved in as much as I have, and therefore to have the institutional knowledge.”

46 SEPTEMBER 2009 • GEORGIA MAGAZINE

CLASSNOTES ALUMNI PROFILE

Legal beagle?

Stan Baker already held degrees in chemical engineering and law when he came to UGA for vet school

by Laura H. Jacobs

PETER FREY

Christyne and John Kendrick Holmes

EX-PAT EXPERT If you ever move to China, Christyne Holmes (BSHE ’89) is a good person to know. Holmes has been living in Beijing since 2003 with her husband, John, who works for Conoco Phillips, and their son, John Kendrick, 5.

Holmes shares her expertise by serving as a moderator for a 2,000-member Yahoo group that helps other expatriates looking for everything from size 12 shoes to a T-ball stand and from play dates to a prom dress. “It’s one of those safety nets that keeps you sane,” Holmes says. She also does charity work with the Roundabout, a thrift store that sends aid to inner Mongolia and the Sichuan province, site of last year’s deadly earthquake. “It feels good to be able to help people and fill in the gaps where people are in need,” she says.

Stan Baker (DVM ’08) always wanted to be a veterinarian. But at the University of Arkansas, where he completed his undergraduate work, his older brother recommended he pursue chemical engineering. It was a good move, he says.

“Succeeding in the chemical engineering KIMBERLY BAKER curriculum gave me the confidence I needed to Stan Baker and his dog Maddie do everything else.”

After engineering school he went on to law school at Arkansas and worked for awhile as an environmental and patent attorney.

At age 32, the pull to pursue a degree in veterinary medicine was still there. It took four years of night classes for him to earn the credits required just to apply to vet school. But he did it, and in 2008 at age 40, Baker graduated from the UGA College of Veterinary Medicine.

He is believed to be the only person in the country to hold degrees in chemical engineering, law and vet med.

“I am probably the only patent attorney who ever worked as a kennel boy while practicing law,” Baker says. “I was cleaning soiled cages to gain veterinary related hours to apply for vet school.”

After earning his DVM, Baker, a native of Earle, Ark., returned to northwest Arkansas where he uses all his degrees. He owns a legal practice focusing on intellectual property and veterinary policy, he provides relief work for local vets, and he maintains a side practice as the only veterinarian in northwest Arkansas (and one of three in the state) certified as a veterinary acupuncturist, a skill he acquired through additional training at Florida’s Chi Institute.

Baker says he found the experience of attending vet school as an older student to be very grounding. After spending years working in the upper echelon of the legal community and rubbing elbows with well-to-do clients and colleagues, he was reminded how hard people work just to get by.

“One thing sticks out in my mind particularly, taking night classes at a community college and meeting nursing assistants who worked extra 16-hour shifts over the weekends so they could have extra time and money in the week to spend on organic chemistry classes,” he says. “It makes you appreciate how hard some have to work to do well in this world.”

He hopes to use his experience to help others.

“The faculty and staff of the vet school always emphasized the service aspect of veterinary medicine, both at the individual client and public health levels,” Baker says. “My goal is to leverage my unique educational background to make a positive contribution to the veterinary profession either as a lawyer or veterinarian. ” “I’m living proof that it is never too late to make a change, and I’d like to be able to help people make the positive changes in their lives I’ve been able to make.”

—Laura H. Jacobs is associate director of university relations at the University of Arkansas. She also is managing editor of Arkansas magazine where this feature first appeared.

GEORGIA MAGAZINE • SEPTEMBER 2009

47

NEWBOOKS Mama Rides Shotgun Midnight Ink, 2009

By Deborah Sharp (MS ’82) Before Mama ties the sacred knot of matrimony—for the fifth time—she and her daughter Mace saddle up for some country-gal bonding.

But Mama gallops headlong into murder, and Mace must corral a killer on the Florida Cracker Trail. The book is the second in the former journalist’s funny, Southern-friend “Mace Bauer Mystery” series.

Death by Domestic Violence: Preventing the Murders and MurderSuicides Praeger Publishers, 2008

By Katherine van Wormer (PhD ’76) and A.R. Roberts A discussion of the problem of domestic violence and what the authors have seen and heard on the frontlines from both women and men who have been involved in domestic disputes.

The Federal Art Project and the Creation of Middlebrow Culture University of Illinois Press, 2009

By Victoria Grieve (MA ’96) An intellectual history chronicling the processes of compromise and negotiation between high and low art, federal and local interests, and the Progressive Era and New Deal and examining the power of the federal government to disseminate a specific view of American culture: a middlebrow visual culture.

A Lover’s Quarrel with the Evangelical Church Authentic Books, 2009

By Warren Cole Smith (ABJ ’80, MA ’85) A personal critique of the evangelical movement from the perspective of a long-time evangelical insider. Using solid research and original interviews with some of America’s leading Christian thinkers,

48 SEPTEMBER 2009 • GEORGIA MAGAZINE

Smith offers an assessment of what has gone wrong as evangelicalism has grown in power and size and what must be done if the church is to be salt and light in a culture starved for redemption.

Skits, Raps, and Poems for the School Counselor

By David S. Young (EdS ’04) The skits, raps and poems included in this book give counselors the opportunity to incorporate a fresh twist into their guidance programs. The book is unique in the variety of topics covered, which include careers, peer-relations, character education, selfesteem and stress, among many others.

Stories that Words Told Me AuthorHouse, 2007

By Edward Alban (AB ’65, PhD ’73) A collection of short stories, each dealing with words; how they come into our vocabulary, how they develop a meaning beyond lexicographic denotation, which becomes the personal significance in our memory. A paean to the beauty of words.

The Armchair Birder: Discoverning the Secret Lives of Familiar Birds The University of North Carolina Press, 2009

By John Yow (MA ’75, PhD ”81) In 35 humorous essays Yow reveals the fasciinating lives of birds you probably already recognize. The book covers 42 species, offering anecdotes, observations and stories about the birds you see each season of the year, from the Eastern Bluebird which migrates south in the spring, to the Great Horned Owl, whose blood-curdling scream can be heard in Georgia in the dead of winter.

Lives in Science: How Institutions Affect Academic Careers The University of Chicago Press, 2009

By Joseph C. Hermanowicz An in-depth study of American higher education professionals, eloquently told through the words of 55 physicists whom Hermanowicz followed through different

stages of their careers at a variety of universities across the country. Candid interviews shed light on the ways career goals are and are not met, on the frustrations of the academic profession, and on how one deals with the boredom and stagnation that can set in once one is established.

Evil Men & Imposters Brentwood Christian Press, 2008

By T.K. Wheeler (BSA ’95) A suspenseful book that depicts the battle between good and evil and the global impact of having discovered the cure for cancer.

A doctor realizes the ramifications of his discovery as the book illustrates how it may adversely influence the balance of power worldwide.

Mistaken for Song: Poems Persea Books, 2009

By Tara Bray (BSEd ’87, Med ’91) Tara Bray explores both human and animal concepts in a delightful blend of storytelling and poetry.

Adopting Alesia: My Crusade for My Russian Daughter Scribblerchick Books, 2009

By Dee Thompson (AB ’84) What do you do when you encounter a spirited little girl in a Russian orphanage and know in your heart that you must adopt her? For single, childless, 40-yearold Dee Thompson, it began with an astonishing dream of a little girl reaching out to her.

Charlatan: Preludes General Jinjur LLC, 2008

By Gil Lawson (MA ’90) and Jennifer Lawson (ABJ ’90, MSW ’94) The first book in the epic story of The One Defender, a human who has been chosen

CLASSNOTES

by aliens to single-handedly protect the universe. In it readers will be introduced to an all-new universe of heroes, villains, and action known as The Jinjurverse.

Sweet Magnolias & English Lavender: An Anglo-American Romance New Forest Leaves, 2008

By James O’Donald Mays (ABJ ’40, MSEd ’41) Mays’ memoir highlights his youth in Millen and Louisville and remembers the time he spent working his way through college during the Great Depression, his adventures in the American foreign service and his eventual retirement in England’s New Forest National Park.

We Do Not Die Alone: “Jesus is Coming to Get Me in a White Pickup Truck” I CAN Publishing, 2008

By Marilyn A. Mendoza (AB ’68, MS ’73) Mendoza retells the moving, sometimes humorous, but always undeniably provocative deathbed visions recounted by nurses surveyed in Maryland and Louisiana and reviews the history and theory of deathbed visions and their impact on both the patients and those present.

Interior Wisdom: Designing Your Home and Heart for the Lord Bright Sky Press, 2009

By Leah Richardson (ABJ ’81) From foundation to finishing details, Leah Richardson walks the reader through the design process and gives design ideas, practical applications of design principles and greater insight into creating a beautiful and functional environment in which to raise a family and entertain friends.

Critical Companion to Nora Zeale Hurston: A Literary Reference Guide to Her Life and Work New York: Facts on File, 2009

By Sharon L. Jones (PhD ’96)

An examination of the life, literary works and historical context of Zora Neale Hurston, an African-American woman writer associated with the period known as the Harlem Renaissance, who published fiction, autobiography and drama during the 20th century.

The Cloud of Unknowing: A New Translation Shambhala Publications, 2009

By Carmen Acevedo Butcher (MA ’87, PhD ’91) This series of letters between a monk and his students presents the theology of finding union with God in a remarkably easy to understand and practical manner while also providing advice on prayer and contemplation.

Bearcats Rising: Rags to Division I Riches: How A Gridiron Minority Bludgeons Its Way Into the Big Time Orange Frazer Press, 2009

By Josh Katzowitz (ABJ ‘01) The University of Cincinnati’s football team has always been an afterthought to sports fans in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Bearcats Rising tells the story of how an old, dusty football program was brought back to life by a coach whose enthusiasm could set the world on fire.

ONLINE

Find more books by UGA graduates at www.uga.edu/gm

VICTOR PROFIS (ABJ ’73, MA ’77) UGA alumnus Victor Profis, a longtime member of the Georgia Magazine Advisory Board, died July 6 after battling cancer for more than a year. He was 58.

Profis, who was born in Israel and spent his childhood there and in Cuba, earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from UGA. For the past 26 years he worked for Southern Living magazine, most recently as travel and tourism director. Prior to that he held positions at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Atlanta magazine.

He is survived by his wife of 25 years, Deena Profis; two daughters, Michelle and Lauren Profis; parents, Gerald and Dory Profis; and sister and brother-in-law, Lori and Joel Gross, all of Atlanta.

An online guest book for friends and family is available on the Dressler’s Jewish Funeral Care website, www. edressler.com. Contributions in Profis’ name may be made to the Weber School, 6751 Roswell Road, Atlanta, GA, 30328, or to Temple Emanu-El, 1580 Spalding Drive, Atlanta, GA, 30350.

UGA LAW GRAD APPOINTED TO 11TH CIRCUIT COURT President Obama has appointed Beverly Martin (JD ’81), a U.S. District Court judge in Atlanta since 2000, to a seat on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. Martin has presided over some high profile cases during her time as district court judge. In 2006, she denied an appeal by Wayne Williams, convicted of killing two people in 1981 and suspected in 22 other deaths. The 11th Circuit Court represents Georgia, Florida and Alabama.

GEORGIA MAGAZINE • SEPTEMBER 2009

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CLASSNOTES

50 SEPTEMBER 2009 • GEORGIA MAGAZINE

CLASSNOTES

I

WHY give “

ATLANTA ALUMNI GET NEW DIGS

I was so excited that UGA opened a College of Public Health, soon to

The Atlanta Alumni Center has moved to

be followed by a medical campus, that I felt obligated to help. I loved

the 8th floor of One

my years at UGA, still value my education, and always planned

Live Oak Center in

to do something to acknowledge my gratitude to the state, and the

Buckhead. The building, which also

school. I love that UGA has grown from a regional to a global

houses the Terry College Executive

institution, and I only wish I could do more.

— Dr. Harold S. Solomon (BS ’61)

Education Center, is located at 3475

”

Lenox Road, across from Lenox Square Mall.

For more information or a list of events and programs at the Atlanta Alumni Center, call (404) 814-8820 or go to www.uga.edu/alumni.

Harold and Milly Solomon

SPECIAL

Dr. Solomon, a “product of Georgia public schools,” went on to earn his medical degree from the Medical College of Georgia and is now an associate clinical professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. His gift of $50,000 helped the UGA College of Public Health establish a Maymester course taught by a public health expert from Israel. The first class, a course on emergency preparedness, was offered in May 2009.

Dr. Solomon’s wife, Milly Pincus Solomon, also attended UGA. Grateful for the education they received in Georgia, the Solomons wanted to give back to their home state and give a gift reflective of their connection to the UGA Jewish community.

To learn more about the College of Public Health, go to www.publichealth.uga.edu.

GEORGIA MAGAZINE • SEPTEMBER 2009

51

52 SEPTEMBER 2009 • GEORGIA MAGAZINE

CLASSNOTES

ALUMNI PROFILE

She rules the schools State school board chairwoman Wanda Barrs has made a lifelong commitment to education in Georgia

by Denise Horton There is a quiet intensity to Wanda Barrs’ voice as she discusses the need for change in Georgia’s K-12 curriculum.

“Our standards clearly haven’t been what they needed to be,” she says. “We need to align them with those at the national and international levels.”

As chair of the state Board of Education, Barrs (BSHE ’74) has been actively pursuing that goal, spending the past six years working with her board colleagues and the Georgia Department of Education to develop, review and adopt the Georgia Performance Standards.

“We’ve had some hard discussions, but we’re sticking with the process of making sure that our standards measure up,” Barrs says. “We have a curriculum that is viable and rigorous and a workforce that is growing in its capacity to deliver high quality instruction. As long as systems have great teachers, leaders and parents, that’s the bottom line to success in our schools.”

Barrs understands the real world faced by Georgia’s teachers. The Cochran resident was a teacher for eight years, a school board member for 12 years, a mentor, a 4-H volunteer, and the mother of two students who attended public schools in Bleckley County. She was appointed to the state BOE by Gov. Sonny Perdue in January 2003, was elected chair by her fellow board members a month later and has served in that position ever since. Her board member term ends in 2013.

Barrs describes herself as having been an average student. “I wasn’t in the top one or two percent of my class,” she says. “I had to work hard.”

But an inspiring teacher and the opportunity to tutor younger students spurred her to pursue a teaching degree.

“Ms. Layfield was a dynamic, energetic teacher,” Barrs says of her sixth-grade reading teacher. “She had so much energy, was so solid on content, and loved reading so much that she showed me how exciting it could be.”

In seventh grade, Barrs had the opportunity to tutor

JAMES DAVIDSON

WANDA BARRS

younger students.

“That’s when I knew I was going to teach,” she says. “I saw what a powerful experience it was to be able to teach.”

In 1989, after Barrs left her teaching career to work in the timber consulting and real estate business she owns with her husband, she ran for the Bleckley County Board of Education, was elected and served until she was appointed to the state BOE.

Barrs and her husband Earl (BSFR ’74) also have been active in Project Learning Tree for close to 20 years, teaching educators and youth leaders how to use the K-12 environmental curriculum. And, they have hosted more than 6,000 students on their Gully Branch tree farm for activities that highlight natural resources.

—Denise Horton is the director of communications for the College of Family and Consumer Sciences.

GEORGIA MAGAZINE • SEPTEMBER 2009

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CLASSNOTES

ALUMNI PROFILE

Running the show Regina Hicks, a journalism and theatre grad, has made a name for herself in Hollywood

by John W. English

Regina Y. Hicks (ABJ ’85 MFA ’89) moved to Los Angeles after graduation and has been building an impressive career as a screenwriter for the past two decades.

From her first job as a writer trainee on the Fox comedy “True Colors” to her recent screenwriting credits for the Disney Channel’s “Camp Rock” and “Camp Rock 2,” JOHN ENGLISH REGINA HICKS she has learned a lot about the wiles of the entertainment industry.

“In movies you turn your script in and let it go, because the director has the final say,” she says during an interview at a Studio City restaurant. “In the ‘Camp Rock’ movies, I collaborated with another writer and when we saw the film, whole scenes we wrote were missing.”

Hicks grew up in Savannah and said her experiences as a summer camp counselor in California helped her in writing the “Camp Rock” movies. Featuring the teen sensation Jonas Brothers, the first movie drew almost nine million viewers, the second highest rating after “High School Musical 2.”

“I love television,” she says, “because TV writers have positions of power.”

Even the director answers to the head writer, who also is known as the show runner or executive producer, she says.

Hicks was on the writing staff for the full eight-season run of the CW comedy “Girlfriends,” serving as its show runner for the last two seasons. That show, centered on four African-American women in L.A., became the longestrunning, live-action sitcom in its last year (2008) and was especially popular with young African-American women.

The show had a great run, Hicks says, winning a BET Comedy Award for writing. Fans still enjoy it on television reruns and on DVD. However, she says it was frustrating for the show to be cancelled without a finale.

“I love California and love what I do,” she says. “Pitching is scary but I’m getting better at it.”

Hicks has several television projects currently in development and is hoping comedy shows will make a comeback. While her new works progress, she has signed on as a consulting producer/writer on the new Sherri Shepherd sitcom, “Sherri,” being produced for the Lifetime channel.

Her two-seater Lexus sports car reflects the fast life she’s built in Hollywood. The license plate even addresses the people who yell, “Nice car,” as she passes by.

“I KNW,” it reads.

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

54 SEPTEMBER 2009 • GEORGIA MAGAZINE

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BACK PAGE

“I

remember when I was a young child, about 8 years of age, I was passionate about animals. I remember thinking I would love to have some kind of job working with animals.

Something that allowed me to work with animals every day would be my ideal job. …. As I got older I started thinking about a bunch of other possibilities…fashion design and fashion merchandising was one, advertising was another one that I remember wanting to do when I was in middle school. Then in high school, I began to get really interested in biology. I was fascinated by biology in particular and genetics specifically. I remember sneaking out to the library—what kind of nerd was I to sneak out to learn things about genetics and then about dog breeding? …Then I got the opportunity, and I know this is going to sound bizarre, to work with a herd of water buffalo, and I fell in love with the concept all over again.”

—Paige Carmichael on how her interest in animals as a child led to a career in veterinary pathology, studying inherited neurological diseases in Bernese Mountain dogs and other breeds. For more on The Dog Doctors youth outreach program, go to www.vet.uga.edu/vpp/ dog_doctors.

PAIGE CARMICHAEL

Associate dean for academic affairs, College of Veterinary Medicine Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor Founder, The Dog Doctors, a youth outreach program that exposes local children to animals and to the possibility of a career in veterinary medicine D.V.M., Tuskegee University Ph.D., University of Georgia SEPTEMBER 2009 • GEORGIA MAGAZINE 2009 • GEORGIA MAGAZINE 5656SEPTEMBER

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