2011-12 - College of Arts & Sciences - Georgia State University

2011-12 ANNUAL REPORT

2011-12 Annual ReportCollege of Arts & SciencesGeorgia State UniversityTABLE OFCONTENTSARTS & SCIENCES CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE UNIVERSITY’S STRATEGIC GOALSGoal One ......................................................................................................Become a national model for undergraduate education by demonstrating thatstudents from all backgrounds can achieve academic and career success at highrates.Goal Two .......................................................................................................Signifi cantly strengthen and grow the base of distinctive graduate and professionalprograms that assure development of the next generation of researchersand societal leaders.Goal Three ....................................................................................................Become a leading public research university addressing the most challengingissues of the 21st century.Goal Four ......................................................................................................Be a leader in understanding the complex challenges of cities and developingeffective solutions.Goal Five .......................................................................................................Achieve distinction in globalizing the University.24579OTHER ARTS AND SCIENCES ACCOMPLISHMENTS● CENCIA Events .......................................................................................................................................● New International Agreements .....................................................................................................● Global Efforts ............................................................................................................................................● Model Arab League ...............................................................................................................................● Research Funding ....................................................................................................................................● Development..............................................................................................................................................● Outstanding Alumni Award .............................................................................................................● Facilities .........................................................................................................................................................89101011131314

The initiative connects experts from across the country towork toward improvements in curriculum design, course dissemination,and collaborative teaching and learning.Our students are visibly responding to these efforts. Artsand Sciences retained more fi rst- and second-year studentsthan the university average between fall 2010 and fall 2011,and the DFW rates (i.e., those students who received a D oran F or who withdrew from a class) dropped by 0.8 percentin the same period.The number of students going on to either full employmentor to graduate school also grew by roughly 2 percent in thesame period. And surveys show increased student satisfactionon measures ranging from departmental mentoring tooverall quality of instruction in one’s major.Finally, the college worked with university colleagues tomake plans for developing “signature experiences” forundergraduates, as called for in the university’s strategicplan. This new program should provide students with awide range of options for enriching their classroom education,including: engaging in high-level research; working andstudying in the communities, corporations, nonprofi ts andgovernment agencies of metro Atlanta; and study abroad.Arts and Sciences students and academic teams continuedto earn honors and awards for their achievements this year.A few examples include:• Arts and Sciences students took seven awards in threecategories at the Georgia State Undergraduate ResearchConference (pictured below). Catherine Stankus, a seniorart history major, took the Provost’s award for her presentationon the art of eighteenth-century snuffboxes.In addition to college-level efforts to support undergraduates,our faculty is also deeply committed to supportingstudent achievements. Examples include:• Arts and Sciences faculty taught more than 90 percentof the courses offered in the university’s Honors Collegein 2011-2012.• At the recent Georgia State Undergraduate ResearchConference, 86 of the 100 faculty sponsors were fromArts and Sciences.• Dabney Dixon (Chemistry), at the request of undergraduatescience majors, founded and continues toadvise the Undergraduate Journal Club, where studentslearn to present and discuss research at a professionallevel.• Lynee Gaillet (English) is leadingGSU’s participation in the nationalCognitive Courseware initiative,sponsored by Carnegie Mellon,APLU, and the Gates foundation.• GSU Debate Team partners Clay Stewart and Luke Floydfi nished 17th in the national rankings of individual debateteams – the best national ranking by a GSU debate teamin history.• The GSU Model United Nations team won Best Delegation– the top award – and eight individual delegateawards at a conference in Paris. Earlier this spring, at aconference in Manavgat, Turkey, 13 students won individualawards.• Model Arab League students traveled to the AmericanUniversity in Cairo, where they took home three out offour awards for best delegation at three different conferences(see page 10).• GSU students took the top three places in the writtenlanguageprofi ciency exam at the Southeast TurkishOlympiad.Page Three

2011-12 Annual Report ● College of Arts & Sciences ● Georgia State UniversityGOALTWOSignificantly strengthen and grow the base of distinctivegraduate and professional programs that assure developmentof the next generation of researchers and societal leaders.A & SThe College of Artsand Sciences is hometo 13 Ph.D. programs,two MFA programs, 25master’s programs andeight certifi cate programs.Our graduateprograms are strong andgetting stronger. In fact,fi ve Arts and Sciences graduate programs received top-100rankings from U.S. News and World Report in the past year:Psychology, Computer Science, English, Political Science, andSociology. Other important rankings include:• The Ph.D. in Computer Science has been ranked amongthe top 10 in the Southeast by the National ResearchCouncil.• The M.A. in Philosophy has consistently been rankedamong the top 10 nationally by the Philosophy GourmetReport, rankings published annually out of the Universityof Chicago.• The Ph.D. in Creative Writing (in the Department ofEnglish) was ranked #14 in the nation by Poets & Writers.One of our major priorities is attracting a higher quality ofapplicant to our graduate programs, which means expandingour recruitment efforts. To that end, the college wroteits fi rst graduate recruitment and enrollment plan this springas part of a university-wide initiativeAs part of the plan, the college created a new Dean’s Doctoral/MFAFellowship program, which provides an additionalstipend for the strongest students accepted each year. Thisstipend can be renewed for up to four years, based on thefellow’s progress toward his or her degree. Last fall, the programawarded 11 renewable Dean’s Fellowships, with plansto offer 20 more in the coming year.There are other, university-funded fellowships availablefor top graduate recruits, specifi cally in Second CenturyInitiative (2CI) and Area of Focus programs within the college.These are for the most part new programs – the 2CIprogram began in 2010 – and advertising their availability isalso a key part of the college’s new recruitment plan.Arts and Sciences departments, centers and institutes arealso expanding their recruiting efforts. Several units heldon-campus events for top Ph.D. prospects, bringing them tocampus to meet faculty and students and to tour facilities.New recruits will join a group of graduate students that isalready achieving at a high level, winning national honors,awards and fellowships. Examples from the past year includethe following:• Joshua Lillvis (Ph.D., Biology) won the William M. SuttlesGraduate Fellowship, the most prestigious of the university’sgraduate awards. Lillvis is researching neurologicalstructures and behavior in sea slugs.• Nicole Cabrera (Ph.D., Physics and Astronomy) won aNational Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowshipfor her innovative project using radial velocitytechniques to gather information on exoplanets.• Chris Escobar (M.A., Communication,pictured at right)worked with Tim Crimmins ofHistory to create an iPhoneapp that is a historical tour ofGeorgia’s Capitol building.• Tiffany Love-Chezem (Ph.D.,Neuroscience) won theneurobiology division’s BestPoster award at the annualmeeting of the Society forIntegrative and ComparativeBiology.• Lara Smith-Sutton (Ph.D., English), received a “RisingStar” award from the Management Communication Associationfor her work on how to teach business writingpractices to undergraduates.• Darby Proctor, (Ph.D., Psychology) won a dissertationresearch grant from the American Psychological Associationfor her work on the evolutionary origins of gamblingin primates.• Lauren Wright, Chelsea Smith and Christopher Massie,all members of the School of Music’s Opera Theaterprogram, took second place in the graduate division ofthe National Opera Association’s national opera scenescompetition. The trio performed a scene from GianCarlo Menotti’s “The Medium.”Page Four

2011-12 Annual Report ● College of Arts & Sciences ● Georgia State UniversityGOALTHREEBecome a leading public research university addressingthe most challenging issues of the 21st century.A & SThe College of Artsand Sciences has a longrecord of investing inresearch, and in buildinginterdisciplinary researchprograms to address crucial social, cultural and scientifi cissues. During 2011-12, we built on earlier successes withnew cross-disciplinary research programs, hired new faculty,and expanded our administrative support both for facultyseeking grants and those managing active grants.In 2012, the College of Arts and Sciences departments ledfour of the six new research clusters created under the university’sSecond Century Initiative (2CI) – and will participatein a fi fth. The initiative calls for the recruitment of 100additional faculty members over fi ve years, with the specifi cintention of building internationally recognized researchstrengths.The new 2CI programs involving the College of Arts andSciences are as follows:• Microbial Pathogenesis: This cluster will hire three to fourcollaborating faculty to focus on the interactions betweenhost cells and pathogens, like viruses or microbialtoxins, with an impact on preventing and treatingdiseases. Faculty in this cluster will also collaborate withthe existing Molecular Basis of Disease focus, the Centerfor Infl ammation, Immunity and Infection, and the Centerfor Diagnostics and Therapeutics.• Therapeutics: Following up on an earlier cluster hiringproposal in diagnostics, this new proposal will hire threefaculty specialists in drug discovery based on biomarkersor interventions on the cellular or molecular levelfor diseases including cancer, infection and immunedisorders. Participating departments include Chemistry,Neuroscience, and Biology.• Neuroethics: There will be three hires – one focused onemerging ethical and legal issues raised by neuroscience;one who studies the neuropsychological aspect of moralbehavior; and one who examines the implications ofneuroscientifi c discoveries for moral theory. Participantsinclude Philosophy, Neuroscience, Psychology and theCollege of Law.• Shaping the Future of Cities: The focus of this proposal isthe design of cities, including housing policy, transportationpolicy, and urban amenities such as green space. Thecluster will include an urban economist and an economicdevelopment expert in the Andrew Young Schoolof Policy Studies (AYSPS), an expert in social structure inthe Department of Sociology, and an expert in environmentallaw at the College of Law.• Breaking the Glass Ceiling of Achievement for Children whoare Deaf and Hard of Hearing: Under this proposal, theuniversity will hire three faculty members to focus onimproving the linguistic and literary capabilities of deafand hard of hearing children. The effort is a collaborationof the College of Education and the College of Arts andSciences, as well as the College of Computing at GeorgiaTech.These initiatives are partof a larger pattern ofgrowth both in the numberand the productivityof Arts and Sciencesfaculty members. In thelast year, the college hired50 new faculty members,including six for 2CIinitiatives. Of those incoming faculty, 17 members join theuniversity with external funding, totaling roughly $12 millionin grants that will be transferred to GSU.Our existing faculty also applied for and received morefunding than in previous years – $25.6 million in fi scal 2012compared to $20.3 million in fi scal 2011, or a 26 percentincrease in a single year. More than that, the funds awardedhave increased much faster than the number of applications.This suggests that our faculty are applying for and receivinglarger awards than before.The growth in awarded funds refl ects the College’s increasedcommitment to research administration. Arts andSciences now has three full-time staff members who notonly process applications, but provide research administrationtraining to our departments and help individual facultymembers with applications.Page Five

The College has adjusted its tenure and post-tenure reviewstandards to refl ect an increasing emphasis on faculty researchand professional development. In a related effort, thecollege has created two new programs to support facultywho are on track to meet those standards. In one of them,the Program For Adjusting Workloads for Junior Faculty(PAWS Jr.), faculty members who pass their third-yearreview are given a semester free from teaching in order tofocus on their research; the college provides compensatoryfunds to each faculty member’s department. The second,the Post-Tenure/Promotion Recognition of Faculty (PROF),provides the same opportunity for faculty who earn excellentratings in post-tenure review.Finally, the college has created a new award program tosupport the best junior faculty in their research development.The Dean’s Early Career Award (DECA), funded inpart by the college’s Board of Visitors, provides a stipendto outstanding young researchers who have successfullycompleted their third-year review. This award internallydemonstrates the college’s commitment to research and toits young faculty, and boosts the credentials of its recipientswhen applying for outside research funding.Any consideration of Arts and Sciences faculty must mentionthe outstanding record of research, scholarship, educationaland creative achievement it has amassed in the lastyear. Examples include the following:• Eminent Scholars Jian-Dong Li and Binghe Wang (picturedbelow) in Biology and Chemistry (and Centerfor Infl ammation, Immunity & Infection) found that aparticular gene serves a critical regulator of the progressof pulmonary fi brosis, a fatal and currently incurabledisease.• Assistant Professor Ben Miller (English), during his fi rstyear as a 2CI hire, received an NSF and SSHRC “Digginginto Data” challenge grant. Miller’s project uses computationallinguistics and natural language processing to fi ndnew witnesses in old records of human rights abuses.• Two faculty members, Kathryn Kozitas (Anthropology)and Teryl Frey (Biology) received Fulbrights to study inGreece and Germany, respectively.• Professor Andrew Altman of Philosophy was awardedfunding from the National Endowment for the Humanities(NEH) for a Summer Seminar on “Liberty, Equality,and Justice: Philosophical Problems in Domestic andGlobal Contexts.”• David Sehat, assistant professor of History, won theOrganization of Amerian Historians’ Frederick JacksonTurner Award for his book, The Myth of American ReligiousFreedom. The annual award goes to the best fi rstbook by an author in the fi eld of American history.• Melanie Davenport, associate professor of art education,had a shortfi lm titled “TheDrum Celebration”shown atthe SmithsonianMuseum of theAmerican Indianin April 2012. Thestop-motion shortshows an autumnritual of theHuicholes, a nativegroup of westcentral Mexico.Davenport guideda group of largelyHuichole students at the Centro Rural de EducacionSuperior in Estipac, Mexico in making the fi lm.• Nick Demos, professor of music composition, was chosenfor a residency at the MacDowell Colony, one of themost prestigious artists’ colonies in the nation. Demosspent his spring 2012 residency working on a commissionfor the Charleston Symphony Orchestra.• Professor David Bottoms, the Amos Distinguished Chairin the Department of English, received the Governor’sAward in the Humanities for his lengthy and distinguishedcareer as a poet, including his current term asPoet Laureate of Georgia.• Leonard Teel, professor of communication and directorof the Center for International Media Education,received the American Journalism Historians AssociationNational Award for Excellence in Teaching.Beyond these examples, Arts and Sciences faculty play a keyrole in the university’s strong and growing reputation forinnovative research both within and across disciplines.Page Six

2011-12 Annual Report ● College of Arts & Sciences ● Georgia State UniversityGOALFOURBe a leader in understanding the complex challenges ofcities and developing effective solutions.A & SThe College of Arts and Sciences is a key player in the university’swork on cities in two ways. First, the college hostsresearchers in a variety of disciplines (and interdisciplinaryclusters) who specialize in social, economic, environmental,historical and political aspects of urban development. Second,through its many public programs and events – especiallyin education, the arts and media – the college makes adaily contribution to the quality of life in metro Atlanta.The college is hiring an expertin urban social structure– to be housed in theDepartment of Sociology– as part of the university’sShaping the Future of Citiesprogram, funded by theSecond Century Initiative. Inaddition, Arts and Sciencesdepartments are leaders infour proposals funded by the university’s 2012 Cities Grantsprogram.Our departments already have a wide variety of programsthat engage their student in local and regional urban communitiesin a variety of roles. Examples include:• Geosciences has launched a new, NSF-funded summercommunity geography program that will bring underrepresentedundergraduate groups to campus to workwith faculty researchers and Atlanta-area nonprofi ts. Theprogram will not only produce research that will be ofimmediate, practical use, but will also help prepare thenext generation of urban investigators.• The Georgia Debate Center, where undergraduate andgraduate students from GSU and Emory teach debatefundamentals to inner-city students, provided 1,844hours of instruction to 107 students during the year.• The Bio-Bus program sends out its mobile instructionallaboratories, staffed by undergraduate and graduatestudents, to schools throughout the state. The program’snewest module, “Medicinal Plants: Merging Science andFolklore” reached 1,120 junior high and high schoolstudents through 38 trips during the year.College departments and centers – particularly in the arts– also bring town and gown together through an enormousnumber of lectures, performances, exhibits and other eventsthat are free and open to the public.Major events sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciencesincluded:• Mark Danner, an award-winning journalist and MacArthurFellow, presented the college’s 2012 Plummer Lecture,speaking on “Living with the New Normal: HumanRights, U.S. Foreign Policy and the 2012 Elections.”• Steven Cook, the Hasib J. Sabbagh Senior Fellow forMiddle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations,presented “The United States, Egypt, and the ‘New’Middle East.”• The Atlanta Film Festival moved its headquarters toGSU in 2012. This year’s 10-day festival offered morethan 220 independent, international, animated, documentaryand short fi lms selected from more than 1,800submissions from all over the world.• Dan Gilgoff, religion editor for CNN.com, spoke at thefi rst Religion and Public Life Fellow lecture in March. Asthe fi rst Public Life Fellow in the Department of ReligiousStudies at GSU, Gilgoff spent the past year sharinghis perspectives on religion and the media throughluncheons, courses and leading visits to CNN.• Congressman John Lewis spoke at the Department ofGerontology’s Barbara Pittard Payne Lecture in March.The civil rights icon focused on politics of aging.• Lutz H. Görgens, Consul General of the German ConsulateGeneral in Atlanta, spoke on the politics of theEuropean debt crisis at GSU in March.• The 40th annual Holiday Iron Pour, which brings to campusrepresentatives from universities across the nationand families from across metro Atlanta. Participants cancarve “scratch” molds, which are then fi lled with molteniron and produce unique keepsakes once cooled.• Phillip A. Sharp, winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize inPhysiology or Medicine, gave a lecture in May on “TheRevolution in RNA Biology.”Page Seven

CENCIAThe Center for Collaborative andInternational Arts2011-12 EventsThe Center for Collaborative and InternationalArts (CENCIA) bringstogether artists and scholarsengaged in arts-related researchfor a series of events each year.These cross-disciplinary, crossculturalevents enrich campusand community life by connectingarts research to the public. Thisyear’s programs, which brought artistsand performers to campus from Brazil, China, Argentina,Finland, Japan, Mexico and Switzerland, drew a record totalof 5,582 audience members from on- and off-campus.Bauru/Atlanta piano and voice competition and concertsSept. 21-22, 2011Two competitions and two concerts – one each for pianistsand singers – celebrated the collaborative relationshipbetween the Universidade do Sagrado Coracão in Bauru,Brazil and GSU’s School of Music, and featured musiciansfrom both schools.Abrazo AtlantaOctober 3, 2011A celebration of authentic Argentiniantango music and dance, presentedby the Eduardo Tami Trio and touringdancers Claudia Marziano and ToniSaganias. Fernando Reati, chair ofGSU’s Department of Modern andClassical Languages, gave a short talkon the history of the tango prior tothe performance.Allyson ComstockOctober 6-November 18, 2011Visual artist Allyson Comstock conducted a paper-makingworkshop as part of the Repurposed exhibition at theWelch school gallery. The exhibition, curated by GalleryDirector Cynthia Farnell, featured work by artists whouse repurposed materials to explore questions about theenvironment.Faculty Chamber Ensemble of Renmin UniversityOctober 15, 2011This concert celebrated the School of Music’s long-standingpartnership with Renmin University in China, and also commemoratedthe fi rst anniversary of GSU’s Confucius Institute.First Annual Black Student Film FestivalNovember 2-3, 2011A showcase for student fi lms depicting and representing AfricanAmerican people and culture. Awards were presented inseven categories: documentary, suspense, mystery and horror,comedy, drama, romance, action, and music video.Brazilian Artist Hugo FortesFebruary 21, 2012Fortes spoke on immigration, communication technology,global warming, urban sprawl – and how all of these developmentshave radically affected perceptions of space and place inAmerica and around the globe.AstroJazzMarch 16, 2012This celebration of the transit of Venus included live jazz music,stunning astronomical imagery, and a free-fl owing conversationwith Dr. Gordon Chin, a planetary scientist from NASA.Symbols for Sound: Exploring Mathematical Music TheoryApril 5, 2012This combined concert andsymposium explored the connectionsbetween music and math.The concert featured two musicianswho are also mathematicians:Emilio Lluis-Puebla of the NationalAutonomous University of Mexico; and Guerino Mazzola ofthe University of Minnesota School of Music and the Universityof Zurich Department of Informatics.Sixth Annual Atlanta Italian Film FestivalApril 5-7, 2012This festival presented six Italian fi lms never before released inthe United States, including the winner of the Italian Film Festivalin Miami and the winner of the Centro Campo Italiano atthe Venice Film Festival.. The festival also included a screeningof De Sica’s 1948 classic, Ladri di Biciclette (The Bicycle Thief).Aurora in AprilApril 17 & 19, 2012Two concerts featuring Finnish composers. The fi rst was anevening of contemporary Finnish chamber music performedby neoPhonia, the GSU new music ensemble. The secondfeatured two of the School of Music’s top wind ensembles in adiverse program of Finnish music.Page Eight

2011-12 Annual Report ● College of Arts & Sciences ● Georgia State UniversityGOALFIVEAchieve distinction in globalizing the University.A & SIn an age of diversity at home and opportunity abroad,cross-cultural research and education are vital to the missionof the College of Arts and Sciences. Our faculty memberscollaborate with colleagues around the world, andbring their global understanding into the curriculum.Our students are encouraged to experience other culturesin the classroom, through study-abroad and studentexchangeprograms, and through work with local immigrantcommunities and international organizations.During the 2011-12 academic year, the college establishedseven new cooperative agreements with institutions inChina, Egypt, France, Germany, Japan and Taiwan. Includingthose seven, the college now has roughly 65 agreementswith partners in 20 countries.Many of those agreements establish study-abroad andforeign exchange programs for GSU students. During theacademic year, the college sent 71 students abroad to 21partner universities in 10 countries. The college also hosted74 students who came from those countries for a semesteror a year at GSU.The biggest growth, however, was in students going onfaculty-led programs over the summer. In summer 2012, thecollege sent 280 students on 23 programs in 19 differentcountries. Those students represent a18 percent increaseover summer 2012, when Arts and Sciences sent 237students on international programs. This impressive jump inparticipation has put the college ahead of schedule in meetingthe university’s strategic goal of doubling the number ofstudents studying abroad by 2017.GLOBALEFFORTSThe college is committed to making surethat even those students who don’ttravel abroad are prepared for globalcompetence. Last year, for example,13 faculty in Arts and Sciences hadproposals accepted as part of theuniversity’s Global Education Committee.The participating faculty memberswent through a two-day training workshop on addinginternational perspectives to their syllabi, and should reachmore than 2,200 students with their revised courses in thecoming year.NEW INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTSIn the 2011-12 academic year, the college signed memorandaof cooperation or program specifi c agreementswith seven institutions in Japan, Taiwan, China, France,Egypt and Germany. Details are as follows:• November 2011 – Memorandum of Cooperation withDoshisha University, Japan. This program is housed inthe Department of Psychology.• December 2011 – Memorandum of Cooperationwith China Medical University, Taiwan. This program ishoused within the Department of Biology.• December 2011 – Agreement for Study AbroadProgram Support with Peking University, China. Thisprogram is housed within the Department of Chemistry.• February 2012 – Memorandum of Cooperation withthe Institut des Amériques, France. This programnames Georgia State University as the South AtlanticCenter of L’Institut des Amériques.• February 2012 – Graduate Student Research Programwith China Medical University, Taiwan. This program ishoused within the Department of Biology.• February 2012 – Graduate Student Exchange Programwith American University in Cairo, Egypt. This programis housed within the Department of Applied Linguistics& ESL.• April 2012 – Renewal of Student Exchange Programwith Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg,Germany. This program is housed in the Departmentof Modern & Classical Languages.Page Nine

GLOBAL EFFORTSMODEL ARAB LEAGUEAt Model Arab League events, students learnabout the politics and societies of the Arabworld, representing countries and non-governmentalorganizations in conferences simulatingdiplomacy. In November 2011, a team of 16GSU students learned more than they expectedto at a conference at Cairo’s American University.The team brought home three of the four topawards for best delegation in three differentEnglish-language conferences. But perhaps moreimportantly, they also met students who participatedin the January 2011 protests that ledto the overthrow of former Egyptian PresidentHosni Mubarak.Northumbria Exchange studentsOur departments and centers also host a variety offaculty and student efforts in global research, teachingand service. Examples include:• A three-year, $1 million partnership between AppliedLinguistics and English as a Second Languageand the language and literature programs at the Universityof Baghdad. The project will create an onlinementoring program so that GSU faculty can mentortheir Iraqi counterparts in the latest research andpedagogy. In the spring semester, two undergraduateALESL classes were given the assignment to converseonline regularly with students in Baghdad.• Political Science was chosen by the United StatesInstitute for Peace to run a competition to producecase studies in building peace. The case studies willhelp researchers, students and policy-makers learnfrom real-life examples of confl ict prevention, reconciliationand post-confl ict resolution.• Nic Scott, a Ph.D. student in Physics and Astronomy,received a scholarship from the French Embassy totravel to the Paris Observatory in fall 2011. Scottworked with the observatory staff to improveEuropean access to GSU’s Center for High AngularResolution Astronomy, which houses the most powerfulinterferometric telescopic array in the world.• Jeffrey Glover, assistant professor of anthropologyled a group of GSU students on an expedition tosurvey Vista Alegre, an abandoned Maya trading poston the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico.“It was absolutely amazing,” said Kimmia Salehi,a senior majoring in political science. “We haveall been following all of the developments inthe news and reading about it, and it was reallyexciting to witness it, following the Arab Spring.”“The Egyptian students had very intimatestories to tell about what they did and how ithappened,” said Rashid Naim, director of undergraduatestudies in the Department of PoliticalScience and advisor for the students. “Thatwas a really great learning experience for ourstudents. Some of these same Egyptian studentsare back on the streets now.”Model Arab League in CairoPage Ten

Research FundingFaculty and students in the College of Arts and Sciencesactively study such crucial areas as brain function andbehavior, drug development, archeology, urban health,political science, language acquisition and development,learning disorders, gerontology, astronomy, internationaldevelopment, environmental research, race and gender,bioscience, digital arts and media and molecular biology,to name but a few.The excellence of the college’s research programs has attractedhigh levels of funding from government agencies,private foundations and industry partners. The distributionof grants from the biggest federal and state grantingagencies for FY12 was as follows:Funding by Major Granting AgencyDepartment of Defense$306,265.00Department of Education$141,412.00Department of Energy$630,807.00Other Federal$763,899.00Foundation/Non-Profi t$2,925,449.15Industry$468,550.00NASA$247,217.40NIH$9,459,906.00NSF$7,640,832.00Other$2,392,984.93State(GA)$627,471.00TOTAL$25,604,793.48Summary of external award funding to Artsand Sciences departments in FY2012Unit Amount CountApplied Linguistics & ESL $449,154 2Biology $7,591,598 44CHARA $760,857 4Chemistry $4,761,007 34COAS - Dean’s Offi ce $32,000 2Communication $174,304 4Computer Science $1,316,189 20Welch School of Art & Design $4,500 1English $114,931 4Geo Sciences $502,421 11History $49,171 16Language Research Center $349,190 5Mathematics & Statistics $627,097 16Modern & Classical Languages $141,412 1Neuroscience Institute $3,019,193 21Philosophy $50,683 2Physics & Astronomy $1,902,773 28Political Science $176,700 3Psychology $3,187,677 19Sociology $393,936 4College Total $25,604,793 241Page Eleven

DevelopmentIn 2011-2012, the College of Arts and Sciences continuedto build and extend its relationships with its broad alumnibase.The college’s fundraising efforts were ledby Hope Mullen Carter, hired in February2012 as the college’s new Senior Director ofDevelopment. Carter came to Arts and Sciencesfrom the University of Georgia, whereshe raised more than $6.5 million in fi veyears as a regional director for leadership and major gifts.The Board of Visitors, a group of alumni and friends whowork together to support the college and to inspire othersto do the same, added fi ve new members.• Sandra Barnhill (B.S., Political Science, 1981) founder ofForeverfamily, a nonprofi ts dedicated to supporting thechildren of incarcerated parents.• Rebecca Burns (B.A., Journalism, 1989 and M.A., Communication2008), award-winning journalist, author anddirector of digital strategy for Emmis Publishing.• James J. Miller (M.S., Microbiology, 1976), founder of theMicroNanoSun Technology Group.• Randy Wade, (B.S., Political Science, 1989), director ofProperty and Transaction Taxes at AGL Resources• Rodney Wade (B.A., English, 1989), manager of a bankingsoftware support and implementation team forFiserve, Inc.The Board now has 18 members, who continue to serve asthe College’s best ambassadors.The College also hostedseveral developmentrelatedevents during theyear, including the annualAlumni Awards Receptionand Honors Night (picturedat left), a banquethonoring the recipients ofendowed fellowships. Areception at board memberBill Balzer’s house inOctober 2011 allowed alumni a chance to meet Bill Long,the college’s new dean.The college also received fi ve new endowments during theyear. The new funds are as follows:• Bradford and Patricia Ferrer Scholarship in Music. Witha shared commitment and passion to music, the Ferrersare extending their support for students earning abachelor’s degree in the School of Music. The Ferrers areboth alumni of GSU, though not of Arts and Sciences.• Tony G. Holcombe Endowment in History. Tony Holcombe(B.A. History, 1977), was a fi rst-generation collegestudent who became a successful leader in the telecommunicationindustry. Holcombe and his wife, through abequest gift, intend to establish this fund to support theDepartment of History.• Religious Studies Endowed Scholarship. This fund, createdby friends and alumni of the Department of ReligiousStudies, provides assistance to students who arepursuing a degree in the fi eld.• Robert Shaw Choral Scholar Award. This scholarshipwas created by Florence Kopleff and John Haberlen, bothprofessors emeriti in the School of Music, in memory ofRobert Shaw. Shaw, who conducted the Atlanta SymphonyOrchestra from 1967 to 1988, conducted a seriesof ASO concerts with the GSU University Singers andselect voice faculty. In 1986, Shaw received the fi rst honorarydoctorate ever presented by GSU in the Fine Arts.This scholarship provides support to a choral conductinggraduate student in the School of Music.• Shanthi V. Sitaraman Intestinal Pathology Endowment.Dr. Shanthi V. Sitaraman (picturedat left) was an exceptionalclinician, researcher andeducator, who studied thepathophysiologic mechanismsof infl ammatory bowel disease.Sitaraman died in 2011 after along and valiant battle againstovarian cancer. Intestinal pathobiologyis a new area of focusin the Department of Biology,and this fund will promotestudies in this important area. The fund will also supportthe Shanthi V. Sitaraman Lecture Series.All of these efforts, plus the hundreds of meetings ourdevelopment team had with potential donors, resulted innearly $2.6 million given over the course of the year.Page Twelve

COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES OUTSTANDING ALUMNI AWARDSThe College of Arts and Sciences is proud to announcethe winners of its 2012 Outstanding AlumniAwards: Sandra Barnhill (pictured below with DeanLong) and Stephen Garber. (pictured, right, with DeanLong)Barnhill earnedher B.S. in PoliticalScience in 1981,and then wenton to law schooland began hercareer working asa defense attorney.She heard fromher female clientsthat they wereworried – morethan anythingelse – about theirchildren, and decided to do something about it. Shefounded ForeverFamily, a nonprofi t that supports childrenwhose parents are incarcerated, in 1987. Todaythe organization serves families in Atlanta, Louisville,Kentucky, and Austin, Texas.“GSU is where I really cut my teeth as an activist,”Barnhill said. “Through my involvement with cofoundingthe GSU college chapter of the N.A.A.C.P.,and through working on the Missing and MurderedChildren’s Campaing, I learned about fi ghting for thethings you believe in and serving the community. Itwas at GSU that the purpose of the academy reallyhit home for me – the education we receive shouldhelp us blend intellect and heart so that we can be ofservice in the world.”“Sandra Barnhill is the epitome of service and leadership,”said Akinyele Umoja, chair of African AmericanStudies, who nominated her. “She has used her talentand resources to improve the possibilities of familiesand communities that others had condemned tofailure. She has also provided opportunities for dozensof GSU students and alumni to engage in communityservice and youth development.”Stephen Garber, who is an Atlanta native, earnedhis M.A. and Ph.D in Psychology in 1972 and 1974,respectively.He served as the director of Child and AdolescentServices at South Central Fulton County MentalHealth Center and the Southside ComprehensiveHealth Center before going into private practice.That practice, the Behavioral Institute of Atlanta (BIA),is one of the largest in the state. BIA’s 18 partnersinclude Garber’s wife, Mary Ann, who also got a Ph.D.from GSU, in education.“The GSUPsychologyDepartmentwas one of thebest programsin the country,”Garber said.“To have such agood program,and to have itin Atlanta – Imade connections,Imade friends,and I made itthrough in record time, partly because of the researchopportunities in the city.”“Our alumni award winners this year have both usedtheir education to benefi t others – Stephen Garberthrough his work as a therapist and Sandra Barnhillthrough creating a support network for families,” saidWilliam Long, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.“They embody the GSU ideal of education asan investment not only in individuals, but in the entirecommunity.”The Outstanding Alumni Awards for 2012 was formallypresented to Barnhill and Garber at a receptionbefore the college’s annual Honors Night banquet onApril 18.Page Thirteen

FacilitiesThis past academic year the college invested roughly $1.1million to make the following improvements in teachinginfrastructure:• Built out fi ve offi ces in Kell Hall for fi ve new lecturers inBiology and Chemistry hired to meet the demands ofgrowing enrollment.• Renovated Kell Hall lab space for a classroom to supportsupplemental instruction and help sessions forSTEM classes.• Renovated two classrooms in Kell Hall to supportincreased enrollment in Geosciences and other sciencecourses.• Updated and reopened Kell Hall 698, a chemistry organicslab, to support increased enrollment.• Cost-shared the renovation of Kell Hall 200 lab into ashared College of Education/Neuroscience instructionallab for science education classes and new classes for theNeuroscience Institute’s undergraduate program,• Refurbished 180 graduate assistant carrels; installed A/Vequipment in two graduate seminar rooms, 3 conferencerooms, and one event space; fi lled in gaps in furniturerequirements,• Expanded and enhanced Department of Geosciencesgraduate, seminar and offi ce space.The college also made plans to create a Science Collaborationand Instruction (SCI) Suite in Kell Hall. The SCI suitewill provide a home for both formal and informal tutoringsessions, as well as a general study space for our undergraduatemajors. The suite will have room for 30 students andextensive blackboard space for collaborative learning.The Changing Campus: Arts & SciencesGeorgia State University has grown tremendously inrecent years, not least in the quality and diversity offacilities for teaching, research, and creative work. Thecollege has helped drive and shape this expansion. Asa result, the college now offers its students and facultyan astonishing array of specialized classrooms, studios,performance venues, meeting and study spaces:• Across the sciences, the College of Arts andSciences houses 90 research faculty members in127,000 square feet of lab space. A BioimagingCore Facility offers access to electron microscopes,laser-scanning confocal microscopes, andmicroscopy equipment.• The university’s Visualization Wall is one of thelargest high-resolution displays in the world.Faculty in computer sciences, geosciences, biology,chemistry, applied linguistics, art and history usethe wall to engage with vast amounts of complexvisual data.• The Welch School of Art and Design has 20dedicated studio classrooms, for a total of 32,000square feet of space.• School of Music faculty and students perform inboth the Rialto Center, an acoustically superb 900-seat facility, and the recently-renovated KopleffRecital Hall, a 400-seat venue.• The Digital Arts and Entertainment Laboratory(DAEL) is a state-of-the-art research and productionfacility for producing and testing digital mediacontent. DAEL has a professional-level lightinggrid, a green screen, an audio recording studio, anediting suite, and theaters.• The Language Research Center is a unique facilitywhere students and faculty members do behavioral– that is, not medical – research with chimpanzees,capuchin monkeys, rhesus macaques, andhumans. Researchers at the center have producedgroundbreaking research on the primate origins oflanguage, self-control, competence with numbers,and economic decision-making.• In the near future, the college administration andmore than half of A&S departments will move into25 Park Place, formerly the SunTrust building. Thebuilding will add 563,000 square feet of offi ce andadministrative space, and will free up other spaceacross campus for conversion into classrooms.Page Fourteen