Humans can’t see the vast majority of the universe. Not because it is too far away, but because it exists in a form that we can’t directly detect called “dark matter.”
The evidence announced today is just the most recent example of scientists’ assumptions of how the universe works being supported by real data. See: Boson, Higgs.
The timing couldn’t be more perfect for the UT community. Tomorrow, April 4, at 4 p.m. in the Driscoll Auditorium, at the annual McMaster Cosmology Lecture, Dr. David Hogg from New York University will discuss dark matter in the Driscoll Alumni Center Auditorium. He will attempt to answer the question, “Where and What is Dark Matter?” – a question perhaps slightly closer to a conclusive answer today than yesterday.
And after your stop at Driscoll, grab some dinner and head over for the Shapiro Lecture by Washington Post Columnist E.J. Dione at 7 p.m. in the Student Union Auditorium.
Adult students often juggle college courses with job and life responsibilities, and The University of Toledo is getting recognition for its efforts to make it easier for nontraditional students to be successful balancing everything.
The College of Adult and Lifelong Learning and its new Office of Adult Student Extended Services in Rocket Hall Room 1800 was recently highlighted in The Blade for “fresh efforts” to serve nontraditional students.
The Associated Press also noted the UT Military Service Center and our new Military and Media Liaison Haraz Ghanbari in its piece Ohio colleges expand services for veterans, that appeared in The Blade, Columbus Dispatch and other newspapers.
The AP article came just after the University hosted a week of events as part of the national Joining Forces Week, which is organized by Michelle Obama and Jill Biden to honor veterans for their service and to work to ensure those returning from the battlefield have the economic and health care they deserve.
Watch some of the local coverage here:
And a group of students in the UT College of Business and Innovation was recognized in a Forbes article for their “remarkable track record picking stocks” with the writer noting, “As I look back at the other schools that competed, nearly all schools had at least one stock with 1 year negative returns. Toledo did not. Toledo is on a streak.”
The first international “Pay it Forward” kidney donor chain and UT’s role in making it happen made national news over the weekend.
Dr. Michael Rees, professor of urology and kidney transplant surgeon, with U.S. Department of State Deputy Assistant Secretary Eric Rubin and Greek Ambassador Vassilis Kaskarelis in Washington.
Altruistic kidney donor chains are the brainchild of Dr. Michael Rees, professor of urology and kidney transplant surgeon at UTMC, who helped facilitate the first international donor chain with a couple from Greece through his Alliance for Paired Donation, where he serves as CEO.
To begin a chain, an altruistic donor – Elizabeth Gay from Oklahoma in this case – agrees to donate a kidney to a patient searching for a genetic match. In turn a relative or friend of that patient agrees to donate his or her kidney forward to another patient in search of a genetic match and the chain continues.
The first international kidney donor exchange itself is worthy of national attention, but there is a great story behind how this got started.
Theodora “Dora” Papaioannou-Helmis was genetically unable to donate her kidney to her husband, Michalis, and in their home country of Greece the law stated that only a first or second degree relative could donate their kidney.
Dora worked tirelessly to change the laws in Greece, and after she succeeded, worked to locate a compatible donor for her husband – Elizabeth Gay – and then donated her own kidney to a stranger to continue the chain. The transplant surgeries for Dora and Michalis were performed at UTMC.
Already, five lives have been saved and three more transplants are scheduled in this international donor chain.
The Greek Embassy in Washington welcomed the donors, recipients and physicians on Friday in recognition of this successful moment in medical history.
CNN, Fox News and Washington media were on hand to cover the event. And locally, The Blade ran a front-page article on Dr. Rees. Some news agencies covered the story featuring participants from their area, such as Indianapolis Star and North County Times.
Falcons are causing a lot of commotion at UT. Not those ones from BG, but the resident peregrine falcons living on top of the UT Bell Tower.
The newest brood of chicks for UT’s resident peregrine falcons, Belle and Allen, hatched and officials with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources did their annual visit to check on the baby birds. As you can imagine, the parents don’t like the idea of humans messing with their nest and their aggression was captured by UT Photographer Dan Miller and Videographer Chris Mercadante. Watch the full video here.
And this is pretty cool. The news sharing program Right This Minute came across the video and included it, with clever commentary, in their broadcast. Take a minute to watch it:
The state officials verified the eggs hatched on May 4 and came back to campus Monday to place identification bands on their legs so they can be tracked after they migrate from their birthplace. The Blade and WNWO 24 were on hand to meet the baby birds.
The University also received some attention from U.S. News and World Report. Tom Barden, English professor and dean of the Honors College, was interviewed about his new book Steinbeck in Vietnam: Dispatches from the War. Read the question-and-answer column here. And Toledo Early College High School, a Toledo Public Schools high school located on the UT Scott Park Campus of Energy and Innovation, received a bronze medal from the magazine for its 2012 Best High Schools edition. ABC 13 covered the school’s graduation ceremony on Tuesday.
UT has become a model for other states and universities considering mergers after the successful 2006 merger of UT and the former Medical University of Ohio. UT President Lloyd Jacobs is quoted in a piece in New Jersey’s Courier Post about discussions there to merge Rutgers-Camden and Rowan University.
But mergers can reach fruition.
In 2006, the University of Toledo combined with the Medical University of Ohio, creating an institution with more than 8,000 workers, 23,000 students and an economic impact estimated to exceed $1 billion. The combined institution includes schools of medicine, law, education, engineering, nursing, pharmacy and business. The merger’s cost was estimated at about $30 million.
“Frankly, there are few state institutions of our size that have gone through a successful merger,” said Lloyd Jacobs, the university’s president. “It’s been six years now and there have been no talks of a divorce.”
Jacobs noted the merger had to overcome hurdles. Once the merger plans became known, he said, alliances were formed, particularly among people who believed their jobs were at risk.
“There have been thousands of roadblocks from which firearms our police force should carry to the insignia,” Jacobs said. “There are so many different decisions that have to be made and that is part of the culture clash. Each institution values different things.”
Is there a doctor shortage in Toledo? Yes, says Dr. Jeffrey Gold, UT chancellor and executive vice president for biosciences and health affairs, and dean of UT College of Medicine and Life Sciences. He explains to ABC 13‘s Susan Ross Wells why:
Graduates, and really the entire campus community, are excited about commencement this weekend when 2,970 candidates for degrees from spring and summer will have the opportunity to walk across that stage and ceremoniously complete their collegiate career at The University of Toledo. Congratulations to all the new Rocket alumni!
This time of year comes with a nice amount of media attention on our successful recent graduates.
Tune in to Jeff Smith’s Roundtable on ABC 13 at noon Sunday to hear stories from nontraditional students among the Class of 2102, including Ali Badran who returned to college after a 20-year hiatus and will receive his UT degree tomorrow.
Pick up The Blade on Sunday where we expect a story about the Class of 2012 quoting Beth Nicholson, director of Career Services, and a few UT students.
Provost McMillen speaks at event to announce new teacher LEADERS
UT celebrated education in a different way this week too with the announcement of the second cohort of teachers from Toledo Public Schools and Monroe County, Mich. in the LEADERS program, which aims to enhance science education by training teachers to provide Project Based Science and alternative energy lessons.
UT’s Tom Barden also was in the news this week with more attention for his book “Steinbeck in Vietnam: Dispatches from the War” (University of Virginia Press). The English professor and Dean of the Honors College was quoted in The Chronicle of Higher Education:
This is the first collection of the columns and their first publication in 40 years. The dispatches “infuriated the doves and delighted the hawks,” says Thomas E. Barden, the collection’s editor and a professor of English and dean of the Honors College at the University of Toledo. Publishing them permits readers “to consider from this distance how important the essays must have been to the large number of readers who were undecided and bewildered about the war and who considered Steinbeck a reliable moral witness.”
Cosmic dust near Orion's Belt
He already appeared on NPR and had a nice feature in The Blade about the book.
Check out this amazing photograph of cosmic dust near Orion’s Belt observed by the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment telescope led by UT’s Tom Megeath, associate professor of astronomy, and Amy Stutz of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany.
The observations use the heat glow of interstellar dust grains to show astronomers where new stars are being formed.
In health news, UTMC opened a newly renovated Outpatient Rehabilitation Services clinics to better serve patients. Among the improvements are a larger gym, more individual treatment rooms and a new pool. ABC 13 came out to the ribbon cutting celebration and we at UT News did a video as well.
Interested in leading a healthier lifestyle? Tune in to Rebecca Regnier’s Full Plate program Saturdays at 1 p.m. This week her show will feature a cooking demonstration by UTMC Executive Chef Scott Sundermeyer, who is making the rounds promoting the new UTMC Four Seasons Bistro and healthy cooking and has already been featured on WTOL and in The Blade.
It’s been a very busy week for members of the University of Toledo community in the media:
Today an organization called Polar Bears International in coordination with the Toledo Zoo presented UT an award for environmental stewardship. Accepting the award were UT President Lloyd Jacobs, Dr. Tim Fisher, Dr. Andy Jorgensen, Dr. Karen Bjorkman and Chuck Lehnert. In the UT News video below, they summarize UT’s commitment to research, instruction and education and University operations committed to reducing greenhouse gases. UT News covers the event:
Dr. Morris Jenkins, chair of the Department of Criminal Justice and Social Work spoke with the Blade and TV stations about his efforts to work with local schools to find a solution that balances proper discipline of students with keeping them in school.
UT’s Department of Music and Director Ronnie Lindsey were featured by Ch. 13, highlighting the department’s formal addition of gospel music.
TV stations came out to the University of Toledo College of Engineering’s Design EXPO last week.
UT incubator tenant Nextronex and Dr. Gbenga Ajilore, associate professor of economics, spoke about “Green Jobs:”
LeVelle Ridley, a St. John’s High School and TOLEDO EXCEL student who plans to enroll at UT next year, was named Student of the Week by the Toledo Blade. (Hat tip to Cathy Zimmer on this one as I missed it.)
The NFL ESPN advertising and self-promotional extravaganza draft took place this weekend and UT players ended up where they so often do: being underestimated until they’re streaking by you for touchdowns.
UT Trustee and former Medical College of Ohio faculty member Dr. Amjad Hussain was inducted into the Medical Mission Hall of Fame and Dr. Patricia Metting, vice chancellor and senior associate dean for student affairs in UT’s College of Medicine and Life Sciences received the 2012 Dr. Lawrence V. Conway Lifetime Distinguished Achievement Award, named for the UT professor emeritus of finance and the hall of fame’s founder and president.
And UT’s Drs. Brent Cameron and Dong-Shik Kim were recently awarded an Ohio Third Frontier Technology Validation and Start-up Fund grant in the amount of $50,000 to further develop their work to use biomarkers – molecules in the body that give doctors and researchers clues about diseases and conditions – to more easily diagnose illnesses and chronic medical conditions such as diabetes.
Dr. Tom Barden, dean of the Honors College, spoke eloquently on NPR last weekend on his new book about American author John Steinbeck and Vietnam called Steinbeck in Vietnam: Dispatches from the War.
Meanwhile the UT Medical Center had an extremely busy weekend in the news.
On Friday, Ch. 13 followed up on a story from earlier in the week about an altruistic kidney donation chain that crossed national borders. In December, an altruistic donor from Oklahoma gave one of her kidneys to Michalis Chelmis, a Greek citizen. Then last week, Michalis wife, Dora – who had worked to change Greek law to enable her husband to receive a kidney from an international donor – gave her kidney which promptly flew to a patient in need in Pennsylvania. Transplant surgeon Dr. Michael Rees, UT professor of urology who runs the Alliance for Paired Donation, explains further:
On Saturday morning, Four Seasons Bistro’s executive chef, Chef Scott, was highlighting UTMC’s new delicious, healthy cuisine for Ch. 11:
And on Sunday, the Blade, the Toledo Free Press and other news organizations reported on a new partnership between UT and the YMCA to have a new UT primary care clinic in one of the coolest looking buildings in Toledo the Y’s new downtown health center.
Not to mention the Glass City Marathon UT sponsored and served as the beginning and end for. Giant congrats to AS for your news at the finish line.
More evidence over the last few days of the leadership role UT faculty have in the community.
When Jerry Anderson at WTOL wanted someone to help explain last week’s Supreme Court arguments on the President Obama’s health care law he turned to UT and Law Professor Lee Strang:
Do you work for a bad boss? If you’re not sure, then you probably don’t.
A University of Toledo professor of management has analyzed years of seminar data from workers describing their worst bosses, and it turns out some pretty obvious and consistent traits separate the merely difficult bosses from the truly awful supervisors.
“When people were asked to chronicle their worst boss, they either cited lack of character or competency,” said Clint Longenecker, a professor of leadership and organizational excellence in the university’s college of business and innovation. “When we teach leadership, we now focus on character and competency. The list of bad traits leans very heavily towards character issues.”
Mr. Longenecker, who has conducted leadership seminars for nearly 12 years, said he always has asked participants to think of their worst boss and then write a description of him or her. “About a year and a half ago I decided to take those answers and analyze them,” he said. His findings were published in a recent issue of Industrial Management, a publication of the Institute of Industrial Engineers.
And, unfortunately, when other communities recognize UT leadership, we lose great people to other communities, as was the case when Dr. Joseph Shapiro, chair of the Department of Medicine, accepted the position as dean of the School of Medicine at Marshall University. UT’s loss is the gain of the medical community in West Virgina.
A neat story was published in Sunday’s Cincinnati Enquirer about UT football and track star Emerson Cole which includes a great shot from his time at UT.
Emerson Cole
Cole went on to become the first African-American drafted by the Cleveland Browns and the Enquirer talks to him about his football days and about the recent increasingly painful rivalry between the Browns and the Cincinnati Bengals.
Emerson Cole is a Cleveland Browns fan who has a special connection to both the Browns and Bengals.
Cole, 83, was a rookie fullback behind the great Marion Motley in 1950, when coach Paul Brown’s Cleveland team, which had been absorbed into the NFL, won the championship in its first year in the league.
“I don’t remember much about that (championship) game except that it was 5 degrees below zero in the air and even colder than that on the field,” recalled Cole, who lives in Toledo, where he starred in football and track at the University of Toledo.
The term “Relevant University” has been used by our President Lloyd Jacobs to describe the 21st century university. But what does it mean?
When Dr. Jacobs and others at UT use the phrase, they are imparting not only the traditional definition of “having significant and demonstrable bearing on the matter at hand” (thanks Merriam-Webster), but also the Latin meaning of the word, “to raise up.”
Universities have not only a significant role in communities, both local and global, but they certainly raise up, give aid, help. Universities do this through economic development, research, the arts, athletics and so much more.
Larry Burns, host of "The Relevant University" on News/Talk 760 WJR
Larry Burns, the UT vice president for external affairs and interim president for equity and diversity, will explore the impact of higher education in the new “The Relevant University” radio program.
The show debuts tonight at 7 p.m. on News/Talk 760 WJR. You should tune in to hear from Dr. Jacobs, East Carolina University Chancellor Steve Ballard, Virginia Commonwealth University President Michael Rao and University of Notre Dame President the Rev. John Jenkins.
Click here to hear Larry talk about the debut episode on WJR’s Paul W. Smith Show.
And each month Larry will explore more ways colleges and universities have relevance in today’s world. “The Relevant University” airs at 7 p.m. the fourth Tuesday of every month on News/Talk WJR 760.
A journal devoted to a look at local, national and global media reports about the way higher education is changing our society and those trends higher education must engage to maintain relevance in the 21st century.
UT Virtual View Book
UT Rockets
Let Us Share More About UT!
UTMC Named Regions #1 Hospital
The term “Relevant University” has been used by our President Lloyd Jacobs to describe the 21st century university. But what does it mean?
