News Archive - 2014


Former Franklin Dean Stokes to become Missouri Provost

Congratulations to former Franklin dean Garnett Stokes, who will become provost and vice-chancellor for academic affairs at the University of Missouri beginning Feb. 1: Stokes said she is excited to help MU excel as a flagship land-grant university and improve its standing among other Association of American Universities institutions. She said she was impressed by MU's broad mix of strong programs, including engineering, medicine, agriculture,…


Poet Claudia Rankine reading tonight

National Book Award finalist and former University of Georgia faculty member Claudia Rankine will read from her work Dec. 5 at 7 p.m. at Ciné, 234 W. Hancock Ave. The event, sponsored by the UGA Creative Writing Program in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, is free and open to the public. The reading is part of VOX, a series organized and hosted by graduate students in creative writing with additional organizational support from Avid…

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Understanding how plants adapt to water stress

If there's one thing we take for granted more than the infinite availability of water, it would be the technical ability of our best scientists should that availability ever come into question. Well, the infinite availability of water is very much in quesiton and what is the reaction of scientists? Looking to Mother nature for clues to survival in water-limited environments: [With] a $1.5 million collaborative grant from the National…


Baldwin Hall expansion underway

Shovels hit the ground last week as an expansion project began on one of our venerable North Campus buildings, Baldwin Hall: Built in 1938, Baldwin Hall has served as a Navy pre-flight school during World War II and home to several UGA academic programs. The building currently houses the School of Public and International Affairs as well as the departments of sociology and anthropology in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. ... The…


Eco-initiatives and individual motivation

A new UGA study in the American Review of Public Administration, from faculty in the School of Public and International Affairs, presents findings on individual behaviors by public employees that is all well and good: Authored by Justin M. Stritch, a former doctoral student in public administration and policy, and Christensen, who also is the school's Ph.D. director in the department of public administration and policy, the research found that…


Retirement in Academia

As a normal part of my duties in research reporting, I had an enjoyable interview/conversation yesterday afternoon with a junior faculty member. An energetic, very bright and motivated young professor, I could see how his infectious enthusiasm might effect students and as well as departmental colleagues. The tone of that experience brought to mind this Chronicle Review post from last month by friend of the blog (and Hofstra U. art faculty member…

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Linguistics PhD grad wins international dissertation prize

Congratulations to Dr. Mark Wenthe, currently a parttime instructor at UGA and also a recent PhD alumnus in linguistics in the department of classics, who won an international competition for best dissertation for the year 2013 from the Society of Indo-European Studies (Indogermanische Gesellschaft). Wenthe's dissertation, ISSUES IN THE PLACEMENT OF ENCLITIC PERSONAL PRONOUNS IN THE RIGVEDA, among the four canonical sacred texts (…


CCRC-Franklin researchers target cancer stem cells

A new paper by research scientists at the Complex Carbohydrate Research Center focuses on cancer stem cells: the research team demonstrates that the sugar molecule, made by an enzyme known as GnT-V, regulates the development of a particular subset of cancerous cells known as cancer stem cells. Much like normal stem cells that sustain organs and tissues, cancer stem cells can self-renew, and their cellular offspring clump together to form tumors…


UGA-Emory collaborations in Infectious Disease research

The Provost's Office highlighted some research collaborations in the state of Georgia among our premier institutions, the cummulative extramural support awarded these efforts and its effects. The summary included work by Franklin College professor of genetics, Jessica Kissinger: Kissinger, who directs the UGA Institute of Bioinformatics, is leading a team that is organizing, distributing and mining the massive quantities of data produced by the…


Genome analysis creates tree of life for modern birds

Long long ago in a land far far away not so far from here at all, crocodiles, dinosaurs, and birds all arose from early reptiles called thecodonts.   Using new computational methods developed by assistant professor of statistics Liang Liu, Travis Glenn of the College of Public health and others, an international team of scientists has shed more light on an obscure period of avian evolution and further untangle the bird family tree. Members…