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EVENT CALENDAR What’s happening at UCF?
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GOOD MEDICINE Celebrating the med school opening
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FIND YOUR WAY To Game Day parking
UCF TODAY f o r F a m i l y a n d f r i e n d s o f t h e U n i v e r s i t y o f C e n t r al F l o r i d a
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Frances Millican, Terry Hickey, Martha Hitt and John Hitt all enjoy UCF’s first White Coat Ceremony (Front row, left to right)
Gilbert to Coach at World Championships UCF head track and field coach Caryl Smith Gilbert will be the jumps coach of Team USA at the 2009 IAAF World Outdoor Championships in Berlin, Germany. “The opportunity to work w i t h s o m e o f t h e n a t i o n ’s best athletes who will be representing our country in Berlin is something that I cherish,” said Smith Gilbert.
The U.S. Association of Former Members of Congress awarded Lou Frey, former member of Congress and founder of UCF’s Lou Frey Institute of Politics a nd G over n ment , t he 20 09 Distinguished Service Award. The award annually recognizes a former member of Congress who has shown an exemplary dedication to public ser vice before, during or after their time on Capitol Hill. Past recipients include Gerald Ford, Thomas “Tip” O’Neill, Dick Cheney, Al Gore, Bob Dole and George Mitchell.
UCF scient ists rev ived a dormant gene found in humans a nd c o a xe d it to pro duc e retrocyclin, a protein that resists HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Lead scientist Alexander Cole used drugs commonly used to fight bacterial infections to trigger the production of the sleeping protein. “It could make a huge difference in the fight against HIV,” Cole said. “Much more work would be needed to demonstrate the safety and effectiveness of this approach. We would certainly have to have human trials, but these findings represent a promising step in that direction.”
To the Moon and Back It’s not your average remote-control robot. This one just might go to the moon—and win millions—in an international Google Lunar X PRIZE competition. UCF’s College of Engineering and Computer Science (CECS) is collaborating with a team called Omega Envoy, a conglomeration of fellow CECS scholars, UCF alumni and industry partners, to build a rover capable of traveling 500 meters on the moon. The rover will be controlled remotely from an on-campus computer and will send back video data.
Lapchick’s Civil Rights K.O. Standing beside the Rev. Jesse Jackson and NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, UCF’s Richard Lapchick was recently recognized for a lifetime of achievements in civ il rights activ ism and leadership. And Lapchick received the award from none other than former basketball star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Abdul-Jabbar and Lapchick have been l i felong f r iend s, especially after a particularly memorable event: when the two were teenagers, Abdul-Jabbar and Lapchick met during summer
camp. That summer, someone called Abdul-Jabbar a racial slur and Lapchick defended him. The “bully” knocked Lapchick unconscious, and the two have been friends ever since. “I realized some time ago that the first time I actually took on my definition of a leader—someone who stands up for justice and doesn’t block its path—took place as a boy with Kareem,” Lapchick said. To learn more about Lapchick, go to web.bus.ucf.edu/sportbusiness/.
Share and Share Alike UCF’s Leslie DeChurch, an organizational psychologist, co-aut hored a study t hat sends a clear message to teams of employe e s w it h d iver s e professional and personal backgrounds: share information. “The conventional wisdom is that diverse teams have an advantage over homogenous ones, but these findings show diverse teams are even less likely to talk about the differences that are at the root of their advantage,” DeChurch said. “Diversity can
only be an asset when unique perspectives are openly shared with the team.”
UCF Alumna Wins Miss Florida Title
UCF graduate Rachael Todd won the Miss Florida pageant and will compete in the Miss America pageant in January. Todd is UCF’s second Miss Florida winner, and could be UCF’s second Miss America. UCF graduate Ericka Dunlap won the 2004 Miss America crown.
UCF TV and Athletics are “UKnighted” A new television series for 13- to 16-year-olds, called “UKnighted,” offers a glimpse inside life in college athletics. The show’s guests include UCF student-athletes, coaches, faculty members and professional athletes. Visit www. ucf.tv for more information.
Baseball GPA a Hit The Knights ranked first of all C-USA baseball teams with an annual GPA of 3.174 to receive the league’s Sports Academic Award. “I’m extremely proud of the academic efforts of our team this past year,” said head coach Terry Rooney. “We continually talk about succeeding at the highest level both academically and athletically.”
UCF No. 1 in Applications
Gravy-Boat Economics UCF Professor Sean Snaith says the anticipated recovery looks like the slanted handle, bowl bottom and prolonged spout of a traditional sauce-serving dish—the gravy boat. “It has that shape,” says Snaith, director of UCF’s Institute for Economic Compet it iveness, p ok i n g f u n at t he t y pic a l descriptions of recession shapes.
“Forget the V-shape or other letters that economists talk about,” he adds. “This will be a ‘gravy boat recession’ with a steady and gradual recovery. After touching bottom in the third quarter of 2009, we’ll see GDP slowly climb like a gravy boat’s spout.” For more information, visit www.bus.ucf.edu/hitec.
Here is a listing of Florida public university undergraduate student applications received*: New Freshmen 1. UCF 2. UF 3. USF 4. FSU 5. FIU
New Transfers 1. UCF 2. USF 3. FIU 4. UF 5. FSU
* B a s e d o n Co m m o n D at a S e t 2008-2009 (except FIU - one year delayed) based on Preliminary Fall 2008 data.
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