March 2001: Vol. 80, No. 2

UGA in the news

HOPE SCHOLARSHIP MAKES UGA 'ENORMOUSLY COMPETITIVE' The New York Times ran a long feature on the HOPE Scholarship's effect on the UGA student body. "Seemingly overnight," the Feb. 4 story read, "one of the South's largest public universities has become enormously competitive, able to pick and choose from among the region's best high school seniors, insisting on test scores that would have been unimaginably high a decade ago." Political science professor Del Dunn said, "I'm seeing better writing than I used to." Said Nancy Freeman (BSEd '70), who is sending her fourth child to UGA on the HOPE: "The academic level has gone way beyond our expectations." SHOULD UNIVERSITIES NOTIFY PARENTS WHEN STUDENTS VIOLATE DRUG, ALCOHOL LAWS? In 1998, Congress passed an amendment to the Higher Education Act that allows colleges to notify parents of under-21 students who violate drug or alcohol laws. A study conducted at Bowling Green suggests such policies may help curb repeat offenses. But Richard Mullendore, UGA's vice president for student affairs, has reservations about notifying parents. "My preference is to deal directly with the student," Mullendore told The Chronicle of Higher Education [Jan. 19] . . . "Often with parental notification, the student doesn't learn as much as he would learn if he were fighting the battle himself." UGA'S AFFIRMATIVE ACTION LAWSUIT HAS BI-PARTISAN SUPPORT IN GEORGIA The Jan. 3 edition of The Washington Post pointed out that a number of Georgia lawmakers and politicians—including the Democratic governor, chancellor, board of regents, and GOP chair —support UGA's decision to go to court to fight for the right to use affirmative action in a small percentage of its admissions decisions. "Georgia is a changing state," said Congressman John Lewis. "We've come a certain distance," said state GOP chair Chuck Clay. "This is politics aside. This is a moral issue." MATHEMATICS EDUCATION IN NEED OF AN OVERHAUL American students' proficiency in math requires major changes, says UGA mathematics education professor Jeremy Kilpatrick, who headed a study for the National Research Council of the National Academies. The results appeared in Science, Education Week, and the Los Angeles Times. "Simply developing speed in pencil-and-paper arithmetic may have been sufficient when their parents and grandparents were in school," says Kilpatrick, who wrote the report. "But today's students need a deeper understanding of mathematics to thrive in an increasingly technical economy." MISS UGA MAKES ALL-USA COLLEGE ACADEMIC TEAM American students' proficiency in math requires major changes, says UGA mathematics education professor Jeremy Kilpatrick, who headed a study for the National Research Council of the National Academies. The results appeared in Science, Education Week, and the Los Angeles Times. "Simply developing speed in pencil-and-paper arithmetic may have been sufficient when their parents and grandparents were in school," says Kilpatrick, who wrote the report. "But today's students need a deeper understanding of mathematics to thrive in an increasingly technical economy." —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/.

Toxicology professor conducts research in contaminated area
Chernobyl: the scientific fallout

On April 26, 1986, reactor four in Chernobyl exploded, spewing nuclear radiation across Ukraine and the Northern Hemisphere. The explosion, the result of operator error and poor reactor design, released more than 100 times the radioactivity of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki A-bombs combined. More than 135,000 men, women, and children were exposed for up to three days before being forced to permanently evacuate their homes.

Cham Dallas does research on the effects of radiation inside a 30-kilometer area that government officials have declared unlivable.

Today, a fence encloses a 30-kilometer area around Chernobyl that has been deemed "unlivable" by government officials. That hasn't deterred UGA toxicology professor Cham Dallas from spending two weeks in this highly contaminated area every year studying the effects of radiation on animals and the environment. Dallas has visited the Chernobyl site 12 times.

Georgia Magazine's Heather Summerville recently spoke with Dallas about the Chernobyl explosion and its aftereffects.

Q: How big was the Chernobyl explosion?
A: The Chernobyl power station was slated to be the largest nuclear power facility in the world, with four operating reactors, two more that were 90 percent finished, and six more planned for construction. The result of reactor four's malfunction was a fire and a partial meltdown, still the only one of its kind in history. It is hard to imagine a more nasty fire than one that involves burning uranium and plutonium—and this fire went on for days.

Q: What, in particular, do you spend your time studying?
A: We are investigating the biochemical and genetic effects of high levels of environmental radioactivity on wildlife and humans that received high levels of exposure during the cleanup. I have had graduate students and technicians with me on trips, taking samples of soil, water, and biological tissue to discern the level of toxicological impact on the ecosystems and its components.

Q: What have you discovered?
A: I just had a graduate student finish his Ph.D. on the effects of the high levels of radioactivity on oxidative stress enzymes and DNA in rodents living in the most highly contaminated area around the reactor. We published the highest levels of radioactivity this last year ever recorded in free-living animals, an unprecedented finding in itself. But it was very interesting to note that some species of these animals were still able to thrive without discernible toxic effects. It appears that life is far more resilient to high levels of environmental radioactivity than we originally anticipated.

Q: Does research on rodents translate to humans?
A: Rodents are genetically close to humans, meaning their organs react in similar ways. We are looking for a connection between each generation of rodents and each generation of the people who live in Chernobyl.

Q: What does the future hold for Chernobyl?
A: The most highly contaminated areas immediately around the reactor must be quarantined for the foreseeable future. It appears that the Eastern Europeans have already decided to revert the other contaminated areas into habitable use by the population, as they feel they have no other viable economic options.

University delegation returns from historic trip to North Korea
Ag peacemakers

UGA agricultural scientists made history last fall as the first academic delegation to visit North Korea since the country closed its doors to the outside world during the Korean War.

A delegation from the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences visited North Korea on a four-day trip that ended Oct. 30. The group included Gale Buchanan, dean and director of the college; Ed Kanemasu, coordinator of the college's international programs; Han Park, director of UGA's Center for the Study of Global Issues; poultry scientist Nick Dale; and horticulturists Stanley Kays and S.K. Hahn.

North Korea is in turmoil, as the country's agricultural scientists try to deal with widespread famine, drought, and flooding. Buchanan hopes UGA can help solve some of these problems.

"Agriculture provides the basis for any society, because you've got to feed people before you can do anything," he says. "On this trip, we took some of our scientists who have the best knowledge in these areas.

"We would like to see North Korea prosper because then they become traders. The United States has things we'd like to sell, barter, and trade. It's a two-way street."

Kanemasu hopes to open doors to an exchange program for scientists.

"We hope to develop an exchange of faculty between our college and the Academy of Agricultural Sciences in North Korea," he says. "The time is also right for us to develop relationships. It's best for everyone that we open up interactions between our countries."

Provost is AAAS director
Holbrook's on board

Senior vice president for academic affairs and provost Karen Holbrook has been elected to the board of directors of the largest general science organization in the world, the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Holbrook was one of two new directors elected to the 13-member board of AAAS, which has 138,000 members and 275 affiliated societies. The organization works to advance science and science education by providing information on scientific developments and fostering communication among scientists, policy-makers, and the public.

LICENSING REVENUES American universities collected more than $641 million from royalties on their inventions in the 1999 fiscal year, according to a survey by the Association of University Technology Managers. How UGA compared to selected universities in the top 50: Rank University Licensing Income 1 Columbia $89,159,556 3 Florida State $57,313,014 8 U. of Florida $21,649,577 11 Emory $15,257,565 26 Clemson $4,648,141 36 UGA $3,208,427 42 Wake Forest $2,788,987 46 Georgia Tech $2,038,078

Holding the academic ranks of professor of cell biology at UGA and adjunct professor at the Medical College of Georgia, Holbrook is an authority on skin diseases and related disorders. A trustee of Oak Ridge Associated Universities, she has served on advisory panels for the National Institutes of Health and the National Research Council, and as chair of the Council of Research Policy and Graduate Education for the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges.

19TK, as vice president for research and dean of the Graduate School at the University of Florida.

A trustee of Oak Ridge Associated Universities, Holbrook has served on advisory panels for the National Institutes of Health and the National Research Council.

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