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Endicott Named President of Korean University John Endicott, Professor and Director for the Center for International Strategy, Technology and Policy (CISTP), has been named as South Korea's Woosong University next president and vice chancellor. He will also serve as the vice chancellor of Solbridge International, which specializes in international affairs and business management, in Daejeon, South Korea. Endicott will be the first American president of a four-year private university in South Korea. “We're building an innovative school of business and international studies in Daejeon that will give students a real international experience, not only in Korea but other parts of Asia,” Endicott said. |
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Sam Nunn School Becomes Official Member of APSIA  In August, 2007, the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs (INTA) was admitted to the Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs (APSIA), the leading association of professional schools of international affairs worldwide. "This achievement signifies the quality and maturity of our master's degree program and membership will bring greater recognition for the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, Ivan Allen College, and Georgia Institute of Technology and improve the School's recruitment and placement of students," noted William Long, Sam Nunn School of International Affairs Chair. APSIA comprises 30 member schools in the United States, Asia, and Europe dedicated to the improvement of professional education in international affairs and the advancement of international understanding, prosperity, peace, and security. |
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Bowman Selected to Receive BOR Teaching Excellence Award Kirk Bowman, Associate Professor, Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, has been selected to receive the 2007 Board of Regents Teaching Excellence Award. A panel of reviewers comprised of department chairs and faculty members across the university system unanimously recommended Bowman in recognition of his creation of an innovative classroom environment and the critical analysis skills he develops in his students. Bowman will be honored at a ceremony in Atlanta on March 29, 2008. |
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Colatrella Receives Geoffrey Eichholz Teaching Award Carol Colatrella, Professor, School of Literature, Communication, and Culture (LCC), has received the Geoffrey Eicholz Teaching Award for excellence in teaching core courses, one of only two faculty each to receive this award. The Eichholz Faculty Teaching Fund provides winners with an annual salary supplement of $5,000 for three years (2007-08, 2008-09, 2009-10). The award recognizes tenured or tenure-track professors who have made a long-term contribution to undergraduate teaching at Georgia Tech, and who have made undergraduate education their primary focus in the later stages of their career. |
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Persons Serves on the Horowitz Foundation Board of Trustees Georgia Persons, Professor, School of Public Policy, has been named to the Board of Trustees of the Horowitz Foundation for Social Policy. The Horowitz Foundation awards annual grants directly to individuals who are in the early stages of their careers. Additionally, the Horowitz Foundation provides a series of Special Awards that carry an enhanced stipend, including the Martinus Nijhoff Award for promising research on the implications of scientific, technological, and medical research. |
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Modern Languages Professor Receives Grant Xiaoliang Li, Associate Professor, School of Modern Languages, has received a Department of Education (DOE) grant for $329,000 over the next three years. Li's project, entitled, “Teaching Chinese for the 21st Century,” will entail redeveloping the way Chinese courses are taught online. |
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Studies Show Disparities of Dissemination of Benefits In an article in the May issue of EurekAlert!, a leading science policy analyst, Susan Cozzens, Professor, School of Public Policy and Associate Dean of Research for the Ivan Allen College, urges greater emphasis on community participation and a fundamental shift in the way scientific research is carried out. "The challenge here is that economic growth is a very good thing, of course, but it doesn't actually automatically produce the kind of society that we want to live in. It doesn't produce all of those characteristics," states Cozzens, whose research has delved into the on-the-ground impacts of frontier research over the past 150 years. Her studies, for example, show that in the U.S. vast disparities have existed when it comes to dissemination of benefits between rich and poor, among ethnic groups, and between men and women. Cozzens feels interventions at an earlier stage could substantially raise the quality of life. |
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Pearce Appears on PBA and NPR Celia Pearce, Assistant Professor, LCC, was interviewed on Public Broadcasting Atlanta Morning Edition on July 31. The topic was ActionQuest:ATL, an interactive game co-created by Pearce, played out on the streets and neighborhoods of Atlanta, where the goal is not racking up the most points or defeating evil warlords but making the world a better place and having fun in the process. The game engages players in a series of cooperative quests that involve taking real-world social action in specific locations, such as identifying a need for homeless shelters or beautifying neighborhoods with wildflowers in vacant lots. Pearce also appeared on National Public Radio on June 28, where she discussed the transformative experiences people often have through their avatars, the digital image of their online characters. |
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Wang Comments on Food Contamination of Chinese Pet Food In the wake of troubling reports of tainted Chinese pet food ingredients killing and sickening thousands of dogs and cats in the United States, China faces growing international pressure to prove that its food exports are safe to eat. "We're now learning some of the dirty secrets behind this fast-growing economy," says Fei-Ling Wang, Professor, Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, in the International Herald Tribune, May 17; "And the dirty secret is they're cutting corners in making things." In the aftermath of the pet food scare, which may have caused as many as 4,000 animal deaths, regulators around the world are stepping up inspections of Chinese agricultural goods and even blocking some imports. |
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Goodman Comments on Internet-based Attacks in Estonia Seymour Goodman, Professor, Sam Nunn of International Affairs and College of Computing, states in the GovernmentComputer News, August 13, that there is not enough evidence to prove that Moscow planned or carried out an Internet attack on Estonia that left the former Soviet state reeling for nearly three weeks. The wave of attacks targeted a range of Estonian Web sites, from newspapers to schools and even the Ministry of Defense. Goodman predicts conflicts in cyberspace likely will plague nations big and small for many years to come. “This will go on forever,” he said. "The IT community must go beyond law enforcement to secure an increasingly vital information infrastructure," such as the Civil Aviation Convention. |
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Augmented Reality Set to Transform Entertainment and Education In IEEE Spectrum Online For Tech Insiders, August 7, two Georgia Tech faculty members - Jay Bolter, Professor and Wesley Chair of New Media Studies, School of Literature, Communication, and Culture, and Blair MacIntyre, Associate Professor, College of Computing - describe alternative ways to tell the tale of one Sarah K. Dye, who lived through the Union Army's siege of Atlanta in the summer of 1864. The conventional way is to set up a plaque that narrates how she lost her infant son to disease and carried his body through Union lines during an artillery exchange to reach Oakland Cemetery and bury him there. The other way, the authors suggest, is to show her actually doing it. As they state in their article, "You'd be in the cemetery, just as it is today, but it would be overlaid with the sounds and sights of long ago. A headset as comfortable and fashionable as sunglasses would use tiny lasers to paint high-definition images on your retina—virtual images that would blend seamlessly with those from your surroundings." |
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Chinese Economists Society Conference a Success Haizheng Li, Associate Professor, School of Economics and President of the Chinese Economists Society, organized the Chinese Economist Society (CES) conference, "Economic Transition, Regional Growth and Sustainable Development," in China in July. He states, “In this meeting, more than 360 scholars, government researchers and officials, graduate students, and local business executives came to share their experiences and opinions." The conference featured two plenary sessions, five keynote speeches, and a total of forty-one parallel sessions, including the Brookings-Tsinghua Roundtable and the Elsevier Authors' Workshop. Keynote speakers included Kenneth Arrow, Nobel Laureate, Stanford University; Gregory Chow, Princeton University; Sir James Mirrlees, Nobel Laureate, University of Cambridge; T. Paul Schultz, Yale University; and Dr. Yong Shang, Vice Minister, China Ministry of Science and Technology. |
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Breznitz Visits Ireland Discussing Turning Research into Commerce Dan Breznitz, Assistant Professor, the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs and the School of Public Policy, visited Ireland this past summer as a guest of the State to meet Ireland's chief science advisor, Patrick Cunningham. Their meeting focused on how innovation policy can affect industry on a national basis and society as a whole. "All countries should be concerned about their innovation policy because it is connected to economic growth," Breznitz states. It leads to new companies that produce jobs and wealth, but it should also have a wider impact. "It is at least as important that through the diffusion of technology you have a rise in productivity in all sectors [of the economy]." While there, he also was interviewed on Good Morning Ireland, June 6, (listen to the interview); and click here for the official government description of his visit described in Enterprise Ireland, June 5. |
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Ian Bogost on the 'Colbert Report' on Comedy Central In an appearance on August 8 on the Colbert Report on the Comedy Central Channel, Ian Bogost, Assistant Professor, LCC, talked about his new book, Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames, and how he wants to harness interactive entertainment to do "more than just tool around in fantasy land." Bogost also was interviewed by Mike Schneider in Bloomberg News (July 22), discussing his book, the CNN/YouTube debates, and the various ways in which media can affect today's society.
In fact, Bogost and his company, Persuasive Games, is partnering with the New York Times (NYT) to launch an exclusive monthly series of casual Flash-based games that tackle tough political issues. Called "newsgames" or "op-ets" (opinion-entertainment), they are designed to be casual in style, play, and challenge, but complex thematically. The first NYT offering is Food Import Folly, a game which dramatizes the challenges faced by inspectors charged with ensuring the safety of our food supply. Also, in an article for Gamasutra, (June 13), Bogost comments on V-Tech Rampage, a web game that recreates the Virginia Tech massacre, created by 21 year-old Australian hobbyist animator and game developer Ryan Lambourn." In the article, Bogost poses the question, "If V-Tech Rampage offers an example of an unsophisticated, negligent take on the tragedy, what would a thoughtful, conscientious one look like? This question cannot afford to remain hypothetical any longer. So I hereby issue a challenge to the videogame industry: to create a videogame about the Virginia Tech tragedy. One worthy of reflection. One that captures the event's despair as well as much as its brutality. One that the public can respect even if it makes them uncomfortable." Bogost also appeared in Wired Magazine (June 26), discussing Fatworld, his latest web game, wherein players navigate a consumer paradise, rule their own empire of restaurants and convenience stores, and enjoy food allergies, diabetes, heart disease, and death all powered by sarcasm and social commentary. |
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HTS Establishes New Student Awards The School of History, Technology, and Society (HTS) has announced the establishment of three new student awards and recipients have already been selected for two of them. Graduate student Chris McGahey received the Walter B. Jones Fellowship Funds award, which includes a $2000 stipend for dissertation support. Also, Kristi Miller received The Radio Club of American Foundation Award of $1,500, which is awarded to the best student in the History of Technology. The winner of the third award, The Slotkin Award, will be announced within the next couple of weeks. |
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Dion Receives Sandell Grant Michelle Dion, Assistant Professor, Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, has been awarded a Sandell Grant for her proposed study, "Sources of Support for Pension Privatization: The U.S. in Comparative Perspective." The Center for Retirement Research at Boston College sponsors the Steven H. Sandell Grant Program for Junior Scholars in Retirement Research on an annual basis. |
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