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Significant
developments and outstanding accomplishments
updated November 2004
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| Strategics
for Coping With Budget Cuts |
 In
an effort to inform the University community about state budget
cuts, UGA President Michael F. Adams held an open campus meeting
at which he presented a detailed explanation of how the reductions
could impact University programs and personnel. The entire presentation,
including explanatory charts and graphs, was reprinted in the
faculty-staff newspaper, Columns, and is posted on the UGA Web
site.
To
meet budget cut mandates, the University implemented a program
of employee reductions and refocusing of some departmental missions.
The University reduced total employment by about 650 positions
through attrition and tightened hiring procedures. In addition,
47 employees were laid off effective June 30, 2004. This included
18 positions in the College of Agricultural and Environmental
Sciences and 29 positions in the division of Public Service
and Outreach. Some of the positions in Public Service and Outreach
resulted from elimination of the American Language Program and
reorganization or reassignment of other programs in the Georgia
Center for Continuing Education.
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| Success
with Managing Enrollment Demands |
A
15 percent tuition increase provided funding for UGA to fill
50 previously vacant faculty positions and expand enrollment
in some high-demand areas. The new faculty hires helped reduce
some 200 teaching faculty vacancies that existed at the start
of the year. The additional faculty enabled the University to
increase enrollment in the areas of business, graphic design,
early childhood education, engineering, music education, consumer
economics, veterinary medicine, and fashion merchandising/furnishings/interiors.
Criteria
were adopted for admitting transfer students for spring semester
2004 after a large number of transfer applicants could not be
admitted for fall semester 2003. The fall transfer applicants
were not admitted because UGA’s enrollment limit was surpassed
due to an unexpectedly high freshman yield. The criteria for
spring were designed to admit 700 transfer applicants, with
priority given to qualified candidates who were denied admission
in the fall. Secondary priority was based on transferrable credit
hours and grade point averages.
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| Success
with Efforts to Enhance Access to Higher Education for Georgians |
The
University Council adopted a set of principles that will be
used to develop admissions criteria designed to create greater
racial, geographic, linguistic and experiential diversity in
the student body. The principles set out four factors to be
used in evaluating freshman applicants: their race and ethnic
background, where they live, their native language and the range
and quality of their experiences and backgrounds. The principles
also require that all applicant files receive a “highly
individualized, holistic review.” Admissions officers
and members of the faculty Admissions Committee are developing
implementation procedures for the principles.
UGA
conducts an aggressive recruitment/retention program aimed at
increasing minority enrollment in the Graduate School. A new
feeder program with Spelman College in Atlanta is designed to
encourage graduating Spelman seniors to enroll in University
graduate studies. A similar program is in place with Florida
A&M University, and more are planned for other historically
black colleges and universities. In addition to visitation sessions
for potential students, the program includes financial assistance
and peer mentorship. UGA also conducts a summer research program
that enables minority undergraduates at UGA and other Georgia
colleges and universities to work for eight weeks alongside
UGA faculty members in the areas of science, mathematics and
computer science. The program is designed to encourage the undergraduates
to continue their studies in graduate school. The number of
minority graduate students at UGA has almost doubled in the
last two years.
UGA
added four bachelor’s degree programs to its offerings
at the Gwinnett University Center, raising to seven the total
number of UGA undergraduate degree programs available at the
center. The first 12 students to receive UGA undergraduate degrees
through the GUC graduated in December. UGA has provided graduate
degree programs at the center since 1984.
UGA
started a new master’s degree program in public health
that will play a major role in training the next generation
of public health policy makers, practitioners and researchers.
The program will offer courses of study in environmental health
science, health promotion and behavior, gerontology, health
communication, nutrition and exercise science.
UGA
and the Medical College of Georgia signed an agreement that
allows graduate students to cross-enroll at the two institutions.
The agreement provides that on a space-available basis, doctoral
students who are graduate research assistants or graduate teaching
assistants at either institution can take advantage of the resources
and strengths of the other institution, giving students at both
universities more exposure to cutting-edge research in health
affairs areas.
The
African Studies Institute received a $364,818 grant from the
U.S. Department of Education to help develop an African studies
curriculum that can be used in other Georgia universities. UGA
will collaborate with Columbus State University and Georgia
State University on development of the curriculum, which includes
a plan for teaching African languages in selected institutions.
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| Success
with Campus Economic Development Efforts |
The
UGA College of Pharmacy and several bioscience companies in
Georgia joined in a partnership to train professionals in the
regulartory affairs industry. The partnership, created through
the University System’s Intellectual Capital Partnership
Program (ICAPP), is expected initially to spur the creation
of 50 regulatory jobs in such areas as quality control and quality
assurance. These employes will play a vital role in the manufacturing
and testing of pharmaceuticals, medical devices, biologics and
biotechnology.
The
College of Pharmacy is creating a Center for Drug Discovery
to promote research and discovery of new chemical and biological
entities targeted against infectious diseases and cancer. UGA
faculty will work with collaborators at other Georgia universities
as well as scientists at pharmaceutical companies to develop
a central database for scientific expertise that can administer
and coordinate interdisciplinary efforts in drug discovery.
The center will also develop a seed-grant program and administer
a training grant in drug discovery funded through the National
Institutes of Health. The center is designed to spur economic
growth in the areas of pharmaceuticals and biotechnology in
Georgia.
UGA’s
College of Education and Franklin College of Arts and Sciences
are leading part of a massive effort to improve student achievements
in mathematics and science in Georgia’s schools. The program,
called Partnership for Reform in Science and Mathematics (PRISM)
is funded by a $34.6 million grant from the National Science
Foundation. UGA and its partners are receiving $5.3 million
of the grant for work focusing on schools in Northeast Georgia.
PRISM is designed to increase student proficiency in math and
scinece with the goal of translating these achievements into
economic benefit for the state.
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| Success
with Developing Effective Business and Service “Best Practices” |
UGA’s
accounts payable department installed a Web-based digital imaging
system that allows bills to be processed, approved and paid
electronically. With the system, purchase orders, invoices and
receiving reports can be matched online using electronic images
and mainframe data, and invoice images can be transmitted to
UGA purchasers to obtain electronic payment approvals. The system
virtually eliminates paper transactions, enables staff members
to instantly retrieve documents they previously had to search
for in files, and allows invoices that previously were not paid
for up to 30 days to be cleared in three days. For its initiative
in creating and installing the system, the department was a
winner in the “best practices” competition conducted
by the Board of Regents.
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New Facilities
Completed Within the Past Fiscal Year |
The $44 million Student Learning Center, one of the largest
and most technologically advanced facilities of its kind on
an American university campus, immediately became an immensely
popular and heavily used facility when it opened for fall semester
2003. Student use of the 200,000-square-foot building, which
contains 26 classrooms with a total of 2,200 seats and 96 small
study rooms, was so heavy that operating hours were extended
and additional staff added to meet the demand.
The Complex Carbohydrate Research Center was opened, providing
state-of-the-art facilities for some 160 faculty, staff, research
associates and students who study complex carbohydrates and
their role in plant growth and human diseases such as cancer,
type II diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis. The three-story,
135,000-square-foot facility doubles the amount of space in
the center’s previous building and is one of only three
such centers in the world devoted exclusively to the study of
complex carbohyrates.
A $3 million renovation of Candler Hall was completed and the
building, constructed in 1901, was occupied by the School of
Public and International Affairs.
Work was completed on a $4.2 million addition and $2.4 million
renovation for the food science building. The addition houses
four microbiology laboratories that allow researchers to work
with foodborne pathogens, and an extension classroom.
A specialized laboratory was opened that supports multidisciplinary
instruction in the fields of bioinformatics and biocomputing.
The lab provides hands-on training in computational sciences
using a variety of open-source and proprietary applications.
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| Improvements
in National Rankings in the Past Fiscal Year |
In
U.S. News and World Report’s annual “best college”
rankings, UGA was tied for 20th among the top 50 public universities.
On the magazine’s “Great Schools at Great Prices”
list, UGA was fifth among public universities and 35th among
all universities.
Kiplinger
Magazine ranked UGA fourth on its list of the 20 best public
colleges that “combine great academics with reasonable
costs.” UGA was sixth in the magazine’s previous
ranking.
The
College of Veterinary Medicine was tied for ninth among the
nation’s veterinary schools in USN&WR rankings.
The
Terry College of Business was tied for 25th in USN&WR’s
rankings of undergraduate “Best Business Programs.”
The insurance program in the college was ranked third in the
nation and the real estate program was ranked sixth.
The
master’s degree program in public administration, offered
through the School of Public and International Affairs, was
ranked third nationally in U.S. News and World Report’s
rankings of graduate programs. In other USN&WR graduate
rankings, the College of Education tied for 24th, the School
of Social Work tied for 28th, the School of Law tied for 31st
and the Terry College of Business was ranked 42nd.
Five
graduate programs in the College of Education ranked in the
top 10 nationally: secondary education ranked third, elementary
education tied for third, vocational and technical education
ranked fourth, counseling and personnel services ranked fifth,
and curriculum and instruction ranked sixth. Three other education
graduate programs ranked in the top 20: educational psychology,
13th; higher education administration, 18th; and administration/supervision,
19th.
In
other rankings, UGA was:
--Tenth among the top 20 research universities in the number
of students studying abroad (up from 12th the previous year)
--Sixth nationally in the number of faculty named Fulbright
Scholars
--Fifth among the nation’s top 125 research universities
in the number of tenured and tenure-line African American faculty
--Eighth in total number of African American faculty, which
includes both tenure-line and non tenure-line faculty
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| Achievements
Involving Nationally Recognized Programs of Excellence |
The
National Center for Research Resources, a unit of the National
Institutes of Health, awarded a $6.7 million grant to a team
headed by UGA scientists that is studying treatment of certain
kinds of cancer and Parkinson’s disease. The team, which
includes scientists from Georgia Tech, Emory University, Yale
University, Bresagen, Inc. as well as Japanese scientists, will
focus on technologies to map the glycome of stem cell lines
established by Bresagen.
UGA
scientists are leaders of a national team that received a $5.6
million grant from the National Science Foundation to study
development of artificial corn chromosomes. Such chromosomes
could help protect corn--the most important cereal grain grown
in the U.S.-- against drought and insects, and enable the grain
to grow on land where weather or other conditions preclude its
cultivation. The team, which includes scientists at the University
of Missouri, University of Wisconsin and University of Hawaii,
is the only group funded at this level that is working on artificial
corn chromosomes.
The
National Science Foundation’s Plant Genome Research Program
awarded a $3.9 million grant to a team of UGA scientists who
are studying functional networks of gene expression in developmentally
important plant cells. The work will expand the growing body
of knowledge about plant biology.
A
team of UGA chemists received a $2.5 million National Science
Foundation grant to study important chemical compounds called
aromatics. These structures, which have a special stability
and properties because of a closed loop of electrons, are involved
in any process or application that utilizes chemistry, and the
research could have uses ranging from the synthesis of pharmaceuticals
to semiconductors and computer circuits.
UGA’s
National Ultraviolet Monitoring Center received a $1.8 million
contract from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to continue
its nationwide monitoring of ultraviolet radiation reaching
the Earth’s surface. The center also monitors ozone levels
in the atmosphere. UV radiation and ozone depletion can impact
both human health and the quality of the environment.
A
UGA physics professor is a principal investigator for a $1.46
million grant from the National Science Foundation that focuses
on the theoretical underpinnings behind the laws governing theoretical
nanomechanics. UGA is the lead institution for the project,
which also includes scientists at Cal Tech, Brown University,
Dartmouth College and Lawrence-Livermore National Laboratory.
The project examines ongoing experimentation using state-of-the-art
computation and simulation techniques for solid state, biological
and integrated nano-bio systems.
A
team of researchers in the Faculty of Engineering received a
$1 million grant from the National Science Foundation to develop
3-D nanoscale structures to address problems in biosensing.
The work could help facilitate development of implantable glucose
sensors for treating diabetes.
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| National-Caliber
Achievements by Students and Recent Graduates |
Three
students received the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship, which
provides up to $7,500 to students planning to pursue careers
in mathematics, engineering or the natural sciences. This
was the fourth consecutive year, and seventh of the past eight
years, UGA students have won a Goldwater Scholarship. Twenty-four
UGA students have received the award since 1995.
Two
students received the Harry S. Truman Scholarship, which recognizes
college juniors who plan careers in government, the non-profit
or advocacy sectors, education or public service. The award
provides financial support for graduate study and leadership
training.
A
student won a Gates Cambridge Scholarship, which provides
financial support for graduate study at the University of
Cambridge in England. Created by the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation, the scholarship is modeled after the Rhodes Scholarship.
Two
UGA alumni who graduated in 2003 and 2004 received the Andrew
W. Mellon Fellowship, the highest award given to students
in the humanities. The fellowship includes a stipend of $17,500
to help cover first-year tuition and fees for exceptionally
promising students pursuing graduate degrees in the humanities.
With these awards, UGA has a total of four Mellon Fellowship
winners.
Joseph
Wolpin, a 2003 Honors graduate, was one of 40 recipients of
the Marshall Scholarship. This was the second consecutive
year a Marshall Scholar was selected from the UGA student
body. Wolpin, who had a double major in Russian and history,
is attending the University College of London’s School
of Slavonic and Eastern European Studies, one of the world’s
leading Russian studies centers.
John
H. Longwell, a 1999 graduate of the UGA School of Law, was
chosen from a pool of hundreds of top-caliber applicants to
serve as a clerk for a justice of the United States Supreme
Court. Longwell will be a clerk for Justice Stephen Breyer
beginning in October 2005. He is the fifth UGA law school
alumnus chosen to clerk for a Supreme Court justice.
Four
current students and three recent graduates received Fulbright
scholarships for study and research abroad during the year.
A
student athlete who was an All-American pole vaulter and a
First Honor Graduate was one of two recipients of the NCAA
Walter Byers Postgraduate Scholarship.
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| National-Caliber
Achievements by Administrators, Faculty and Staff |
Jeffrey
Bennetzen, the Norman and Doris Giles/Georgia Research Alliance
Professor of molecular genetics, was elected to the National
Academy of Sciences. He is the 10th active, retired or deceased
UGA faculty member elected to the NAS, one of the highest honors
an American scientist can attain.
Susan
Wessler, Distinguished Research Professor of plant sciences,
was elected a councilor of the National Academy of Sciences.
Councilors oversee NAS activities and corporate management of
the National Academies. Wessler is a member of the NAS.
Eve
Troutt Powell, associate professor of history, received a $500,000
MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. Powell is the first UGA faculty
member to receive the fellowship, often called the “Genius
Award” because it recognizes originality, creativity and
the potential of recipients for greater achievement in the future.
Henry
Schaefer III, Graham Perdue Professor of chemistry, was named
a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. This
was the second consecutive year a UGA faculty member was named
a Fellow of the Academy, one of the nation’s most distinguished
learned societies. Schaefer is the ninth active, retired or
deceased UGA faculty member to become an Academy Fellow.
Michael
Doyle, Regents Professor of food microbiology, was elected a
member of the Institute of Medicine. The institute is a national
resource for independent, scientifically informed analysis and
recommendations on issues related to human health.
Hal
Rainey, Alumni Foundation Distinguished Professor of public
administration, was elected to the National Academy of Public
Administration.
Jeremy
Kilpatrick, Regents Professor of mathematics education in the
College of Education, was honored by the National Council of
Teachers of Mathematics. Kilpatrick received the council’s
Lifetime Achievement Award for Distinguished Service to Mathematics
Education.
Michael
Ferrara, professor of exercise science and curriculum director
for athletic training, received the Most Distinguished Athletic
Training Award from the National Athletic Trainers Association.
Timothy
M. Dore, assistant professor of chemistry, received a National
Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Award. The
award recognizes and supports early career-development activities
of teacher-scholars most likely to become academic leaders of
the 21st century.
Doug
Kleiber, professor of recreation and leisure studies, received
the Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt Award for Excellence in
Recreation and Park Research, the highest honor bestowed by
the National Recreation and Park Association.
Bradley
Courtenay, professor of education, was inducted into the International
Adult and Continuing Education Hall of Fame.
John
Soloski, dean of the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication,
served as president of the Association of Schools of Journalism
and Mass Communication.
UGA
President Michael F. Adams was elected chairman of the Council
of Presidents for the National Association of State Universities
and Land Grant Colleges.
J.
David Puett, Regents Professor and head of the biochemistry
and molecular biology department, was elected president of the
Association of Medical and Graduate Departments of Biochemistry.
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| Other
Pertinent National-Caliber Achievements |
UGA
established a Cancer Center to coordinate the large number
of cancer-related research and outreach projects underway
at the University. The Center is the University’s point
of contact with the Georgia Cancer Coalition and other institutions
and funding agencies involved in cancer research and education.
It is also the University’s component of a proposed
Cancer Center of Excellence that UGA hopes to create in conjunction
with the Medical College of Georgia.
The
“New Georgia Encyclopedia,” a massive Web-based
reference source with hundreds of articles, photos and audio
and video clips, was launched. The encyclopedia, which covers
all aspects of Georgia, is a joint project of the UGA Press,
the University System’s online library GALILEO, the
Georgia Humanities Council and the governor’s office.
It is based in UGA’s main library and maintained by
a staff whose members are affiliated with the UGA Press.
A
group of faculty members and researchers in the College of
Education and the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, received
a $1.068 million federal grant for a project that is part
of an ongoing national effort to prepare future teachers to
use technology in their classrooms. The U.S. Department of
Education awarded the grant to the education college’s
Learning and Performance Support Laboratory as part of a national
program called “Preparing Tomorrow’s Teachers
to Use Technology.”
A
total of 29 Peabody broadcast awards was presented for excellence
in electronic media. The Peabody Award, one of the highest
honors in broadcast journalism, is administered by UGA’s
Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication.
Vaclav
Havel, first president of the Czech Republic, received the
2004 Delta Prize for Global Understanding. The prize is awarded
annually by UGA and Delta Air Lines to recognize individuals
and organizations for advancing international understanding
and cooperation.
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This page was last updated on
Thursday, November 18, 2004 02:10 PM EST
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