THE DAILY REVEILLE

FRIDAY, MARCH 6, 2009

PAGE 3

BOARD OF SUPS

UNO instructor O’Conner named newest Boyd professor 67th professor to receive honor By Leslie Presnall Staff Writer

The LSU Board of Supervisors unanimously agreed at Thursday’s meeting to name Charles O’Connor, chemistry professor at the University of New Orleans, the newest Boyd professor. O’Connor is the sixth

professor from UNO and the 67th professor in the System to receive the honor since the initiation of the award in 1953. The Boyd professorship is considered the System’s highest academic rank and is limited to professors who have attained national or international distinctions for outstanding research, teaching and other creative achievements. O’Connor is considered an international expert on materials science and nanotechnology.

He is the author of two books on magnetic properties of materials, and his work has been cited more than 850 times by other researchers. O’Connor also led the development of a UNO outreach summer research program for high school students. He earned his doctoral degree in chemistry at the University of Illinois in 1979 and joined UNO the same year as an assistant professor. He was named a full-time professor

in 1989, and he was honored as a distinguished professor of chemistry in 2001. The Board also approved 14 new endowed professorships in medical education, basic sciences, engineering and the humanities at LSU institutions statewide, including five at LSU. The Board also approved the recommendation for the donation of a storage building from the East Baton Rouge 4-H Foundation, Inc. to the Agricultural

Center’s Central Research Station. The Foundation donated an 11,320 square foot building to the AgCenter for storage space in return. The estimated building value is $190,000.

Contact Leslie Presnall at lpresnall@lsureveille.com

Gandhi items sell Noted mathematician lectures for $1.8M in auction Sawin shared view LECTURE

By The Associated Press

on math theories By Kimberly Brown Contributing Writer

About 15 University students and professors crowded into a Lockett Hall classroom Thursday evening to watch and listen as Stephen Sawin, professor and notable mathematician at Fairfield University, lecture on a few math topics. The lecture included Sawin’s modern perspective on the mathematical theories, including supersymmetry, quantum mechanics and Gauss-Bonnet-Chern theorem, by using mathematical equations, containing physics and geometry to develop a construction of the path integral. “Math is a wrap onto how the universe behaves,” Sawin said. “These topics are just a warmup for students to understand the harder questions that come from physics.” According to Sawin’s specialty in these mathematical fields, supersymmetry is a theory that governs how particles interact in the world. Quantum mechanics is an idea that relates to the string theory, which combines quantum mechanics and

JASON BORDELON / The Daily Reveille

Notable mathematician Sawin from Fairfield University gave a lecture Thursday about mathematical theories in Lockett Hall.

how physics should work. Ambar Sengupta, University professor, said the Gauss-BonnetChern theorem is “a very beautiful idea” to him. “It is a very important theorem in math,” Sengupta said. “But Sawin’s perspective on this classical idea is more modern and surprising.” After lecturing on these topics, Sawin said students and professors should remember that it’s possible, in some cases, to understand and come up with the path integral of time. It took Sawin and his colleague, Dana Fine,, about four years to come

Campus Crime Briefs HIGH NUMBER OF VEHICLE BURGLARIES IN LARGE PARKING LOTS LSU Police Department officials noticed an increase in vehicle burglaries on campus after the semester break, according to LSUPD detective David Heroman. Out of the nearly 20 vehicle burglaries since January 12, items reported stolen include GPS devices, iPods, dashboard stereo systems and speaker boxes. The burglaries usually occur in the larger student parking lots on Nicholson Extension and lots near the Charles McClendon LSU Football Practice Facility. Heroman said students should remember to lock their doors and park near well-lit areas. Some of

the burglaries occur during the day, though. Often times, a person will appear as if he or she is working on their car, but in reality they are stealing a speaker box or other car parts. Heroman said he encourages students to report any suspicious person in campus parking lots, day or night, to LSUPD at 578-3231. POLICE INVESTIGATING IHOP SHOOTING Police are investigating a shooting that left a man wounded in the IHOP parking lot Wednesday. The suspect exited the passenger side of a dark-colored F-150 pickup truck at about 2:30 a.m., walked toward the victim’s vehicle and began firing, according to a Baton Rouge

up with their perspectives and equations on supersymmetry, quantum mechanics and the Gauss-BonnetChern theorem. Sawin has also published several articles in the American Journal of Mathematics, including Witten’s Nonabelian Localization for Noncompact Hamiltonian Spaces, Subfactors Constructed from Quantum Group and Relative Commutants of Hecke Algebra Subfactors. Contact Kimberly Brown at kbrown@lsureveille.com

Police Department news release. The victim was injured during the shooting and transported to a local hospital where he is in stable condition. The suspect fled the restaurant parking lot, at 3006 College Drive, in the F-150. Anyone with information on the shooting can contact police at (225) 389-3844 or Crime Stoppers at (225) 344-7867. FIRE DESTROYS HOUSE NEAR CAMPUS A fire destroyed an abandoned house near the University on Tuesday night. Firefighters arrived at the house on Tennessee Street at East McKinley Street at about 10:30 p.m. The fire was under control by 11:15 p.m. but destroyed the entire rear of the house, said Robert Combs, Baton Rouge Fire Department spokesman. Combs said the fire is suspected to be arson. No one was in the house during the incident. Contact The Daily Reveille’s news staff at news@lsureveille.com

NEW YORK (AP) — Mohandas Gandhi’s eyeglasses and other items sold for $1.8 million Thursday at an auction that drew outrage from the Indian government, a last-minute reversal from the seller and a frenzy of bidding won by an Indian conglomerate that said the pacifist leader’s possessions will be coming home. The lot included Gandhi’s wire-rim eyeglasses, worn leather sandals, a pocket watch, a plate and the brass bowl from which he ate his final meal. The Indian government had protested the sale, saying the items should be returned to the nation and not sold to the highest bidder. The seller and the government could not work out a deal, and the auction went forward as planned. But the self-identified owner, California art collector James Otis, told reporters outside the Antiquorum Auctioneers that he no longer wanted to sell the items. Meanwhile, U.S. Justice Department officials served an Indian

court injunction on the auction house, blocking it from releasing the items. Auctioneer Julien Schaerer announced as the sale began that the Gandhi items would be held for two weeks “pending resolution of third party claims.” Toni Bedi, an executive of the Indian company UB Group, had the winning bid after a furious four minutes in which the offers raced from $10,000 to $1.8 million. Bids came from the floor and by phone and Internet from overseas; none of the other bidders were identified. Bedi said he was acting on instructions of Dr. Vijay Mallya, CEO of UB Group, whose firms in India include breweries, airlines, chemical, pharmaceutical and fertilizer firms and information and technology companies. He said that the company wants to donate the items to the Indian government, and plans to return them for public display in New Delhi. Contact The Daily Reveille’s news staff at news@lsureveille.com