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News for Spring 2006
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Emory announces new science exchange with Imperial College
News release from Beverly Cox Clark
Imperial College London is an independent constituent part of the University of London, and is consistently rated in the top three of universities in the United Kingdom. The agreement will allow undergraduates in chemistry, biological science and other disciplines from each institution to learn abroad as part of a student exchange program. The program is open to highly qualified students and will be initially available to two students a year from each institution.
The program will benefit both the education and the research mission of Emory, and adds to university's strategic efforts to internationalize research and learning, especially in the sciences, says Preetha Ram, assistant dean for the sciences at Emory.
"Internationalization plays an important and critical role in engaging young scholars at Emory. Our students will benefit from an early exposure to the high calibre science education that is offered at Imperial, and our faculty will also gain from research collaborations and joint projects. Several faculty have research collaborations with Imperial already, and are looking forward to engaging undergraduates in these efforts," Ram says.
The new agreement adds to Emory's expanding Science Experience Abroad program (http://www.college.emory.edu/current/courses/special_programs/sea/index.html), a joint effort of the Office for Undergraduate Education and the Center for International Programs Abroad. "This new agreement adds to Emory's diverse growth in offerings for science students, ranging from summer research opportunities, internships and community involvement to study abroad programs around the world," says Philip Wainwright, director of CIPA.
Emory's chemistry department played an active role in the development of the program, which has its roots in the long-time research collaborations between Emory chemistry professor Dennis Liotta and professor Tony Barrett at Imperial.
"Both Imperial and Emory are leaders in the fields of science and medicine, and this agreement will allow students to learn with top academics on both sides of the Atlantic. This is an excellent basis from which to explore further opportunities for collaboration with Emory," says Barrett, head of the Synthetic Chemistry Research Group at Imperial who led the effort to develop the agreement at his school.
The first student exchange will take place in 2007. Students interested in taking part should contact Dean Ram ( ) at Emory.
Schuchard, Rochat awarded Guggenheims
By Michael Terrazas
Guggenheim Fellowships carry a monetary value to allow for a minimum of six and a maximum of 12 months" study on the particular project for which the fellowship is given. Schuchard, Goodrich C. White Professor of English, took his award for a project dedicated to compiling and editing the unpublished prose writings of poet T.S. Eliot, while Rochat"s fellowship will fund a study of the development of possession and sharing tendencies among infants.
"Ron Schuchard has long been recognized worldwide for his excellent research on T.S. Eliot, and Philippe Rochat and his team continue to break new ground in early childhood development and infant cognition," said Emory College Dean Bobby Paul. "These Guggenheim Fellowships represent the latest and greatest of recognitions for two of the finest members of our faculty, and I look forward with anticipation to the scholarship that will be made possible by these awards."
Schuchard, who has received complementary fellowships from Harvard"s Houghton Library and Yale"s Beinecke Library, will use his Guggenheim to travel to both of those universities and to London to collect some 700 unpublished pieces of Eliot"s prose, such as lectures and other public addresses, for publication by Faber & Faber in England and by the Johns Hopkins University Press in the United States.
"T.S. Eliot is one of the great prose writers of our age, and scholarship over the years has suffered grievously for 90 percent of the time not being aware of 90 percent of what he wrote," Schuchard said. "The Eliot estate, and his publisher, Faber & Faber, commissioned me to bring out a multivolume edition of Eliot"s complete prose that will go an estimated eight to 10 volumes."
Rochat, whose The Infant"s World was published in 2001 by Harvard University Press, will use his Guggenheim to continue work on early childhood and infant cognitive development. His prior research has focused on questions such as development of sense of self, language development and toddler perceptions of their own past.
"How do they respond?" Rochat has said of questions he attempts to answer of his tiny research subjects.
"How do they attend to particular events in their environment?"
Emory is becoming a regular on the Guggenheim award list; in 2002, Larry Barsalou (psychology) and Kristin Mann (history) were awarded fellowships, and a year later Natasha Trethewey (creative writing) claimed another one.
"Ron Schuchard and Philippe Rochat have built sterling reputations with their respective work in 20th century English literature and early childhood developmental psychology, and Emory is proud and gratified that institutions such as the Guggenheim Foundation have chosen to recognize their achievements," said Provost Earl Lewis. "We"ve long said that perception often lags behind reality in the world of higher education, but awards like these indicate to me that Emory is closing that gap every day."
From Emory Report, April 10, 2006
Vargas Llosa draws crowd from around the world
By Michael Terrazas
Vargas Llosa was wrapping up his turn as the 2006 Richard A. Ellmann Lecturer in Modern Literature with an evening of readings from his own work, and the decidedly international crowd hung on every word. Many of them had heard him all three days, April 2–4, speaking on three literary masters of the Hispanic tradition: Miguel de Cervantes, Jorge Luís Borges and José Ortega y Gassett.
Peru"s foremost author and one of the best-known artists in the Latin American world, Vargas Llosa is the author of more than a dozen novels, but they only begin to tell the story of his life. He also has made a name for himself as a journalist, playwright, critic, political thinker and even a political candidate: In 1990, he ran for Peru"s presidency.
"He is not only a Latin American man of letters; he is a man of letters of the world," said Ron Schuchard, Goodrich C. White Professor of English and director of the Ellmann Lectures, adding that Vargas Llosa"s work has been translated into more than 20 languages. "Mario Vargas Llosa"s real place of writing in the world is what he calls the ‘culture of liberty, what [Irish poet] Seamus Heaney calls ‘The Republic of Conscience." [Vargas Llosa] is an honored and active veteran of that imaginary republic."
Vargas Llosa"s lectures touched on political and social aspects of his three subjects, and indeed, he seemed to say in his address on Cervantes that such aspects are central to all literature.
"Fiction is entertainment only in the second or third sense," he said, "but then fiction is nothing if it is not fun and magical."
Vargas Llosa praised the author of Don Quixote as a giant of literature even as he described Cervantes" difficulties in life and his bitterness that he could not make a name for himself as a poet, having to settle merely for creating what would become one of history"s greatest works of "plebian prose."
"Cervantes is no hero in the epic sense of the word," Vargas Llosa said, "but only in the modest sense of normal people who face setbacks and do not give up."
Of Ortega y Gasset, Vargas Llosa said the Madrid-born writer-philosopher was vilified following the Spanish Civil War for not explicitly denouncing the Franco regime, and that vilification—along with a Western bias against Latino intelligentsia—has kept him from being mentioned in the same breath as such 20th century thinkers as Jean-Paul Sartre and Bertrand Russell.
Focusing on Ortega y Gasset"s best-known work, 1929"s The Revolt of the Masses, Vargas Llosa said the novel was more than 50 years" prescient in its call for a unified Europe, though its author was noticeably off on one prediction: that the United States was incapable of carrying on the European tradition of "developing science" due to its focus on technology and "deification of consumer products manufacturing."
"It was a flawed prediction in a book replete with fulfilled prophecies," Vargas Llosa said.
During the April 4 evening reading that culminated his Emory appearance, Vargas Llosa read three selections, first from his 2000 novel The Feast of the Goat, about the days of Dominican dictator Rafael Molino Trujillo. Next, he read from a short story, "The Fish in the Water," which he called the "raw material" for his 1977 comedic novel, Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter. Finally, he read in Spanish from an unpublished work whose title is loosely translated to "Antics of the Naughty Girl."
After the standing ovation that followed his reading, Vice Provost for International Affairs Holli Semetko took the stage to present Vargas Llosa with an official pronouncement from Georgia Secretary of State Cathy Cox, proclaiming the Peruvian an "Honorary Citizen of the State of Georgia."
"I was very pleased with how it went, and it was wonderful to have the Hispanic audience—that"s the first time we"ve had something like that at Emory," Schuchard said of the three days. "Mario Vargas Llosa had a wonderful time. He"d never seen anything like it, and who knows, maybe we"ll get him to come back and teach here sometime."
From Emory Report, April 10, 2006
Women's swim team NCAA champs second year in a row
The Eagles, under Coach Jon Howell (shown at top right), finished the meet with 428 points. Senior Sam White captured the fourth national championship of her career, taking honors in the 1650-yard freestyle. Next up were the Emory men, who traveled to the same Carleson College pool, March 16–18. Though, since 2000, the men have finished no worse than third, they have yet to match the ladies" feat of a national title.
From Emory Report, March 20, 2006
Courtesy scholarship provides options for summer study
By Alfred Charles
Denise Brubaker has worked at Emory since 1982, and in that time two of her children have enrolled here to earn degrees and a third is on the way this fall.
None of it would have been possible, she said, if the University had not provided courtesy scholarships to defray the tuition costs for her children, who used the award for regular and summer school classes.
"I am very grateful and my kids are, too," said Brubaker, academic department administrator in the political science department. "It has enabled them to get a substantially better education."
University officials want more faculty and staff members to be aware that the courtesy scholarship can be used not only during the regular academic year but for summer school as well. Students who are enrolled at other schools can use the benefit to attend summer classes at Emory, and employees who are considering using the benefit for themselves should consider how they could use the courtesy scholarship during the summer, such as working an alternate schedule or taking leave.
Because the summer season tends to be a slow time on campus, administrators say that could be an ideal time for employees—or their children—to enroll in Emory classes.
"We hope more faculty and staff will consider using the courtesy scholarship in the future," said Sally Wolff King, associate dean of Emory College. "They should also keep in mind that it is available in the summer."
Arguably the best benefit of working for the University, the courtesy scholarship allows Emory workers to defray part or all of the tuition costs to attend class, either for themselves or their immediate family.
Under the program's current rules, full time workers who have been employed by the University between two and five years are eligible for a tuition waiver for themselves or their immediate dependents of half of the costs. Workers who have served between five and 10 years are eligible for a 75 percent waiver, while employees with 10 or more years of service are eligible to have their entire tuition costs waived. Part-time workers are also eligible for the benefit, but the required time on the job is slightly different.
The process to use the courtesy scholarship is twofold. The employee, their child, spouse or domestic partner must first be admitted to the school and academic program of their choice. The worker then must complete an online form to request the scholarship.
Students who attend other colleges during the regular academic year but want to attend summer school classes at Emory do not have to be admitted to the University, but can enroll as transient students.
The courtesy scholarship program is administered by the Office of Student Financial Services.
With about three months to go until the summer academic season, this might be an ideal time for those thinking about using the courtesy scholarship for the summer program because there is a slightly expanded list of course offerings over previous years.
"There are more than 100 courses available in a wide variety of disciplines," Wolff King said. "And it's a six-week commitment versus a 15-week commitment."
Larraine Forrester, program administrative assistant to Wolff King, is also using the courtesy scholarship.
"I think it's a great opportunity for employees to continue their education," she said.
The courtesy scholarship program probably doesn't have a booster bigger than Brubaker.
She speaks fondly about the program, which is being used to educate son, Nick, a sophomore with a major in psychology and a second major in philosophy and religion, and daughter Natalie, a senior and a double major in environmental studies and biology.
"Not having to consider tuition costs has allowed my children to go much farther," said Brubaker, whose third child, son Daniel, is expected to enroll in Emory this fall on a courtesy scholarship. The tuition for Brubaker's dependents is completely waived because of her length of employment.
She said both of her children have used the courtesy scholarship to attend summer school and courses throughout the year. The perk has literally opened up a world of possibilities for Brubaker's children. Nick traveled to the United Kingdom one summer to study abroad and Natalie has spent time in Costa Rica for her studies.
"They know how fortunate they are to have access to this caliber of education," Brubaker said.
For online resources about the Emory courtesy scholarship program, visit:
http://emory.hr.emory.edu/benefits. For information on summer school, visit http://www.college.emory.edu/summer.
From Emory Report, February 20, 2006
Liotta talks drug discovery at Distinguished Faculty Lecture
By Katherine Baust Lukens
Liotta's lecture, "New Therapies for Treating Viral Infections and Cancers," was sponsored by Faculty Council and delivered to a full house.
It is possible that some of you may not have heard of Professor Liotta before Emtriva sold for [$540 million], though I doubt that's true now," said Thomas Frank, chair-elect of Faculty Council and professor of church administration in the Candler School of Theology. "However, that is not the [only] reason he is here today. As the chair of chemistry, he has bridged boundaries between arts and sciences and the health sciences."
Since it is a mixed audience, my mission here is to try and translate what I do into words and pictures," Liotta said as he took the podium. "I have been a professor here for almost 30 years, and I do research—that can mean different things to people—but I have looked to translate my research into drugs or therapies to help the public.
I have been asked how we were able to beat 'Big Pharma' in discovering Emtriva," Liotta continued. "Drug discovery used to only happen in big pharmaceutical companies, but that trend has changed in the last 15 years or so, and now the big pharmaceutical companies spend most of their money on drug development rather than research."
He explained the trend is based on economic rather than scientific reasons. In the 1990s, the pharmaceutical companies had double-digit revenue growth that was not sustainable, Liotta said. To continue maximizing profits, companies engaged in mergers and acquisitions, which in turn resulted in layoffs and personnel transitions—phenomena not conducive to research, Liotta said.
At universities, on the other hand, people have been studying their areas for a long time and don't get traded—at least not very often," he quipped.
Liotta discussed AIDS and why, after 25 years, there is still no cure in sight. "Part of the problem is that, when cell replication takes place, there is [often] an error—there are mutant variations of the virus," he said. "When we design a drug, it suppresses those that aren't mutations, but the mutations grow. We call this viral resistance."
Emtriva is nice because it has so few side effects, and you only have to take it once a day," Liotta continued, touching on why the drug is preferable to other drug "cocktails" that require several daily doses. "If you miss a dose, [HIV] can mutate and cause the disease to progress. Taking it once a day is the easiest way to get good compliance."
He then shifted gears to talk about cancer therapies. "We are looking for nontoxic therapies. One we are researching is curcumin. We don't have anything conclusive yet—but if you like curry, I encourage you to eat it," he said with a smile.
Curcumin is the active ingredient of the Indian curry spice turmeric and is known for its antitumor, antioxidant, anti-amyloid and anti-inflammatory properties. In the last few decades, extensive work has been done to establish curcumin's biological activities and pharmacological properties.
From Emory Report, February 13, 2006
MARIAL study focuses on Barbados middle class
By Rachel Robertson
The research, funded by the MARIAL Center, focused on the customs and habits of 85 men and women who live on the island. Barbados was uninhabited when the British settled the island. As a result, the country's culture has been defined largely by the colonizers and the slaves they brought with them to work on the sprawling sugar plantations.
Slavery's end meant Barbados had to devise new ways for its residents to enter the workforce and become productive citizens when the country's education became a pathway available to all its residents.
The path of upward mobility was understood very clearly to be through the medium of education, and ideally through the embrace of the professions, such as law and medicine," Freeman said.
She found that many in the country's expanding middle class are bucking the traditional system and broadening the parameters for upward mobility. On the island's rugged east coast, one entrepreneur in Freeman's study started an outdoor adventure business that specializes in team-building training for corporations.
She is a young Afro-Barbadian woman who grew up in a household where her father left the family when she was a small child, and she was raised by her mother, who was a domestic worker," Freeman said. "She worked for a couple of hotels and for a bank—the quintessence of a respectable, good job that her mother was really proud of—and chucked all that in favor of starting her own business."
Freeman believes this current road to upward mobility is rooted in the march of globalization, though it is anchored in the vestiges of the country's plantation-slavery system. This is best illustrated by the "higgler," a traveling market trader akin to a small business owner in the United States. (Higglers and rum shop operators are important cultural icons in the region.) Freeman said the higgler was typically a large, strong woman who wore a colorful head scarf and carried a bountiful tray of produce. She also represented a symbol of female independence. The rum shop, a gathering place for men, was often operated out of one section of the owner's house. However, such businesses had little prestige and were not seen as a way to break into the middle class.
Neoliberalism, or more generally, globalization, was often seen as being imposed upon developing countries by such powers as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. Those agencies are supportive of the type of entrepreneur Freeman studied.
Neoliberalism means the free market reigns, and flexibility is everything. These are ideologies and economic practices that have been in existence and proudly hailed as deeply Caribbean for 300 years," Freeman said.
It is interesting to note that these practices, now in favor with the dominant economic order, were developed in reaction to the oppressive colonial system of slavery.
In the few cases where anthropologists have examined the middle strata, Freeman said, these groups have often been portrayed as less "authentic" culturally than their poorer kin and likened in many quarters to economic predators who take advantage of poorer people to advance their fortunes.
She hopes that, by using ethnographic research to gain a deeper understanding of this group, anthropology can inform other social science disciplines about how the middle classes might be contributing to the economic and cultural changes in their societies.
A number of anthropologists, myself included, now find ourselves turning toward the middle classes, not as culturally bereft, but as people who are successful evidence of mechanisms of development and who are utilizing local culture in new kinds of ways to propel themselves into a new economic and social strata," Freeman said.
Her close examination of entrepreneurs in Barbados has convinced Freeman that more needs to be done to incorporate ethnographic research in the study of globalization, a task she has taken on in her undergraduate seminar this semester. Freeman said the wealth of data compiled through ethnography can add depth that could be missed in macro-level analysis—for example, the role gender plays in how people make job choices can complete the research picture.
Ethnography offers an indespensible tool, in conjunction with these other methodological approaches, to demonstrate the meaningfulness of place and of historical and cultural specificity within processes of globalization," Freeman said.
From Emory Report, February 13, 2006
Emory Rediscovers Architectural GEM With Green Renovation
By Beverly Cox Clark
The restored reading room is a far cry from the cramped quarters that existed after a 1956 renovation divided the space horizontally in half to provide more floor space. Those floors, previously home to a maze of cubicles and book-stacks, have been ripped out. Original plaster columns were uncovered and carefully preserved. Workers also restored interior windows on the fourth floor that now overlook the room as well as large, arched exterior windows that flood the space with natural light. And although wireless Internet access is provided, the look of the room is virtually indistinguishable from when it originally opened in 1926.
In one of many architectural touches, the troops of Alexander the Great are again brandishing sword and shield in a plaster frieze depicting "The Triumph of Alexander" high along the walls of the reading room's lobby. The frieze's 26 panels faded from the university's memory after they disappeared during renovations in the 1950s. They were later found in the library's attic and are now back in their original place.
The effort was a combination of preservation and modernization (including a two-story addition to the back) that also used environmentally responsible green-building principles from start to finish. An important aspect of the project was the implementation of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) principles throughout the design and construction of both the renovation and the new addition.
The library recently received LEED silver certification. All total, Emory is home to 11 buildings that have been, or are being, designed and renovated or constructed according to LEED principles, for a total of about 1.1 million square feet--or 25 acres. As of fall 2005, Emory claims four of the 39 new LEED-certified facilities built on college campuses across the country.
For a more comprehensive look at the renovation, go to: http://www.college.emory.edu/candler.
From SchoolFacilities.com, January 24, 2006
Strategic plan implementation teams put plan in motion
By Michael Terrazas
Staggered throughout spring semester are a series of deadlines by which the various groups and committees charged with implementation will bring the University's aspirations into crisp relief. Those groups span both the school and unit plans, which form the foundation of Emory's wider efforts, and the signature themes and related cross-cutting initiatives that build upon efforts in corners of the University.
SCHOOL & UNIT PLANS
Implementation across Emory's schools and units has followed a more defined course since those entities already had mechanisms in place for year-to-year planning and budget requests. Earlier this month, all of Emory's schools and units delivered their budget presentations for fiscal year 2007 to the Ways & Means Committee, and each was asked to make a supplemental request for resources from the Strategic Investment Fund (SIF) set up to jump-start related activities.
Regarding the latter, Ways & Means asked that such requests cover five years of program implementation, with a description of how the proposed activities would locate and secure additional funding sources that, by the end of those five years, will enable them to become self-sustaining.
In Emory College, for example, Senior Associate Dean Kim Loudermilk said the school is guiding its own strategic plan implementation through its existing faculty governance committee, a group of 12 faculty that meets monthly. Also weighing in are department chairs, who met last week at a retreat to prioritize a list of a dozen or so interdisciplinary themes within the college identified during its planning process.
Loudermilk also sits on a committee that is looking at ways to integrate strategic plan implementation activities more seamlessly into schools' normal budget and reporting processes. That group, headed by the Woodruff Health Science Center's Shari Capers, associate vice president for strategic planning, has as its charge to "position the strategic plan at each level as the driver of financial planning and reporting activities," and to identify metrics by which progress can be measured for reaching strategic goals.
Finally, in terms of school and unit plans, it's significant that none of the various aspects of strategic plan implementation exists in a vacuum; the faculty who comprise the steering committees for the various crosscutting initiatives all have academic homes in one or more University schools, so in this respect all aspects of planning will necessarily support and inform each other.
"For example, Dean Bobby Paul is working with [Senior Vice President] John Ford and [Oxford Dean] Stephen Bowen on the 'Preparing Engaged Scholars' theme," Loudermilk said. "[Professor] Lanny Liebeskind is co-leading the 'New Frontiers in Science and Technology' theme with [Executive Vice President] Michael Johns, and [Professor] Bruce Knauft has been very involved with the internationalization task force. And we've received letters and requests for information from a couple more of the theme leaders."
SIGNATURE THEMES
Unlike that of the school and unit plans, implementation of the strategic plan's signature themes—meant to identify and develop activity that cuts across Emory's schools—required the creation of new structures and processes to oversee the work. Listed in the table accompanying this article are the co-leaders for theme implementation, along with the chairs of steering committees that have been formed to oversee development of the themes' various cross-cutting initiatives.
Though the precise nature and relationships among the various groups are left up to the theme leaders, they all share certain basic purposes:
• to first define the topic/area of responsibility with which they are charged (for example, the steering committee for the "Implementing Pathways to Global Health" initiative must first define what is meant by that phrase and what activities it will encompass);
• to mine the activities within the schools and units—both those already in existence and those proposed in school and unit plans—for linkages and connections;
• to identify how to leverage all of those activities and create something potentially bigger and more interdisciplinary than what individual schools and/or units might have accomplished on their own; and
• to turn all of the data above into specific SIF budget requests.
First-year budget priorities are due in mid-February, and by the end of April each theme is expected to produce a five-year implementation and financing plan similar to the five-year strategic plans the schools and units developed.
Liebeskind acknowledged that at the moment, barely two months into their work, some of the signature-theme committees' activity is somewhat amorphous, but that is changing rapidly; within the next two weeks, those groups will drill down into school and unit plans and start to construct the intellectual web that connects Emory in all of the theme areas.
"Right now there's a little bit of rhetoric," Liebeskind said. "We don't yet have line-item budget requests. But we will soon, and we will start saying, 'Here are the resources we need,' the faculty lines, the graduate student lines, etc., and we'll look at the school and unit plans and say, 'They're asking for the same thing; we should tie into their request.' Ultimately there are a finite number of dollars out there, and where there is overlap, we need to identify that overlap and align our requests."
Some initiatives are under way. For example, Executive Vice President Mike Mandl, who is serving as co-theme leader along with University Secretary Rosemary Magee for "Creating Community—Engaging Society," has formed several task forces to advance that theme's initiatives. A committee on institutional sustainability, led by Mandl and Professor Peggy Barlett, has submitted a draft report, and another program already is up and running: Leadership Emory, a leadership-development program being piloted this spring in Mandl's finance and administration division. The program is due to graduate its first class in June, and next year it will be opened to other schools and divisions.
"Given the success of the Woodruff Leadership Academy and in order to adequately address leadership development across all of Emory, we decided to pursue multiple approaches to the leadership-development initiative," Mandl said. "These academies are two of our tools."
Provost Earl Lewis agreed that not all the initiatives are at equal stages of development, but said the varying levels of intellectual and programmatic gestation should not be construed as reflective of institutional priorities. Work related to the "Predictive Health" initiative, for instance, began long before there was a University-wide strategic plan in which to incorporate it; indeed, in December Emory and Georgia Tech co-hosted a national symposium on predictive health. It's natural that this initiative would have a head start on, for example, the "Race and Human Difference" initiative, whose steering committee was constituted at about the same time that predictive health symposium was taking place (most initiatives carried over their leadership from the planning process, but due to the competing responsibilities of previous chairs Leslie Harris and Ralph DiClemente, Professors Frances Smith Foster and George Armelagos were recruited to take over the race initiative).
"Right now there are a few groups that have been at work longer than others, and we expect to see larger plans from them sooner," Lewis said. "It's not unexpected at all."
"We are making wonderful progress in fleshing out our predictive health initiative under the leadership and guidance of many colleagues from Emory as well as Georgia Tech," said Michael Johns, executive vice president for health affairs and co-chair (with Lewis) of the Strategic Planning Steering Committee. "The national symposium provided convincing evidence that predictive health really is a transformative vision and constitutes an area in which Emory can provide courageous leadership for the national academic and healthcare communities."
For more information on strategic planning, visit www.admin.emory.edu/Strategic_Plan/.
From Emory Report, January 23, 2006
Courtesy Scholarships simplified for 2006
Use of Courtesy Scholar-ships requires a two-part application process. Employees or eligible spouses/same-sex partners/dependents must apply first for admission to an academic program through that program's procedures. After gaining admission, individuals are granted an OPUS account, which they will then use to request the Courtesy Scholarship benefit. This online procedure has replaced the paper-form process previously used for courtesy applications.
Also new for University employees is the ability to check Courtesy Scholarship eligibility using HR's self-service system and clicking on the "Benefits" section. The site displays eligibility and instructions. EHC employees should continue to verify eligibility through their respective HR benefits offices.
Finally, Courtesy Scholarships now will be centrally processed and administered within the Office of Student Financial Services, and Elizabeth Barrett will serve as Courtesy Scholarship administrator. For more information, contact Barrett at 404-727-1202 or via e-mail at courtesyquestions@emory.edu.
From Emory Report, January 17 , 2006
Experiments help explain mysterious 'floppy' space molecule
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| A research team at JILA has developed a new method for making and analyzing an unusual floppy molecule. Shown above with their experimental apparatus are (from left) Chandra Savage, Erin Whitney, Feng Dong, and David Nesbitt. Photo by Jeff Fal, University of Colorado, Boulder |
Boulder, Colo.–
The advance, described in the Jan. 6 issue of Science,* is a step toward overcoming a decades-old challenge in chemistry—explaining reactions that occur within very cold clouds among the stars, and perhaps for developing new chemical processes. The paper combines experiments performed by David Nesbitt and colleagues at JILA, a joint institute of the Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and University of Colorado at Boulder, with theoretical predictions made with Joel Bowman at Emory University in Atlanta, Ga., and Anne McCoy at The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio.
Most molecules have a rigid three-dimensional (3D) structure. The subject of the new study is "protonated" methane, which contains one carbon atom and five hydrogen atoms, one of which is ionized, leaving nothing but a proton (a particle with a positive charge). The five protons from the hydrogen atoms scramble for four bonds around the molecule as if playing a continuous game of musical chairs. In the process, the molecule classically vibrates and rotates in a bizarre manner, morphing between several 3D structures with nearly identical energy levels. (Animation available at http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/images/floppy_animation.htm.) Chemists have spent decades trying to explain why and how this occurs, a challenge that has seemed insurmountable until recently.
Protonated methane is a so-called "super acid." This class of molecule has been shown to be more than a million times more powerful than conventional acids and is more effective in inducing reactions that produce solvents and many other important industrial products.
Many theories have been published on the puzzling behavior of this charged molecule (or ion), but experiments must be done to match the ion's energy characteristics with its physical motions, and such data are difficult to collect and understand. In particular, scientists are interested in how the molecule absorbs different wavelengths of infrared (IR) light, which provides clues about nuclear motion and chemical bonds and structures.
The JILA method generates concentrated amounts of the ion at cold enough temperatures to simplify the complex IR spectrum so it can be analyzed. The data strike a balance between detail and simplicity, providing useful information that is still challenging but easier to understand than ever before. This enabled the authors of the Science paper to match predicted changes in energy to specific vibrations and partially characterize the ion's structure and dynamics. For example, they were able to correlate one intense spectral feature to a transition between two 3D structures with equivalent energy levels.
Previously published spectra of this molecule have either been too low resolution to "see" this motion, or too hot (and therefore too complex) to analyze.
"The experiments have provided the first jet-cooled, high-resolution spectrum of this highly fluxional molecule," says Nesbitt, a NIST Fellow who led the JILA experimental team. "This has been among the most sought-after IR spectra since the first appearance of this molecule in mass spectrometers over 50 years ago. This is a problem that has occupied many careers; every piece helps."
The JILA method involves making methane gas at high temperature and pressure, and expanding it into a vacuum to cool the molecules to 10 K (-442 degrees F). The cold molecules then file through an opening just 1 millimeter wide, where they are hit with a "lightning bolt" of electrical current that generates high concentrations of highly reactive ions. The key to mass production is to surround the molecules with enough electrons to make the entire gas mixture neutral in charge, Nesbitt says.
For the analysis step, JILA scientists shine an infrared laser on the cold ions, and detect the light that passes through. The light that is lost, or the small amount absorbed by the molecules, is analyzed to obtain a pattern of absorption at different wavelengths. The technique is very sensitive, thanks to methods for detecting trace absorption of the laser light and manipulating the electrical discharge to maximize the ion concentration levels.
Future and ongoing studies will focus on matching the ion's IR absorption characteristics with its rotational structure, including end-over-end tumbling. "Protonated methane still has a few tricks up its sleeve," Nesbitt cautions.
The research was supported in part by the National Science Foundation, Office of Naval Research, and Air Force Office of Scientific Research.
As a non-regulatory agency of the Commerce Department's Technology Administration, NIST promotes U.S. innovation and industrial competitiveness by advancing measurement science, standards and technology in ways that enhance economic security and improve our quality of life.
*X. Huang, A.B. McCoy, J.M. Bowman, L.M. Johnson, C. Savage, F. Dong, and D.J. Nesbitt. 2005. "Quantum deconstruction of the infrared spectrum of CH5+". Science. Jan. 6.
From the National Institute of Standards and Technology press release, January 5, 2006.
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