Up Front | Faculty/Staff

December 2000: Vol. 80, No. 1

Faculty in the news

SAFE CONTRACEPTIVES FOR . . . ELEPHANTS
African elephants are an endangered species put at further risk by overbreeding in parks and refuges. Now veterinarians have a way to control outsized herds: a contraceptive vaccine delivered via dart gun. Richard Fayrer-Hosken and colleagues at UGA developed the contraceptive that includes an initial shot followed by boosters at six weeks and six months. A report on the effectiveness of the vaccine in the journal Nature has received wide attention, including coverage by Reuters, the Associated Press, and FOX News. "Our immunocontraceptive study shows that free-roaming African elephants vaccinated with pZP are protected against contraception," said Fayrer-Hosken. The drugs reduced pregnancies about 70 percent among the elephants tested.

DROUGHT DEVASTATES TEXAS AND GEORGIA
This summer's record stretch of days without rain—particularly in Texas and Georgia—has left crops wasted, dried up lakes and wells, and sparked fires. In Texas and adjacent states, 177 counties have been declared disaster areas for crop losses, according to a New York Times story, which reports that in Georgia, the drought is ravaging the state's thirsty cities and farms in the northern and central parts of the state. UGA's David Stooksbury, the state's climatologist, told the Times that he estimates it will take two winters of normal rainfall to replenish aquifers, rivers, creeks, and ponds to saturate the soil to depths needed to nurture crops and lawns.

DECLINE IN REPTILES WORRIES ECOLOGIST
For several years, ecologists have been concerned about an apparent drop in the number of amphibians. UGA ecologist Whit Gibbons and colleagues say there's an additional problem: the disappearance of reptiles, such as snakes and turtles. The Washington Post and other media have reported on Gibbons' research, which appeared recently in the journal BioScience. "Despite the fact that reptiles and amphibians are often considered collectively, reptile declines deserve spotlighting and elucidating in their own right," the researchers wrote. Causes of the decline, they believe, include disease, climate change and habitat destruction—and constitute a "worldwide crisis."

STAT SERVICE VISITS SECRET COTTON SITES
From July to December, special teams visit secret sites in cotton fields to gather information for the Georgia Agricultural Statistics Abstract, a branch of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Agricultural Statistics Service, which has been compiling statistics since 1863. Almost everything about their work is confidential, according to an Associated Press article on how the information is gathered and used. Without official information, the industry would have to rely on estimates from private companies and conglomerates, said Bill Givan, a UGA agricultural economist. "You wouldn't know who to believe," he said in the article. "Sometimes these government reports are off. They may not be exactly accurate, but they are unbiased. They do the best job they can."
—Sharron Hannon
The UGA News Service monitors coverage of the University in local, state, and national media. For more information, visit http://www.uga.edu/news/.
History prof Bill Leary trains his periscope under the waves
Sub expert

Watching news tickers and headlines, people around the globe held their breath with 128 Russian families as the Kursk submarine tragedy unfolded this past August.

Amid the media frenzy and confusion, UGA history professor Bill Leary was able to make sense of the situation. "There is always a risk anytime one goes under ice," says Leary, who is currently co-authoring a book with a former Soviet submarine captain. "The Kursk was not unique in this way."

The thing to keep in mind, says Leary, is that the U.S. has its own fleet of Arctic submarines. American lives are no less at risk than their Russian counterparts.

Leary's interest began simply because no written history about the U.S. Arctic submarine program existed. Inspired by the journal of Waldo Lyon, who was director of the American naval science program, Leary wrote Under Ice: Waldo Lyon and the Development of the Arctic Submarine (Texas A&M University Press, 1999).

Leary sees a dire need to have better-equipped and more reliable submarine rescue response systems. With 30 nations operating Arctic submarine programs and only two of them having advanced rescue mechanisms, the rest of the world is left vulnerable to future Kursk-like tragedies.

Leary's next book, due out in the spring, is entitled Douglas MacArthur and the American Century.

—Jennifer Srygley

Dr. Adams is my professor!

Among the distinguished senior faculty members teaching freshman seminars this fall was President Michael F. Adams, who taught a class on presidential politics and rhetoric. Adams has extensive experience in politics, having served as chief of staff for Sen. Howard Baker and senior adviser to Gov. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee. "Scratch the surface, and what you find in me is a teacher," says Dr. Adams. "I love being back in the classroom talking with students, and political rhetoric is particularly appropriate this fall in the middle of the presidential campaigns." Students didn't know when they signed up for the class that there was an added perk: Dr. Adams invited them to the president's house on Nov. 7 to watch the election returns.

Review pays tribute to late editor. See also Back Page.
Lindberg remembered

Under Lindberg's leadership, The Review was a perennial finalist in National Magazine Award competition.

When Stanley Lindberg, the editor of UGA's nationally revered literary magazine, The Georgia Review, died last January, the reaction from writers he had nurtured was an outpouring of love. The appreciation was so great that Lindberg's colleague Stephen Corey created a special section in the Summer 2000 issue of The Review. Highlights from those tributes include the following:

Sanford Pinsker: "I intend to revisit my bulky folder of Georgia Review manuscripts in roughly the same way some people stare at before and after photos of their once blotchy faces and cowlicky haircuts. . . . In my case, the terror is the result of rereading clumsy first drafts; the relief, the gratification, if you will, comes from seeing what Stan and I eventually did to them."

Fred Chappell: "He had a few unvarying complaints: No matter how hard the printers tried, they never did the color artwork justice . . . too few readers paid good attention to the poetry."

Frederick Busch: "He breathed the energy of good language. . . ."

Poli-sci prof Han Park is trusted by both Koreas
Political go-between

(from left) South and North Korean leaders, President Kim Dae-jung and Chairman Kim Jong-il, at last summer's historic summit.

It's impossible to read news of negotiations between North and South Korea these days without thinking of UGA political science professor Han Park.

Park, who hosted last year's North Korean symposium in Athens, again put UGA at the forefront of Korean relations when he personally delivered South Korea's proposal for last summer's historic summit to North Korean leaders.

"The proposal from South Korea was taken with some suspicion by North Korea," says Park, who has traveled to North Korea nearly 40 times in the past 20 years. "I make it clear that I am a scholar and a facilitator—and I don't take sides. The fact that the summit happened shows strength on both sides."

Although a stalemate remains between the two Koreas, something tangible and positive came out of the summit when 200 people, separated by one of the world's most volatile borders, were reunited with their families.

In October, Park led a UGA agriculture delegation to North Korea, making UGA the only university to make direct contact with the communist country on its own soil. Park planned to use the time in North Korea to try to secure another possible first for UGA and the U.S.—a conference held in Athens between the highest-ranking political advisors for North and South Korea, Russia, and the U.S. The meeting is tentatively slated for December.

—Alex Crevar