<< BackAbout Campus - Spring 2010
Overheard on Campus
In the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti, Gary Schwitzer, associate professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, interviewed two U professors about the ethics of physician-journalists reporting on their own delivery of health care to victims of the tragedy. Their responses appeared on MinnPost.com:
“It’s worse than self-promotion. It’s exploiting the suffering of Haitians for the PR goals of their employers. They should not be reporting on their own work. That’s a classic PR tactic: using humanitarian aid as a public relations device, in order to drive up ratings for their network.”
—Carl Elliott, professor in the University of Minnesota Center for Bioethics and the department of pediatrics
“The reporters who have been practicing well-televised drive-by medical care in Haiti are demonstrating an appalling abuse of medical and journalistic ethics. They justify this form of self-aggrandizement by its effect in mobilizing response for the larger disaster. The added value of their self-promotion goes largely unchallenged.”
—Steven Miles, professor in the University of Minnesota Center for Bioethics and the department of medicine
Dig This
The Gopher volleyball team finished the regular season in third place in the Big Ten but served up an unexpected post-season surge. In December the Gophers went all the way to St. Petersburg, Florida, and the national semifinals, where they fell to the No. 2-ranked Texas Longhorns. Even Coach Mike Hebert was surprised by the Gophers’ rise through the ranks. “In August, when we started, I didn’t think we would be here,” he said from St. Petersburg. “We thought next year would be our year to make it back here. However, this team proved me wrong.”
The Gophers’ march to the semifinals went through their home court, as the Sports Pavilion hosted one of the four NCAA regional finals. Playing to a full house of frenzied fans, the Gophers dominated Colorado State 3-0 and top-seeded Florida State 3-1 to advance. Among the challenges this year’s Gophers faced was the unexpected midseason departure of junior All–Big Ten outside hitter Brook Dieter, who left the team for personal reasons. Hebert termed her loss “anguishing” for the team. But, he said, as with other obstacles, players adapted and eventually excelled. “For me, it was a marvelous season watching young people take on challenges, fight through them, and come out victorious. We didn’t win the match against Texas, but I consider this team a winner.”
Junior middle blocker Lauren Gibbemeyer (left) and senior outside hitter Megan Wilson competed in the national semifinal match against Texas. Gibbemeyer was named a first-team All-American, and senior setter Taylor Carico earned third-team honors.
Photograph by Jerry Lee
COSE Call
The Institute of Technology will become the College of Science and Engineering on July 1. The change, which has been in the works since fall 2008, aims to better describe the combination of engineering, physical sciences, and mathematics disciplines within the college. Twelve departments and 24 research centers make up the college, which will use the acronym COSE. Members of the Dean’s Advisory Board will donate funds to cover the costs associated with the name change.
Dream On
What does the American Dream mean to current students? How does college debt play into their dreams? Is college even necessary to achieve the American Dream? Read students’ thoughts about these and other ideas in FLUX Magazine, produced by students in the magazine production class in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Copies are available at University of Minnesota Libraries, U bookstores, or on the FLUX Web site at www.changingamericandream.com.
Bridging the Digital Divide
Pick any essential task—applying for a job, going to school, or paying bills, for example—and chances are it involves computer technology. Access to and proficiency in computers and the Internet are increasingly a daily necessity for keeping pace economically, socially, and educationally. Trouble is, many of the people who most need access and proficiency don’t have them.
Efforts are under way at the U to help change that in targeted Twin Cities communities. In December the University, in partnership with 12 community organizations, received a $2.9 million federal stimulus grant to develop and improve 10 computer labs in low-income neighborhoods in Minneapolis and the Frogtown area of St. Paul—neighborhoods with high concentrations of low-income African Americans, Hmong, Latinos, Somalis, public housing residents, and seniors. The grant will also establish a new computer lab at Glendale Homes, a public housing site. The partners estimate that the project will create 36 new jobs and save 12 existing jobs in the computer labs.
That effort complements the Digital Divide Initiative (DDI), a program of the University’s Urban Research and Outreach/Engagement Center located in north Minneapolis. To date, it has distributed 500 donated and refurbished computers to low-income households. “We know that economically and educationally a lot of people in this area have been left behind. Helping them catch up is very important,” says DDI supervisor Ken Nelson.
Nelson says that a linchpin in the effort to get computers into homes is getting them into daycare centers. About 60 percent of urban children are in daycare, and the centers provide critical early learning opportunities. DDI has equipped nearly 100 daycare centers and other nonprofits with computers and provided training to their staffs. “Once we get daycare centers up to speed, the urban kids who go there at least see a computer—it becomes a part of the machinery of everyday life. Then we are able to reach out to the parents,” Nelson says.
DDI’s main program, a computer take-home workshop, provides hands-on learning about the fundamentals of hardware and software. At the end of the three-part workshop, participants take their computer home. DDI periodically provides free upgrades and further training. “We want people to go home and use the knowledge they’ve gained to improve their lives,” Nelson says.
—Cynthia Scott
Alyra Nicholson and Christopher Boykin, both 4, explore the computer at the Northside Child Development Center.
Photograph by Sher Stoneman
A Dozen New Confucius Classrooms
The Confucius Institute at the University of Minnesota has helped secure $500,000 in funding for Chinese language and culture instruction in 12 K-12 schools in Minnesota. The funding is through the “Confucius Classroom” initiative of the Confucius Institute Headquarters in Beijing, China.
With 885 million native speakers, Chinese has twice as many speakers as the next most widely spoken language in the world, English. At the urging of Governor Tim Pawlenty (B.A. ’83, J.D. ’86) following a trade mission to China in 2005, Minnesota launched an initiative to increase the number of Minnesota schools that teach Chinese. The Confucius Classroom initiative will enable some schools to offer Chinese for the first time, and allow others to expand current offerings.
The Confucius Institute at the University of Minnesota is a collaborative initiative between the University of Minnesota, the Hanban/Confucius Institute Headquarters, and Capital Normal University in Beijing.
Into the Marketplace
Technology transfer—taking innovations from the laboratory and classroom into the commercial marketplace—plays an increasingly critical role in funding higher education. Royalties from the license for the AIDS drug Ziagen, for example, which was developed at the U, have helped fund further drug research. In recent years the University of Minnesota Office of Technology Commercialization has worked to improve the technology transfer process, hiring experienced technology managers to evaluate an innovation’s commercial potential and calling on industry veterans to help guide fledgling companies. It appears as though those efforts have begun to pay off. In December Vice President for Research Tim Mulcahy reported to the Board of Regents that gross revenues from patent and licensing activity increased to $95 million in 2009, nearly 10 percent higher than in the previous year.
Among the 2009 successes: software that helps pharmacists and physicians better manage patients’ medications; next-generation clean energy technology; a drug that helps patients suffering massive blood loss stay alive long enough to reach a hospital; and software that helps drug companies test their therapies for Alzheimer’s disease earlier in the clinical process.