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Ted Turner Honored at Founder's Day Luncheon At the annual Ivan Allen College Founder's Day observance on March 31, Ted Turner, Chairman, Ted Turner Enterprises, Inc., will receive the 2008 Ivan Allen, Jr., Prize for Progress and Service. Presenting the award will be Sue V. Rosser, Dean of the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts, and Georgia Tech President Wayne Clough. Recognition of Ivan Allen, Jr., Essay Contest Winner, Kaitlyn Whiteside, senior, Advanced Academy of Georgia, will be given by John Tone, Associate Dean of Undergraduate Studies and Professor, School of History, Technology, and Society (HTS). The Ivan Allen Legacy awards, generously underwritten by Ivan Allen Workspace, will be presented to faculty member Greg Nobles, Professor, HTS; undergraduate student Amanda Meng, Global Economics/Modern Languages; and alumnus Jackson Jarrell Pair, BS INTA '97 and MS Human Computer Interaction '99. The IAC Legacy Award recognizes individuals who epitomize the character and values of Ivan Allen Jr. within their respective spheres. Following the award presentations, Ted Turner will provide the keynote address entitled "Our Common Future" at 1:30pm. |
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2008 Sam Nunn Policy Forum Set for March 31 The Sam Nunn School of International Affairs is presenting its biennial policy forum, March 31, at the Global Learning Center. The topic this year is Nonproliferation and the Global Nuclear Renaissance: Bridging the Gap.
Introductions and welcoming remarks will be presented by Dr. Sue Rosser, Ivan Allen Jr. Dean of Liberal Arts, and Former Senator Sam Nunn, Distinguished Professor, Sam Nunn School of International Affairs. The keynote address will be presented by Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, Director General, International Atomic Energy Agency entitled, "The Prospects for an Assured Multilateral Mechanism for Nuclear Fuel Supply and Spent Fuel Management." Two panels will explore key issues during the day. The morning session will focus on "Contending with the Proliferation Challenges of an Emerging Nuclear Renaissance," moderated by Mr. Charles B. Curtis, President and Chief Operating Officer, Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI). The afternoon session will examine "Policy and Technical Recommendations for Strengthening Nuclear Assurances and Verification Today," moderated by Ms. Laura Holgate, Vice President for Russia/New Independent States (NIS) Programs, NTI. The closing remarks, “The Way Forward,” will be presented by Senator Nunn. |
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Tech Tests Wireless Emergency Alert System for Visually Impaired Helena Mitchell, Executive Director of the Center for Advanced Communications Policy, a center within the School of Public Policy, and project director for Wireless Emergency Communications (WEC), received good news last month during testing of their WEC project. Results indicate that 94 percent of blind and visually impaired test subjects found WEC to be a significant improvement over their current methods of receiving emergency alerts.
"The advantage of accessible emergency communications software and devices is that they can reach the user, no matter what their activity or location, with lifesaving information," said Mitchell. "In the end, people with disabilities have the right to expect that the technology they use on a regular basis is capable of providing them with emergency communications and timely warnings and alerts." |
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Research Seeks Ways to Avoid Information Overload Among Seniors Tibor Besedes, Assistant Professor, School of Economics, is co-investigator with Vanderbilt University economist, Mike Shor, who were recently awarded a $360,000 National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant. Their research seeks better to understand why people make poor choices when faced with complex decisions and to suggest guidelines that improve people's decision-making performance, particularly older Americans choosing options for Medicare Part D, the prescription benefit. Besedes and Shor's research will result in policy recommendations for structuring complex choices to minimize selection errors. |
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Crawford Receives the Don Bratcher Human Relations Award Hugh Crawford, Associate Professor, LCC, has received the 2008 Don Bratcher Human Relations Award. The award honors members of the campus community who are engaging in exemplary human relations work by realizing the need for and importance of cultivating an environment wherein value is placed upon the broader concerns of all humanity. Crawford will be recognized for this award at the Faculty/Staff Honors Luncheon, which will be held on April 10th, 2008 at 12:00pm in the Student Center Ballroom. |
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Breznitz Selected as Sloan Industry Studies Fellow Dan Breznitz, joint Assistant Professor, Sam Nunn School of International Affairs (INTA) and the School of Public Policy (SPP), has been selected as an Alfred P. Sloan Industry Studies Fellow. The award comes with a grant of $45,000. "This is a great honor that should signal to students that multidisciplinary research by social scientists on science and technology is both needed and highly recognized," says Breznitz. The grant monies can be used in a largely unrestricted manner so as to provide the most constructive possible support of his work on research and development and economic growth. Earlier this year, Breznitz, with UC Berkeley, also received funds from a joint Sloan Foundation grant of $500,000 to study how to help wealthy nations stay wealthy. |
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History of Science and Technology (HoST) Conference Comes to Atlanta This April, IAC's School of History, Technology, and Society (HTS) will partner with Emory's Center for Health, Culture, and Society to co-host the annual regional HoST Conference, April 11-13. Last year's gathering, held at the University of Mississippi, featured a refreshingly diverse turnout of scholars. This year's conference promises an equally intriguing roster, as HTS faculty and students will be contributing papers and poster sessions on Georgia's management of water consumption, NASA's evolving philosophy for Mars exploration, yellow fever, and French interwar railways. |
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Movie-viewing Habits are Changing In an article on KNAU Arizona Public Radio NewsRoom, Feb. 21, Janet Murray, Professor, LCC and Director of the Digital Media Program, said a single format supported by all six major studios has a much better chance of success than two rival ones that each take only a chunk of Hollywood. All six major Hollywood studios are now in the Blu-ray DVD camp, a day after Toshiba pulled the plug on HD DVD and Blu-ray became effectively the only next-generation game in town. "It's a big victory for the consumer," Murray said.
Murray also foresees "much more content and much more breadth of content" now that Blu-ray is the only way to go. "When people have these higher-end screens at home, they take great pleasure in them, and this will push ahead the delivery (of movies) in high-definition," she said. Movie theaters, however, must find ways to offer an experience that differs significantly from the home-viewing option. And unique experience needs to be more than just the freedom to hit the pause button. Some movies simply must be seen at the theater to appreciate them, said Murray. She points to the big summer blockbusters and movies with a strong sense of social significance, films such as "Star Wars" and "Glory." "When the lights come up, there is a moment of mutual recognition — we all just saw that together," Murray said. "It's as if you shared a dream." |
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Georgia Tech Co-op Student Named 2007 CED Student of the Year Richard "Reeve" Ingle, a Georgia Tech Division of Professional Practice (DoPP) co-op student, was recently named 2007 Student of the Year by the Cooperative Education Division of the American Society of Engineering Education (CED – ASEE). Reeve is a 4.0 senior majoring in electrical engineering with a minor in Spanish within the School of Modern Languages. He has already completed four co-op work terms with the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, and an internship with the U.S. Department of Defense in Ft. Meade, Maryland.
"I was so impressed by Reeve as a 2005 participant in the Mexico Languages for Business and Technology (LBAT) study-abroad program that I asked him to serve as my TA in the program the following year," says Vicki Galloway, Professor and Director, LBAT Mexico, School of Modern Languages. "Being a TA in this immersion program is a very rigorous assignment requiring not only a great deal of cross-cultural leadership and dedication to after-hours tutoring and coaching, but the ability to do this in Spanish and to help students maintain Spanish in all interactions, work and play. Reeve truly exceeded my expectations in this capacity and made himself literally indispensable. "The School of Modern Languages applauds Reeve's dedication to language and culture study and congratulates him on this well deserved recognition of his accomplishments," she concluded. |
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Faculty Profile - Rebecca Burnett Rebecca Burnett sees her arrival at Georgia Tech as a new stage in a long career. A newly appointed Professor in the School of Literature, Communication, and Culture (LCC), Burnett received her BA from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, her MEd from the University of Massachusetts-Lowell, and her MA and PhD from Carnegie Mellon University. Burnett came to Georgia Tech to serve as the Director of Writing and Communication, with a charge from the Provost to create a culture of communication at Georgia Tech across the Institute.
Prior to joining LCC, she was a University Professor of Rhetoric & Professional Communication in the Department of English at Iowa State University (ISU). Burnett was awarded the rank of University Professor for her research, teaching, and service, but most especially for being a change agent, central in creating and developing the AgComm program (one of the country's oldest, largest, and most successful communication-in-the-disciplines programs in agriculture, social science, and science). She was also central in creating and developing the ISUComm program, the country's first communication-across-the- curriculum program for an entire university that focuses on a WOVE (written - oral - visual - electronic) approach to communication. In addition, she was awarded the title of Master Teacher at ISU for her innovative classroom teaching, especially with technology in technical communication, as well as for her work with graduate students. Burnett sees communication as multimodal. An easy way to remember the modalities is to think of communication as WOVEN—that is, written, oral, visual, electronic, and nonverbal. WOVEN communication is part of every discipline and profession. Burnett is interested in expanding multimodal opportunities for communication education to the entire Georgia Tech campus — to undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, staff, and alumni. In addition to assessing the success of communication-across-the- curriculum and -in-the-disciplines programs, Burnett has research interests that include conflict in collaboration; risk communication involving natural, industrial, and health hazards; communication practices affecting women students in engineering; and international communication. Her interest in international communication has led to work and travel in countries including Canada, Japan, Mexico, and South Africa, and more than a dozen others. Burnett also has a long history as a technical communication consultant for businesses, industries, and government agencies and as an advisor about curriculum and professional development for educational systems. She has given more than 500 national and international presentations and professional development workshops, developed extensive documentation for proprietary processes, and worked as an expert witness in products liability cases. Although a Master Gardener in Iowa, Burnett says she needs to learn a lot of new things about gardening in Atlanta. The weather, soil, and native plants are entirely different, and the drought adds an additional layer of complexity. She is currently planning several flower gardens around her Lake Claire house, including a shade garden, a rock garden, and border garden. She enjoys cooking, especially breads and vegetables. She is partial to using a 120mm lens to capture both film and digital images of people, places, events, and objects from her national and international travels. She also reads a lot for pleasure including classics, best sellers, nonfiction, science fiction, and histories, but mostly mysteries. |
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Student Profile - Georgia Tech Legislative Interns Three Tech students doing legislative internships are majors of Ivan Allen College.
Gloria Carlisle is a third year student majoring in International Affairs and loves learning about international politics. This passion for politics has taken her abroad and has now given her an internship with Georgia Tech alumnus and Senator Chip Rogers (R-Woodstock). In her spare time, she is active in her church in Woodstock and plays the piano.
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Kristi Miller is scheduled to graduate at the end of this semester with a degree in History, Technology, and Society. She has a minor in Pre-Law and a 4.0 GPA. Miller may be best known around campus as the captain for Georgia Tech’s women’s tennis team, which won the NCAA National Championship last year. Miller plans to pursue a professional tennis career before enrolling in graduate school. Her internship assignment is in the office of House Higher Education Committee Chairman Bill Hembree (R-Winston). 
Hailing from Fitzgerald, Georgia, George Ray is a third year student studying Public Policy and Management. On campus, Ray is a member of the Student Government Association and serves on the President's Council Governing Board, in addition to teamleading two past sections of Georgia Tech's freshman seminar course. Ray is currently working as a legislative intern to the Speaker of the Georgia House of Representatives, and plans to attend law school after graduation.