September 2002: Vol. 81, No. 4

UGA in the news

CHALLENGING TV'S ALL-MALE CLUB UGA speech communication professor Bonnie J. Dow commented on the failure of network news programs to hire women anchors in the July 3 issue of The New York Times. In an article about the selection of Brian Williams as NBC's heir to Tom Brokaw, Dow, author of Prime-Time Feminism: Television, Media Culture and the Women's Movement Since 1970 (University of Pennsylvania Press), said, "Those three anchor chairs are the last all-male preserve in all of television—except for the people who call 'Monday Night Football.'" FBI-CIA COLLABORATION NOT SMOOTH PROCESS Improving communication between FBI and CIA agents was the focus of an article in the June 2 issue of The Washington Post. After FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley suggested that cooperation among the agenies could have prevented the Sept. 11 attacks, the FBI and CIA are starting to work together. But UGA political science professor Loch Johnson, an authority on intelligence agencies, says it's not going to be an easy proposition: "It's been a rocky relationship. These days it's very uneven." NUCLEAR RAMIFICATIONS OF INDIA-PAKISTAN FEUD The ramifications of a possible nuclear war between India and Pakistan were the subject of an article in the The Boston Globe's June 4 edition. UGA toxicologist Cham Dallas, currently working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to study medical responses to nuclear attacks, said that a nuclear war in Southeast Asia would have minimal environmental and physiological effects on the U.S. "As concerned as we need to be for the Indian and Pakastani populations," he said, "the concern for ourselves here is not proportionate to the risk." VERSATILE GUESTS Survival of the extremophiles—microbes notorious for surviving in extremely hot and cold temperatures—was the focus of a story in the July 8 issue of The Scientist. While researchers agree that stable proteins in these organisms help them thrive in places like the Antarctic, Michael Adams, a biochemistry professor at UGA, says the structural differences between proteins that survive at these different temperatures can be almost imperceptible. The article went on to discuss Adams' research on structural proteins at UGA, which houses one of only nine centers established by the National Institute of Health for structural protein work. REEF KILLER DISCOVERED A disease that is killing corals in the Caribbean Sea is a bacteria found in human and animal feces, according to the June 18 issue of the Chicago Tribune. The disease, white pox, has killed nearly 95 percent of the coral on some reefs near Key West, said UGA researcher James Porter. "Elkhorn used to be the commonest coral in the Caribbean, but now it has been proposed for inclusion on the endangered species list," he said. Porter is currently researching whether or not the bacteria came from human waste. MARINE EDUCATION From a crab dig on Skidaway Island to a seed swap on an Oglethorpe County farm, two UGA programs are celebrating nature while educating children and adults alike. As featured in the June issue of Southern Living, UGA's Marine Education Center and Aquarium's Sea Camp for Kids gives children a chance to get their hands dirty as they study sea life. Another article highlighted a seed exchange hosted by UGA anthropologists Virginia Nazarea and Bob Rhoades, on their farm. Commenting on the seed swap, Rhoades said: ". . . this has become a program you can't kill with a stick." —compiled by Vivian Canedo

Accounting prof Dennis Beresford elected to board of troubled company
WorldCom adviser

Beresford was elected to WorldCom's board of directors in the wake of its Chapter 11 filing.

Accounting professor Dennis Beresford has been elected to the board of directors of WorldCom, the telecommunications giant that recently filed for Chapter 11. Beresford, a former two-term chairman of the Financial Accounting Standards Board, was elected by WorldCom's current board of directors, along with former U.S. attorney general and undersecretary of state Nicholas Katzenbach.

Beresford served two five-year terms (1987-97) as chairman of the FASB, the body responsible for setting the accounting standards that U.S. corporations follow when issuing financial statements to the public. Prior to the FASB, Beresford spent 26 years with the firm of Ernst & Young, where he was national director for accounting standards. He joined the Terry College of Business as an executive professor in July 1997. He is a member of the Financial Executives Institute and a national board member for the Institute of Management Accountants.

In February 2002, Beresford provided expert testimony before the Senate Banking Committee on how accounting practices and federal regulations might be changed to prevent a recurrence of the questionable accounting practices that contributed to the collapse of Enron and Arthur Andersen. Beresford says he doesn't know any more about WorldCom's situation than what he's seen and read in the media, but he thinks that's one of the reasons the board elected him and Katzenbach.

"There's not much I can say . . . we're brand new with a clean slate," he says. "They wanted people of integrity to take a look at things and get started on the right foot going forward."

Another obvious reason for their election, says Beresford, is to send the message that from now on financial reporting at WorldCom will be by the book.

"Financial reporting issues is what got WorldCom where it is today," says Beresford. "That's why I was brought in."

WorldCom, the nation's second-largest long-distance carrier, filed for Chapter 11 protection on July 21 in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, listing more than 1,000 creditors. It is the largest corporate bankruptcy filing in U.S. history, twice as large as the previous record-setting bankruptcy filed by Enron in December.

The Mississippi-based company is currently under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which filed fraud charges against the company in June. On June 25, WorldCom joined the list of big-name corporations caught in accounting scandals when it revealed it had failed to properly report $3.8 billion in expenses.

Beresford and Katzenbach will take the seats on WorldCom's board vacated by WorldCom founder and CEO Bernard Ebbers and CFO Scott Sullivan. Ebbers resigned in April. Sullivan was fired the same day the $3.8 billion in expenses were reported. Ebbers' resignation came in the wake of the SEC's review of $408 million in loans to the CEO from WorldCom.

The company is now carrying an estimated $30 billion in debt.

—Jim Kvicala

Ex-foreign correspondent named Journalism Teacher of the Year

UGA journalism professor Conrad C. Fink, a former recipient of the Meigs Teaching Award for Excellence, has been named one of three Journalism Teachers of the Year by the Freedom Forum, a nonpartisan foundation dedicated to free press, free speech, and free spirit for all people. The award honors outstanding teaching and leadership in the core areas of journalism instruction—reporting, editing, journalism history, media law, and ethics.

Fink has compiled a distinguished teaching record since he joined the faculty of the Grady College in 1983. A member of the department of journalism, Fink draws on 30 years of experience, from city hall to foreign wars to Associated Press headquarters in New York City. For 21 years, Fink worked with the AP as a reporter, editor, foreign correspondent, and vice president.

"Conrad recruits, teaches, mentors, and inspires some of UGA's finest students," says Kent Middleton, Grady College's journalism department head. "Although his courses are known widely as rigorous and demanding, he consistently receives the highest marks from students in their course evaluations. He attracts them and motivates them with his intense professionalism and leadership."

Fink holds the William S. Morris Chair of Newspaper Strategy and Management and is director of the James M. Cox Jr. Institute for Newspaper Management Studies at UGA.

—Sallie Barker (ABJ '02)

Pharmacy prof patents process to convert solid pain relievers to cream
Relief that's skin deep

Pharmacy professor H. Won Jun has patented a method of converting solid pain-relief medications into an oily form suitable for application to the skin. The process is effective for longer periods of time than oral drugs and eliminates the side effects associated with the use of oral medications.

"Oral dosing of ibuprofen in large quantities for long periods can cause gastrointestinal bleeding and ulceration, liver and kidney damage, and disturbances in the central nervous system," says Jun. "Moreover, the drug will only stay in the body for several hours after a single dose."

Jun's technique uses one or more melting point depressing agents to turn solid ibuprofen into an oily state at room temperature and has achieved drug concentrations in the oil as high as 80 percent, a level unachievable by other methods. "Increasing the drug concentration in the oil phase is desirable because it enhances dermal absorption and efficacy," he says. "This oily composition can be readily formulated into a cream, a lotion, an emulsion or an ointment for topical delivery of the drug."

Jun's method may also be used for veterinary and agricultural animal applications. Development of a marketable product for ibuprofen topical delivery can be a lengthy process due to FDA requirements. Once developed, says Jun, it should provide welcome relief for those who suffer from rheumatoid arthritis, arthralgia, tenalgia and gout, or those who suffer from pain associated with muscle ache, backache, neuralgia, tendinitis—even tennis elbow.

—Sheila Roberson

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