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Kristen Convery, Web editor

January 20, 2010

Kristen Convery, Web editor for Marketing Communications, writes and edits content for osu.edu.

What are five books you loved and why?
Brother, I’m Dying by Edwidge Danticat
Danticat’s memoir was one of the best books I read last year. Her memoir is fascinating both as the story of a fragmented childhood and as a glimpse into life in Haiti. (For more on Haiti and Danticat’s reading recommendations, see her Wall Street Journal blog entry.)

Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
Or really anything by Jhumpa Lahiri. Her stories of Bengali-Americans capture the tensions of clashing cultures, assimilation and parent/child relationships.

House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus
Dubus develops vivid and complex characters, at once sympathetic and flawed. As a reader, I felt it was impossible to decide who was “right” and who was “wrong.”

Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl
Recommended to me because I loved Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, this novel stood up to the comparison. It also was intriguing in its own right, with an ending that made me want to compare notes with other readers.

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
I could read this book over and over again. Who could disagree, except a bunch of crooks and phonies?

What is the last book you’ve bought?
The Septembers of Shiraz by Dalia Sofer, a semi-autobiographical novel about a Jewish family in post-revolutionary Iran. It was a great purchase, which I’ve already peer-pressured several friends into reading it.

Booktalk features the literary likes (and dislikes) of an Ohio State staff or faculty member. To nominate someone for a future column, e-mail harris.587@osu.edu.

Nationwide Children’s to break ground on final piece to expansion plan

January 20, 2010

Nationwide Children’s Hospital will break ground early this year on property west of Parsons Avenue and north of Livingston Avenue for its third research facility — the last piece of NCH’s $840 million strategic facilities expansion plan that was first announced in 2005.

The entire hospital campus master plan is expected to create 2,000 additional jobs and a positive economic impact of $1.3 billion. When completed, Nationwide Children’s Hospital is expected to be the second largest pediatric hospital in the US. Continue reading ‘Nationwide Children’s to break ground on final piece to expansion plan’

Study reveals how nutrient protects brain after stroke

January 19, 2010

By Emily Caldwell, Research Communications

Blocking the function of an enzyme in the brain with a specific kind of vitamin E can prevent nerve cells from dying after a stroke, new research suggests.

In a study using mouse brain cells, scientists found that the tocotrienol form of vitamin E, an alternative to the popular drugstore supplement, stopped the enzyme from releasing fatty acids that eventually kill neurons. Continue reading ‘Study reveals how nutrient protects brain after stroke’

Dave Kraybill, Agricultural, Environmental and Development Economics

January 19, 2010

How does climate change affect the people of Africa?
The most important human impact of climate change in Africa is increased vulnerability to food insecurity. More than 60 percent of people in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) depend on agriculture for their livelihood and grow most of their own food.  Agriculture there is largely rain-fed, so if rains start late or taper off during the growing season, there is widespread malnutrition and hunger. Incomes are low and most households have little cash to purchase food if crops fail.

Climate scientists predict that if global temperatures rise, places in SSA with historically high rainfall will get more rain and places with historically low rainfall will get less. The incidence of extreme weather events such as torrential downpours, flooding and drought has increased and is predicted to increase even more in coming decades. As temperatures rise, vector-borne diseases such as malaria spread to new areas. On the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, where I am conducting a multi-year study with OSU colleague Andy Keeler on the human consequences of climate change, residents report malaria now occurs at altitudes where it was rare in the past.

Why should people in the US be concerned?
In the view of most climate scientists, the primary driver of global warming in the past century is greenhouse gas emission. It is indisputable that global warming threatens human well-being much more in tropical than temperate climate zones. Africa contributes only 5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet it faces a disproportionate share of the risk of damage from climate change. The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change estimates the annual damage in Africa from climate change could represent 5 to 10 percent of its GDP.

The US is the top emitter of carbon dioxide on a per-capita basis and the second from the top on a total basis. If further global warming occurs, it is likely to bring a mix of positive and negative effects in the US and other parts of the temperature zone but almost entirely negative effects in SSA. This unequal burden of risk is economically inefficient, ethically questionable and damaging to global security. If food insecurity rises in SSA, political tensions will grow, governments will become less stable, instability will spread across national borders and global stability will be threatened.

How does the focus on climate change relate to the broader issues in Africa, especially economic development?
When economic growth is broad-based, development is a dynamic process that makes people, communities and countries adaptable to changing circumstances. The institutional changes and public and private investments needed to reduce poverty also help Africans to adapt to climate change. Examples of investments that increase incomes and, at the same time, reduce the negative impacts of climate change include soil and water conservation techniques, irrigation, water harvesting, off-farm employment, crop insurance and microfinance. A way for the US and other high-income countries to compensate for Africa’s disproportionate burden of climate-change risk is to invest in the development and dissemination of adaptive technologies and institutions in Africa. The result will be saved lives, greater global stability and an expanded export market for American goods and services.

Top 3 on 2, 1/21/10

January 19, 2010

Why did you choose to work at Ohio State?
Ohio State employees have the opportunity to gain professional experience while also pursuing a degree (or two) and remaining engaged in the community. These opportunities are invaluable to me. Plus, OSU acknowledges and supports my partner just like my colleagues’ spouses.

What do you like about your job?
Every day I am surrounded by caring, thoughtful people who share my commitment to service and social justice. I also appreciate the college’s connectedness to communities off campus. For instance, at the organization where I volunteer weekly, Kaleidoscope Youth Center, social work students regularly intern and social work faculty conduct research. These connections enrich my experience at OSU because I know my work has an impact on the wider community.

If you weren’t working at Ohio State, what would you be doing?
I would like to practice as a social worker part-time in a community setting such as a settlement house (think Hull House and Jane Addams) and focus the rest of my time on raising my future children.

What would you improve at Ohio State?
I would like to see Ohio State do more to encourage faculty and staff to get involved in service to the community. For example, OSU could agree to make a small annual donation to an organization where an employee volunteers at least one hour per week throughout the year.

What is your favorite activity outside of work?
I’ve always been a dancer and it’s something that brings me great joy. Dancing lets me express how I feel in a beautiful and fun way. And, by dancing on a team, I have met many good friends.

Of what honor or recognition are you most proud?
I am proud to have earned two master’s degrees from OSU. My first degree empowered me to secure a rewarding job in the College of Social Work. My second degree enabled me to practice as a social worker and thereby make a tangible difference in our world.

Who is your hero?
I really look up to my dad. He is a great parent and I hope to be an equally good parent one day.

What are you going to do when you retire?
I hope to relish spending lots of time with my wife and our eventual family. I also will stay engaged in service to the community in any way I can. And, hopefully, I’ll still be dancing.

If you were the university president for a day, what would you do?
I would invest in further partnerships with inner-city and rural high schools to provide more educational connections and resources to young people in struggling districts. Ohio State has the resources to help overcome the historic problem of differential educational opportunities for black, Latino and Appalachian youth that will open more doors to higher education for these students. Our investment can help achieve this goal.

To nominate a staff member for an upcoming issue, e-mail oncampus@osu.edu.

A free medical clinic for economically challenged families opened Jan. 20 at Ohio State. The clinic, operated by Muslim physicians and health care professionals, is open to all faiths from 5-9 p.m. each Wednesday evening on the university campus in the Rardin Family Practice Center,  2231 N. High St.

The clinic is staffed by physicians, health care professionals and medical students from The Ohio State University College of Medicine and is affiliated with the Muslim Clinic of Ohio, which also has free clinics in Cincinnati and Dayton.

The university also provides space and other resources at the Rardin location for three additional free clinics. The Ohio Latino Health Clinic, the Asian Health Initiative and the Columbus Free Clinic meet on alternating days. For a complete schedule, go to medicalcenter.osu.edu/aboutus/community_benefits/community_health_services/Pages/index.aspx. For appointments to the Muslim clinic, call 516-3075.

Sheeps in the meadow

January 6, 2010

Michael Mercil is not afraid of pushing the envelope when it comes to defining what is —or is not — art.

By Julia Harris

In 2006, he created a bean field out of a patch of scrubby ground right outside the Wexner Center, modeled after Henry David Thoreau’s 2.5-acre plot from his classic book, Walden: Or, Life in the Woods. For another exhibit, “Reading the Daily News (365 Days for Lucio Pozzi),” Mercil has been stationing himself in the middle of the Oval and reading aloud sections of the given day’s edition of the Columbus Dispatch, for a total of 365 non-consecutive days.

In other words, the associate professor and chair of graduate studies in Ohio State’s Department of Art is no stranger to the question: “How in the world can this be art?” Continue reading ‘Sheeps in the meadow’

Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program opens eyes and minds for OSU Newark students

January 6, 2010

By Julia Harris

Southeastern Correctional Institution in Lancaster is a blocky complex of buildings surrounded by fences that is home to more than 1,500 inmates. It covers almost 1,400 acres, employs 368 people and costs Ohio taxpayers about $29.5 million per year to maintain.

And last quarter, it moonlighted as a classroom for 10 Ohio State Newark students, who spent 90 minutes there each week with 10 offenders, or “inside students,” for a course on the criminal justice system.

“I’d been taking my students to SCI for tours since I started at Newark,” said Angela Harvey, an assistant professor of sociology who taught SOC 294S: Corrections at the prison. “I started to think it would be great if we could have a whole class out there so they could get a better idea of what our society does in terms of incarceration.”

Not one to let a good idea go unimplemented, Harvey secured a Service Learning Course Development grant through the Office of Outreach and Engagement and used that funding to become trained as an instructor in the national Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program.

The program, based at Temple University, brings college students behind prison walls to engage as peers in intensive, seminar-style academic courses with incarcerated men (and women). It is designed to give university students an opportunity to reconsider their assumptions about the criminal justice system, while also letting the “inside students” express their life experiences and be heard, respected and challenged.

The national program has been around since 1997, but last quarter was the first time Harvey took the helm at an Inside-Out course with Newark students, and getting the venture off the ground was a challenge in itself.

“I had to meet individually with all 10 of the guys on the inside and have them fill out a questionnaire. All the Newark students had to get extensive background checks too,” Harvey said.

Further complicating the issue was the fact that SCI is roughly 45 minutes away from Newark. Not all the students had reliable transportation, and prison officials were strict about having everyone arrive together and at the same time. Harvey credits Newark Dean/Director William MacDonald for allowing the class to pile into the university’s Titans bus — normally reserved for athletics events — and head down to the prison together.

Once the logistics were resolved, attention turned to setting the ground rules of interaction in the class.

“Everyone basically had to sign a contract that established a code of anonymity, since we’re not allowed to use last names or maintain any kind of contact with the inside students after the course ends,” Harvey says.

Other ground rules for the course included sitting in a circle with inside students sitting next to outside students, which Harvey says is a way to break down the artificial barriers between “us” and “them.” Rules of respectful conduct specified that no one could use inappropriate or labeling language, everyone had to participate in discussions and all students were expected to give their full attention to whomever was speaking.

High expectations extended, of course, to the coursework itself. Harvey admits the load was a bit heavy. “Everyone was expected to read about 150 pages a week, they wrote papers every single week, they did a group project and a final paper,” she says.

Even though there was some complaining — primarily, Harvey noted with a laugh, from the university students — the workload seemed to pay off.

Kelli Woods, a junior majoring in psychology, said the extra effort made her that much more engaged in the course. “It was hard writing as many papers as we did, but this course has taught me much more than information about the criminal justice system,” she says. “I’ve learned how to develop my own opinions, I became a better writer because of all those required papers and my conceptions changed about people who are incarcerated.”

Her experiences are exactly what Harvey was going for, even as she insists that the Inside-Out program isn’t about doing therapy or “fixing” anyone. She points out the sobering statistic that an estimated one in 25 adults in Ohio are under some kind of correctional supervision, a reflection of the fact that the United States incarcerates more of its population than any other country in the world.

“Most of the people we incarcerate are drug offenders or property offenders, and yet what do we do when they get out? They can’t vote, they can’t carry a firearm, they have a hard time finding a job, yet we expect them to work, stay away from anyone who’s on parole and live where we tell them,” Harvey says.

“The crux of it is, people who are going into the field of criminology or sociology need to really understand the people they’re going to be working with.  Inside-Out is about planting seeds, it’s about social justice.”

A new perspective

Erica Ward, a senior majoring in psychology, was one of the students in Angela Harvey’s course.

“The inside guys had so much insight and depth in their responses. We had to be on our toes every week. I also learned a lot about myself, my own strengths and weaknesses, insecurities and prejudices. I think everyone needs to be put into situations where they are suddenly the minority. I think we all need the cultural exposure.”

LiFE sports

January 6, 2010

OSU athletics’ program inspires youth to become future collegians

By Adam King

Get them early and often seems to be a tried and true axiom when it comes to convincing youngsters that a college education is a valuable commodity in their lives. If you introduce underprivileged kids to a college experience at an age where possibilities seem limitless and keep the message fresh, the theory goes, chances are better they will enroll when the time comes.

Ohio State has been reaching out to these children since 1968 through its Department of Athletics as a founding member of the federally funded National Youth Sports Program. NYSP, which at its peak had more than 200 participating colleges and universities, originally was designed to keep inner-city kids off the streets and teach them life skills during the summer using sports as a draw for enrollment.

But starting in 2003, the federal funding was whittled away until it was eliminated in 2007. Now only 24 universities maintain the program, including Case Western Reserve University and the University of Toledo.

Ohio State has continued funding the program as well, and plans now are under way to expand its influence with the campers and create a better model for other universities to follow.

“While our city is struggling financially to hold on to as many youth programs as possible, we felt we could not contribute to the challenge by dropping this program that touches hundreds of young kids,” said Gene Smith, OSU associate vice president and athletics director. “We need this program to continue to be inspiration for young people so they strive to gather the tools to go to college.”

Ohio State renamed the program LiFE Sports (Learning in Fitness and Education) to more aptly reflect the program’s goals, of which the education aspect has become an integral component. The College of Social Work developed a curriculum that teaches the campers key life skills such as social confidence, communication, teamwork, problem solving and critical thinking.

“The NYSP was pretty basic when it was federally funded and they were just saying to the kids, ‘Don’t do drugs,’ but the kids weren’t really learning anything,” said Jerry Davis, who heads the LiFE Sports program and is assistant director of event management in athletics. “Now there are more learning-based activities and there’s a meaning to everything we do now.”

Ironically, when hundreds of higher education institutions hosted the summer camps, none created a research component to track the participants’ success. Davis said when Congress asked for hard data in evaluating the programs for re-funding, all the colleges could provide were feelgood stories.

OSU has been interviewing some children and their parents before and after the camp, but the true measure will be how to track the campers for years to come since having them attend college is one of the program’s goals.

“We’re still looking at the best method to achieve that goal,” said Davis, who added the research couldn’t be done without the critical support of social work’s faculty, staff and students. Dawn Anderson-Butcher, an associate professor in the college, is putting together a course using the camp as a learning lab for OSU students, who Davis hopes will one day run the camp.

The four-week summer camp enrolls 600 youth with the help of the Boys & Girls Club of Columbus, and that makes the camp Ohio State’s largest community outreach program. The Department of Recreational Sports provides the athletic facilities while the Department of Athletics provides the funding, the bulk of which goes toward round-trip transportation of the kids from local rec centers and middle schools and paying the camp counselors and clinicians.

The children receive free physicals, which are required to attend camp, and about 400 were conducted last May.

“Sometimes we will identify a medical issue someone has overlooked, which is beneficial,” said Davis, who added LiFE Sports is considering adding free eye and dental exams through the optometry and dentistry colleges.

The interdisciplinary aspect of LiFE Sports is only expected to grow bigger after the camp hosted its second annual career day in the most recent camp. Student athletes and coaches spoke to the kids, who also were exposed to OSU’s First Year Experience and Economic Access Initiative, the latter of which attempts to entice students to become first-generation collegians. The campers were then sent to one of 19 participating college departments to get a feel for what is taught at OSU.

“A lot of the departments at OSU are getting excited about what we’re doing,” Davis said. “The kids belong to a population that everyone is excited to work with.”

The campers participate in four activities daily — such as volleyball, basketball, football, softball and dance — and a play-based education session.

All campers are required to take swimming (“Many of them haven’t been introduced to that,” Davis said). The Ohio Department of Education’s summer food service program provides the morning snack and a hot meal for lunch each day.

Many of the kids said they wished the camp day would last longer (it currently runs from 8 a.m.-2 p.m.), and Davis said OSU is looking at doing just that, perhaps breaking the day up into separate sessions. LiFE Sports also is instituting six follow-up booster sessions every two months at the Boys & Girls Club of Columbus, funded in part by a $56,000 two-year grant from the Office of Outreach and Engagement.

“We hosted a basketball game as a way to reintroduce ourselves to the kids,” Davis said. “This month we’re hoping to get one of our sports teams to go out there and introduce the kids to their sport. We hope to bring them back to campus eventually and have First Year Experience show them around and get them excited about an education. We’re also talking about teaching the kids financial management or balancing a checkbook — life skills that are often overlooked.

“The hope is they’ll go to college somewhere; it doesn’t have to be Ohio State. We want them to see the value of an education.”

A lasting impression

In 2008, the College of Social Work examined the effect of OSU’s National Youth Sports Program (now LiFE Sports) on participants’ ideas about life skills and attending college. The research focused on four areas:
• Social competence — 77.1 percent of campers reported being good at making friends.
• Relationship with caring adults — 88.1 percent of campers reported that adults at the program care about them.
• Teamwork — 76.2 percent of campers agreed they learned that working together requires some compromising.
• Intentions to attend college — 83 percent of campers agreed with the statement that “because of NYSP, I plan on attending college.”

Garland’s service to students to be honored in new lobby

January 6, 2010

By Jeff McCallister

In nearly 40 years at Ohio State, Martha Garland had seen it many times before: The longtime employee presented with a chair as a retirement gift.

So she knew right away what was under the sheet in the back of the room at her retirement party on that early December day. It was another gift that stunned her and brought her to tears.

Garland, vice provost and dean for enrollment services and undergraduate education, takes  justifiable pride in her career that has been built by putting students first, and now that service will be honored in perpetuity. Pending approval by the Board of Trustees, the first-floor lobby in the new Student Academic Services Building will be named in her honor.

“Martha’s guiding principle has always been, ‘Put students first,’” Executive Vice President and Provost Joe Alutto said. “And because of her vision, commitment and impact on improving undergraduate education, we are absolutely delighted to honor her legacy with The Martha M. Garland Student Services Lobby.”

Garland has been at the forefront of dozens of initiatives that have brought increasingly better students into the university and provided a more enriching academic and personal experience and generally made their lives easier once they got here.

“I look at it more like the university was a school of fish, moving as one unit,” Garland said. “It’s not like there’s one fish who leads all the fish in their movements — they do it as a single entity. If it wasn’t me, it would have been someone else.”

Regardless, she’s humbled by the honor and said she may well bring her new chair into the lobby on occasion and sit right under her nameplate to keep watch.

“I’m just astonished that people thought enough of me to do this,” she said. “But to me, there couldn’t be any better place for me to be associated with. I spent two decades trying to make it so students wouldn’t have to diagnose their own problems and this building will be the culmination of that effort. I’m very proud of what that lobby symbolizes.”

Putting students first

It’s nearly impossible to fully recognize the impact Martha Garland has had on Ohio State and its students over the course of her 40-year career. But here are just some of the initiatives she has either led or provided significant support:

• 1995 Committee on the Undergraduate Experience (CUE), providing an ongoing agenda for Enrollment Services and Undergraduate Education and much of the rest of the university.
• Move to live, real-time registration.
• Support for academic advisors, especially through informal sponsorship of ACADAOS.
• Move to direct enrollment.
• Move to Sunday commencement.
• Creation of the First Year Experience program.
• Putting the University Honors Program on sound academic basis.
• Creation of Scholars programs.
• Creation of the Collegium program.
• Support for a campus-wide service learning collaborative.
• Establishment of the Undergraduate Research Office.
• Establishment of the University Access program (including Land Grant Opportunity Scholarships).
• Incorporation of the Student Athlete Support Services Office into OAA.
• Support of reorganization of the College of Arts and Sciences.
• Support and political leadership around conversion to semester calendar.
• Creation of the integrated Student Information System.
• Development of a new building to house student support services.
• Creation of the Student Consolidated Service Center.

College football linemen take one for the team

January 6, 2010

The demands of the position put those in the trenches at greater health risk

By Emily Caldwell, Research Communications

The high-intensity exercise performed by college football linemen does not protect them from obesity, related health problems and the potential for cardiovascular disease later in life, new research suggests.

In an assessment of 90 collegiate football players from a single Division I team, only offensive and defensive linemen were deemed obese because they had 25 percent or more body fat.

Among the obese linemen, almost 60 percent were insulin resistant and 42 percent had metabolic syndrome, or at least three of five risk factors that indicate a person has higher chances of developing heart disease and diabetes than those without the risk factors.

The findings should raise awareness about how health risks can go hand-in-hand with an emphasis on size for all football players and especially linemen, researchers say.

“I think the perception out there is that football players, at every level, are getting bigger,” said James Borchers, assistant professor of clinical family medicine at Ohio State and lead author of the study. “But I think players need to recognize that as they get into unhealthy levels of body fat, there’s a risk that comes along with that. And you’re not protected from that just because you’re active in football.”

Borchers, a sports medicine specialist and Ohio State football team physician, said the medical staff counsels student athletes about nutrition and overall health.

“Clinicians also really need to be paying attention when these guys are done playing,” he said. “Many players will be done after college. Can we help decrease their risk for metabolic syndrome or insulin resistance, or even potential cardiovascular problems, with intervention and by keeping an eye on their natural progression once they’re done playing? I think that’s where we can make an impact.”

The research is published in the current issue of the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. The study, conducted in 2007, involved 90 players from Ohio State’s football team. Researchers measured the athletes’ blood pressure, blood sugar, insulin levels, cholesterol, triglycerides, height, weight, waist circumference and body fat percentage during a single study visit after the players had fasted for about 10 hours.

One in five of the players, all linemen, registered 25 percent or more body fat, a clinical definition of obesity. The researchers did not use body mass index, a ratio of weight to height, to determine obesity because it is not considered a valid measure for strength-trained athletes, Borchers said.

Nineteen of 29 linemen were obese. Of those 19, 11 showed signs of insulin resistance; overall, linemen accounted for 68 percent of the players meeting criteria for this condition. The odds for insulin resistance in the obese group were 10.6 times the odds for insulin resistance in the nonobese group.

Insulin resistance means that the presence of insulin does not initiate the transfer of sugar, or glucose, from the blood into the tissues, where it is used for energy. It is associated with excess weight and low activity levels, and increases a person’s chances of developing diabetes and heart disease.

Of those same 19 linemen, eight met the criteria for metabolic syndrome, and they were the only players in the study to have this cluster of risk factors.

People with metabolic syndrome have three or more of these conditions: Excess fat in the abdominal area based on waist circumference, borderline or high blood pressure, cholesterol problems that foster insulin resistance or glucose intolerance and a high level of triglycerides, a form of fat in the blood.

Among other players, 8 percent were considered overweight, with a body fat percentage of between 20 percent and 24.9 percent.

This study was supported by a Clinical and Translational Science Award from the National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Research Resources. Co-authors were Kelley Clem, a Columbus physician and former fellow at Ohio State; and Diane Habash, clinical research manager in internal medicine; Haikady Nagaraja, professor of statistics; medical student Lisa Stokley; and Thomas Best, co-medical director of the Sports Medicine Center, all at Ohio State.

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