Events

Dean Sue Rosser Named Provost of San Francisco State University

Sue Rosser, who has led the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts for the past 10 years, has been named provost at San Francisco State University (SFSU) starting this August.

Since July 1999, she has served as dean, holding the Ivan Allen Dean's Chair of Liberal Arts and Technology as well as joint professorships in the School of History, Technology, and Society and the School of Public Policy. She also holds the distinction of being the Institute’s first female academic dean.

In leading Ivan Allen College, Rosser brought the academic rigor, depth and scope of the humanities and social sciences to education and research at Georgia Tech, integrating and distinguishing itself in Tech's culture of learning and innovation. Moreover, she built collaborative programs across disciplines in order to expand the Institute’s intellectual diversity and produce the kind of graduates needed to address societal issues both at home and abroad.

With her colleagues, Rosser successfully created three new doctoral programs, three master’s programs and four bachelor’s programs. She hired 75 percent of the College’s tenure-track faculty and doubled student enrollment. According to Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs Gary Schuster, her legacy at Tech will reflect this marked progression.

“When Dean Rosser assumed her leadership role, there was not a clear understanding of how the College fit in with the rest of the academic units,” Schuster said. “Under her direction, Ivan Allen College has achieved not only an identity and focus but also established itself as a leader in scholarship at the intersection of technology and the humanities. By every measure — enrollment, sponsored research and national profile — she has advanced liberal arts at Georgia Tech.”

“Working with the school chairs and faculty in Ivan Allen, as well as colleagues in other units across Georgia Tech, has allowed Ivan Allen College to build wonderful programs at both the graduate and undergraduate levels,” Rosser said. “I will miss the wonderful sense of collegiality and interdisciplinarity that permeates Tech and makes it such an exciting environment.”

A public university with approximately 30,000 students and more than 3,500 faculty and staff, San Francisco State is among the largest campuses in the California State University system. As provost, Rosser will serve as the university’s chief academic officer, with responsibility for the formulation and implementation of academic plans, policies and priorities, as well as the allocation of budgetary resources. She will oversee nine colleges, the university library, sponsored research and the offices that provide academic services and support.

“I’m very excited about SFSU and the new opportunities it provides to experience the San Francisco State of Mind,” Rosser said. “Its emphasis on diversity and social responsibility as a public urban university stands as values that resonate particularly with me.”

The Provost’s Office will move immediately to identify and appoint an interim dean as well as initiate the search for Dean Rosser’s successor.

New PhD for Returning GIs

In a joint effort with the College of Engineering, the Ivan Allen College is developing an interdisciplinary PhD to help returning GIs capitalize on the skills and military experience they’ve received while overseas. Development of the new graduate program is supported by the National Science Foundation and anticipates President Obama’s August 2010 timetable for withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq.

“This new PhD will prepare our military men and women to re-enter the civilian workforce as leaders in rebuilding America’s roads, schools, health, governance, energy, and utility systems,” said Sue V. Rosser, dean of the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts which houses Georgia Tech’s Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC).

Ivan Allen College and the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs will work closely with the College of Engineering in developing the degree. The specifics of the program will be determined by a survey of GIs to be undertaken this spring; it is anticipated to include courses in public policy, economics, project management, organizational behavior as well as systems engineering.

“There is a strong synergy between the engineering skills and experience of our Post 9/11 GIs and the nation’s need for such skills under President Obama’s initiative to rebuild America’s infrastructure,” said Rosser. “The survey will enable us to develop an interdisciplinary PhD that precisely targets the intersection of the two, and can become a model for graduate engineering programs for returning GIs at institutions around the country.”

Georgia Tech anticipates recruiting students for the new degree program at the end of 2009 and beginning the new PhD in the fall of 2010, in time for veterans to take advantage of the educational benefits afforded by the new GI Bill.

Schuster Emphasizes Foundational Role of
Liberal Arts at Georgia Tech

Howard Wertheimer, Vice President of Capital Planning and Space Management, Gary Schuster, Georgia Tech Provost, Patrick McCarthy, Chair of the School of Economics, Sue Rosser, Dean of the Ivan Allen College, Ron Bayor, Chair of the School of History, Technology, and Society

On a sunny Monday, March 30, faculty, staff, guests, and supporters of the Ivan Allen College celebrated the dedication of the renovated Old CE Building at 221 Bobby Dodd Way. The ceremony marked the official transition of the building to the home of our Schools of Economics and History, Technology, and Society. In his remarks, Georgia Tech Provost Gary Schuster noted that setting the Ivan Allen College Schools in a location central to the campus is symbolic of the importance of liberal arts as a foundation of a Georgia Tech education.

Colatrella, Fox, and Realff to Participate in Women’s International Research Engineering Summit (WIRES)

Mary Lynn Realff (l), Mary Frank Fox, and Carol Colatrella (r)

IAC faculty members, Carol Colatrella (LCC) and Mary Frank Fox (PUBPOLICY) are Co-Principal Investigators, with Mary Lynn Realff (PTFE), Principal Investigator, of the world’s first international research summit for women in engineering. Supported by the National Science Foundation, WIRES will bring together 50 women engineers from the US and 50 from other countries. These international experts will bring a global perspective to the conference which takes place in June 2009 in Barcelona. They will discuss findings in energy systems, micro/nanotechnology, and simulation-based engineering, identify sustained means to international collaboration, and address gender equity in engineering.

Faculty members from more than 80 institutions have applied to participate in WIRES. The results of the summit will be disseminated internationally in partnership with groups including the American Society for Mechanical Engineers and European Science Foundation. Realff leads the organizing committee, together with Gretchen Kalonji (Director of International Strategy Development at the University of California's Office of the President). The research component on participants’ experiences with international collaboration, research, and gender equity is led by Colatrella and Fox. Colatrella, Fox, and Realff are Co-directors of the Georgia Tech Center for the Study of Women, Science, and Technology (WST).

Best Project Expands Liberia’s National Dialogue

A project led by International Affairs and Interactive Computing Professor Michael Best and Monrovia-based project manager John Etherton, a Computing alumnus, provides technology to give more Liberians a voice in the country’s Truth and Reconciliation process after a devastating civil war.

The Mobile Story Exchange System (MOSES) is an interactive computer video system developed mostly for non-literate users in rural areas. The system allows people to record videos of themselves sharing their views and experiences of the conflict. It also helps inform people about the work of the TRC by enabling them to watch ongoing hearings. Liberia, once one of the richest countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, is now the second poorest country in the world, after 14 years of civil war left the country in ruins.

Read full story in Africa Can

French Film Festival Pushes Audience 'Beyond Tolerance'

The offerings in this year’s French & Francaphone Film Festival were chosen to offer “a deepest experience of discovering the other.” Sponsored by the School of Modern Languages, the festival screened eight films that delve into human relationships and how people deal with fear resulting from being forced out of one’s comfort zone. Modern Languages Assistant Professor Stephanie Boulard, who curated the event had the intention of moving audiences beyond tolerance, to getting to know people of different cultures and religions. Boulard said the bad economy was a challenge to developing this year’s program. She worked with the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Universcine to build a high quality, lowered cost festival and also built a sense of community around the event by drawing volunteers from the Georgia Tech French Club and students from her French classes. Films shown during the week April 7-13 included Le Voyage En Armenie, Le Scaphhandre et le Papillon, and Indigenes.

Public Policy Professors lead Wilson Center briefing on Nanotechnology and Innovation

Alan Porter and Philip Shapira

On March 23, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC hosted a briefing by Philip Shapira, Professor, Public Policy and Alan Porter, Emeritus Professor, Public Policy and Industrial and Systems Engineering. In their presentation, Nanotechnology: Will It Drive a New Innovation Economy for the US?, Shapira and Porter discussed Georgia Tech's involvement in the National Science Foundation funded Center for Nanotechnology in Society, trends in nanotechnology discovery, early nanotechnology innovation, and issues and implications.

The briefing was part of the Wilson Center’s Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies. Shapira and Porter focused on what is actually happening “on the ground” in terms of nanotechnology research and commercialization. Their presentation illuminated which regions and countries are focusing on nanotechnology research and the US position relative to other international competitors. They examined what has been achieved by the $10 billion US federal nanotechnology R&D investment since 2001 and the scope of long-term investments in nanotechnology by the private sector.

Read the presentation

Gender Remains a Foundational Opportunity for Innovation in Science and Social Science

Christine Waechter, Londa Schiebinger, Sue Rosser, Donna Ginther, Ruby Heap

A stellar roster of researchers presenting at the March 30 International Symposium, Women in Science and Social Science revealed a common theme: despite significant gains in the number of women entering the fields as professionals and academics, there remain huge opportunities to transform innovation by eliminating gender biases in personnel, institutional practices, cultural biases, and research methodologies.

Ivan Allen College Dean Sue Rosser brought together scholars Londa Schiebinger, Hinds Professor of Science and Director of the Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University; Christine Waechter, Associate Professor at the University of Klagenfurt in Austria; Ruby Heap, Professor and Associate Vice President of Research at the University of Ottawa and Fulbright Scholar at the Ivan Allen College this Spring; and Donna Ginther, Associate Professor at the University of Kansas and Director of the Center for Economic and Business Analysis.

Schiebinger, lecturing on Gendered Innovations in Science and Medicine, identified three key areas of analysis and action: fix the number of women participating, fix the culture and institutions, and fix the knowledge by re-conceptualizing scientific research to include gender analysis.

Those themes were reinforced throughout the symposium. Rosser, in her opening remarks, noted that the large increase in women entering the sciences and social sciences masks a significant attrition. Ginther’s studies of academia in the US Social Sciences demonstrated a large gap in the promotion of women with only 6-16% promoted to tenure and 9-11% of those promoted to full professorship. Heap cited a regression in the Canadian government’s support for women’s initiatives that has consigned understanding and promotion of gender dimensions in research back to women academic activists. Waechter demonstrated how traditional types of cultural biases in the European Union countries diminish advancement of women academic research.

In promoting the value of gendered innovation, Schiebinger emphasized the revolution in women’s health brought about by gendered analysis, but noted that other fields of science have been slow to follow suit. The problem, Schiebinger said, is that academics are not taught to address sex and gender in their research. Schiebinger’s Clayman Institute is taking the lead on the issue by launching a website focused on tools and training in gendered analytics.

European Union Center of Excellence Welcomes EU Diplomat

The European Union Center of Excellence, a research center in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs within the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts, welcomed Dr. Marc Vanheukelen, Head of Unit for EU Relations with the United States and Canada, Directorate General for External Relations, European Commission.

Marc Vanheukelen

According to EUCE Director, Dr. Vicki Birchfield, "Vanheukelen's position with the European Union is the equivalent to the US State Department's Deputy Assistant Secretary of State and having such prominent policy makers on campus is one of the added benefits of operating one of only 11 EU Centers of Excellence in the country."

In his address to members of the Georgia Tech and Atlanta business and diplomatic community, Vanheukelen provided an overview of the EU's external policies and the current challenges facing the transatlantic community ranging from instability in Afghanistan and Pakistan to the global financial crisis and climate change. Vanheukelen offered a dose of reality on what he described as America’s fascination with China, noting that Europe accounts for over 57% of total US foreign direct investment and from 2000 to mid-2008, US investment in Belgium was greater than our investment in China. Further demonstrating the transatlantic economic link, Vanheukelen noted that four million Americans work for EU companies and five million Europeans work for US companies. Vanheukelen said that, despite “spats” over America’s use of force to resolve global conflicts, the EU and US share more values and principles than any other countries. The discussion proved to be an informative prelude to the recent G-20 summit and President Obama's European tour marking the 60th anniversary of NATO and his first EU-US summit.

View a video clip

Read more about the EUCE at Georgia Tech

The Real Story on African Americans’ Service During World War II

Tuskegee Airmen of the 332 Fighter Group with P-51 Mustang

In a lecture March 10 in Eleanor Alexander’s course on Twentieth Century African American History, retired USAF Colonel Steve Hall queried students about how many men and women of color they recalled seeing serving on ships, flying fighter airplanes, commanding tanks, or nursing the wounded in Hollywood movies about World War II?

“You saw very, very few,” said Hall.

Despite comprising 11% of the total US military force fielded in World War II, African Americans and their contributions to victory have gone relatively unreported in the 64 years since the war ended. Hall told their story in his lecture African Americans in World War II.

“People know something of the Tuskegee Airmen, but almost nothing of the 761st Tank Battalion, the 92nd Infantry Division, the USS Mason, or the 6888th Postal Battalion,” said Hall. Hall’s real-life stories of Sgt. Ruben Rivers, Lt. John Fox, Gen. Benjamin Davis, and Sgt. Bill Ellington gave credibility to the historical journey of African Americans from induction to basic training to deployment and to final victory. Despite the racism that was a fact of civilian and military life in the 1940’s, African American men and women proudly served in all branches of the military and successfully executed the most difficult tasks in both combat support and combat arms.

Says Colonel Hall, “I am convinced that the 1.1 million men and women of color who served on the land, sea, and in the air, showed a nobility of character unparalleled in US military history, and in the process, they covered themselves with glory.”

Hall (IM ’67) directs Depot Operations for L3 Communications Systems-West, a Salt Lake City firm that manufactures extremely high-tech data link communications used in such equipment as the Global Hawk and Predator war planes. He is a frequent lecturer on the Georgia Tech campus.

Faculty Profile - Volodymyr Lugovskyy

Assistant Professor Volodymyr Lugovskyy (PhD Purdue) joined the Ivan Allen College School of Economics in Fall 2008 after four years at the University of Memphis. Originally from Ukraine, which excels in education in the type of math/technical skills that are the underpinning of modern economics studies, Lugovskyy enjoys working in the US which leads the world in economics research.

“Surprisingly, in most countries there are a lot of barriers for outsiders and there is a much more closed system within the realm of education. American higher education invites global competition; it provides a ground for anyone to come here and prove themselves, and that accelerates the field and makes it stronger.”

Lugovskyy has taught courses in microeconomics, statistics, game theory, and international trade. His main research interests are in international trade, particularly in the variety gains from trade, trade costs, and patterns of specialization. His most recent paper, International Pricing in a Generalized Model of Ideal Variety, co-authored with David Hummels, was published in the prestigious macroeconomics Journal of Money Credit and Banking (Jan 2009) and presented to Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in Washington, DC. Another paper, The Trade Reducing Effects of Market Power in International Shipping, co-authored with David Hummels and Alexandre Skiba, will be published in the May 2009 edition of the top-field Journal of Development Economics. The paper has already been previewed in the Paul Krugman’s influential blog in the New York Times.

Lugovskyy is currently trying to resolve the problem of financial bubbles, a phenomenon that consistently develops in even the simplest controlled experimental models of financial markets, and that is a hot topic now with everyone given the near collapse in world financial markets. Lugovskyy, with co-authors Daniela Puzzello and Steven Tucker, will present a paper on the subject at the June meeting of the Association for Public Economic Theory (APET) at the National University of Ireland, Galway. They conclude that the only factor which appears to reduce the occurrence of bubbles is experience, which can be gained much faster if we replace one-to-one buyer-seller pricing agreements (double auctions) with a tâtonnement pricing mechanism where all market participants agree on one common price so the market clears only when aggregate supply equals to aggregate demand. Lugovskyy and his co-authors’ work shows that such the tâtonnement pricing mechanism significantly mitigates financial bubbles and thus levels out steep losses and gains in the market.

Ivan Allen College Student Achievements

John Akin is Fulbright Winner

Economics and International Affairs senior John Akin has been awarded a prestigious Fulbright US Student Grant. From Fayette County, Georgia, Akin is minoring in Law, Science & Technology, and scheduled to graduate summa cum laude in May. His Fulbright grant is for an English Teaching Assistantship. He’ll be partnered with a high school in Indonesia to teach students in rural areas. Akin leaves for Jakarta at the end of August. His project runs for nine months after which he will attend the Virginia School of Law. Akin holds leadership roles within the School of Economics and the Ivan Allen College. He recently won a President’s Undergraduate Research Award.

Wellkamp Awarded Truman Scholarship

Public Policy and Industrial and Systems Engineering major and student body president Nick Wellkamp has won a 2009 Truman Scholarship. The award provides $30,000 for graduate study leading to a career in public service. Wellkamp is one of 60 Truman Scholars chosen from among 601 candidates who were evaluated on the basis of leadership potential, intellectual ability, and likelihood of 'making a difference.' From Louisville, Kentucky, Wellkamp interests are in energy, sustainability, and politics. After graduate school, Wellkamp hopes to help advance federal energy policy.

LCC’s Ayoka Chenzira Films Shown in London

Two short Films by Digital Media PhD student and Spellman College Professor Ayoka Chenzira "Hair Piece" and "Alma's Rainbow" will be shown March 28 at the 5th Annual Images of Black Women Film Festival in London.

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LCC’s David Jimison Receives NYC Art Commission

Digital Media PhD Student David Jimison and Joo Youn Paek have been awarded a commission for their piece Too Smart City, as part of the Architecture League's exhibition, Situated Technologies: Toward the Sentient City.

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Ivan Allen College Winners at the 2009 Undergraduate Research Spring Symposium

Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher
Carrie Freshour, History, Technology, and Society major

Winner for Oral Presentation
Tobias Tatum, Public Policy major, for Technology to Policy: A Case Study in Biofortification. Mentor: Dr. Marlit Hayslett, Georgia Tech Research Institute and Public Policy

Winner for Outstanding Poster
Kady Rosier, Computational Media major for Gendered Play in Online Worlds Mentor: Dr. Celia Pearce, LCC

Congratulations to all the Ivan Allen College Students Who Presented at this year’s Symposium:
STAC major Lindsay Chatel. Mentor: Dr. Rebecca Burnett, LCC
INTA major Alexandra Henke and PUBPOL major Travis Horsley. Mentor: Dr. Jennie Lincoln, GTRI and PUBPOL
STAC major Bryn Gravitt. Mentor: Dr. Narin Hassan, LCC
IAML major Ana Terron. Mentor: Dr. Margaret Kosal, International Affairs

Congratulations to Economics/Industrial Engineering major Gabrielle Sirow who is one of six students representing Georgia Tech at the 4th Annual Atlantic Coast Conference Meeting of the Minds. Held April 2-4 at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, NC, the event showcases undergraduate research and creative scholarship by students from the 12 ACC universities. Sirow is mentored by Economics Assistant Professor Ruth O. Uwaifo.