NIH awards $1.1 million for Reidy Center cancer research BY JIM RAPER Cancer-therapy research at Old Dominion’s Frank Reidy Research Center for Bioelectrics has won critical support from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The funding agency has invested $1.1 million in a project that is led by Andrei Pakhomov, a research associate professor, and is designed to promote human therapeutic applications based upon the center’s pioneering work with ultrashort electric pulses. The project, “Cell Death Induction by High-Voltage, Nanosecond-Duration Electric Pulses (nsEP),” will be funded by NIH for four years beginning July 1. Pakhomov’s collaborators on the grant are Juergen Kolb, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, and Karl Schoenbach, eminent scholar and Batten Endowed Chair in Bioelectric Engineering. With the grant, Pakhomov proposes a research agenda that will explore the biological reasons behind the center’s remarkable success zapping tumors on mice. Researchers at the center have a good understanding of the net result of directing ultrashort pulses against cells. Now they want to know why the pulses are so effective. Before experimental treatments can evolve into therapeutic applications on humans, this fundamental research on cell function is required. Preliminary experiments, Pakhomov says, indicate that ultrashort pulses affect cells in ways similar to certain radiation doses and chemical agents—cells die because their DNA, membranes or other components are damaged by free radicals produced by the treatments. (Free radicals are atoms or groups of atoms with an odd number of electrons. Once formed, these highly reactive radicals can start a chain reaction that will damage important cellular parts and perhaps cause cell death.) One advantage that may come to recommend electrotherapies over conventional cancer therapies is the potential of the pulses to pinpoint tumor cells without causing harm to healthy tissue. Cancer treatments for humans will be advanced significantly if electrotherapy can be shown to work along well-understood pathways, yet without the dreaded side effects that cancer patients experience now from therapies involving chemicals and radiation. Schoenbach and other researchers at ODU and Eastern Virginia Medical School in the past eight years have garnered worldwide attention for their work with nsEP. Melanoma tumors on the skin of mice have been treated successfully by the researchers, and the base patent for their method is owned jointly by ODU and EVMS. Electrotherapies against tumor cells have been around for more than three decades, but most involve electric pulses of longer duration that might be described as overkill. Relatively long pulses typically bring on necrosis, a cell death caused by dramatic injury, which can lead to inflammation. The nsEP employed by the ODU researchers range up to 40,000 volts/cm, but the duration of each pulse is far less than one-millionth of a second. The pulses usually cause no trauma or heat buildup within the targeted cells, and they are able to penetrate the cell membrane before the cell can mount a defense. The effect is subtle, and the orderly death of the cell, called apoptosis, happens over hours, or days, without inflammation. Pakhomov, who has a doctorate in radiation biology from the Medical Radiology Research Center in Obninsk, Russia, served as a lead scientist at that center. He also was senior scientist with the Army Medical Research Detachment at Brooks Air Force Base in Texas before coming to ODU in 2004. Recently, he has studied changes in cell plasma membranes following exposure to nsEP. “Andrei’s research in electrophysiology is definitely cutting edge, and I am very happy for him and the center that he received such a prestigious grant,” said Schoenbach, the founder of ODU’s bioelectrics program. “It also shows that our research in bioelectrics is now getting the attention it deserves.” Schoenbach, who has been director of the Center for Bioelectrics since it opened in 2004, is turning over the top administrative post in July to Richard Heller, a researcher in electrogenetherapy who is moving to ODU this summer. “It is the first NIH grant obtained by faculty at the Reidy Center,” said Schoenbach. “Together with the NIH grants that Richard Heller will bring to ODU, the center will have the highest concentration of NIH funding on campus.” Back to top
Robert Ash admits that no one he knows is clicking frantically through the television channels trying to catch the latest reports and the images coming from the Mars lander Phoenix, which touched down on the Red Planet in late May. But the Old Dominion University aerospace engineer has invested three decades in Mars mission research, and for him just now a robotic arm digging in the dirt 100 million miles away is more exciting than anything else on the news. In a word, Ash is interested in water on Mars, how much is there and where. “I’m dying to see what they finally find,” he said of the experiments being conducted by Phoenix. But in the early going, at least, Phoenix had trouble performing some of the tests it was designed to do, and suspense mounted for Ash. When the arm scooped up clods and dumped them onto a screen that is designed to break up the Martian surface material into tiny pieces, hardly any tiny pieces broke off the clods and fell into the lander’s miniature ovens. Finally, on June 11, NASA reported that Phoenix had begun to fill its eight tiny ovens with specks of material, but when July arrived Ash was still sitting on the edge of his seat. Are there significant deposits of ice near the surface of Martian plains? “They are so-o-o close, but not yet definitive,” he said on July 2. The ovens are linked to a mass spectrometer. Their purpose is to slowly heat up specks of material and take measurements to determine the content. “If it’s water, it will sit at 0 degrees Celsius while it sublimates from solid to vapor phase,” Ash said. For a variety of reasons, NASA has a stated goal in Mars exploration to “follow the water.” If the intriguing white substrate that is visible in Phoenix photographs is water ice, perhaps exposed because the NASA craft stirred up dusty sediment on the northern Mars plain when it landed, this would be encouraging news to scientists who believe life exists or has existed on the fourth planet from the Sun. Easy access to water at suitable landing sites might also promote the notion that Mars could support a human colony. To Ash, however, H2O is more than just a molecule essential for life on Mars. Water ice (differentiated from frozen CO2 gas, or dry ice) that is scooped up by the Phoenix robotic arm could spark new interest in a 30-year-old report he wrote while he was a researcher at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. The report was produced after he and two colleagues were asked to investigate the possibility of making rocket fuel from materials found on the Martian surface. For NASA to manage a return mission from Mars to Earth, carrying samples collected or mined by robots, and also perhaps carrying the first humans to set foot on the planet, the fuel for the return trip more than likely would have to be created on Mars. Fuel weighs too much to be easily transported from Earth to Mars for the return trip, and, besides, NASA prefers not to have a spacecraft make a 200-day trip to Mars carrying both astronauts or hard-to-replace equipment together with highly volatile fuel. In their 1978 report, Ash, with Warren Dowler and Giulio Varsi, explain how rocket fuel could be produced from the CO2-rich Martian atmosphere and available water. The proposed approach came to be known as in situ resource utilization, or ISRU, but it didn’t get much attention until NASA published a baseline manned Mars mission design in 1997 that incorporated the researchers’ approach. “Still, in situ resource utilization seems always to be just over the horizon for NASA,” Ash explained. One reason is the lack of proof that sufficient water could be tapped at sites selected as Mars staging locations. Ash notes that water in clouds over Mars or in surface samples tested during previous Mars missions is present in very small amounts and could not be exploited for fuel production. On the other hand, big deposits of polar ice are inaccessible. So for his in situ scheme to work, large bands of water ice need to be fairly close to the Mars surface in locations such as the flat plain where Phoenix landed. It could be dug up and heated by solar energy or some other heat source for the rocket fuel production and for other uses at a Mars station. Phoenix has strung out the suspense. Ash is optimistic about the mission photos showing a white substrate, but admits that it could be salt, not water ice. “If water ice is present in large quantities, then we will have an excellent argument for initiating a permanent robotic base on the Martian surface that could be built up eventually as a human outpost,” Ash wrote in a Phoenix update to his colleagues and students on June 9. Ash’s update explains how a Sabatier chemical reactor could produce a methane fuel from water and the Martian atmosphere, as well as how a Bosch reactor could produce an oxygen propellant from the same raw materials. “Liquid methane and oxygen can be stored at temperatures around 125 Kelvin (about minus-225 degrees Fahrenheit), and while this is cold compared to an average Mars surface (the Phoenix landing site has ranged from minus-22 to minus-112 degrees Fahrenheit), it is relatively easy to maintain these two cryogenic liquids in propellant tanks on the Martian surface. Then, you would have the ability to fuel large exploration vehicles at a central base and send them out over large distances.” So when will humans set foot on Mars? Ash says not any time soon. “There are fewer reasons today than in 1978 to put a human on Mars,” he believes. “The risks are just too great to try to win bragging rights by planting a flag on Mars.” He said today’s technological advances allow for effective exploration and measurements without humans being present. “In my humble opinion, when we finally send people to Mars, it will be because we cannot afford the eight- to 40-minute communication delays resulting from controlling a large number of robotic exploration machines from Earth. It will be necessary to have humans on site to tele-operate the robotic operations from Mars.” Back to top Biology students win awards for papers Two doctoral students in the biological sciences department won awards for their papers at the May 2008 annual meeting of the Virginia Academy of Sciences. Matthew Semcheski’s presentation, titled “Phylogenetic Relationships of the Snappers (Lutjanidae: Percoidei) Inferred from Mito-chondrial Cytochrome b Sequence Data,” received the graduate student award for the Best Paper presented in the Biology Section. At the same meeting and section, Todd Egerton’s presentation, “Exploration of Phytoplankton Communities in Southeastern Virginia for Use in Biodiesel Production,” was recognized as the second best paper. Back to top
Sponsored by the Old Dominion University Real Estate Foundation and the University Village, the Saturday concerts are held from 5-7 p.m. on the lawn behind the Ted Constant Convocation Center. Admission and parking are free. The following concerts are scheduled through August:
For more information about the performers go to www.oduvillage.com or call 683-4504. Back to top
With a solid regional reputation, Zetlin was associated for many years with the ODU art department as student, teacher and visiting artist. She explored an idea that continued to be a focus throughout her career – creativity manifest visually. She sought to make her work a self-reflexive questioning of the nature of the creative act in the process of painting, and explored how this act of creativity could be communicated within the work as a form of visual language. The Gordon Galleries, 4509 Monarch Way, are open 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, and 1-5 p.m. Sunday. For more information call 683-6271. Back to top
The meeting is open only to HACE members; however, those who join the organization and pay the $5 annual dues at the door are welcome to attend. Participants are invited to bring their lunch. Drinks and cookies will be provided. For more information call Judy Smith, HACE president, at 683-3269. Back to top
They join fellow Old Dominion alumni Anna Tunnicliffe ’05, Debbie Capozzi ’03, Sally Barkow ’02 and Charlie Ogletree ’89 from sailing, and USA women’s basketball head coach Anne Donovan ’83, at the 2008 Summer Olympics. Tiffany Snow ’03 (Escondido, Calif.), Angie Loy ’05 (Loysville, Pa.), Dana Sensenig ’06 (Denver, Pa.), and Caroline Nichols (Virginia Beach) ’06 will represent the U.S. field hockey team when it travels to China for the team’s first Olympic Games appearance since 1996. The U.S. National Team will open competition Sunday, Aug. 10, against 2007 Pan American champion Argentina. NBC will televise all U.S. field hockey matches. A total of 15 former ODU field hockey players have gone on to participate in the Olympics. But student-athletes are not the only ones with strong ties to the Games. Head coach Beth Anders and assistant coach Gwen Alexander were members of the 1984 U.S. bronze medal team. Anders set an Olympic scoring record in 1984 that still stands. The U.S. team scored nine goals, with eight coming from the stick of Anders. Back to top Four Monarch pitchers selected in MLB draft Four Old Dominion baseball pitchers were selected in the Major League Baseball draft last month and have been assigned to minor league clubs: Dan Hudson (Virginia Beach), Anthony Shawler (Chesapeake), Dexter Carter (Murfreesboro, N.C.) and Ryan Bergh (Reddick, Fla.) Hudson and Carter will play for the Great Falls, Mont., Voyagers in the Pioneer League. Shawler will play for the Oneonta Tigers in the New York-Penn League and Bergh will be with the Clearwater Thrashers of the Florida State League. Hudson was selected in the fifth round by the White Sox; Shawler in the ninth round by the Tigers; Carter in the 13th round by the White Sox; and Bergh in the 26th round by the Phillies. Back to top
He finished the race in 44 seconds flat, .2 seconds ahead of his closest competitor, fellow Olympian Jeremy Warnier, the reigning Olympic gold medalist. Merritt transferred to ODU from East Carolina University in February 2005, after signing an endorsement deal with Nike that terminated his amateur status. In order to avoid conflicts with his training schedule, he takes the bulk of his classes in the fall, when he can more fully devote attention to his studies. He said that he’s having fun dividing his time between sprinting and school, and isn’t in a hurry to graduate. “It’s cool because it lets me focus on both track and class,” he said. Merritt gives credit to his longtime coach, Dwayne Miller, who was his track coach at Portsmouth’s Woodrow Wilson High School, and his parents for encouraging him to see his education through.
Just three days earlier in South Korea, Hucles scored the goal that gave the U.S. women’s national team a 1-0 victory over Canada in the title match of the 2008 Peace Queen Cup. She won the Golden Ball as the most valuable player in the competition. In May, Hucles also scored the winning goal in the national team’s 5-4 win over Australia in a friendly match played in Alabama. She has scored a total of seven goals in 84 national team appearances. The U.S. women's team will play its first Olympics match on Wednesday, Aug. 6. Back to top
The total budget of $411.6 million includes an increase in the university’s Educational and General Fund appropriation from $206 million to $216 million. This increase reflects the general fund support for the Modeling and Simulation Research Initiative, Virginia Coastal Energy Research Consortium and the Tuition Moderation Incentive Funds for capping the tuition increase at 4 percent. The new budget adds 23 faculty members, seven professionals/administrators and 13 classified staff. Instruction, academic support and research increased form 69.5 percent to 70.9 percent over the previous year. The following faculty members were promoted to associate professor as a result of the award of tenure: Shabbir Akhtar, philosophy and religious studies; Martha M. Daas, foreign languages and literatures; Isaac Flory, engineering technology; Yuping Liu, business administration; Michael L. Nelson, computer science; Robert Pinsker, accounting; and Ghaith Rabadi, engineering management and systems engineering. Also awarded tenure were four faculty members who already held the rank of associate professor: Jennifer Fish, women’s studies; Carolyn M. Rutledge, nursing; Moskov Amaryan, physics; and Li Shi Luo, mathematics and statistics. All of the promotions become effective at the start of the fall semester. In other action, the board voted to approve renaming the Institute for Applied Ethics the Institute of Ethics and Public Affairs. In addition, the board endorsed a resolution to name the atrium of Dragas Hall the Hughes Atrium. The building was formerly known as Hughes Hall, and before that, Hughes Library, named for Robert Morton Hughes, who was a former rector of the College of William and Mary and a founder of Old Dominion’s predecessor institution, the Norfolk Division. In other matters, the board approved resolutions recommending faculty appointments and administrative appointments. Among the administrative appointments were:
About 300 specialists in traffic and transport psychology from 40 countries will attend the conference. The agenda includes 10 symposia and about 180 presentations on topics such as driver training and licensing, driver impairment, effects of fatigue, characteristics of aging drivers, and road user attitudes and behavior. Kristie Herbert Martinez, who is Porter’s doctoral student in applied experimental psychology, also is on the conference organizing committee. Other committee members are from Eastern Virginia Medical School, the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles, the Swiss Council for Accident Prevention, and universities in England and Australia. Porter said Elsevier, the Amsterdam-based science and health publishing firm, is handling many of the registration and management tasks. “That leaves me to do more of the science and people work,” he explained. Less than two months out from the conference, he is scrambling to process late submissions from authors, assisting with sponsor development, trying to meet last-minute requests from speakers, including one who will present live via television from Scotland, and assisting with social details. Two other tasks for Porter involve possible publishing opportunities. He is working with the top student submissions to develop manuscripts suitable for a special student issue of a traffic psychology journal. In addition, he is working with manuscripts from other delegates for an electronic compilation, from which he hopes to glean a book that he will edit. Martinez, who received her master’s degree in psychology from ODU in 2000, has co-authored numerous articles, reports and grants with Porter. They wrote the peer-reviewed journal articles: “The Likelihood of Becoming a Pedestrian Fatality and Drivers’ Knowledge of Pedestrian Rights and Responsibilities in the Commonwealth of Virginia,” published in 2004; and “Characterizing Red Light Runners Following Implementation of a Photo Enforcement Program,” published in 2006.
Classified & Hourly Employees Requests to complete degrees outside of Old Dominion University at other Virginia four-year institutions must meet the following requirements:
Faculty & Faculty Administrators Dependents & Spouses The deadline for the spring 2009 semester is Dec. 1. The policies are on the Web at: www.odu.edu/af/humanresources/benefits. General information and application forms can be found online at: http://forms.odu.edu/browse.php?cat=4. For more information call Natalie Watson at 683-4237. Back to top
A native of India, he received two master’s degrees from the University of Maine and his doctorate from the State University of New York. Tiwari, who retired in May as eminent scholar of mechanical engineering, joined the Old Dominion faculty in 1971. During his career, he received both the Research Award and Tonelson Award. He mentored over 100 graduate students, more than 40 of whom received a Ph.D. under his direction. He directed efforts to create the Institute for Computational and Applied Mechanics and established the Institute for Scientific and Educational Technology. Additionally, Tiwari represented ODU to the National University Space Research Association and was a co-director of the NASA/ASEE Summer Faculty Fellowship Program. A Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Tiwari received more than $14 million for his research and scholarly activities. He authored or co-authored more than 400 research publications and 10 books, and was awarded the AlAA Thermophysics national award. Survivors include his wife, Surya Bansi Tiwari; a daughter, Meena; numerous family members in India; and a niece, Jaya Tiwari. Memorial donations, toward the Tiwari Endowed Graduate Scholarship in Mechanical Engineering, may be made to the ODU Educational Foundation, 4417 Monarch Way, Norfolk, VA 23529.
Sheri Colberg-Ochs, associate professor of exercise science, leads a team of Old Dominion researchers that has received a $600,000 Clinical Research Award from the American Diabetes Association. Two other faculty members, Steven Morrison from the College of Health Sciences and David Swain from the Darden College Education, are collaborating with her. The project, “Protective Health Effects of Differing Types and Intensities of Exercise Training in Individuals with Type 2 Diabetes,” is funded for three years and also involves researchers Dr. Aaron Vinik and Henri Parson from Eastern Virginia Medical School. Regular physical activity can lower the risk of developing type 2 diabetes and many diabetes-related complications, said Colberg-Ochs. However, controversy still exists regarding the optimal amount of exercise needed for improved health and what type of exercise is most beneficial. The researchers anticipate that their study will identify attainable exercise goals that will provide the most health benefits to anyone with diabetes. In addition, they expect to show which types and intensities of exercise are best for people with nerve damage in their feet who are more prone to foot ulcers, amputations, falls and early disability. Two studies are planned involving a total of 120 subjects. In one test, a set of people with nerve damage to their feet and another set without the damage will be exposed to various types and intensities of aerobic exercises. Another study involves resistance exercises. Colberg-Ochs, who is a diabetic as well as a diabetes researcher, is a prolific author on the subject of diabetes and exercise. Her latest book, “The Diabetic Athlete’s Handbook,” is due to be published later this year. She turned an exercise guide she developed in the late 1990s into her first book, “The Diabetic Athlete: Prescriptions for Exercise and Sports” (2001). That book was followed by “Diabetes-Free Kids: A Take-Charge Plan for Preventing and Treating Type 2 Diabetes in Children” (2005) and “The 7 Step Diabetes Fitness Plan: Living Well and Being Fit with Diabetes, No Matter Your Weight” (2006). “The Science of Staying Young” (2007), which Colberg-Ochs wrote with the St. Louis University gerontologist, Dr. John E. Morley, focuses more on exercise than diabetes. Her fifth book, “50 Secrets of the World’s Longest Living People with Diabetes” (2007), is co-authored by Dr. Steven Edelman, an endocrinologist who directs the nonprofit organization Taking Control of Your Diabetes. Colberg-Ochs, who interviewed more than 50 people for “50 Secrets,” said, “The more I learn about diabetes and exercise, the more convinced I become that exercise is absolutely essential for anyone living with diabetes or prediabetes to prevent complications and enhance longevity.” Morrison, endowed professor of physical therapy, has research interests in motor control and biomechanics. One focus of his work is the effect of factors such as disease and aging on human balance control. He directs the School of Physical Therapy research laboratory. Swain, University Professor of exercise physiology, is widely known for his research showing the benefits of vigorous exercise. That work was featured in an article in Newsweek magazine in 2007. He developed the concept of VO2Reserve, indicating the range of oxygen consumption between resting and maximum consumption, which has been adopted by the American College of Sports Medicine for use in prescribing exercise regimes. Swain also directs the university’s Wellness Institute and Research Center, which offers therapeutic exercise classes for people with various diseases, including diabetes, pulmonary disease and heart disease. Vinik, director of the Strelitz Diabetes Research Institute at EVMS, is a leading diabetes researcher who recently garnered international attention in media and professional circles for his discovery of a gene that could lead to a cure for the disease. Parson directs the microvascular biology laboratory at the Strelitz Institute. She holds a doctorate in biomedical sciences from the joint program of EVMS and ODU. Back to top
“With this film, we interrogate popular knowledge and popular history,” he said. “This is a subject that historians have largely ignored and dismissed.” The film focuses on unearthed archaeological evidence of runaway slaves residing in the Great Dismal Swamp, a marshy region that stretches between southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina. According to Habib, archaeological evidence suggests that various populations, including local Indian tribes, lived in and around the swamp as far back as the 17th century. Co-producing the film with Habib is Richard Green, a junior English major at Old Dominion, who is handling most of the cinematography work for the film. He said that he got involved in the film in part because of his passion for filmmaking. “I also have a strong conviction to uncover hidden histories of people who have been forced to exist on the fringes of mainstream society,” he said. “The documentary encompasses both of these aspects.” “Dismal History,” half of which was filmed on site in the swamp itself, features interviews with archaeologists, researchers and historians such as Dan Sayers of the College of William and Mary, Cassandra Newby and Tommy Bogger of Norfolk State University, and Brent Morris of Cornell University. Habib, who is making the film as a personal side project, said that he hopes to have it finished within the year. The film will be screened at both NSU and in Deep Creek. – Alex MacDonald
Six students from Rick McKenzie’s Medical Imaging and Simulation class visited Barcelona, Spain, last month to attend the Computer Aided Radiology and Surgery Conference, an international symposium dedicated to advanced information technologies in radiology and surgery. “Students tend to give it very favorable reviews,” said McKenzie, a professor of electrical and computer engineering, who attended the conference with students last year in Berlin. During that trip, students had the opportunity to visit two different hospitals to view hip and spinal surgeries, as well as a children’s hospital. McKenzie said that the conferences are generally well received by students, but for him, the highlights of the trips are the visits to surrounding hospitals and universities. He said that the best part is learning about new research and exchanging ideas with other people in the field. “I think a lot of it is the collegiality of working with other professors,” he said. “It’s a lot of good conversations, good discussions, and you get to see a lot of research.” He said that one of the more striking things about medical research overseas is the discrepancy in resources from country to country. While in some places, researchers are hard-pressed for funding and have no choice but to do more with less, countries like Switzerland have enough funding to finance 12-year-long projects. “You rarely see anything more than five years here,” he said of projects in the United States. “Usually, it’s more like two or three.” This year’s conference featured tutorials and workshops on minimally invasive spinal surgery, model-guided therapy, computer-assisted prostate surgery and interventional oncology. The workshops took place from June 24-28, and brought in highly regarded international surgeons as speakers and instructors. Students also visited two universities in Portugal, traveling by rail to Porto and Lisbon to observe research on site. After enjoying a free day in Lisbon, the class returned to Norfolk on July 6. Before leaving on the trip, the students were required to take the Medical Imaging and Simulation class in order to give them some background on the subject. They also had to be enrolled full time and have a minimum GPA of 2.5. The trip cost each student $1,100, although scholarships were available that lowered the cost to $800. In the future, McKenzie would like to have students who already have a background in medical imaging attend the conference, perhaps in a smaller group. He also would like to see more of an emphasis on the opportunities outside the conference. “If I were to do it again, I would want to focus more on the collaborative efforts with some of these other labs that we’ve developed a relationship with,” he said. He also said it would be good for the university to invite more international researchers to visit the campus in order to foster greater sharing of ideas. Back to top
Researchers in the College of Health Sciences, led by Carolyn Rutledge, associate professor of nursing, have received a grant worth $765,000 from the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) to develop ways to better equip nursing educators and administrators to deal with cultural diversity and other barriers to health care. This project is the latest in a series of research initiatives that have established the School of Nursing as a leading designer of training programs that address potential clashes and miscommunication between health-care professionals and certain types of patients. Since 2003, the school has received more than $3 million for cultural awareness projects led by Rutledge, as well as Richardean Benjamin, chair of the nursing school, and Laurel Garzon, associate professor of nursing. Two decisions by the ODU researchers have distinguished their work. The first is the broad definition they have given to “culture.” “I have a problem being too narrow with the definition,” Rutledge said. “It involves a lot more than ethnicity.” In fact, she often refers to “subcultures” and “people of similar orientation” to describe groups – teenage Goths, overweight older women and gay people, for example – who often report unsatisfactory health-care experiences. The second strategy that has led to the researchers’ success involves their use of diverse resources. One is Old Dominion’s vaunted distance learning program, which is one of the largest of its kind, beaming live lectures and making online courses available to students scattered about the nation and the world. Another resource is Monarch General Hospital, a virtual hospital training facility in the recently updated College of Health Sciences Building. Also, according to Garzon, the researchers are relying on help from the Theresa Thomas Professional Skills Teaching and Assessment Center at the nearby Eastern Virginia Medical School. The center is recognized nationwide for its program with standardized patients (SP), actors who are specially trained to help health-care professionals hone their patient interviewing and diagnostic skills. “There is no way you can teach students everything they need to know about every culture,” Garzon explained. “What we can teach is a process to help you work with various people, and then we can give you the opportunity to put that process to work with standardized patients.” The researchers contract with the Thomas Center to use SPs for cultural diversity training. Rutledge said that an SP recently portrayed a lesbian patient during a classroom encounter with a nursing student. “When the standardized patient stepped out of her role and assessed the student’s performance, she said to the student, ‘After you rolled your eyes, it cut down on our communication.’” Three previous $750,000 grants, each from the HRSA, which is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, have allowed the School of Nursing to provide cultural competency training in the Nurse Practitioner Program, Nurse Midwifery Program and undergraduate Registered Nurse Program. The latest grant, which covers the period from July 1 of this year through June 30, 2011, will extend the training to the graduate Nurse Administrator Program and Nurse Educator Program. Rutledge sees the upcoming initiative as potentially more valuable than the predecessors because the researchers will be designing training for advanced professionals who can, in turn, train and influence many nursing students and nurses. “The project will refocus the master’s-level Nurse Administrator Program and the post-master’s Nurse Educator Program in order to address issues of cultural competency, health disparities and barriers to care,” Rutledge said. A nurse practitioner, Rutledge took a position at EVMS in 1988 – and still sees patients there – before moving to ODU in 2002. Garzon credits Rutledge with being the “grant writer extraordinaire” who has made the cultural competency initiatives possible. The latest grant is designed to have auxiliary benefits, such as helping future leaders in the field of nursing to understand the need for health-care professionals to be culturally competent in their dealings with co-workers as well as patients. Rutledge also believes the project’s design will make minorities feel more welcome in advanced nursing courses and could lead to more diversity among health-care professionals, and to more nursing educators overall. “The nursing shortage is really a problem caused by a shortage of nursing educators,” she said. Two decades ago, Rutledge spent a few years living in West Berlin, where her husband was stationed as an Army dentist, and she said she never forgot how diverse the people were. “We had the British, the Russians, the French, the Americans, the Turks, the Germans and so forth, and I found it fascinating trying to understand the different cultures. It opened my eyes about diversity. What is acceptable to some is not acceptable to others.” Her interest in diversity merged with her professional interest in access to health care to produce her current push for cultural competency. She says the researchers want to take students who may be “unconsciously incompetent” or “consciously incompetent,” depending on how aware they are of their prejudices, and move them to categories of more tolerant behavior. “Consciously competent” describes someone who wants to be nonjudgmental, but who has to consciously work at it. The best category, “unconsciously competent,” describes someone who is open to diversity and sensitive as a general practice, Rutledge explained. In a word, the ODU researchers, along with faculty colleagues Kimberly Tufts and Karen Karlowicz, want to eliminate any spoken language or body language with which a health-care professional might belittle or insult patients, causing the patients to retreat from care or not get the care they need. Back to top
The award, for the 2008-09 school year, will allow Bolin to work with faculty and students at the University of Namibia and with scientists at the Namibia National Botanical Research Institute. Bolin did field work in Namibia for the last five months of 2005, and one of his advisers is Erika Maass, a faculty member at the University of Namibia. At ODU, he is mentored by Lytton J. Musselman, Mary Payne Hogan Professor of botany. The young researcher has focused on the unusual Hydnora species, which grow underground in southwestern Namibia and steal water and sugars from the roots of other plants. Hydnora triceps “breaks all of our preconceived notions about what constitutes a plant,” Bolin said. “It never sees light of day, has no leaves and produces an odor of rotting flesh to attract its pollinators underground.” Mining in Namibia may be threatening Hydnora, and Bolin proposes to clarify Hydnora taxonomy with molecular and classical methods. This information and studies on the reproductive biology of the plant are important for its conservation. He also intends to mentor University of Namibia students and to give a seminar on molecular techniques in plant ecology and systematics. Musselman, who established a collaborative relationship with the University of Namibia eight years ago, said he finds the award to his student to be “very exciting and personally fulfilling.” In 2006, a photograph that Bolin took in southern Africa of Hydnora africana in full bloom won a plant images contest sponsored by the Botanical Society of America. Bolin is one of more than 1,450 U.S. citizens who will travel abroad for the 2008-09 academic year through the Fulbright U.S. Student Program, which is sponsored by the Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. – Jim Raper Back to top
Talent and opportunity seem to have combined into perfect harmony for Old Dominion student Erin Hannon this summer. The senior music major left for Rome on July 1 to study and perform with Operafestival di Roma, a nonprofit opera school that offers opportunities to musicians from around the world. The program consists of three weeks of intensive training, in which students are coached in voice, lyrical diction and conversational Italian. Students will also rehearse for their live performances, which will be staged in the 15th-century central courtyard of S. Ivo alla Sapienza in Rome the week following their training. “I’m ecstatic,” Hannon said prior to the trip. “It’s just been crazy lately trying to get everything ready.” Hannon, who hopes to pursue opera professionally after her graduation next spring, said that she thinks the school will be an invaluable experience for her. “There’s tons of people who come to the performances there, and it’s a great place to make connections,” she said. “I really think it will be a good opportunity.” Auditions for the school’s 50 spots were held in cities across the globe, including Los Angeles, Boston, Minneapolis, Richmond and Washington, D.C., where Hannon auditioned. “I always get nervous before auditions,” she said. “It just gets me excited and ready to go.” Hannon, who has sung with the University Choir and Diehn Chorale, is no stranger to performing abroad. In 2005, she toured Tokyo with the choir, where the group recorded an internationally released album. “Erin has a beautiful voice,” said Nancy Klein, graduate program director of ODU's music department. “She has grown as a performer over the years. We are very excited that she had this opportunity to go to Rome.” Klein describes Hannon as one of the “grandchildren” of the department, as Hannon’s high school music instructor, David Prescott of Kempsville High School in Virginia Beach, was a former student of Klein’s. “It is a joy when our alums think highly enough of the department that they send us their most talented students,” she said. The trip is Hannon’s first visit to Rome, and she said she was looking forward to seeing the city. She spoke with other students who attended the program, each of whom gave it rave reviews. “They told me it was definitely a once in a lifetime experience,” she said. Back to top
A group of local teenagers learned about the business of broadcast journalism during a recent visit to the campus. Old Dominion was one of the co-hosts for a course offered by the Urban League of Hampton Roads/Cox Communications Broadcast Academy, which ran June 23-27 and introduced 18 students, ages 14-17, to the basics of television broadcasting production. Highlights of the course included a field trip to a local network television production facility and the opportunity to experience hands-on action as the crew for a broadcast production. Edith White, president and CEO of the Urban League of Hampton Roads, said she hoped the students “recognize their own potential by being exposed to community leaders and mentors.” She added that she was enthused by the response to this inaugural program, and that it could be even larger next year. “From what I’ve seen this week, it will be a continuing effort, and maybe even expanded from one week to two.” During the learning activities, which took place on both the ODU and Norfolk State University campuses, the teens discussed topics during sessions on “How to Write/Identify a Good Story,” “Interviewing Techniques” and “How to Produce a Script.” Technical know-how was on display in presentations by local media guest speakers, including Derick Rose and Don Roberts of WAVY-TV, and Laila Muhammad and Jimmy Olabanji of WTKR-TV. “Students learned the basics of broadcast journalism, video production and using the camera to tell a story,” said Ann Grandy, executive director of the ODU Community Development Corporation. A relatively new organization, the CDC was created by the university to engage in a variety of programs and activities to revitalize communities, improve the lives of neighborhood residents and support ODU’s community development interests. Danielle Stevens, 17, a recent graduate of Booker T. Washington High School, was one of the students who took part in the Urban League course. She will attend Indiana University of Pennsylvania this fall, where she plans to major in communications. “I wanted to take away knowledge of the broadcasting business and I knew they would have professionals and behind-the-scenes people here,” the hopeful future sports anchor said of the course. “I knew this was what I wanted to do with my life.” Jasilyn Wray, who loves to write, attends Maury High School and has always been fascinated by broadcasting. “It is just a really good field. I do not think I could ever get bored in this job,” said Wray, 15. Back to top
His topic, “The Hype and the Hoopla,” will include commentary on the baseball doping scandal. DeFord is the author of 15 books. His newest, “The Entitled,” a novel about celebrity, sex and baseball, was published in 2007. Back to top
Duke, who received an M.B.A. from ODU in 1983, was nominated by President Bush last year to fill a vacant seat on the seven-member board. The Federal Reserve determines the course of interest rates in the country and is also responsible for ensuring the stability of the nation’s financial system. In a release announcing the appointment, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said, “In confirming Elizabeth A. Duke for a term through 2012, we are ensuring the Fed can function during these difficult economic times.” Duke is senior executive vice president and chief operating officer of TowneBank. She received a bachelor’s degree from the University of North Carolina and is also a graduate and former instructor of the Stonier Graduate School of Banking. Back to top
Old Dominion students Bryan Citizen, Miles Davis, Meron Seife and Mallory Snader placed first in the recent Target Case Study Contest, a competition arranged by the university’s Career Management Services in conjunction with Target Corp. They were awarded the $2,000 prize, to be split evenly among them. In the contest, students were presented with a case problem involving staffing issues, and were asked to prepare a report on possible solutions. Specifically, the contestants were presented with the problem of high rates of retirement among the “baby boomer” generation, which has left gaps in the workforce. The contestants were tasked with developing a strategy that would allow Target to keep its stores effectively staffed in the wake of these retirements. Thirteen groups of ODU students signed up to compete in the event. Majors included international business, marketing, finance and accounting. The students were given the opportunity to ask questions about the case, and were then allocated three weeks to complete their analysis. At the end of the three-week period, they presented their reports to the competition judges, who then selected the five best teams as finalists. The teams presented their solutions to Target executives, who made their choice based on the presentations. For their winning proposal, Citizen, Davis, Seife and Snader offered the executives a multifaceted solution, which included instituting a “Kids on Target” day-care service, promoting the company to college students and marketing Target as an employer offering career opportunities. “We did a statistical analysis that showed that most college students consider Target just a place to get a job, rather than a career,” said Davis, a senior majoring in finance and accounting. The team handed out surveys in ODU’s Webb Center during activity hour late in the spring semester, and used those results in their report. Davis said that the contest helped him learn a lot about Target, and companies in general. “We were able to go out and use all the things they’ve taught us in our business and marketing classes,” he added. “That was the most rewarding part.” Back to top
ODU, which competes in Category “B,” earned a gold award in ticket sale pieces for the women’s basketball season ticket brochure; silver awards for TV commercials for the football season ticket kickoff campaign and in electronic promotions for Big Blue’s FaceBook page; and a bronze award in the video segments category for the men’s basketball video introductions at the Ted Constant Convocation Center. The awards mark the sixth straight year that the ODU athletic public relations and marketing department has been honored. Back to top
– “Calculating peak oil’s due date” “A huge investment has been made from within ODU in order to make this happen. Internal resources have been used to make this transition.” (Mohammad Karim, vice president for research, on ODU’s increases in research and development expenditures, including funds from within the university) – “ODU releases annual research figures” “I’m for anything that gets people moving more than they were. I think playing ball outside is better than doing something in their living room. But if I had a choice between computer games and Wii Fit, this wins.” (Martha Walker, associate professor of physical therapy) – “New generation of video games are a ‘Wiilly’ good time” “Maybe a Stanford or a UCLA has players in both the men’s and women’s draws. But for ODU, it’s something special.” (Izak van der Merwe, former ODU tennis player, on the fact that he and former women’s player “Tzipi” Obziler qualified for the main draw at Wimbledon) – “ODU grad takes game to a new level: Grand Slam tennis” “In our thinking, resellers of homes will sooner or later realize that if they want to sell their homes, they’re going to have to lower their prices.” (Vinod Agarwal, professor of economics) – “Hampton Roads home prices begin to show signs of slump” “We have set the bar at about 100 blooming orchids at a time.” (Steve Urick, curator, Kaplan Orchid Conservatory) – “A new home for the orchids at ODU” “You just had to fill out a couple of essay questions and cross your fingers and hope to get accepted. Fortunately, I did. ... I want to become a part of history, and it’s just an amazing experience.” (Patrick Austin, senior English major) – “Obama Fellows hope to energize Illinois senator’s campaign” “Somehow the fundamental justice associated with user fees gets lost when we begin to talk about how to pay for our roads. Many individuals believe they should not have to pay for the extent to which they drive on public roadways even though they know their own use gradually causes our roads to deteriorate and even though they know these same roads may be essential to their keeping their current jobs, or even to drive to church.” (James V. Koch, Board of Visitors Professor of economics, in a letter to the editor) – “For road funding, user fees just make sense” “Sometimes I think of myself as a social documentarian or an archivist. I’m creating an archive of American identity. ...” (Greta Pratt, assistant professor of photography) – “In all its glory: Project to photograph a year’s worth of flags is a portrait of Americana”
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