University of Georgia Cooperative Extension agents are proposing tips to help Georgians keep the pounds off during the holiday season. As part of a new program this year, agents are starting the Zero Weight Gain Challenge, which will include weekly emails about ways to reduce the holiday bulge.

"The average person gains about one pound during the holiday season, but if you don't lose that pound, it can add up over the years," said Connie Crawley, a Cooperative Extension food, nutrition and health specialist coordinating the statewide program. "The point is to help people to stay aware of what they're eating."

Georgia residents can contact their local Extension office to join the email list, which will begin during the week of Thanksgiving and extend through the beginning of January.

Topics include curbing cravings, staying active, moderating consumption, estimating portions, drinking more water and sending leftovers home with others.

"While writing the topics, I solicited tips from the agents, and there were some creative responses," said Crawley, who is housed in the UGA College of Family and Consumer Sciences. "One measured her driveway and found that walking the length 10 times is a mile. Even if she can't get away from the house, she can walk up and down the driveway with family. Another agent makes a point to drink two bottles of water before work, two during the workday and two at home at the end of the day."

The challenge will lead into Cooperative Extension's annual Walk Georgia program, which invites residents to track their physical activity and travel virtually across the state. Starting Feb. 10, Georgians will be able to log minutes of physical activity for the 12-week challenge.

"We send newsletters as reminders to log activity, which include great recipes and information about Georgia's parks," Crawley said. "There's a local element to it and even competition. Several UGA deans are already talking about it."

Crawley discovered the idea for the Zero Weight Gain Challenge during a national conference where Ohio's Extension agents presented on their holiday challenge. She hopes to evaluate the program and expand topics for next year.

For more information or to find a county, see http://extension.uga.edu/about/county/index.cfm.

UGA Obesity Initiative
The University of Georgia Obesity Initiative addresses the growing epidemic of adult and childhood obesity and its related diseases. UGA combines instruction and research activities with its public service and outreach components to develop obesity prevention and treatment programs that interested Georgia communities, employers and health care providers can implement to improve the health of Georgia's citizens and decrease the cost of health care in the state. See obesity.ovpr.uga.edu for more information.

The University of Georgia Alumni Association announces the 2013 class of the Bulldog 100. The program annually recognizes the fastest growing businesses that are owned or operated by UGA graduates. More than 700 nominations were submitted.

The list includes businesses of all sizes and services from major agribusiness, telecommunication, and wealth management firms to interior design, photography, and fitness companies. Several areas of the country are represented, including companies from as far north as New Jersey and as far west as Utah. Atlanta CPA firm Gifford Hillegass & Ingwersen, LLP verified the information submitted by each company and ranked the businesses based on a compounded annual growth rate during a three-year period.

UGA alumni and friends are invited to celebrate the 2013 Bulldog 100 honorees at a banquet at the Atlanta Marriott Marquis on Jan. 26. The evening will begin with a reception, followed by dinner and the awards ceremony. The event will feature a keynote address by A.D. "Pete" Correll. A 1963 UGA graduate, Correll currently serves as chairman of Atlanta Equity and is chairman emeritus of the Georgia-Pacific Corporation. Following his remarks, members of the Student Alumni Council will lead attendees to the highlight of the evening-the release of the final rankings and countdown of the 2013 Bulldog 100.

Alumni Association Executive Director Deborah Dietzler said the Bulldog 100 celebrates the entrepreneurial spirit of UGA graduates. "The annual celebration is our most well-attended event of the year, as the unveiling of the rankings makes for an exciting evening," Dietzler said.

To review an alphabetical list of the honorees and for more information about the Bulldog 100 program including sponsorship opportunities, see www.alumni.uga.edu/b100.

The Bulldog Nation is growing younger!  Alumni under 40 years of age now represent over half of the total UGA alumni population.  A new publication to reach this audience identifies recent UGA alumni engaged in interesting careers and endeavors.  Profiles, a quarterly email magazine for recent UGA graduates, will feature young alumni, introduce opportunities for donor support, report on recent news and offer a calendar of Alumni Association events and programs.  In addition, each issue will showcase photo submissions from UGA recent graduates showing UGA’s spirit and tradition around the world.

Regardless of age, all UGA alumni and friends are welcome to learn more about recent graduates and opportunities by reading the online magazine here.

Profilespublished its first edition to more than 79,000 alumni.  The publication will be a regular communication to highlight alumni giving opportunities and increase awareness for UGA’s growing alumni constituency.

The fall edition features small business owners T.J. Callaway (BBA ’07) and Rachel Esposito (BBA ’01).  Callaway, the founder and CEO of Onward Reserve and Five Mile Club, was recently recognized as a member of the Class of 2012 UGA Alumni Association’s 40 Under 40, which celebrates young alumni making an impact in business, leadership or philanthropy. Esposito, the owner of Bel Fiore Bridal in Marietta, has been honored at the 2011 and 2012 Bulldog 100, which recognizes the 100 fastest growing businesses owned by UGA alumni.  The UGA Alumni Association announced the 2013 Bulldog 100 class at the end of November, and Bel Fiore Bridal will once again be honored at the upcoming Bulldog 100 event on January, 26, 2013 in Atlanta. 

The purpose of Profiles is to generate support for UGA and its programs while also featuring alumni information.  The e-magazine will introduce donor stories inspiring support of UGA programs and activities and offer opportunities to submit stories and ideas for future issues.  The next edition of Profiles will be distributed January 2013.

For more information on submitting photographs, use this link http://www.externalaffairs.uga.edu/ea2/index.php/recent_graduates_send_us_your_photos%20%20.

Some 6,600 high school seniors will have additional cause for celebration this holiday season as they learned November 16 that they have been offered early admission to the University of Georgia for fall semester 2013.

For the second year, the UGA Office of Admissions announced early action admission decisions nearly two weeks sooner than usual. In addition to the celebratory fireworks that traditionally appear on screen for those students being offered admission, UGA President Michael F. Adams offers a video message of congratulations.

"Technology is definitely changing and speeding up the way we notify students of admissions decisions-both good news and bad," said Nancy McDuff, associate vice president for admissions and enrollment management. "This is the second year we will not be mailing letters to students who have been denied admission, since getting that letter after learning the news via the status check is a double blow."

The admissions office received more than 11,300 early-action applications for the freshman class that will enter in 2013-a record number and slightly more than last year. Those applying for early action submit applications by an Oct. 15 deadline and learn that they are admitted, denied or deferred to the regular-decision pool. Those who are deferred are asked to submit additional information by the regular-decision deadline of Jan. 15.

"We always try to stress to early-action applicants that if their admission decision was deferred, they still have a chance to be part of the incoming freshman class," McDuff said. "In the past few years, we have admitted about half of the students who were initially deferred and then completed Part II of the application by Jan. 15. Being deferred at this point does not mean that an application is denied. It means we are still considering their application."

This year, 58 percent of early-action applicants are being offered admission, about 7 percent of applications are being denied and, as last year, about a third of the total is being deferred.

Other applications received are incomplete and will be added to the regular-decision pool.

Early-action decisions are based solely on academic criteria. McDuff noted that in recent years more students are waiting to apply until the regular-decision deadline in order to have additional factors considered, such as high school activities and volunteer work. "For some students, that's a good decision, and we encourage it," she said.

This year's early-action applicant pool is again academically strong and diverse, with high test scores and grades and a rigorous curriculum. A quarter of the students applying for early action identified themselves as being from an ethnic or racial minority group. More than 800 early-action applications, representing nearly 7 percent of the total pool, were received from African Americans. The number of early-action applications from Hispanic students totaled nearly 600.

Similar to last year, those offered admission at this point are academically superior with an average GPA of almost 4.0, a mean SAT of 1355 (with a mean SAT writing score of more than 650), or a mean ACT of 30. UGA requires students to submit writing scores for their ACT and SAT tests; those scores are an integral part of the selection process, McDuff said. Those students admitted through early action also took an average of seven advanced placement or international baccalaureate classes.

"The odds of being offered admission are always driven by how strong a student looks relative to the rest of the applicant pool," McDuff said. "The first offers of admission are extended to students with the strongest academic records, but the most important factors in the regular-decision process are also academic, in particular grade point average and the rigor of the courses that the students have taken relative to what is available in their school.

"However, regular-decision applications and applications from students deferred from the early-action program are given a holistic review that includes other factors that tell us about students' talents and activities outside the classroom."

McDuff predicts that by Jan. 15 the admissions office will have received close to 20,000 total applications for the incoming class, with a target enrollment of 4,900 new first-year students entering in summer or fall and another 200 in spring 2014. Typically, about half the students offered admission go on to enroll at UGA, a comparable yield to other selective universities.

For applicants and others wanting additional information about UGA's admissions process, an active blog on the admissions office website is hosted by David Graves, senior associate director of admissions, and Lindsey Whitaker, assistant director of admissions, who answer questions and provide advice. For more on the blog, see http://ugaadmissions.blogspot.com. For more on admissions at UGA, see www.admissions.uga.edu.

The University of Georgia, an internationally recognized leader in tropical and emerging global diseases and bioinformatics, will partner with other Georgia institutions to establish a comprehensive center that will study the systems biology of nonhuman primate and human malaria.

The Georgia consortium, led by Mary Galinski of Emory University, has been awarded a five-year contract worth up to $19.4 million to establish the Malaria Host-Pathogen Interaction Center (MaHPIC). The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, awarded the funding. The exact amount of the award will depend on contract options exercised.

Consortium partners include UGA, Georgia Institute of Technology and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Foundation. The Yerkes National Primate Research Center of Emory University will administer the contract.

UGA will receive a subcontract of more than $2 million to lead the project's informatics efforts, which includes the collection, integration, visualization and dissemination of the massive amounts of "-omic" data that will be generated by MaHPIC researchers.

"The combined expertise of the consortium partners makes MaHPIC uniquely equipped to address issues related to pathogens that cause malaria, a disease that involves complex interactions between hosts and parasites," said UGA professor of genetics Jessica Kissinger, MaHPIC co-principal investigator and leader of the project's informatics team. Kissinger also is director of UGA's Institute of Bioinformatics, and a member of UGA's Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases.

For the study of malaria, "systems biology" means first collecting comprehensive data on how a Plasmodium parasite infection produces changes in host and parasite genes, proteins, lipids, the immune response and metabolism. Computational researchers will then design mathematical models to simulate and analyze what happens during an infection and to find patterns that predict the course of the disease and its severity. Together, the insights will help guide the development of new interventions. Co-infections and morbidities will also come into play, as well as different cultural and environmental backgrounds of the communities involved.

Emory investigators' interdisciplinary experience in malaria research, metabolomics, lipidomics and human and non-human primate immunology and pathogenesis will be combined with UGA's expertise in informatics, and Georgia Tech researchers' expertise in mathematical modeling, systems biology and functional genomics. CDC researchers will provide support in proteomics and malaria research, including non-human primate and vector/mosquito infections.
 

The MaHPIC project builds on Kissinger's informatics work with EuPathDB, an NIH-funded online database portal to multiple eukaryotic pathogens, including Plasmodium. Also at UGA, Juan Gutierrez, assistant professor of mathematics, will lead mathematical modeling and data management for the UGA informatics team. He is integrally involved with an NIH-funded International Center of Excellence for Malaria Research in Colombia, South America.

"MaHPIC will generate experimental, clinical and molecular data associated with malaria infections in nonhuman primates on an unprecedented scale," said Kissinger.

"In addition to mining the massive quantities of integrated data for trends and patterns that may help us understand host and pathogen interaction biology, we may identify potential targets for early and species-specific diagnosis of malaria, which is critical for proper treatment," she said.

The MaHPIC team will develop an informative public website and specialized web portal to share the project's data and newly developed data analysis tools with the scientific community worldwide.

Malaria is endemic in about 100 countries including many developing countries in Africa, Asia, and the tropics. Hundreds of millions of people are infected by the mosquito-borne disease each year, and more than one million - mostly children - die. In addition to its human toll, malaria imposes a severe economic burden.

MaHPIC is supported by NIAID contract # HHSN272201200031C.

UGA Institute of Bioinformatics
The University of Georgia Institute of Bioinformatics facilitates interactions and research collaborations between experimental biologists, "-omics" technologists and computational scientists to solve complex biological problems. The IOB is training the next generation of biologists who are capable of using computers and mathematical techniques in dealing with biological problems. Team members are actively conducting bioinformatics research on genomics, plant genomics, microbial genomics, biomedicine and cancer, pharmaceuticals, glycobiology and statistical sciences. The institute also is responsible for the computing support for campus-wide bioinformatics research at UGA. See www.bioinformatics.uga.edu.

UGA Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases
The University of Georgia Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases draws on a strong foundation of parasitology, immunology, cellular and molecular biology, biochemistry and genetics to develop medical and public health interventions for at-risk populations. The center promotes international biomedical research and educational programs at UGA and throughout Georgia to address the parasitic and other tropical diseases that continue to threaten the health of people throughout the world. See ctegd.uga.edu.

University of Georgia Honors student Juliet Elizabeth Allan of Atlanta has been awarded a 2013 Rhodes Scholarship to attend England's Oxford University, where she plans to pursue a master's degree in Modern Middle Eastern Studies. She is one of 32 Rhodes recipients in the United States.

Allan, who is a UGA Foundation Fellow, plans to graduate from UGA in December with bachelor's degrees in Arabic, economics, and international affairs as well as a master's degree in international policy.

Allan is UGA's fourth Rhodes Scholar in the past six years. Before Allan, UGA's most recent recipient was Tracy Yang in 2011.

"Elizabeth Allan is a very talented young woman, and we are excited that she is our 23rd Rhodes Scholar," said UGA President Michael F. Adams. "She is emblematic of the quality of the UGA student body today. All of us are excited about this latest development in her life."

Allan has traveled to six different continents through various UGA study abroad programs. She studied Arabic in Morocco through the State Department's Critical Language Scholarship and, separately, as part of a UGA Maymester program. Ultimately, she would like to serve in the State Department's Office of Policy Planning.

"I am beyond excited to have the opportunity to study at Oxford next year, and I look forward to deepening my understanding of the Middle East through my studies," Allan said. "The entire process has been extremely humbling and fulfilling. I want to thank my family, friends, the University of Georgia, the Foundation Fellowship at UGA and my high school community of The Westminster Schools in Atlanta."

Allan is a member of UGA's chapter of the Roosevelt Institute, a national student-run think tank, where she has written papers about energy policy and education and has also taught policy analysis to undergraduates. Allan has participated in the university's Center for Undergraduate Research Symposium and presented results of her research on employment dynamics at two national conferences. She has also interned at the university's Carl Vinson Institute of Government, through which she traveled to China during an annual training program the institute conducts in Beijing.

"Receiving a Rhodes Scholarship is a significant recognition for Elizabeth, but also for the faculty members who have mentored her as well as the friends and family who have encouraged and supported her," said Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost Jere Morehead.

Allan has served as the co-director of the Thomas Lay After School Tutoring Program, where more than 100 UGA students provide educational help to elementary and middle school students in Athens each semester. She also has researched issues involving early childhood education. She is a Presidential Scholar and member of the Phi Kappa Phi, Palladia, and Blue Key honor societies.

"Elizabeth is deeply committed to whatever she does," said David S. Williams, associate provost and director of UGA's Honors Program and the Foundation Fellowship, and the UGA faculty representative for the Rhodes Scholarship. "She not only has an uncommon intellect, but also has a great heart and boundless energy. She is destined to make a very positive impact on the world."

Rhodes Scholars are chosen in a two-stage process. Candidates must first be endorsed by their college or university; then selection committees in each of 16 districts invite the strongest applicants for an interview. This year, 838 students were endorsed by 302 colleges and universities.

For more information about the Rhodes Scholarship program, see www.rhodesscholar.org.

For more information about UGA's Honors and Foundation Fellows Programs, see www.uga.edu/honors.

The University of Georgia will spotlight the arts during a nine-day festival in November when members of the UGA Arts Council will host events and activities that include concerts, theater and dance performances, art exhibitions, poetry readings, author panels and book signings, lectures and discussions on the arts and creativity, and more.

UGA has played a foundational role in building the reputation of Athens as one of America's top destinations for the arts, providing the physical and intellectual infrastructure for study and performance that brings together students, faculty and the community.

"The arts are an integral part of the fabric of UGA, a powerful thread that helps us define ourselves and our community," said Jere Morehead, UGA senior vice president for academic affairs and provost. "As the place where so many artists, writers, actors and musicians first find their voice, UGA offers a richness of opportunity for members of the university community and audiences from throughout the area to participate in the arts."

Highlights of the Nov. 3-11 schedule include the opening of a Jack Davis exhibition at the Georgia Museum of Art, concerts by the Atlanta Symphony and the UGA Symphony at the Performing Arts Center, a University Theatre production of Rita Dove's play "The Darker Face of the Earth" at the Fine Arts Theatre, a dance program featuring pieces choreographed by UGA dance majors at the New Dance Theatre and an exhibition by students earning a bachelor of fine arts degree in the Lamar Dodd School of Art.

The Performing Arts Center also will present two special performances: Blue Man Group on Nov. 6-7 and Bela Fleck and the Marcus Roberts Trio on Nov. 9. The Blue Man Group show will be jointly presented with The Classic Center and will be held at The Classic Center Theatre in downtown Athens.

"One of the goals of the UGA Arts Council is to raise awareness of and participation in the rich variety of programming offered by university units in the performing, visual and literary arts," said Libby Morris, UGA vice provost for academic affairs, who has been working with council members since last fall. "We are very excited to present ‘Spotlight on the Arts at UGA,' with events taking place at arts venues across campus, as well as in the local community."

Event details include:

Saturday, Nov. 3 - Exhibition of Jack Davis work at the Georgia Museum of Art (through Jan. 5)

Sunday, Nov. 4 - Atlanta Symphony Orchestra with guest conductor Asher Fisch and pianist Stewart Goodyear, 3 p.m., Hodgson Hall, Performing Arts Center

Monday, Nov. 5 - Student juried exhibition, Gallery 307 and Orbit Galleries, Lamar Dodd School of Art; Georgia Review/Georgia Poetry Circuit Reading: Jacqueline Osherow, 7 p.m., Ciné in downtown Athens

Tuesday, Nov. 6 - Panel with UGA Press authors and faculty, followed by book-signing and reception, 4 p.m., Odum School of Ecology; UGA Symphony Orchestra, 8 p.m., Hodgson Hall, Performing Arts Center; Blue Man Group, 8 p.m., Classic Center Theatre (also on Nov. 7)

Wednesday, Nov. 7 - Willson Center roundtable on "Creativity in the Research University," 12:30 p.m., 150 Miller Learning Center; University Theatre production of "The Darker Face of the Earth," 8 p.m., Fine Arts Theatre (through Nov. 10, with a 2:30 matinee on Nov. 11)

Thursday, Nov. 8 – Charter Lecture by UGA graduate Natasha Tretewey, U.S. Poet Laureate, 2 p.m. UGA Chapel; Young Choreographers Series Senior Concert, 8 p.m., New Dance Theatre, Dance Building (through Nov. 10); 2nd Thursday Concert: Georgia Woodwind Quintet and Friends, 8 p.m., Hodgson Hall, Performing Arts Center

Friday, Nov. 9 - Bela Fleck and the Marcus Roberts Trio, 8 p.m., Hodgson Hall, Performing Arts Center, with the Georgia Museum of Art open for pre-concert tours; reception for BFA Exhibition, 7-9 p.m., Lamar Dodd School of Art

Tickets for Performing Arts Center events and the University Theatre production may be purchased at the Performing Arts Center's new website, or by calling the box office at 706/542-4400 or toll free at 888/289-8497. Tickets for the dance concert will be on sale at the Tate Student Center box office in the fall.

The UGA Arts Council was convened in October 2011 and includes representatives from the following campus units: The Performing Arts Center, the Hugh Hodgson School of Music, the Lamar Dodd School of Art, the Department of Dance, the Department of Theatre and Film Studies, the Georgia Museum of Art, The Georgia Review, the UGA Press, the Willson Center for the Humanities and Arts, the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, the Special Collections Libraries and the Office of the Provost.

UGA environmental chemist and associate professor Jack Huang holds a jar of water for a research project on the UGA campus in Griffin.

Perfluorinated chemicals keep eggs from sticking to frying pans, protect furniture from spills and help firefighters fight blazes, but studies now show that some of these chemicals—particularly the ones used to fight fires—are also toxic to laboratory animals in varying amounts.

To help clean up these chemicals, the Department of Defense's U.S. Air Force Center for Engineering and the Environment awarded University of Georgia associate professor Qingguo "Jack" Huang a $689,431 grant to test the effectiveness of an enzyme-based approach for removing perfluorinated chemicals, commonly known as PFCs, from contaminated soil.

"PFCs are emerging as contaminates, and big users of these chemicals are concerned about cleaning them up," said Huang, an environmental chemist with the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. "These chemicals are robust and hard to degrade, and none of the current technologies are practical for remediation."

The U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Air Force are searching for a way to remove the chemicals and have recognized that Huang's work on the UGA campus in Griffin could be the answer.

The U.S. is one among several countries looking for a way to clean up these chemicals "that chemists designed a long time ago," Huang said. Governments in Australia, Canada and the European Union have placed restrictions on how these chemicals are used. California, Minnesota and New Jersey already have regulations in place, and efforts are being made to clean up areas-mostly firefighting training centers and industrial sites-where the chemicals have soaked into the ground.

"These products are used at military bases, airports and oil-drilling facilities, where fire-fighting practices are routinely performed," Huang said. "These are big scale uses that release the chemicals into the soil where they go into the ground water."

Companies are already phasing out the manufacturing of some PFCs, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency plans to regulate certain types of PFCs soon, he said. Locations where the PFCs have been regularly released likely will be responsible for removing the chemical's residues from their land.

Huang has been studying the use of enzymes to degrade these chemicals, and his early findings earned him the Department of Defense grant funds that he will use for the three-year study.

Huang's goal is to take the concepts he has proven in the laboratory and test them in the field. He will first design and find the optimal formula of the enzyme, and then he will conduct tests at actual cleanup sites. AECOM, the largest engineering consulting company in the world, will serve as a subcontracting partner on the project and will handle the field aspect of the project.

"Basically, our project is a start," Huang said. "These chemicals have made a significant profit in the past. Now, reports show they are harmful. The DOD is quite serious about this. Once these chemicals are regulated, PFCs will be a big responsibility because the contaminated sites will have to be maintained and cleaned up."

2012 Bulldog 100 honoree Will Harris of White Oak Pastures in Bluffton, Ga., helped start a beef cattle food hub that works with a group of south Georgia cattle farmers to supply grass-fed beef to Publix and Whole Foods stores in Georgia.

A recent University of Georgia survey of state food hubs found that Georgia is busy—through small groups of farmers—providing the large amounts of local produce needed to grow local markets.

Small-scale farmers can sell directly to consumers, but a growing number find they have too much produce for a farmers market or a community supported agriculture system but not enough to meet the needs of restaurants, schools or grocery stores. That's the purpose of a food hub—to pull these small and medium size farms together so they can pool their products to fill large orders.

The survey, which was completed this summer, is the first step in a Georgia Sustainable Agriculture Consortium plan, led by UGA Cooperative Extension, to support the development of new food hubs. It found that farmers and entrepreneurs across the state—whether they called themselves food hubs or not—are already coming up with partnerships to help meet the consumer's demand for local produce.

"Agriculture is Georgia's No. 1 industry," said Julia Gaskin, a sustainable agriculture coordinator for the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences who directed the recent survey. "There is a demand for local food and limited infrastructure for small and mid-size farms to access wholesale markets. Food hubs have the potential to make this link, increase the viability of these farms and create jobs."

For the purpose of the consortium's food hub survey, Gaskin and other researchers defined food hubs as organizations that brought together five or more farmers and had a wholesale component.

They found eight of these organizations in Georgia: Seven are private businesses and one is a farmers' cooperative.

The hubs ranged from a small group of farmers in Glennville, who started growing greens and field peas to supply the needs of local schools, to White Oak Pastures in Bluffton, a beef cattle processing operation that works with a group of local cattle farmers to supply grass-fed beef to Publix and Whole Foods stores in Georgia.

Researchers also found about 24 groups are at some stage of developing some type of food hub organization for their area.

The consortium's next step is to analyze a survey of farmers' needs to determine what would help them to develop strong food hub systems similar to the ones that already exist. A report on that data will be available in November.

For more information on the food hub survey, see www.caes.uga.edu/topics/sustainag/gsac/FoodHubStudy.html. For more information on the Georgia Consortium for Sustainable Agriculture, see www.caes.uga.edu/topics/sustainag/gsac/index.html.

The University of Georgia raised more than $102 million in gifts and new commitments for the fiscal year that ended on June 30, marking the seventh consecutive year that private giving to the university has topped $100 million.

The $102.7 million total includes gifts and commitments from 56,184 contributors. The Georgia Fund annual giving campaign raised a record $12.3 million, an 11.5 percent increase from fiscal year 2011. Unrestricted giving was at $1.17 million from 12,307 gifts. This is a 1.3 percent increase over last year. The average annual fund gift increased from $254 to $296.

Deferred gifts to the university increased by 58 percent with a total of $22.4 million compared to last year's total of $14.2 million.

The UGA Athletic Association raised $29.3 million in fiscal year 2012, of which $27.8 million came from its ticket priority program.

The Terry College of Business and the College of Veterinary Medicine combined for almost $30 million as both colleges continued fundraising efforts for new facilities.

40 Under 40 Class of 2012

The University of Georgia Alumni Association has named Thomas J. Callaway, Jennifer L. Chapman and Peter Dale, all of Athens, as recipients of the 2012 40 Under 40 award. Their awards were presented recently at a ceremony held at the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta.

Thomas J. Callaway ('07) is co-founder and CEO of Fivemile.com, a retailer dedicated to the outdoor sportsman. He is a past recipient of the Outstanding Citizen's Award presented by the Georgia Secretary of State.

Jennifer L. Chapman ('97, '98 and '02) is a faculty member at Georgia Gwinnett College. She serves as assistant professor of legal studies and accounting, adjunct professor of tax law and assistant dean for operations in the business school.

Peter Dale ('99) is the executive chef of The National, a restaurant in downtown Athens. He is a board member of the Boybutante Aids Foundation and received the "People's Choice-Best New Chef for the Southeast" award by Food and Wine Magazine this year.

Chosen from more than 400 nominations, the program recognizes 40 UGA graduates under the age of 40 who are making an impact in business, leadership, community, educational and/or philanthropic endeavors; demonstrating a commitment to maintaining a lifelong relationship with UGA; and aspiring to uphold the principles manifested in the three Pillars of the Arch, which are wisdom, justice and moderation. To view this year's class, see http://www.alumni.uga.edu/alumni/index.php/site/40_under_profiles/2012.

The UGA Alumni Association accepted nominations for the 40 Under 40 from February-April. The nominees then submitted additional material that was provided to a selection committee for review.

Deborah Dietzler, alumni association executive director, said it is important to engage and maintain a lifelong relationship with the university's ever-growing young alumni population. "Of the 270,000 living UGA alums, over 100,000 qualified for this program," said Dietzler.

More than 51 percent of UGA's alumni earned degrees within the last 20 years.

For more information about the 40 Under 40 program, see http://www.alumni.uga.edu/alumni/index.php/site/40under40/40_under_40_about.

WUGA-TV, the public television station of the University of Georgia, has increased its coverage in northeast Georgia and throughout the greater Atlanta television market.

Station officials recently concluded agreements with DirectTV, Dish Network, AT&T U-Verse and Comcast cable for either new or expanded carriage that makes the station available to 100 percent of the households in the Athens, Gainesville and Toccoa corridor via satellite, cable or over-the-air transmission. In addition, the station is now available to satellite subscribers throughout the Atlanta market.

"It was key to WUGA-TV's success that we find a way to get better market coverage," said Tom Jackson, UGA vice president for public affairs. "With the addition of these satellite services to the already existing over-the-air and cable services, viewers from the Alabama state line to North Carolina now receive the station and can discover its quality public broadcasting programming."

WUGA-TV now can be seen on both satellite services and AT&T U-Verse on Channel 32, its over-the-air channel in the Athens, Gainesville and surrounding counties, and on Comcast cable channel 96 in Barrow County and in portions of Jackson, Hall and north Gwinnett counties. Previously, the station has been carried on Charter cable in Athens and Gainesville, Comcast and Windstream cable in Hart and Elbert counties, and other cable systems in the area.

"This new carriage agreement effectively doubles WUGA-TV's audience potential in its Northeast Georgia home market and greatly expands its reach into Atlanta, the nation's ninth largest television market," said Jimmy Sanders, director of TV and radio at UGA. "WUGA-TV's geographic coverage is now greater than any other television station, commercial or public, in the state of Georgia."

WUGA-TV began broadcasts on May 1, 2011, as a public station in partnership with Georgia Public Broadcasting. The station's format offers a mixture of programs, including such classic PBS shows as PBS NewsHour, Nature and History Detectives, through an affiliation with the World Network, and UGA and community-focused local news, documentary and entertainment offerings. Local programs produced and broadcast on WUGA-TV include music shows, such as UGA Performs and It's Friday; news profile and interview programs, including Unscripted with Alan Flurry and Dream Makers with Charlie Mac; the UGA Alumni Show; Public Health Impact produced by the UGA School of Public Health; the UGA College of Veterinary Medicine show; and Grady Newsource, the student-operated news program. Future programs are in pre-production. WUGA-TV also produces the area's only local television news and weather updates, which air hourly throughout the day.

Funding for WUGA-TV and its affiliated radio station WUGA-FM is provided in part through contributions from alumni and friends, sponsorships, underwriting and listeners. For more information on WUGA-TV, see http://www.wugatv.org/.

According to the Selig Center for Economic Growth in the University of Georgia Terry College of Business, the buying power of minorities in the U.S. has grown into a diverse and formidable consumer market in the last decade. The rise of minority buying power in the marketplace has generated a demand to learn why these gains are taking place as well as how to tailor products, advertising and media to each market segment.

"The numbers are impressive," said Jeff Humphreys, director of the Selig Center and author of the annual Multicultural Economy report, just released. "For example, in 2012, the $1.2 trillion Hispanic market is larger than the entire economies of all but 13 countries in the world."

The Selig Center's annual report includes state-by-state projections of buying power for the nation's three most populous racial groups-African American, Asian and American Indians-as well as Hispanics, who are categorized by the U.S. Census as an ethnic minority and not a racial minority. Its information provides businesses a first step toward a more comprehensive analysis of its markets and is among the most popular and downloaded resources offered by the Terry College. The full report is available at the Selig Center website at http://www.terry.uga.edu/selig/.

According to Humphreys, buying power, also referred to as disposable income, is the total personal income available for spending on goods and services after taxes. The state-by-state projections are broken down by market size, growth rate and market share.

Other notable insights from this year's report include:

The total annual buying power in the U.S., combining all racial categories, will exceed $12.2 trillion - an increase of 188 percent from 1990-2012.

· African-American buying power will increase 73 percent between 2000 and 2012, which not only overtakes the 60 percent increase in Caucasian buying power, but also the 67 percent rise in total buying power of all races combined. Two factors contributing to the gains include a 61 percent increase in black-owned businesses in the five-year period between 2002 and 2007 and 84 percent of blacks over 25 years of age completing high school or college-a sharp increase from 66 percent in 1990.

· Americans of Asian ancestry, representing the third largest minority group, have achieved a 165 percent gain in buying power between 2000 and 2012 and will reach $1 trillion in 2017. The U.S. Asian market is already larger than the economies of all but 17 countries in the world. The Asian population is growing faster than the total U.S. population, and the Selig Center projects the population to reach 17.2 million in 2012-a gain of 55.2 percent from 2000's base population of 11.1 million. Demographic studies reveal 52 percent of Asians over 25 have a bachelor's or advanced degree compared to 30 percent of Caucasians. Because the Asian consumer market is so diverse in national ancestries, languages and cultures, businesses that target subgroups will find rewarding niche markets.

Georgia is now the 5th largest African-American consumer market in the U.S. ($73 billion) and owns a 21.8 percent share of total buying power for the state-the fourth largest share of any state in the U.S. Compared to the Hispanic and Asian markets, which are concentrated in a handful of states, the African-American market is widespread and makes it an attractive customer segment.
 

Available for purchase from the Selig Center as a pre-packaged book and CD, "The Multicultural Economy" estimates minority buying power by applying economic modeling and forecasting techniques to data from various U.S. government sources. The model developed by the Selig Center integrates statistical methods used in economic forecasting with those of marketing research.

About the Selig Center
The Selig Center for Economic Growth was established in 1990 in memory of Atlanta entrepreneur Simon S. Selig Jr., a 1935 Terry College graduate, by his son, Steve Selig, and daughter, Cathy Selig, both of Atlanta. The Selig Center also publishes the college's annual "Georgia Economic Outlook" forecast and produces commissioned studies for the state and the private sector.

Welcome Class of 2016!  This fall, the University of Georgia will enroll approximately 5,000 first-year students.  But before they settle into a dorm and make new friends, the UGA Alumni Association’s Freshmen Send Off program will provide an opportunity to celebrate with this stellar group while also showcasing UGA and its alumni. 

The Freshman Send Off, a program coordinated by the UGA Alumni Association, allows UGA alumni to introduce the rich traditions of UGA to its newest class of students.  These special events serve as an official welcome from the Alumni Association on behalf of more than 275,000 University of Georgia graduates worldwide and offer support of hometown UGA Alumni Chapters.  Incoming freshmen and their families are invited as honored guests to experience the thrill of their first event as UGA students! 

The UGA Alumni Association introduced the Freshmen Send Off program as a way to build lifelong relationships between the university and each student.  Traditionally, this relationship began the first day a student stepped on campus.  But now with the Freshmen Send Off, the newest Bulldogs are welcomed into the Red and Black family before they leave their hometown! 

Freshmen Send Off events occur throughout the summer at more than 30 UGA Alumni Chapters across the country.  For more information, stay tuned to the local alumni chapter pages on the UGA Alumni Association website .

“I will be the first person in my family to have a college degree. Your gift matters and makes a difference!”

“This education is so valuable—it has allowed me to fulfill my dreams. Thank you so much!”

“Because of your donations, I’ve been able to travel to China, Mongolia, Russia and South Korea during my time at UGA, and I’ve also participated in an internship with the Defense Department in Washington.”

“Thanks to you guys, I’m loan free!”

These sentiments were just a few expressed by UGA students during the first “Thank a Donor Day” initiated April 12 in the Tate Student Center Plaza. The event was held to educate students on the impact that private giving makes to their educational experience, while at the same time emphasizing the importance of thanking donors for their generosity.

Hundreds of students turned out to write thank you notes, provide video messages, sign a large thank you card and create other expressions of gratitude that personally acknowledged the generosity of donors. A highlight of the event was a video produced that captured the students’ message of appreciation.  To view the video, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=992C5TPUN60.

“UGA’s first donation was 633 acres of land from John Milledge that later became the site of our great university,” said Tony Stringer, Director of Donor Relations and Stewardship.  “More than 200 years later, UGA donors continue to support our growing campus, allowing our students to thrive.  Saying ‘thanks’ validates the importance of these gifts.”

The University of Georgia Carl Vinson Institute of Government and Georgia Sea Grant are developing a climate adaptation plan for the barrier island community of Tybee Island through funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The recommendations developed by the project, titled the Sea Grant Community Climate Adaptation Initiative, will help the city of Tybee Island prepare for and adapt to sea level rise through appropriate local ordinances, infrastructural improvements and other municipal actions.

"This will be the first time in Georgia that we will have a barrier island community look at sea level rise adaptation," said Jason Evans, a lead team member on the project. Evans is an environmental sustainability analyst with the Vinson Institute's environmental policy program, where he helps state and local leaders examine and develop comprehensive environmental management policies and practices.

The plan will be developed through a series of workshops with the Tybee Island community in which stakeholders will identify vulnerable assets—such as infrastructure, housing stock and critical facilities—and formulate measures to deal with problems like flooding and more frequent high tides.

To facilitate the planning process, the team will use two models to predict future sea level rise. A program to assist decision-making known as the Vulnerability Consequences Adaptation Planning Scenarios will help prioritize the importance of the community's assets. The Coastal Adaptation to Sea level rise Tool, an advanced geographic information system package, will illustrate the impact of specific storm surges and coastal flooding scenarios.

"We are going to work with the community to come up with a list of vulnerabilities that they see and interface those with very detailed scenario models of sea level rise effects on Tybee Island," Evans said. "It should help prioritize what the community wants to do in order to mitigate and adapt to the changes."

Results from these models will be used as a foundation for prioritizing, developing timescales and initiating municipal finance planning for the development of the adaptation action plan. Outreach and extension support from Georgia Sea Grant, the Coastal Resources Division of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, the UGA Marine Extension Service and other state agencies will be provided throughout the implementation period.

"We have every indication scientifically that sea level rise is going to be affecting us in Georgia, in the nation and around the world," Evans said. "We hope this project will provide a template for other Georgia communities to follow."

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration awarded the groups $98,985 for the project.

UGA Vinson Institute
For more than 80 years the Vinson Institute, UGA's public service and outreach unit, has worked with public officials throughout Georgia and around the world to improve governance and people's lives. For more information on the Vinson Institute, see www.vinsoninstitute.org.

Georgia Sea Grant
Georgia Sea Grant is part of a national program within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that channels funds into colleges, universities and research institutes throughout Georgia to support local research, education and outreach. Georgia Sea Grant is housed at UGA, a land- and sea-grant institution. For more information on Georgia Sea Grant, see http://georgiaseagrant.uga.edu.

University of Georgia researchers have developed a map of the human brain that shows great promise as a new guide to the inner workings of the body's most complex and critical organ.

With this map, researchers hope to create a next-generation brain atlas that will be an alternative option to the atlas created by German anatomist Korbinian Brodmann more than 100 years ago, which is still commonly used in clinical and research settings.

Tianming Liu, assistant professor of computer science in the UGA Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, and his students Dajiang Zhu and Kaiming Li identified 358 landmarks throughout the brain related to memory, vision, language, arousal regulation and many other fundamental bodily operations. Their findings were published in the April issue of Cerebral Cortex.

The landmarks were discovered using diffusion tensor imaging, a sophisticated neuroimaging technique that allows scientists to visualize nerve fiber connections throughout the brain. Unlike many other neuroimaging studies, their map does not focus only on one section of the brain but rather the whole cerebral cortex.

"Previously, researchers would examine at most three or four small brain networks," Liu said. "We want to examine the whole brain connection, and this is the so-called connectome."

The new map provides a clearer picture of how different areas of the brain are physically connected and how these connections relate to basic brain function. Liu and his team examined hundreds of healthy young adults to establish the landmarks, which they call dense individualized and common connectivity-based cortical landmarks, or DICCCOL.

After extensive testing and comparison, the team determined that these nodes are present in every normal brain, meaning they can be used as a basis of comparison for those with damaged brain tissue or altered brain function.

"DICCCOL is very similar to a GPS system," Zhu said, "only it's a GPS map of the human brain."

Now, thanks in part to a five-year, $1.6 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, Liu and collaborators Xiaoping Hu and Claire Coles at Emory University are preparing to test their brain map by comparing healthy brains with those of children whose brains were damaged by exposure to cocaine while in the womb.

Prenatal cocaine exposure, or PCE, can cause serious damage to brain networks. Because of this, analysis of the damage provides Liu and his team with an excellent opportunity to evaluate the usefulness of their map.

After comparing the PCE brains to those of healthy individuals, they hope to determine the segments of the brain responsible for physical or mental disabilities observed in children exposed to cocaine.

"The PCE brain is disrupted in a systematic way; the whole brain is wrongly wired," Liu said. "We want to test our map in one of the worst cases, and then we will know if it will work in other cases."

Once the robustness of their map is established, Liu and his team hope that it may prove useful in the evaluation of many other brain disorders, such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease or stroke.

"This really is a fundamental technology," Liu said. "When we establish these DICCCOLS, we can very easily extend this project to other populations, to other brain diseases."

Liu's team published their DICCCOL data sets, which includes the source code and diffusion tensor images, at http://dicccol.cs.uga.edu so other researchers may use the findings in their own experiments.

The article, "DICCCOL: Dense Individualized and Common Connectivity-Based Cortical Landmarks," is available at http://cercor.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2012/04/05/cercor.bhs072.short?rss=1.

University of Georgia President Michael F. Adams informed the campus that he will step down as president at the conclusion of the next fiscal year. At the end of his 16 years in office on June 30, 2013, Adams will stand fifth in length of service among the university's 21 presidents, tied with founding president Abraham Baldwin.

"There comes a time when it is appropriate to step aside to let others continue the work, and that time has come for me," said Adams. "My love will always be deep for the University of Georgia, where I have spent the most productive years of my career. I will be invigorated in the coming year in working to assure that UGA remains well positioned for the future, both short term and long term."

Since Adams took office in 1997, the University of Georgia has risen dramatically in many key indicators: academic achievement, faculty strength, student quality, enrollment, fundraising and the physical plant. The university has been recognized as one of the nation's top 20 public research universities for eight out of the past 10 years by U.S. News & World Report.

"I am proud of where the university is. It is in excellent shape," Adams said. "But now is not the time to waver in our dedication to moving her forward. We still need faculty and staff salary support and additional facilities for students, in particular the Science Learning Center planned for South Campus. And a key challenge is the coming capital campaign. I will spend the next year preparing for a capital campaign that my successor can build upon to propel this historic and dynamic institution into the future."

Adams said he intends to stay engaged with the university and the Athens community after his presidency, with an eye toward teaching and writing. "Mary and I love this place, we love this community and are really looking forward to a new level of engagement with both the campus and the town," he said.

"I have enjoyed broad support from the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia for 15 years," Adams said. "I want to especially thank Chancellor Steve Portch, who offered me this job on behalf of the regents, who were chaired at the time by the late Tom Allgood, and the search committee, which was chaired by Regent Don Leebern. I am also grateful to my friend, Dan Amos, who represented the University of Georgia Foundation on the search committee, and to Dr. Betty Whitten, who was the chair of the executive committee of University Council and represented the faculty in the search."

Adams was named the 21st president of the University of Georgia on June 11, 1997, following nine years as president of Centre College in Kentucky, and next year will complete his 25th year as a college or university president. He is among America's longest-serving and best-known university presidents. A widely-respected figure in higher education, he is the only person ever to be elected by his peers to head each of four leading national organizations: the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, the American Council on Education and the National College Athletic Association's Executive Committee.

He earned a Ph.D. in political communications from The Ohio State University in 1973 and has been awarded five honorary degrees. He earned a master's degree in communication research methodology from Ohio State in 1971 and a bachelor's degree in speech and history from Lipscomb College (now Lipscomb University), which named him Alumnus of the Year in 2011.

Adams is a specialist in political communication and higher education administration and has written professionally in both areas. He has held senior positions in state and national government-as chief of staff to former U.S. Sen. Howard Baker, whom Adams considers one of his greatest mentors. He also served two years in the administration of Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander.

Either personally or professionally on behalf of the university, he has received numerous awards in higher education, including the Knight Foundation Award for Presidential Leadership, the Pioneer Award for Leadership in Civil Rights and the James T. Rogers Award, the highest honor bestowed by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. He is the recipient of the Governor's Award in the Humanities from the Georgia Endowment for the Humanities. For 10 consecutive years, Georgia Trend magazine has included Adams on its list of the 100 Most Influential Georgians.

Academically, the university's stature has never been higher. Five new colleges or schools have been established during Adams' presidency: the School of Public and International Affairs (2001), the College of Environment and Design (2001), the College of Public Health (2005), the Eugene P. Odum School of Ecology (2007) and the College of Engineering (2012). In 2010, a partnership with the then-Medical College of Georgia led to medical degree education in Athens. The medical partnership and UGA's College of Public Health will move to the newly acquired UGA Health Sciences Campus on the site of the former U.S. Navy Supply Corps School this fall.

Under his leadership, the university's endowment grew from $249.413 million in fiscal year 1997 to $745.765 million in fiscal year 2011. The number of endowed professorships at the university has grown from 92 when Adams took office to 219 today, and the number of Georgia Research Alliance eminent scholars has grown from four to 18.

The university now ranks fourth in the nation in the number of students who participate in short-term study abroad programs, as Adams led the establishment of permanent year-round international residential sites in Oxford, England; Cortona, Italy; and San Luis, Costa Rica. Likewise, the university's reach into the state expanded with additional academic programs at campuses in Gwinnett County, Griffin, Tifton and Buckhead.

UGA's physical campus has been transformed since he took office, with more than $1 billion in new construction, renovation and infrastructure and 6.2 million square feet of new space completed. The Zell B. Miller Learning Center, which transformed the academic life of students on campus, opened in fall 2003. The Paul D. Coverdell Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences was dedicated in 2006. The East Campus Village, served by the Joe Frank Harris Dining Commons, both of which opened in 2004, added space for more than 1,200 students to help meet demand for on-campus living, and another 500-bed residence hall opened in 2010. The new home of the Lamar Dodd School of Art, also on East Campus, opened in 2008; a College of Pharmacy addition was occupied in 2009; and the expansion of the Georgia Museum of Art was completed in 2011. Also in 2009, a major addition to the William B. Tate Student Center was added to the campus. In 2011, a Butts-Mehre Heritage Hall expansion was completed. The landmark Richard B. Russell Building Special Collections Libraries opened in early 2012, and ground is to be broken this fall for a new College of Veterinary Medicine teaching hospital.

Key historic buildings on campus underwent extensive renovation and restoration at Adams' direction, including North Campus landmarks Old College (1806), New College (1823), Demosthenian Hall (1824), Phi Kappa Hall (1834), Moore College (1874), Candler Hall (1901) and the Administration Building (1907).

Under Adams' leadership, University of Georgia's enrollment has grown from 29,693 in 1997 to about 35,000 students today, while becoming the most selective in its history and attaining its highest national rankings. Adams' signature appears on some 110,000 degrees earned by almost half of UGA's living alumni. Widely recognized for his fundraising abilities, Adams saw more private funds raised to support the university during his term than during the institution's entire previous history.

"No one knows better than I that none of these were personal accomplishments, but were the accomplishments of a strong and dedicated team," Adams said. "Indeed, I consider putting that team together and the quality of the people we have brought to this place to be my single greatest accomplishment. In other words, nothing that has been accomplished would have occurred without the full support of a great many people."

Adams continued, "I cannot overly express how much I appreciate the support I have received from so many individuals in the administration, the faculty, the staff, the students, the alumni, and from the people of Georgia who love this place. These people make the presidency of UGA one of the best jobs in America. I continue to believe that the people of this state deserve a flagship every bit as good as do the people of California or Michigan or North Carolina. Together, we have made great progress in that regard, and I thank all of you for the opportunity to serve in this capacity."

A native of Alabama, Adams is a graduate of the public schools of Georgia and Tennessee, being named the most outstanding graduate of Chattanooga High School in 1966. At Lipscomb College, he met Mary Lynn Ethridge in a history class, and they have been married for 40 years. They are the parents of two sons, David and Taylor, both of whom are married to UGA alumnae, and are very proud of their two granddaughters, Campbell and Tucker.

To view the announcement, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZ17K9kUEyI.

The University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine's annual open house will be held April 6 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Exotic animal displays, horseback-riding demonstrations, a parade of dog breeds and veterinary hospital tours are some of the many activities that will be available.

The event, sponsored by UGA's veterinary students, will demonstrate the wide variety of career options available to veterinary medicine graduates, such as maintaining a healthy food supply as well as researching and controlling infectious diseases.

"This is a wonderful opportunity for young people to see firsthand the role of today's veterinarian," said Dr. Lari Cowgill, faculty adviser for the open house. "Veterinary medicine entails so much more than the care of cats, dogs, horses and cows. What we learn from animal health has a significant impact on public health issues."

Younger children may assist with teddy bear surgery while veterinary students repair their favorite stuffed playmates. Other tentatively scheduled activities include quail egg hatchings, ice cream making, question and answer sessions with current veterinary students and scientific exhibits showcasing different types of animals. Tours of the UGA veterinary teaching hospital, which serves both small and large animals, will be available all day. Veterinary students will sell lunch items, baked goods, refreshments and merchandise.

"We have been looking forward to open house all year," said Raley White, vice president of the class of 2015, which is hosting the event. "We're extremely excited to be able to bring the public in and demonstrate some extraordinary and unusual things that many people may not have seen before, as well as show off all of the wonderful things that we love about our school and veterinary medicine."

Admission is free and open to the public. Parking will be available at the softball complex on Milledge Avenue with shuttles running to the college throughout the day. Maps will be available to ease navigation through the exhibits. For assistance with sign language interpretation or handicap accessibility, contact Cowgill at 706/542-2318.

The CVM's open house has been held annually for more than 30 years and is hosted by first-year veterinary students with help from the second-year class. For more information, including a schedule that will be finalized closer to the event, see www.vet.uga.edu/ERC/openhouse.

UGA College of Veterinary Medicine
The UGA College of Veterinary Medicine, founded in 1946, is dedicated to training future veterinarians, to conducting research related to animal and human diseases and to providing veterinary services for animals and their owners. Research efforts are aimed at enhancing the quality of life for animals and people, improving the productivity of poultry and livestock and preserving a healthy interface between wildlife and people in the environment they share. The college enrolls 102 students each fall out of more than 560 who apply. For more information, see www.vet.uga.edu.

The current UGA College of Veterinary Medicine teaching hospital, built in 1979, serves more than 18,000 patients per year in one of the smallest teaching hospitals in the U.S. The college is currently working to raise $15 million toward building a new veterinary medical learning center, which will include a new teaching hospital, classrooms and laboratories that will allow for the education of more veterinarians. For more information, see http://www.vet.uga.edu/vmlc/.

Join local UGA alumni and friends for a special event dedicated to all things UGA. Get the inside scoop on the Georgia Bulldogs' upcoming seasons, hear the latest news from the University, and learn more about your local UGA Alumni chapter. UGA Day is a very special opportunity for alumni and friends to come together to show  that we are proud to say, "UGA!"

 2012 UGA Day Schedule

• April 18:UGA Day in Rome
• April 24:UGA Day in Albany
• April 25:UGA Day in Columbus
• May 8:UGA Day in Macon
• May 9:UGA Day in Charlotte
• May 15:UGA Day in the Golden Isles
• May 16:UGA Day in Valdosta
• May 22:UGA Day in Birmingham
• May 24:UGA Day in Tampa
• July 23:UGA Day in Atlanta

With pledged gifts totaling $1 million, the Deloitte Foundation has established an endowment for the J.M. Tull School of Accounting in the Terry College of Business at the University of Georgia.
 

The Deloitte Foundation Endowed Accounting Support Fund will provide new annual funding to attract and retain outstanding faculty, who will be designated as Deloitte Foundation Endowed Faculty Fellows, and scholarships to deserving graduate and undergraduate students, who will be recognized as Deloitte Foundation Scholars.
 

In addition, during the five-year period in which the endowed account is funded, Deloitte employees and the Deloitte Foundation will continue their support of the Deloitte Teaching Fellowship, which provides resources for faculty research and teaching, graduate fellowships, student organizations, and other priorities in the Tull School of Accounting.
 

"As a leading employer of our students, we greatly appreciate the outstanding career opportunities Deloitte provides to our students and the multitude of professional successes that our students have enjoyed with them," said Ben Ayers, the Tull School's director. "The generous support of Deloitte professionals and the Deloitte Foundation led us to establish the Deloitte Foundation Endowed Accounting Support Fund. It is a great testament to their vested interest in the education of our students and their commitment to accounting excellence."
 

"I am happy to announce this gift on behalf of the more than 250 UGA alumni at Deloitte," said Will Herman, a partner in Deloitte's Atlanta office. "Supporting educational initiatives is strategic to Deloitte and the Deloitte Foundation, and we are proud to support the Tull School of Accounting and the Terry College of Business."
 

Ed Heys, the managing partner of Deloitte's Atlanta office, added, "We are pleased to be able to demonstrate our commitment to the Tull School of Accounting through this endowment. Our firm has benefitted greatly from the education that our UGA alumni received from the Tull School, and we appreciate the hard work of the faculty and leadership."
 

UGA's School of Accounting was one of the first in the nation to be established as a separate professional school within a college of business. In 1982, it was renamed the J.M. Tull School of Accounting after receiving an endowment from the J.M. Tull Charitable Foundation of Atlanta. The school's undergraduate and master's programs have been ranked among the top 10 by Public Accounting Report, and it is rated among the top 20 undergraduate accounting programs by U.S. News & World Report. The school's faculty is well known for its teaching, research and service to the accounting profession.
 

About the Deloitte Foundation
The Deloitte Foundation, founded in 1928, is a not-for-profit organization that supports teaching, research and curriculum innovation in accounting, business and related fields within the U.S. The Foundation sponsors an array of national programs relevant to a variety of professional services, benefiting middle/high school students, undergraduates, graduate students and faculty. For more information, see the Deloitte Foundation Web page at www.deloitte.com/us/df.
 

As used in this document, "Deloitte" means Deloitte LLP and its subsidiaries. See www.deloitte.com/us/about for a detailed description of the legal structure of Deloitte LLP and its subsidiaries.

The University of Georgia Libraries, in partnership with the Atlanta History Center, the Georgia Historical Society and the Board of Regents' GALILEO virtual library initiative, is part of a new project to digitize more than 80,000 documents relating to the American Civil War.

Funding for America's Turning Point: Documenting the Civil War Experience in Georgia has been provided by the National Historic Publications and Records Commission and is enabling archivists to digitize 81,319 letters, diaries, military records, account books, poetry, photographs and maps that document the American Civil War.

"Events in Georgia, particularly Sherman's Georgia campaign and the blockade of the coastline, were critical factors in the outcome of the War," said P. Toby Graham, deputy university librarian and head of the Hargrett Library. "This project provides the raw material for building a more complete understanding of Georgia's role in the conflict."

The Union capture of Atlanta on Sept. 2, 1864 had a direct impact on the reelection of President Abraham Lincoln, hastening the end of the war and ultimately reuniting the nation. For that reason, the fall of Atlanta was a decisive turning point in American history. As the nation commemorates the sesquicentennial of the Civil War and interest in this subject increases, the need to provide enhanced access to these materials has never been greater, said Paul Crater, vice president of research services at the Atlanta History Center and project director.

Manuscript and visual materials are available only in their original format, and the project partners are among the leading research institutions in the Southeast for the study of the Civil War, with hundreds of researchers visiting their locales annually.

"The records include the diverse experiences and perspectives of military leaders, soldiers and civilians whose lives were directly impacted by the Civil War," Crater said. "Thousands of first-hand accounts of Union and Confederate soldiers and officers document their hardships and opinions of the war and national politics. Military documents, including orders issued by William T. Sherman, describe the strategy of the Atlanta Campaign. Letters and diaries from Georgia civilians, young and old, male and female, describe in compelling detail the anxiety leading up to the war, the blockade of Georgia's coast, the siege of Atlanta and General Sherman's subsequent march through Georgia. Financial and military documents reveal details of the buying and selling of slaves by private parties and by governments in the defense of the Confederacy. Letters, questionnaires and 20th-century photograph collections capture the memories of Civil War veterans and document important Georgia Civil War landmarks a few decades after the conflict."

As part of the two-year venture, a blog on the progress of the project will be available to scholars and the public. Access to the materials will be through websites at each institution.

The digitized documents will be available via the Digital Library of Georgia, a GALILEO initiative based in the UGA Libraries. "The Digital Library of Georgia site is a significant source of exposure for project results, as DLG received more than 4.5 million page views during the past 12 months, including visits from every state and internationally," Graham said. The records also will become part of the recently launched Association of Southeastern Research Libraries Civil War portal (http://american-south.org), which the DLG hosts."

The manuscript section of UGA's Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library houses more than 500 collections of original documents relating to the war. In addition to being used by authors, Hargrett's Civil War manuscripts have been used by more than 700 researchers of all types during the past three years. Similarly, the Georgia Historical Society and the Atlanta History Center Civil War collections are in constant use for books, publications and broadcast documentaries.

"Scholars and authors, public school educators, university professors, students, museum educators, developers of public humanities programs, journalists, preservationists and documentarians access these collections to better understand and interpret the Civil War," Crater said. "Since such high researcher demand exists for access to these historical documents, digitization and the creation of an online digital resource of the materials would simultaneously expand access and use of resources while also helping to preserve the originals."

The grants program is carried out through the National Historical Publications and Records Commission for the National Archives.

Information on the partners involved in this Civil War project is available at the following urls: UGA Libraries, http://www.libs.uga.edu/hargrett/; the Atlanta History Center,http://www.atlantahistorycenter.com/; Georgia Historical Society, http://www.georgiahistory.com/; and the GALILEO virtual library, http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/.

Heat-related deaths among football players across the country tripled to nearly three per year between 1994 and 2009 after averaging about one per year the previous 15 years, according to an analysis of weather conditions and high school and college sports data conducted by University of Georgia researchers.

The scientists built a detailed database that included the temperature, humidity and time of day, as well as the height, weight and position for 58 football players who died during practice sessions from overheating, or hyperthermia. The study, published recently in the International Journal of Biometeorology, found that for the eastern U.S., where most deaths occurred, morning heat index values were consistently higher in the latter half of the 30-year study period. Overall, Georgia led the nation in deaths with six fatalities.

"In general, on days the deaths occurred, the temperature was hotter and the air more humid than normal local conditions," said climatologist Andrew Grundstein, senior author of the study and associate professor of geography in the UGA Franklin College of Arts and Sciences.

More than half of the players fell ill on days when practice ended before noon. The majority of the deaths occurred in August, when most high school and college football coaches ramp up preseason training. The American College of Sports Medicine provides guidelines for the intensity of all sports practices based on a measurement called the wet bulb globe temperature, or WBGT.

The WBGT reading is calculated using the familiar dry bulb thermometer usually found in homes, a wet bulb thermometer wrapped in damp cotton and, finally, a dry bulb thermometer encased in a black globe or globe thermometer. Each instrument provides, respectively, a measure of the air temperature, the ability of evaporation to cool the player, and the amount of solar radiation absorbed by a surface or, in this case, the player's exposed skin.

The National Weather Service provides a measurement called the heat index that attempts to convey true ambient temperature. The weakness of that measurement, Grundstein explained, is that it does not account for sun exposure or a person's involvement in athletic activity.

Neither method of measuring temperature accounts for the protective pads and helmets football players wear during practice.

"We all want a single magic number to indicate the heat threshold," Grundstein said. "But so many factors contribute to heat stress that it's impossible to draw the line at a single temperature."

Grundstein cautioned against assigning complete blame for the deaths on warmer temperatures and increasing humidity. He found that football players have also grown larger since 1980. Linemen, who tend to have a higher body mass index than other players, seem especially susceptible to hyperthermia. In Grundstein's sample, 86 percent of those who died were linemen. The increase in deaths also could be explained by an overall increase in weight and BMI in the past 15 years.

Even though specialized tools such as the wet bulb global thermometer are available, not all football coaches decide to use them. In addition to knowing the true temperature outdoors, another approach to avoiding heat illnesses is to make sure players are slowly introduced to an intense workout regime after a summer probably spent inside air-conditioned environments. It is also important to have trained staff watching for signs of heat illness and to have an emergency management plan in place, he said.

Grundstein is currently working with Mike Ferrara, professor of kinesiology in the UGA College of Education, to study heat-related injuries in Georgia high school football players. Deaths from hyperthermia, Grundstein said, are highly avoidable.

Co-authors, all from UGA, include associate professor of geography John Knox and graduate students Craig Ramseyer, Fang Zhao, Jordan L. Pesses, Pete Akers, Aneela Qureshi, Laura Becker and Myron Petro.

Twelve University of Georgia undergraduates have been selected by the Office of Undergraduate Admissions to serve as orientation leaders during new student orientation in summer 2012.

Orientation leaders are usually the first points of contact and help prepare first-year and transfer students for fall semester by sharing their own academic and campus experiences. They perform skits and songs to help welcome the new students to the university community. The leaders serve as an important resource for parents and families who may also attend orientation.

Online modules covering a range of student affairs information are a new feature of orientation this year. Before attending orientation, first-year and transfer students must review these modules that highlight subjects such as UGA housing, academic honesty and intercultural affairs.

"Once again, we have an amazing group of student leaders who are excited to share their UGA experiences with incoming first-year and transfer students," said Milly Gorman, associate director of admissions and director of new student orientation. "It was a much tougher decision this year since we had the most applications ever received. However, the best combination of students was chosen to be 2012 orientation leaders."

The group of six men and six women, who are rising juniors and seniors, was chosen for their strong communication skills, leadership abilities and enthusiastic campus spirit.

The summer 2012 orientation leaders are:

• Dali Adekunle / Woodstock / biology, Romance languages
• Stephen Burslem / Dacula / history, anthropology
• Emily Curl / Dallas / digital and broadcast journalism
• Ally Geronimo / Lilburn / advertising, communication studies
• Vince Guagliardo / Roswell / finance
• Andrew Kowalski / Watkinsville / pre-business
• Erik Lee / Roswell / international business, marketing
• Brandon Martin / Decatur / marketing
• Davis Mastin / Chattanooga, Tenn. / marketing, Spanish
• Calli McRae / Snellville / child and family development, psychology
• Collette Toney / Snellville / social science education, history
• Nikki Welch / Smyrna / English

A group of first-year honors students at the University of Georgia is gaining investigative knowledge and experience in mentor-guided projects as CURO Honors Scholars with UGA's Center for Undergraduate Research Opportunities.

"The CURO Honors Scholarship, formerly the CURO Apprenticeship, allows students to participate in original research from their earliest days on campus," said David S. Williams, associate provost and director of the UGA Honors Program. "CURO Honors Scholars thrive in a small community complete with financial support, faculty mentoring and guidance in developing writing and presentation skills."

The 10 new CURO Honors Scholars join a group of 13 returning second-year undergraduate researchers participating in the program, which has provided faculty-guided research opportunities to freshmen and sophomores for more than a decade.

During their first semester in the program, undergraduates interview faculty whose research may interest them. They then select their best matches and work with these faculty 10-12 hours a week on year-long projects in a variety of disciplines ranging from physics and astronomy to art and international affairs.

The students also attend a weekly honors seminar that focuses on research theories and practices. Peer support and student-led group discussions are also part of this hands-on approach to learning.

First-year student Hope Foskey of Matthews, N.C., said she appreciates the emphasis placed on community and group support as she works toward a pharmacy career. She is currently studying the central nervous system in relation to the expression and mutations of a particular gene that has been associated with aniridia, a disease of the eye. Her faculty mentor is UGA cellular biologist James Lauderdale.

"The CURO program has provided a great foundation and support system for me as I begin this endeavor into research," said Foskey. "Most importantly, I think the people I have met through the program have given me great friends, mentors and professional contacts."

First-year microbiology major Babajide Oluwadare of Stone Mountain said that with his limited laboratory experience, he has greatly benefitted from learning about the introductory steps of the research process. Now Oluwadare spends his days working in the laboratory of UGA microbiologist Duncan Krause. Oluwadare is investigating the properties of Mycoplasma pneumoniae, a bacterial pathogen that infects the lungs, causing bronchitis and walking pneumonia.

"The program taught me how to find a research mentor and guided me through the different steps I have to take to actually begin the research," said Oluwadare.

Second-year student Alexis Garcia of Norcross said her experience in the program has influenced her career plans dramatically since she became involved a year ago, working under the guidance of UGA international affairs professor Loch Johnson. She is currently conducting an analysis of all directors of the Central Intelligence Agency throughout U.S. history.

"The CURO program has impacted me tremendously and in ways I never foresaw," said Garcia. "I started off at UGA wishing to pursue an undergraduate degree in business. After completing a few weeks of research with Dr. Johnson, I quickly changed my major to international affairs. I now wish to pursue a career in international law. "

For more information on the CURO Honors Scholarship program, see http://honors.uga.edu/c_s/undergrad_rsch/curo_scholars.html.

The 2011-2012 first-year CURO Honors Scholars are:

• Name / Hometown / Major(s)
• Maria Cox / Peachtree City / English
• Natalee Dukes / Conyers / environmental health science
• Hope Foskey / Matthews, N.C. / pre-pharmacy
• Tuan Nguyen / Douglasville / biochemistry and molecular biology
• Babajide Oluwadare / Stone Mountain / microbiology
• Elliot Outland / Alpharetta / undecided
• Colby Ruiz / Valdosta / chemistry
• Aveek Sarker / Duluth / international affairs
• Cole Skinner / Savannah / chemistry
• Courtni Young / Alpharetta / animal science

A University of Georgia researcher has invented a new technology that can inexpensively render medical linens and clothing, face masks, paper towels-and yes, even diapers, intimate apparel and athletic wear, including smelly socks-permanently germ-free.

The simple and inexpensive anti-microbial technology works on natural and synthetic materials. The technology can be applied during the manufacturing process or at home, and it doesn't come out in the wash. Unlike other anti-microbial technologies, repeated applications are unnecessary to maintain effectiveness.

"The spread of pathogens on textiles and plastics is a growing concern, especially in healthcare facilities and hotels, which are ideal environments for the proliferation and spread of very harmful microorganisms, but also in the home," said Jason Locklin, the inventor, who is an assistant professor of chemistry in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences and on the Faculty of Engineering.

The anti-microbial treatment invented by Locklin, which is available for licensing from the University of Georgia Research Foundation, Inc., effectively kills a wide spectrum of bacteria, yeasts and molds that can cause disease, break down fabrics, create stains and produce odors.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately one of every 20 hospitalized patients will contract a healthcare-associated infection. Lab coats, scrub suits, uniforms, gowns, gloves and linens are known to harbor the microbes that cause patient infections.

Consumers' concern about harmful microbes has spurred the market for clothing, undergarments, footwear and home textiles with antimicrobial products. But to be practical, both commercial and consumer anti-microbial products must be inexpensive and lasting.

"Similar technologies are limited by cost of materials, use of noxious chemicals in the application or loss of effectiveness after a few washings," said Gennaro Gama, UGARF senior technology manager. "Locklin's technology uses ingeniously simple, inexpensive and scalable chemistry."

Gama said the technology is simple to apply in the manufacturing of fibers, fabrics, filters and plastics. It also can bestow anti-microbial properties on finished products, such as athletic wear and shoes, and textiles for the bedroom, bathroom and kitchen.

"The advantage of UGARF's technology over competing methods," said Gama, "is that the permanent antimicrobial can be applied to a product at any point of the manufacture-sale-use continuum. In contrast, competing technologies require blending of the antimicrobial in the manufacturing process."

"In addition," said Gama, "If for some reason the anti-microbial layer is removed from an article-through abrasion, for example-it can be reapplied by simple spraying."

Other markets for the anti-microbial technology include military apparel and gear, food packaging, plastic furniture, pool toys, medical and dental instrumentation, bandages and plastic items.

Locklin said the antimicrobial was tested against many of the pathogens common in healthcare settings, including staph, strep, E. coli, pseudomonas and acetinobacter. After just a single application, no bacterial growth was observed on the textile samples added to the culture-even after 24 hours at 37 degrees Celsius.

Moreover, in testing, the treatment remained fully active after multiple hot water laundry cycles, demonstrating the antibacterial does not leach out from the textiles even under harsh conditions. "Leaching could hinder the applicability of this technology in certain industrial segments, such as food packaging, toys, IV bags and tubing, for example," said Gama.

Thin films of the new technology also can be used to change other surface properties of both cellulose- and polymer-based materials. "It can change a material's optical properties-color, reflectance, absorbance and iridescence-and make it repel liquids, all without changing other properties of the material," said Gama.

A paper on the new technology was published by Locklin and colleagues online June 21 in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Chemical Society.

The University of Georgia Research Foundation, Inc. performs the technology transfer function for UGA, taking assignment of patents and licensing such patents to the private sector in return for royalty income to support the research mission of the university. To learn more about technology commercialization at UGA, see http://www.ovpr.uga.edu/tco/industry/.

Open doors take on a literal meaning for many University of Georgia students as they move their education beyond the state's borders. During the 2009-2010 school year, 1,994 studied abroad. Their global experiences earned UGA a 15th-place ranking among U.S. doctoral/research institutions on the Open Doors 2011 list released annually by the national Institute of International Education.

Over the same time period, UGA ranked fourth in the nation in the number of students who participated in short-term programs (1,695 students). Additionally, 399 students chose a full semester or academic year abroad.

The Open Doors report is released each year during International Education Week, Nov. 14-18. The U.S. Departments of State and Education jointly sponsor the nationwide recognition.

"Study abroad is critical to students for a number of reasons," said Kavita Pandit, the UGA associate provost for international education. "First, it forces students to listen, observe and reflect on what's going on around them-all of which are critical to learning. They also experience personal growth and attain the quiet confidence that ‘I can do this,' whether it's to catch a bus or to learn a foreign language.

"Finally, study aboard gives them global skills and competencies that are critical for the work place. There is no doubt that employers value study abroad experience when they look at résumés."

Students choose to study abroad for multiple reasons. But for Emily Richter, a senior recreation and leisure studies major from Dunwoody, her biggest motivation was her father's global experience.

"My dad studied abroad when he was my age," she said, "and I came to college knowing it was something he wanted me to do and something I wanted to do."

She spent six weeks in Verona, Italy studying through the UGA Center for the Study of Global Issues, or Globis, program. The best part of learning abroad "for me was getting to see how people live in another country," Richter said. "It was so different. I'm from Atlanta where everyone has a car. In Verona, people walk a lot. They take buses. The city had a small town feeling."

Richter's experience is echoed by thousands of UGA students, said Pandit, who as a parent has "seen the changes in my own daughter who spent a few weeks in Spain. She's opened up and become more self-critical in a positive way. Students returning from a study abroad experience begin looking at their old lives differently."

Change due to studying abroad isn't limited to UGA students. The university sponsors more than 100 programs (running 60 to 80 of them in any given year) in 39 countries—including an every-other year trip to Antarctica—and faculty lead most of them.

"Teaching abroad opens up a lot of research opportunities for our faculty," said UGA study abroad director Kasee Laster. "I've had many faculty tell me that teaching abroad was the most personally satisfying and meaning opportunity of their careers."

As study abroad participation by both students and faculty increases, students are exploring less traveled countries in Africa and Latin America. Traditionally, Laster said, most students had studied abroad in Italy, Great Britain and other European countries.

But study abroad changes aren't limited to country diversity. Students in a greater variety of majors are learning globally as well.

Typically, the STEM fields—science, technology, engineering and medicine—are so structured that undergraduates had felt they didn't have the time or ability to take their education beyond campus grounds. That's changing, said Carolina Robinson, the study abroad coordinator in the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

"We have 11 to 14 programs, depending on the year, and they're all science-based," she said.

Through the college's certificate program in international agriculture, she's had an engineering major study in Spain and a pre-vet student study in Thailand. Numbers of exchange students in the college are also increasing from an average of two to 10 this upcoming spring.

"It's a great trend," Robinson said. "Students are trying to find a more immersive experience."

Through UGA, even short-term experiences are going deeper than the global lecture hall. Quint Newcomer, director of UGA Costa Rica, led a group of graduate students and faculty from the UGA College of Environment and Design and the Nanjing Forestry University in China as they worked with the mayor and community leaders in Santa Elena, Costa Rica on a sustainable design for its downtown.

Santa Elena has experienced explosive growth over the past several years; the town's bus stop and taxi stands were so busy that they were blocking off a major thoroughfare. Town leaders recognized the problem and asked UGA for help. Working together, they came up with a design for the relocated central bus terminal, taxi stand, a network of small parks and a pedestrian greenway.

"Within a week, they had produced a phenomenal design," Newcomer said. "It was an amazing cross-cultural sharing experience."

For more information on UGA study abroad opportunities, see http://www.uga.edu/oie/studyabroad.htm.

Athens, Ga. – The Correll Center for Aquatic Animal Health, a partnership between the Georgia Aquarium and the University of Georgia’s College of Veterinary Medicine, was featured at the November meeting of the University of Georgia Board of Visitors.

The UGA Board of Visitors aims to build relationships between the state’s largest and most comprehensive research university and its elected officials, business leaders and community organizations. Members serve a two-year term in which they have the opportunity to hear from some of the university’s most celebrated faculty members, its top researchers and most promising students.

Dr. Sheila Allen, Dean of the UGA College of Veterinary Medicine, was the featured speaker.  In addition to highlighting the College’s history and current academic focus, she also shared with the group the history of the Correll Center.  In 2006,  A.D. “Pete” Correll ’63 BBA, retired chairman and CEO of Georgia-Pacific, and his wife Ada Lee ’63 BSED, helped ensure the success of the new Georgia Aquarium by funding The Correll Center for Aquatic Animal Health.  The Correll Center is a partnership between UGA’s College of Veterinary Medicine and the Georgia Aquarium.  It created the first ever teaching hospital integrated into an aquarium. The 10,000 square-foot facility was designed by 12 world renowned veterinary and conservation professionals for the purpose of caring for the 120,000 animals at Georgia Aquarium, conducting research and teaching aquatic medicine. The Correll Center uses state-of-the-art diagnostic imaging technology, mobile/portable ultrasound, mobile gas and water-bourn anaesthesia systems, complete surgical suite with instrument sterilization features and a custom computerized medical records system.

Trey Paris, Chair of the Board of Visitors, stated, “The Correll Center is a wonderful example of UGA living its mission to teach, research, and serve.  This partnership provides our Veterinary Medicine faculty and students with hands-on experience in aquatic medicine while providing the Georgia Aquarium with healthy animals for visitors from around the world to enjoy.”

The University of Georgia Alumni Association's third annual Bulldog 100: Fastest Growing Bulldog Businesses class of 2012 has been announced from a list of more than 700 nominations. The Bulldog 100 determines the fastest growing businesses that are owned or operated by UGA alumni each year.

As selection is based on annual growth, the list includes companies ranging in all sizes and services, from major investment and insurance firms to local interior design specialists. Several different areas of the country are represented, as well, including companies from Connecticut, Nebraska, and New Mexico.   

UGA alumni and friends will celebrate Bulldog 100 honorees at a banquet at the Marriott Marquis in downtown Atlanta on January 21, 2012. The evening will begin with a reception, followed by dinner and the awards ceremony.  Keynote speaker, Deborah Norville, anchor of “Inside Edition” and 1979 Georgia graduate, will lead attendees to the highlight of the evening—the release of the final rankings and countdown of the 2012 Bulldog 100. 

Atlanta CPA firm Gifford, Hillegass and Ingwersen LLC verified the information submitted by each company and ranked the businesses based on a compounded annual growth rate during a three-year period.

Alumni Association Executive Director Deborah Dietzler said the Bulldog 100 celebrates the entrepreneurial spirit of UGA graduates.

"All of these companies are to be congratulated for being among the Bulldog elite in the business world," said Dietzler. "The celebration and unveiling of the rankings will be a special and exciting evening."

For more information about the Bulldog 100 and to review an alphabetical list of the honorees, visit uga.edu/alumni/b100

Some 5,700 high school seniors had an extra reason to give thanks this holiday season: They learn on November 18 that they had been offered early admission to the University of Georgia.

This year, students who applied for early-action admission to UGA are learning their status two weeks sooner than usual. Decisions were available via the password-protected status check on the website of the UGA Office of Undergraduate Admissions (www.admissions.uga.edu). In addition to the celebratory fireworks that traditionally appear on the screen for those students being offered admission, UGA President Michael F. Adams offers a video message of congratulations.

Students with mobile devices can learn their status with the UGA Admissions App.

"Technology is definitely changing and speeding up the way we notify students of admissions decisions—both good news and bad," said Nancy McDuff, associate vice president for admissions and enrollment management. "This year for the first time we will not be mailing letters to students who have been denied admission since getting that letter after learning the news via the status check is a double blow."

The admissions office received some 10,800 early-action applications for the freshman class that will enter in 2012—slightly more than last year. Those applying for early-action submit applications by an Oct. 15 deadline and learn that they are admitted, denied or deferred to the regular-decision pool. Those who are deferred are asked to submit additional information by the regular-decision deadline of Jan. 15.

"We always try to stress to early-action applicants that if their admission decision was deferred, they still have a chance to be part of the incoming freshman class," McDuff said. "In the past few years, we have admitted about half of the students who were initially deferred and then completed Part II of the application by Jan. 15. Being deferred at this point does not mean that an application is denied."

This year, close to 56 percent of early-action applicants are being offered admission, about 7 percent of applications are being denied, and, as last year, about a third of the total are being deferred. Other applications received were incomplete and will be added to the regular-decision pool.

Early-action decisions are based solely on academic criteria. McDuff noted that in recent years more students are waiting to apply until the regular-decision deadline in order to have additional factors considered, such as high school activities and volunteer work. "For some students, that's a good decision, and we encourage it," she said.

This year's early-action applicant pool was again academically strong and diverse, with high test scores and grades and a rigorous curriculum. A quarter of the students applying for early action identified themselves as being from an ethnic or racial minority group. More than 740 early-action applications, representing nearly 7 percent of the total pool, were received from African-Americans. The number of early-action applications from Hispanic students totaled 500.

Similar to last year, those offered admission at this point have an academic GPA mid-range of 3.87-4.09, an SAT mid-range of 1290-1420 (with a mean SAT writing score of 654) or a mean ACT range of 28-32. UGA requires students to submit writing scores for their ACT and SAT tests; those scores are an integral part of the selection process, McDuff said.

Those students admitted through early action also took an average of 6.5 advanced placement or international baccalaureate classes.

"The odds of being offered admission are always driven by how strong a student looks relative to the rest of the applicant pool," McDuff said. "The first offers of admission are extended to students with the strongest academic records, but the most important factors in the regular-decision process are also academic, in particular grade point average and the rigor of the courses that the students have taken relative to what is available in their school.

"However, regular-decision applications and applications from students deferred from the early-action program are given a holistic review that includes other factors that tell us about students' talents and activities outside the classroom."

McDuff predicts that by Jan. 15 the admissions office will have received close to 19,000 total applications for the incoming class, with a target enrollment of 4,900 new first-year students entering in summer or fall and another 200 in spring 2013. Typically, about half the students offered admission go on to enroll at UGA, a comparable yield to other selective universities.

For applicants and others wanting additional information about UGA's admissions process, an active blog on the admissions office website is hosted by David Graves, senior associate director of admissions, who answers questions and provides advice. For more on the blog, see http://ugaadmissions.blogspot.com. For more on admissions at UGA, see www.admissions.uga.edu.

The University of Georgia expected a record number of new students on campus when fall semester classes began Aug. 15. According to data from the Office of Undergraduate Admissions, more than 5,500 freshmen-an increase of more than 10 percent over last year-were to be enrolled. The number of new transfer students remains stable at around 1,400.

“This year’s class sets new benchmarks for the institution in many aspects while maintaining the academic excellence that has become associated with UGA on both state and national levels,” said Nancy McDuff, associate vice president for admissions and enrollment management.

Those benchmarks include:

• The largest number of Georgia residents enrolled at UGA, with close to 4,900 new in-state freshmen and more than 1,300 in-state transfer students. Based on the projected number of high school graduates in Georgia in 2011, one in 20 will be enrolled this year at UGA.

• More than 480 first-year African-American students enrolled in fall 2011 (8.7 percent of the class). The previous high for entering freshmen was 440 in 1995. A record number of Hispanic students will be enrolled, with 300 entering first-year students having self-identified as Hispanic (5.4 per cent of the class). With more than 1,400 of the entering freshmen self-identifying as other than Caucasian, the ethnic and racial makeup of the entering class shows record diversity.  The entering freshmen will once again have a strong grade point average of almost 3.8 (the mid 50 percentile range is 3.63-4.0). The SAT average was again strong with a combined mean critical reading and math score of 1254, plus an average writing score of 606, for an 1860 on the 2400 scale. The middle 50 percentile of the class scored between1730-1990.

For those students who took the ACT, the mean score this year was 28, with a mid 50 percentile range of 26-30. Approximately 37 percent of the students were admitted based on ACT scores.

The number of applications received for this year’s freshman class-nearly 18,000-is one of the highest recorded at UGA for a new class, following several years of record applications. Since 2003, applications for UGA’s freshman class have increased by more than 50 percent.

“In a year of continuing economic uncertainty and significant adjustments to the HOPE scholarship, it was difficult to predict the impact this would have on our yield rate,” McDuff said. “But our goal was to continue to serve the state and maintain our commitment to excellence and academic achievement.”

The university continued to strengthen ties throughout the state, with students coming from 488 of the 796 high schools in Georgia and 142 of the 159 counties. About 12 percent of the class comes from other states and countries, with 223 of the incoming freshmen representing 51 different home countries. Almost 7 percent come from families where English is not the native language. For the first time in several years, men will make up 40 percent of the freshman class. Approximately 5 percent of the incoming freshmen will be the first in their immediate family to attend college.

The 531 students expected to enroll in UGA’s nationally recognized Honors Program have a GPA of 4.03 (with a mid-50 percentile range of 3.95-4.13) and SAT average of 1453 (mid 50 percentile range of 1430-1490 on the Critical Reading and Math components only). The ACT average is 33 (mid 50 percent range of 32-33).

The rigor of students’ high school curriculum continues to be a key factor in admissions decisions, with some 95 percent of the students having enrolled in College Board Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate classes while in high school.

More than half of the incoming first-year class were in the top 10 percent of their high school class and 225 freshmen were first or second in their graduating class. Several students had a perfect composite score on the SAT or ACT and 136 had perfect scores on at least one of the components of the SAT. Nearly 10 percent of the students started college while still in high school.

All incoming freshmen will participate in the First-Year Odyssey (https://fyo.uga.edu/), a new program designed to introduce students to the academic life of the university by putting them in small group seminars taught by tenured and tenure-track faculty on topics tied to their area of scholarship.

“Some 330 seminars will be offered this fall by faculty from many academic disciplines across campus,” said Laura Jolly, vice president for instruction. “The university community has really embraced this new initiative and I think students are excited about the broad range of topics. A question we often heard during orientation was ‘Can I sign up for more than one seminar?’”

Since many of the incoming students have not yet decided on a major, the seminars offer them an opportunity to explore an area of potential interest. For those who have chosen a major, the most popular (listed alphabetically) are biology, biochemical and molecular biology, business, chemistry, international affairs, political science and psychology, following a pattern similar to previous years.

More than 90 percent of new, incoming University of Georgia students have enrolled in a First-Year Odyssey seminar, a fall-semester program that will offer students an understanding and appreciation for the teaching, research and service mission of the university.

Tenured and tenure-track faculty from across campus will teach the 329 First-Year Odyssey seminars, which range in topics from sustainability, fashion, the CIA, and biotechnology to Sherlock Holmes. The small classes are limited to 18 participants. Students will also be required to attend at least three campus events during the semester that highlight some aspect of the mission of the university. Participants will be graded and awarded one hour of credit for successful completion of their First-Year Odyssey seminar.

In its inaugural year at UGA, the First-Year Odyssey program, supported in part by private gifts from alumni and friends, was established with three major goals in mind, said Tim Foutz, program director:

1. Introduce first-year students to the importance of learning and academics so that they are engaged in the learning culture of the university;

2. Give first-year students an opportunity for meaningful dialogue with a faculty member which will lead to positive, sustained student-faculty interactions; and,

3. Introduce first-year students to the instruction, research, public service and international missions of the university and how they relate to teaching and learning in and outside the classroom in order to assure the participants’ understanding in the mission of the university.

Foutz is optimistic that the First-Year Odyssey program will succeed in meeting these goals. “A student’s first year at UGA is an exciting time to experience and explore the academic rigors and opportunities available,” he said. “By engaging with faculty and other first-year students in an intimate classroom setting, we hope they will grow to understand the value of a UGA education.”

Incoming students registered for their “Odyssey” seminar during orientation. Many classes filled up quickly, and some of the more popular ones included College Athletics: Sports, News, and Education; Making Sense of Modern Art; Chocolate Science; Stem Cells in Medicine and Society and Fashion and the Movies.

Incoming freshman Lauren Risse of Watkinsville is enthusiastic about her upcoming First-Year Odyssey seminar, Exploring Protein Structure and Function: A 30-Year Odyssey. “I plan on majoring in microbiology, and I have a fascination with protein structure,” she said. “So, I was thrilled when I discovered this course was offered.”

Faculty proposed their classroom topics, which were reflective of their teaching, research and service passions. All schools, colleges and many departments are represented in the “First-Year Odyssey” faculty, which includes UGA President Michael F. Adams, who will teach The History and Development of the University of Georgia through the Eyes of the President, and Provost Jere Morehead, whose seminar topic will be Exploring Current Issues in Law.

Foutz said the support the university community has shown for the First-Year Odyssey seminars has been overwhelming.

“The UGA faculty has stepped up to the challenge of offering seminar topics that will engage a first-year student; in fact, faculty are offering so many creative seminar topics that students continually ask if they can enroll in more than one class. Various units from all across campus have shown their support by offering workshops to help faculty design their First-Year Odyssey seminars and by developing materials that complement the program. Even students not enrolled in these seminars have supported our efforts by helping us do things such as select the logo, design the web page and determine how to promote the program during orientation.

“I particularly would like to acknowledge the orientation leaders and academic advisers who worked so hard to get the message out and help incoming students understand the university’s commitment to engaging them in the academic culture of UGA.”

For more information on the First-Year Odyssey program, see https://fyo.uga.edu.

University of Georgia alumna A.E. (Alicia) Stallings (A.B. '90) has been selected as a 2011 MacArthur Fellow by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Stallings is one of 22 persons receiving the fellowship this year.

The MacArthur Fellowship is given annually to talented individuals throughout the world who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction. Recipients represent a variety of fields and are selected based on three criteria, which include exceptional creativity, promise for important future advances based on a track record of significant accomplishments, and a potential for their fellowship to facilitate subsequent creative work. The fellowship is often referred to as the "genius award" and comes with an unrestricted stipend of $500,000 to the recipient.

Stallings was recognized for her work as a poet and translator. Originally from Decatur, Ga. but now residing in Athens, Greece, Stallings majored in Latin while at student in UGA's Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. She was in the Honors Program and came to UGA on a Foundation Fellowship, the university's premier undergraduate scholarship that offers exceptional opportunities for international travel.

Stallings later received her master's at Oxford University in England. Currently, she is the poetry program director of the Athens Centre and is married to John Psaropoulos, who is the editor of the Athens News.

One of Stallings' lead instructors at UGA, Franklin Professor of Classics Emeritus Richard A. LaFleur stated, "...A. E. Stallings is a brilliant intellect, a warm and perceptive humanist, one of our most remarkable contemporary American poets and translators, and a dynamic young woman who is clearly poised for yet greater contributions to the arts and humanities.... As I look back over my 40 years as a professor of classical languages, I can honestly say that Alicia was perhaps the most exceptional student I ever taught and certainly has gone on to achieve acclaim as one of the most brilliant young poets of 21st-century America."

Stallings' debut poetry collection, Archaic Smile, received the 1999 Richard Wilbur Award and was a finalist for both the Yale Younger Poets Series and the Walt Whitman Award. Her second collection, Hapax (2006), was awarded the 2008 Poets' Prize. In 2007 she published a verse translation of Lucretius' De Rerum Natura (The Nature of Things), which, according to LaFleur, "...is surely among the most complex and startling of all surviving classical Latin poetry."

Her poems have appeared in The Best American Poetry anthologies of 1994 and 2000. She has been awarded a Pushcart Prize, the Eunice Tietjens Prize, the 2004 Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award and the James Dickey Prize. In 2010, she was awarded the Willis Barnstone Translation Prize, and earlier this year, she won a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Stallings is the second UGA alumna to receive a MacArthur Fellowship. Beth Shapiro, who also was an Honors student and Foundation Fellow and earned her master's and bachelor's degrees in ecology from UGA in 1999, received the recognition in 2009. In 2003, Eve Troutt Powell, an associate professor of history, became the first UGA faculty member to receive the fellowship.

The University of Georgia raised more than $126 million in gifts and commitments for the fiscal year that ended on June 30, marking the sixth consecutive year that private giving to the university has topped $100 million.

The $126.2 million total includes gifts and commitments from 56,284 contributors. The Georgia Fund annual giving campaign raised a record $11.6 million, a 13 percent increase from fiscal year 2010. Unrestricted gifts increased slightly more at 14 percent, accounting for $1.16 million of the total.

Pledges to the university more than doubled this fiscal year with a total of $50.9 million compared to last year’s total of $20 million.
The fiscal year 2011 total is more than double the figure from 10 years ago, when the university raised $43.8 million.

The UGA Athletic Association raised $30 million in fiscal year 2011, of which $28 million came from its ticket priority program.

For schools and colleges:
• $9.2 million was raised by the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences
• $8.9 million was raised by the Terry College of Business
• $4.8 million was raised by the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences
• $4.6 million was raised by the College of Veterinary Medicine

President Michael Adams and a group of alumni, administrators and students unveil the statue of Abraham Baldwin on Sept. 16, 2011 on UGA’s North Campus.

The University of Georgia dedicated a statue of Abraham Baldwin, UGA’s founder and first president, in a ceremony Sept. 16 at 10 a.m. at the statue site on the university’s North Campus. The statue is a feature project of the UGA Alumni Association and is a gift from alumni and friends.

The dedication ceremony featured UGA President Michael Adams, former Alumni Association president Vic Sullivan and Student Alumni Council president Shreya Desai. More than 175 faculty, staff, students, alumni and members of the public attended the unveiling.

“The University of Georgia Alumni Association takes great pride in having played a role in honoring our alma mater’s founder,” said Sullivan, who was alumni president at the time the project was initiated. “The vision that Abraham Baldwin had-to make a quality post-secondary education affordable to the citizens of our state-has impacted the growth and prosperity of our region in ways few could have imagined two centuries ago.

“As graduates of the University of Georgia and beneficiaries of Baldwin’s efforts, we are honored to help recognize our founder’s vision and to reaffirm his belief that the opportunity for higher education for all Georgians is the pathway to our state’s bright future,” he added.

The sculpture’s artists were Don Haugen and his wife, Teena Stern, two of the most notable figurative sculptors working today. Their collaborations can be found in numerous public and private collections throughout the U.S.

Funding for the statue came from private donations, including a lead gift from alumnus Ted McMullen, and a $90,000 grant through the UGA Alumni Association.

“It is fitting that a statue in honor of our founder be a gift from the many alumni who have benefitted from his vision of 226 years ago,” said Deborah Dietzler, executive director of alumni relations. “It is heartening that so many graduates contributed to this initiative.”

The initial idea for the statue came from Loch Johnson, Regents Professor of International Affairs and Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor. He envisioned it adjacent to Old College, because the building is a replica of the building where Baldwin studied at Yale.

“I was impressed by the Nathan Hale statue at Yale University when I was a visiting fellow there a few years ago,” said Johnson. “I thought that UGA, too, could benefit from a statue that would reflect our early history and, as the university’s first president, Abraham Baldwin struck me as an ideal subject.

“Baldwin, a member of the Georgia State House, the Continental Congress and the U.S. Senate, was a dedicated public servant. I think students, faculty and staff will be inspired by this statue as they walk through our beautiful North Campus. We may be from different backgrounds, and we study a range of disciplines, but we are all united in our devotion to public service. Who better than Abraham Baldwin to serve as a symbol of this devotion?”

For more information on Abraham Baldwin and the statue, see www.externalaffairs.uga.edu/development/baldwin_statue_initiative/index.html. For more information on the UGA Alumni Association, see www.alumni.uga.edu/alumni/index.php.

The University of Georgia landed well on the newly released U.S. News & World Report’s 2012 edition of America’s Best Colleges, ranking 23rd among public universities and tying for 62nd among best national universities.

Debt among 2010 graduates-or the lack thereof-also helped UGA. The university was one of 26 national institutions in the least debt category.

“It is an honor to be ranked consistently among such very strong public universities,” said UGA President Michael F. Adams. “While a focus on any particular ranking in any particular year probably does not present a full picture of any university, the fact that UGA is consistently ranked among America’s very best public universities by a variety of organizations is a tribute to the quality of the student body and the talent, dedication and devotion of the faculty and staff.”

The Terry College of Business marked its 13th consecutive year of ranking in the top 30 institutions for undergraduate business. Terry College came in 17th among public business schools and 28th overall. Two of its programs were again standouts in the business specialties category. The risk management and insurance program maintained its second place ranking nationally, and the real estate program rose to third in the country.

“It is gratifying to have our undergraduate program consistently recognized as one of the very best,” said Dean Robert T. Sumichrast. “In business education, you cannot maintain quality by standing still, and every year we are taking steps to add to the excellence of our faculty and the rigor of our academic programs.”

The 2012 college rankings are available online at www.usnews.com. They will also be published in the U.S. News &World Report’s 2012 edition of America’s Best Colleges guidebook.

Annually, the U.S. News & World Report surveys and ranks more than 1,600 colleges and universities. To produce the rankings, they consider several factors including graduation and retention rates, faculty resources, student selectivity, financial resources, alumni giving and peer assessment.

UGA students are working with ninth graders in Costa Rica on a rigorous academic program that connects science to nature.

The University of Georgia's satellite campus in Costa Rica recently hosted a group of 97 Costa Rican high school students for the first Lincoln School Fit4Earth: Ninth Grade Biodiversity Challenge.

The Biodiversity Challenge emerged from a partnership between UGA Costa Rica and Lincoln School with the aim of developing an academically rigorous, hands-on program that not only builds students’ skills across all disciplines but also promotes an authentic connection to science and nature.

As an active biological research station settled in the rich, premontane humid forest of Costa Rica, the UGA Costa Rica campus provided the space for facilitating this connection.

After a full year of co-planning curriculum and activities with UGA Costa Rica, Lincoln students and teachers arrived prepared for the challenge. Students participated in a variety of courses taught both by UGA Costa Rica faculty and staff and Lincoln School teachers. The program spanned five full academic days, with students participating in 4-hour field-based lab courses in the mornings and 2-hour workshop blocks in the afternoons. Each student also logged 8 hours of service learning time, most of which was directly related to conservation work within the Bellbird Biological Corridor. Lincoln School teachers planned social activities every evening for their students.

This program afforded UGA Costa Rica the opportunity to collaborate with a leading Costa Rican academic institution and to help develop a model for future programs with similar goals. The size of the group tested the campus’ ability to operate effectively at full capacity and, at the program’s end, served as a testament to the strengths of campus operations and quality of staff employed.

The success of the Biodiversity Challenge has inspired developers to continue with this project in the future. The long-term vision is that all Lincoln students, as part of their seventh and ninth grade academic experience, will participate in two integrated field-based units of study at UGA Costa Rica. Close to 100 percent of Lincoln School’s 11th and 12th graders participate in the prestigious International Baccalaureate program; this project would aim to provide the foundation for students to return for independent studies, a requisite for those who wish to sit for the IB diploma. It is expected that UGA Costa Rica will begin to receive field study requests from this year’s ninth graders in 2013, who would like to return to Monteverde to start working on independent projects.

For more information about UGA Costa Rica, see http://www.ugacostarica.com/.

For more information about Lincoln School, see http://www.lincoln.ed.cr/.

The recent $1.6 million gift from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will allow UGA researchers Franklin West (left) and Steve Stice (right) with the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences to develop disease resistant chickens using a similar process they applied in 2010 to produce pigs from stem cells.

The University of Georgia Research Foundation has received almost $1.6 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to support a team of researchers from the University of Georgia and the U.S. Department of Agriculture in their efforts to develop a new technology to breed chickens resistant to Newcastle Virus.

“Disease and death in livestock are serious problems, particularly in underdeveloped countries,” said Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar Steve Stice, an animal and dairy professor in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

In sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, there are more than 17 billion chickens, and 90 percent of smallholder farmers raise chickens. Poultry is an important source of income and protein for many of these farmers and their families. Newcastle Virus kills about one-quarter of the chickens in sub-Saharan Africa every year, and mortality within a flock can reach 100 percent.

“In those areas, veterinary care is minimal, and livestock plays a large role not only as a key source of food, but also is a large share of their savings, income, credit, insurance, loans, gifts and investments,” Stice said. “That makes disease and death in livestock critical problems.”

“In the last 30 years, access to animal health services, vaccines and medicines has decreased significantly in Africa,” said Franklin West, a CAES animal and dairy science assistant professor and co-investigator leading the project with Stice. “As a result, at least 25 percent of the livestock in many African countries die every year compared to less than 5 percent in developed countries.”

Losing even a few animals on a small family farm, the most common type of farm in developing countries, can have long-lasting repercussions on family stability, health and the ability to provide for children.

The team will investigate applying a process called cellular adaptive resistance, which uses stem cells to create disease resistance in animals. The approach is a direct offshoot of previous work by Stice and West that produced pigs from stem cells using a similar process.

“We want to provide a new way to create disease-resistant animals using new technologies to combat disease problems,” Stice said. “This process will produce animals with natural resistance to specific diseases that will need less veterinary care and will significantly reduce livestock mortalities.”

Stice and West are conducting this research with UGA poultry scientist Robert Beckstead and Claudio Alfonso, a researcher at the USDA Poultry Research Laboratory in Athens, Ga.

For more information on the animal and dairy sciences department in UGA’s College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, see http://www.ads.uga.edu/.

For more information on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, see http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Pages/home.aspx.

Each summer, millions worldwide will head to pristine beaches and waterways. However, with items such as bottles, cans and other debris washing up on U.S. shores each year, the University of Georgia and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, have teamed up to create a new, innovative cell phone reporting mechanism to combat the marine debris problem.

The Southeast Atlantic Marine Debris Initiative, or SEA-MDI, housed at UGA and a critical part of a partnership with the NOAA Marine Debris Program, hopes to empower citizens in protecting their beaches and coastal waters through a newly launched mobile application that tracks where debris is accumulating.

The tool is important for engaging with beachgoers and stakeholders and is geared at giving the public another way to be a part of the marine debris solution globally, said Jenna Jambeck, assistant professor of environmental engineering in the UGA Faculty of Engineering and one of the app’s developers.

Available through iTunes and the Android Market, the easy-to-use Marine Debris Tracker app can be downloaded for use on iPhones and Android phones. The simple tool allows users to report and record the type and location of debris through GPS features pre-installed on a cell phone. The data submitted is posted on an interactive website (www.marinedebris.engr.uga.edu) that allows data to be viewed and downloaded for users to design plans to prevent marine debris.

Jambeck said the app is one way the initiative is trying to reach people and raise awareness of marine debris. “If you are noticing marine debris, you are also much less likely to litter,” she said. “While this app collects data, one of its primary goals is to educate the public about marine debris and its harmful impacts.”

“We are very excited about the innovative products that have resulted from our partnership with the University of Georgia,” said David Holst, acting director of the NOAA Marine Debris Program. “This app brings the issue into the forefront and empowers the public to take a proactive step in mitigating the problem.”

Marine debris kills wildlife through ingestion and entanglement. It also can have an economic impact on the tourism industry and other coastal businesses by affecting the aesthetics of beaches and waterways. Jambeck and co-developer Kyle Johnsen, assistant professor of computer systems engineering in the UGA Faculty of Engineering, hope that the Marine Debris Tracker tool will help officials make decisions about how to mitigate marine debris, from supplying more comprehensive waste management, such as trash cans, to providing recycling and disposal opportunities for fishing gear.

SEA-MDI (http://sea-mdi.engr.uga.edu/) is a new regional partnership between the NOAA Marine Debris Program and a consortium of organizations in Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina. The initiative aims to create collaborative regional strategies that address marine debris prevention, reduction and mitigation.

For more information on NOAA’s Marine Debris Program, see http://marinedebris.noaa.gov/.

Grady College Dean Cully Clark and Grady benefactor Don Carter share a laugh during an appreciation reception hosted by the college.

A $250,000 gift by former journalist and University of Georgia alumnus Don E. Carter will support an increased focus on public affairs journalism in UGA’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication.

A three-course public affairs journalism emphasis will begin this fall, led by John F. Greenman, holder of the distinguished professorship named for Carter and his late wife, Carolyn.

Carter said he elevated a professorship he and Carolyn created eight years ago to a distinguished professorship to further public affairs journalism. The distinguished professorship will eventually become the Don E. and Carolyn McKenzie Carter Chair of Journalism because of an earlier deferred gift from the Carters.

“Carolyn and I both believed we need to train more journalists to cover public affairs in all media,” Carter said. “Coverage of government, business, sports and other public issues is essential to our democracy.”

Carter, of Sea Island, was recognized at an appreciation reception hosted by Grady College on April 14, at which time Grady Dean E Culpepper “Cully” Clark announced the Don E. and Carolyn McKenzie Carter Distinguished Professorship.

“From the Grady College to Atlanta and from there to Macon, Washington, New York and Miami, Don and Carolyn spread their passion for journalism to all corners,” Clark said.“In Don’s last posting as vice president for news at Knight-Ridder, he steered that organization through what is widely regarded as its halcyon days at the top of journalism. One cannot imagine Grady today without the love, affection, and gifts they have showered upon this great college over the last 70 years. The Carter commitment to journalism will serve the college for generations more.”

Kent Middleton, head of Grady’s Department of Journalism, said the Carter endowment will be invaluable for students in the public affairs journalism emphasis courses that Greenman and associate professor Barry Hollander will begin teaching fall semester.

“We intend this to be more than a curriculum,” Greenman said. “We want to develop a student professional journalism association that focuses on watchdog and accountability journalism. We want to send our students for additional training at professional institutes like Poynter. We want to see their work widely published. Carter money will help fuel this work.”

Greenman noted that Carter money also helps fuel work of the Carter Professor furthering journalistic courage and coverage of poverty. “We pay closer attention to journalistic courage than any other journalism school in the United States, and we’re helping journalists cover poverty as an aspect of any beat,” he said.

The Carters, both of whom enjoyed long careers in journalism, were inducted into the inaugural class of the Grady Fellowship in 2008. “We are proud,” the Carters noted at the time, “that we have a strong and dedicated College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia. During this period of media merger, technology acceleration and public doubts, we believe it helps assure us of continued free rights, fair government and economic progress.”

Greenman retired in 2004 from Knight-Ridder as president and publisher of the Ledger-Enquirer in Columbus, Ga., a position he held for 10 years. Earlier he held editorial and executive positions at Ohio’s Akron Beacon Journal where he helped direct coverage of the attempted takeover of the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, coverage that won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting.

“Professor Greenman has contributed much to Grady College and the journalism profession since becoming Carter Professor in 2004,” Clark said. “Most notably, he has led the department’s renewed commitment to excellence in public affairs journalism.”

Greenman teaches reporting as well as a course in Credibility: News Media and Public Trust. He also directs a lecture, symposium and medal series honoring journalistic courage.

A leader in online education, he created a website that trains journalists to cover poverty, including related issues of economics, labor, education and health. He also lectures yearly at the Maynard Media Academy at Harvard University and has conducted intensive specialized reporting conferences to train reporters and editors to cover important issues.

“In many ways,” Middleton said, “Professor Greenman honors the careers of Don and Carolyn Carter through his teaching, outreach and service.”

Both Georgia natives, the Carters began work upon graduation for Atlanta newspapers—Carolyn for the Atlanta Constitution and Don for the Atlanta Journal. They met while covering the same story for the then-competing newspapers and married early in World War II after Don began Army duty.

Carolyn, a 1940 Grady alumna, was the first female photographer for the Constitution and enjoyed a long career of professional and civic service and an active retirement until her death in 2010.

A 1938 Grady alumnus, Don was a leading journalist and newspaper executive, retiring in 1982 as vice president for news for Knight-Ridder, then the most respected newspaper chain in the United States. During his career he reported, edited, and managed newspapers in Macon, Ga., Atlanta, New York City, Washington and Miami. As a student he was editor-in-chief of UGA’s student newspaper, The Red & Black. Today, the 94-year-old continues his long membership on the board of The Red and Black Publishing Company.

Established in 1915, the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication offers undergraduate majors in advertising, digital and broadcast journalism, magazines, newspapers, public relations, publication management and mass media arts. The college offers two graduate degrees, and is home to the Knight Chair in Health and Medical Journalism and the Peabody Awards, internationally recognized as one of the most prestigious prizes for excellence in electronic media. For more information, see www.grady.uga.edu or follow @UGAGrady on Twitter.

Multimedia

The University of Georgia Alumni Association hosted its annual ring ceremony on April 9 in the Mahler Auditorium of the Georgia Center for Continuing Education Conference Center and Hotel.

Joined by their families and friends, students were presented the UGA class rings they ordered this academic year. The event includes brief congratulatory remarks by the UGA Alumni Association president, executive director, and Student Alumni Council president.

The official UGA class ring program is administered by the Alumni Association and is reserved exclusively for juniors and seniors in good standing and alumni.

Despite a rough economic climate, the University of Georgia continued to be a powerful financial force for the Athens area in fiscal year 2010, pumping more than $2 billion into the local economy, according to a new study from UGA’s Selig Center for Economic Growth.

The study, which measured the economic impact of all 35 institutions in the University System of Georgia, showed that while UGA spent slightly less on salaries than it did in fiscal year 2009 due to a reduced number of employees, spending on operating expenses and spending by students increased.

“The main message here is that schools of higher education prove their economic worth during recession, partly due to relatively steady demand for higher education—even with an economic recession, demand stays steady or even increases,” said Jeff Humphreys, director of economic forecasting for the Selig Center in UGA’s Terry College of Business. “Colleges and universities are certainly not recession-proof, but they are recession-resistant. Downturns in college- or university- related spending tend to be milder than the drop in raw economic activity, but the turn-around may also be slower to happen.”

Overall, UGA spent nearly $632 million in salaries and $367 million in operating expenses from July 1, 2009–June 30, 2010, and UGA students spent an additional $447 million in and around Athens. Those numbers are largely reflective of an increase in the number of students at UGA and a slight reduction in employees, Humphreys said.

“The overall impact was relatively stable,” he said. “While there are more students, they’re not primarily spending any more per student (about $6,400 per semester).

But they are spending more in categories that have larger local impacts. More spending by students creates a lot more jobs because students tend to spend in relatively labor-intensive sectors, whereas spending by institutions themselves tends to be less labor-intensive. When institutions hire, that’s very labor-intensive, but a lot of what systems spend don’t create jobs locally, such as the books we buy or the office supplies we buy, which may not be produced in Georgia or even the U.S. But when students spend, all that money is hitting the streets locally.”

Indeed, for every job UGA created or sustained in the last fiscal year, 1.34 off-campus jobs owed their existence to its support, as compared to 1.2 off-campus jobs in the previous fiscal year.

Taken as a whole, the University System of Georgia contributed $12.6 billion to the state’s economy and was responsible for 130,738 full- and part-time jobs (or 3.4 percent of all jobs in Georgia) in fiscal year 2010.

Humphreys used a variety of statistical data from the USG board of regents, state government and local indicators to determine the impact of UGA and the other institutions.

“Overall, it’s a positive message for the Athens economy,” he said. “If you’re a college town in Georgia, you have a good solid cushion against downturns.”

The study, which was commissioned by Georgia’s Intellectual Capital Partnership Program, is reported annually by the UGA Selig Center for Economic Growth.

University  of Georgia Honors student Muktha Natrajan of Martinez has received a 2011 Gates  Cambridge Scholarship. She is among a group of 30 U.S. recipients selected for  the international postgraduate scholarship and is the fifth UGA student to  receive the award since 2001.

  Natrajan,  who is a UGA Foundation Fellow, is pursuing a combined bachelor’s/master’s  program in which she will earn a bachelor of science degree in genetics and a  master of public health degree in environmental health science in May. Her  previous national awards include a 2009 Goldwater Scholarship and a 2010 Udall  Scholarship.

  “Muktha  joins a long and distinguished line of UGA students who have enhanced the  reputation of this institution with success in these highly competitive  academic scholarship programs,” said UGA President Michael F. Adams. “It is  especially fitting that the Gates Cambridge Scholarship focuses its resources  on students who are committed to improving the lives of others, which resonates  with UGA’s land-grant mission to serve the public good. I have no doubt that  the world is going to be a better place because of the work she will do.”

  The  Gates Cambridge Scholarship, established a decade ago through a $210 million  gift from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, offers recipients who reside  outside the United Kingdom the opportunity to pursue graduate studies at the  University of Cambridge. The scholarship program aims to build a global network  of future leaders committed to improving the lives of others.

  “Muktha’s  commitment to improving the lives of others is obvious, such as her research on  neurodegenerative diseases and her public health work in Namibia,” said David  S. Williams, director of UGA’s Honors Program. “Due to her interests in both  neuroscience and the environment, Muktha is poised to make a profound impact on  global health through her work studying the effects of extrinsic factors on  neural cell growth and development.”

  Natrajan  has been an undergraduate researcher in the laboratory of Steven Stice, Georgia  Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Reproductive Physiology, since her  freshman year at UGA. Her involvement with the lab began with her participation  in the Apprentice program offered by UGA’s Center for Undergraduate Research  Opportunities.

  Natrajan’s  research efforts have led to opportunities to give presentations at several  national and local conferences and to serve as a contributing author on a  journal article on stem cell differentiation research. She also has studied at  Nanjing University in China through the National Science Foundation’s  Partnerships for International Research and Education and participated in New  York University’s Summer Undergraduate Research Program. In the summer of 2010,  she served as an intern with the World Health Organization in Namibia.

  Natrajan’s  campus involvement has focused on environmental and ecological issues, and  includes leadership roles in the Go Green Alliance, a coalition of UGA  environmental groups, and Promote Africa, Inc., an international non-profit  organization that supports community development projects in Africa.

  Natrajan  would like to pursue a career in clinical neuroscience research and public  health policy.

  For  more information on the Gates Cambridge Scholarship, see www.gatesscholar.org/.   For more information on UGA’s Honors  Program, see www.uga.edu/honors.

Built adjacent to the Robert C. Wilson pharmacy building, the Pharmacy South building features a learning center and pharmacy care center in addition to classrooms, labs and office space.

New University of Georgia research has found that a statin drug that is often known by the brand-name Lipitor may help prevent blindness in people with diabetes.

In a study using diabetic rats, lead author Azza El-Remessy, assistant professor in the University of Georgia College of Pharmacy, and her colleagues found that statins prevent free radicals in the retina from killing nerves important to maintaining vision. The results of the study are published in the March edition of the journal Diabetologia.

"The exciting part is that there are now treatment options that are proven to be safe that can be immediately translated to patients,"; said El-Remessy.

Diabetic retinopathy is a leading cause of blindness in adults and is observed in most patients after 10 to 15 years of diabetes. There are no currently FDA-approved oral treatments for diabetic retinopathy, and surgical methods are expensive and painful, she added.

Uncontrolled diabetes and excessive glucose induces free radicals, which causes the eye to release a protein called pro-nerve growth factor, which normally matures into nerve growth factor (NGF) to protect the retinal nerves, explained El-Remessy.The free radicals that are generated by diabetes stop the maturation of proNGF into NGF, however, which leads to impaired neuronal function.

Using diabetic rats and isolated retinal cells cultured in high glucose, El-Remessy and colleagues found that oral treatment with the drug atorvastatin blocked the formation of free radicals in the retina, which restored proper levels of nerve growth factor and preserved neurons in the retina. "It removed the break on the pro-form nerve growth factor to develop into its mature form,"; she said. The drug was orally administered to rats in doses proportional to levels given to human patients with cardiovascular problems.

In a related study, also in the March edition of the journal Diabetologia, El-Remessy and her colleagues found that epicatechin, a component of green tea,also prevented the adverse actions of proNGF in the retina. It does not affect the maturation of proNGF into NGF, explained El-Remessy, but regulated a receptor downstream that proNGF uses to send a signal to kill the neuron.Epicatechin prevents the death by inhibiting that receptor. "We are still getting the same result, that we are preventing neuronal death and restoring neuronal function, but just in a different way,"; said El-Remessy.

The findings have implications not only for the eye, but also for other parts of the body where nerves are affected by diabetes, said El-Remessy. "Diabetic patients need to protect the nerves beyond vision,"; she said. In future studies, she hopes to explore nerve functioning impaired by imbalance of proNGF in other parts of the body. "If proNGF accumulates in the eyes in diabetes, I can imagine that it accumulates in the nerve endings in the skin, in the foot,in the hand and in the brain… everywhere,"; she said.

The study was supported by the American Heart Association Scientist Development Grant, a Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation grant, the University of Georgia Research Foundation and a research grant from Pfizer International.

Naomi Norman and Rick LaFleur, current and former heads of classics, respectively, stand in front of the UGA motto, inscribed in Latin in the Miller Learning Center.

Nihil sub sole novum.Those who read Latin know what this means—"nothing new under the sun." When it comes to teaching this cornerstone classical language,however, the University of Georgia has something quite new to talk about. It has the largest Latin program of any two- or four-year college or university in the United States.

In a just published survey of more than 2,500 college and university Latin programs, the Modern Language Association reported that for fall semester 2009,UGA had some 417 undergraduates taking Latin courses, along with 42 graduate students. That, in comparison, is nearly twice as many as the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

"We have long had one of the biggest Classics departments in the country,"said Richard LaFleur, Franklin Professor of Classics and coordinator of the elementary Latin program. "But this is the first MLA survey of languages other than English for U.S. institutions of higher education since 2006, and we believe our ranking points out again how important Latin and classical languages remain for a complete and well-rounded education."

The survey found that "course enrollments in languages other than English reached a new high in 2009." LaFleur, who was head of Classics for more than two decades at UGA, is a "major national figure in the advancement of Latin study in college and high school curricula," according to head of the UGA Classics department, Naomi Norman. In addition, he has authored many books, the latest being Scribblers, Sculptors, and Scribes: A Companion to Wheelock's Latin and Other Introductory Textbooks.

According to available figures, there were approximately 702,000 students in Latin classes in U.S. secondary schools in 1962, but by 1976, that number had dropped 79 percent. After that plunge, however, Latin began a comeback, and at UGA,Latin has remained strong. This year, 62 undergraduates list Latin as a major or minor. Add in major/minors in Greek and Classical Culture, and there are 181 now involved with these programs at UGA.

"The reason we haven't suffered a decline is the work that Rick [LaFleur] and others did in the lean years," said Norman, who is also a Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor. "And what many people don't realize is that our graduates go on to careers in many professional areas, including the Foreign Service and the National Security Agency, as well as law, education,medicine and so many other fields."

Being the nation's number one Latin program in terms of student interest takes the campus back to its roots. William Meigs, great-grandson of Josiah Meigs, second president of UGA, wrote, "The high-sounding song of Homer, the sweet notes of Virgil, the stirring narratives of Xenophon and Caesar, the denunciation, the suasion, and the arguments of Cicero, heard no more in the native land of the philosopher, were familiar sounds on the air of Athens."
UGA's motto—Et docere et rerum exquirere causas (most often translated as "To teach and to inquire into the nature of things")—is still familiar to students and was carved into a frieze in the third-floor rotunda of the Miller Learning Center.

"In addition to having one of the largest Classics faculties in the U.S., it is also one of the strongest and most diverse," said LaFleur. "And interest in the department as a major has only grown over the years. We're also proud of the service aspect of the department, since we are very much involved with K-12 programs throughout the state."

Despite the fact that some language programs have been cut at universities in response to the national funding crisis, the MLA report shows that overall enrollments in college language classes are at their highest level since 1960.

Today,Classics at UGA offers Latin language and literature courses, in which students read and translate Latin; Greek language and literature courses, also involving reading and translating ancient Greek; and Classical Culture courses, which cover classical literature, history and material culture and are taught in English translation.

UGA's total enrollment in Latin classes in fact dwarfs most notable U.S.universities. It had 459 total Latin students enrolled in 2009 compared to 148 at Harvard and 136 at Yale. Still, overall enrollments in college and university Latin classes have nowhere near the enrollments of such languages as Spanish, French and Italian. Notably, though, the state of Georgia has shown,according to the new report, a steady climb in language course enrollment,going from 31,611 in 2002 to 44,258 in 2009.

"A hundred years from now, when students come into the Learning Center, they will still see UGA's motto—and it will still be in Latin," said LaFleur."I think that will continue to say a great deal about where we came from—and where we are going."

At the unveiling of the late Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Thomas Marshall’s (LL.B. ’48) portrait are his widow Angie Fitts Marshall, grandson Spence Pryor (J.D. ’99) and the late Griffin Bell,  former U.S. Attorney General and U.S. Court of Appeals Judge.

In 2007, Angie Fitts Marshall chose to honor her late husband, Thomas O. Marshall Jr. (LL.B.'48), by creating an endowed faculty chair at the University of Georgia School of Law. Now this important investment is becoming a reality and the school has appointed Randy Beck to be the first holder of the Justice Thomas O. Marshall Chair of Constitutional Law.

Marshall, who passed away in 2003, had a long and distinguished legal career that included service as a judge for the Superior Courts of Georgia Southwestern Circuit, the Court of Appeals of Georgia and the Supreme Court of Georgia, where he was chief justice from 1986 to 1989. Prior to entering law school, Marshall served in the navy during World War II, where he earned the Bronze Star and Navy Unit Commendation. A native of Americus and graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, Marshall always represented the very best in professional conduct throughout his distinguished career. Each year, the State Bar of Georgia honors Marshall with the presentation of the Chief Justice Thomas O. Marshall Professionalism Award.

Beck joined the Georgia Law faculty in 1997 and teaches Property, Trusts and Estates, Christian Perspectives on Legal Thought and Constitutional Law. His scholarship includes articles in journals such as the American Journal of Legal History, the Northwestern University Law Review and the UC Davis Law Review. Beck has been honored on numerous occasions with the law school's John C. O'Byrne Memorial Award for Furthering Faculty-Student Relations as well as with its C. Ronald Ellington Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Prior to joining the legal teaching academy, Beck served as a judicial clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy and Judge Patrick E. Higginbotham of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. He also worked as an associate with the firm Perkins Coie in Seattle, Washington, and was an attorney-adviser in the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel. He graduated first in his class from Southern Methodist University School of Law and earned his undergraduate degree from Baker University.

The University of Georgia Alumni Association announces the new recognition program, 40 Under 40, celebrating the university's most outstanding young alumni.

"We are excited to launch the 40 Under 40 program," says Andrew Dill, '06, '07 Chair. "This initiative will recognize not only career success but also an unwavering commitment to UGA and the community through business, educational, leadership and philanthropic endeavors. This will be a national program recognizing outstanding young alums in Georgia and around the world.".

Nominations for the 40 Under 40 will be accepted through Monday, April 4.The 40 Under 40 recipients will be notified of their selection in June and will be recognized at a luncheon in Atlanta on Sept. 15.

For more information and a nomination form, click on the 40 Under 40 logo on the Alumni Association's web site at www.uga.edu/alumni, or contact Julie Cheney assistant director of Student and Young Alumni Programs at jcheney@uga.edu.

In the fourth formal debate, UGA’s debate team defeated the Oxford Union Society to even the series.

The University of Georgia challenged the Oxford Union Society to a formal debate for the fourth time, and the Oxford Union accepted this challenge. Several of the organization's best debaters competed against an elite UGA team in a hybridized British/American-style debate on March 8. This fourth installment was an opportunity for the UGA team to even the all-time score, as they were down in the series two losses to one win. Held in the UGA Chapel, the evening found UGA victorious to even the series 2 to 2.

“Like its previous iterations, the 2011 debate is a hugely exciting event and it showcases some of the best young thinkers and speakers from both campuses,” said Kalpen Trivedi, director of the UGA at Oxford Program. “The topic is timely, provocative, and well chosen.”

Kavita Pandit, associate provost for International Education at UGA added, “The debate draws attention to the very valuable and long-standing international academic partnership between UGA and Oxford. It also provides an outstanding example of the way in which an international education equips UGA students to compete with the very best and brightest students around the world.”

The Oxford Union was founded in 1823 as an arena for the free exchange of ideas among students, and it soon became the forum for political debate in Oxford. Many British prime ministers have served as past presidents of the Oxford Union, and world figures such as Robert Kennedy, Mother Theresa, Yasser Arafat, Jimmy Carter and Nelson Mandela have addressed its members. The union team is a hand-selected group of “all-stars.”

UGA's team also was assembled specially for this event. Drawing from the membership of the Georgia Debate Union, the Demosthenian Literary Society, the Phi Kappa Literary Society, the Law School, UGA's Honors Program, and several other student organizations, the “home” team truly represented the wide variety of programs and schools UGA has to offer.

The UGA team represented a wide field of expertise, and included: Elizabeth Allan, Honors student and Carl Vinson Institute Fellow; Bobby Rosenbleeth, Honors student, Model U.N. co-director and member of the executive board of the Roosevelt Institute at UGA; Cameron Secord, Phi Kappa Society and a School of Public and International Affairs graduate student; Robert Mulholland, UGA Debate Union assistant coach and M.A. student in the department of speech communications; John Turner, UGA Debate Union assistant coach and M.A. student in speech communications; and Aileen Shawcross, former librarian and chief justice of Demosthenian Literary Society.

The debate topic was “Resolved: China's economic and military rise threatens the interests of the United States and Great Britain in the 21st century.” This topic addressed such issues as human rights and federal policy toward atrocities committed in foreign countries, alliances and stabilizing influences on the Korean peninsula, and throughout the Eastern Hemisphere, Western debt in the region, and the recent round of high-level talks during the State Visit of China's President Hu. The UGA team argued the affirmative position, and the Oxford Union Team argued the negative.

The moderator was Peter Appel, professor in the UGA School of Law, who teaches in the areas of property, natural resources law and environmental law. A former debater himself at Yale, Appel has served as the moderator for the UGA v. Oxford Debate on two previous occasions.

Distinguished judges for the event included Steve Wrigley, UGA vice president of government relations; Wyche Fowler, former U.S. representative, senator and ambassador; Annabelle Malins, Her Majesty's Consul General in Atlanta; Colleen McEdwards, CNN international news anchor; Cecil Staton, Georgia state senator who earned his doctoral degree from Oxford University; and Ian Archer, sub-warden of Keble College and former proctor of the university.

For over twenty years, UGA has fostered one of the leading study-abroad programs in Oxford. In 2007, the program opened a new facility for student use, a fully-renovated, 11,000 square-foot Victorian residence in the heart of north Oxford. UGA continues to be one of only three American programs—and the only program at a public university—to operate year-round. Many UGA students join the Oxford Union upon arriving in Oxford. Because of UGA's status in Oxford as a respected sister institution (UGA students hold associate membership at Keble College during term); a healthy rivalry has developed between Oxonians and UGA. For more information on UGA at Oxford, see http://www.uga.edu/oxford/.

The University of Georgia will mark the 50th anniversary of its desegregation with a series of events starting on Jan. 9—the date in 1961 when Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter (now Hunter-Gault) became the first African Americans to register for classes—and continuing for 50 days through Feb. 28, the end of Black History Month.

Hunter-Gault will return to campus for a kick-off reception on Jan. 9 that also will include the family of the late Hamilton Holmes and Mary Frances Early, who transferred to UGA as a graduate student in the summer of 1961 and the next year became the first African American to earn a degree when she received her master's in music education. Holmes and Hunter-Gault graduated in 1963.

The reception, which is free and open to the public, will be from 6-8 p.m. in the Grand Hall of the Tate Student Center.
On Jan. 10, Hunter-Gault will deliver a 50th anniversary lecture at 3 p.m. in Mahler Auditorium of the Georgia Center for Continuing Education Conference Center and Hotel. Overflow seating will be available in Masters Hall, with a live video feed.

A panel discussion of the legal issues involved in the university's desegregation will follow in Masters Hall at 5 p.m. Participants will include Horace Ward, who first challenged UGA's discriminatory admissions policies after being denied admission to the School of Law in 1950, and Robert Benham, who earned a law degree from UGA in 1970 and later became the first African-American chief justice of the Georgia Supreme Court. Ward, who served on Holmes and Hunter's legal team, was appointed a U.S. District Judge in 1979 and is currently a Senior District Judge.

At 8 p.m., the premiere campus screening of a documentary on Donald Hollowell, who led the legal team that secured admission for Holmes and Hunter, will be held in Masters Hall. The documentary was produced by Maurice Daniels, dean of the School of Social Work, and Derrick Alridge, director of the Institute for African American Studies.

Hunter-Gault also will participate in a conversation with students in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, from which she earned her degree, on Jan. 11. The event will be recorded. The Grady College is promoting a college-wide read of her 1992 memoir In My Place prior to her return to campus.

Also on Jan. 11, noted poet, author and activist Sonia Sanchez will participate in a dialogue moderated by Valerie Boyd, the Charlayne Hunter-Gault Writer-in-Residence in the Grady College, and featuring poet Reginald McKnight, who holds the Hamilton Holmes Professorship in English. The event is at 2 p.m. in the Grand Hall of the Tate Student Center with a reception and book-signing following.

Another panel discussion is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. that day in 101 Miller Learning Center with UGA faculty authors Maurice Daniels, who wrote a biography of Horace Ward; Robert Pratt, who chronicled UGA's desegregation in We Shall Not Be Moved; and Thomas Dyer, who included a chapter on the event in his bicentennial history of UGA. Joining them will be Robert Cohen, professor of history and social studies at New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, who also has written about UGA's desegregation.

The week concludes with the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom Breakfast with Mary Frances Early as the speaker. Co-sponsored by the university, the Athens-Clarke County Government and the Clarke County School District, the event will be at 7:30 a.m. Jan. 14 in the Grand Hall of the Tate Student Center. Advance reservations are needed and should be made through the Office of Institutional Diversity (706/583-8195).

Early also will visit with students at J.J. Harris Elementary Charter School on Jan. 13 for an event sponsored by UGA's College of Education and the Institute for African American Studies.
Additional details about these and the many other events planned throughout January and February are available on the 50th anniversary of desegregation website (desegregation.uga.edu), which also includes historical information as well as "milestones and achievements" of the past 50 years.

"We really want to encourage the campus community and the local community to participate in this landmark occasion," said Cheryl Dozier, associate provost for institutional diversity, who co-chairs the planning committee with Derrick Alridge. "There are so many ways to do so and we are excited to see the creativity being shown by UGA departments and student groups in finding ways to celebrate the courage of Hamilton Holmes, Charlayne Hunter-Gault and Mary Frances Early, as well as those who supported them and those who have followed in their footsteps."

The University of Georgia Alumni Association's second annual Bulldog 100: Fastest Growing Bulldog Businesses class of 2011 has been announced from a nominated list of more than 700.

The list includes large companies, such as Aflac in Columbus, and small businesses, including Pigtails & Crewcuts in Roswell. From the Veterinary Emergency and Referral Group in Brooklyn, N.Y. to Vista Photonics in Sante Fe, N.M., the Bulldog 100 recognizes the fastest growing businesses owned or operated by UGA alumni.

An unveiling of the rankings will be held at a celebration Saturday, Jan. 22, at the Marriott Marquis in downtown Atlanta.

Atlanta CPA firm Gifford, Hillegass and Ingwersen LLC verified the information submitted by each company and ranked the businesses based on a compounded annual growth rate during a three-year period. GHI found the total revenue for the Bulldog 100 Class of 2011 is more than $19 billion and average revenue stands at $20 million.

Alumni Association Executive Director Deborah Dietzler said the Bulldog 100 celebrates UGA's entrepreneurial spirit.

"All of these companies are to be congratulated for being among the Bulldog elite in the business world," said Dietzler. "The unveiling of the rankings will be a special and exciting evening."
For more information about the Bulldog 100 and to review an alphabetical list of the honorees, see www.uga.edu/alumni/bulldog100.

Before Josh and Michal Whitlock were 25 years old, they established an endowment at the University of Georgia. No, they aren't rich in worldly resources, but they have an overflowing appreciation for the College of Family and Consumer Sciences and knew they had a goal to accomplish: "We realized that this was probably going to be the least expensive stage in our lives and we knew that if we put it off we would have never done it. So we asked our parents to split the donation" says Josh (BSFCS '05, Child and Family Development).

Pledging over a five-year period, the Whitlocks along with Josh's father and stepmother, Ronnie and Denise Whitlock of Colleyville, Texas, are creating a new undergraduate scholarship in the department where Josh majored and Michal minored.

"Our FACS (and especially our Child and Family Development) education has been so applicable in our everyday lives, making our marriage stronger, and improving our communication skills with everyone around us." says Michal (BSED '07, Recreation and Leisure Studies). They are both using their education in their chosen careers in Duluth. Josh started For Goodness Sake Music and writes children's music and curriculum (www.forgoodnesssakemusic.com). Michal is a ministry associate for Camp All-American. Together they lead worship for 4th-6th grade and volunteer with the 7th-8th grade band at their church.

"UGA couldn't have prepared us better," says the young couple. Not only was Josh a FACS student ambassador, but he had the enviable opportunity to serve as UGA's Hairy Dawg mascot as an undergraduate. He blended the two by often bringing "Hairy" to FACS student and alumni events.

"I had the best college experience, and I wanted to do anything I could to see others enjoy it as much as I did," he says. "I was fortunate and grateful to earn two scholarships from FACS donors, and I'm glad my family has made it possible to start a scholarship in our family's name to help others as others helped me."

The University of Georgia shares the distinction of being the fourth-highest-ranked producer of Fulbright Scholars for the 2010-2011 academic year. Diane Edison, Jared Klein, Peter Rutledge and Richard Siegesmund have received Fulbright Scholar grants to study abroad, lecture and conduct research.

"A Fulbright Scholarship is a signal accomplishment for a faculty member, and I congratulate these UGA recipients on being recognized among the best in the world in their disciplines," said UGA President Michael F. Adams. "For UGA to have four Fulbrights in this cycle and to be ranked among the leaders in this class speaks to the quality of the faculty and their dedication to their disciplines and to their students. This is yet another indication that America's first public university is among her very best today."

Edison, a professor in the Lamar Dodd School of Art in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, is lecturing and conducting research at the New Bulgarian University, Sofia, Bulgaria. She will be there until March. Her project is entitled, "Portraiture Redefined; Interdisciplinary and Collaborative Influences on Teaching Pedagog."

"I am interested in the work of the Bulgarian artist Vladimir Dimitrov, whose heroic portraits transcend the genre with a folk tradition that is comparable to the universal language of contemporary portraiture," said Edison. "Additionally I am collaborating with colleagues at the New Bulgarian University through team teaching."

Klein, the distinguished research professor of linguistics, classics, and Germanic and Slavic languages in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, has been named recipient of a Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Humanities and Cultural Studies. He will use the award to teach and conduct research at the University of Vienna from March-July, where he will lead two courses: the stylistics of the Rigveda, the ancient Indian collection of Sanskrit hymns sacred to Hindus, and Indo-European Discourse Structure. He also will work on his book Stylistic Repetition in the Rigveda.

"With this award I hope to disseminate my ongoing research into the stylistics and discourse structure of the Rigveda to an audience at a major center where these studies are pursued," said Klein. "I will also use the time to work on a monograph oninterstanzaic repetition in the Rigveda and a book to be titled Stylistic Repetition in the Rigveda."

Rutledge, an associate professor in the School of Law, will lecture and conduct research at the University of Vienna, in Austria from March-June. His project is entitled, "Dispute Resolution and the Constitution."

"It is a great honor to join the ranks of UGA faculty who have received Fulbright awards. The process is highly competitive, and the award would not have been possible without the strong support of Dean Rebecca White at the Law School and her counterparts at the University of Vienna," said Rutledge. "I look forward to using the award to conduct original research in the relationship between constitutional law and alternative dispute resolution."

Siegesmund, an associate professor and co-chair of art education in the Lamar Dodd School of Art, is lecturing and conducting research at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin, Ireland until December. His project is entitled, "Applied Arts-Based Research in Schools and Communities."

"In addition to working with students from all disciplines within the National College of Art and Design, I will interact with a variety of groups including secondary art educators and museum professionals. I will also lecture in locations throughout Ireland, as well as England and Scotland," said Siegesmund.

Since 1946, the U.S. Government-sponsored Fulbright Scholar program has provided faculty and professionals with an unparalleled opportunity to study and conduct research in other nations.
These faculty members are among the more than 294,000 American and foreign university students, K-12 teachers, and university faculty and professionals who have participated in one of the several Fulbright exchange programs. Recipients of Fulbright Scholar awards are selected on the basis of academic or professional achievement and because they have demonstrated extraordinary leadership potential in their fields.


 

Michael Pierce in lab

New University of Georgia research, recently published in the early online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has found that blocking the action of an enzyme called GnT-V significantly delays the onset and spread of tumors in mice with cancer very similar to many cases of human breast cancer.

When the GnT-V enzyme activity in the cells was increased in mammary gland cells, they increased proliferation and began to take on many characteristics of cancer cells. Using a mouse model of human breast cancer, tumors appeared when the enzyme was deleted, but onset was delayed an average of 10 weeks in the mice.

"In human terms," said Michael Pierce, director of the UGA Cancer Center and study co-author, "the corresponding delay would be many months and maybe years. You basically are slowing everything down and keeping the cancer from forming and progressing very early." Slowing the pace of the cancer could eliminate its spread to other organs, keeping it localized where it could be treated successfully, Pierce explained.

The researchers, lead by Hua-Bei Guo, assistant research scientist in the department of biochemistry and molecular biology in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, stimulated breast cancer formation in mouse mammary glands by over-expressing a her-2 protein that is a growth receptor on the cell surface. The researchers note that over-expression of her-2 is associated with 25 to 30 percent of human breast cancers.

The GnT-V enzyme makes glycans, which are sugars on the cell surface that change in defined ways when the cell becomes cancerous. Glycans are released from the cell as glycoproteins, making them a promising early-detection marker in blood. The researchers studied a glycan made by GnT-V that appears when normal breast cells become cancerous. The GnT-V glycan product is found on her-2 and other receptors and acts to regulate the number of cancer stem cells in the tissue. The number of these cancer stem cells determines how rapidly the cancer will form and develop.

"Glycans often are ignored by scientists, because they're very complicated and present unusual problems to identify and understand," said Pierce. "This study is an example of how particular glycans that are present on various cell receptors can actually modulate the onset of tumor formation. That may give us new drug targets and new ways to kill the cancer cells specifically."

The finding of Guo and the research team at UGA's Complex Carbohydrate Research Center that the elimination of a glycan-synthesizing enzyme significantly reduced the population of breast cancer stem cells is unprecedented, they note.

"That population of cells appears to drive breast tumor formation in many cases," said Pierce, who also is UGA's Mudter Professor in Cancer Research, "and our research suggests that glycans may be potential targets to kill them selectively."

Pierce likened the cancerous stem cells to the queen of an ant colony. "You can try to get rid of the anthill, but it will just come back if you don't kill the queen," Pierce said. "If we can target those cancer stem cells for elimination, that would be the most effective treatment."

The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health. For more information on the UGA Cancer Center, see www.uga.edu/cancercenter/.


 

University  of Georgia Honors student Tracy Yang of Macon has been awarded a 2011 Rhodes  Scholarship to attend England's Oxford University. She plans to pursue a  master's of science degree in global health science.

Yang,  who is a UGA Foundation Fellow, also was a 2010 Truman Scholar. She plans to  graduate from UGA in May with a bachelor's degree in anthropology. She is one  of 32 Rhodes recipients in the United States and the only one from the state of  Georgia.

Yang  is UGA's 22nd Rhodes Scholar and third UGA female student to be selected since  1976, the first year women were eligible to apply. Before Yang, UGA's most  recent recipients were Deep Shah and Kate Vyborny in 2008.

"The  Rhodes Scholarship is a signal accomplishment for a university student and a  reflection of the rigorous academic environment on the recipient's home  campus," said UGA President Michael F. Adams. "Tracy Yang is representative of  everything that is good about the UGA student body. She is, first and foremost,  a dedicated student, but she is also committed to a life of serving others. I  have no doubt that she will be one of those people who have a significant and  positive impact on the world."

With  aspirations to pursue a career as a physician-policy analyst, Yang has  concentrated her research as well as her local and international involvement on  efforts to address public health disparities and improving access to services.

As  a sophomore, Yang conducted research on the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi under  the guidance of Rick Tarleton, Distinguished Research Professor in Cellular  Biology. The parasite, which causes Chagas disease, has infected approximately  18 million people in Latin America.

She  also participated in the Nathan Schnaper Cancer Research Intern Program in  summer 2008, and in a public health and emergency preparedness internship at  Greater New York Hospital Association in summer 2010. She has traveled to  Nicaragua, working with medical personnel who provide health services to  residents through community hospital or home visits.

Yang  currently is working as an intern with the Athens Health Network, part of a community-based  initiative to address poverty issues in Athens. She also serves as a mentor and  ESL teacher in the local community.

Yang's  interest in policy decision-making precipitated her involvement with UGA's  chapter of the Roosevelt Institution, a national student-run think tank, in  which she has served in several leadership roles. She also is an editor for  UGA's Journal for Undergraduate Research Opportunities, an online undergraduate  research journal for the arts, humanities and social sciences.

"Tracy  is an amazing person," said David S. Williams, director of UGA's Honors Program  and the UGA faculty representative for the Rhodes Scholarship. "She displays an  uncommon intellect, a deep sense of dedication, profound empathy and  extraordinary energy. Yet, she remains completely down to earth and is a  delight to be around. Rhodes Scholars are not just impressive intellects. They  are supposed to make the world a better place. I have no doubt that Tracy will  do just that."

Rhodes  Scholars are chosen in a two-stage process. Candidates must first be endorsed  by their college or university; then selection committees in each of 16  districts invite the strongest applicants for an interview. This year, 837  students were endorsed by 309 colleges and universities.
For more information about the Rhodes Scholarship program,  see www.rhodesscholar.org.

UGA Athletic Association Professor in Infectious Disease Dr. Fred Quinn with UGA Athletic Association Interim Mascot Russ and Board Member Swann Seiler

Three faculty members have been appointed to recently endowed professorships in the University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine.

Dr. Scott Brown, who heads the college’s department of small animal medicine and surgery, has been appointed the first James and Marjorie Waggoner Professor of Small Animal Studies; Dr. Andrew Parks, head of the department of large animal medicine, has been appointed the first Olive K. Britt-Paul E. Hoffman Professor of Large Animal Studies; and Dr. Frederick D. Quinn, head of the department of infectious diseases, has been appointed the first Athletic Association Professor of Infectious Disease.

Dr. Jim Waggoner and Marjorie Waggoner with Dr. Cathy Brown and Waggoner Professor in Small Animal Studies Dr. Scott Brown

The Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia approved the endowed professorships earlier this year.

“We are grateful to Dr. Britt and the Waggoners for their generosity and vision in creating these professorships that will provide support to the large animal medicine and small animal medicine and surgery departments in perpetuity,” said Dr. Sheila W. Allen, dean of the college. “We also acknowledge the University of Georgia Athletic Association for supporting the research mission of the university through the creation of this professorship. Infectious disease research is a major focus on our campus and is so important to the well-being of animals and people in today’s society.”

Brown came to the college in 1982 to complete his internship and residency in small animal internal medicine. He received his veterinary degree from the University of Pennsylvania and is board certified by the American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine. He joined the faculty in 1989 as an assistant professor in the department of physiology and pharmacology. During his nearly three decades at the college, Brown has served as a faculty member, acting associate dean for academic affairs, and, since 2006, as department head of the department of small animal medicine and surgery. In 2003, he was selected as a Josiah Meigs Distinguished Professor in recognition for his excellent teaching skills. His research interests include nephrology and systemic hypertension.

The James and Marjorie Waggoner Professorship of Small Animal Studies was created by a gift from Dr. James Cowan Waggoner (D.V.M. 1969), a native of Ellenwood, and Marjorie Schear Waggoner, who was born in Shaker Heights, Ohio. Both are founding Presidents Club and annual Presidents Club members. James Waggoner has served on the UGA College of Veterinary Medicine Alumni Board.

Parks joined the college as an assistant professor in the department of large animal medicine and surgery in 1986 after receiving his master of science degree from Michigan State University; he has served as the department’s head since 2002. He received his veterinary degree from the University of Cambridge and is a member of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons. His clinical interests include lameness in horses and cattle, diseases of the foot and abdominal surgery in horses and cattle.

Jan Hoffman, Joan Hoffman, Dean Sheila Allen and Brent Hoffman Hix join to recognize Dr. Olive Britt’s bequest to create the Britt-Hoffman Professorship in Large Animal Studies.
The Olive K. Britt-Paul Hoffman Professorship of Large Animal Medicine was created by a gift from the estate of Dr. Olive Kendrick Britt (D.V.M. 1959), who wanted to commemorate her lasting friendship with her professor and mentor, Dr. Paul Hoffman. Britt was a pioneer for women in equine veterinary medicine. She was the first female intern in the large animal clinic at the University of Pennsylvania in 1959; two years later, she became the first veterinarian to specialize in equine medicine in the Richmond, Va., area. Hoffman specialized in equine locomotory diseases and taught at the UGA College of Veterinary Medicine for 42 years, until his retirement in 1995.

Quinn joined the college as head of the department of infectious diseases in 2001 from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He earned both his master of science and his Ph.D. from Indiana University. His research interests include Mycobacterium tuberculosis and other pathogenic mycobacteria of humans and animals. The Athletic Association Professorship of Infectious Diseases was created by a gift from the UGA Athletic Association to support infectious disease research at the University of Georgia.

The UGA College of Veterinary Medicine, founded in 1946, is dedicated to training future veterinarians, to conducting research related to animal diseases and to providing veterinary services for animals and their owners. Research efforts are aimed at enhancing the quality of life for animals and people, improving the productivity of poultry and livestock and preserving a healthy interface between wildlife and people in the environment they share. The college enrolls 102 students each fall out of more than 550 who apply. For more information, see http://www.vet.uga.edu/.

The current UGA College of Veterinary Medicine Teaching Hospital, built in 1979, serves more than 18,000 patients per year in one of the smallest teaching hospitals in the U.S. The college is currently working to raise $15 million toward building a new Veterinary Medical Learning Center, which will include a new teaching hospital as well as classrooms and laboratories that will allow for the education of more veterinarians. The goal is to increase enrollment to 150 when the Veterinary Medical Learning Center is built. http://www.vet.uga.edu/giving/campaign.php

The 2010 edition of the G Book made its debut during fall semester. As the official traditions handbook for students, the G Book includes campus history, fight songs, background on UGA traditions, points of pride and advice from alumni.

UGA’s Alumni Association, which re-published the book, solicited students to give the manual a makeover in 2009. The original G Book existed from the early 1920s to the late 1940s as a guide on all things Georgia. The pages were filled with rules and regulations that all university students had to abide by, and men were actually required to carry the book in their left front pocket.

The updated G Book includes space for students to fill with their own photos and memories, creating a living testament to their time spent at UGA.

The Georgia Museum of Art, located on the University of Georgia campus, recently acquired two significant American paintings from the West Foundation Collection of Atlanta. The foundation gave Benjamin West’s Portrait of Captain Christopher Codrington Bethell (1769) and John Linton Chapman’s Via Appia (1867) to the museum in honor of GMOA director, William U. Eiland, and in anticipation of the museum’s reopening this winter.

A native of Springfield, Pa., West was appointed historical painter for King George III in 1772 around the same time that he executed the portrait of Captain Christopher Codrington Bethell (1728-1797). While working in London, West became a founding member of the Royal Academy in England, serving as its president from 1792 to 1820.He also taught other important American artists, including Samuel F.B. Morse, Washington Allston, John Singleton Copley, Gilbert Stuart and John Trumbull, among others. The sitter, Bethell, married in July 1768, just before his fortieth birthday, and this portrait was likely commissioned in celebration of that event. Bethell’s great-grandfather was among the first individuals to settle in the sugar-producing colony of Barbados in the West Indies, and his grandfather and great uncle both held public office there. The portrait by West is the earliest American painting in the museum’s collection.

Born in Washington, D.C., but a longtime resident of Italy, American artist Chapman (1839-1905) painted the Via Appia, the ancient section of the great Roman road that led to Southern Italy, several times over the course of his career. In this version, Chapman shows the view along the ancient road looking back toward the city of Rome. The dome of St. Peter’s, the most visible landmark for any American tourist approaching the city for the first time, stands at the distant horizon in Chapman’s image. Via Appia served as a keystone painting in the museum’s award-winning 2004 exhibition Classic Ground: Mid-Nineteenth-Century American Painting and the Italian Encounter and graces the cover of the exhibition catalogue.

“Both paintings, important additions to the museum’s already strong collection of American art, will be on display in the new permanent collection galleries when GMOA reopens on January 29,” said Paul Manoguerra, curator of American art at GMOA. “We are grateful to the West Foundation for giving these two excellent paintings in celebration of the new galleries and the work of our director.”

Since March 2009, GMOA has been undergoing a $20 million renovation and expansion that will triple its existing gallery space and add enlarged collection storage, a sculpture garden and study centers for research in the humanities. The new gallery wing will display works from the museum’s permanent collection, which currently includes more than 8,000 objects.

GMOA holds more than 50 British watercolors on extended loan from the West Foundation Collection spanning over 100 years of 18th- and 19th-century virtuoso painting by renowned artists, including Samuel Owen (1768-1857), Samuel Prout (1783-1852), Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827), and Arthur Fitzwilliam Tate (1819-1905).

“As pleased as I am that these works join the museum’s collection in my honor, I am excited that they also will be immediately available to our audiences for their study and enjoyment when we open,” said William U. Eiland, GMOA director. “I am grateful to the West Foundation’s principals, Charles and Marjorie West, for their kindness to me, to the museum and to generations of students and audiences.”

The museum’s forthcoming catalogue of the collection “One Hundred American Paintings” includes entries on both paintings as well as full-color reproductions. The catalogue’s release is scheduled to coincide with the museum’s reopening.

Partial support for the exhibitions and programs at the GMOA is provided by the Georgia Council for the Arts through appropriations of the Georgia General Assembly. The council is a partner agency of the National Endowment for the Arts. Individuals, foundations and corporations provide additional museum support through their gifts to the Arch Foundation and the University of Georgia Foundation. The GMOA is located in the Performing and Visual Arts Complex on the East Campus of the University of Georgia. The address is 90 Carlton Street, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, 30602. The museum’s galleries and shop are currently closed for construction of the museum’s expansion. For more information, see www.uga.edu/gamuseum.

 

The University of Georgia enrolled more than 7,700 new undergraduate students this fall, including just over 4,300 new freshmen.  Another 1,000 new undergraduates—200 of them freshmen—are expected to enroll in January for the spring term.

The size and composition of this year’s freshman class is similar to last year’s class, though more students self-identified as non-Caucasian. This year, 29 percent of incoming freshmen so identified, compared with 22 percent in 2009.

For the freshman class, the number of entering Hispanic students is now over 200—4.3 percent of the class, up from 3 percent in 2009.The number of African-American students remained stable at 7.6 percent of the class.

The entering freshmen once again have a strong grade point average of 3.83(the mid 50 percentile range is 3.68-4.0).The mean SAT nudged up one point to 1264 for the Critical Reading and Math section, while the mean on the Writing section dropped one point to 612. The combined average score held firm at 1876 out of 2400 points (which includes all three components of the test). The middle 50 percentile of the class scored between 1730-1970.For those students who took the ACT, the mean score this year was again 28, with a mid 50 percentile range of 26-31.

The 525 students expected to enroll in UGA’s nationally recognized Honors Program have an average GPA of 4.06 (with a mid 50 percentile range of 3.96-4.14) and SAT average of 1471 (mid 50 percentile range of 1440-1490 on the Critical Reading and Math components only). The mean score on the Writing component was 712, producing a 2183 average on the three parts combined. The ACT average is 33 (mid 50 percent range of 32-33).

As in previous years, the incoming class includes geographic diversity, with 200 freshmen coming from 51different countries. Just over 13 percent of the new class is from out of state, with Texas, North Carolina and Virginia sending the most students. In-state students represent more than 450Georgiahigh schools in 140counties.

“This year more than half of the incoming students classified as Georgia residents have social security numbers initially issued in another state,” said Nancy McDuff, associate vice president for admissions and enrollment management. “This shows the continued in-migration to Georgia from other parts of the country.”

The number of applications received for this year’s freshman class—more than 17,730—is one of the highest recorded at UGA, following several years of record applications. Since 2003, applications for UGA’s freshman class have increased by more than 50 percent.

The rigor of students’ high school curriculum continues to be a key factor in admissions decisions. Some 95 percent of the enrolled students took College Board Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate classes while in high school.

Five percent of the incoming freshmen (222) were first or second in their graduating class and more than half were in the top 10 percent of their class. Several students had a perfect composite score on the SAT or ACT, while 134 had perfect scores on at least one of the components of the SAT. Nearly 10 percent of the students started college while still in high school through joint enrollment programs.

While many of the incoming students have not yet decided on a major, the most popular intended majors (listed alphabetically) are biology, biochemical and molecular biology, business, chemistry, international affairs, political science and psychology, reflecting a pattern similar to previous years.

Although legacy is not a factor in admissions decisions, almost 35 percent of the students have parents or siblings who attended UGA. Six percent of the incoming freshmen are the first in their family to attend college.

The new incoming transfer students have an earned college GPA of 3.4 on college work completed prior to enrolling at UGA. Similar to previous classes of transfer students, they are almost evenly divided between males and females. Twenty-two percent of transfer students self-identified as non-Caucasian and about 94 percent are Georgia residents.

Stem  cells might be thought of as trunks in the tree of life. All multi-cellular  organisms have them, and they can turn into a dazzling variety other  cells—kidney, brain, heart or skin, for example. One class, pluripotent stem  cells, has the capacity to turn into virtually any cell type in the body,  making them a focal point in the development of cell therapies, the conquering  of age-old diseases or even regrowing defective body parts.

Now,  a research team at the University of Georgia has shown for the first time that  a gene called Myc (pronounced "mick") may be far more important in the  development and persistence of stem cells than was known before. Myc is  traditionally thought of as a cancer-causing gene, or oncogene, but recent  studies from the UGA team have established critical roles for it in stem cell  biology. The discovery has important implications for the basic understanding  of developmental processes and how stem cells can be used for therapeutic  purposes.

"This  new research has uncovered a really unexpected role for Myc," said Stephen  Dalton, GRA Eminent Scholar of Molecular Cell Biology and Georgia Cancer  Coalition Distinguished Scientist at UGA. "Our work here represents the first  mechanistic characterization of how Myc controls the pluripotent stem cell  state."

The  research was published in Cell Stem Cell. Other  authors of the paper include Keriayn Smith and Amar Singh of the Dalton lab at  UGA. Smith left recently to begin a postdoc at the University of North  Carolina. Dalton also is a member of the department of biochemistry and  molecular biology in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences and is  affiliated with the UGA Cancer Center and the Biomedical and Health Sciences  Institute.
  In  previous work, Dalton and his colleagues showed that Myc is critical for stem  cell maintenance and that it affects widespread changes in gene expression.  This latter function is crucial when stem cells differentiate into more  specific cell types. In the new research, Dalton's team showed that Myc  sustains the important pluripotency process by repressing a "master regulator"  gene called GATA6.

"Pluripotency  is the inherent property of a cell to create all cell types, from an embryo to  an adult organism," said Dalton. "It's an extremely important biological  process, and knowing how it is controlled is crucial not only from a basic  developmental perspective but also so that we can harness the potential of stem  cells for the development of therapies, including those for diabetes,  cardiovascular disease and a range of neurological disorders. Through a  detailed understanding of early development, we hope to apply this information  so that pluripotent stem cells can be differentiated into therapeutically  useful cell types. These cells can then be used in a clinical setting to cure  degenerative diseases and treat acute injury."

The  finding that Myc inhibits GATA6 came as a big surprise to the Dalton team and  points out that researchers have only seen the tip of the "molecular iceberg"  in terms of what Myc does in stem cells. It now seems likely that understanding  Myc's role in further detail will reshape current ideas about the basic biology  of stem cells.

Dalton's  new work addressed the uncertainty about how Myc maintains the pluripotency of  stem cells by examining what happens when two forms of Myc—c-Myc and N-Myc—are  inactivated in pluripotent stem cells. What he found was that either c- or  N-Myc is sufficient to maintain pluripotency, but that the absence of both  triggers the differentiation of pluripotent stem cells. Myc is therefore acting  as a "brake" to restrain differentiation. When the "differentiation brake" is  removed, cells lose their stem cell properties, and, potentially, they can  become any one of over a hundred different cell types.

Pluripotent  stem cells can now be made from skin fibroblasts and even from blood samples.  (Fibroblasts are cells common in connective tissues of animals and play an  important role in the healing of wounds, among many functions.) The conversion  of mature fibroblast or blood cells back to pluripotent stem cells is called  "reprogramming." Myc also has a critical role in this process. The ability to  make stem cells from a patient's blood or skin is going to revolutionize  medicine as it opens the way for patient-specific stem cells that would  circumvent problems associated with immune rejection, said Dalton.

"During  the reprogramming of cells, Myc represses genes associated with the  differentiated state and primes them for the expression of stem cell genes," he  said. "We now speculate that during the early reprogramming stage, Myc serves  to change the cell cycle so that stem cells can divide for long periods of time  without aging. This is also what Myc does in cancer cells."  Dalton  said that there is an intriguing relationship between normal stem cells and  cancer cells. Since Myc is crucial for maintenance of stem cells and for the  development of cancer, pluripotent stem cells represent a good model for tumor  biologists. Cancer is thought to be initiated by rogue stem cells found in  different tissues, further highlighting the link between stem cell biology,  cancer and Myc.

"This  is clearly going to be a major area of research for many years to come," Dalton  said.   The  research was supported by grants to Dalton from the National Institute of Child  Health and Development and the National Institute for General Medical Sciences.

Building 1516, the University of Georgia's first "green" residence hall, opened on Monday, Aug. 9, to more than 500 upperclassmen. The hall offers spacious residential and community areas in a retro-modern design, and incorporates eco-friendly programs into everyday life for a complete "living green" experience.

Although it is near East Campus Village, the traditional style rooms are different from the apartment-style living offered in the neighboring community. The hall is part of the Reed community, and the rooms are set up much like those in Reed Hall, with double and single rooms and private bath accommodations for each room. The hall features nine-month academic contracts, carpeted rooms, loftable twin beds, laundry and kitchen facilities throughout the building, high-speed Internet access, and biometric hand readers for secure resident access.

"We are excited to have a new residence hall that meets demands for housing, addresses the needs and interests of the new generation of environmentally conscientious students, and supports their academic and personal growth," said Gerry Kowalski, University Housing executive director. "We have listened to what is important to students over the years, and we are meeting their needs by providing amenities such as in-room temperature controls and private bathrooms so that they are free to concentrate on other fundamental concerns like academic success and personal achievement."

"It turned out to be more beautiful than anything I imagined," said Kaitlin Pniewski, a graduate student in the College of Education and new resident of Building 1516. "Every aspect of the building, from the catering kitchen to the multi-purpose room, is stylish and functional. I know all the extra 'hang-out' rooms will be put to good use with our residents.
"I cannot believe how many study rooms there are, equipped with dry erase boards, single desks, and large study tables. Residents won't have to trek to the MLC (Miller Learning Center) during finals week," said Pniewski.

Keeping students' interests in mind, the "living green" philosophy is the fundamental concept of the new hall. The university has implemented numerous green elements into the new residence hall and is seeking LEED certification now that construction has been completed and residents have moved in. Promotion of community connectivity, physical activity and pollution reduction help reinforce the "living green" practices of the new building. Students are within walking distance of east campus amenities, such as the Ramsey Student Center for Physical Activities, Joe Frank Harris Dining Commons, University Health Center, and the Performing and Visual Arts Complex. Interior bike storage, as well as easy access to residential parking and bus routes, is provided to promote alternative modes of transportation.

Features that incorporate green technology include in-room temperature controls; high-efficiency sinks, showers and toilets that allow a significant savings per year in water; treated gray water recycled from sinks and showers for use in toilets; low-emitting Volatile Organic Compounds in paint, carpet, coatings, sealants and adhesives that reduce contaminants effecting indoor air quality; and double-paned, low-energy windows that help rooms maintain constant temperatures. Ten percent of the materials used to construct the residence hall are made of recycled content, and another 10 percent originated from within 500 miles of the construction site, reducing air pollutants created from transporting the materials from great distances. The exterior of the building features a cool roof and concrete sidewalks which reflect light and use of drought resistant landscaping and runoff water to replenish underground water sources.

Undergraduate staff members known as resident assistants support residents in programs and other initiatives designed to aid in personal growth and academic success, in addition to programs geared toward sustainability education.

Jonathan Jones, a second-year biochemical engineering student and 2009 Coca-Cola Scholar, is an RA living in the building. "I love the Reed Community's Building 1516 because it represents the steps that the University of Georgia is taking toward a more sustainable way of living for students as well as the surrounding community. Every time I utilize the shower or sink, I think of how I am doing my part to conserve water and prevent waste with the gray-water system."

The Department of University Housing at the University of Georgia provides comfortable, affordable and secure on-campus housing options in residential communities where the academic success and personal growth of residents are encouraged and supported. Approximately 7,400 students live in 21 residence halls within seven residential communities, in addition to graduate students and their families who live in 580 campus units. University Housing is strongly committed to creating and supporting an environment of diversity and offers a variety of learning opportunities to residents, as well as to more than 600 professional, graduate and student staff.

To learn more about University Housing, see www.uga.edu/housing.

The University of Georgia conferred degrees on about 5,170 undergraduate and graduate students at spring Commencement ceremonies May 8. An estimated 4,000 undergraduates were eligible to receive bachelor's degrees at the undergraduate ceremony in Sanford Stadium.

Alton Brown, who writes, produces, directs and stars in Good Eats, spoke at the undergraduate ceremony. In addition to being the first Peabody Award-winning host for the Food Network, Brown has written several books, including I'm Just Here for the Food, which won the 2003 James Beard Foundation Award for best cookbook in the reference category.

The student speaker for the undergraduate ceremony was Sarah Christian Haynes of Roswell, who received a bachelor of arts degrees in political science, international affairs and history. Haynes served as the president of the Student Alumni Council and External Affairs committee chair for the Student Government Association. A member of the Sigma Alpha Lambda, Phi Alpha Theta and Golden Key Honor societies, Haynes served as a G-Book project co-coordinator and executive director of the College Republicans. She currently serves as deputy political director for Secretary of State Brian Kemp.
Fifteen seniors who maintained perfect 4.0 grade point averages were recognized as First Honor Graduates.

About 1,170 candidates for master's, doctoral and specialist in education degrees were eligible to participate in the ceremony for graduate students.
The speaker for the ceremony for graduate students was Thomas Lauth, dean of the university's School of Public and International Affairs. Lauth has been dean of the school since it was established in 2001. He headed the political science department at UGA from 1988 to 2001. He was elected a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration in 2000 and is the recipient of a lifetime scholarly achievement award from the Association for Budgeting and Financial Management.
 

Two University of Georgia animal science researchers introduced to the world 13 pigs that may hold the key to new therapies to treat human diseases, including diabetes.  The discovery marks the first time pluripotent stem cells, or cells that can turn into any type of cell in the body, have been created from adult livestock.

"We now for the first time have a method to make pigs that can be a source of cells and organs for regenerative medicine in a meaningful way," said Steven L. Stice, a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Reproductive Physiology. A faculty member in the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Stice also directs UGA's Regenerative Bioscience Center. The technique called induced pluripotent stem cells had only previously been shown to make live offspring in mice.

"These first-in-the-world, pig-induced pluripotent cells-generated animals can eventually be used to provide and search for better therapies and cures for human disease and regenerative conditions," Stice said.

The discovery is a new tool for researchers who need to determine which sources of cells, adult or earlier stages such as embryonic or induced pluripotent stem cells, will work best for each disease.

The induced pluripotent stem cells piglets were born Sept. 3, 2009. The process used avoids the more problematic and controversial cloning process while making it easier to make the genetic changes necessary to develop pigs as a better source of cells and organs for transplantation.

"Although induced pluripotent stem cell technology was first successful in mice, they aren't always a good model to study human disease and they are not a good source of tissue and organs for therapy,"  Stice said. "Pigs are often the best way to go."

Stice credits Franklin West, an assistant research scientist, with perfecting the method.

"I've worked on this for about 20 years," Stice said. "Franklin found the way to make it work."

The pluripotent stem cells incorporated naturally into the developing fetuses and contributed to the development of many cell types of the body, such as lungs, kidney, heart, skin or muscle, producing healthy piglets, West said. And 80 percent of the animals produced using this new method are a product of these stem cells, a very high percentage.

The new process will be valuable for a research project under way in partnership with Emory University to find better therapies for diabetes.

"Islets that produce insulin and other hormones related to regulating blood sugar are found in the pancreas," Stice said. "It is well known that porcine islet cells could be a major break through in the treatment of Type I (juvenile) diabetes if they were not rejected by the human immune system. This new method will allow researchers to make the necessary genetic changes to dampen or potentially eliminate the rejection of the new stem cells and then we can make animals from these stem cells."

Another goal, Stice said, is for the study results to lead the way to healthier, more environmentally friendly and disease-resistant livestock, and ones that could help reduce poverty or starvation in developing countries.

Once the new pigs reach sexual maturity and Stice and West determine if the pigs produce viable sperm and egg cells, they can begin naturally mating. The offspring of the current pigs will produce the cells needed to move into the therapy stage and clinical trials.

Details of the discovery will be published in the June Journal of Stem Cells and Development.

A website developed by University of Georgia faculty members focuses on multiple ways to "go green."  The website,  www.ugagreenway.com was unveiled in conjunction with Earth Day.

A team led by Pamela Turner, assistant professor in the College of Family and Consumer Sciences and a housing specialist with UGA Cooperative Extension, developed "UGA GreenWay" to reach Georgians who may not be familiar with the resources offered by Extension.

"A  population we're missing are those who tend to use social media to garner information," Turner said. "We want to be a trusted source for information on a variety of issues connected with the environment."

For example, Turner has a wealth of information on "Greenwashing," a play on the term "whitewashing," but in this instance referring to false advertising claims by some companies regarding environmentally responsible products. The page provides information on eco-labels, third-party certifications, consumer reviews, and how to spot misleading labels.

While the benefits of "reduce, reuse, recycle and repurpose" are prominent on the site, Turner also emphasizes the importance of repairs as a way of being environmentally friendly.

"Dealing with moisture issues in order to eliminate mold, caulking doors and windows in order to lower heating costs, and maintaining the exterior of your home are all things that help us conserve our resources as well as saving money," she said.

Saving "green," as in money, is also a part of the new website. Joan Koonce, FACS associate professor and a finance specialist with Cooperative Extension, has provided information on how consumers can save money by going green, as well as information on environmentally responsible investing.

Ensuring that young people learn ways to protect the environment has been a focus of Sharon Gibson, a FACS Cooperative Extension multicultural specialist, "There are a multitude of ways to encourage children and teens to go green," Gibson said. "Whether it's helping the family with recycling and composting or encouraging their school to establish a school garden, kids can play a significant role in helping our environment."

The Cooperative Extension team is focused on ensuring that links to UGA Greenway are both accurate and politically neutral.

"We want people to email us with both questions and tips," Gibson said, "But we're checking all of those tips and all of the suggestions for links to ensure that the information is accurate."

Just for fun, the website also includes a green quiz. By answering a range of questions from whether you compost, carry your own shopping bags to the store or shorten your showers, you might be "basically brown," meaning you're interest in being environmentally friendly is on the low side, to being a "green sprout" or, if you're really focused on the environment, being "true green."

BB&T Corp., the nation's 10th largest financial holding company, has pledged to give $1.5 million over 10 years to the University of Georgia Terry College of Business to expand teaching and research into the foundations of capitalism and free market economies.

The gift will establish the BB&T Support Fund for the Study of Capitalism and Market Economies in the department of banking and finance.

About half of BB&T's $150,000 annual contribution will enable the Terry College to develop new coursework that will expose undergraduate students at UGA to the historical foundations of capitalism, how it's viewed in contemporary society, and its future prospects. The remaining funds will provide faculty support for research on capital markets, market competition, government-controlled incentives and disincentives for productivity, and comparative studies of economic systems.

"As the Terry College of Business approaches the centennial of its founding in 1912, it is fitting that we should take this opportunity to look more closely at the historical tenets of capitalism and consider its changing role in an increasingly interconnected and interdependent global market," said Dean Robert T. Sumichrast. "Thanks to BB&T's support, we expect to develop in our students a deeper historical and philosophical understanding of capitalism and its relation to economic well-being."

In recent years, BB&T has privately supported a number of college programs promoting the study of the foundations of capitalism. BB&T donated similar amounts to establish the BB&T Program of Free Enterprise at Florida State University's College of Business and the BB&T Chair for the Study of Objectivism in the philosophy department at the University of Texas at Austin.

Each student who is admitted to the Terry College will receive a copy of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, as well as writings by other classic economists and philosophers, including Milton Friedman, Friedrich von Hayek, John Keynes, Karl Marx, Joseph Schumpeter and Adam Smith.

In support of research, the Terry College will select BB&T Scholars among faculty members who are actively engaged in research pertaining to market competition, corporate governance, capital markets and government agencies that monitor and intervene in the economy. The faculty who are named BB&T Scholars will be chosen on a competitive basis, and they will hold the appointments for a three-year period.

The finance department at Terry maintains an impressive track record of research, and the faculty's devotion to academic exploration augments the classroom experience. Faculty in the department have extensive professional experience in the areas of capital markets, corporate finance, international finance and corporate governance. They also serve as editors and publish in a wide number of prominent academic journals.

BB&T Corp. (NYSE: BBT) is the 10th largest financial services holding company in the U.S., with more than $163 billion in assets and market capitalization of $22.4 billion. Based in Winston-Salem, N.C., the company operates more than 1,800 financial centers in 12 states and Washington, D.C., and offers a full range of consumer and commercial banking, securities brokerage, asset management, mortgage and insurance products and services. A Fortune 500 company, BB&T is consistently recognized for outstanding client satisfaction by J.D. Power and Associates, the U.S. Small Business Administration, Greenwich Associates and others. More information about BB&T and its full line of products and services is available at www.BBT.com.

Fans were treated to a reading from Frances Mayes' newest memoir, Every Day in Tuscany: Seasons of an Italian Life, when she spoke March 30 in recognition of her donation of her personal papers to the UGA Libraries.

Author of the best-selling memoirs Under the Tuscan Sun and Bella Tuscany, Mayes is a native of Fitzgerald, Ga. She is also the author of a travel memoir, A Year in the World, the illustrated books In Tuscany and Bringing Tuscany Home; Swan, a novel; The Discovery of Poetry, a text for readers; and five books of poetry.
"I'm always slightly regretful when I come to Athens that I didn't go to school here," Mayes said on a glorious spring afternoon. "Both my sisters did so therefore I did not. It was just one of those things."

Saying she was honored to be asked to donate her papers, Mayes said, "I was having intimations of immortality and (husband) Ed was glad to get the garage cleaned out."

Under the Tuscan Sun (1996) stayed on top of the New York Times bestseller list for two years and was made into a 2003 movie. In the book, Mayes began the story of finding an abandoned house while traveling in Italy, buying it and the arduous task of restoration. Her writing focuses on making the house, Bramasole, her home and simultaneously establishing a new life.

"Many, many people have enjoyed reading of Frances' Mayes adventures in Italy and we are excited to be able to present this opportunity for the university community to hear her personally," said William Gray Potter, the university librarian and associate provost. "More so, we are thrilled that she has trusted us with preserving her papers and look forward to sharing them with her fans and scholarly researchers alike."

Her papers will join other collections held by the UGA Libraries in the Special Collections Libraries Building, now under construction, when it opens in 2012.
Mayes was introduced by UGA President Michael F. Adams, who credited the Mayes for their support of the study-abroad program in Cortona – "one of the jewels in our crown."

Calling the UGA students "a spark of life" for the town, Mayes described the sculpture program's expansion to the vicinity of a home for "old people with no home."  The students were outside, playing loud music and working with big pieces of marble.

"This is going to drive those old people mad. This is crazy," Mayes thought. "But as it turns out they loved it. They were all outside with the students, sitting there watching and really enjoying the activity. And that revealed to me something that I know about Tuscany – that there is very little hierarchy among ages. When you go to a dinner there's the 95-year-old grandmother and the six-month-old baby and everybody in between."

Additional information on Mayes is available at www.francesmayesbooks.com.

Thirty-six recipients of the 69th Annual Peabody Awards were recognized May 17 by the University of Georgia's Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. The winners, chosen by the Peabody board as the best in electronic media for 2009, were named in a ceremony at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City.

Diane Sawyer, the award-winning anchor of ABC's "World News," was the host of the 69th Annual George Foster Peabody Awards ceremony.

Sawyer was the first media personality – news or entertainment – to emcee a second Peabody ceremony, having presided over the 56th annual awards in 1996. She shared in the Peabody Award bestowed upon "Rush to Read," a 1994 investigative report presented by ABC News' "Prime Time Live."

"Diane Sawyer has worked in every facet of broadcast journalism," said Horace Newcomb, director of the Peabody Awards at the University of Georgia. "Now, as anchor of ABC's World News, all her prior experience is brought to bear on the most significant events of our time in the most professional manner. We are delighted that for the second time she served as our host and master of ceremonies for the 69th Peabody Awards presentation."

The latest Peabody winners reflect great diversity in genre, sources of origination and content.   The recipients included Modern Family, ABC's droll, perceptive comedy about a multicultural extended family; HBO's Thrilla in Manila, a documentary that probes the hype, mythology and meaning of the politically charged Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier fights in the early 1970s; and The Great Textbook War, a fair, balanced radio documentary from West Virginia Public Broadcasting about a 1974 skirmish that presaged "cultural wars" still raging in America. Jerome Robbins – Something to Dance About, a richly insightful portrait of the director-choreographer from Thirteen/WNET's American Masters, received a Peabody Award, as did the Desmond Tutu installment of CBS's consistently surprising The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, a talk show without borders.

Peabodys went to Sichuan Earthquake: One Year On, a thorough assessment of the damage, grief and anger in the quake ravaged Chinese province by Hong Kong's Now-TV News, and A Hidden America: Children of the Mountains, ABC News' illumination of the abiding poverty of our most forgotten region, Central Appalachia. Peabodys also were awarded to The Madoff Affair, a comprehensive examination by WGBH's FRONTLNE of the Ponzi scheme that cost investors $65 billion, and "Hard Times," Oregon Public Broadcasting's smart, compassionate radio coverage of the impact of the financial crisis on ordinary folks.

Other entertainment programming recognized by the Peabody Board included Glee, Fox's invigorating musical dramedy about the diverse members of a high-school choral club; In Treatment, HBO's mesmerizing therapy-session drama; The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, HBO's charming series about a female private eye in Botswana; and Endgame, a PBS/Masterpiece film about secret negotiations that facilitated the end of apartheid in South Africa. A Peabody also went to The Day That Lehman Died, a riveting radio docudrama from the BBC World Service that reconstructed the frantic negotiations that preceded the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy filing that shook the financial world.

In the realm of arts and culture, Peabodys were awarded to Noodle Road, a visually scrumptious survey of the Asian culinary staple by South Korea's KBS 1TV; PBS' Inventing LA: The Chandlers and

Their Times, a portrait of a family newspaper dynasty that pursued civic goals and personal agendas with equal zeal; and two Independent Lens documentaries: The Order of Myths, a look at race relations through the prism of the Mardi Gras of Mobile, Ala., and Between the Folds, an exhilarating, awe-inspiring study of the art of origami and paper folding.

A Personal Peabody was awarded to Diane Rehm, whose eponymously titled show on Washington, D.C.'s WAMU-FM and National Public Radio epitomizes vigorous, courteous political discourse.

Peabodys also went to BBC World News America: Unique Broadcast, Unique Perspective, a model "world" newscastcrafted for U.S. cable subscribers by BBC America; National Public Radio's topically boundless Web counterpart, npr.org; and SesameStreet.org, the celebrated children's television series' cheery, interactively educational Web site.

"Every year the Peabody Board faces the daunting task of selecting examples of the most outstanding work in electronic media," said Horace Newcomb, director of the Peabody Awards. "Our work is made more difficult because every entry is selected by a producer, a studio, a network or cable channel as their best work of the previous year. We begin at the top and have to go even higher."

The Peabody Board recognized the meritorious efforts of several local news organizations. Awards went to "Under Fire: Discrimination and Corruption in the Texas National Guard," a startling investigative series by Houston's KHOU-TV that led to the firing of three Texas Guard generals; "Derrion Albert Beating," a series of reports by Chicago's WFLD-TV about the sidewalk murder of an honor student that had national repercussions; and "BART Shooting," a series of reports in which KTVU-TV in Oakland, Calif., doggedly pursued the facts of a deadly, train-station confrontation.

In the Peabody-honored "Up in Smoke," Los Angeles' KCET-TV explored the state's cannabis culture and found, among other surprises, that medicinal marijuana clinics, thanks to an inadvertent regulatory loophole, outnumbered Starbucks shops in the city. In "Chronicle: The Gift," WYFF-TV in Greenville, S.C., made a man's tragic, accidental death the impetus of a public-service campaign on behalf of organ donation, showcasing the stories of the recipients his generosity saved.

Radio winners included Mind the Gap: Why Good Schools Are Failing Black Students, a documentary in which independent producer Nancy Solomon focused on a suburban New Jersey high school, asking difficult questions of teachers and students alike, and "Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson: Covering Afghanistan," a collection of uniquely insightful reports about everyday life as well as the ongoing warfare by the chief of National Public Radio's Afghan bureau.

"To those who say all media content is the same, or presented from a single perspective, we offer this great range of material as a response," said Newcomb. "Our selections demonstrate that great work available in 2009 varied widely and appealed to viewers and listeners with very different tastes interests, and concerns."

CBS News's 60 Minutes added another pair of Peabodys to its collection: "Sabotaging the System" looked at the clear and present danger of cyber attacks from Russia and China on America's computer-dependent infrastructure and what is being done to thwart them. "The Cost of Dying" took a courageous, objective look at the actual monetary cost of end-of-life care even as airwaves and town halls were buzzing with talk of health-care "death panels."

A Peabody also went to "Where Giving Life Is a Death Sentence," a BBC America news report by Lyse Doucet about a remote Afghan province that has the world's worst recorded rate of maternal mortality.

The notable documentaries honored also included Iran and the West, BBC2's comprehensive, three-hour explanation, complete with newly conducted interviews with key leaders, of how the current nuclear impasse evolved, and The OxyContin Express, a shocking documentation by Current TV of the extent of prescription-drug abuse in America. Brick City, a gritty documentary series shown on the Sundance Channel, paints an unvarnished picture of life, politics and hopes for revival in gang-banged and impoverished Newark, N.J. I-Witness: Ambulansiyang de Paa, from the Philippines' GMA Network Inc., memorably chronicled how residents of a poor, remote town can only get their sick and injured to medical care using the "ambulance on foot," woven hammocks that they carry over dangerous terrain.

The Peabody Awards, the oldest honor in electronic media, do not recognize categories nor are there a set number of awards given each year. Today the Peabody recognizes distinguished achievement and meritorious public service by TV and radio stations, networks, cablecasters, Webcasters, producing organizations and individuals.

The Peabody Board is a 16-member group, comprised of television critics, broadcast and cable industry executives, academics and experts in culture and the arts. They make their annual selections with input from special screening committees of UGA faculty, students and staff.

All entries become a permanent part of the Peabody Archive in the UGA Libraries. The collection is one of the nation's oldest, largest and most respected moving-image archives. For more information about the Peabody Archive or the Peabody Awards, see www.peabody.uga.edu.

The University of Georgia has been recognized as one of the Top 25 colleges and universities in the nation that produce Peace Corps volunteers.

Currently, 45 undergraduate and three graduate alumni from UGA are serving as Peace Corps volunteers, adding to the 455 former students who have joined the program's ranks since it was established in 1961.

"I am proud and humbled that so many of our students have dedicated themselves to the kind of service work in which the Peace Corps engages around the globe," said UGA President Michael F. Adams. "Volunteers come back with skills that make them uniquely qualified to work in a global marketplace and first-hand knowledge of how to put their skills to use helping others."

There are currently 7,671 Peace Corps volunteers serving in 76 host countries. In 2009, the Peace Corps received more than 15,000 applications, the largest number of applications since the agency began electronically recording applications in 1998.

UGA ranked 23rd for colleges and universities with more than 15,000 undergraduates.

One hundred of the fastest-growing companies owned or operated by former University of Georgia students were honored Jan. 30, when the UGA Alumni Association announced the "Bulldog 100: Fastest Growing Bulldog Businesses" at a celebration in Buckhead.

Nominations were collected between April 15 and Sept. 30. To be considered for the program, an organization must have been in business for at least five years, had revenues of $100,000 or more for the last calendar year, and must have been owned or operated by a former UGA student.The program recognizes the fastest-growing businesses regardless of size by focusing on a three-year growth rate average.

The Atlanta CPA firm, Gifford, Hillegass and Ingwersen LLC, partnered with the UGA Alumni Association to verify the information that was submitted by each nominated company. GH & I ranked each company in order of the compounded annual growth rate.

Nominations for the 2011 Bulldog program will open April 15.

For more information, see www.uga.edu/alumni/bulldog100.

The "Bulldog 100:Fastest Growing Bulldog Businesses" Class of 2010:
1. Hitson Land & Timber Management, Port Orange, Fla., Greg Hitson '94
2. Evoshield, Bogart, Justin Niefer '04
3. Payscape Advisors, Atlanta, Leo Welf, '95
4. Clear Harbor LLC, Alpharetta, Tut Smith, '79
5. J. K. Milne Asset Management, Pittsburgh, Pa., John Milne '80
6. Snorg Tees, Alpharetta, Matt Walls '03
7. Forisk Consulting, Athens, Brooks Mendell '04
8. HROI, Lawrenceville, Tim Mitchell '91
9. Mom Corps, Atlanta, Allison O'Kelly '94
10. Cooper-Atlanta Transportation, Atlanta, Fred Rich '75
11. Baseline SportsMedia, Athens, Trent Allen '95
12. Next Step Learning, Alpharetta, Michael Addison '81
13. Data South Systems, Hinesville, Charles E. Campbell '87
14. The Green Kangaroo, Cary, NC, Melissa Windley '00
15. Banker's Dashboard, Stockbridge, Chris Bledsoe '86
16. Legacy Boating Club, Destin, Fla., Fletcher Shackelford '92
17. Vista Photonics, Santa Fe, N.M., Jeffrey Pilgrim '90, '95
18. Fineline Technologies, Norcross, Richard Stamper '94
19. Head 2 Head, Inc, Roanoke, Va., Christopher Head '85 and Elizabeth Head '83
20. Hunt Industries, Valdosta, Terry Hunt '69, '73
21. Better World Books, Alpharetta, Dustin Holland '91
22. SG Financial Advisors LLC, Atlanta, Sammy Grant '97, '00
23. John Byers, Inc, Lawrenceville, John Byers '03
24. American Tanning and Leather Company, Griffin, Christine Plott Redd '02
25. Kelly, Lovett & Blakey PC, Albany, Walter Kelly '75
26. Crescent Wealth Management, Atlanta, Jeff Taylor '99
27. Veterinary Emergency & Referral Group, Brooklyn, N.Y., Brett Levitzke '00
28. Allen Professional Graphics Group LLC, Atlanta, Monica Allen '96 and Ethan Allen '99
29. NeoCom Solutions, Woodstock, Kham Longstaff '96
30. The Hurst Company, CPAs, Amelia Island, Fla., Henry Hurst, Jr. '93
31. Bryant, Carroll & Associates, Atlanta, Jake Bryant '98
32. Magic Moments, Norcross, Teresa Day '71
33. Georgia Public Web, Atlanta, David Muschamp '73
34. Red Clay Interactive, Gainesville, Lance Compton '95
35. Fire & Flavor, Bogart, Gena Knox '00 and Davis Knox '98
36. Cast Stone Systems, Warrenton, N.C., Ted Echols '90
37. LaserCraft Technologies, Gainesville, Rodney Greene '91
38. Prestige Foods, Greensboro, Derry Drake '92, '93
39. Plexus Web Creations, Athens, Stephanie Sharp '94
40. Radiant Systems, Alpharetta, John Heyman '83
41. Jackson Spalding, Atlanta, Bo Spalding '78, '79
42. Better for Babies, Carrollton, Leah Carter '98
43. Aquatic Solutions, Tucker, Seth Burrow '02
44. Senior Connections, Chamblee, Debra Furtado '87, '89
45. Bartimaeus, Lawrenceville, Chris Pittard '92
46. Greenway Medical Technologies, Carrollton, Thomas Green, Jr '66
47. Interchanges, Jacksonville, Fla., Nelson Bruton '02
48. Eight at Eight, Atlanta, Sarah Kathryn Smith, '98
49. Badgerdog Literary Publishing, Austin, Tx., Melanie Moore '88
50. Pro Buyers LLC, Oviedo, Fla., Jeffrey A. Smith '79
51. The Atlanta Wine School, Atlanta, Michael Bryan '89
52. Russell Landscape Group, Dacula, Teddy Russell '98
53. Melissa Libby & Associates, Atlanta, Melissa Libby '85
54. Allgood Pest Solutions, Dublin, James Allgood '97, '00
55. The Whitlock Group, Richmond, Va., John D. Whitlock '79
56. Atlanta Kitchen Equipment, Douglasville, Julie Tidwell'79
57. Mathews & Maxwell, Atlanta, Terry Mathews '82
58. Safe Systems, Alpharetta, Zach Duke '99
59. Thomas Eye Center, Athens, Stuart J. Thomas '79
60. Reynolds, Smith & Hills, Jacksonville, Fla., Leerie T. Jenkins, Jr '70
61. Expert Computers, Griffin, Drew Taylor '98
62. Stadion Money Management, Watkinsville, Tim Chapman '82
63. Stanley Dean & Associates PC, Atlanta, Stanley D. Dean '85, '86
64. Convention Models and Talent, Atlanta, Shelly Justice '89
65. Ad Ventures, Roswell, John David Cogdell '76, '83
66. Brantley & Jordan Animal Hospital, Macon, Stephanie Jordan '92, Jeff Jordan '88, '92 and Jeff Brantley '86, '90
67. Linwood W. Zoller, MD, Gainesville, Lin Zoller '78, '80
68. Sweetwater Pool Management, Tucker, Michael Wise '02
69. Resource Providers, Tampa, Fla., W. Allen Clifford '63
70. Moore, Clarke, Duvall & Rodgers PC, Albany, Jim Moore '78, '81
71. Pigtails and Crewcuts, Roswell, Bucky Cook '77
72. Bennett Thrasher PC, Atlanta, Ken Thrasher '73, '74
73. Appalachian Animal Hospital, East Ellijay, Thomas L. Lewis, Jr '02
74. Jones Pharmacy, Fayetteville, Ralph Balchin, '68
75. Fulghum Drugs, Baxley, Ray Dixon '03
76. Doherty, Duggan & Rouse Insurors, Albany, Richard Doherty '78
77. Aflac, Columbus, Dan Amos, '73
78. Babush, Neiman, Kornman & Johnson LLP, Atlanta, Chris D. Clayton '80, '83
79. Acree Oil Company, Toccoa, Richard Acree '50
80. Mom's Bakery, Atlanta, Kristi Kay '86
81. Ed Castro Landscape, Roswell, Ed Castro '88
82. St. Simons Drug Co., St. Simons, Tommy Bryan '80
83. Advantage Design Group, Jacksonville, Fla., Sam Swingle, class of '90
84. Gayco Healthcare, Dublin, Bent Gay '85, '88
85. Juneau Construction Company, Atlanta, Nancy Juneau '82
86. Royston Animal Hospital, Royston, Doris Cato '79, '83, Kenneth Cato '78, '83, and Bruce Bowen '83
87. Seamon Whiteside & Associates, Mt. Pleasant, S.C., Kenny Seamon '76
88. The Jaeger Company, Gainesville, Rob Jaeger '80 and Dale Jaeger '82
89. Anderson & Adkins, Evans, Mark Anderson '73
90. Andy Watson Landscaping, Martinez, Andy Watson '97
91. Build-A-Bear Workshop, St. Louis, Mo., Maxine Clark '71
92. Skipper's Fish Camp, Darien, James P. Parker '72
93. Stratix Corporation, Norcross, Bonney Shuman '80
94. Floors by Design, Sarasota, Fla., David Gruber '85
95. Breda Pest Management, Loganville, Roger Breda '73
96. North Georgia Physical Therapy Association, East Ellijay, Mike Darnell '75
97. Peachtree Planning Corporation, Atlanta, Robert Mathis '76
98. Cabell's Designs, Roswell, Cabell Sweeney '95 and Susan Peterson '93
99. Bulldog Baskets, Athens, Callie Waller '92, '95
100. Locos Franchise Company, Athens, Hughes Lowrance '88

A fascination with history and a love of literature have inspired George A. and Nancy Montgomery throughout their life together. Those interests have also inspired them to make a $2 million gift to the University of Georgia Libraries to help ensure that the state's history will be protected and its literary talent recognized.

"Libraries are at the heart of every university, and the support of donors such as George and Nancy Montgomery helps make the University of Georgia a truly great university," said UGA President Michael F. Adams. "On behalf of the entire university, I thank them for their generosity."

A native of Atlanta, George Montgomery served in the Navy Air Corps during World War II before earning his A.B. in English from UGA in 1950. He later served as vice president of the Atlanta Coca-Cola Bottling Company and founded Atlanta-based Montgomery Properties Inc. Nancy Montgomery is a native of Moultrie who attended Valdosta State University and accompanied her husband on adventures around the globe.

One million dollars of their gift will go toward the construction of the Richard B. Russell Building, which will be the new home of the university's special collections libraries. A groundbreaking ceremony to begin construction the 115,000-square-foot building was held January 28th, and the building is expected to be completed in 2011.

The building will include state-of-the-art climate control and security to protect valuable holdings in three collections:

The Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library includes papers of the first colonists, the original Confederate Constitution and the papers of prominent authors such as Margaret Mitchell. See http://www.libs.uga.edu/hargrett/index.shtml for more information.

The Walter J. Brown Media Archive and Peabody Awards Collection is nation's third largest archive of broadcasting in the country. See http://www.libs.uga.edu/media/ for more information.

The Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies includes the papers of Senator Russell and nearly 300 other Georgia political figures. See http://www.libs.uga.edu/russell/ for more information.

The building will also include an auditorium, classrooms and seminar rooms so that faculty can use materials from the collections in educational settings. One-third of the $42 million construction cost will come from private sources, and the contribution of the Montgomerys will be recognized through the naming of the Nancy and George A. Montgomery Reading Room.

"The Richard B. Russell Building will house and protect some of the state's most valuable literary and cultural treasures while also making them more accessible to students, scholars and the public," said University Librarian and Associate Provost William Gray Potter. "By helping support its construction, George and Nancy Montgomery are helping to preserve and share our state's culture and history."

George Montgomery is the author of two novels, one of which is set in Georgia. In Pillow of Gold, later published as The Eye of the Eagle, he tells the story of the nation's first major gold rush. In And the Mountain Cried, he speculates on the fate of D.B. Cooper, who in 1971 hijacked a Boeing 727 for $200,000 in ransom and parachuted from the plane, never to be seen again.

The remaining one million dollars of the gift will support an endowment for the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame, which was established by the UGA Libraries in 2000 to recognize Georgia writers whose work reflects the character of the state, its land and its people. Honorees include Jimmy Carter, Martin Luther King Jr., Carson McCullers, Pat Conroy and Coleman Barks. More information on the Georgia Writer's Hall of Fame is available at http://www.libs.uga.edu/gawriters/.

"Nancy and I have always believed that literature and history are essential to a life well-lived," George Montgomery said. "We're proud to support the UGA Libraries."

Twenty-four faculty searches will soon get under way, including several chaired professorships, thanks to a special funding initiative announced by University of Georgia President Michael F. Adams in his 2010 State of the University address in January.

Jere Morehead, senior vice president for academic affairs and provost, worked with the deans of UGA's 16 schools and colleges and the vice president for research to identify critical tenured and tenure-track positions to be funded or partially funded through a $2 million salary allocation, with an additional $2 million allotted for one-time startup costs, such as equipping laboratories for researchers in the sciences.

Adams announced last month that $4 million in central budget savings would be used to address some crucial needs in faculty hiring.

Among the positions to be filled are five chaired professorships:

· The Haines Family Distinguished Professorship in Field Botany, focused on below-ground plant ecology, in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences (established with a bequest from Bruce Haines, a faculty member in the department of plant biology for more than 30 years);

· The Daniel P. Amos Distinguished Professorship in Insurance in the Terry College of Business (established with a gift from the Amos Family Foundation and named for the chairman and CEO of AFLAC Inc.);

· The Mary Frances Early Professorship in Teacher Education in the College of Education (established with an endowment from Georgia Power and named for UGA's first African-American graduate, who earned a master's degree in 1962);

· The Donald L. Hollowell Professorship of Social Justice and Civil Rights Studies in the School of Social Work (established by the school to honor the civil rights attorney who served as chief counsel in the landmark lawsuit that led to UGA's desegregation);

· Harbour Lights Chair of Small Animal Studies in the College of Veterinary Medicine (established with a gift from an anonymous donor to support graduate training programs).

"I am very excited about the opportunity President Adams has provided to move forward with several key faculty searches and appreciate the thoughtful input from the deans and the vice president for research in deciding on the particular areas to focus these funds," said Morehead. "The positions range from assistant professors to endowed chairs. In the latter case, it is vital when donors contribute funding that the university creates the faculty position."

In addition to the chaired professorships, the initiative includes salary and some start-up funding for a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Crop Genomics in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

Other positions are in the following disciplines: biological sciences, bioimaging, physics and astronomy, computer science, chemistry, English, linguistics, speech communication, Romance languages, ecology, environmental planning and design, child and family development, forestry, international affairs, public administration and policy, health policy and management, and epidemiology and biostatistics. A pharmacy educator position will be shared between the College of Education and the College of Pharmacy.

"I hope that this initiative will be a clear indicator to the university community that faculty hiring is our top priority," said Morehead. "This initiative provides a special opportunity to attract some very fine talent to the University of Georgia as we begin to replenish the ranks of tenure-track faculty in a sustained effort over the next few years."

Morehead said he expects several of the positions funded through the initiative to be filled as early as fall semester 2010.

Besides the $4 million initiative, the administration is providing support from central funds for some additional faculty salaries and start-up costs. These include the department head in genetics and assistant professors in the Institute of the Faculty of Engineering, as well as chaired professorships: the Knight Chair in Health and Medical Journalism, the Zell Miller Distinguished Professorship in the Institute of Higher Education, and the Philip H. Alston Jr. Chair in the School of Public and International Affairs.

Other searches also are being undertaken by several schools and colleges to replace recently retired faculty.

A University of Georgia study has found that monarch butterflies that migrate long distances have evolved significantly larger and more elongated wings than their stationary cousins, differences that are consistent with traits known to enhance flight ability in other migratory species.

As part of a National Science Foundation and UGA-funded study, researchers in the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources and the Odum School of Ecology examined the size and shape of monarchs from migratory and non-migratory populations using sophisticated computer imaging that was able to measure precise details about the insects’ wings. Warnell doctoral candidate Andy Davis and Odum Associate Professor Sonia Altizer compared migratory monarchs from the eastern and western U.S. to those in Hawaii, Costa Rica, South Florida and Puerto Rico that do not migrate. They also measured the wings of lab-grown monarchs to rule out environmental causes of differences in size and shape, and to demonstrate a genetic basis for variation in wing traits among individual monarchs. Altizer and Davis’ findings were recently published in the online edition of the scientific journal Evolution.

The findings in monarchs were consistent with previous studies comparing migratory and non-migratory bird species, which indicate that the best shape for long-distance flight involves long wings with a narrow tip to help reduce drag. In addition to their findings on wing size and shape, the team also found that monarchs from the two migratory populations in the U.S. differed in body size, suggesting that each population could have adapted to the demands of migration in subtly different ways. Larger bodies might help eastern monarchs, with their much longer migration carry fat deposits to fuel the long journey and five-month overwintering period in Mexico.

Monarchs in eastern North America, famous for migrating the longest distances of any insect species in the world, face a number of threats, to the point that monarch migration is considered to be an “endangered phenomenon.” Davis has published previous research indicating that female monarch butterflies are on a 30-year decline in the eastern U.S., a troubling pattern that paints a dire picture for population recruitment. Furthermore, monarchs from this population are prone to periodic population crashes from storms at the Mexican overwintering site. Although monarchs worldwide are not threatened, Altizer said, those with the larger wingspan are. “Our study shows that we would lose an evolutionarily unique population if the migration of eastern monarchs were to unravel,” she said.

The students and community at the University of Georgia have raised more than $58,000 to provide support for the earthquake relief efforts in Haiti. Since the earthquake struck, more than 100 campus organizations have banded together to help those in need.

Dawgs for Haiti, a campus-wide initiative organized by Volunteer UGA, is coordinating the relief efforts. Student organizations that have pledged their support to Dawgs for Haiti are answering the call for help by organizing multiple fundraisers.

UGA President Michael F. Adams helped the Dawgs for Haiti initiative by volunteering to sell t-shirts on campus. T-shirt sales have been a significant fundraiser among the student body with 3,000 sold.
Student organizers hope to blanket the Athens community with royal blue ribbons as a show of support. Stephen Dorner, executive director of Volunteer UGA and director of Dawgs for Haiti, hopes that the blue ribbon campaign will bring the entire university and Athens community together in support of the victims of the earthquake.

“The blue ribbon represents the blue of the Haitian flag as our symbol of support,” said Dorner. “Businesses around Athens are helping us spread that symbol to the citizens of Athens by requesting donations in exchange for a ribbon.”

UGA alumni and friends outside of Athens are also lending a hand by spreading the word, encouraging donations and ordering t-shirts through the Dawgs for Haiti Web site.
All proceeds from the Dawgs for Haiti campaign will be donated to the American Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders. Online donations and t-shirt orders are accepted at the organization’s Web site, dawgsforhaiti.uga.edu/.

The University of Georgia remained a national leader in study abroad, ranked 10th among doctoral/research institutions with 2,058 total study abroad participants in 2007-2008, according to a recently released national "Open Doors" report.

"I have always believed that there are few experiences more valuable to a student today than an extended immersion in another culture," said UGA President Michael F. Adams. "I am proud of our students for their understanding of the importance of study abroad, given the nature of the society they will enter when they graduate."

UGA also is ranked second in the nation in the number of students who participate in summer and other short-term programs. Additionally, approximately 400 students choose a full semester or academic year abroad each year.

"The University of Georgia is known nationally for the quality and diversity of its study abroad programs," said Kavita Pandit, associate provost for international education. "I want to recognize the efforts and energy of our study abroad program directors and the study abroad staff in the Office of International Education. Their hard work and dedication have ensured that our students are graduating with a world view and global competencies critical to their success in today's job market."

UGA offers 170 different study abroad and exchange programs in dozens of countries on every continent. Three year-round residential centers (Oxford, UK; Cortona, Italy; and San Luis, Costa Rica) each offer unique facilities and foci. These centers and other programs offer UGA students many opportunities for students to obtain core credits abroad.

"Studying, interning, and researching abroad continue to be high priorities of UGA students," said Kasee Laster, director of study abroad. "Their enthusiasm reflects the emphasis on international experience and perspective which they see in the faculty, as well as a flexible financial aid structure that is conducive to study abroad."

Hundreds of non-UGA students are applying for transient admission to the university just to attend its faculty-led study abroad programs. According to Laster, about 12 percent of total study abroad participants transferred their credit back to a degree at another institution, testifying to UGA's breadth of international choices and national reputation in study abroad.

The Open Doors report is released each year during International Education Week, Nov. 16-20. This nationwide recognition is jointly sponsored by the U.S. Departments of State and Education. UGA annually celebrates IEW week with an international photo contest. More information about the photo contest is available at http://www.uga.edu/oie/pc_contest.htm. More information about nationwide IEW events is available at http://www.iew.state.gov/.

More information on UGA study abroad opportunities is available at http://www.uga.edu/oie/studyabroad.htm.

For the second consecutive year, a University of Georgia undergraduate is among the nationally selected recipients of the George J. Mitchell Postgraduate Scholarship. Stephen Dorner, an Honors student from Alpharetta, will use his fellowship to earn a master's degree in global health at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland during the 2010-2011 academic year.

Dorner, who is one of nine Mitchell Scholars announced Nov. 23, will graduate in spring 2010 with a bachelor's degree in microbiology from UGA's Franklin College of Arts and Sciences and a bachelor's degree in environmental health from UGA's College of Public Health. He is a graduate of Chattahoochee High School.

Dorner was selected from a pool of almost 300 applicants from more than 150 colleges and universities across the U.S. He is the second UGA student to receive the award. Christina Faust, who graduated in May 2009 with bachelor's and master's degrees in ecology, was the first recipient last year and among the 10th anniversary class of Mitchell Scholars.

"I am very proud of Stephen for this significant accomplishment. This recognition is an acknowledgment of his talent and hard work," said UGA President Michael F. Adams. "It also validates the efforts of the faculty with whom Stephen has worked and studied while a student at the University of Georgia. When great students like Stephen earn these national accolades, it demonstrates the quality of the educational experience provided at this institution."

The Mitchell Postgraduate Scholarship, sponsored by the U.S.-Ireland Alliance, is a competitive one-year post-graduate fellowship for any discipline offered by institutions in Ireland and Northern Ireland. The award is named in honor of George J. Mitchell, the former U.S. senator who served as chairman of the historic peace negotiations in Northern Ireland. Applicants are judged on three criteria: academic excellence, leadership, and a sustained commitment to service and community. The Mitchell Scholars Program provides tuition, housing, a living expenses stipend, and an international travel stipend.

"I am thrilled for Stephen, who richly deserves this recognition," said David S. Williams, director of UGA's Honors Program. "Like Christina Faust before him, Stephen took full advantage of all that the Honors Program provides, including undergraduate research, study abroad, internship, and civic engagement opportunities. It has been very rewarding to watch his development as a scholar and leader."

As a recipient of an Honors International Scholarship at UGA, Dorner worked in health clinics in Costa Rica and Nicaragua for two weeks in summer 2008. He then spent three months in Santiago de Chuco, Peru, studying the health effects of smoke exposure from wood-burning stoves under the guidance of UGA environmental health science professor Luke Naeher. He is co-author of an upcoming paper on the research.

Upon his return, Dorner founded UGA Without Borders in fall 2008, a student organization that addresses public health and economic development challenges facing underserved local and global communities. About 50 UGA Without Borders students volunteered in health clinics in Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic and Tanzania this past summer. Another 300 students have been involved in service-learning projects around Athens.

Dan Colley, director of UGA's Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases, also has mentored Dorner during his academic career. "Stephen is an example of the type of pre-med student the world needs in the 21st century," he said. "While focused on learning and earning the grades needed to be accepted into medical school, he has held fast to a vision of the world and its future needs. Stephen has real empathy for those in poverty and sees medicine and health as the way forward in changing their plight."

Dorner also was a participant in UGA's Honors in Washington Internship Program this past summer. Working in the D.C. office of Rep. Hank Johnson, Dorner assisted in developing legislation to provide funding for neglected parasitic diseases that disproportionately impact impoverished global communities.

Among his other leadership roles on campus, Dorner is executive director of Volunteer UGA, a campus center for about 35 of UGA's service-based student groups. He also has been actively involved with the campus chapter of Habitat for Humanity.

"I'm extremely honored to be named a Mitchell Scholar," said Dorner. "I am very humbled to be considered among that prestigious group and look forward to enhancing my understanding of global health issues at Trinity College in Dublin."

For nearly a decade, he charmed crowds, delighted football fans and was hailed as the "winningest" mascot in University of Georgia's history. Uga VI passed away in June 2008, but his likeness will live on in the main lobby of the UGA College of Veterinary Medicine.

On Saturday, Nov. 14, Frank W. "Sonny" Seiler, owner of the past and present Uga mascots, and the Seiler family dedicated a bronze statue of Uga VI to the veterinary college in honor of the love and care the college has bestowed upon all the Uga mascots through the years.

The bronze statue is nearly life-size and weighs about 100 pounds. It is one of two original artistic studies made by sculptor Wesley Wofford, who was commissioned by a friend of Seiler's to create an 8-foot statue of Uga VI for a Savannah restaurant chain called "The Dawg House Grill," which opened in 2006.The restaurants are now closed, following the death of owner Dennis Lofton.

It was Lofton who came up with the idea for the giant Uga VI statue for his restaurants-a towering likeness, standing 5-feet tall by 4-feet wide and 8-feet long; it was Lofton who worked with Seiler to get his approval of Wofford's creation. And, it was Lofton who aided Seiler in the idea to give one of the two original artistic studies (maquettes) to the College of Veterinary Medicine.

"It was a mutual idea," recalled Seiler last week."He said he wanted to do something nice for the university and I couldn't picture a better place for one (of the maquettes) to be than the veterinary college, because they've taken such good care of all the mascots, and I am very close to Dean Sheila Allen and Dr. (R. Bruce) Hollett."

The statue sits on a pedestal in the lobby of the main academic building for the College of Veterinary Medicine. In celebration of the Seilers' gift, one of the lobby display cases currently plays host to a variety of mascot memorabilia, including collars and outfits that have been worn by the Uga "dawgs" in recent decades.

"We are proud to accept this bronze statue as a major feature for our lobby. It is a fitting tribute not only to the mascots, but to the veterinarians, students and staff who have provided medical care for all the mascots over the years," said Dr. Sheila W. Allen, dean of the college.

Wofford said Lofton commissioned him to create the 8-foot statue in January 2008. The first two maquettes were created long before the 8-foot statue was finished. Lofton told Wofford that he wanted to present the first mockette, also bronzed, to Seiler as a gift for allowing him to use Uga VI's likeness at his restaurants. Lofton presented the gift to Seiler in late summer 2008, not long after Uga VI died.

"Well, I was delighted," recalled Seiler about the moment, "but I knew about it; it wasn't a surprise. I thought it was a fabulous likeness of VI. (Wofford) captured all of his traits and characteristics. It looked like it could step off the platform and come to life."

Wofford grew up in Georgia and remembers the university, and its mascot, as always being prevalent in his life.

"Some of my first drawings were of Uga, so it was really satisfying to me artistically," he explained. "Dennis said all along: 'I don't just want a bulldog. It's a portrait of Uga VI.' As an artist, finding that glimmer of soul is the intent. I'm very satisfied. I felt like I captured it. Dennis said Sonny got real emotional when he got his statue because he felt I had really captured the essence of Uga VI."

Seiler; his daughter, Swann; son, Charles; and daughter-in-law, Wendy, all attended the dedication. Seiler noted his friend's absence from a special moment they'd hoped to share.

"I wish that Dennis could be here because he thought it was a great idea, and he was so happy when I told him that the veterinary college vet school would be delighted to have it as an addition to its memorabilia," said Seiler. "I'm sorry that he's not here to see the unveiling, because he would be very happy and very proud."

The UGA College of Veterinary Medicine has provided care for the Uga mascots since 1957. Hollett has been the lead UGA veterinarian for the Uga mascots for the last two decades.

"The Seiler family epitomizes dedication, commitment and personal sacrifice to their alma mater and this college. They are and have been polite, concerned and conscientious clients of the Teaching Hospital and remain deeply involved with the daily care and well being of their family pet," said Hollett. "Their dogs just happen to have served as the University of Georgia mascot for the past 53 years-quite a legacy for the Seilers of Savannah."

The UGA College of Veterinary Medicine, founded in 1946, is dedicated to training future veterinarians, to conducting research related to animal diseases, and to providing veterinary services for animals and their owners. Research efforts are aimed at enhancing the quality of life for animals and people, improving the productivity of poultry and livestock, and preserving a healthy interface between wildlife and people in the environment they share. The current Teaching Hospital, built in 1979, serves more than 18,000 patients per year in one of the smallest teaching hospitals in the United States. The college is currently working to raise $15 million toward building a new Veterinary Medical Learning Center, which will include a new teaching hospital as well as classrooms and laboratories that will allow for the education of more veterinarians. More veterinarians are needed to promote food safety and protect public health and to provide veterinary services for farm and companion animals owned by a rapidly growing regional population. The college enrolls 102 students each fall out of more than 550 who apply. The goal is to increase enrollment to 150 when the Veterinary Medical Learning Center is built.

The University of Georgia will hold a ground breaking ceremony for the Richard B. Russell Building, which will be the new home of the Special Collections Library, on Thursday, Jan. 28 at 3 p.m. The ceremony will take place at the building site, on the corner of Hull Street and Florida Avenue, where it will anchor the planned Northwest Campus development. UGA President Michael F. Adams and University Librarian and Associate Provost William Gray Potter will speak. Construction is expected to take two years.

The 115,000-square-foot building is projected to cost close to $46 million, with approximately one-third of that amount coming from private sources. The building will be called the Richard B. Russell Building in recognition of an early pledge from the Richard B. Russell Foundation, which founded and continues to support one of the special collections libraries to be housed in the new facility.

"This building will allow the University Libraries to provide state-of-the-art storage and security for its most valuable collections," Potter said. "It will provide galleries where students and citizens can view these treasures. An auditorium, classrooms and seminar rooms will allow students to directly use these materials in instructional settings, truly making history come alive."

Occupying the building will be:

-The Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library - a repository on Georgia history and culture. Highlights include papers of the first colonists, the charter of the university, the original Confederate Constitution, an extensive collection of maps and the papers of many prominent authors, including Margaret Mitchell. See http://www.libs.uga.edu/hargrett/index.shtml for more information.

-The Walter J. Brown Media Archive and Peabody Awards Collection - the third largest archive of broadcasting in the country with more than 100,000 audio and video recordings. It is built around 80,000 radio and television programs submitted to the Peabody Awards since 1940. The collection also includes more than 5 million feet of news film from WSB-TV in Atlanta, entries to the Southeastern Emmy Awards, personal collections of broadcast pioneers and unique recordings of Georgia folk music and storytellers. See http://www.libs.uga.edu/media/ for more information.

-The Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, developed around the papers of U.S. Senator Russell. Given Russell's lengthy service and the inclusion of nearly 300 individuals involved in post-20th century state and national politics, the Russell Library is often compared in importance to a presidential library. Both the Democratic and Republican parties have chosen the Russell Library to house their archives, as well as editorial cartoonists Clifford Baldowski and Gene Bassett. See http://www.libs.uga.edu/russell/ for more information.

The building will be constructed around a 30,000 square foot storage area with shelves that will be 30 feet high.State-of-the-art climate control will be used to provide an environment that will protect and preserve the materials for future generations.

The building's location will increase accessibility to unique, original and irreplaceable primary sources for all citizens of Georgia. The collections are routinely used for research by faculty and students from other higher education institutions around the state.

"The space in the Main Library now housing our special collections was not designed for that purpose and, thanks to the staff of these libraries, the volume of our holdings has increased dramatically. Once the new building is occupied, 50,000 square feet will be converted-at minimal cost-to student study space and shelving," said Potter

Researchers from the University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine have made an unexpected dual discovery that could open new avenues for treating Ichthyophthirius multifiliis, or "Ich", a single-celled protozoan parasite that commonly attacks freshwater fish.

With the aid of whole-genome sequencing, researchers found that Ich harbors two apparently symbiotic intracellular bacteria: Bacteroides, which are usually found free-living, and Rickettsia, which are obligate intracellular bacteria. The two bacteria represent new species.

Five researchers from the college's department of infectious diseases worked on the project in collaboration with two researchers from the department of microbiology and immunology at Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine and a researcher from the J. Craig Venter Institute. Their initial intent was to map the genome of Ich; the DNA sequencing was done by JCVI and funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Their study is published in the December 2009 issue (Issue 23) of Applied and Environmental Microbiology with an image from the study on the cover.

It was the presence of Rickettsia DNA sequences found in the initial genome data that provided scientists with a clue that bacteria might live inside of Ich. Intracellular bacteria have been described in free-living ciliates such as Paramecium, but never in Ich, which is an obligate parasite.

"It was unexpected; it was stunning to find bacteria in Ich. And, it came about due to the genome sequencing," said Harry W. Dickerson, a co-author who has been studying Ich in the veterinary college for more than 20 years and a member of the UGA Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases, which has a focus on parasitic diseases, primarily of humans. "Ich occurs world-wide and is one of the most common protozoon pathogens of freshwater fish. It is easily recognized by most aquarists, and fish farmers often are confronted with massive epizootic outbreaks to devastating economic effect."

Ich (which causes "white spot disease") is a ciliated protozoan parasite that bores into the skin and gills of fish where it feeds, destroying tissue and thereby blocking exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide, usually leading to death of the host. Each parasite grows on the fish from roughly 40 microns, which cannot be seen by the naked eye, to approximately one millimeter in diameter, which can easily be seen as a white spot. The parasites leave the fish in about 5-6 days (a ciliate with its typical large nucleus is shown in the image). Each cell then divides multiple times to produce up to 1000 more infective organisms. The entire life cycle takes about 6-7 days. With subsequent rounds of infection the number of parasites continues to increase, and each wave of re-infection becomes more deadly than the last. By the second or third re-infection the fish population is usually overwhelmed and fish begin to die. Fish that survive mild infections can develop immunity.

There are currently no drugs or chemicals that kill Ich while it resides in the fish skin or gills; they can only kill Ich when the parasite is in the water, and therefore all current therapies require a cyclical re-treatment program.

The first major outbreak of Ich in North America was recorded at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893.Ich is a well-known problem for aqua-culturists, aquarium owners, pond owners, hobbyists and retailers of freshwater fish. People and birds can also carry the parasite, unknowingly, from pond to pond.

"Work to sequence the genome of this parasitic protozoan unexpectedly revealed that bacterial DNA sequences were also present," noted Craig Findly, one of the college's researchers on the project. "Following up this discovery led to our demonstration that two new species of intracellular bacteria use Ich as their host. We now need to determine if these intracellular bacteria play a role in infection."

Next, the researchers will try to determine what role the two organisms play in the physiology of Ich and whether Ich remain infective if the bacteria are removed. The scientists hope their finding takes them a step closer to developing better treatments for Ich.

The UGA College of Veterinary Medicine, founded in 1946, is dedicated to training future veterinarians, to conducting research related to animal diseases, and to providing veterinary services for animals and their owners. Research efforts are aimed at enhancing the quality of life for animals and people, improving the productivity of poultry and livestock, and preserving a healthy interface between wildlife and people in the environment they share. The current Teaching Hospital, built in 1979, serves more than 18,000 patients per year in one of the smallest teaching hospitals in the United States. The college is currently working to raise $15 million toward building a new Veterinary Medical Learning Center, which will include a new teaching hospital as well as classrooms and laboratories that will allow for the education of more veterinarians. More veterinarians are needed to promote food safety and protect public health and to provide veterinary services for farm and companion animals owned by a rapidly growing regional population. The college enrolls 102 students each fall out of more than 550 who apply. The goal is to increase enrollment to 150 when the Veterinary Medical Learning Center is built.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates will be the speaker for the University of Georgia's fall undergraduate commencement exercises Dec. 18 at 9:30 a.m. in UGA's Stegeman Coliseum.

Professor Dorinda Dallmeyer, former associate director of the University of Georgia Dean Rusk Center - International, Comparative and Graduate Legal Studies and director of the Environmental Ethics Certificate Program, will speak at commencement for graduate students at 2:30 p.m. in Stegeman Coliseum. The Dean Rusk Center is part of UGA's School of Law and the Environmental Ethics Certificate Program is part of UGA's College of Environment and Design.

The ceremonies will be for students who complete degree requirements at the end of the fall 2009 semester. The number of students eligible to receive degrees will not be known until the conclusion of final exams on Dec. 16. As announced previously, tickets will be required for attendance at the undergraduate ceremony, with six being provided to each graduating student. Both ceremonies will be broadcast live on channel 15 of the university and Charter cable systems and will be streamed live at www.uga.edu.

Gates was sworn in on Dec. 18, 2006, as the 22nd secretary of defense. Gates is the only secretary of defense in U.S. history to be asked to remain in that office by a newly elected president. Before entering his present post, Gates was the president of Texas A&M University, the nation's seventh largest university. Prior to assuming the Texas A&M presidency, on Aug. 1, 2002, he served as interim dean of the George Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M from 1999 to 2001.

"It is a tremendous honor for a speaker of such national prominence, and one who holds a position of significant national importance at this time in America's history, to accept the invitation to speak at UGA's graduation," said UGA President Michael F. Adams."I have known Bob Gates for many years and consider him both a close colleague and good friend.I very much look forward to his address in December."

Gates joined the Central Intelligence Agency in 1966 and spent nearly 27 years as an intelligence professional, serving six presidents. During that period, he spent nearly nine years at the National Security Council in the White House, serving four presidents of both political parties.

Gates served as director of Central Intelligence from 1991 until 1993. He is the only career officer in the CIA's history to rise from entry-level employee to director. He served as deputy director of Central Intelligence from 1986 until 1989 and as assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser at the White House from Jan. 20, 1989, until Nov. 6, 1991, for President George H.W. Bush.

Gates has been awarded the National Security Medal, the Presidential Citizens Medal, has twice received the National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal, and has three times received the CIA's highest award, the Distinguished Intelligence Medal.

He is the author of the memoir, From the Shadows: The Ultimate Insiders Story of Five Presidents and How They Won the Cold War, published in 1996.

Until becoming secretary of defense, Gates served as chairman of the Independent Trustees of The Fidelity Funds, the nation's largest mutual fund company, and on the board of directors of NACCO Industries, Inc., Brinker International, Inc. and Parker Drilling Company, Inc.

Gates has served on the board of directors and executive committee of the American Council on Education, the board of directors of the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges, and the National Executive Board of the Boy Scouts of America. He has also been president of the National Eagle Scout Association.

A native of Kansas, Gates received his bachelor's degree in European history from the College of William and Mary, his master's degree in history from Indiana University and his doctorate in Russian and Soviet history from Georgetown University. In 1967, he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force and served as an intelligence officer at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri.

A native of Macon, Dallmeyer began her college career at UGA where she received the B. S. degree in geology magna cum laude, with general honors, and with honors in geology in 1973.She was a National Merit Scholar and was named the outstanding senior in geology.She also twirled with the University of Georgia Redcoat Band as a member of the Fabulous Georgettes from 1970-1975.

In 1977, Dallmeyer received an M.S. degree in geology for her research on the effects of climate change on deep-sea benthic organisms.She then worked with UGA professor James W. Porter for over three years, conducting research in tropical marine biology and ecology in Jamaica and off the Georgia coast. Her coral reef research culminated with a week-long saturation dive in the underwater habitat HYDROLAB in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

To pursue her interest in conservation law and policy, Dallmeyer returned to the classroom in 1981, this time at the UGA School of Law. She received her J. D. degree cum laude in 1984.She served as executive articles editor for the Georgia Law Review and was named the Woman of the Year in 1984 by the Georgia Association of Women Lawyers. Immediately after graduation from law school, she joined the staff of Dean Rusk Center for International Law.Over the course of her 21-year career there, her primary research areas crossed a broad spectrum of international law, with a particular emphasis on the role of negotiation and dispute resolution.

Her research has been supported by grants from the MacArthur Foundation, the U.S. Institute of Peace, the Ford Foundation, the Canadian Embassy, the National Science Foundation, and the Hewlett Foundation. Among other titles, Dallmeyer has edited books on women in international law, civilian uses of space, globalization and environmental ethics, NAFTA, the negotiation of maritime boundary disputes, and marine environmental ethics. In 2005, she was appointed by the Ocean Studies Board of the National Research Council to a nine-member committee evaluating the impact of fisheries on coastal and ocean ecosystems. She also has been co-author on articles published in the internationally acclaimed scientific journals Nature and Science. In addition to her work in print, she served as executive producer for the international law radio series "The Individual in a Global Society," which received the Bronze World Medal at the 1999 New York Radio Festival.

Dallmeyer is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a past vice-president of the American Society of International Law. From 1992-2002, she was a member of the board of directors for the Educational Foundation for Nuclear Science, best known as wardens of the so-called "Doomsday Clock." She has been a member of the State Bar of Georgia since 1984.

In 2005, she received the Phillip Reed Memorial Award for Outstanding Writing about the Southern Environment in recognition of her edited anthology "Elemental South." That same year she retired from full-time employment to devote more time to her creative writing and to directing UGA's Environmental Ethics Certificate Program. Her next book, Bartram's Living Legacy: the Travels and the Nature of the South, will be published by Mercer University Press in fall 2010.

Forty-one years ago, UGA art faculty member John Kehoe traveled to Italy looking for a place to locate a new kind of international program. He could have chosen such storied centers of painting and sculpture as Florence, Rome or Venice. Instead, he chose Cortona, and now, more than 8,000 student-participants later, it has become a place of intense, often life-changing education.

"It changed everything for me," said Rick Johnson, director of the university's Studies Abroad Program in Cortona since January 2006. "I first went there as a student in 1974 and then returned a number of times to teach. It completely rearranged how I viewed my own art."

The program is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, looking back to early days and looking ahead to a bright future, since it isn't among the many international programs struggling at universities across the country. Largely because of permanent classroom and studio space that UGA obtained in 2004, the Cortona Program is more than holding its own in hard times.

Best known as the setting for Under the Tuscan Sun, a book by Frances Mayes that was made into a successful film, Cortona itself is a small town in the lush Tuscan hillsides of north-central Italy. With a population of fewer than 2,000 inside the ancient city walls, the town allows students from UGA and other universities and colleges that participate in the Cortona Program to blend in and become part of the town itself.

The four-and-half acre campus provides living and classroom space for students, but the real classroom is the rich history of Italy and nearby towns that students visit. Florence is little more than an hour away, and Rome two hours. During their semester in Italy, students spend three days in Florence, four in Rome and visit Naples and Venice. They also take Saturday trips to many other places.

While its first classes were in art history, painting and sculpture, the program has expanded and now has courses in art education, art history, ceramics, creative writing, drawing, graphic design, Italian culture, Italian language, interior design, jewelry and metalwork, landscape architecture, papermaking and book arts, photography, print-making and sculpture.

"We also have Maymester courses in science, viticulture and drama," said Johnson. "The opportunities for study in the heart of one of the richest historical sites in the world are almost breathtaking."

In 2004, the "Cortona Experience" program was introduced, enabling individuals to participate in a 10-day art-making opportunity each September. Watercolor and journaling courses are offered, in addition to wine tasting, field trips and artist demonstrations.

The program is centered in the Lamar Dodd School of Art, part of the UGA Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, and it is run largely from student fees and private gifts. It operates all year long—three semesters plus the month-long Maymester session.

Some 14 colleges and universities across the nation have affiliations with the Cortona Program, though about 60 percent of the students usually come from UGA. Each year, around 300 students take part, and despite a reported drop elsewhere in enrollments for international programs due to the worldwide recession, student interest in the Cortona Program remains as strong as ever.

"When Jack Kehoe started this program he did some things that ensured the long-term viability of the program," said Johnson. "One of the most important was that he decided to locate it in a small town, which makes the experience personal for our students and also makes the town feel a part of what we do."

Academic facilities include a computer lab and a library, and the program now has a substantial Wi-Fi "cloud," making Internet access easy for everyone involved.

A 40th anniversary celebration took place in July in Cortona.  In August, Cortona alumni gathered in Atlanta to celebrate as well.

Johnson, who served as associate director of the art school for seven years, is a graphic designer, photographer, papermaker and book artist. He said Cortona affects him as a person, artist and administrator.

"It's such a beautiful old town and our program is so well-equipped that it's just a pleasure to be there and to help students make it part of their education, and one they never forget," he said.

A University of Georgia nutrition researcher has been awarded a $2.2 million grant to explore the role vitamin D plays in children's health and the appropriate dose children should take as daily supplements in order to maintain healthy levels of vitamin D in their bloodstream.

The grant, awarded by the National Institutes of Health Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, comes on the heels of an Aug. 3 report in the journal Pediatrics showing 60 percent of children and adolescents had insufficient levels of vitamin D.

"The findings in Pediatrics confirmed what we have been seeing in our research," said Rick Lewis, professor of foods and nutrition in the UGA College of Family and Consumer Sciences. "In prior research we've conducted with female children and adolescents over the course of seven years, we've consistently found that they have lower levels of vitamin D than are recommended and that those levels drop as they grow older."

Although vitamin D has long been considered essential for bone health in individuals of all ages, research on the vitamin has primarily focused on its impact in older adults, Lewis said. Research on older adults also has shown links between vitamin D deficiencies and cancer, diabetes and obesity.

Although it's recommended that adults maintain a level of vitamin D in their blood stream that equates to 80 nanomoles per liter, the needs of children haven't been fully established. Currently, the Food and Nutrition Board at the Institute of Medicine recommends children under the age of 13 receive 200 international units daily, while the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends children receive 400 international units.

The sun has always been considered a primary source of vitamin D because it causes the vitamin to be synthesized in the skin. However, for those with darker skin, those living in areas where the sun doesn't shine as frequently, and those who either wear sunblock or don't get out in the sun for other reasons, supplements have long been considered important in ensuring individuals have enough vitamin D.

During the two-year study, Lewis and fellow UGA researchers Emma Laing and Dorothy Hausman will team with researchers at Purdue University in providing varying doses of vitamin D supplements to boys and girls ranging in age from 9-13, ages deemed as being on the cusp of rapid growth periods. The group also will be evenly divided racially because research has consistently shown that African-American children tend to have lower levels of vitamin D than white children. One goal of the new study is to determine if African-American children and white children respond differently to oral supplements of vitamin D. Another collaborator on the project is Michael Kimlin of Queensland University of Technology in Australia, who will help in collecting sun exposure data for the study.

During the study, researchers will look at several biochemical measures of bone health, including calcium absorption, to determine the appropriate dose of vitamin D supplements children need to ensure that they grow up with strong, healthy bones.

This grant is funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

For more information on the College of Family and Consumer Sciences, see http://www.fcs.uga.edu/.

The University of Georgia raised $110.8 million in gifts and commitments for the fiscal year that ended June 30, setting a new record for private giving at the nation's oldest state-chartered university.

The previous record of $108.3 million was set in fiscal year 2006 during the university's Archway to Excellence Campaign, which ended in 2008 and raised more than $653 million over seven years. Fiscal year 2009 marks the fourth consecutive year that private giving to the university topped $100 million.

"In these difficult economic times, donors realize that higher education is one of the best investments that we can make in Georgia's future," said UGA President Michael F. Adams. "We are grateful for their generosity, which allows us to excel in our teaching, research and service missions."

Adams noted that the fundraising record also reflects the university's continued emphasis on bolstering the support it receives from the state with private funds. Last year development officers conducted a record of 7,647 personal visits with prospects and donors around the state and nation.

For fiscal year 2009, the university raised $110,796,547 from 53,907 contributors.

UGA Senior Vice President for External Affairs Tom Landrum said the university's enthusiasm over its strong and continuing support is tempered by a decline in its endowment stemming from the recession.

"These are certainly challenging times," Landrum said. "But we're fortunate to have alumni and friends who have consistently demonstrated their commitment to this university."

The University of Georgia expects to enroll more than 6,300 new undergraduate students this fall, including just over 4,700 new freshmen and 1,600 new transfer students.  Approximately 680 of the new students began their studies during the summer and almost 5,700 were scheduled to enroll in August.

This is a growth of about 75 new students over last fall.  Another 1,000 new undergraduates (200 of them freshmen) are expected to enroll in January for the spring term, bringing the overall total to more than 7,300—an increase of about 300 over the new undergraduates enrolled during the 2008-09 academic year.

Although final statistics will not be available until mid-October, the admissions office has compiled a data based on the students who enrolled over the summer or who attended or registered for orientation for fall semester as of the end of July.

The entering freshmen are expected to have a strong grade point average of 3.83 (the mid 50 percentile range is 3.68-4.0) compared to 3.80 last year. The SAT average has risen from 1253 to 1263 (mid 50 percentile of 1160-1360) for the Critical Reading and Math combined, while scores on the new Writing section rose from 609 to 613. For those students who took the ACT, the mean score this year was 28, with a mid 50 percentile range of 26-30.

The 520 students expected to enroll in UGA's nationally recognized Honors Program have a GPA of 4.09 (with a mid 50 percentile range of 3.96-4.14) and SAT average of 1463 (mid 50 percentile range of 1430-1490 on the Critical Reading and Math components). The ACT average is 32 (mid 50 percent range of 31-33).

Twenty-two percent of the entering freshmen self-identified as other than Caucasian. The number of African-American freshmen is expected to be 362 (7.6 percent). A total of 144 Hispanic students (3 percent of the class) are expected to enroll.

The class is diverse in other factors: 190 of the incoming freshmen represent 58 different countries and almost 7 percent come from homes where English is not the native language. The students come from more than 400 Georgia high schools in 136 counties. Just under 13 percent of the new class is from out of state, although more than 48 percent have social security numbers initially issued in other states, indicating continued in-migration to Georgia from other parts of the country.
"An interesting statistic this year is that 6 percent of the new freshmen are the first generation in their families to attend college," said Nancy McDuff, associate vice president of admissions and enrollment management.

The number of applications received for this year's freshman class—more than 17,900—is the highest recorded at UGA for a new class, following several years of record applications. Since 2003, applications for UGA's freshman class have increased by more than 50 percent.
The rigor of students' high school curriculum continues to be a key factor in admissions decisions, with some 95 percent enrolled in College Board Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate classes while in high school.

Five percent of the incoming freshmen (243) were first or second in their graduating class and 54 percent were in the top 10 percent of their class. More than 1,400 (31 percent) of the students completed high school with a 4.0 GPA. Several students had perfect scores on the SAT or ACT, and 102 had perfect scores on at least one of the components of the SAT. Nearly 10 percent of the students started college while still in high school.

While many of the incoming students have not yet decided on a major, the most popular intended majors (listed alphabetically) are art, biology, business, chemistry, international affairs, pharmacy, political science and psychology, following a similar pattern to previous years.

Although legacy is not a factor in admissions decisions, some 30 percent of the students have parents or siblings who attended UGA.
The new incoming transfer students have an earned college GPA of 3.4 on work completed prior to enrolling.  They are almost evenly divided between males and females and 19 percent are non-Caucasian.  About 92 percent are Georgia residents.

Four cancer researchers at the University of Georgia are among the 18 selected as Distinguished Cancer Clinicians and Scientists by the Georgia Cancer Coalition for 2009-10. UGA's new Distinguished Cancer Scholars are:

Kevin Dobbin, Ph.D., assistant professor of biostatistics, College of Public Health;
Natarajan Kannan, Ph.D., assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, Franklin College of Arts and Sciences and Institute of Bioinformatics;
Mandi Murph, Ph.D., assistant professor of pharmaceutical and biomedical sciences, College of Pharmacy; and
Jia-Sheng Wang, M.D., Ph.D., professor and department head of Environmental Health Science, College of Public Health.

The Coalition selects scientists engaged in the most promising areas of cancer research. The four new UGA scholars will receive a total of $1.5 million over the next five years. UGA now has a total of 18 active Distinguished Cancer Scholars.

"The support of the Georgia Cancer Coalition has helped the UGA Cancer Center grow significantly since its founding in 2004," said Michael Pierce, Mudter Professor of Cancer Research and director of the UGA Cancer Center. "Having four new GCC scholars named in a single year certainly reflects well on the quality of the research in which our faculty members are engaged."

Dobbin comes to UGA from the National Cancer Institute. His research focuses on modifying traditional statistical study design and analysis methods to accelerate the rate at which laboratory findings are translated into clinical tools that can be used to improve patient outcomes.

Kannan's research focuses on mutations that are associated with the abnormal functioning of protein kinases, a large family of proteins that switch the "on" and "off" signals required for cell growth and differentiation. These mutations are involved in several human cancers, and a better understanding of them has the potential to lead to new treatments.

Murph is working to better understand a cellular signaling pathway known as the lysophosphatidic acid pathway that is involved in the progression of specific types of cancer. Drugs are under development targeting this pathway, and her research also aims to reveal their mechanisms of action to determine potential side effects before clinical trials and to maximize the likelihood of safe development.

Dr. Wang's research focuses on the impact of environmental toxins on the formation of liver and esophageal cancers. He's also a world leader in exploring the role natural products and dietary supplements may play in preventing cancer in high-risk populations.

Begun in 2001, the Georgia Cancer Coalition's Distinguished Cancer Clinicians and Scientists program is an investment in Georgia's future as a national leader in cancer control. The Scholars' history of grants, publications and patents as well as their potential for attracting future funding is considered. In fiscal year 2008, Georgia Cancer Coalition Distinguished Scholars were responsible for securing $47 million in privately and federally funded research grants for the state of Georgia; over the program's 8-year history, scholars have generated more than $200 million in funding.

Scholar selection is based on how the applicant's research relates to the goals of the Coalition, the research priorities of the National Cancer Institute and the strategic plan of the sponsoring institution. Applications are reviewed by a scientific review committee and an advisory review committee appointed by the Coalition in cooperation with Georgia's research universities. Members rank candidates according to predetermined scientific and technical criteria.

"The National Cancer Institute has identified areas of discovery that hold promise for making significant progress against all cancers. The Distinguished Cancer Clinicians and Scientists program is the cornerstone of the Georgia Cancer Coalition's efforts to advance scientific discovery into the prevention, treatment, causes and cures of cancer. These scientists and clinicians play an important role in positioning Georgia as a national leader in cancer research," said Bill Todd, president and chief executive officer.

The Georgia Cancer Coalition is an independent, not-for-profit organization that unites government agencies, academic institutions, civic groups, corporations and health care organizations in a concerted effort to strengthen cancer prevention, research and treatment in Georgia, with the ultimate goal of making Georgia one of the nation's premier states for cancer care. The mission is to reduce the number of cancer-related deaths in Georgia. The Coalition is the first of its kind in the nation and is fast becoming a national model. For further information, the official website is http://www.georgiacancer.org.

To learn more about the UGA Cancer Center, see http://www.uga.edu/cancercenter.

UGA has launched a new website for donating to the university that’s easier to find and that makes giving easier, too. The site lives at a new address – GivingToUGA.com – that’s easy to navigate to when you’re ready to make a difference at UGA. It’s a direct link for alumni and friends who want to learn more about financially supporting the university.

The web site provides a menu of options to help visitors learn how to give to UGA, how their gifts help, and why contributions are so important. It also provides useful information on endowment support and the various ways in which UGA recognizes the donors who support its mission. By visiting GivingToUGA.com, visitors can learn more about the Georgia Fund, Regional and Major Gifts, Gift and Estate Planning, Corporate and Foundation Relations, and giving to schools, colleges, and academic units.

The site makes giving easier with tools to schedule pledges, make payments on existing pledges, and assist with annual one-time gifts. It also includes a matching gift search tool to help donors make an even greater impact.

The Gifts Matter area of the site provides examples of how financial gifts make a difference at UGA in academic research and support, scholarships, faculty support, new learning environments, and public service and outreach. In the future, a donor stories section will also give donors a chance to share their own stories and explain why they support the university with their financial gifts.

The web today is a quick, easy, and convenient way to find and share information. GivingToUGA.com updates the university’s web presence to make it easier to find, easier to give, and easier to make a difference.

Three of UGA’s outstanding teachers were named Josiah Meigs Teaching professors at the Spring Faculty Recognition Banquet: Charles Atwood, Professor of Chemistry; Mark Compton, Associate Professor of Poultry Science; and Michael E. Wetzstein, Professor of Agricultural and Applied Economics.  The professorship recognizes excellence in instruction at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Meigs Professors receive a permanent salary increase of $6,000 and a fund of $1,000 for academic support. The professorship is named for Josiah Meigs, who in 1801 succeeded Abraham Baldwin as president—and sole professor—of Georgia’s fledgling state university.

When Charles Atwood came to UGA in 1995, he dramatically changed the teaching of freshman chemistry in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, turning it into a much-admired program. In 1994, the freshman program looked much as it had for decades: a traditional lecture format, multiple-choice pencil and paper exams and labs that were badly in need of modernization. Today, the more-than 2,000 students who take the course each semester have access to some of the most innovative and successful teaching ideas and labs anywhere.

Beginning with the use of PowerPoint presentations, Atwood began introducing cutting-edge multimedia tools to show students the intricacies and beauties of chemistry. He also began assigning problems and questions in his lectures that students had to work out on their on. These “you do it” problems dramatically deepened the students’ ability to deal with the information before them. Now, he uses wireless instant messaging devices so students with questions can text-message them to a graduate student, who replies immediately. If enough of the same questions are asked, Atwood stops class to clarify the point.

His engagement with students is more than technological; it’s personal, from remembering the names of the students in his 350-student classes to regularly inviting students to his home or out for dinner. One colleague agrees with the many student evaluations that rate Atwood among the best teachers they’ve ever had: “I feel confident that he will continue to provide leadership to his peers as well as to those who aspire to become instructors as together they work to assure student success through successful teaching.”

Mark Compton, who teaches avian anatomy and physiology, takes the opposite tack when it comes to technology, embracing the old-fashioned chalkboard. And, his students love it.

“He wasn’t into all the new PowerPoint presentation type stuff,” said one student about Compton’s chalkboard drawings. “It was more personal, drawing your attention in and allowing for participation. Being more of a visual learner myself, I was fascinated with his drawings describing pathways and mechanisms of physiology. My attention never left that blackboard until the end of class, when not a smidgen of it had been left uncovered.”

Others attest to Compton’s effective use of hands-on exercises to reinforce what he teaches in lectures. He uses a mix of cutting-edge CD study aids, a fun quiz show contest and comprehensive labs to provide the highest quality educational experience for his students. Compton’s teaching philosophy is simple: “Come to class, take good notes, ask questions, review your notes periodically and you will do fine in this course.”He knows that getting students to do all of these isn’t easy. However, his enthusiasm and dedication to his students make them want to come to class every session.

 “Students describe Dr. Compton as ‘electric,’ ” said Mike Lacy, head of the poultry science department in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, in his nomination letter. “His enthusiasm in the classroom is legendary.”

The third awardee, Michael Wetzstein, boasts some impressive stats. He’s authored a textbook on microeconomic theory adopted by MIT and Harvard; taught more than 2,200 students (1,800 undergraduates) in 12 different courses in his 30-year tenure at UGA; been a Fulbright Teaching Scholar and Open Society Institute Scholar; directed four award-winning student articles; and written more than 70 journal articles, just over half with students.

However, what sets Wetzstein apart from other faculty members is his day-to-day passion for his students and his field. Anna Kelso, one of his former undergraduate students, wrote that his “approach to teaching is a unique blend of high energy, constant interaction and humor. Maintaining a constant flow of dialogue with his students, I found I was able to stay with him as he described complex concepts and economic models. . . Because he invested so much of himself into each class, I felt inspired to do the same.”

“When dropping in to speak with Michael, I would often find him reading and researching material for upcoming lectures, even though he had taught the class 20 times before,” wrote T. Jeffrey Price, who completed his doctorate under Wetzstein and now works for the Virginia Department of Transportation. “Michael Wetzstein has both the gift and passion for teaching.”

Wetzstein’s dedication to agricultural economics also has drawn notice outside of his classroom. Octavio Ramirez, head of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences’ department of agricultural and applied economics, wrote that Wetzstein’s teaching skills and devotion to student learning are widely renowned in the profession.
“His scientific credentials and scholarly accomplishments easily place him in the top 5 percent of our profession,” he said.

This Spring, Delta Air Lines and the University of Georgia presented the 2009 Delta Prize for Global Understanding to Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency for his dedication, leadership, and diplomacy in promoting the peaceful uses of nuclear technology.

"Once again the Delta Prize board has selected a recipient whose work is not only important, but timely," said UGA President Michael F. Adams. "Mohamed ElBaradei's role as head of the IAEA is crucial as the world grapples with the issues of nuclear proliferation and the availability of nuclear materials. The University of Georgia is proud to play a role in recognizing his contribution to peace and understanding around the world."

Established in 1997 with an $890,000 endowment grant from the Delta Air Lines Foundation, the Delta Prize is administered by UGA. The prize consists of a sculpture, a $10,000 cash award, and a $50,000 travel allowance from Delta for a non-profit organization of the recipient's choice. ElBaradei is donating the travel allowance to Save the Children, an independent organization that creates lasting change in the lives of children in need in the United States and around the world. The organization helps children and families help themselves.

In accepting the award, ElBaradei said, "I am greatly honored to receive the 2009 Delta Prize for Global Understanding. I welcome the recognition, which this prize represents, of the work which I and my colleagues at the IAEA are doing to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons, advocate nuclear disarmament, and ensure that the benefits of peaceful nuclear technology are made available to all.

"At a time of global insecurity and inequity, it is incumbent on all of us to do what we can to create a saner, safer, and more humane world for our children. I am convinced that the enormous challenges facing the world can be met if we never lose sight of the core values that unite all human beings and recognize the need for dialogue, tolerance and social solidarity.

"I compliment Delta Air Lines and the University of Georgia for creating the Delta Prize in support of these values. I am pleased that the prize includes a generous travel allowance from Delta for a non-profit organization of my choice, as I believe international travel is key to building human understanding and solidarity."

The Delta Prize honors ElBaradei for his advocacy of a worldwide moratorium on nuclear weapons and his promotion of peaceful uses of nuclear power. The prize also honors him for his lifetime commitment to global cooperation as a means to achieve international peace and security.

"Delta established the Delta Prize for Global Understanding in coordination with the University of Georgia to recognize leaders or groups who, by their own initiative, promote cooperation and understanding between nations and cultures," said Ed Bastian, president of Delta Air Lines. "As the world's largest airline, we understand that in order to flourish in all cultures and with all people, we must play a role in facilitating cultural understanding. Dr. ElBaradei's career is the definition of cooperation and understanding based on a foundation of foreign service and a commitment to using nuclear energy in the safest ways possible."

Gary Bertsch, director of UGA's Center for International Trade and Security, and Betty Jean Craige, director of the university's Willson Center for Humanities and Arts, hosted the ceremony in Athens. The two co-founded the Delta Prize.

ElBaradei is the tenth recipient of the Delta Prize. Previous recipients include former president of Finland Martti Ahtisaari, former president of South Africa Nelson Mandela; Ted Turner, founder of Cable News Network (CNN); Ambassador Gertrude Mongella, president of the Pan-African Parliament; former president of the Czech Republic Václav Havel; former United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Sadako Ogata; former president of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev; Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa; and former president of the U.S. Jimmy Carter, his wife Rosalynn, and The Carter Center.

Nominees for the Delta Prize are solicited from around the world. Selected UGA students research the work of the nominees and prepare information for the Delta Prize board, which meets annually to choose the recipient.

For more information on the Delta Prize, see http://uga.edu/news/deltaprize/.

The annual Peabody Awards are one of the most prestigious events associated with the University of Georgia each year. This spring, the recipients of the 68th Annual Peabody Awards were announced by UGA's Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at a ceremony in the Peabody Gallery on the University of Georgia campus and awarded at a special event in New York City hosted by NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams. The 36 winners were chosen by the Peabody board as the best in electronic media for 2008.

"The works recognized by the Peabody Board this year not only reflect great diversity of content and genre, but also true technical innovation and the varied roles of new distribution systems," said Peabody Director Horace Newcomb. "The list of winners this year clearly indicates a changing media environment that will continue to require judgment and evaluation through the Peabody Awards process."

The recipients included Lost, ABC's innovative, mind-bending adventure serial; "The Giant Pool of Money," a remarkably comprehensible explanation of the current financial crisis from public radio's This American Life; and YouTube, the video-sharing Web site that puts a boundless array of video artifacts, from historic political speeches to cell phone videos, at every Internet user's fingertips. Black Magic, ESPN's fascinating examination of the integration of basketball and its impact on the programs of historical black colleges and universities, received a Peabody, as did Saturday Night Live's campaign-season political satire.

A Peabody went to Sichuan Television for its immediate coverage of the deadly earthquake that struck its Chinese province. National Public Radio was also recognized for its exhaustive and sensitive daily reporting on the quake. Peabodys went to CNN's coverage of the Presidential primaries and debates, and to the election-year broadcasts of Washington Week with Gwen Ifill. The Hearst-Argyle television-station group was awarded for its extensive Commitment 2008 coverage of local and regional political contests.

 In the realm of the arts, Peabodys went to The Metropolitan Opera's Live in HD series; The Gates, an HBO documentary tracking the 24-year making of a now-celebrated installation in New York's Central Park; and to NBC's dazzling telecast of the Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony and the ceremony director, Zhang Yimou. An institutional Peabody was awarded to Turner Classic Movies, the cable channel devoted to showing, preserving and fostering a critical appreciation of vintage films.

The entertainment series selected included Breaking Bad, AMC's thorny drama about a terminally ill science teacher who turns to making and selling methamphetamine to build an estate for his wife and disabled son. John Adams, HBO's richly detailed miniseries about the lawyerly founding father, his wife, Abigail, and the times in which they lived, received the award. Also cited was HBO's comedy Entourage, a wicked take on Hollywood and the joys and sorrows of minor stardom. Avatar: The Last Air Bender, an animated, Asian-influenced mythological epic shown on Nickelodeon, received a Peabody, as did Jungle Fish, a handsomely stylized slice of South Korean teen life from the Korean Broadcasting System.

In addition to YouTube, a Peabody was awarded to The New York Times' Web site (www.nytimes.com). Another went to Onion News Network (www.theonion.com/content/video), where video parodies of newscasts and newsmakers are so shrewdly conceived and produced that they're often hard to distinguish from the real thing.

"We recognize the great transformations affecting dissemination of news and information," Newcomb said. "The variety of choices available to citizens does in fact range from the best traditional journalism expanded for the Web, to sharp critiques in the form of parody and satire. Both can achieve a level of excellence that reaches the Peabody standard and both require citizens to respond with careful analysis of their own."

A Peabody went to NOAH Housing Program Investigation, a series of more than 50 reports by New Orleans' WWL-TV exposing problems and possible fraud in a multi-million dollar program designed to help homeowners rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina. Awards also went to Failing the Children: Deadly Mistakes, Denver TV station KMGH's multi-part expose of tragic incompetence in the city's Department of Human Services. National Public Radio's 36 Years of Solitary: Murder, Death and Justice on Angola received a Peabody for a gripping investigative report questioning the guilt of two inmates at Louisiana's notorious prison farm. The two have been kept in solitary confinement for more than three decades.

Newcomb commented on a "stunning array of notable documentaries," saying "This year the Peabody Board was faced with what can only be described as a renaissance in the form. Our decisions came after difficult, but thorough reviews of one of the best pools of docs ever submitted."

Among the documentary winners, Shanghai Television Group's The Red Race provided a shockingly intimate portrait of the rigorous—some would say sadistic—training that Chinese child gymnasts undergo. Campaign, a quirky P.O.V. film, illuminated Japan's political system by following one guileless candidate's run for a city-council seat. Hear and Now, shown on HBO, poignantly chronicled the process and consequences of a middle-aged deaf couple who undergo cochlear implant operations. One splendid Independent Lens documentary, Mapping Stem Cell Research, followed a neurologist obsessed with discovering a way to reverse the effects of his beloved daughter's spinal injury, while another, King Corn, is a deceptively whimsical exploration of what our corn-syrup saturated diet means to our health and the environment.

Peabodys also went to Ape Genius, a NOVA documentary examining the latest research on how the intellectual capacity of gorillas, chimps, bonobos and orangutans compares to ours. Cinemax's Nanking offered a wrenching remembrance of a small group of Westerners who tried to save Chinese civilians from the horrors of the 1937 Japanese invasion. Crossfire: Water, Power and Politics, a documentary from Las Vegas' KLAS-TV that achieved network quality, dared to look hard at a plan to pump massive amounts of water from rural Nevada to its booming, major city and at what this will mean to ranches, farms, Native Americans and the environment.

Depression: Out of the Shadows, a multi-dimensional, ultimately hopeful examination of the devastating disorder that affects millions of Americans, received a Peabody, as did Hopkins, ABC News' compelling verite series filmed in the halls and operating rooms of the Johns Hopkins Hospital.

A Peabody also was awarded to Richard Engel Reports: Tip of the Spear, a series of reports under-fire by the NBC News correspondent from the deadliest zone in Afghanistan. Lifeline, a CBS News 60 Minutes report, received a Peabody. It memorably encapsulated the plight of America's 47 million uninsured by showing some of the 18,000 people who showed up when a free-clinic mission, designed for Third World charity, set up shop for a weekend in Tennessee.

The Peabody Awards, the oldest honor in electronic media, do not recognize categories nor are there a set number of awards given each year. Today the Peabody recognizes distinguished achievement and meritorious public service by TV and radio stations, networks, cablecasters, Webcasters, producing organizations and individuals.

The Peabody Board is a 16-member group, comprised of television critics, broadcast and cable industry executives, academics and experts in culture and the arts. They make their annual selections with input from special screening committees of UGA faculty, students and staff.

All entries become a permanent part of the Peabody Archive in the University of Georgia Libraries. The collection is one of the nation's oldest, largest and most respected moving-image archives. For more information about the Peabody Archive or the Peabody Awards, see www.peabody.uga.edu.

Established in 1915, the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication offers seven undergraduate majors including advertising, broadcast news, magazines, newspapers, public relations, publication management and telecommunication arts. The college offers two graduate degrees, and is home to WNEG-TV, the Knight Chair in Health and Medical Journalism and the Peabody Awards, internationally recognized as one of the most prestigious prizes for excellence in electronic media. For more information, see www.grady.uga.edu.

Researchers have revealed a direct relationship between two specific antibodies and the severity of Alzheimer's disease symptoms, raising hopes that a diagnostic blood test for the devastating disorder is within reach.

Researchers from the University of Georgia, the Charlie Norwood VA Medical Center in Augusta and the Medical College of Georgia compared antibody levels in blood samples from 118 older adults with the participant's level of dementia. The team, whose results appear in the current edition of Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences, found that the concentration of two specific proteins that are involved in the immune response increases as the severity of dementia increases

"We found a strong and consistent relationship between two particular antibodies and the level of impairment," said study co-author L. Stephen Miller, professor and director of clinical psychology training in the UGA Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. "The finding brings us closer to our ultimate goal of developing a blood test that can diagnose Alzheimer's disease or potentially identify if someone is at higher risk for the disease."

 Miller's co-authors include Jennifer S. Wilson, a former undergraduate student in the UGA Honors program who is now pursing graduate studies at Emory University; Shyamala Mruthinti, research pharmacologist at the VA Medical Center and adjunct professor at MCG; and Jerry Buccafusco, director of the MCG Alzheimer's Research Center. The team focused on antibodies that the body creates in response to two proteins that are associated with Alzheimer's disease. One protein, known as amyloid-beta, forms the plaques that are evident in the brains of people with Alzheimer's upon autopsy. The other protein, known as RAGE, is involved in the normal aging process but is expressed at higher levels in the brains of people with Alzheimer's.

 "Alzheimer's is an inflammatory disease of the brain, and these two antibodies give us a way to measure that inflammation," Mruthinti said. "Using them as an early diagnostic marker may allow us to start drug treatment early, when it's most effective, to increase the patient's quality of life."

While optimistic about their findings, the researchers caution that it could still be years before a diagnostic test based on their work is clinically available. The study found that the relationship between the two antibodies and Alzheimer's severity persists even after controlling for patient age and total antibody levels. To further test the strength of the relationship, the researchers are now working with a sample that controls for other factors that have the potential to influence levels of the two antibodies, such as diabetes and heart disease. Buccafusco and his colleagues are also working to decrease the cost and time involved in the test.

"We're in the process of trying to reduce the test to a one-day procedure, whereas right now it takes three to four days," Buccafusco said. "But even now, our test is orders of magnitude cheaper than having people come in every few months to get a functional MRI or PET scan to try to discern brain plaques."

 "The amyloid beta-RAGE complex cuts off the connections between neurons," Mruthinti explained, "but our hope is that we can protect those connections by preventing those plaques from forming."

The research was funded by a Merit Review Award from the Veterans Administration to principal investigator Mruthinti and by the Medical College of Georgia Alzheimer's Research Center.

A two-year expansion and renovation of the Tate Student Center will be completed this summer with a dedication ceremony to coincide with the beginning of fall classes in August. The project will drastically increase space for student programs and activities in the heart of the UGA campus. Tate Student Center is a hub of activity on campus, and once the expansion and renovation is completed, UGA students will have access to one of the finest student centers in the country.

The first phase of the project, a two-story, 500 space parking deck, is now open. Built atop that, the new Tate Student Center building will house an 11,793-square foot multi-purpose space on the fifth level. With a capacity of more than 1,600 people, this state-of-the-art room will be a suitable venue for large-scale student activities including concerts, lectures, meetings, and much more.

The fourth level will feature an elegant dining room, well-appointed conference and meeting rooms for student organizations, and comfortable, intimate lounge seating areas. This level features a mezzanine looking over the third-floor below.

The third level will connect to the main floor of the existing Tate Student Center. This spacious, open area will include a food court, retail space, Print & Copy Services, a large lounge area, gaming area, and a small performance amphitheater. The main floor will open out onto a tree-lined Alumni Plaza facing Lumpkin Street.

Renovations to the existing building include studios for WUOG 90.5 FM (the student-run radio station), dance rehearsal rooms for student organizations, and an expanded UGACard office. Georgia Hall is now a two-story office suite for student support services and programs. The suite contains the Center for Leadership & Service, the Student Activities and Organizations office, and the Center for Student Organizations.

Throughout the existing building, decorative enhancements like new furnishings, lighting, and carpet, as well as a new facade on the Tate Theater, will refresh and renew the building that generations of students have loved for the past quarter century.

A new high-tech Web service is changing the way UGA students, faculty and staff learn and communicate with each other. iTunes U, a free service from Apple, now allows users to download podcasts directly to their iPods or computers.

So far, business is booming. About 200 podcasts have been uploaded since the service began last November. Guest lecturers' talks and professor's daily lessons are on the site. The English department even has poems by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge ready for download.

"Teachers and students are becoming media producers," said David Noah, coordinator of emerging technologies at UGA's Center for Teaching and Learning. "Universities have to make it easy to publish media files and easy for students to access them. And iTunes U does a good job of that."

All that is needed to access the podcast files is iTunes, which is a free download for Macs and PCs available at www.itunes.com. Downloaded tracks can be listened to on the computer or transferred to an iPod.

To access UGA's podcast page through iTunes, visit www.itunes.uga.edu and click on "open in iTunes."

 "It did not come naturally to me. I was not jumping on board a year ago," said Kaye Sweetser, an assistant professor of public relations. "But it's a very simple process. They walked me through it on the phone."

Sweetser began the project to help a student-athlete keep up with lectures she had to miss. But the program was simple, and soon possibilities began exploding. She started to podcast lectures for many of her students.

"I've used it for 15-person classes and 60-person lecture halls. It works the same," she said.

By allowing her students to download her daily class lectures, the students become free to participate instead of scribbling notes, Sweetser said. It's also a powerful tool for self promotion and a way to keep track of what exactly happened in class. It can help students decide whether or not to take a class.

"So if I'm offering them this great experience, why do students need to come to class? The short answer is because I make them. I have an attendance policy," she said. "But there is also a conversation in my classes. We discuss the material, and I think the students really like that. They can concentrate in classes and they will get involved and then go back and fill in their blanks in their notes later. And when they do have to miss a class, this also really provides a full picture of what they missed."

To podcast, Sweetser uses an Olympus WS-311M voice recorder, which retails for about $100. But any recorder that can hook up to a computer will work.

"It's powerful enough that I can move around the room and it picks me up. Students can ask questions, and it picks them up, too," she said. "And when I'm done, I just pop it onto my computer and off it goes. Easy."

Before any podcast is uploaded to the server (housed by the University System of Georgia) it must be checked for "quality control" by the department's iTunes representative. The process usually won't take more than a few minutes, said Robert Ethier, an IT consultant with EITS who is heavily involved with the iTunes U project.

"We just go through it to make sure it's good quality so that we don't have the University of Georgia's name on something that sounds bad," he said. "After you send it to (the iTunes rep), that person will check out your file, click around a little bit and make sure it sounds OK and then go ahead and upload it."

Once it's there, anyone with iTunes can download the podcast. But it's not just audio files. iTunes can handle videos and PDF documents. Users can subscribe to certain podcasts, so that new files will automatically download whenever they're posted.

Other universities including Stanford and Duke are generating content through the program. It's a part of the changing nature of education, said Federico Rogers, a representative from iTunes' parent company, Apple Inc.

"All of our students have been digital for basically their entire lives. They already use this technology, it's just something that the rest of us have to learn about," he said. "And it's already a part of the criteria that students are using to choose schools. It's a way for universities to advertise themselves."

Earlier this year, the University of Georgia Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication announced the official launch of its $100 million "Centennial Campaign for Grady: Democracy's Next Generation."

Announced at the college's Centennial Gala in Athens, the goal of the campaign is to secure investments and assets totaling $100 million in value by 2015, the 100th anniversary of the college's founding.

"The Centennial Campaign will do for Grady's next 100 years what generations of alumni, faculty and students have done to bring the college to its present stature among the best journalism and mass communication programs in the nation," said Dean E. Culpepper Clark.

"The campaign will match resources with ambition, positioning the college for a future that honors its remarkable history and alumni," Clark added.

Campaign priorities include building endowments for Grady's renowned faculty, undergraduate and graduate students, acclaimed centers, institutes, and programs, and developing an enterprise zone for the teaching, research, and production resources made possible through the recently acquired WNEG-TV television license.

A distinctive feature of the campaign is that it will leverage private gifts with entrepreneurial activities through the creation of a Center for Media Democracy, of which WNEG-TV will serve as the cornerstone, Clark noted.

Announced as co-chairs of the Centennial Campaign for Grady are Maxine Clark (ABJ '71), founder and CEO, Build-a-Bear Workshop, St. Louis, MO; Betty Hudson (ABJ '71), executive vice-president of communications, The National Geographic Society, Washington, D.C.; Henry Grady III, (BBA '84), managing director, Sun Trust Robinson Humphrey, Atlanta; and Donald A. Perry (ABJ '74), vice-president of public relations, Chick-fil-A, Inc., Atlanta.

"Grady College is a tradition and a trust, from the McGill program to the Peabody Awards, to our students who are truly democracy's next generation," added Clark. "The power of media for social and public good unites us all. We begin this historic campaign to build endowment and opportunity for faculty, staff, students and alumni at Grady."

Campaign highlights, coverage of the Centennial Gala, and information are available at www.grady.uga.edu/centennial

The University of Georgia ranks 9th as the "Best Value" public college for 2009, according to The Princeton Review, which teamed with USA Today to present the "Best Value" Colleges list for 2009.

According to The Princeton Review, "The University of Georgia's star is rising in academic reputation, as a result of notice from the popular press and the prestigious awards and grants bestowed on faculty and students."

The "Best Value" colleges list, reported in the Jan. 8 print edition of USA Today, and on www.princetonreview.com/bestvaluecolleges and www.BestValueColleges.usatoday.com, features 100 schools in all: 50 public and 50 private colleges and universities.

The Princeton Review selected the institutions as its "best value" choices for 2009 based on its surveys of administrators and students at more than 650 public and private colleges and universities. The selection criteria covered more than 30 factors in three areas: academics, costs of attendance, and financial aid: lists tallies were made using the most recently reported data from each institution for its 2007-08 academic year.

The Princeton Review previously reported annual "Best Value" public and private colleges lists (and top 10 ranking schools in each category) on its website and in its book, "America's Best Value Colleges," which was published from 2004 to 2007.

Recognition by the Princeton Review follows that of another national publication, Smart Money magazine, which named UGA the university with the fourth "Best Payback" relative to its cost.

When Alice Richards' family decided to give $1 million to the State Botanical Garden at the University of Georgia to create a children's garden, they didn't know they were helping fulfill a dream she had harbored for almost two decades.

Richards, who lived in Carrollton, was a charter member of the Botanical Garden's Board of Advisors and one of the garden's most devoted and beloved supporters until her death in May 2007. The mother of seven and grandmother of 24, Richards loved flowers and the outdoors and had a tender spot for children, said her son Lee Richards of St. Simons Island.

So when Lee and his siblings began discussing distribution of their mother's estate, agreement to make a gift to the Botanical Garden to create a special garden for children "took about five seconds," he said. "Mom loved her children and everybody else's children, and we knew how much she loved the Botanical Garden. We could think of no better place to leave a lasting memorial."

What the children didn't know when they made their decision was that almost 20 years earlier Richards had written on her biographical sheet for the Board of Advisors, "I'm particularly interested in the children's garden."

"We didn't learn about that until after we made the donation," said Lee Richards. "It's an amazing coincidence."

Alice Richards was the widow of Roy Richards, founder and CEO of Southwire, the largest maker of cable in North America and one of Georgia's largest corporations. Roy was a Georgia Tech graduate and neither Alice nor any of their children had any connection to the University of Georgia until Alice was asked to become a charter member of the Botanical Garden Board of Advisors through friends who were knowledgeable about the garden.

Opeoluwa Fawole, a sophomore microbiology major at the University of Georgia, has been selected to participate in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Exceptional Research Opportunities Program (EXROP) this summer. Fawole, who is an Honors student from Lawrenceville, is the first UGA student to receive this honor.

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute, a non-profit medical research organization and one of the largest philanthropies in the United States, seeks ways to advance biomedical research and strengthen science education through its various initiatives. The EXROP program was created in 2003 to encourage and support outstanding undergraduate researchers by providing them mentored research opportunities with leading HHMI scientists. EXROP participants must be nominated by HHMI members.

"EXROP is one of the most prestigious summer programs available to talented undergraduates who want to pursue a career in scientific research," said Susan Wessler, UGA Foundation Chair in the Biological Sciences and an HHMI Professor who nominated Fawole. "In addition to a generous stipend, students are able to choose the lab they want to work in from a long list of HHMI investigators nationwide."

Fawole will be conducting biomedical research for approximately ten weeks at her HHMI research mentor's home institution and will present her research project during a poster session of next year's EXROP meeting.

"I believe that the EXROP experience will be a great one since you have a chance to choose an HHMI investigator from a list of almost 200 from all over the country," said Fawole. "This program will give me more exposure to the research field, broadening my biomedical research views and helping me define my future career goals. I am thankful to Dr. Pamela Kleiber in the Honors Program and Dr. Susan Wessler for nominating me and giving me this great summer opportunity."

As an undergraduate researcher at UGA, Fawole currently participates in the Apprentice Program of the Honors Program's Center for Undergraduate Research Opportunities (CURO). She is investigating the genetic behavior of Plasmodium falciparum, a mosquito-transmitted parasite that can cause the most severe cases of malaria in people.

Working in the infectious diseases laboratory of Dr. David Peterson since her freshman year, Fawole is currently focusing on placental-associated malaria to find how the malaria parasite survives in the face of the developing immune response.

"Ope is a very dedicated student, works diligently in the lab, participates in lab meetings, and has already presented her work at a national conference," said Peterson, an associate professor in UGA's College of Veterinary Medicine. "Being chosen for the HHMI's summer research program will provide a fantastic opportunity for Ope to gain additional research experience and to network with peers from around the country."

"The CURO Apprenticeship prepares Honors students such as Ope Fawole during their first two years at UGA to compete at a national level with the best students in the country," added Pamela Kleiber, associate director of the Honors Program, who coordinates CURO programs. "The opportunity that Dr. Wessler's EXROP nomination has provided Ope will take her to the next level in her preparation as a scientist. Dr. Wessler has opened a huge door for Ope."

After Fawole graduates from UGA in spring 2011, she would like to attend medical school and one day travel to underdeveloped countries to offer her medical services.