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McGuire Retires in December At the end of the fall semester, Peter McGuire will retire after 32 years at Tech. Associate Dean of the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts for the past two and a half years, McGuire, hired in 1975 as a Professor of English, has seen the liberal arts college at Tech expand its unique role, both in its mission and its admissions. "Everything happens here because of the faculty committees and the foresight of Dean Rosser," McGuire said. "The college has grown through an extraordinarily strong faculty, which in turn will keep the school going and growing."
During his tenure, he has seen the student body evolve along with the college. He credits the unique liberal arts program with drawing a different kind of student. "We have remarkably bright, hardworking students. That is the And the college's growth has caught up with McGuire’s position, it seems. Instead of naming one replacement, IAC is seeking two candidates: an Associate Dean for undergraduate studies and an Assistant Dean for information technologies.
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Climate Change Triggers Wars and Population Decline In the November 19 edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Peter Brecke, Associate Professor, Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, reports that as temperatures decreased centuries ago during a period called the Little Ice Age, the number of wars increased, famine occurred, and the population declined. "Even though temperatures are increasing now, the same resulting conflicts may occur since we still greatly depend on the land as our food source," Brecke said. For his study, Brecke assembled a database of 4,500 wars and population worldwide. |
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New Hope for Old Fourth Ward In article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, November 14, Harley Etienne, Assistant Professor, joint appointment in the School of Public Policy and College of Architecture, states that cities across the nation have struggled with gentrification and preserving affordable housing with few success stories. In Atlanta, he thinks more affordable housing is unlikely in the Old Fourth Ward unless the city allows greater housing density there. The Old Fourth Ward is home to the Atlanta Civic Center, Atlanta Medical Center and the birthplace of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. "Given the Old Fourth Ward's location, I don't know how you can keep it affordable for long," said Etienne, referring to rising land values in the area. Currently, the neighborhood is a hodgepodge of large, two-story homes and shotgun houses, new lofts and old apartment buildings, quirky coffee shops and convenience stores with burglar bars. Excited by the Beltline - a proposed ring of transit, trails and parks around the city that supporters say will increase Atlanta's tax base by $20 billion over the next quarter-century - developers are rushing to the Old Fourth Ward. |
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English Class Focuses on Homelessness The School of Literature, Communication, and Culture (LCC) and the Institute Honors Program marked Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week, November 12-16, at Georgia Tech by constructing a full-sized Mad Houser hut, modular homes provided to the homeless by the Tech student-founded, non-profit organization, the Mad Housers, in the Skiles Courtyard. Hugh Crawford, Associate Professor, LCC and his honor's English class have been studying homelessness in America, paying particular attention to the work of the Atlanta-based Mad Housers group.
"Last summer was the 'summer of the carbon footprint,' so I decided to have the class based on homes and living spaces," Crawford said. In addition to research on homelessness in general, the class has been archiving newspaper articles and photographs, conducting audio and video interviews with Mad Houser clients and with current and former members of the group, as well as participating in building some of the shelters. Students hope their work will provide a central archive for helping people to understand the goals and activities of this charitable group. |
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Ramblin' Wreck Invitational Mock Trial Tournament Returns to Atlanta  After months traveling around the country, the School of Public Policy Pre-Law Mock Trial program returns to present the Ramblin' Wreck Mock Trial Tournament at the Georgia Tech College of Management, January 26-27. The 24-team invitational will include schools from seven different states and the District of Columbia. Georgia Tech's team has consistently placed among the nation's best, qualifying for the national championship tournament in each of the past four years and earning 14 top-five finishes in invitational, regional, and national tournaments over the same time frame. Any attorney or law student interested in judging at the invitational should contact Casey Doyle at cdoyle@gatech.edu. No previous mock trial experience is required. |
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LCC Demo Day Showcases Innovation in New Media “Demo Day is always a delight because we get to see the extraordinary creativity of our students and faculty. Each year demo day expands into new areas: This year, students are including work with mobile devices while continuing their exceptional efforts in interactive games and other areas” stated Janet Murray, Professor and Director of Graduate Studies, LCC. More than 30 displays showcased the work of graduate students and faculty in the School of Literature, Communication, and Culture (LCC) at this fall's Information Design & Technology (IDT) Demo Day, December 12. The students in the IDT program continue to stretch the limits of new media as they investigate the commercial, artistic, and philosophical possibilities of developing technologies. |
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| Coca-Cola Company Offers Internship Program The School of Economics hosted The Coca-Cola Company in a Finance Internship/Career presentation on December 5 to recruit students into two programs for next year. Nichelle Singleton, talent developer, spoke with twenty students about The Coca-Cola Company history, organization, and finance position opportunities. Ms. Singleton has recently assisted in developing a new internship program as well as an entry level rotational program for new hires at The Coca-Cola Company. In addition, students were given the opportunity to ask questions and earn prizes. To help students understand the job requirements and advantages, Pinar Zaimoglu, a graduate student in the Economics program and current intern with The Coca-Cola Company, spoke of her experiences. She gave students an overall understanding of her training as an intern presenting examples of projects that she had worked on and highlighting the exact ways in which her Georgia Tech education prepared her for her position. As a result of her internship, Zaimoglu, a second year graduate student, has multiple job prospects upon her graduation this semester. Any student interested in more information should contact Kari McCarley. |
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Spanish-Speaking Students Put Language Skills to Work The School of Modern Languages is sponsoring two new outreach initiatives. The first is Gringos y Latinos: Atlanta's Spanish Service Society (G.L.A.S.S.S.), which allows Spanish-speaking students to use their language skills to help Atlanta's Hispanic community. G.L.A.S.S.S. was founded last spring semester by five students who worked together with Kelly Comfort, Assistant Professor, School of Modern Languages, to identify Hispanic organizations and agencies that needed Spanish-speaking student volunteers. The founding members of the club have launched various projects and have attracted more than fifty student members. The second initiative is a new upper-division course, Spanish 4813-A, Service-Learning in the Hispanic Community, taught by Comfort, that combines thirty-hour volunteer projects with cultural reflection activities, discussions, and projects related to issues of importance to Hispanics in the United States in general and Atlanta in particular. |
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| Announcing PURA Award Recipients Eleven Ivan Allen College students won President's Undergraduate Research Awards (PURA) for Fall 2007. Representing all six schools within the College, the award winners research topics ranged from the wireless license fees in India and involuntary sterilization to mobile technology in Oakland Cemetary and the implications of color and trauma in French film. For a complete listing, please visit the Undergraduate Research website. |
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Faculty Profile - Carla Gerona Carla Gerona, a newly appointed Assistant Professor, School of History, Technology, and Society, received her BA from Columbia University, MA from the University of California, and an MA and PhD from the Johns Hopkins University. A historian of early America, her main areas of interest include colonial America, the southern borderlands, and Atlantic world history. She studies a very exciting time when people from four different continents (and beyond) first came into sustained contact with each other, and is interested in what happened when these vastly different cross-Atlantic groups encountered each other.
Gerona received a prestigious National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Fellowship to fund a year of research for "More than Six Flags." NEH also recognized her project as a "We The People Project", which is an initiative to further enhance our understanding of America's past. Her current project, titled, More than Six Flags: An Ethnohistory of an East Texas Place from the Caddo to the Texians, explores hundreds of years of history, just before Texas joined the United States. During this "borderlands" period, France, Spain, Mexico, and the United States (among others) vied for control of the region, though the Caddo, Apache, and other Indians who made their home in Texas vastly outnumbered and often overpowered the new European settlers. Her goal is to explore this early multicultural time and place from all of these distinct ethnic perspectives rather than the more usual national lens that many historians employ. Thus, in a recent paper on dancing, she focused on Spanish, Indian, and American dancing in the Texas borderlands, showing how the interactions between these groups altered each one's traditional dances. Because her work has a multi-national and transnational dimension, Gerona is contributing to Georgia Tech's goal of teaching "global competence." Her research on the Texas borderlands as an example of an early global community will help students gain knowledge of different communities in the past, and thus develop a deeper understanding of global currents and different cultures today. "I am very excited about joining a dynamic school in the College with a terrific set of productive world-class scholars. Our school is committed to teaching the history and sociology of science, technology, and medicine on an international scale and in interdisciplinary ways. I am developing new courses on the borderlands and colonial Latin America that have not been taught at Georgia Tech. I also plan to develop upper-level or graduate courses that explore the themes of science, technology, and medicine in the early Atlantic world. Early America was a very dynamic and dramatic place: as people came into contact with each other they shared (and fought over) knowledge systems and technologies. In addition, a biological revolution severely weakened the indigenous population at the same time that an environmental revolution dramatically changed the American landscape," Gerona said. Her personal interests and hobbies primarily revolve around family-time with her husband, Robert Desrochers, and her two young boys, Ellison (9) and Alejandro (6). She volunteers for the Fernbank Elementary School Chess Club, and enjoys playing chess. She also loves to play wiffle ball with her family, and watch her kids' baseball games at Medlock Park. In addition, she enjoys hiking, camping, traveling, tennis, and cooking. "Since I am almost always crazy-busy, yoga class helps me maintain some sanity," Gerona said. |
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Student Profile - Allison Smith During Spring semester 2007, Sam Nunn School of International Affairs (INTA) senior, Allison Smith, traveled to Poland as one of 24 volunteers from 13 countries taking part in the "PEACE – teaching tolerance" (People's Enthusiasm Acting for Cultural Education) Project. The project, sponsored by the United National (UN) Development Program was aimed, according to Smith, at "promoting cultural understanding, tolerance, and awareness of the Millennium Development Goals among secondary school students living in small and medium size towns of Poland."
The goals include eradicating extreme poverty, improving primary education, promoting gender equality, reducing child mortality and improving maternal health, combating HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases, ensuring environmental sustainability, and developing global partnerships for development. During her work with PEACE, Smith traveled to five high schools in towns across Poland teaching lessons on the United Nations project, but also engaging students in conversations about the United States. As an additional component to her time in Poland, Smith wanted to go further with her work by formally researching and measuring underlying attitudes and perceptions of young Polish citizens.
The project led to a final report, Surveying Polish Attitudes: The Impact of Europeanization and Globalization on National Identity, that describes her reflections on perceptions of Polish students and presents the results from the survey questions answered by 191 students. Smith described her experience as one which provided an opportunity to cap her undergraduate experience with a project that taught her "the importance and value of learning from direct experience and interaction." |
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most memorable part of working here. I've seen a much more diverse student body; a much more international student body," he said. "Every single language course we offer is full to overflowing. Our undergraduates are very sophisticated and understand the global market that they will be working in."
"Dr. McGuire was unusual in that he possessed the skills needed for both the curricular and IT portions of the position," Dean Sue Rosser said. "His many years as a faculty member who had held several administrative positions in the School of Literature, Communication, and Culture (LCC), meant that he had institutional knowledge and depth of experience with curricular issues as well as an excellent understanding of it. This combination of experience and skills, coupled with the fact that he is a very approachable, personable individual, means that he will be sorely missed."
A survey questionnaire was designed with INTA faculty mentor, Assistant Professor Vicki Birchfield, on "how Polish citizens see themselves with respect to their recent transitions and their place in a larger world, whether it be the EU, the UN, or a larger international society". Such attitudes and belief systems, according to Smith, play a critical role in the direction and shape of the country's future. Due to varying levels of English proficiency, the survey was translated into Polish for implementation.