Detour ahead

Awareness campaign will steer campus through intense period of construction

As part of Ohio State's ongoing enhancement of the academic environment, the University is preparing to enter a period of significant building improvement marked by a wave of new construction projects.

Projects set to begin this year or early 2003 include new facilities for the Knowlton School of Architecture and the Department of Physics; the Ross Heart Hospital and nearby Hospitals garage; Larkins Hall and a nearby Neil Avenue garage; and replacement of the Woody Hayes Drive bridge. Ohio State also will play a role in construction of two new ramps from state Route 315 to improve access to the Medical Center. Simultaneously, the city and county will begin the widening of Lane Avenue and replacement of the Lane Avenue bridge.

"Many of these projects make a significant impact on buildings that have been a deferred maintenance problem for years," said University Architect Jill Morelli. For example, the new school of architecture facility will necessitate the demolition of Ives Hall and empty Brown Hall. Brown Hall will then be assessed for remodeling or demolition.

During this extended period of construction, detours and traffic delays will be inevitable; perhaps the most highly anticipated is the closing of the Lane Avenue bridge for one year beginning after the final home football game in 2002. During that project, University traffic will be detoured to Woody Hayes Drive; at the same time, the Woody Hayes Drive bridge will be open, but under construction.

In addition, surface parking spaces will be temporarily or permanently displaced.

"The good news is that two of these construction projects going on top of surface parking lots are garages," said Sarah Blouch, director of Transportation and Parking Services.

She said two new garages will open in January 2004. A Neil Avenue garage, located on the southern edge of the new Larkins Hall project, will provide 650 new spaces (a net gain of 500 spaces); while a Hospitals garage, located in front of Rhodes Hall and next to the planned new Heart Hospital, will provide 975 new spaces (a net gain of 600 spaces).

To ensure that the campus remains fully operational, safe and attractive during construction, the University is launching a campaign designed to raise awareness and educate the University community and its visitors about traffic flow and parking availability. Toward that goal, a new Web site has been launched to keep people informed of traffic and parking changes.

The Web site will include an interactive map that will track construction projects over the next few years. To access the map, visit http://map.physfac.ohio-state.edu/ and click on "Construction Awareness." Additional information can be found on the Transportation and Parking Web site at www.tp.ohio-state.edu, under the "Construction" button.

Additionally, a Construction Awareness Steering Committee of representatives from various units across campus has been meeting for months and developing an extensive communications plan that will include e-mail messages, advertisements, news articles and signs. A "Time and Change" logo designed by University Marketing Communications will accompany the messages.

A "Time and Change" logo designed by University Marketing Communications will accompany awareness messages.

Members of the steering committee are: Molly Ranz Calhoun, Student Affairs; Sarah Blouch and Beth Kelley, Transportation and Parking; Bill Mifsud and Ralph Hudson, Health Sciences; Patrick Maughan, University Security Services; Ron Michalec, University Police; Chuck Hamilton and Laura Shinn, Facilities Planning and Development; Karen Patterson, University Relations; Paul Sherwood, University Engineer's Office; and Tim Swauger, city of Columbus Traffic and Engineering.

The steering committee is being advised by a Construction Awareness Advisory Committee of representatives from many departments, offices and organizations on campus, along with representatives from police, fire and transportation divisions from the city of Columbus.

Major issues under study are how the construction will affect driving, parking and pedestrian traffic, Blouch said.

"Collectively, we made it quite clear that in every project there is to be a clear path provided for pedestrians," Blouch said.

L. Scott Lissner, ADA coordinator and a member of the Construction Awareness Advisory Committee, will help ensure that accessible routes that meet ADA specifications will be maintained for those with disabilities throughout the construction cycle.

While the Ohio Stadium renovation project may have served as a preview of approaching construction at the University, it was no match for what is in store through 2004.

"The stadium project looked big to a lot of people, but day to day, it didn't impact the whole of the campus during construction," Morelli said.

By autumn quarter, approximately the same number of construction workers involved in the stadium project -- 650 -- will be scattered at various sites across campus.

"There are going to be clusters of work that will be very intense at times," Morelli said.

Throughout this construction cycle, the Office of Facilities Planning and Development and the construction committees will continue to meet and work to address such issues as limited access to construction sites; parking for the University community and construction workers; and pedestrian and bicycle traffic throughout campus.

Already, construction work is under way. Construction of a new Life Sciences building near the Botany and Zoology building began in September, while graduate and professional student housing is being built on south campus. In preparation for the Lane Avenue bridge expansion, a temporary pedestrian footbridge across the Olentangy River is being built and the north half of the north Riverbank parking lot is being used for construction laydown. Alternate parking is encouraged at the Buckeye lots at the Jerome Schottenstein Center, with a shuttle service provided to main campus, and parking is available at many of the garages.

There will be disruptions and inconveniences over a long period of time, but there is a silver lining -- the two new parking structures and many new facilities that are badly needed.

"It takes a little pain to get to the gain," Morelli said.

Morelli said those returning to campus next autumn will notice significant changes.

A list of construction projects that will most substantially affect traffic and parking follows:

June-August 2002: Woody Hayes Drive resurfacing between Kenny Road and Herrick Drive. Woody Hayes Drive will be closed during the project. CABS and vehicular traffic will be detoured to Lane Avenue. Pedestrian traffic is not possible, so a new CABS stop will be created on Carmack Road to assist during construction.

June 2002-December 2003: Woody Hayes Drive bridge. The CABS stop will be relocated to the COTA stop by the St. John Arena loop. Approximately 55 parking spaces will be lost in the north Riverbank lot, and 131 "C" spaces will be lost in the south St. John Arena lot. Traffic will be maintained throughout the project, and is expected to be heavy because of the Lane Avenue bridge closure.

June 2002-March 2004: Knowlton School of Architecture. An accessible path is to be maintained from the Tuttle garage to the Fisher College of Business complex.

July 2002-Autumn 2004: Physics Research Building. All "A" parking spaces on 19th Avenue from Magruder Avenue to Hitchcock Hall will be removed when the project begins; pedestrian routes will change.

August 2002-October 2003: Hospitals garage. There will be a temporary loss of 375 visitor parking spaces and visitor/patient parking will be relocated to the 12th Avenue garage and the south Cannon garage. Traffic will be diverted to Belmont Street during construction and Perry Street will be closed. Perry will re-open at the end of the garage construction in a new location, east of the current Perry.

August 2002-August 2004: Ross Heart Hospital. Tenth Avenue will be fenced at the exit to the Rhodes Hall loop in early August; eastbound traffic will be rerouted to Neil Avenue while westbound traffic enters/exits off Cannon Drive.

October 2002-Spring 2003: Lane Avenue widening. Lane Avenue will be closed to vehicular traffic between Olentangy River Road and Tuttle Park Place until spring 2003; an estimated 300-400 parking spaces in the parking lots along Lane Avenue will be lost during construction; alternate parking will be available in the Buckeye lots and the Tuttle garage.

November 2002-December 2003: Lane Avenue bridge. While the bridge is closed, city traffic will be detoured north of Lane Avenue and University traffic will be detoured to Woody Hayes Drive.

September 2002-December 2003: Neil Avenue garage. There will be a loss of about 200 surface spaces in the Cunz Hall lot and added construction traffic on Neil Avenue; child care and some disability spaces will be relocated.

Early 2003-2004: state Route 315 ramps to Medical Center. While 600 parking spaces in the polo field lots will be lost, 1,000 are expected to remain; pedestrian and bike path traffic will be detoured.

OSU selects firm for presidential search

A.T. Kearney Inc., a national executive search firm, has been selected to assist in the effort to replace outgoing Ohio State President Brit Kirwan.

University Board of Trustees Chair James Patterson, who is also chair of the presidential search committee, said the firm was chosen because of its extensive experience in both higher education and executive searches.

"A.T. Kearney has been extremely successful identifying and recruiting proven leaders in higher education of the caliber we are seeking," Patterson said. "We are confident that their expertise, combined with the commitment and knowledge of our search committee members, will help us choose the right candidate for this challenging and exciting position."

The firm has recently been involved in searches for Duke University, Dartmouth College, Arizona State University, Georgetown University, Case Western Reserve University and Michigan State University, as well as the universities of Illinois, Kentucky, Louisville, Tennessee, Virginia and North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

Patterson said the firm would begin working on the search immediately. Professional fees will be based on one-third of the position's total first year cash compensation.

A.T. Kearney Inc. is based in Alexandria, Va., and is a subsidiary of EDS, a global technology company. The firm has two specialties: management consulting and executive search.

• In addition, the final name has been added to the search committee list of members. Soraya Rofagha will serve as one of three students on the committee. Rofagha, who is enrolled in the College of Medicine and Public Health, served as a student trustee while she was an undergraduate at Ohio State.

Book highlights ESL success stories

In her role as director of Ohio State's English as a Second Language Composition Program, Diane Belcher couldn't help but notice that so many of the materials related to ESL programs focus on the negative.

She and a colleague have set out to put a positive spin on the issue. Belcher is co-editor of Reflections on Multiliterate Lives, which shares the stories of 18 successful academics who are not native speakers of the language they function in academically.

"So often in our field, the research is focused on the problem-deficit approach," Belcher said. "Instead, we wanted to look at the accomplishments of second language users, and wanted them to tell their own stories."

Belcher edited the collection with Ulla Connor, a professor at Indiana University at Indianapolis. The book includes interviews conducted by Belcher and Connor as well as first-person narratives, and is divided into two sections: Part one profiles academics who are language specialists, and part two profiles academics in a variety of fields, including chemistry, agriculture and nursing. "It's one thing to be able to converse in everyday language, but to be able to do such advanced work in a language that isn't your native tongue is a remarkable achievement," Belcher said. "These are people who achieve things most people don't in their native language."

Robert A. Agunga is one of five Ohio State faculty profiled in the book. Agunga's education has taken him from a village school in rural Ghana to his current position as associate professor of human and community resource development. He also holds courtesy appointments in journalism and communication and African American and African studies.

The interview with Belcher helped Agunga to think back on his early language efforts.

"I have to give myself some credit for how far I've come," he said. "I was the first in my family to go to school and to make it this far. I feel it is a sense of accomplishment."

Agunga thinks Belcher's book will be helpful to language learners. "I think the angle was unique," he said. "We always have students on campus complaining about foreign graduate teaching associates or even faculty not speaking the language, and here's someone saying, ÔLet's look at those professors on campus who have achieved success and maybe look at what they did right, and see if we can help others coming in.'"

Agunga teaches magazine writing and production and is adviser to the AgriNaturalist, a student publication of the College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

Other Ohio State faculty profiled include: Anna Soter, associate professor of teaching and learning, who was born in Austria and moved to Australia at age 6; Ming-Daw Tsai, professor of chemistry, a native of Taiwan; Hooshang Hemami, professor of electrical engineering, a native of Iran; and Maria Julia, professor of social work, a native of Puerto Rico.

All of the Ohio State participants came to the United States as graduate students.

"It was still tough for them, even though they were very advanced students of English," Belcher said. "English really has become one of the most important international languages. In some fields, it's the language you have to use if you want to reach other chemists or engineers, even if you're living and working in China. In many ways, it's an unfair situation."

The academics she talked with had several commonalities, including a passion for reading and for life-long learning.

"When I asked them what they would advise students, many said, ÔThey need to become avid readers,'" Belcher said.

Belcher and Connor encouraged all of the contributors to talk about the conscious strategies they use. For chemistry professor Ming-Daw Tsai, it means writing 10 drafts for every paper.

"That's an indication of how much it matters to him," Belcher said.

The strategy has worked: Tsai has had 100 papers published.

Belcher hopes the book will serve to encourage and inspire teachers and students.

"I know it is already being used in grad-level classes in language theory and research. Faculty have chosen it because of the personal reflections Ñ they give students a lot of theory and research and they want students to see language acquisition from a learner's perspective," she said.

The book offers a chance to show off good writing, regardless of the authors' language backgrounds, Belcher said.

"It would be great if instructors could show samples of really good writing by non-native speakers. So often, examples written by non-native speakers are examples of what doesn't work. We wanted to show just how eloquent these individuals can be."

Language learning at OSU enters new era

Once upon a time, studying a language often meant waiting until college to take advanced classes, hitting the books, conversing in the classroom, graduating and forgetting it all.

Not anymore.

These days, it might mean hooking up your computer while still in high school to take lessons online, for starters. Then, in college, you'll likely participate in individual tutorials with faculty, consume television, radio and written news from the language's homeland, graduate and continue your studies for a lifetime by logging in to lessons online.

And now, instead of just the high school standards of French, Spanish, German and Latin, you can study languages like Mandarin Chinese, Russian and Arabic.

Ohio State is a leader in distance learning, individualized instruction and language learning practices that place the language squarely in the context of culture, and out of the sole realm of the classroom.

"At Ohio State we have a serious commitment to a functional use of language -- not only being able to speak and communicate in the language but also being able to understand the culture it functions in," said Diane W. Birckbichler, director of the Foreign Language Center.

Ohio State's foreign language programs -- the University currently offers nearly 40 languages -- are on the move, taking advantage of technological advancements to ensure that a new generation of students has access to the languages graduates will encounter in an increasingly global society.

The momentum includes the World Media and Culture Center, set to open in a renovated Hagerty Hall in 2004. The center will be a state-of-the-art facility, with video-data classrooms, hypermedia development labs, a video conferencing center, and gallery and exhibition space.

"We are moving forward with several grants, and have many outstanding programs already in place," Birckbichler said.

Recently, the World Media and Culture Center, with Ohio State's Institute for Chinese Studies, was awarded a $2 million Freeman Foundation grant that will support several initiatives in language instruction.

"With the grant, we're developing computer-based materials for self-study in Mandarin Chinese, combined with video conferencing," said Galal Walker, director of the National East Asian Languages Resource Center. "Our target is to make Chinese instruction available to students in schools and areas where instruction is not available."

The instruction will range from introductory to advanced, with the intention that it could be used by students prior to, during and after attending Ohio State as full-time students.

"I think that makes us different. There are language learning tutorials online, but they are in bits and pieces. Ours will be a whole program. There is nothing on the market close to what we're trying to do," Birckbichler said.

"We found with a language as difficult to learn as Chinese we need to offer a way to keep students in contact with the language after they leave the University," Walker added.

The grant also is being used to develop an Introduction to East Asian Cultures course, taught by Mark Bender, assistant professor of East Asian languages and cultures.

"This course will be made available at a number of junior colleges that don't have faculty with that kind of expertise and to high school students participating in the post-secondary enrollment option," Walker said. "In most cases, it's the first introduction to Eastern Asia culture for students. We consider it a very important course."

Ohio State has helped form a Foreign Language Coalition with other Ohio universities to collaborate when creating courses, and is in the early stages of developing online materials for Arabic and Japanese languages, using an Efficiency Challenge grant from the Ohio Board of Regents. Ohio University, Ohio State's partner on this grant, is developing materials in Swahili and Indonesian.

For several years now, the University has offered summer workshops to high school teachers of French on media literacy, media and technology, and is moving into similar workshops for Spanish this coming summer. "The high school teachers were very pleased with the course. They learned how to create a Web site and digitize audio clips and incorporate media clips into their Web sites. It's a very intensive two-week course every summer," Birckbichler said.

Getting students to interact with native media is a consistent theme in Ohio State's language instruction. "A real thrust here is to make sure students studying language at Ohio State will have the opportunity to study up to the level that they can understand and participate in the major media from that part of the world," Walker said.

A BETHA (Battelle Endowment for Technology and Human Affairs) grant awarded to the Foreign Language Center and the Office of International Education made Telemundo (Spanish), CCTV (Chinese) and TV5 (French) programming available on OSU cable, rounding out programming already offered by the International Channel's diverse programs and the German channel, Deutsche Welle.

The Crane Cafe, which will find a permanent home in the renovated Hagerty Hall but is currently operating in University Hall, gives students the chance to watch two large-screen televisions with satellite broadcasts from China, France, Germany and other countries while sipping on Starbucks from Oxley's on-the-Go.

One example of media use in the classroom is a course being developed by Jianqi Wang, assistant professor of East Asian language, literature and culture.

"Wang is developing materials for a course that will be based on a Chinese television program. The show's title translates to something like ÔTell it like it is,'" Walker said. "It is a program that has been one of the vehicles for starting and sustaining public discussion of ideas after the Chinese Cultural Revolution."

Language literacy is becoming increasingly important, Walker said. "A lot of people think foreign language is something you do to show off at a cocktail party, but it is so much more utilitarian than that. I have gotten calls from farmers who are interested in learning about communicating with Chinese and Japanese, because that part of the world is a major market for soy beans," he said. "Fifteen, even 10 years ago, to hear from a farmer who has some issues with language and culture would be worthy of note, but now it doesn't surprise me."

Distance learning can assist nontraditional students, such as farmers, pilots, executives or politicians, to develop language proficiency outside of the academic environment. "The freedom and flexibility it offers is very attractive," Birckbichler said.

Ohio State is working to keep ahead of the curve.

"Since Sept. 11, there has been a lot of publicity about American education falling short in the area of international education, and always trying to play catch-up after events have passed us by. Here, we were doing quality language instruction long before the crisis," Walker said. "The crisis brought into focus the urgency of what we're doing -- it has always had a sound social and academic value; now it may be a national imperative."

Slice of Nobel life

By Jo McCulty Eric Cornell presents the Smith Lecture in physics on May 7.

Young physics prize winner thrives on innovation

The May 7 Alpheus Smith Lecture began with an unabashed attempt by physics Nobelist Eric Cornell to recruit Ohio State students for graduate study at his home institution, the University of Colorado at Boulder.

"Consider the next hour an infomercial," he said.

In reality, Cornell had even larger goals. He hoped that the annual lecture, sponsored by the Department of Physics and the Graduate School, would not only draw people to the discipline, but also "give people who may never actually do science or technology a sense of what the enterprise is about, because it affects everybody."

He succeeded by giving the audience a slice-of-life view of the events that led to the 2001 Nobel he received for his work with Bose-Einstein condensates -- ultra-cold, unearthly materials that defy description as a solid, liquid or gas. Albert Einstein and colleague S.N. Bose hypothesized that such materials could exist back in 1925, but Cornell and physicists Carl Wieman and Wolfgang Ketterle were the first to actually create them in 1995, using lasers and magnetic fields.

Part of what led Cornell to a Nobel at the remarkably young age of 39 was the realization, just out of graduate school in 1990, that his preferred field of atomic physics was a highly competitive one. The area he found most interesting -- laser cooling, or using lasers to cool materials to very low temperatures -- had already become a booming enterprise.

"It was clear to me that if I wanted to make my mark in that field, I couldn't just work on new ways to use lasers to make things cold; I had to think of good things to do with cold stuff once you had it," he said. A postdoctoral position with Wieman at Colorado led to a permanent job, and the two undertook the challenge of creating a Bose-Einstein condensate just as Ketterle was doing the same thing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

But how do you convince a funding agency that you will be able to make a material that no one has been able to make in 70 years of trying?

"You don't," Cornell replied. "You convince them that if they let you try, along the way you're going to work on other technologies with desirable applications."

For instance, this revolutionary control of matter in the laboratory could lead to more precise time measurement, as well as techniques for building tiny devices for nanotechnology. Though Cornell considers the latter a far-off "pie-in-the-sky" application for the technology, he sees better time measurement as paying off in the short term, perhaps in five to 10 years. Satellite navigation, global positioning systems, the alignment of astronomical telescopes -- all depend on really precise time measurements, he explained.

The Smith Lecture began in 1960 and honors Alpheus Smith, former chair of Ohio State's Department of Physics and dean of the Graduate School. The lecture is funded by a gift from the Smith family, and is given yearly by physicists renowned not only for their scientific achievements but also for the ability to communicate their scientific breakthroughs to the general public. Of the Smith Lecturers, 17 have been Nobel Prize winners.