December 1998: Vol. 78, No. 1December 1998: Vol. 78, No. 1 | |||
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 "This is the first place I've ever been that I am not the first and only woman vice president," says Kathryn Costello, new senior vice president for external affairs. |
GM editor Kent Hannon and Columns editor Beth Roberts chatted recently with newly appointed Senior Vice President for External Affairs Kathryn Costello, who says she's excited to be part of the "new burst of energy" that President Adams has brought to UGA. "If we're going to be all the University can be," says Costello, "we're going to have to raise a lot more money, and make certain that all our constituent relationships are absolutely the best they can be."
Costello's duties include leading fundraising efforts for the proposed Alumni Center and an addition to the Performing and Visual Arts Complex. Before coming to UGA, Costello was a vice president at the University of Maryland, Southern Methodist, and Rice. In this excerpt, she focuses on her experiences as a woman working in higher education:
UGA has three new senior vice presidents, and two are female. Do you see that as significant?
I think it says that Mike Adams looked for the best people he could find who could work well with him, and gender didn't matter. I think that's a positive thing. This is the first place I've ever been that I'm not the first and only woman vice president--in my entire career.
Do women bring something different to the job?
I think women do bring something good to the table. Ann Richards, when she was governor of Texas, said that a woman who has been a wife and mother knows how to divide a cookie three ways and have everybody be happy.
Part of what you learn in the female role in our society--particularly in my generation--is an awful lot about negotiation, conflict resolution, getting results, juggling a lot of balls. You learn to organize and plan for the outcomes you want. Those are characteristics women learn more naturally in our society.
There's another asset. Many years ago, I developed something that I laughingly called the "stag on the hill" theory. There was a great deal of tension among the men in the management group of which I was a part, and I came to realize that part of that was a natural competitiveness that I envisioned as two stags on a hill, fighting with each other because one of them has to "take the hill."
One of the things I learned very early is that I didn't need to take the hill--I could go over the hill, around the hill, above the hill. I didn't need to own it to be successful in getting an outcome.
Do women have to be twice as good as men to get half as far in higher ed?
It's a hard thing to judge. I would say that women--certainly in my generation and I hope it's less true today--had to work harder and be more diligent to get the same recognition. I can remember many, many times early in my career when it would have been unthinkable for the credit for a success to go to the woman in the group--even if she had done all the work. Luckily, at that stage that was really not a concern to me. But it was a tough time. It was not unusual to make a senior-level presentation to a board and have someone say, "Thank you, honey," and pat you on the shoulder. However, I never once felt that I was a token. I know every step of the way that I earned the job on merit and did the job well.
Is it noticed and talked about that UGA has two senior vps who are women?
I think there are probably people in Georgia who are thinking that. And indeed there may be people who say wow, this new president appointed two women--and they may see that as a trend. After Karen Holbrook, the new provost, was appointed, one person said to me, "Oh gosh, do you think this hurts your chances?" I said, "Not at all. If it does, it's a place I wouldn't want to be."
Are there new challenges here for you?
I like the way President Adams has organized the administration. I hope to be able to operate at a macro level--as a leader rather than a manager. I will concentrate on the horizon that we should be moving toward, and try to create an environment that enables our team--a great staff and outstanding volunteers--to move the University forward.
To get acquainted with UGA's other new senior vice president, Provost Karen Holbrook, who was profiled in the September issue of Georgia Magazine,
visit this page.
Hunter-Gault: Africa needs us
Charlayne Hunter-Gault, chief Africa correspondent for NPR and one of the first two black students to enroll at UGA, chats with students about her memoir In My Place before delivering the 1998 Walter Hill Distinguished Lecture.
Citing the dawning of what she termed "an African Renaissance," Charlayne Hunter-Gault told her audience at the 1998 Walter Barnard Hill Distinguished Lecture that "South Africa is one of the most exciting stories in the world today. It's amazing, the attempt to transform this society. Every day there's something new."
Hunter-Gault (ABJ '63) was one of the first two black students to integrate the University. She is now chief Africa correspondent for National Public Radio, and she reminded the audience that "there are no more foreigners, only neighbors. Your neighbors to the south need you."
Hunter-Gault has interviewed African teenagers whose parents were the victims of genocide in Rwanda, and who are struggling to learn farming as a means of economic survival.
"The stories out of Africa speak to the capacity of the human spirit to endure and eventually conquer," said Hunter-Gault, who has won a George Foster Peabody Award for her coverage of apartheid in South Africa. "The stories can elevate us."
Rembrandt exhibit highlights GMOA's 50th B-day
The Georgia Museum of Art hosts REMBRANDT: Treasures from the Rembrandt House, Amsterdam through January 10, 1999. Including 82 etchings and two copper plates, the exhibit offers a thorough look at the master printmaker's work from 1623 to 1665.
The exhibit is part of a year-long 50th birthday celebration at GMOA, which was started in 1948 with 100 paintings donated by art collector Alfred Heber Holbrook, who became the museum's first director.
Located on North Campus until 1996, the museum's new East Campus building houses a growing collection, which includes Winslow Homer's watercolor, "Taking a Sunflower to Teacher," Paul Cadmus' "Playground," and some 6,000 European and Japanese prints. For more information on the Rembrandt exhibit and other events, visit the GMOA Web site at http://www.uga.edu/gamuseum/.
Honors program spotlighted
U.S. News & World Report recently rated the nation's top 50 public universities, and UGA ranked No. 26--its highest spot ever on the USN&WR list.
Another point of pride: in two of the last three years, UGA has been featured in the weekly news magazine's article on top honors programs. In this year's article--which focuses on public institutions that offer honors programs comparable to the Ivy Leagues but at a much lower cost--UGA's most recent Rhodes Scholar, Scott Hershovitz (AB '98, MA '98), was spotlighted alongside honors students from the University of Texas and the University of Maryland.
The article applauds the UGA Honors Program's summer study programs in Africa, Italy, and across the U.S., along with honors students' close relationships with senior research professors. It cites Hershovitz's research on how the CIA shares environmental information with scientists, a project he collaborated on with UGA political science professor and CIA expert Loch Johnson.
Although U.S. News omitted UGA from its list of 50 "Schools offering the best values," other magazines thought differently. Based on criteria ranging from academic reputation to alumni giving, UGA was 20th on Kiplinger's "Top 100 Values in State Universities" and one of 10 unbeatable deals for in-state students, according to Money.
UGA, UF No. 1 in South in minority doctorates
A special report on the top 100 minority degree-producing colleges and universities published in Black Issues in Higher Education shows UGA and the University of Florida ranking first among major southeastern research institutions in awarding minority doctoral degrees. UGA also tied with Florida for regional honors in awarding the most Asian American doctoral degrees, and also conferred the most Asian American doctoral degrees in education and health professions.
Roger Dancz (1930-1998)
Roger Dancz, who was the Redcoat Band director from 1955 to 1991, died Sept. 1. Under his leadership--and that of his wife Phyllis, who directed the auxiliary units--the Redcoats became one of the country's finest marching bands. Dancz started UGA's jazz studies program, directed the symphonic band, and created jazz and music festivals that brought thousands of high school musicians to Athens. At the time of his death, Dancz had broadcast more than 500 "Invitation to Jazz" programs on Peach State Public Radio, dating back to 1987. What follows are excerpts from a campus memorial service in his honor:
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"All I ever wanted to do was play trumpet and make people happy," said Roger Dancz, the beloved former Redcoat Band director and musician who died September 1. |
AL LIGOTTI
Emeritus professor of music
"When his students would leave, he would remember them. Going back 25, 30, 35 years, he would remember their time on campus, their hometown. This is a man who took every student under his wing."
DORINDA DALLMEYER
Research director, Dean Rusk Center for International Law, and former Redcoat baton twirler
"We were willing to work hard for him because he knew how to draw out the best we had to
DWIGHT SATTERWHITE
Director of the Redcoat Band
"He started his first Redcoat Band rehearsal with 25 people, and I know a lot of band directors who would've found another job on that second day. But he had been hired to bring pizzazz and flash and style to the University of Georgia band program. I think he did."
RICHARD GRAHAM
Department head in the School of Music
"During the 1968-69 school year, there was some unrest among certain students, faculty, and others over the playing of 'Dixie' at football games. After taking up the matter with band members and his support staff, Roger dropped the name 'Dixie' from the 'Dixie Redcoat Band' title, and from the fall of 1969 on he stopped playing the song 'Dixie' at athletic events. There were telephone calls in the night to the Dancz home, threatening all members of the family. I am convinced that Roger's unyielding position against unbelievable and indescribable pressures benefited us all."
Cloning expert Stice named Eminent Scholar
Steven Stice, the 37-year-old researcher who genetically engineered and cloned two calves from fetal cells in Massachusetts last January, has been named the University's Eminent Scholar in Animal Reproductive Physiology, a new $1.5 million research position fund-ed by the Georgia Research Alliance.
Stice's appointment augments a team of UGA researchers already working in agricultural biotechnology, and places the University alongside the few other research institutions in the world focusing on cloning.
Cloning, which replicates a cell to create an identical equal, entered the public eye in 1997, when Scottish researchers created the first mammal cloned from an adult cell, Dolly the sheep.
"Cloning is extremely important to animal agriculture," says Larry Benyshek, head of the animal and dairy science department. "Stice's expertise can help Georgia's pig and cattle industries in the years to come."
Stice's ultimate goal is to produce a "super" cow or pig through genetic selection. That animal then could be cloned and sold, creating a way to feed the world more cheaply and efficiently.
Katie Koestner, who was a victim of sexual assault while a student at the College of William and Mary, spoke on campus Sept. 23 about date rape. Dissatisfied with William and Mary's response to her rape, Koestner went public with her story in Time and in an HBO special. In 1992, she lobbied Congress to pass the Victim's Bill of Rights.
A self-described assassin of the feminist establishment, controversial "culture critic" Camille Paglia, author of three best-sellers and professor of humanities at the University of the Arts, spoke at the Tate Center Sept. 24.
On Sept. 22 in the Chapel, Donald Hall, who has published more than 40 books of poetry and prose, read poems from Without, a book that chronicles the illness and death of his wife, the poet Jane Kenyon. Hall also read from Kenyon's post-humous collection of poems.
Sarah Weddington, who argued the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion rights case in 1973, presented the Edith House Lecture Sept. 23 in the Chapel. The youngest woman ever to argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court, Weddington has served three terms as a Texas state legislator. She was an assistant to President Jimmy Carter, and now teaches at the University of Texas.