Columns:: Newsmakers

since 12/15/98

Columns::February 3, 2003

Good works: 2003 Hill Award recipients announced
Symposium explores benefits of diversity in higher education
State budget woes: no raises likely, some positive news
Taste of home cooking
University Council will consider six new degrees and institute in engineering
University holds its first Nonprofit Expo
NSF grant will support teaching of science food in public schools
Researchers identify first active DNA transposons in rice genomes
Prof gets ‘leading’ role with students
Update: Private Giving
Professor discusses legal ramifications of the USA Patriot Act
Birthday lecture

Campus News

Newsmakers

Unneeded insurance
Bankrate.com interviewed David Sommer, associate professor of risk management at UGA, for a story on viatical firms, which buy insurance policies no longer wanted or needed by the insured. Sommer explained that the industry emerged during the AIDS crisis of the 1980s. “Suddenly, there was a large group of individuals with substantial life insurance, and they basically had a death sentence,” he said. “[These firms] can provide a valuable service to those who are terminally ill and have life insurance but no need for the death benefit.”

Part of the solution?
The Washington (D.C.) Times reported on a recent upsurge in the number of black parents who have opted for home-schooling of their children. Robert Pratt, of UGA’s history department and the author of The Color of Their Skin: Education and Race in Richmond, Virginia, 1954-89, found this a worrisome development. “It’s our responsibility to see what changes need to be made to get our needs met,” he said. “I don’t see pulling your child out of the school system as much of a solution.”

It’s an ill wind
The Financial Times of London tantalized readers with the story of a reporter’s dinner at Elizabeth’s on 37th in Savannah, one highlight of which was the pecan truffles in the rice. Impressed with this new culinary thrill, the reporter sought out Tim Brenneman, UGA professor of plant pathology and the discoverer of pecan truffles. “I found the truffles while conducting disease control studies in a commercial pecan orchard,” Brenneman explained. “I am sure that there is a commercial future for the pecan truffle. They have had favorable reviews from a range of chefs across the US.” The Chicago Tribune and the Baltimore Sun also reported on Brenneman’s discovery.

Women get a chance
The New York Times reported recently that the proportion of women on corporate board audit committees is rising significantly as businesses reconstitute such committees to give them greater independence and meet new requirements. The story quoted Dennis R. Beresford, an accounting professor in UGA’s Terry College of Business and a member of three audit committees, in its analysis of this new world in which the glass ceiling has been cracked by the need for qualified committee members, regardless of gender. “The workload has increased,” Beresford said, “and directors are starting to bail out of audit committees.”

Upsetting stomach theory
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported on research conducted by microbiologists Robert Maier of UGA and Jonathan Olson at North Carolina State University dealing with bacteria that, contrary to expectation, live off hydrogen in animal digestive tracts. The bacteria that causes ulcers in humans--and that is implicated in stomach cancers--is one of those involved. “This really represents a new factor in understanding how a human pathogen grows and persists in an animal host,” Maier said.

Not a nutty year
The Washington Post quoted horticulture professor Darrell Sparks in a report on the poor pecan harvest this year in Georgia, which produces more pecans than any other state. Sparks was concise: “It’s the weather.” After four years of drought, winter wasn’t cold enough for proper budding and the growing season was dry once again. And then it rained far more than normal in October and November, interfering with harvesting.

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