Contemporary Music Festival

By Jo McCulty Guest composer Lukas Foss, center, conducts a rehearsal Feb. 1 in preparation for the School of Music's Contemporary Music Festival, which took place on campus Feb. 1-4. Foss works with Ohio State musicians, left to right, William Conable, Jennifer Ferrian, Katherine Borst Jones and Michael Davis in Weigel Hall Auditorium.

Improvements in store for Ohio State's undergraduates

Fewer course close-outs, better-equipped classrooms, more effective advising and improved access to new technologies are in store for Ohio State's undergraduates if the University receives exemption from a 6 percent tuition cap as proposed in Gov. Bob Taft's state budget.

Senior administrators outlined to students Jan. 30 how tuition cap relief could make a substantial difference in undergraduates' Ohio State experience by funding initiatives proposed in the University's Academic Plan. Officials addressed almost 150 students at a town meeting in the Frank W. Hale Jr. Black Cultural Center that was sponsored by Undergraduate Student Government and the Residence Halls Advisory Council.

Responding to student concerns about increases in tuition, President William E. Kirwan assured that need-based financial aid would increase in line with tuition, and pledged that improvements for undergraduates would be the only items funded with revenues generated by the exemption. He also said that even with the higher increases, Ohio State's tuition will remain competitive with other public institutions in the state while enabling the University to significantly increase the value of undergraduate education.

Emphasizing that no qualified student would be turned away from Ohio State because of financial need, Kirwan also noted that tuition decreases at the University's regional campuses will coincide with the increases at the Columbus campus.

As proposed, the exemption would allow Ohio State to assess $144 more in annual tuition and fees -- in addition to the $263 generated by a standard 6 percent tuition increase -- for in-state undergraduates next academic year, resulting in an annual tuition of $4,790. This year's tuition is $4,383, which ranks eighth among Ohio's 13 state-supported four-year universities.

Ohio State has requested an exemption from the tuition cap for the next five or six years, and anticipates an overall tuition increase of about $800 per student over that time frame as a result of relief from the cap. The exemption, if approved by the General Assembly, is expected to produce about $30 million in revenues over a six-year period. Officials predict Ohio State's tuition at the end of the six-year period would move to fourth in the state, trailing the University of Cincinnati and Miami and Kent State universities.

Officials also noted that a proposed shift from quarters to semesters and revamping the General Education Curriculum would benefit students. Such changes would better align Ohio State with other institutions for study abroad, distance education, transfer and faculty/student exchange purposes, and create a core curriculum that more smoothly crosses the University's colleges.

A shift to semesters also would fit into the University's intensified efforts to attract high-ability minority students to Ohio State by simplifying transfers from other institutions on semester systems, said Edward J. Ray, executive vice president and provost.

Diversity remains high on the administration agenda, and creating a diverse community is one of the Academic Plan's six sweeping strategies. In response to some students who expressed concern about the campus climate for minorities and whether higher admission standards would affect diversity, Kirwan said, "This University is committed to goals of academic excellence and diversity. We would never sacrifice one for the other."

Added Martha Garland, vice provost and dean for undergraduate studies, "We want the whole student population to be diverse at every level, and we want students to graduate. We've had a good record of recruiting diverse freshman classes. We want sophomore, junior and senior classes to be as diverse as the freshman classes, and we want to see the graduation rate gap close."

Enhancements of retention efforts, including an intensive First Year Experience that integrates orientation, Welcome Week and survey course activities, and more direct enrollment of freshmen into their colleges are expected to increase chances of all students' success, Garland said.

Many current and upcoming initiatives are targeted at enhancing diversity, Ray noted. In addition to creating a more effective model of transferring students into Ohio State that will include scholarships for transfer students, the University is devoting additional funding to merit-based scholarships for minority freshmen. Ray added that plans are progressing for development of a Multicultural Center, and that new minors have been created in Latino/a studies and Asian-American studies.

"The curriculum ought to show the value of diversity, and we are encouraging colleges to broaden the curriculum as it relates to other cultures," he said, adding that plans to establish an Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in the Americas is likely to attract faculty and students who would further enrich the educational environment.

Improving the learning environment will be a factor in enhancing the overall educational and out-of-classroom experience, Ray said. He detailed the kinds of improvements students could expect from the tuition cap exemption: additional staffing in disciplines experiencing enrollment pressures, enhancements to classroom equipment and appearance, better technological access off campus, and the hiring of additional academic advisers to serve students.

"The side of the University that brings students here is working well," Garland said. "What we are doing now is developing even better ways to keep you here. We want success for all of you, and we are working very hard to make that happen."

Scientists identify gene for form of dwarfism

After a 10-year search, an international team of scientists has identified the gene responsible for the most common form of dwarfism. The team, led by Ohio State researchers and colleagues from Finland and Holland, reported their discovery in the latest issue of the journal Cell.

The finding should enable doctors to identify carriers of the genetic mutations, may lead to a better understanding of dwarfism generally, and may someday lead to a treatment for the disease.

Mutations in this gene cause a syndrome known as cartilage-hair hypoplasia, or CHH, a rare disease that occurs worldwide but is particularly prevalent in Finnish and Amish populations. Among the Amish, including those in Ohio and Pennsylvania, researchers estimate that one in 19 people carry the mutations, while among Finns, one in 76 are thought to carry them.

The syndrome has other abnormalities as well. These can include a greatly enlarged colon; immune deficiency and susceptibility to infections; and a predisposition to lymphoma and certain other cancers.

"Our finding is an important first step in understanding how this disease arises," said Albert de la Chapelle, senior author of the paper and director of Ohio State's Human Cancer Genetics Program.

The researchers traced the mutations to a gene known as RMRP, a result that came as an enormous surprise because of the nature of the gene.

The RMRP gene belongs to a class known as "untranslated genes." The product of the RMRP gene, a length of RNA, combines with several protein molecules to form an enzyme. The cell then uses that enzyme to process other molecules of RNA.

"This is the first time that an untranslated, nuclear gene has been found to cause a human disease," said de la Chapelle. "We spent several months proving that these mutations were linked to the disorder because we couldn't really believe it ourselves."

The researchers studied more than 100 CHH families and spent two years sequencing, or identifying, the DNA units, or base-pairs, to track down the gene responsible for the syndrome.

CHH is a recessive trait. That means two copies of the defective gene must be present in the fertilized egg for the disease to occur. When two people with mutated genes marry, they have a one-in-four chance that their child will have CHH. Exactly how the mutations in the RMRP gene cause CHH, however, is still unknown.

The syndrome is called cartilage-hair hypoplasia because it affects the growth plates of the cartilage, preventing normal bone growth. The word "hair" is included because affected people have hair that is fine, blond and very brittle, said de la Chapelle.

The Ohio State research team is now working to understand whether different mutations of the RMRP gene cause different degrees of the disease. They want to know, for example, whether some mutations are more likely to lead to cancer or to an immune deficiency.

The question is important because the severity of the disease varies strongly between patients and even within the same family. For example, de la Chapelle said, "siblings with the syndrome can be quite different in height, or one can have an absolutely normal immune system and the other can be seriously immune-compromised. In some cases, there are profound differences."

These variations can arise even though the siblings carry the same mutations in the RMRP gene. For these reasons, he said, "there must be modifying factors that influence the severity of the disease." The researchers suspect that other still unknown genes are also involved.

In addition, de la Chapelle's research team is working to better understand the biochemistry of the disease, what goes wrong at the molecular level, in the cell to cause the disease.

This work was supported through grants and support by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, Academy of Finland, the Ulla Hjelt Fund, Sigrid Juselius Foundation, March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation and Heslinki University.