Mosley-Thompson named to hall of fame

By EARLE HOLLAND, Research Communications

Ellen Mosley-Thompson, an internationally respected Ohio State researcher and expert on global climate change, was inducted into the Ohio Women's Hall of Fame Oct. 7 -- one of 11 Ohioans named for this honor by Gov. Bob Taft.

"These inductees exemplify the accomplishments of Ohio's women in diverse fields such as arts, business, science, activism and government. In honoring these women, we celebrate Ohio's strong and vibrant heritage and provide guidance and inspiration for future generations of Ohioans,"Taft said.

Ellen Mosley-Thompson

A Distinguished University Scholar and professor of geography, Mosley-Thompson is cofounder of the Ice Core Paleoclimatology Research Group at the university's Byrd Polar Research Center.

For more than a quarter-century, Mosley-Thompson and her colleagues have journeyed to remote ice fields on at least four continents to drill and retrieve ice cores, which contain a history of the world's climate extending back more than 100,000 years. Analyses of these cores provided proof of the extent of recent climate change on the planet and the connection between major recurring weather systems across the planet.

A pioneer in promoting the participation of women in remote field research areas, she has served as team leader on numerous ice core drilling and glaciological programs in Antarctica and Greenland. In 1986, she became the first woman to lead an ice core-drilling project to a remote field location on the East Antarctic Plateau. She is considered one of the premier paleoclimatologists in the world.

"After meeting the other honorees and hearing about their contributions and accomplishments, it was very humbling to be included among a group of such spectacular women who have generously contributed their time and talents to serve others and thereby improve conditions for humanity,"Mosley-Thompson said.

Along with her university teaching and research duties, Mosley-Thompson served on the National Research Council's committee on Environmental and Geophysical Data, and chaired the Committee on Glaciology under the NRC's Polar Research Board, as well as the National Science Foundation's Advisory Board for Polar Programs. For five years, she served on the National Academy of Sciences' Committee on Global Change.

By Kevin Fitzsimons Paul Hill, Jennifer Lange and Mike Olenick assist guest artists as they work on films and videos in the Wexner Center's art and technology studios.

Video/film artists at Wexner Center find space to create

By SUSAN WITTSTOCK, onCAMPUS staff

More than 150 Polaroid portraits of artists smile down from the walls in Jennifer Lange's Wexner Center for the Arts office. The artists, who hail from all across the United States and parts of Europe, earned their place on the portrait wall by working on a film, video or documentary while in residency in the Wexner Center's art and technology studios.

"An old teacher of mine used to say that (in scripture), 'Where you see a well, you have to pay attention; good things happen at wells.' The Wexner Center is a well for creative works,"said Erik Anjou, who is at the center to edit a documentary on Jewish liturgical music in Brooklyn.

Nearly 250 artists have made use of the "well"since the studios opened with the Wexner Center in 1989. If their applications are accepted (Lange oversees the selection process), artists are eligible for a residency that typically runs from one week to three, where, at no charge, they can use the center's state-of-the-art editing equipment and make use of staff expertise. They also have access to an Olentangy Village apartment for $5 a day. Artists are responsible only for their meals and their transportation to Columbus.

Lange, associate curator of media arts, shares her office with studio manager Paul Hill and studio editor Mike Olenick. Together, the trio helps each resident artist achieve the goal of creating a finished piece, doing everything from troubleshooting technical problems to scouting out filming locations to providing a sounding board for ideas. "When we commit to support a project, we commit to supporting it all the way through,"Lange said.

Art and technology is hidden away in a non-public wing on the Wexner Center's second floor. The space consists of the office, which overlooks College Road and the Oval; a small studio with an Avid digital, nonlinear video editing workstation; a large studio with two Avid workstations; and an office with a workstation equipped with Pro Tools software for digital audio production. The larger studio was originally built as a production studio -- the ceiling is a grid with spotlights hanging from it -- and can still be used as such when needed.

Olenick, a video artist and photographer, and Hill, a documentary filmmaker, work one-on-one as editors with artists, sometimes teaching them how to use the equipment. "Artists, especially younger emerging artists, have never worked on this equipment before,"Lange said. "Our editors are here as technicians and creative help."

Anjou chose to bring his own editor, Karlyn Michelson, with him to work on the Jewish liturgical documentary.

"I think filmmaking can be a very brutal process, both in terms of getting money to do your project and in finding a team of people who will be very honest with you as you develop your material,"Anjou said. "The people at this place know about film and have opinions that can help us do the work better."

Michelson agreed. "Generally when you work on a project you're in your own little world. It's been wonderful to be able to bounce ideas off of other minds,"she said. "It's almost like being in a little think tank."

A cut of Anjou's documentary, which has a working title of Chazz'n: A Cantor's Tale, will be shown in the Film/Video Theater as part of the Melton Center's matinee series in February.

The opportunity to work with so many talented artists is one of the best aspects of her job, Lange said. "Every day is new."

She recounted an artist from Barcelona, Spain, MartÌ Anson, who wanted to create an homage to the film, Paris, Texas. Unlike many artists, who arrive with material already filmed, Anson planned to do his filming while in Ohio. Lange scouted quiet, country roads near Circleville for him, and located a railroad crossing that fit his specifications. When Anson arrived last May, Lange, Olenick and Hill all pitched in during the filming process. (Olenick stars in the film with Lange's husband, Alex Thompson, assistant professor of political science at Ohio State.) "MartÌ was really pleased with the results,"Lange said. "It's now being shown at a prestigious gallery in Barcelona."

Works are created in any number of styles. New Yorker Matthew Weinstein, in residency at the same time as Anjou, is working on an experimental narrative piece that makes use of animation about three people trapped inside each other's dreams. Matthew Moorman of Columbus created a short shadow puppet video featuring barnyard animals who successfully build a mountain in Columbus. He filmed Columbus Needs A Mountain in the large studio. Yvonne Welbon of Chicago edited a documentary about African American women moviemakers, Sisters in Cinema, which was screened this month in the Film/Video Theater as part of a film series of the same name. (The series concludes with three films selected by Welbon at 7 p.m. Oct. 30.)

Each year, the Wexner Center screens a few of the videos, sometimes inviting the artists to participate in a panel discussion or a lecture, but most are distributed elsewhere. They get shown at film and art festivals around the world and in galleries and museums, as well as on public television or on cable stations. Every time a film is shown, credit is given to the Wexner Center's Department of Media Arts for its support.

The center is one of the few places in the country that offers artists such extensive yet inexpensive access to high-quality digital editing equipment. "In that sense, we are widely known by the media arts community and filmmakers and videomakers as providing a valuable service,"Lange said. Last year, the program was recognized as an outstanding organization by the National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture.

Up to three artists can be in residence at once. The center also is a certified Avid training facility, so some or all of the workstations are sometimes used for instruction. The Avid courses, taught by Hill and a local freelance editor, are taken by industry professionals and help offset some of the operating costs. Funding also is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ohio Arts Council and the Wexner Center Foundation, among others.

The Wexner Center's Media Arts department also gives an annual cash award, the Media Arts Residency, to an outstanding artist who is asked to participate in a number of public events while in residence to create a new work. Sadie Benning is the 2004 recipient and will give a public lecture Feb. 28, 2004, in conjunction with a month-long retrospective of her films.

Benning's photo is already up on the wall in Lange's office from a previous residency to create Flat Is Beautiful, an experimental film with animated sequences that was screened at the 2002 Whitney Biennale in New York.

Lange looks forward to welcoming Benning back to the Wexner Center and seeing her next project take shape. "I love having the opportunity to see a work evolve,"Lange said. "That's what makes this place so much fun to work in. You get to watch the work in progress."

Veterinary students teach proper care for dogs

Inmate handler program part of college's outreach efforts

By KRISTINE MCCOMIS, Veterinary Hospital Information Services
and SHANNON WINGARD, Media Relations

Third-year students in Ohio State's College of Veterinary Medicine are using their expertise on health, grooming and nutrition to help inmates taking part in a dog obedience-training program to properly care for their pets.

Initiated in February 2002, the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections program in Orient allows inmates to train dogs received from rescue groups and animal welfare agencies. The inmates train the dogs in basic obedience commands over a 10-12 week period, and the dogs then return to the agencies for adoption.

Each month, Charles Neer, clinical associate veterinarian at Ohio State, accompanies two veterinary students to Orient, where they meet with the inmates and their dogs to discuss medical topics ranging from basic first aid, nutrition, parasites, allergies and dental disease. In September, Neer and the Ohio State students began providing the same service for program participants at the London Correctional Facility.

All of the handlers at Orient have been through an initial screening process with the unit manager in the program. After the initial screening, inmates are required to interview with the dog committee and explain why they want to be in the program, if they have had dogs in the past, and how they feel about dogs in general. If they successfully complete the interview, they participate in a 10-week dog course. Once the initial course work is completed, the inmates first work as an alternate, and after demonstrating their commitment to the program and the dogs, they will have the opportunity to become primary handlers.

Neer said the inmates can ask the veterinary students any questions they may have about caring for their dogs.

"I have never seen such a captive audience,"he said. "They want to know everything about caring for their pets. It is really a win-win situation -- the students get to share their expertise with the public and the program's participants receive guidance on how to take care of their pets."

Angela Hill, public information officer for the Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections program in Orient, said "the program not only saves the lives of stray or abused animals, but creates men who will re-enter society with a comprehensive understanding of pet ownership. This is all tempered with the natural growth of empathy for living beings, the ability to give and receive unconditional love, a respect for life and the respect for boundaries that we all encounter as productive citizens."

On the same day as their visits to the correctional facilities, the senior veterinary students teach bite prevention to elementary students at a local school and volunteer at a shelter to give homeless people food for their pets and to teach them how to take care of them.

A part of their Veterinary Preventive Medicine senior rotation, veterinary students appreciate the practical experience that outreach provides. Recent veterinary graduate Courtney Farr said, "I think this field experience should be made available to more people because it is so encouraging and rewarding."

News briefs

Knowlton hosts digital library

The Knowlton School of Architecture has released its new online Digital Library, a database with thousands of images that can be accessed in seconds using powerful search and browse tools. Faculty and students can access and download images and multimedia files for use in research, study or teaching. Broad areas of the collection also are available to the public. Among other features, the library includes more than 4,200 images, with new images added daily; works from prehistoric cave paintings through cutting-edge, computer-generated designs; parks, gardens, drawings, sculpture, paintings, models, buildings, city plans and more. The library is part of a campuswide effort to link digital resources at OSU, including collections at the History of Art Visual Resources Library and the Huntington Archive.

Arson investigation renewed

A new poster seeking information leading to the arrest and prosecution of any individual responsible for setting a fatal house fire on East 17th Avenue was unveiled Oct. 16. The fire, which occurred April 13, resulted in the deaths of five college students. The poster is part of a renewed campaign to urge people who may have information on the fire to come forward. The university is collaborating with FBI investigators and Columbus fire and police departments on the project. The poster will be widely distributed in the campus area and at other local colleges and universities. Anyone with information is urged to contact Crime Stoppers at 645-8477. Tips may be left anonymously. A reward fund up to $35,000 is available for information that leads to an arrest and conviction.

IBMR undergoes change in status

The Institute for Behavioral Medicine Research (IBMR) became the College of Medicine and Public Health's newest institute on Oct. 1.

The IBMR is a multidisciplinary research program designed to expand and stimulate interdisciplinary research in a new field of medicine known as psychoneuroimmunology (PNI). PNI studies interactions between the central nervous system, the endocrine system and the immune system and how stress and other behavioral factors modifiy those interactions to affect health. The IBMR includes the Center for Stress and Wound Healing, one of only five National Institutes of Health mind-body medicine centers in the nation. Currently, institute investigators have more than $45 million in research funding and have obtained four program-project and center grants since 1987.

The IBMR currently includes 13 faculty in the College of Medicine, College of Dentistry, College of Social and Behavioral Sciences and College of Biological Sciences.

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