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The case for parking

November 4, 2011

Town hall is part of effort to make financing
efforts more transparent, less controversial

by Jeff McCallister

As President Gordon Gee ran down the list of austerity measures forced upon other public institutions of higher learning around the country, he made it clear he wasn’t making threats.

But the reality, he told the crowd at a town hall meeting Oct. 27 at Drinko Hall’s Saxbe Auditorium, is that Ohio State could very well be in that place if it continues down the same funding paths on which it has always tread.

Gee, along with Executive Vice President and Provost Joe Alutto and Senior Vice President for Business and Finance Geoff Chatas, stood before the town hall as a way to discuss some of the funding measures being considered - including the main topic on the minds of most in attendance: Parking.

Chatas sought, and has been granted, permission from the Board of Trustees to look into the possibility of leasing the management of Ohio State’s parking operations. With corporations looking for investment opportunities that are safer even than banks that now charge fees to hold large sums of cash, Chatas said Ohio State ought to be an attractive option for a 30- to 50-year investment.

For the most part, those at the town hall seemed to buy into the economic argument, but many remained both upset about the process to this point and concerned about the “corporatization” of the university.

But the senior leaders answered both of those concerns as well. Chatas described the committee that will produce the requirements demanded of an outside parking vender, with representation from faculty, administration, Student Life and the Board of Trustees. He said a website will go live sometime during the first part of November to let everyone know just where the process has progressed, and that at least one more town hall - geared toward students - will convene in the coming weeks. “We are committed to transparency in the process,” he said.

As to the “corporatization” concerns, Gee took umbrage at the assertion. “We are not a business in the traditional sense,” he said. “We are in the business of ideas. It’s my view that we became a company town, and this kind of plan is de-corporatizing the university, that our value system is actually being re-asserted.

“As president of your university, I have the responsibility to make sure everyone here is able to do their work. I have not done anything negative through the worst financial crisis of our lifetimes, and I do not want to be in the position of letting thousands of employees go like in California or making drastic cuts like in North Carolina or Texas or Wisconsin. I know that there are 48,000 people and their families here that I’m responsible for, and I can assure you I sleep very well about these types of decisions.”

Trustees appoint healthcare expert as Charter Trustee

November 2, 2011

Ohio State’s Board of Trustees, pending approval at its Nov. 4 meeting, will appoint Corbett Price as a Charter Trustee of the university for a three-year term beginning Nov. 5.

In announcing the appointment, board chair Leslie Wexner commented, “Corbett Price has been a devoted advocate for the university — for its Medical Center, for its broader academic mission and for its commitment to diversity. He brings a valuable professional experience in health care and hospital management to our board, and I look forward to working with him as we advance the university’s strategic goals.”

Price, who earned a master’s degree in health administration at Ohio State in 1975, is CEO of Kurron Capital LLC, a healthcare private equity firm. He also is chairman of Kurron & Co. Inc., a management consulting firm that manages healthcare companies in the US and abroad.

Earlier, he served in a senior capacity at HCA healthcare company, most recently as vice president and head of the Mid-Atlantic division where he personally directed the operational and financial activities of 25 healthcare business units — including hospitals, urgent care centers, physicians groups, elder homes and home health agencies.

He also has served as chairman and CEO of Health Risk Management, a multi-faceted healthcare services company that was comprised of a third-party claims administrator, a clinical decision software firm and two HMO companies consisting of 80,000 members.

Price has been deeply involved in service to Ohio State. He has provided the lead gift for endowing a professorship in Health Sciences Management and Policy. His interest in issues of diversity and inclusion inspired him to provide key support to establish the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race & Ethnicity at the university.

He has established scholarships and provided other financial assistance to African American and Hispanic American students studying healthcare management and created a scholarship in the Fisher College of Business to help recruit the best and brightest minority students to that college’s graduate programs.

In 2008, Price was honored with an Ohio State University Distinguished Service Award for his contributions to society and academics and his dedication to the university.

The position of Charter Trustee was established in 2009 to expand the board’s representation from diverse cultural, geographic, professional, public service and civic backgrounds. Charter Trustees are non-Ohio residents who are alumni or friends of the university and offer counsel and expertise to the board. Charter Trustees do not have voting privileges and cannot become officers, but they participate in all board activities including committee membership and committee voting privileges.

Price joins Charter Trustee Gilbert Cloyd, who was appointed in October 2009.

Compliance, Gee evaluation top agenda

The Ohio State Board of Trustees has a busy agenda for its Nov. 4 full meeting at Longaberger Alumni House.

After committee meetings that will include a review of the ongoing compliance examination and a tour of the Medical Center expansion site Nov. 3, the full agenda Friday will include President Gordon Gee’s performance evaluation, the approval of a new India Gateway office, among other agenda items. For the complete agenda, visit trustees.osu.edu/meeting-schedules/november-2011.html.

Researchers do gene therapy without a needle

November 2, 2011

By Pam Frost Gorder, Research Communications

For the first time, researchers have found a way to inject a precise dose of a gene therapy agent directly into a single living cell without a needle.

The technique uses electricity to “shoot” bits of therapeutic biomolecules through a tiny channel and into a cell in a fraction of a second.

L. James Lee and his colleagues describe the technique in Nature Nanotechnology, where they report successfully inserting specific doses of an anti-cancer gene into individual leukemia cells to kill them.

They have dubbed the method “nanochannel electroporation,” or NEP.

“NEP allows us to investigate how drugs and other biomolecules affect cell biology and genetic pathways at a level not achievable by any existing techniques,” said Lee, who is the Helen C. Kurtz Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and director of the NSF Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center for Affordable Nanoengineering of Polymeric Biomedical Devices at Ohio State.

There have long been ways to insert random amounts of biomaterial into bulk quantities of cells for gene therapy. And fine needles can inject specific amounts of material into large cells. But most human cells are too small for even the smallest needles to be of any use.

NEP gets around the problem by suspending a cell inside an electronic device with a reservoir of therapeutic agent nearby. Electrical pulses push the agent out of the reservoir and through a nanometer- (billionth of a meter) scale channel in the device, through the cell wall and into the cell. Researchers control the dose by adjusting the number of pulses and the width of the channel.

In prototype devices, they used individual strands of DNA as templates for the nanometer-sized channels.

Lee invented the technique for forming strands of DNA into precise patterns so that they could work as wires in biologically based electronics. But for this study, gold-coated DNA strands were stretched between two reservoirs and then etched away, in order to leave behind a nano-channel of precise dimensions connecting the reservoirs within the polymeric device.

Electrodes in the channels turn the device into a tiny circuit, and electrical pulses of a few hundred volts travel from the reservoir with the therapeutic agent through the nano-channel and into a second reservoir with the cell. This creates a strong electric field at the outlet of the nano-channel, which interacts with the cell’s natural electric charge to force open a hole in the cell membrane — one large enough to deliver the agent, but small enough not to kill the cell.

In tests, they were able to insert agents into cells in as little as a few milliseconds, or thousandths of a second.

First, they tagged bits of synthetic DNA with fluorescent molecules and used NEP to insert them into human immune cells. After a single 5-millisecond pulse, they began to see spots of fluorescence scattered within the cells. They tested different pulse lengths up to 60 milliseconds — which filled the cells with fluorescence.

To test whether NEP could deliver active therapeutic agents, they inserted bits of therapeutic RNA into leukemia cells. Pulses as short as 5 milliseconds delivered enough RNA to kill some of the cells. Longer pulses — approaching 10 milliseconds — killed almost all of them. They also inserted some harmless RNA into other leukemia cells for comparison, and those cells lived.

At the moment, the process is best suited for laboratory research, Lee said, because it only works on one cell or several cells at a time. But they are currently developing a mechanical cell-loading system that would inject up to 100,000 cells at once, which would potentially make clinical diagnostics and treatments possible.

“We hope that NEP could eventually become a tool for early cancer detection and treatment — for instance, inserting precise amounts of genes or proteins into stem cells or immune cells to guide their differentiation and changes — without the safety concerns caused by overdosing, and then placing the cells back in the body for cell-based therapy,” Lee added.

He sees potential applications for diagnosing and treating leukemia, lung cancer and other tumors. He’s working with researchers at Ohio State’s Comprehensive Cancer Center to explore those possibilities.

Breast Center renamed to honor Stefanie Spielman

November 2, 2011

The Comprehensive Breast Center at Ohio State has been renamed to honor one of its most tireless and visible patients.

President Gordon Gee announced the naming of the Stefanie Spielman Comprehensive Breast Center in honor of the late Ohio State alumna, philanthropist and advocate. The center is the only one of its kind in the Midwest to offer the full continuum of breast cancer care, from prevention and screening through detection, diagnosis and treatment.

The center is home to some of the nation’s leading breast cancer researchers and physicians, all singularly focused on preventing, detecting, treating and curing breast cancer.

“First and foremost, Stefanie made a difference in the lives of countless patients and their families in the fight against cancer,” Gee said. “She touched those struggling with their diagnosis and treatments, helping to make their worlds more comfortable, more optimistic and more affirmative. She possessed an uncommon combination of bravery, grace and compassion that continues to resonate through her remarkable legacy.”

Spielman graduated from OSU in 1989 with a journalism degree. During a self-examination at age 30, she discovered a lump that was diagnosed as cancer by doctors at the OSU Comprehensive Cancer Center – James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute.

Rather than focus on the diagnosis, Stefanie and her husband Chris, an All-American linebacker during his playing days at Ohio State, set out to raise money for breast cancer research at the James. In the first year, they raised more than $1 million, four times greater than their original goal. The Spielmans also raised awareness for the need for breast exams and early detection.

The Stefanie Spielman Funds (spielmanfund.com), including the Stefanie Spielman Fund for Breast Cancer Research, the Stefanie Spielman Fund for Patient Assistance, the Stefanie Spielman Chair in Cancer Imaging and the Spielman Breast Cancer Tissue Archive Services and Spielman Breast Cancer Tumor Bank, have raised more than $9.1 million.

Chris Spielman said he and his wife were motivated by the concept of “pay it forward,” an often-quoted adage of legendary Ohio State football coach Woody Hayes. “If you invest in the future of others, that investment is guaranteed to grow,” he said. “If you keep everything you have, all the services that you have, all the love, all the loyalty, all the good works within you, if you keep it, you lose it.”

Instructors use familiar tools to meet new challenges

October 19, 2011

by Elizabeth Ramos, Office of the CIO

Whether they’re developing an engaging introduction to an online class, reshaping a course from quarters to semesters or simply doing more with less, Ohio State instructors are finding new ways to capitalize on existing learning technology to serve their students in changing times.

In preparing for the semester switch, professors are looking for effective ways to restructure their courses not only to fit new timelines but to make the most of face-to-face instruction. In semesters, students will be taking around five classes at once, rather than three. With the space limitations semesters create from the higher demand for classrooms, some courses are going hybrid, introducing distance-learning elements.

“We’ve looked at ways to take elements of the course that took a lot of time in-class and put them online instead,” said Ola Ahlqvist, associate professor of Geography and course coordinator for Geography 200.

Ahlqvist and a team of instructors used Carmen as a primary element in redesigning the Geography 200 course. Watching videos, reading articles and taking weekly map quizzes used to take place in the classroom. By moving these activities to Carmen, they can make the most of their face time with students for reflection and interaction.

As more classes are going hybrid or fully online, instructors are working to make sure their students stay informed and engaged. Psychology lecturer Jacqueline von Spiegel tackled both course and Carmen orientation in her online class with one innovative solution: A treasure hunt.

“A part of the treasure hunt is a student characteristics survey,” von Spiegel said. “In this survey, 42 percent of the students responded that they learn best by actively participating, as compared to 28 percent and 29 percent preferring watching a video or reading, respectively.”

For this interactive exercise, von Spiegel offers clues which direct students to different parts of the Carmen site, and several areas of the General Psychology course material as well.

The clues are hidden so that the students need to complete activities such as reading the syllabus, watching an orientation video and navigating the Carmen course site in order to get to the next step. Each step gave access to more of the course content students would need, such as practice questions, lecture videos and quizzes.

“It is a big time investment up front to set it up, but since most of it is automated by Carmen, the time spent on it while the students are going through it is minimal,” von Spiegel said. “The great thing about that is that while I don’t have to spend a lot of time checking students’ progress, each student gets a sense of individual accomplishment and connection with the course on a personal level.”

By improving her process for online assessment, Chemistry lecturer Ruth Kinder presents another learning technology success story. Kinder has explored Carmen’s Desire2Learn quiz function and capitalized on its utility to automate the grading process, and not just for multiple-choice. This saves hours of manual grading and can still allow for flexibility with open-ended answers such as misspelling and partial credit.

With regular expressions she writes codes for flexible automatic scoring including short answers and fill-in-the-blanks. She also uses pre-placed general feedback which appears automatically and immediately upon submission. This general feedback enables the learner to correct misassumptions and to reinforce accurate information. This process recreates the assessment experience into an additional learning opportunity for all students.

“Effective feedback is much more than ‘right’ and ‘wrong,’” Kinder said. “An instructor can use their experience base and familiarity with the course content to pre-explain concepts and applications in feedback.”

Instructors looking to utilize Carmen and other Desire2Learn tools - whether it’s to improve an element of their course or consider a whole redesign - have plenty of resources.

To support the university’s Quarter-to-Semester project, the Office of the Chief information Officer’s Carmen team will be creating Semester Development course shells for each course in the new curricula. These course shells can be used by instructional staff to develop resources in Carmen before the actual Carmen course sites are available.

The Digital Union offers a myriad of workshops, many of which are targeted to help instructors synchronize their courses and the eLearning tools available. For more, visit ocio.osu.edu/elearning.

Courts likely will decide states’ preservation duty

October 19, 2011

Researchers suggest using public trust doctrine to ‘rescue’ wildlife from politics

by Emily Caldwell

When a species recovers enough to be removed from the federal endangered species list, the public trust doctrine - the principle that government must conserve natural resources for the public good - should guide state management of wildlife, scientists say.

In the Sept. 30 issue of the journal Science, the researchers note that the public trust doctrine holds that certain natural resources, including wildlife, have no owners and therefore belong to all citizens. So, they add, when federal statutory law no longer offers protection to a species, the public trust doctrine imposes upon states an obligation to conserve the species for their citizens.

The researchers cite the case of the gray wolf, which lost federal protection in the northern Rocky Mountains last spring under a rare Congressional legislative rider. This rider was passed after courts had reversed three previous US Fish and Wildlife Service attempts to delist the wolf in the region, which includes Idaho, Montana and parts of Oregon, Washington and Utah.

The merits of protecting gray wolves have been hotly debated for years in the northern Rocky Mountains, where public opinion varies considerably among livestock owners, hunters and wildlife advocates. Idaho and Montana have launched public hunts aimed at reducing wolf populations since federal protections were lifted.

Wolf advocates fear that heavy-handed “lethal management” of wolves could deplete the population so rapidly that the species will require federal protections again. Under the Endangered Species Act, the federal government monitors a species for at least five years after it is delisted, but state wildlife agencies take over management.

Lost in these bitter arguments is any attempt to clarify state agencies’ obligation to their citizens, said Jeremy Bruskotter, assistant professor in Ohio State’s School of Environment and Natural Resources and lead author of the Science paper.

The wildlife trust doctrine, a branch of the public trust doctrine, defines that obligation, the paper’s authors argue. The public trust doctrine has roots in ancient Roman and English common law, but its application to wildlife in the United States dates to the late 19th century. In an 1896 case, Geer vs. Connecticut, the US Supreme Court ruled that the wildlife trust doctrine imposed on states a duty “to enact such laws as will best preserve the subject of the trust and secure its beneficial use in the future to the people of the state.”

“If you recognize a wildlife trust doctrine, and that the state has the obligation to maintain these populations in perpetuity not just for current residents but for future residents, then there is a degree of protection for species in the absence of the statutory protection,” Bruskotter said.

The researchers note that natural resource agency professionals are likely to be aware that all wildlife are communally owned by each state, but western politicians’ open hostility toward this formerly protected species raises the question: What are states actually going to do?

“Some of the rhetoric about the killing of wolves might be political showmanship. But when they make exaggerated claims - for example, comparing wolf restoration to the resurrection of the T. rex, which was done in Utah - that adds layers of ambiguity and fear. Conservationists wonder if they will try to eliminate wolves and wonder if they can do it,” Bruskotter said. “But the public trust doctrine holds that if state politicians were to intervene to try to prevent the maintenance of a viable wolf population, they could be taken to court. There is a legal mechanism to prevent that type of action.”

While case law exists to define the reach of the public trust doctrine, additional case law would be beneficial to firmly establish states’ obligations in the management of species no longer covered by federal protection, the authors contend.

“If this obligation is going to be more than just understood, there will need to be case law established, which is going to require somebody to take things to court to see what those obligations are,” said Sherry Enzler, a co-author of the paper and a public trust scholar at the University of Minnesota.

“It’s not about protecting any particular species. It’s about how we ensure we have adequate protection for all imperiled species under state-led management,” Bruskotter said.

Bruskotter and Enzler co-authored the article with Adrian Treves of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

President Gee focuses on funding OSU’s rise to eminence

October 5, 2011

Even the president who claims to have been “born wearing rose-colored glasses” must bow to harsh reality every now and then.
And that reality, Gordon Gee told Ohio State faculty during his semi-annual address at the Ohio Union Oct. 4, is that funding for higher education will never return to previous levels — even when the economy improves.

Read the entire text of the speech or watch it here.

“Even an optimist must look squarely at the environment in which we operate and understand that in order for this institution to thrive, we must reinvent everything we do,” Gee said. “People are working very hard right now; that I know for certain. And so, it is not about ‘doing more with less.’ It is about acknowledging that we must seek fundamentally new ways to fund our core purposes, and we must re-shape and simplify ourselves to both make it easier to do what we need to do and to save time and resources in the process.

“I believe that today, this institution has the capacity to reconfigure itself for a sustainable future – one that can withstand any number of storms, any financial upheaval, and any transitory questioning about the value of higher education.”

High social status makes people more trusting

October 5, 2011

By Jeff Grabmeier, Research Communications

When you start a new job, your boss may be more likely to trust you than you are to trust him or her, a new study suggests.

The reason has to do with the role that social status plays in relationships.

In three separate experiments, researchers found that high-status people tended to trust people more in initial encounters than did people with lower status. One experiment showed why: High-status people rated others as more benevolent, which led them to trust more.

Continue reading ‘High social status makes people more trusting’

Antennas in your clothes?

September 21, 2011

New design could pave the way

By Pam Frost Gorder, Research Communications

The next generation of communications systems could be built with a sewing machine.

To make communications devices more reliable, Ohio State researchers are finding ways to incorporate radio antennas directly into clothing, using plastic film and metallic thread.

Continue reading ‘Antennas in your clothes?’

Researchers fight cholera with computer forecasting

September 21, 2011

By Pam Frost Gorder, Research Communications

Just as the rainy season is driving a new surge of cholera cases in Haiti, a new computational model could forecast where outbreaks are likely to occur.

Researchers at Ohio State University are working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on the project, in the hopes of targeting anti-cholera efforts where they are most needed in the earthquake-ravaged country.

Continue reading ‘Researchers fight cholera with computer forecasting’

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