Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation & IDRC Fund Best's Study of Collaborative Knowledge Sharing
Michael Best, Assistant Professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, has received a $180,478 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Canada's International Development Research Centre through a prime award to the University of Washington. Best's study seeks to understand and enhance end-user sharing of computers in public facilities. The research is part of the Global Impact Study of Public Access to Information and Communication Technologies international study project.
What Does Georgia Tech Think?
Selected Press for Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts
Maria Saporta's report noted that "Atlanta and Georgia Tech’s Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts has become a focal point to discuss policies related to the international threat of nuclear weapons... Nunn set the stage for the difficult challenges that exist to eliminate nuclear weapons." The Fox News blog and an article about the Forum in Global Atlanta focused on the terrorist train bombing that killed 35 Moscow commuters which occured the morning of the Forum and which speakers, including Russian Ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak, emphasized as a reinforcement of the need to keep weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of terrorists. A second article in Global Atlanta provided more in depth coverage of the forum and a third March 30 Global Atlanta article focused on a conversation with Kislyak on the status of U.S - Russia trade.
Public Policy Professor Marilyn Brown's "Energy Efficiency in the South" study, co-authored with Duke University's Nicholas Institute and released April 12, was featured. The study concludes that aggressive adoption of energy efficiency programs in the South would lower utility bills by $41 billion, create 380,000 new jobs, reduce the need for new power plants, and save 8.6 billion gallons of freshwater by 2020.
HTS historian Professor John Krige is among those studying the world's largest research collaboration, the 10,000-person Large Hadron Collider project. "Krige who studied the collaboration structure at CERN before the formation of ATLAS, agrees that there is no simple top-down decision-making at the laboratory. However, he notes that the word "commune" implies that there is little rivalry between the members of the collaboration. By contrast, he says, the collaboration thrives on healthy "organized competition" between subgroups working to build different components for the detector quickly and effectively."
Public Policy's Robert Kirkman's new book "The Ethics of Metropolitan Growth - The Future of Our Built Environment" and his blog on the subject are featured. Kirkman "explores the thinking that shapes our built environment, from the decisions of individual homeowners to the planned actions of governments at local and national level."
Column by LCC Digital Media Professor, Celia Pearce on "the passing of yet another virtual world. There.com was one of the early “second wave” metaverse-style offerings, an open-ended social world with user-created content. Born in 2003, the same year as Second Life, There.com was one of the more successful and enduring virtual worlds, with one of the most cohesive long-standing communities of any of its competitors."
A new study by Public Policy's Assistant Professor Aaron Levine has received wide press coverage. Levine's analysis of college newspaper egg donor ads showed that higher payments offered to egg donors correlated with higher SAT scores. "The research suggests that people who want to have children by in vitro fertilization are willing to pay more for “smart genes," said Levine.
Economics professor Thomas "Danny" Boston provides analysis of the March job figures and explains how the economy can generate the best monthly job figures in three years, yet the Labor Department describes unemployment figures as static at 9.7%.
Herbst in Atlanta Journal Constitution
The AJC asked Public Policy Professor Susan Herbst to comment on political blogs, in particular, one being used by a Georgian who is using the web to try to fire senators. The article notes Herbst's perspective: While it's good that everyday voters can now get their voices heard on the blogosphere, it's disturbing they can also do so with no formal training on research or fact-checking, no inclination to be objective and no qualms about posting opinion as gospel.
On Games.com: "Georgia Tech professor and game researcher [LCC Professor] Ian Bogost tries to put his finger on why so many people seem so worried about Zynga and what their success represents for the game industry. "I have a liberal sense of what a game is. I do think, though, that the kind of experiences that [Zynga] are creating are more like [Skinner] boxes, like behaviorist experiments with rats. They're relying on creating these compulsions so people will want to come back and click on the bar. And so, in that respect, I fear those kinds of products." Read more from Bogost about the Zynga debate in the CNET article.
Georgia Tech was featured in a segment on the growing popularity and application of gaming degrees. "We can apply them to journalistic pursuits, corporate learning, social action, and social justice," said LCC Digital Media Associate Professor Ian Bogost. "So when we look at games, and when we teach about games, it's not just about the entertainment industry. Although that's one aspect, it's really about the future of media much more broadly."
Atlanta (April 13, 2010) —
Students have their best ever opportunity to advance their academic careers and enjoy summer in Atlanta.
It's a summer session like no other in Georgia Tech's history, and the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts is no exception.
Expanded Liberal Arts Course Offerings!
The College's summer course offerings have been robustly expanded. Some eighty-five courses are available in subjects ranging from film studies to global economics, from Arabic to the history of the Vietnam war, and from great power relations to environmental ethics.
The Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts courses are among the hundreds available at the Institute this summer including those in engineering, sciences, management, architecture, and computing.
Current as well as transient students are welcome to apply for summer courses.
Browse courses and apply online using the links below.
Atlanta (April 16, 2010) —
Africa consistently rates among the top-five areas of interest among Georgia Tech students.
That strong interest and the long-term involvement of College and Institute faculty in teaching, research, and collaboration in Africa, are prompting development of a strategy for the Institute’s involvement in Africa concurrent with development of Georgia Tech’s new strategic plan.
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The level of interest in Africa was apparent at the November, 2009 student-hosted symposium Africa@Tech: Engaging Universities in African Development. The event generated standing-room-only attendance in the Technology Square Research Building auditorium. Faculty and students from across Georgia Tech (and Atlanta) heard a panel of eminent consuls from Botswana, Liberia, Mali, Nigeria, and Tanzania discuss how the city could help higher education in their countries. Susan Cozzens, Ivan Allen College Associate Dean for Research, hosted the event.
“That event certainly fed into this emerging Georgia Tech initiative,” said Cozzens. She and two other College faculty are members of an initial Africa strategy planning committee being led by Stephen McLaughlin, Georgia Tech’s Vice Provost for International Initiatives.
“Ivan Allen College faculty have strong connections to Africa and are engaged with its development in many areas: science and technology; education, language, culture, political reconciliation, and stabilization of democracies,” said Cozzens.
Cozzens brings to the committee her experience as a consultant to South Africa’s Department of Science and Technology on advisory panels evaluating the country’s National Advisory Council for Innovation, National Research Foundation, and Centres of Excellence.
Assistant Professor Wenda Bauchspies, a sociologist and cultural anthropologist in the School of History, Technology, and Society, contributes based upon her seventeen years focusing on science, technology, and gender issues in West Africa.
Harrell's "Living Liberia Fabric"
Also on the committee is School of International Affairs and College of Computing Assistant Professor Mike Best who has been a trusted advisor and analyst helping Liberia develop internet communications technologies (ICT) for post-conflict resolution and economic growth in the wake of a devastating 14-year civil war. He is also developing ICT projects in Ghana.
Other early stage committee members are Gilda Barabino, Vice Provost and Professor in Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, and Aris Georgakakos and Adjo Amekudzi, professors in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering. The group is currently identifying Africa-focused research and projects that are already underway at Georgia Tech as a foundation for building the Institute’s strategy for student and faculty-centered activities.
Africa-centered work is taking place in all six of the schools within the Ivan Allen College. Some of that work was featured in the College’s March 15, 2010 Founder’s Day Symposium Humanitarian Leadership on a Global Level: Georgia Tech Responds to the Challenge of the Allen Legacy. In a session on Africa, Professor Best, and School of Literature, Communication, and Culture Assistant Professor Fox Harrell presented research and projects related to the Liberian ICT research.
In the School of Economics, Assistant Professor Ruth Uwaifo does research on health and education in West Africa. School of Literature, Communication, and Culture Professor Angela Dalle Vacche and Assistant Professor Vinicius Navarro curate an annual African Film Series at Georgia Tech. In 2009, the School of Modern Languages introduced courses in Arabic (spoken in North Africa) and is planning for Study Abroad in Morocco. They are considering adding Swahili to the program. Professors Willie Pearson of HTS and Cheryl Leggon of Public Policy have advised South African universities on opportunities for students from groups under-represented in science and engineering careers.
"It is fortuitous that this initiative is undertaken in the midst of the developing the larger strategic plan for Georgia Tech," said Interim Dean Ken Knoespel. "That strategic underpinning will provide a solid foundation for extending this initiative across colleges and disciplines and for realizing multi-faceted approaches to this important work."
From study abroad to community projects and intensive research, the Africa initiative on our campus underscores Georgia Tech and the Ivan Allen College’s commitment to a global human-centered research, teaching, and collaboration.
Faculty with relevant work are asked to contact teresa.dodd@oie.gatech.edu in Stephen McLaughlin’s office offering a description of how they are involved in Africa; the faculty member(s) involved; and a two to three sentence description of the project, and sponsors.
Breznitz House Testimony on Innovation Calls for Thinking Outside Conventional Constraints
Atlanta (April 12, 2010) —
In invited testimony March 24th before the U.S. House Science and Technology Committee's Subcommittee on Technology and Innovation, Dan Breznitz offered a globally informed perspective on the federal government's role in supporting innovation.
Dr. Dan Breznitz
Breznitz, Associate Professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs and the School of Public Policy, testified at the request of the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Technology and Innovation hearing entitled Supporting Innovation in the 21st Century Economy. A theme of the hearing was the need for a comprehensive federal strategy to create an environment that is conducive to innovation in the United States. According to the witnesses, a comprehensive innovation strategy would include components such as a tax policy amenable to attracting capital, a more efficient process to transition research to commercialization and immigration policies that attract the best and the brightest and keep them in the United States.
Breznitz outlined the challenges associated with government efforts to enable innovation and the lessons the U.S. might take from other countries. He discussed three roles that the government has to play in innovation policy: public financing of private innovation; public production of innovation (i.e. financing of industrial research at nonprofit institutions); and facilitation of professional, interinstitutional networks. He also suggested that federal-state partnerships could stimulate states to compete in the development of different, experimental and creative policies for innovation and encourage regional collaboration.
Other testimony during the hearing was presented by Aneesh Chopra, Chief Technology Officer in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy; Mark Kamlet, Provost at Carnegie Mellon University; Rob Atkinson, President of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation; and Paul Holland, General Partner at Foundation Capital.
A PDF of Breznitz remarks and a webcast of the hearing with complete witness testimony is available at the link below.
Atlanta (April 13, 2010) —
Henry Clark Bourne, Jr. passed away March 25, 2010 in Raleigh, North Carolina. A former Georgia Tech Vice President of Academic Affairs who also served for a year as Acting President of the Institute, Bourne founded the nationally-acclaimed Poetry at Tech program within Ivan Allen College’s School of Literature, Communication, and Culture.
Dr. Henry C. Bourne and Mrs. Margaret T. Bourne
A professor of electrical engineering, Dr. Bourne’s love of books, intellectual, and cultural pursuits led him and his wife to endow the Margaret T. and Henry C. Bourne, Jr. Chair in Poetry, as well as scholarship funds. The Bournes' vision was to ensure opportunity for first-rate instruction in the great poetry of the world for Georgia Tech students.
A Remembrance of Henry Bourne
by Interim Dean Kenneth J. Knoespel
I first met Henry Bourne in 1985 at the time I organized an exhibition for the Price Gilbert Library. The exhibition, ”˜Framing the Foundations,’ displayed the large number of books that constituted a collection of rare material in the history of science. The exhibition attracted many visitors who were surprised that our library had such a rich collection of material. I remember talking about the exhibited books with Henry frequently. I remember how proud we were that the collection included a very rare first edition of Newton’s Principia (1687). In conjunction with the exhibition, Henry Bourne donated his family’s copy of the second edition of the Principia (1713) to Georgia Tech. Reference to Newton became a regular feature of our conversations and even figured in my last meeting with Henry in 2008.
Our conversations showed Henry Bourne’s interest in the history of science and technology and the importance of these histories for his own career. An understanding of where we had come from was something that he believed crucial in the development of science and engineering. Henry Bourne was a distinguished electrical engineer at the same time he was deeply committed to shaping settings that made it possible for students in science and engineering to understand the ways that the arts could enhance their work.
Such belief became exemplified in the endowment that he and Margaret provided to establish the Bourne Chair in Poetry for the School of Literature, Communication & Culture. Together with others, I was pleased to work with Henry and Margaret in establishing the Bourne Chair that is currently held by my colleague Thomas Lux. I still remember Henry saying that ”˜Georgia Tech didn’t need another chair in Electrical Engineering, it needed a Chair in Poetry!”˜ I vividly remember Henry’s pleasure at the inaugural reading of Poetry at Tech. As we walked into the Ferst Auditorium with the hundreds of others, Henry recalled hearing Robert Frost reading at MIT. He recalled that the sight of all those scientists and engineers going to hear Frost made a strong impression. He hoped that the experience he had would now be shared generations of Tech students.
Henry Bourne influenced my understanding of Georgia Tech and my thinking about science and technology and the future of universities. There’s no question that he fostered my own belief in the crucial importance of building programs that enable faculty and students from multiple disciplines to work together.
A memorial service for Henry Clark Bourne was held March 29, 2010 at the Calvary Episcopal Church in Tarboro, North Carolina near the large farm where he and his family grew up.
In lieu of flowers, the family would welcome contributions to “The Henry and Margaret Bourne Scholarship Fund” at Georgia Tech or the Calvary Episcopal Churchyard Committee.
Atlanta (April 13, 2010) —
Crystal B. Lake, a second-year Brittain Fellow in the School of Literature, Communication, and Culture has received a Charles J. Cole Fellowship at the Lewis Walpole Library at Yale University.
Dr. Crystal B. Lake
The Walpole Library has significant holdings of eighteenth-century prints, drawings, manuscripts, books, and paintings, and supports advanced research in most aspects of British eighteenth-century studies. Lake (PhD Missouri, 2008) will be in residence for one month this summer, engaged in research on her book project, Radical Things: Politics and Artifacts in British Literature, 1660-1840.
The Marion L. Brittain Postdoctoral Fellowships in the Ivan Allen College School of Literature, Communication, and Culture is a center for research and teaching in writing and communication.
Woodson Awarded NSF Fellowship to Focus on 'Pro-poor' Nanotechnology
Atlanta (April 13, 2010) —
School of Public Policy doctoral candidate, Thomas Woodson, is searching for ways in which science and technology can help the impoverished.
Thomas Woodson
He has been awarded a 3-year National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Fellowship and in Summer 2010 will begin examining the nanotechnology industries of India, Brazil, and South Africa.
“I want to see whether these countries’ nanotechnology policies are benefiting the poor, decreasing inequality within the countries, and if there are any ways that nanotechnology can be a 'pro-poor' technology in those countries,” says Woodson.
A graduate of Princeton University where he studied electrical engineering, Woodson’s PhD studies focus on science and technology policy with an emphasis on international development. He says he has been impressed by his advisor, Professor Susan Cozzens, and by the School of Public Policy.
“There is tremendous collegiality between the faculty, staff, and students. I can knock on any professor’s door and ask for help. Also the department is dynamic and productive. Before coming here, I thought the School of Public Policy and the Ivan Allen College would be on the fringes of Georgia Tech since this university is so focused on engineering. That’s not the case at all. The School and Ivan Allen College are a central part of Tech and I’m very fortunate to study here.”
In time away from studies, Woodson does triathlons. He’s currently training to complete an Ironman triathlon comprised of a 2.4 mile swim, followed by a 112 mile bike, and finishing with a 26 mile run.
The prestigious NSF fellowships recognize and support outstanding graduate students in NSF-supported science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based master's and doctoral degrees in the U.S. and abroad. Each year NSF awards approximately 1000 of these fellowships across the country across all disciplines.
Alumnus Recounts Experience in Chilean Earthquake
Atlanta (April 13, 2010) —
Tech alumnus Pablo Catalán recounted his experiences during and after the earthquake which struck Chile on February 27 - one of the most powerful quakes ever recorded.
Concepción, Chile after Feb 27 Earthquake
Catalán, who has a Master's from, and is a PhD candidate in, the School of Public Policy lives in Concepción, Chile with his wife, Teresita Marzialetti, and 8-month old daughter, Candela. His wife is also a Georgia Tech alumna, a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Chemical Engineering. Catalán works in the Research Directorate at Universidad de Concepción, Chile. They were in Concepción when the earthquake struck.
“The earthquake was at 3:30 in the morning, and we were sleeping and I started to feel the earth moving under my feet. We jumped out the bed...ran to get our baby girl and we stayed under the frame of her door, her bedroom's door. We...live in a 10th floor apartment so you can imagine the building was moving, shaking like crazy.”
“My first idea was just hugging my wife, and my baby girl and staying there because I thought, 'Well this is kind of normal, probably it's going to end by I don't know 30 seconds or something like that'. But...it started hitting very very hard, harder and harder and harder. And it never stopped. So...for the first time in my life, I was hearing all my dishes, all our furniture falling down. And even the drawers in the closets flying. We (could hear) people screaming on the streets.” Catalán, his wife and daughter took shelter under the bedroom door frame; all fortunately, were unharmed. After the quake stopped, they headed to his parents, who were also unharmed. They have since been living with Catalán's parents. Although their apartment building is still standing, many of their possessions are destroyed. Catalán admits they are slightly scared to go back home.
A tsunami generated by the quake hit Dichato Bay carrying this boat 2 miles inland. The Universidad de Concepción's research boat, Kay Kay, was found 1 mile inland
“(A week) after the earthquake we got electricity (again). I watched TV, I watched the news and then we learned how devastating the earthquake was in other regions of our country.” Death toll estimates range from 300 to 800 dead. About 500,000 homes were destroyed and damage estimates were as high as $30 billion. The earthquake measured 8.8 on the Richter and was so powerful that seismologists believe that it may have shortened the length of the Earth's day by 1.26 microseconds.
Since the quake, the Chilean army has been deployed throughout most of the country, for safety and security as well as rescue work. They are especially called upon to deter looting, which has been an issue in Chile, post-quake. Supplies of food, water, electricity and natural gas in Concepción are gradually returning to normal. Communications, which were knocked out during the quake, are also inching towards normalcy, although Catalán had an interesting aside to offer. Even though mobile phone call services were hit, mobile Internet services were working for some time after the quake. “The only way to tell friends that we were OK was through Facebook. My wife and I are great Hawks fans, and we checked for the games too.”
Because Chile is an earthquake-prone country, the country's building codes call for strong construction. As a result, most of the buildings in Concepcion are still standing. Catalán's university, however, lost two buildings; the school of chemistry and a marine biology station located approximately 40 miles of Concepción, which was devastated by the tsunami that followed the earthquake.
“A lot of research, samples, students' work, labs were lost in the earthquake,” said Catalán. Classes resumed at the university on April 5.
Wreckage in Concepción
The mood overall, is still positive. Catalán explains, “The people here are kind of down but at the same time we are very optimistic that we have a responsibility to rebuild our country and our city here.”
It will take some years for Chile to recover from the disaster. But for Chileans, that's a part of life. “In Chile, we are used to having natural disasters; earthquakes, floods and droughts,” concluded Catalán.
To help those affected in Chile, and the recent earthquake in Haiti, please visit the American Red Cross
Written by Jayraj Jog Photos courtesy of Juan Pedro Ellissetche
Object-Oriented Ontology Symposium
Clary Theatre in the Student Success Center (April 19, 2010) — Bringing some of its foundational figures together for the first time, the inaugural Object-Oriented Ontology Symposium marks an effort to brew a new flavor of post-continental philosophy for the twenty-first century.
The Friday, April 23rd Symposium 8:30am-5:30pm is free and open to all. Seating is limited.
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Ontology is the philosophical study of existence. Object-oriented ontology ("OOO" for short) puts things at the center of this study. Its proponents contend that nothing has special status, but that everything exists equally””plumbers, cotton, bonobos, DVD players, and sandstone, for example. In contemporary thought, things are usually taken either as the aggregation of ever smaller bits (scientific naturalism) or as constructions of human behavior and society (social relativism). OOO steers a path between the two, drawing attention to things at all scales (from atoms to alpacas, bits to blinis), and pondering their nature and relations with one another as much with ourselves.
SPEAKERS
Ian Bogost Hugh Crawford
Levi Bryant
Grant Harman
Steven Shaviro
RESPONDENTS
Hugh Crawford
Carl DiSalvo
John Johnston
Barbara Stafford
Eugene Thacker
U.S. News & World Report Observes Ethics in International Affairs Class
During a tour of Georgia Tech April 7, a U.S. News & World Report journalist observed Associate Professor Molly Cochran's Ethics in International Affairs class.
The publication will feature Georgia Tech (also Morehouse, Emory, and Oglethorpe) in a July issue focusing on colleges and universities located in four cities across the country. A course offering in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, Cochran's Ethics class has two hundred students of whom 10% are international affairs majors and 85% are engineering students meeting their ethics course requirements. The April 7th class featured lecture and discussion on whether there are defensible ethical reasons for redistributing wealth from rich to poor countries.
This Month's Banner Image
This month's banner photo features the beautiful arched doorway of the D.M. Smith building at 645 Cherry Street. The building is home to the School of Public Policy.
About Us
Georgia Tech Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts forms a vanguard for 21st century liberal arts interdisciplinary research, education, and innovation. Working at a crossroads of engineering, science, and computing, and the humanities and social sciences, faculty and students consider the human implications of technologies, policies, and actions, and create sustainable solutions for a better world. Comprised of six schools, we offer ten undergraduate degrees, thirteen master's degrees, and six doctoral degrees. Learn More
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Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts
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