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Sarah-Grace Heller, Department of French and Italian

February 1, 2012

Sarah-Grace Heller is a professor in the Department of French and Italian and the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.

What are your five favorite books and why?

In chronological order:

The Sign on Rosie’s Door by Maurice Sendak. This was the first book I remember loving, checking out of the library over and over when I was about 3-4 years old. I loved the illustrations of the children putting on a play by a cellar door. I rediscovered it recently and checked it out for my own daughters, 2 and 5. It has no plot, and evidently the cellar door is not an entry into some magical world for them as it was for me.

A Room with a View by E. M. Foster. This was my favorite book in high school. I loved the tension in it between cynicism at normative romantic relationships and a lushly understated depiction of the transformation that can occur when one finds the people with whom one truly belongs — those occasional fiery declarations of belief in the importance of living authentically professed by Mr. Emerson. I memorized great sections of it, such as Lucy Honeychurch’s great question in Italy, “Have you ever noticed that there are people who do things which are most indelicate, and yet at the same time — beautiful?”  Oh, to find beauty in the world and choose it.

In college my favorite novels were the philosophical musings of The Unbearable Lightness of Being and The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera. They pondered many ways in which people from different cultures apprehend the same things in different ways and so misunderstand one another entirely (for instance a cemetery — a morbid place of decay or a respite from communist loudspeakers). This resonated as I worked to process my years as an exchange student in France. Another revelation was Kundera’s proposition that misogynists were the only ones who could truly love an individual woman — men who worshipped womankind could only delight in feminine traits (and tended to be philanderers), not love the unique qualities that set a particular person apart.

Le Roman de la Rose (The Romance of the Rose) by Guillaume de Lorris c. 1225 and continued by Jean de Meun c. 1260-70. My work has centered on this encyclopedic medieval allegory of love. It is one of those inexhaustible works that contain everything — courtly artifice (the hero falls in love with a rose and wants to sniff her), scholastic disputes, treatises on fashion and meterology, the God of Love engaged in feudal politics and even raunchy allegorized sex scenes. Definitely a work that rewards multiple readings.

Flamenca. Medieval romances are fantastic and nearly always subversive. The best of the best is the parodic Flamenca, a 13^th-century text in Occitan, the language of the south of France. The sole manuscript copy is missing the beginning, the end and a few pages in the middle (not to mention being charred in a library fire). Hero Guilhem de Nevers manages to woo the jealously guarded heroine Flamenca by posing as a cleric and exchanging two syllables over the psalter every time she goes to mass. Ah, the strategy and wit required!

What is your “guilty pleasure” — a book you love but don’t often talk about because it’s not “serious” literature?

I love the novels of Jennifer Crusie. She started out doing a PhD at OSU examining women’s romances and ended up writing them, realizing that the genre was not as irrelevant as it might seem. Her characters’ verisimilitude lies in their very quirkiness. Her novels are hilarious, poking fun at the genre’s clichés while celebrating them. My favorite is Welcome to Temptation, set in a small town in Ohio whose water tower gets painted an unfortunate pink.

Who is your favorite character (villain or hero) in literature?

Severus Snape in the Harry Potter books, by J. K. Rowling. So oily, so bitter. So much the best and worst of what one wants in a teacher — an expert in his field, setting the highest expectations in the school, but scornful, condescending and prejudiced, increasing exponentially the effect of the revelation of his expertly hidden experiences and feelings. And Alan Rickman’s performances are one of those rare instances where a cinematic portrayal of a book character was not disappointing.

What is the last book you’ve bought?

Family Values by Wendy Cope. She mixes virtuosity of form with dry wit and self-deprecating reflection. Her latest collection of poems contains several pieces treating the ambivalent feelings so many people experience at the holidays, when according to the songs and cards everything is supposed to be perfect but so often instead resuscitates old family dramas and loneliness. Beautifully crafted, funny; also made me cry.

What book would you most want your kids to read?

I so look forward to sharing my favorites with them — Laura Ingalls Wilder, Louisa May Alcott, the Chronicles of Narnia, Where the Wild Things Are, From The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler… it is a joy to rediscover children’s literature with them.

What classic novel was a disappointment to you?

La Chanson de Roland (The Song of Roland).  A chanson de geste (epic) more than a novel, it is a long-form fictional narrative. It has long been hyped as the great medieval French epic. However, it is far from typical, notably for its almost total lack of female characters. In medieval French texts the women are generally smarter than the men.

Steve Acker, Ohio Digital Bookshelf

February 1, 2012

What is the new textbook service from Apple and how does it work?

Apple iAuthor and iBook2 work together to create highly interactive textbooks that combine text, images, video and various study tools (automatic flash cards, for example). The digital texts are distributed in the iBook2 format. The textbooks are sold through iTunes and are read on iPads.

Several large publishers (McGraw-Hill, Pearson, Houghton Mifflin) have committed to a pilot project that creates iBook2s that sell for $15. The pilot texts are aimed at the K-12 market, although I suppose they could be used in intro college courses. Students can more easily highlight and make notes than is typical for eBooks. The major negative is that the iBook2s can’t be read on non-Apple devices (only iPads), so your Kindle or Nook won’t be able to display the interactive iBook2. The other big concern is that the iBook2 format is proprietary to Apple and may delay/inhibit the growth of an eBook standard called EPUB3. This lack of standardization puts schools/students into the unenviable position of needing multiple technologies to read different kinds of eBooks.

What are the benefits of such a service?

More engaging content and use of multimedia. If Apple maintains its best practices in accessibility, iBook2 should serve the needs for students with print disabilities (although the touch interface of the iPad has its limits).

What does a digital textbook service mean for the future of academic education?

The Apple initiative raises awareness of digital textbooks and may therefore speed the transition to a digital learning environment. We will always have print, which is a good thing. However, more and more students ultimately will be able to build an interconnected digital learning web — a personal library with personal connections to the materials. This promise is not unique to the iBook2, but the iBook2 helps people think about these possibilities.

Apple has a deservedly good reputation for designs that serve the individual user. The unknown in the academic environment is whether larger entities (classes, schools, state systems) can benefit in the same way that an individual pursuing individual learning/reading needs can. Costs, technical support and teacher and student training all need to be addressed.

Bottom line, the iBook2 offers an engaging glimpse into the realm of the possible. To deliver on the promise, it will have to evolve toward more open standards and institutions will need to think about technical support, faculty and student training and use policies. I’m glad the Apple announcement has generated such interest; we can expect accelerated improvements from Amazon’s Kindle/Fire, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, Kno, Inkling and a host of other competitors. The coming year will be interesting.

Faculty & Staff, 2/2/12

February 1, 2012

Grants

Ginny Bumgardner, Research Education and Surgery, Comprehensive Transplant Center, and colleagues received a $1.5 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to study the formation and regulation of alloantibodies after a patient receives a transplant. Alloantibodies are proteins produced naturally in response to antigens from donors and allow the body to gain immunity against the foreign molecules. The scientists are studying CD8T cells and want to understand how these cells regulate the development of alloantibodies through the interaction with B and/or NKT cells. The research is important to developing strategies and therapeutics to preserve graft function after transplant.

Sudhir Sastry, Food, Agricultural and Biological Engineering, received a $492,444 grant from the USDA Agriculture and Food Research Initiative for “Control of Enzymatic Activity in Fruits and Vegetables Using Controlled-frequency Moderate Electric Fields.”

Robert Siston, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, received a a four-year, $1.134 million National Institutes of Health grant to study patient functionality and clinical outcomes following total knee replacement (also known as total knee arthroplasty, TKA), a common surgical procedure used to treat degenerative joint diseases such as osteoarthritis.

Kathy Cabe Trundle, Teaching and Learning, received $50,000 from the Battelle Endowment for Technology and Human Affairs for “Reaching for the Moon: Technology for At-Risk Preschool Children,” 2011.

Deanna Wilkinson, Human Development and Family Science, received $50,000 from the Ohio attorney general’s office to assess the impact of the Ohio Gun Policy and various trends and patterns associated with gun violence, 2011; and $48,650 from the Ohio attorney general’s office for “Assessing the Impact of Ohio Gun Policy: Trends and Patterns,” 2011.

Ronald Xu, Biomedical Engineering and Ophthalmology, received a $344,601 National Institutes of Health grant for “Multifunctional Microbubbles for Image-guided Epigenetic Therapy in Cancer,” with Michael Tweedle, Radiology, Tim Huang and Ruling Shen.

Yi Zhao, Biomedical Engineering and Ophthalmology, received a $199,999 grant from the National Science Foundation for enhancing nanotechnology courses in his department, with Ronald Xu, Biomedical Engineering and Ophthalmology, and Richard Hart, Biomedical Engineering. This project is to develop a laboratory course for biomedical engineering undergraduates which synergistically integrates discrete pieces of nanotechnology education in traditional engineering disciplines and offers hands-on experience to students in this highly multidisciplinary field.

Patents

Ching-Shih Chen, Dasheng Wang and Hao-Chieh Chiu, Medicinal Chemistry, and John Gunn and Larry Schlesinger, Microbial Infection and Immunity, issued Divisional US Patent No. 8,039,502 – “Anti-Infective Agents against Intracellular Pathogens,” Oct. 18.

Arthur Epstein, Physics and Chemistry, and L. James Lee, Chunmeng Lu and Nan-Rong Chiou, Chemial and Biomolecular Engineering, issued Utility US Patent No. 8,038,907 – “Aligned Nanostructured Polymers,” Oct. 18.

Yebo Li and Yuguang Zhou, Food, Agricultural and Biological Engineering, issued Utility US Patent No. 8,022,257 – “Methods for Producing Polyols Using Crude Glycerin,” Sept. 20.

James Stambuli, Chemistry, issued Utility US Patent No. 8,022,227 – “Method of Synthesizing 1H-Indazole Compounds,” Sept. 20.

Hua Wang and Hongliang Luo, Food Science and Technology, issued Utility US Patent No. 8,038,990 – “Compositions and Methods for the Prevention and Removal of Biofilms on Inert and Biological Surfaces,” Oct. 18.

Presentations

Elena Irwin, Agricultural, Environmental and Development Economics, presented “The Implications of the Housing Bust and Other Recent Trends for Urban, Suburban and Exurban Growth,” at the Department of Agricultural Economics, University of Georgia, Jan. 20, with Jill Clark, Agricultural, Environmental and Development Economics.

Jay Kandampully, Consumer Sciences, presented “An Afternoon with Professor Jay Kandampully,” at the Society of Consumer Affairs Professionals meeting, Columbus, summer 2011.

Julia Watson, Recruitment and Diversity in Arts and Sciences, Comparative Studies and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, presented “Life Writing, Gender and the Traffic in Authenticity,” at the Project Narrative Symposium on Feminist and Queer Narrative Theories, Columbus, May 14, with Sidonie Smith; and “The Cultural Work of Women’s Graphic Memoirs,” at the “Feminisms in a Transnational Perspective 2011: Women Narrating Their Lives and Actions” symposium, Dubrovnik, Croatia, May 24.

Chris Zirkle, Physical Activity and Educational Services, presented “Challenges of Career Education, Career Guidance and Counseling in High Schools and Careers of Students: The United States Perspective,” at the International Intensive Workshop on Career Guidance and Education of High School Students in Six Countries, Nagoya University, Japan, July 20.

Publications

Joyce Chen, “Productive Efficiency and the Scope for Cooperation in Polygynous Households,” American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Vol. 94, No. 2 (January 2012), pp. 395-401, with Richard Akresh and Charity Moore; and “Dads, Disease and Death: Determinants of Daughter Discrimination,” Journal of Population Economics, Vol. 25, No. 1 (January 2012), pp. 119-49.

Rongxing (Ron) Li, Civil and Environmental Engineering and Geodetic Science, “Rigorous Photogrammetric Processing of HiRISE Stereo Imagery for Mars Topographic Mapping,” IEEE Transitions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, Vol. 49, No. 7 (2011), pp. 2558-72, with JuWon Hwangbo, Yunhang Chen and Kaichang Di, Civil and Environmental Engineering and Geodetic Science; “Origin of the Structure and Planform Shape of Small Impact Craters in Fractured Targets: Endurance Crater at Meridiani Planum, Mars,” Icarus, Vol. 211, No. 1 (2010), pp. 472-97, with W.A. Watters, J. Bell III, J. Grant, J.P. Grotzinger, A. Hayes, S.W. Squyres and M.T. Zuber; and “Constraints on the Geologic History of ‘Home Plate’ Materials Provided by Clast Morphology and Texture,” Journal of Geophysical Research-Planets, Vol. 115 (2010), E00F13, with R.A. Yingst, L. Crumpler, W.H. Farrand and P. de Souza.

Xuelian Meng, Civil, Environmental and Geodetic Engineering, “Detect Residential Buildings Directly from Lidar and Aerial Photographs through Object-oriented Land-use Classification,” Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing, Vol. 78, No. 1 (January 2012), pp. 35-44, with N. Currit, L. Wang and X. Yang.

Recognition

Colette Dollarhide, Physical Activity and Educational Services, co-authored “Professional Identity Development: A Grounded Theory of Transformational Tasks of New Counselors,” selected by the Association for Counselor Education and Supervision for its 2011 Publication in Counselor Education and Supervision Award, with Donna Gibson and Julie Moss.

Gerald Frankel, Materials Science and Engineering and the Fontana Corrosion Center, received the 2011 U.R. Evans Award from the Institute of Corrosion, at Electrochem 2011, a meeting of the Royal Society of Chemistry, Bath, England, Sept. 5. The award is given for outstanding international achievements in pure or applied corrosion science. The sword signifies the recipient’s fight against corrosion.

Joseph Kitzmiller, Pharmacology and Biomedical Engineering, is the recipient of a Translational Scholar Career Award in Pharmacogenomics and Personalized Medicine, a five-year award from the National Institutes of Health to support patient-centered research, with a focus on pharmacogenomics and personalized health care, with Wolfgang Sadee, Program in Pharmacogenomics, and Rebecca Jackson, Center for Clinical and Translational Science.

Seung-Ook Lee, Geography, is the recepient of this year’s OSU Presidential Fellowship. This fellowship recognizes outstanding scholarship and research ability, plus provides recipients with the opportunity to devote full time to their dissertation research. The Presidential Fellowship is the most competitive and prestigious scholarly recognition provided by the OSU Graduate School for full-time graduate students at OSU.

Juliana Pernik, Geography, has been appointed assistant director of the Center for Urban and Regional Analysis, winter 2012. She will focus on collaborations with state and local agencies.

James Pinchak, Physical Activity and Educational Services, received the Ambassador Award from the Ohio Association for Career and Technical Education for his prominence at the local, state, regional and national levels, 2011.

Scopas Poggo, African and African American Studies, received an Excellence in Diversity Awards at the inaugural Diversity Dinner, sponsored by Ohio State Mansfield’s Office of Multicultural Affairs.

David Porretta, Physical Activity and Educational Services, was inducted as a Fellow by the International Federation of Adapted Physical Activity in recognition of his scholarship and service to adapted physical activity around the world.

Cheryl Spires, OSU Extension, Family and Consumer Sciences, Maumee Valley EERA, was awarded a $500 Ohio Association of Extension Professionals professional improvement scholarship.

Guoqing Li, Chinese Studies Librarian

January 18, 2012

When is the Chinese New Year celebrated?

Chinese New Year, or Spring Festival, begins on the first day of the first month in the traditional Chinese calendar and ends with
the Lantern Festival, which is on the 15th day. Because the Chinese calendar is lunisolar, the Chinese New Year is often referred to as the “Lunar New Year.”

For 2012, the festival begins on Jan. 23.

Chinese New Year is considered a major holiday for the Chinese and observed in a number of countries and territories where a sizable Chinese population resides. In mainland China, the public holiday is seven days in total, including New Year’s Eve, the first two days and two weekends.

The Chinese communities in Columbus have celebrated this holiday for many years. Chinese Culture Link and Ohio Contemporary Chinese School along with more than 10 other organizations successfully had their fourth Ohio Chinese Festival at Westerville Central High School on Feb. 12. It was a family-friendly event with many forms of high-quality Chinese art performances, cultural exhibitions and demonstrations.

The 2012 Ohio Chinese Festival will be held at the same place on Feb. 4. The Chinese Students and Scholars Society at OSU also will have its 2012 Chinese Spring Festival Celebration Party on Jan. 21.

Why is this an important celebration in Chinese culture?

Chinese New Year is the most important social and economic holiday for the Chinese. Traditionally, the holiday was a time to honor household and heavenly deities as well as ancestors. It also was a time to bring family together for feasting.

Even with the popular adoption in China of the Western calendar in 1912, the Chinese continue to celebrate the traditional Chinese New Year, although in a shorter version with a new name — the Spring Festival.

Younger generations of Chinese now observe the holiday in a very different manner from their ancestors. For some young people, the holiday has evolved from an opportunity to renew family ties to a chance for relaxation from work.

What are some traditional practices of the Chinese New Year?

It is full of rich and colorful activities. Starting from the 23rd day of the previous lunar month, every family does a thorough house cleaning and purchases enough food for the festival period. Also, new clothes must be bought, especially for children.

Red scrolls with complementary poetic couplets are pasted at every gate. The Chinese character “Fu” is pasted on the center of the door and paper-cut pictures adorn windows.

Then there is the Chinese New Year’s Eve, a day when Chinese families gather for their annual reunion dinner, also known as Chú Xī or “Eve of the Passing Year.” Regarded as the most exciting event, especially to children during the festival, firecrackers are set off to bid farewell to the past year and welcome the New Year.

The indispensable food served during spring festival is the dumplings (Jiaozi).

On the first day of the festival in ancient times, younger people had to salute the elderly by kowtowing; today they salute them by offering good wishes. During the holiday period, people also pay New Year visits to their relatives and friends as a special way to express good wishes.

Chandran Kalyanam, Clinical Psychiatry

January 18, 2012

Chandran Kalyanam is an assistant professor of Clinical Psychiatry and the medical director, Electroconvulsive Therapy.

What are your five favorite books and why?

Among many favorites, these come to mind now:

My Antonia by Willa Cather. I enjoyed the story itself, the writing style and learning about the Plains states in yesteryear. If I knew that my then-girlfriend did not share my view of this fine book, she might not have become my wife.

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. The power of his magnum opus and the metaphor of “invisibility” still amaze me. Attesting to his skill as a writer, Ellison accomplished a significant feat in keeping the narrator anonymous throughout this substantial book.

Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy. I love Hardy’s ability to develop characters and immerse the reader into the setting. When Somerset Maugham read Tess, he concluded that he must marry a milkmaid.

Swami and Friends by R.K. Narayan. No one has portrayed traditional South Indian life in such a gentle, witty and engaging manner. Thank God that Graham Greene saw Narayan’s promise and advocated a wider publication.

Burmese Days by George Orwell. Although Animal Farm and 1984 are more popular, this book deserves attention. Orwell was unique in championing the individual facing larger oppressive systems, including imperialism and Big Brother.

What is the last book you’ve bought?

A Billion Wicked Thoughts by Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam. A fascinating book about desire and sexuality, based on actual data from the Internet. An excellent companion to Christopher Ryan’s Sex at Dawn, also an academically informed book about the history of sex.

What “important book” have you not read and why haven’t you read it?

From the 20th century, I would love to take on the triumvirate thick books of Joyce’s Ulysses, Musil’s The Man Without Qualities and Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past. I lack that leisure of mind and time right now.

What classic novel disappointed you?

I am highly indebted to Pierre Ryckmans (pen name, Simon Leys) who observed rightly that reading for pleasure should be for pleasure and not all books are for all people. That gave me permission to abandon books that just don’t work for me now, contrasting mandated reading for class. I loved many books that I read in class, but not all.

Faculty & Staff, 1/19/12

January 18, 2012

Books

Paul Granello, Physical Activity and Educational Services, Wellness Counseling, (Prentice Hall, 2011).

Rebecca Kantor and David Fernie, Teaching and Learning, coedited Educating Toddlers to Teachers: Learning to See and Influence the School and Peer Cultures of Classrooms, (Hampton Press, 2011), with
Samara Madrid.

Grants

Keith Gooch, Biomedical Engineering, received $294,000 from a National Science Foundation grant for “Collaborative Proposal: Active and Passive Mechanical Environments Interact to Regulate Cellular Structure and Function,” to support research on how cells respond to changes in their mechanical and cellular
environments.

James Gregory, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, received a $150,000 Young Investigator Award from the Army Research Office for his research project, “Time-Varying Compressible Dynamic Stall Mechanisms Due to Freestream Mach Oscillations.” The study of compressible dynamic stall will help helicopter manufacturers design rotor blades that enable higher speed flight, and provide weight savings for next-generation helicopters.

Dee Jepsen, Food, Agricultural and Biological Engineering, received a $61,000 grant from USDA Smith Lever Special Needs for Emergency Planning and Preparedness Education for “Agritourism Enterprises.”

Gonul Kaletunc, Food, Agricultural and Biological Engineering, received a $499,953 grant from the USDA Agriculture and Food Research Initiative for “Enhanced Stability and Targeted Delivery of Microencapsulated Anthocyanins for Improved Food Quality and Human Health,” with Mark Failla, Education and Human Ecology Research Office, Derek Hansford, Biomedical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering, and Monica Giusti, Food Science and Technology.

Giorgio Rizzoni, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Center for Automotive Research, received a $907,026 grant from the US Department of Energy Graduate Automotive Technology Education (GATE) Initiative Award program to fund projects to prepare a new generation of engineers to lead system integration projects in the following areas related to energy-efficient vehicles: efficient energy conversion, advanced energy storage, lightweight body and chassis systems and vehicle systems control, including vehicle-grid and vehicle-infrastructure connectivity.

Presentations

Charles Atkinson, Musicology, presented “Einstimmigkeit: Cradle of (Western) Musical Creativity,” for the international symposium “Monodien: Paradigmen instrumental begleiteten Sologesangs im Mittelalter und Barock,” Basel, Switzerland, under the aegis of the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, Dec. 1-3; and “The Anonymous Vaticanus in speculo,“ at the Institut für Musikforschung of the Universität Würzburg, Germany, Dec. 8.

Susan Bandy, Physical Activity and Educational Services, presented “Contemporary Literary Treatments of the Female Athlete: Vulnerability or Failure,” at the annual conference of the Sport Literature Association, University of Maine, Me., June 28.

Ada Demb, Educational Policy and Leadership, presented “Beginning Again in Mid-Career,” at the annual conference of the National Academic Advising Association (NACADA), Denver, Colo., Oct. 3.

Jonathan Fox, Consumer Sciences, gave the closing keynote address, “Helping Clients Turn Wealth into Utility,” at the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors core competency meetings, Columbus, July 21 and 22.

Belinda Gimbert, Educational Policy and Leadership, and Rebecca Parker, Project KNOTtT, presented “Integrating Technology for Professional Learning in Urban Schools,” at the National Summit on Great Teachers for Our City Schools, Denver, Colo., April 27-29.

Josh Hawley, Workforce Development and Education and Glenn School, presented “Strategic Human Resource Development Policy,” to the Human Resource Development faculty, Seoul National University, South Korea; and“Government’s Role in Competency Development for Human Resource Development,” at the Ministry of Labor 2011 HRD conference, Summer 2011.

Mo Yee Lee, Social Work, presented “Offering Integrative Health/Mental Health Practices in the Classroom: Increasing Access and Practice,” at the 15th Council on Social Work Education annual program meeting, Faculty Development Institute, Atlanta, Ga., Oct. 27-30, with S. Tebb, M. Napoli and P. Leung.

Dana Renga, French and Italian, gave two invited talks, “Mafia Movies: A Roundtable,” with 8 contributing authors of her edited volume, at the Calandra Institute, Queens College, Dec. 5; and “Mafia Woman in a Man’s World: Roberta Torre’s Angela,” at the CUNY Graduate Center, New York, Dec. 6.

Publications

David Benfield, Food Animal Health Research Program and Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center, “Chapter 24: Porcine Adenoviruses,” with Richard Hesse, pp. 392-95, and “Chapter 31: Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome Virus (Porcine Arterivirus),” with. S. Zimmerman, D.A. Benfield, S.A. Dee, M.P. Murtaugh, T. Stadejek, G.W. Stevenson and M. Torremorell, pp.461-86, Diseases of Swine, Tenth Edition, Eds. J.J. Zimmerman et al., (John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 2012).

Tim Berra, Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology, “Low Genetic Diversity in Nurseryfish, Kurtus gulliveri (Perciformes: Kurtidae) and an Appraisal of Its Breeding System Using Microsatellite Loci,” The Beagle, Records of the Museums and Art Galleries of the Northern Territory, Vol. 27 (2011), pp. 179-88, with J.A. Sommer, C. Li, J. Brozek, M.L. Bessert and G. Orti.

Terri Fisher, Psychology, “Sex on the Brain?: An Examination of Frequency of Sexual Cognitions as a Function of Gender, Erotophilia and Social Desirability,” Journal of Sex Research, Vol. 29 (2012) pp. 69-77, with Z.T. Moore and M. Pittenger.

Joseph Fiksel, Center for Resilience and Research and Integrated Systems Engineering, wrote “What is Sustainability?” on the National Association of Environmental Health and Safety Management website.

Charles Klopp, French and Italian, “Spazi femminili, spazi maschili, e spazi infantili nel Conservatorio di Santa Teresa di Romano Bilenchi,” Guida, Patrizia and Giovanna Scianatico, Eds. Saggi di letteratura italiana, (Lecce, Italy: PensaMultimedia, 2011) , pp. 253-61.

Rongxing (Ron) Li, Civil and Environmental Engineering and Geodetic Science, presented “LASOIS: Enhancing the Spatial Orientation Capabilities of Astronauts on the Lunar Surface,” at the 8th symposium on the Role of the Vestibular Organs in Space Exploration, Houston, Texas, April 8-10; and “Development of a Lunar Astronaut Spatial Orientation and Information System,” and the 18th IAA Humans in Space Symposium, Houston, Texas, April 11-15, both with Alper Yilmaz, Civil and Environmental Engineering and Geodetic Science, and Shaojun He, Boris Skopljak, Xuelian Meng, Jinwei Jiang, M.S. Banks and C. Oman.

Mark Partridge, Agricultural, Environmental and Development Economics, recently released a policy brief, “The Economic Value of Shale Natural Gas in Ohio.” Various news sources reference the study including The Plain Dealer, Dayton Daily News, Youngstown Vindicator, and a headline story by the Columbus Dispatch, with Amanda Weinstein.

Aaron Zimmerman, Optometry, “Optimizing Vision for Athletes: Performance and Protection,” Refractive Eyecare, Vol.15, No. 11 (November 2011), pp. 5-7.

Recognition

Jill Clark, Agricultural, Environmental and Development Economics, received the College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Staff Advisory Council Innovation Award.

Susan Robb Jones, Educational Policy and Leadership, is the recipient of the University of Maryland’s College of Education Award for Outstanding Scholar, which honors UM alumni who have made significant contributions to published research in their field.

Danielle Marx-Scouras, French and Italian, was elected to a five-year term (2012-2017) on the executive committee of the Division on Twentieth-Century French Literature of the Modern Language Association.

Usha Menon, Nursing, has joined the Ohio State College of Nursing as vice dean and professor. Menon most recently held an appointment at the College of Nursing and Health Innovation at Arizona State University where she was the Pamela Kidd Distinguished Researcher Professor, co-director of the T32: Training in Health Disparities Science program, and former director of the Southwest Consortium for Health Promotion and Behavior Change.

Jared Miner, Exercise Science, received a first place for his dissertation poster, “Family Medicine Physician Views of Physical Activity and Exercise Counseling and Prescription; Responsibilities and Barriers,” at the American Academy of Family Physicians meeting, September 2011.

John Volakis, ElectroScience Laboratory, received the 2011 Chen-To Tai Distinguished Educator Award from the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society. Volakis was commended for exemplary contributions as a teacher and mentor, and for advancing electromagnetic technology.

Jin Wang, Electrical and Computer Engineering, received the 2011 IEEE Power Electronics Society Richard M. Bass Outstanding Young Power Electronics Engineer Award.

Service

Becky Cornett, Medical Center, has been selected to chair the planning committee for the Changing Healthcare Landscape Summit of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA), the scientific and professional association for over 160,000 members. Cornett has also been appointed chair of the Quality and Compliance Committee and a member of the Board of Directors Executive Committee of Lutheran Social Services of Central Ohio.

Faculty & Staff, 1/5/12

January 4, 2012

Books

Ben McCorkle, English, Rhetorical Delivery as Technological Discourse: A Cross-Historical Study (Carbondale and Edwardsville, Ill.: Southern Illinois University Press, 2012).

Kathryn Plank, University Center for the Advancement of Teaching, Across the Disciplines, Across the Academy (Sterling, Va.: Stylus Publishing, 2011).

Grants

Jill Clark, Agricultural Environmental and Development Economics and Center for Farmland Policy Innovation, has been awarded six grants to support community-based agricultural economic development planning projects in Ohio.

Belinda Gimbert, Educational Policy and Leadership, and Rebecca Parker, Center on Education and Training for Employment, were awarded a $10.3 million federal grant for KNOTtT 3.0 to prepare 1,100 college graduates and professionals to teach in high-need schools.

Traci Lepicki and Robert Mahlman, Center on Education and Training for Employment, received $23,064 to continue the Adult Basic Literacy Education Link (ABLELink) online conversion. The ABLELink site offers support and resources for individuals in post-secondary education, training and employment.

Carol Miller, Family and Consumer Sciences, OSU Extension, Top of Ohio, received $4,000 from the Marriage Resource Center of the Miami Valley project to provide money management education.

Presentations

Doug Haddix, Kiplinger Program in Public Affairs Journalism, presented hands-on Microsoft Access database training, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, Tenn., Oct. 21-23; and “Social Media for Journalists” and “Web for Watchdogs,” at Ryerson University, Toronto, during a Better Watchdog Workshop by Investigative Reporters and Editors, Nov. 5.

Sarah-Grace Heller, French and Italian,  presented “Georges Bernanos’ Journal d’un curé de campagne in its Contexts,” for the Friday Morning Series, St. Thomas More Newman Center, Nov. 4.

Rosemarie Jackson, International Affairs, presented “Exchange Visitor Advising Dilemmas” and “Changes in H-1B Regulations,” at the NAFSA: Association of International Educators regional conference, Louisville, Ky., Nov. 7.

Tomas Koontz, Environment and Natural Resources, presented “Top-down and Bottom-up Collaboration: Implementing Collaborative Watershed Management in Lower Saxony and Ohio,” at the symposium “The Limits of Collaborative Approaches to Environmental Governance: A Critical and Comparative Analysis,” the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Brisbane, Australia, via Skype, Dec. 19.

Mo Yee Lee, Social Work, presented “Offering Integrative Health/Mental Health Practices in the Classroom: Increasing Access and Practice,” with S. Tebb, M. Napoli and P. Leung, and “Re-envisioning Curriculum in the Context of 2008 EPAS: A Community Collaborative Approach,” with Tom Gregoire, Tamara Davis, Jennie Babcock and Lisa Durham, Social Work,  at the 15th annual Council on Social Work Education annual program meeting, Faculty Development Institute, Atlanta, Ga., Oct. 27-30.

Eric McConnell, Environment and Natural Resources, presented ”The Economic Impact of Ohio’s Forest Products Industry” and ”Asian Longhorned Beetle Basics,” at the Ohio Valley Lumber Drying Association Fall Meeting, Clarksville, Ind., Nov. 17.

Richard Morman, University Police, presented on best security practices for large stadiums, at the US Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance “Campus Security Roundtable.” Law Enforcement administrators from 10 universities that have large stadiums were invited to attend the roundtable.

Mark Partridge, Agricultural, Environmental and Development Economics, presented “Dwindling US Internal Migration: Evidence of a Spatial Equilibrium?” at the Rochester Institute of Technology, N.Y., Oct. 27.

David Rigney, Materials Science and Engineering, presented “Tribomaterial – a Key to Understanding and Controlling Friction and Wear,” at Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan, Oct. 24, at the international Tribology Conference, ITC 2011, Hiroshima, Japan, Oct. 31 and at the Institute for Metals Research, Shenyang, China, Nov. 7; “Tribochemistry and Tribomaterial”, at Tribochemistry Hagi 2011, Hagi, Japan, Oct. 26; “Comparisons of the Results of Experiments and MD Simulations of Sliding,” at the Tribology Simulation Symposium, ITC 2011, Hiroshima, Japan, Nov. 1; and was invited to speak on behalf of the international participants of ITC 2011 at an all-conference gathering on Nov. 2.

Brian Roe, Agricultural, Environmental and Development Economics, presented “Comparing the Risk Attitudes of US and German Farmers,” with Greg Howard, at the 2011 European Association of Agricultural Economists Congress, Zurich, Switzerland, Aug. 31.

Roger Williams, Environment and Natural Resources, presented an invited paper entitled ”Feasibility of Using Plantations, Logging Residues and Wood Wastes for Bioenergy – Cost and Scale Considerations,” at the BIT’s 1st annual World Congress on Environmental Bio-Technology, Dalian World EXPO Center, China, Oct. 19-22.

Carl Zulauf, Agricultural, Environmental and Development Economics, was a presenter at the Farm Foundation Forum, at the National Press Club, Washington, DC, Oct. 11.

Publications

John Bowzer, Konrad Dabrowski, Marta Jaroszewska, Kyle Ware and Karolina Kwasek, Environment and Natural Resources, “Evaluation of the Viability and Growth of Walleye Embryos and Larvae after Antiviral Iodine Treatment,” North American Journal of Aquaculture,
Vol. 73, No. 4 (2011), pp. 383-92.

J.T. Campbell, T.M. Koontz and J.E. Bonnell, Environment and Natural Resources, “Does Collaboration Promote Grass-roots Behavior Change? Farmer Adoption of Best Management Practices in Two Watersheds,” Society and Natural Resources, Vol. 24, No. 11 (2011), pp. 1127-41.

Becky Cornett and Tina Latimer, Medical Center, “Managing Hospital Readmissions:  An Overview of the Issues,” Journal of Health Care Compliance, Vol. 13, No. 6,  pp. 5-14.

Charles Klopp, French and Italian,  “Workshops of Creation, Filthy and Not: Collodi’s Pinocchio and Shelley’s Frankenstein,” Pinocchio, Puppets and Modernity: The Mechanical Body, ed. Katia Pizzi (London: Routledge, 2011), pp. 63-73.

Richard Meyer, Agricultural, Environmental and Development Economics, emeritus,  “Subsidies as an Instrument in Agricultural Finance: A Review,” a joint discussion paper with The World Bank, German Federal Ministry Of Economic Cooperation And Development, Food And Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, German Agency For International Cooperation, International Fund For Agriculture Development and the United Nations Capital Development Fund,
June 2011.

Stan Thompson, Agricultural, Environmental and Development Economics,  “Structural Change in European Calf Markets: Decoupling and the Blue Tongue Disease,” European Review of Agricultural Economics (2011), with Rico Ihle and Bernhard Brummer.

Roger Williams and Yuhua Tao, Environment and Natural Resources, “A Carbon Management Diagram for Oak-Hickory Forests in Southern Ohio,” Northern Journal of Applied Forestry, Vol. 28, No. 3 (2011), pp. 161-65.

Recognition

Martha Belury, Human Nutrition, was recognized in the Ohio State Alumni Magazine November-December 2011, for her role as co-author of a study that suggests that omega-3 reduces anxiety and inflammation, particularly in elderly and people at high risk for certain diseases.

Evelina Guirado Caceres, Center for Microbial Interface Biology, received a renewal for the Senior Research Training Fellowship award for her work titled “Looking for New Targets of Attack on an Old Dangerous Bug,” from the American Lung Association Research Awards Nationwide, 2011-12.

Janet Ciccone, Education and Human Ecology Advancement, received a Gold award and Honorable Mention for “Success for All Readers” and “No More Food Fights” at the 2011 MarCom international competition.

Harvey Graff, English, was a guest of the students and faculty in the School of Urban and Public Affairs at the University of Texas, Arlington, Dec. 5-6. He participated in several events organized around his 2008 book, The Dallas Myth: The Making and Unmaking of an American City, the urban programs’ and graduate students’ book of the year.

Elena Irwin, Agricultural, Environmental and Development Economics, has been appointed to the National Research Council Committee on Needs and Research Requirements for Land-Change Modeling.

Gemma McLuckie, Education and Human Ecology Advancement, received a Gold Award for “Peer Pressure” at the 2011 MarCom international competition.

Doug Southgate, Agricultral, Environmental and Development Economics, will serve as co-director of Ohio’s developing shale energy industry OSU Subsurface Energy Resource Center.

Michael Brandl, Fisher College of Business

January 4, 2012

What is the payroll tax?

In December 2010, President Obama signed the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization and Job Creation Act, which extended for one year the reduction in FICA payroll tax that began under the American Reform and Recovery Act of 2009, also known as “the stimulus bill.” Are you confused yet? You are not alone.

Here is the basic idea: The FICA tax (Federal Insurance Contribution Act) is a federal tax imposed on payrolls in order to fund Social Security and Medicare. Up until 2009, employers paid a tax of 6.2 percent of gross income on about the first $100,000 of income, while employees also paid a tax of 6.2 percent subject to the same cap. Funding of Medicare works the same way — employers paid a tax of 1.45 percent on income paid and employees also pay a tax of 1.45 percent, but there is on cap on Medicare earnings.

What is the use of a payroll tax in the economy?

The 2009 act temporarily reduced the employee Social Security tax rate to 4.2 percent down from the 6.2 percent rate. The goal of reducing the payroll tax paid by employees was to give employees more after-tax or tax-home pay. It was hoped that households would use this “extra” income to buy more goods and services and thus help to invigorate a morbid economy. Remember consumer spending makes up roughly 70 percent of the US economy — thus getting consumers to spend more is seen as an important step in getting the economy moving again.

But the temporary payroll tax reduction was set to expire at the end of the year unless it was extended by Congress and signed by the president. After a bitter partisan battle, the reduction has now been extended for another two months, setting up another round of debate in Congress at the end of February.

What are the disagreements over the use of a payroll tax?

The basic disagreement is over how to “pay” for the payroll tax reduction and how long it would last. The Senate wanted to pay for a one-year extension in the payroll tax cut by imposing a 1.9 percent surtax on incomes more than $1 million and increased fees on mortgages backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The House GOP members at first also wanted a one-year extension but they wanted it “paid for” with reductions in government spending, including reducing the number of federal government employees.

Due to the deep divisions in how to pay for a year-long extension, Congress finally agreed to the two-month extension that will be paid for by higher fees on government-guaranteed mortgages. So, the idea is during the next two months the Democrat-controlled Senate and GOP-controlled House can work out a longer payroll tax extension. If they cannot, payroll taxes will increase (by about $80 a month for an average family making $50,000 a year) and some fear this will reduce consumer spending and potentially push the economy back into a recession.

Other economists wonder if all of this talk about temporarily boosting consumer spending isn’t a case of focusing on the symptoms of the problems and not the causes of it. For example, economists have long worried about the misaligned incentives in our financial system, tax code and currency markets. It is these misaligned incentives that many economists see as the main cause of the global financial crisis that started in 2008.

But instead of addressing these bigger structural issues, the US Congress cannot seem to come to agreement over a temporary payroll tax reduction. One wonders when, or if, it will ever move on to the bigger issues our economy faces.

Pablo Tanguay, Department of English

January 4, 2012

Pablo Tanguay is an academic advisor in the English department and unofficial Poet Laureate of the Diversity Services Office in the College of Arts and Sciences.

What are your five favorite books and why?

The Basketball Diaries, Jim Carroll; Without Feathers, Woody Allen; One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez; Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie; and Ecclesiastes, possibly King Solomon.

Diaries was a revelation: You could be an athlete, druggie, hipster and poet, all before turning 16. Published in 1978 and recounting Carroll’s life from ages 12-16 in early 1960s NYC, The Basketball Diaries tore this San Francisco boy up. I must have been 15 when my mother (my mother!) passed a copy across the kitchen table. In the end, that thin volume cost me a decade of good citizenship, which doesn’t sound, I know, like much of an endorsement, but I still thank my lucky stars it wasn’t Atlas Shrugged that Mom passed along.

I discovered Woody Allen near the same time — also a gift from my mother. This one struck me as insanely different and far funnier than anything else I had read. In retrospect, I can’t possibly have understood Allen’s more sophisticated existential jokes, but what I remember most is jarring juxtapositions. “The Whore of Mensa,” for example, is the title of one of the collection’s more famous pieces.

One Hundred Years of Solitude. An almost miraculous thing happens as you read this book: Despite the dominant themes of loss and solitude, despite the depravity, duplicity and sinful lust, you are, because Garcia Marquez intertwines so naturally the real and the fantastical, transported to a kind of literary cloud, if such a thing is possible. Trust me, it’s as if Kafka had set The Trial in midair, spun it around and had included seven generations of incest and infighting — and made it all stunningly beautiful and also uproariously funny.

Midnight’s Children: see One Hundred Years of Solitude, 10 years later. Um…OMG.

Ecclesiastes may explain the other favorites, or maybe it’s the other way around: Maybe my exposure to Woody Allen led to my love of Ecclesiastes; certainly a title like One Hundred Years of Solitude had an effect. This relatively short Old Testament text not only explains us better than anything else, but the King James version also is, as importantly, the most perfectly-toned piece of writing under the sun.

Top 3 on 2, 12/8/11

December 7, 2011

Why did you choose to work at Ohio State? In addition to being a graphic designer, I’m also certified in Earth and Space Science Education. The unique opportunity to blend my two passions — art and science — at such a respected institution seemed like a no-brainer.

What do you like about your job? I love being part of the Buckeye Nation. Recently I was a chaperone on a high school trip to New York City, and during our tour of Rockefeller Center, the guide asked where our group was from. When he heard Ohio, his immediate response was, “O-H!” How cool is that?

What is the greatest life challenge you’ve overcome? I’m a recovering under-achiever. I spent years not doing what I said I was going to do because I saw myself failing before I even started. Now I keep a small sticky note taped to my computer monitor that reads, “The only way to find the right idea is to try the wrong one and see what happens.” It’s not a cure, but it does inspire me to take chances I might not otherwise.

How do you apply the ‘One University’ concept?
I spend a lot of time researching university related websites and publications to see if there are elements I can incorporate into projects I’m working on. For example, our college is in the process of redesigning all of its websites, and we’ll be employing the same main navigation method that’s used on osu.edu so that visitors have a consistent online experience. It’s a balancing act because each group, unit or organization wants its own identity, but there’s strength in unified messaging and appearance.

If you weren’t working at Ohio State, what would you rather be doing? I eat, sleep and breathe music, so I’d be employed in the music industry in some way. Maybe I’d have a job at the Paradise Rock Club in my favorite city, Boston. Just about any band that matters has performed there at one time or another.

Who is your hero? This will sound like a joke, but I’m being completely serious — Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She’s the first female protagonist who taught me that a woman doesn’t have to act like a man to be a hero.

What is your favorite activity outside of work? As a recent first-time homeowner, I’ve been spending a lot of time shopping for art to hang on the walls. I’d be happy to fill them from ceiling to floor, so I have to exercise some restraint.

What are you going to do when you retire? Some days I think I’d like to move to Panama or Costa Rica and grow my own coffee. Other days, a lakeside cabin on Lake  Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire sounds good.

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

Ohio State alumnus and Foundation director Keith Monda and his wife, Linda, have committed $5 million to The Ohio State University College of Arts and Sciences to create the Keith and Linda Monda International Experience Scholarships. Within five years, their new endowment will be providing 50 Arts and Sciences students every year with funds for an international experience as part of their degree program. The gift is in support of Ohio State’s comprehensive Fundraising campaign which is expected to launch publicly in the next year.

Monda, who retired in 2008 as president of Coach Inc., earned his bachelor’s and master’s in economics at Ohio State and attributes his success in business to his strong Arts and Sciences education. “Ohio State gave me the disciplined, analytical thinking skills to solve complex business problems,” he said. “If you learn how to think about things in the proper manner, you will use those skills throughout your career.”

Providing the opportunity to travel and experience first-hand the variety of viewpoints, cultures and languages outside of the United States is an important goal for the College of Arts and Sciences, according to Joe Steinmetz, executive dean and vice provost of the college. To that end, the college will contribute $75,000 annually to the Mondas’ scholarships.

“Keith and Linda have dedicated their lives to finding ways to make education and educational experiences accessible and affordable to all persons,” said Steinmetz. “Their extraordinary generosity will ensure that a vital part of a student’s education, the experience of studying abroad, will become a reality for many of our students who do not have the means to experience education and life in another country.”

Ohio State has focused on globalizing its curriculum to better prepare students and is in the top 20 nationally for the number of students studying abroad, according to the national Institute of International Education. In all, 1,945 Ohio State students participated in a study abroad experience during the 2009-10 school year. The average international experience costs $5,000-$7,000 — a cost that for many poses a hurdle. The Monda Scholarships are expected to average $6,000 for students who demonstrate need.

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