September 2000: Vol. 79, No. 4

Faculty in the news

HOMEOWNERS: USE LOW-H20 LANDSCAPING Drought conditions in Georgia are the most serious they've been since 1986, when 26 cities and counties imposed total watering bans. The Atlanta metro area has grown by more than a million people since then, and demand for water will increase by 50 percent by 2020, according to the Atlanta Regional Commission. Georgia has never imposed a total watering ban. But if the drought doesn't end soon, one could be imposed for the state's northern region. Homeowners are being warned that they need to master the principles of low-water landscaping. "People don't realize their lawns can look just as nice at one-third the size," UGA horticulturalist Walter Reeves told the NYT. "They can have islands of flowers instead of a whole row, and there are species of plants that require less water than the ones people use now." BIBLE BELT WILL TAKE OFFENSE TO LATEST SCHOOL PRAYER BAN In a USA Today article, UGA history professor James Cobb predicted a negative reaction across the South to a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that requires school districts to fully divorce themselves from involvement in religious exercises. Public prayer has been a staple of football games for decades, especially in small towns across the South and Southwest, where high school football is a big social event. "It's sort of an example of the way the Bible Belt's devotion to organized religion permeates Southern society," said Cobb (AB '69, MA '72, PhD '75), who is the author of Redefining Southern Culture: Mind and Identity in the Modern South. "The prayer seems to add a layer of sanction to an event that might seem a bit violent and frivolous." SOUTHEAST LOOKING FOR QUALIFIED WORKERS Don't expect long unemployment lines in Georgia, despite well-publicized layoffs at Coca-Cola, BellSouth, and Lockheed Martin, says Jeff Humphreys, economist for UGA's Selig Center for Economic Growth. "Those are the type of people in very, very short supply," Humphreys told the WSJ. "They're going to be snapped up by other firms. The problem is not lack of jobs. It's the lack of available workers. Some companies' expansion plans are sitting on the shelf because the labor market is so tight." RETREAT HELPS DOCTORAL STUDENTS WITH WRITER'S BLOCK Graduate students are as susceptible to writer's block as anyone—particularly when it comes time to write their dissertation. To help them through this difficult time, UGA education professor JoBeth Allen takes doctoral students on a retreat to Unicoi State Park in Helen, Ga., where they get feedback, advice, motivation—and best of all, says Allen—peace and quiet in which to work. As a story in the Chronicle of Higher Education pointed out, some doctoral students complete all their course work, but never finish their dissertation, thereby joining the ranks of the A.B.D. (All But Dissertation). On the last night of the recent retreat, some UGA professors drove two hours to the state park to hear students read from their work-in-progress. They were impressed by what they heard. KOREAN DISCUSSIONS WON'T END LAST COLD WAR DIVISION Experts say that North Korea's sudden willingness to exchange ideas with South Korean leaders does not signal an end to the Cold War between the neighboring countries, but it's an encouraging sign. "This is a good development," says Han Park, director of UGA's Center for the Study of Global Issues, "but one shouldn't expect ideological change."

New Media Institute specializes degrees

Nationwide, there will be 1.6 million jobs in information technology in the next year. To prepare UGA students to excel in this burgeoning new sector of the U.S. economy, telecommunications professor Scott Shamp chaired a steering committee that developed the New Media Institute.

		Shamp (left) says the New Media Institute's certificate program will help students explore the many creative implications of digital technology.

How do you define "new media"?
SHAMP: The use of technology to create new communication experiences. For most people today, new media is the Internet, but people all over campus are working on the next technology that will change our lives.

What's the New Media Institute?
SHAMP: An interdisciplinary unit dedicated to exploring the commercial, critical, and creative implications of innovative digital technologies. UGA has always been involved in exploring the ways that new technology enhances people's lives; with the NMI, we have a way to collaborate.

What units are involved?
SHAMP: More than 60 people in 22 different units have indicated an interest. In music, it's new ways to create and deliver audio content. In drama, it's technology-enhanced performances. In family and consumer sciences, it's information appliances in the home. In telecommunications, it's personalized video programming. In computer science, it's e-commerce.

How will students be involved?
SHAMP: Students who take approved courses covering new media and complete a capstone project can add a new media certificate to their diploma. It's a way of adding a layer of specialization to their degree.

Young's anthology fetes black writers

Tapping into an abundance of African-American writers, Kevin Young is the editor of Giant Steps (HarperCollins), an anthology that showcases the poetry and prose of 26 writers who are 40 or younger, including Edwidge Danticat, Colson Whitehead, and Randall Kenan.

Giant Steps is just the latest enterprise for Young, a professor of English and African-American Studies, who is quickly becoming one of the best-known young poets in America. His work has been published in virtually every major journal and magazine in the country, from The New Yorker to The Paris Review, and his first book, Most Way Home, won the national Poetry Series and the Zacharis First Book Prize from Ploughshares magazine. Most Way Home sold out after a major feature on Young was broadcast on NPR in 1999, and the volume is being reprinted later this year.

Giant Steps is a labor of love for Young, whose poetry has been published in The New Yorker and The Paris Review. His first book sold out after a feature on NPR.

Young's next book of poetry, To Repel Ghosts: A Double Album on Jean-Michel Basquiat, will be published by Zolan Books in 2001. A monumental 350-page poem based on the work of the late painter, it is an encyclopedic take on 20th century black and popular culture—from boxer Jack Johnson to singer Billie Holiday.

The contributors to Giant Steps "can't really be considered emerging writers," says Young, because they include a National Book Award finalist and an Oprah's Book Club honoree. "But even the best anthologies skimp on younger writers. By neglecting the generation of this anthology, we neglect the transformative possibilities of youth."

—Phil Willams (ABJ '72)

Party game pointed Dupre to law school

Dupre (JD '88) went from a fifth grade teacher to a U.S. Supreme Court law clerk. She joined the law faculty in 1994.

Some people go through life wondering, "What if?" Not Anne Dupre. At a gathering with friends 15 years ago, a party-game question changed the course of her life.

Dupre, who was a fifth grade teacher in Florida at the time, was asked, "What would you do if you had your life to do over again?" She answered, without hesitation: "I would've gone to law school."

When her husband's job transfer brought the couple to Georgia later that year, Dupre acted on that impulse and applied to law school at UGA.

"I was as nervous as any first-year law student ever thought of being," says the Rhode Island native, who had little to worry about. She graduated first in her class, and so impressed her professors that one of them predicted she would become editor of the Georgia Law Review, clerk for the U.S. Supreme Court, and ultimately become a law professor.

He was right on all three counts.

"The clerkship with Justice Blackmun was an amazing experience," says Dupre, who has been a member of the UGA law faculty since 1994. "It was fascinating to watch how the Supreme Court functioned, and I learned so much from Justice Blackmun—not only about the law, but about how to treat others with dignity and compassion."

Following her clerkship, Dupre spent four years at a Washington, D.C. law firm, then returned to her alma mater as a faculty member. The transition was a challenge.

"I had an awful time calling some of my professors by their first name!" she says with a smile.

Dupre teaches contracts to first-year law students, and a pair of courses—education law, and children and the law—to upper-level students. Law students have honored Dupre with two awards, one for excellence in teaching and another for furthering student-faculty relations.

"I think I bring a unique perspective to law and education," she says, "having been a public school teacher, having dealt with many of the issues firsthand that are being addressed by federal and state law and statutory law."

—Kathy Pharr (ABJ '87)

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