http://uga.edu/gm/ee/index.php/site/index/ en cheriwra@uga.edu Copyright 2009 2009-09-07T19:48:02+00:00 http://uga.edu/gm/ee/index.php?/single/2009/09/577/ http://uga.edu/gm/ee/index.php?/single/2009/09/577/#When:19:48:02Z Yasmin Hudson’s hips move ever so slightly as the Hula Hoop twirls around her waist. As she sways, she chants, “Ninety percent of all volcanoes erupt at the bottom of the ocean where plates are spreading apart.” She repeats the sentence again and again, as many times as possible in one minute—or before the hoop hits the floor. “One minute,” says Nia Clark, as Yasmin lets the hoop fall. “You said it 13 times.” That task completed, the sixth graders run to the next “station” set up in the Hilsman Middle School media room. This time they’re at a computer terminal answering questions about the layers of the Earth. During the two-hour program, the girls, along with a dozen of their schoolmates, will dissect chocolate bars, blow bubbles and putt golf balls—all in the name of science. ]The after-school program is a hands-on experience for students in UGA’s College of Education, who may one day go into teaching in the area of science, technology, engineering or math (known as the STEM fields.) Funded by the University System Board of Regents, it is one of several efforts under way to encourage education majors to pursue teaching careers in the STEM fields. Starting in 2010, first-year certified secondary school math and science teachers in Georgia will be paid at the level of a fifth-year teacher, an incentive approved by the state legislature. Twice a week the STEM Dawgs, as the UGA class is known, travel to two schools in the region, Hilsman in … Feature Stories 2009-09-07T19:48:02+00:00 http://uga.edu/gm/ee/index.php?/single/2009/09/501/ http://uga.edu/gm/ee/index.php?/single/2009/09/501/#When:19:32:43Z Cayle Bywater Special photo Before grad student Cayle Bywater (BBA ’02) disappeared early last year she started a project to benefit Nuci’s Space, a musicians’ resource and support center where she volunteered in Athens. She hoped that the large-scale database she was compiling would significantly increase the efficiency and range of the center’s rehearsal room reservation system. After Bywayter was found dead Jan. 11, 2008, her classmates in the master of Internet technology program at the Gwinnett campus decided to continue the project in her honor. Bywater’s endeavor became a final project for five of her classmates. The new system, which they named the Cayle Project, is an internal web application that assists staff members with practice room and equipment reservations, as well as with vital customer reporting data. As of May 2009, the database is an integral part of business at Nuci’s Space. Class Notes Extras 2009-09-07T19:32:43+00:00 http://uga.edu/gm/ee/index.php?/single/2009/09/500/ http://uga.edu/gm/ee/index.php?/single/2009/09/500/#When:19:28:21Z If you ever move to China, Christyne Holmes (BSHE ’89) is a good person to know. Holmes has been living in Beijing since 2003 with her husband, John, who works for Conoco Phillips, and their son, John Kendrick, 5. Holmes shares her expertise by serving as a moderator for a 2,000-member Yahoo group that helps other expatriates looking for everything from size 12 shoes to a T-ball stand and from play dates to a prom dress. “It’s one of those safety nets that keeps you sane,” Holmes says. She also does charity work with the Roundabout, a thrift store that sends aid to inner Mongolia and the Sichuan province, site of last year’s deadly earthquake. “It feels good to be able to help people and fill in the gaps where people are in need,” she says. Class Notes Extras 2009-09-07T19:28:21+00:00 http://uga.edu/gm/ee/index.php?/single/2009/09/499/ http://uga.edu/gm/ee/index.php?/single/2009/09/499/#When:19:00:04Z Stan Baker (DVM ’08) always wanted to be a veterinarian. But at the University of Arkansas, where he completed his under- graduate work, his older brother recommended he pursue chemical engineering. It was a good move, he says. “Succeeding in the chemical engineering curriculum gave me the confidence I needed to do everything else.” After engineering school he went on to law school at Arkansas and worked for awhile as an environmental and patent attorney. At age 32, the pull to pursue a degree in veterinary medicine was still there. It took four years of night classes for him to earn the credits required just to apply to vet school. But he did it, and in 2008 at age 40, Baker graduated from the UGA College of Veterinary Medicine. He is believed to be the only person in the country to hold degrees in chemical engineering, law and vet med. “I am probably the only patent attorney who ever worked as a kennel boy while practicing law,” Baker says. “I was cleaning soiled cages to gain veterinary related hours to apply for vet school.” After earning his DVM, Baker, a native of Earle, Ark., returned to northwest Arkansas where he uses all his degrees. He owns a legal practice focusing on intellectual property and veterinary policy, he provides relief work for local vets, and he maintains a side practice as the only veterinarian in northwest Arkansas (and one of three in the state) certified as a veterinary acupuncturist, a skill he … Alumni Profiles 2009-09-07T19:00:04+00:00 http://uga.edu/gm/ee/index.php?/single/2009/09/498/ http://uga.edu/gm/ee/index.php?/single/2009/09/498/#When:18:30:28Z Carla Case McCorvey (DVM ’99) was born to practice veterinary medicine. The fourth generation veterinarian worked with her father, Jerry Case (DVM ’75), as a young girl, making cotton balls and sterilizing equipment in the animal hospital her great-grandfather Erle Case founded in 1909. Today, Case-McCorvey practices beside her father, using some of the most innovative techniques available. “Obviously, I learned as much from Dad as I did from UGA’s College of Veterinary Medicine, but I learned a lot from Papa too,” Case-McCorvey says of her grandfather, Dr. Francis Case Sr. “He had retired by the time I began working with Dad in 1999, but he lived right around the corner from the hospital, and he and my grandmother had me over for lunch more than once a week. I’d tell them all about what surgeries I had done that day, and they’d tell me stories about how it used to be. ” This year marks the 100th anniversary of Case Veterinary Hospital in Savannah. In late 2008 Case-McCorvey was named one of Georgia Trend magazine’s “Top 40 Under 40.” Also in 2008, the Savannah Small Business Chamber of Commerce named her family’s practice Business of the Year. It is one of the oldest family veterinary practices in the country to have operated continuously, but it had modest beginnings. Erle Case received his veterinary training in Ontario, Canada, and accepted a job through correspondence in Savannah. He packed up all his belongings and spent his savings on a one-way steamship ticket … Alumni Profiles 2009-09-07T18:30:28+00:00 http://uga.edu/gm/ee/index.php?/single/2009/09/497/ http://uga.edu/gm/ee/index.php?/single/2009/09/497/#When:18:27:41Z It was an accident, really, the bittersweet discovery of a new breed of Lantana behind alumna Susy Dirr’s house in Chapel Hill, N.C., where she lived in 2004 after a second lung transplant. Dirr’s father, retired-UGA horticulturist Mike Dirr, recognized the flowering yellow shrub as a different breed and named it after the town where Susy later died. Dirr now breeds the Chapel Hill Lantana at his Watkinsville company, Plant Introductions Inc., with proceeds going to the Sweet Melissa Fund, a non profit established by Mike and Bonné Dirr to raise money for lung transplant recipients and their families. The fund is named for Melissa Alexander, a friend of Susy, who died from cystic fibrosis in 2005. Susy Dirr (ABJ ’99) died on Jan. 24, 2008, at age 31 after a lifetime battle with cystic fibrosis, a genetic condition affecting the cells lining the lungs and digestive system. Class Notes Extras 2009-09-07T18:27:41+00:00 http://uga.edu/gm/ee/index.php?/single/2009/09/551/ http://uga.edu/gm/ee/index.php?/single/2009/09/551/#When:18:25:17Z Kirk Cureton …Kirk Cureton, professor and head of the department of kinesiology, who received a Citation Award from the American College of Sports Medicine. …Shelly Hovick, a doctoral student in speech communication, who is one of 11 recipients nationwide to receive a Kellogg Health Scholars Fellowship for engaging in health disparities research. …Hilary Conklin, an assistant professor in the College of Education, who received a National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship. …Michael F. Adams, UGA president, and Mary Stakes, a retiring senior public service associate from the Carl Vinson Institute of Government, who received 2009 Governor’s Awards in the Humanities. Tulsi Patel …Tulsi Patel (AB ’09) of Acworth, who received a 2009 American Dream Fellowship from the Merage Foundation. …Roger Hill, a professor and head of the College of Education’s department of workforce education, leadership and social foundations, who was named the 2009 Technology Teacher Educator of the Year and received the Wilkinson Meritorious Service Award at the annual conference of the International Technology Education Association. …Judith Preissle, a professor in the College of Education, who was named a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association. …E. Ann Puckett, professor of law and Alexander Campbell King Law Library director, who was named a recipient of the Marian Gould Gallagher Distinguished Service Award—the most prestigious award presented by the American Association of Law Libraries. …The Georgia Review, which earned six gold honors and a total of 13 citations at the Magazine Association of the Southeast’s 2009 GAMMA Awards. Wanda Stit-Gohdes … … Around the Arch 2009-09-07T18:25:17+00:00 http://uga.edu/gm/ee/index.php?/single/2009/09/550/ http://uga.edu/gm/ee/index.php?/single/2009/09/550/#When:18:23:21Z Special photo Infants and the elderly are most likely to be affected by homicidal poisonings, which are rare but on the rise, according to UGA researchers. Pharmacy professor Greene Shepherd and recent graduate Brian Ferslew examined seven years of recent federal mortality data and found that while homicidal poisonings are often portrayed in the media as premeditated acts, infants, and more specifically African-American infants, are at the greatest danger due to negligence from parents and caretakers, not premeditation. In addition, the study also found that the elderly in various institutions are at a higher risk of abuse in the form of excessive doses of sedatives or medications. Around the Arch 2009-09-07T18:23:21+00:00 http://uga.edu/gm/ee/index.php?/single/2009/09/496/ http://uga.edu/gm/ee/index.php?/single/2009/09/496/#When:18:22:15Z UGA Honors students interned this summer with the Greater New York Hospital Association under the direction of Arch Foundation Advisory Trustee Susan Waltman (AB ’73, MSW ’75), senior executive vice president and general counsel of GNYHA. The students, who are all studying in the College of Public Health, had the opportunity to attend the Public Health Association of NYC’s annual awards ceremony where Dr. Thomas Frieden was honored. Frieden was appointed by President Obama in May to head the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Class Notes Extras 2009-09-07T18:22:15+00:00 http://uga.edu/gm/ee/index.php?/single/2009/09/549/ http://uga.edu/gm/ee/index.php?/single/2009/09/549/#When:18:17:50Z   Two dozen students, under the guidance of English professor Andrew Zawacki, are believed to be the first class at UGA to study the full text of French writer Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time—at 4,211 pages the longest novel believed ever written. The year-long study began in August 2008 and ended in May. Zawacki, an acclaimed poet, translator and editor, who is part of the creative writing faculty in the English department, said he decided to offer the course when he learned that no one had ever taught the full text at UGA. Also known as Remembrance of Things Past, the full text is composed of seven novels. Around the Arch 2009-09-07T18:17:50+00:00