December 2000: Vol. 80, No. 1

Feds pledge millions to support research in genomics, reading
Grants rolling in

UGA researchers secured several multi-million dollar grants from federal agencies this fall to study subjects ranging from structural genomics to reading fluency. Faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences received grants from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. Faculty in the College of Education received three major grants from the Department of Education and other agencies.

Studying protein structure
A team led by internationally respected biochemist B.C. Wang was one of seven groups in the U.S. to receive funding under a major new initiative developed by the National Instititute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), which is part of NIH. Wang's team will receive close to $4 million for the first year of a five-year pilot program to study the structures of proteins in hopes of finding ways to control their actions in organisms from bacteria to plants and humans. Over five years, funding will exceed $20 million.

NEW STUDENT DEMOGRAPHICS FALL '00 FRESHMEN APPLICANTS/ACCEPTED/ENROLLED 12,869/7,913/3,944 TOP STATE (outside Georgia) Tenn. (57), S.C. (55), Ala. (43) TOP STATE (outside Deep South) Texas (24), Va. (21), Pa. (16) TOP FOREIGN COUNTRY (out of 37) South Korea (18); India/U.K. (9) TOP HIGH SCHOOL Lassiter (101), Chattahoochee (95) MEAN GPA/AVG. SAT/VALEDICTORIANS 3.66/1203/130 OUT-OF-STATE SOCIAL SECURITY NO. 38% MOST POPULAR FIRST NAME Jennifer (58) SETS OF TWINS 16 FALL '00 TRANSFERS (1,528) TOP TRANSFER COLLEGE (in-state) Truett McConnell (152), Georgia Perimeter (133), Kennesaw St. (71) TOP TRANSFER COLLEGE (out-of-state) Auburn (18), W. Carolina/UT-Knox (10) Sources: Admissions Web site, New Undergraduate Student Enrollment Report/Fall 2000

Wang serves as the lead investigator for the Southeast Collaboratory for Structural Genomics, which will analyze part of the human genome and the entire genomes of two other organisms. The team includes scientists from various disciplines at UGA, as well as from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and Georgia State. Other collaborators are from the Oklahoma Medical Foundation, the University of Alabama at Huntsville, Harvard Medical School, and Research Genetics, Inc.

UGA Provost Karen Holbrook provided crucial support during the development of the proposal, according to Wang. "She correctly insisted that we could compete with the top research programs in the country," he says.

Learning about rice
Another team led by Susan Wessler, Research Professor of botany and genetics, received a $3.4 million NSF grant to study the role of transposable elements in rice. The research could lead to a new understanding of the world's number-one crop. More than three billion people around the globe depend on rice as their major staple.

Transposable elements are mobile fragments of DNA that can move from one chromosomal location to another. "We believe that understanding how these elements function in rice will give us a new perspective on their role in evolution," says Wessler.

Co-principal investigators on the five-year project are UGA geneticist John McDonald and researchers from Cornell University and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

Training teachers
UGA is one of eight institutions around the country awarded grants from the U.S. Department of Education to better train teachers for the challenges of today's classroom. Michael Padilla, associate dean of educator partnerships in the College of Education, will lead the Georgia Systemic Teacher Education Program (GSTEP), which will receive nearly $6.5 million in funding over a five-year period. GSTEP is expected to match the federal funds with cash or in-kind support from the state and partner donations.

The project involves collaborations between UGA's education and arts and sciences faculty and other schools in the state to produce teachers with strong content knowledge in their subject area. It also focuses on preparing student teachers, mentoring beginning teachers and helping them use technology effectively in the classroom.

"It's what we have to do to go the next mile and really improve teacher education," says Padilla. "If you want to improve student achievement, you need good teachers."

Improving reading
Two additional grants to the College of Education focus on improving young children's reading levels. Projects led by reading education professors Linda Labbo and Steven Stahl received $5.5 million and $5 million grants respectively.

Labbo's five-year project is designed to raise reading achievement by preparing future teachers to use proven literacy methods and the latest computer technology. "This project identifies instructional practices which are supported by scientific research and which have stood the test of time in exemplary teachers' classrooms," says Labbo. "It will establish—for the first time—guidelines for use of technology in K-3 classroom reading instruction."

Co-principal investigators are from Vanderbilt, the University of Connecticut and the University of Illinois-Chicago.

Stahl's project focuses on improving young children's reading fluency, which is crucial to learning science and social studies in later grades, says Stahl, who has spent several years studying how early elementary school students develop fluency. The new study will be a five-year project involving more than 400 students in 27 different classrooms at schools in Atlanta, Athens, and Brunswick, N.J.

"What I hope to do is figure out the best way to teach kids how to be fluent readers," says Stahl, "and to do it in a way that will transfer to a national scale."

Working with him are Paula Schwanen-flugel, a professor of educational psychology in the College of Education, and researchers from Georgia State and Rutgers.

Web sites to bookmark

University of Georgia (home page) http://www.uga.edu/ UGA Today (news Web site) http://www.uga.edu/news/ Columns (weekly newspaper) http://www.uga.edu/columns/ Master Calendar http://www.uga.edu/uc/calendar/ National Alumni Association http://www.uga.edu/alumni/ Visitors Center http://www.uga.edu/visctr/ Career Services Center http://www.uga.edu/career/ The Georgia Fund http://www.uga.edu/annualfund/ Office of Admissions http://www.admissions.uga.edu/ Office of Student Affairs http://www.uga.edu/vpsa/ Honors Program http://www.uga.edu/honors/

Hispanics showed most improvement in 1990s
Minority buying power rising

Among the four primary U.S. minority groups—blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and American Indians—consumer buying power nearly doubled in the 1990s, growing far faster than overall U.S. buying power, according to a new study conducted by UGA's Terry College of Business.

The study projects through 2001 and finds that, while Asian consumer buying power has had the highest percentage growth since 1990 (124.8 percent), Hispanics (second highest at 118 percent) made the most significant move in the 1990s because of market size, population growth, and employment gains. In the same period, overall U.S. buying power will have grown 70.4 percent. By 2001, U.S. buying power will reach $7.1 trillion, according to the Terry College report. Among minority races, black consumers comprise the largest buying power group at $572.1 billion, followed by Asians at $253.8 billion and American Indians at $34.8 billion. Hispanic buying power will comprise $452.4 billion.

"This is a wake-up call for any consumer business that's been neglecting these markets," says Jeffrey M. Humphreys, director of economic forecasting and the study's author.

Complete data from the report is available at http://www.selig.uga.edu/.

—David Dodson

Back to Top . Up Front . Features . Alumni Profiles . Class Notes . Back to Current Issue