University of Georgia Magazine Spring 2020

spring 2020

Taking a Shot at the Flu UGA researchers are targeting the deadly virus

CONTENTS Get a sneak peak at how UGA’s new Innovation District is shaping up, p. 22.

the magazine of the university of georgia spring 2020

INSIDE 5

The President’s Pen

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UGA to Z

President Jere W. Morehead on the State of the University in 2020.

Find out what drew this standing-room-only crowd to a performance space just outside the Athens loop, p. 18.

Accomplishments and accolades from across the UGA community.

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On the Bulldog Beat The UGA Center for Continuing Education & Hotel has been renovated just in time for your next visit. And Uga X’s.

36 Bulldog Bulletin News, events, and photos from the UGA Alumni Association.

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Class Notes UGA alumni are best-selling authors, social-media innovators, and well-known designers.

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Faculty Focus Get to know Jeffrey Jones, Lambdin Kay Chair for the Peabodys in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication.

FEATURE

ON THE COVER

16 Where the Green Grass Grows Red and black and … green? UGA’s turfgrass management programs date back to before World War II and inject billions of dollars into the state’s economy each year.

18 Boxing Day

UGA alumni and faculty are among the performers in one of the Classic City’s newest artistic ventures.

22 Taking Shape

Quietly and over several years, UGA has become a hotbed for innovation and entrepreneurship. With a host of new projects coming online in downtown Athens, the quiet part is going away fast.

26 A Path to a Cure

UGA’s Ted Ross has dedicated his career to discovering a universal vaccine that would provide years of protection from many types of flu. He and his team are making big strides.

We are taking our shot at a universal flu vaccine.

Led by Ted Ross, Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar of Infectious Diseases, a team of UGA researchers is working on a vaccine that would provide years of protection from many types of flu—not just seasonal protection against certain types. Meet them all on page 26.

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UGA at Oxford the bodleian library is one of the oldest and largest libraries in Europe. It is the main research library at the University of Oxford and a staple of the UGA study abroad experience. The UGA at Oxford program celebrated 30 years in 2019, and as part of it, UGA students are taught by Oxford faculty. Those students have access to this iconic institution and spend their days in many other such facilities that have been part of the Oxford experience for hundreds of years.

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spring 2020

VOLUME 99

ISSUE NO. 2

georgia magazine

Editor · Eric Rangus MA ’94 Associate Editor · Aaron Hale MA ’16 Writers · Leigh Beeson MA ’17 and Hayley Major Art Director · Jackie Baxter Roberts Advertising Director · Kipp Mullis ABJ ’93 Office Manager · Fran Burke UGA Photographers · Peter Frey BFA ’94, Rick O’Quinn ABJ ’87, Andrew Davis Tucker, Dorothy Kozlowski BLA ’06, ABJ ’10, Chad Osburn Contributing Writers · Elizabeth Elmore BBA ’08, ABJ ’08 and Marion English AB ’88 Editorial Interns · Rachel Floyd AB ’19, Mary Calkins, and Madeleine Howell

marketing & communications Vice President · Karri Hobson-Pape Executive Director · Janis Gleason Brand Strategy Director · Michele Horn

administration President · Jere W. Morehead JD ’80 Senior VP for Academic Affairs & Provost · S. Jack Hu VP for Finance & Administration · Ryan Nesbit MBA ’91 VP for Development & Alumni Relations · Kelly Kerner VP for Instruction · Rahul Shrivastav VP for Research · David C. Lee VP for Public Service & Outreach · Jennifer Frum PhD ’09 VP for Student Affairs · Victor Wilson BSW ’82, MEd ’87 VP for Government Relations · Toby Carr BBA ’01, BSAE ’01 VP for Information Technology · Timothy M. Chester

Change your mailing address by contacting e: records@uga.edu or ph: 888-268-5442 Find Georgia Magazine online at news.uga.edu/georgia-magazine Submit Class Notes or story ideas to gmeditor@uga.edu

advertise in Georgia Magazine by contacting Kipp Mullis at e: gmsales@uga.edu or ph: 706-542-9877 fine print

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Georgia Magazine (issn 1085-1042) is published quarterly for alumni and friends of UGA. postmaster | Send address changes to: University of Georgia 286 Oconee Street, Suite 200 North Athens, GA 30602

The University of Georgia does not discriminate on the basis of race, sex, religion, color, national or ethnic origin, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, or military service in its administrations of educational policies, programs, or activities; its admissions policies; scholarship and loan programs; athletic or other University-administered programs; or employment. Inquiries or complaints should be directed to the Equal Opportunity Office 119 Holmes-Hunter Academic Building, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602. Telephone 706-542-7912 (V/TDD).

Fax 706-542-2822. https://eoo.uga.edu/

THE PRESIDENT’S PEN

A Vision for Our Future

Working together to achieve the future we imagine for UGA On Jan. 29, 2020, I had the privilege of giving the annual State of the University Address in our historic Chapel. This UGA tradition is an important opportunity to review the university’s accomplishments from the previous year and outline our shared vision for the future.

“The time is right for UGA to embrace new goals and aspirations to address the growing challenges and opportunities that await us.

I look forward to working with all of you to achieve the bright and boundless future we imagine.”

I was pleased to report that 2019 was another outstanding year for UGA, from recordbreaking completion rates to significant increases in sponsored research awards and expenditures. We expanded our annual economic impact on Georgia to $6.5 billion.

We made great progress on the Innovation District, launching programs such as Faculty Innovation Fellows, opening our new Student Center for Entrepreneurship, and planning the renovation of a facility to support faculty startups and enhance experiential learning.

We also surpassed the $1.2 billion goal of the Commit to Georgia Campaign well ahead of schedule, including commitments totaling $77 million to create more than 500 endowed scholarships for students with financial need.

As we turn the page to a new decade, the time is right for UGA to embrace new goals and aspirations to address the growing challenges and opportunities that await us. Guiding our efforts will be the University of Georgia’s 2025 Strategic Plan, which was developed over the course of a year by a large committee of faculty, administrators, staff, students, and alumni, with broad input from our campus community and external stakeholders.

The 2025 Strategic Plan includes goals to advance three mission-centered strategic directions: 1. Promoting excellence in teaching and learning; 2. Growing research, innovation, and entrepreneurship; and 3. Strengthening partnerships with communities across Georgia and around the world.

Each of these areas is critical to the University of Georgia’s future growth and success.

Each is a declaration of priority and aspiration. Taken together, with their corresponding goals, they set a course to build on our great momentum.

I am grateful to our faculty, administrators, staff, and students, whose unrelenting drive to lift up communities near and far and improve the quality of life around the world is making UGA’s accomplishments possible. My deepest thanks go also to our alumni and friends for the enormous impact they are making through their loyalty and generosity. I look forward to working with all of you to achieve the bright and boundless future we imagine.

Jere W. Morehead President

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UGA Z to

News, accomplishments, and accolades from the UGA community

NOTHING FINER IN THE L AND

The Redcoats Take New York As part of the University of Georgia’s annual Spotlight on the Arts festival, 50 members of the Redcoat Marching Band traveled to New York City to perform at Harlem’s historic Apollo Theater for “Redcoat Band Live.” The rest of the band members performed at the same time in Sanford Stadium and were live-streamed to the theater.

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UGA to Z COMMIT TED TO EXCELLENCE

Student Success Continues Its Rise

Completion rates at the University of Georgia continue to rise, setting records this year thanks to a number of ongoing initiatives aimed at improving the academic environment and student support.

Records were set by the six-year completion rate, which increased to 87%, and the four-year completion rate, which increased to 69%. In addition, the first-year student retention rate matched the university’s all-time high of 96%.

The university has implemented various campus improvements and programs to foster student success, including renovating 12 classrooms, increasing faculty hires to reduce the student-tofaculty ratio, and creating 500 endowed scholarships for low-income students.

UGA in Cortona celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2019.

UGA Establishes MFA in Film Program

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During the second year of UGA’s new MFA Film Program, students will work on capstone projects while living at Pinewood Forest, a masterplanned residential and mixed use development adjacent to Pinewood Atlanta Studios.

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REMOVING BARRIERS AND OPENING DOORS

Study Abroad Program Among Tops in Nation

NEW PARTNERSHIPS

UGA graduate students now have a new option to pursue a degree through the Master of Fine Arts in Film, Television, and Digital Media Program.

The program is the first of its kind in the state, with students taking classes in an academic setting during their first year and producing projects in a major studio setting during the second year.

The Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication and the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences partnered with Pinewood Forest—adjacent to Pinewood Atlanta Studios—and the Georgia Film Academy to give students the opportunity to get hands-on experience in the industry.

“The University of Georgia is uniquely positioned to house this interdisciplinary program that will make a lasting economic and educational impact on one of our state’s leading industries,” said President Jere W. Morehead JD ’80. “We are grateful for the support of Dan Cathy and Pinewood Forest, the Georgia Film Academy, and the University System of Georgia Board of Regents in helping us to establish it.”

andrew davis tucker

The University of Georgia is ranked 13th in the nation for the number of students who study abroad, according to the latest Open Doors ranking from Institute of International Education. UGA was one of only two Southeastern Conference universities and the only institution in Georgia to be ranked in the top 20.

In addition to ranking 13th overall, UGA was ninth in short-term study abroad programs. More than 2,600 UGA undergraduate and graduate students studied abroad in programs facilitated by UGA’s Office of Global Engagement during the 2017-2018 academic year.

“UGA’s position in the national rankings reflects the growing demand among students for a study abroad experience, the increased availability of scholarship funding provided by the university and individual donors, and the tireless dedication of our faculty, who are committed to offering academically rigorous programs,” says Noel Fallows, associate provost for the Office of Global Engagement.

in the nation

for number of students who study abroad

UGA to Z DESIGNER PLANTS

Discovery Could Lead to More Resilient Crops

A team of UGA researchers has found a way to identify gene regulatory elements that could help produce “designer” plants and lead to improvements in food crops at a critical time.

With the world population projected to reach 9.1 billion by 2050, food production will need to rise by 70%, and food production in the developing world will need to double, according to the United Nations.

UGA researchers have identified the parts of 13 plant species’ DNA that determines certain characteristics, such as the angle of a plant’s leaves or its tolerance of varying salt levels in the environment. These new targets, called cisregulatory elements, or CREs, can be used to make minor tweaks to a plant’s structure, offering a more precise method of altering both a plant’s appearance and how its parts function.

This discovery could lead to the production of “designer” plants that can thrive in difficult environments—for example, salt-tolerant plants that can grow in a landscape with high salinity. This advancement will become more important as food growers strive to produce more in an environment facing increasing challenges like drought and flooding.

The team, led by Bob Schmitz, associate professor of genetics in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, received a $3.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation to investigate the role of CREs in legumes, including peanuts and soybeans.

Louis Comfort Tiffany: Treasures from the Driehaus Collection Georgia Museum of Art

Through May 10, 2020 WELL DECORATED

Tiffany’s Stained Glass Treasures on Display

A $3.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation could help UGA researchers design more resilient crops, like these soybeans.

Come experience the biggest name in stained glass in the exhibition “Louis Comfort Tiffany: Treasures from the Driehaus Collection,” on view at the Georgia Museum of Art through May 10.

Including more than 60 of Tiffany’s magnificent stained-glass windows, floral vases, lamps, and accessories, this show highlights masterworks never before presented in a comprehensive exhibition. For over 30 years, the world-renowned artist created beautiful works of art ranging from household items to masterpieces made of glass, ceramics, metal, paintings, and jewelry. The museum also has a stained-glass window by Tiffany of St. George and the dragon in its collection.

TOP DAWGS

Law School Records Best State Bar Passage Rate

For the sixth consecutive year, UGA School of Law graduates achieved the highest bar examination passage rate for first-time takers in the state of Georgia for the July 2019 sitting.

This achievement closely follows the School of Law’s recent back-to-back ranking as the best value in legal education in the country. This National Jurist ranking is based on outcome-driven metrics such as bar passage and employment rates as well as average indebtedness, tuition, and cost of living.

The law library is clearly an ideal place for UGA law students to study for the bar.

in legal education in the country shannah montgomery

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UGA to Z BUG OUT The ambrosia beetle wreaks havoc on trees in Georgia.

Scientists Predict Impact of Nonnative Insects

A team of UGA faculty and students has developed a way to understand how nonnative insects might behave in their new environments. Drawing largely on the evolutionary history of insect-plant interactions, the team’s model, published recently in the journal Ecology and Evolution, could help foresters predict which insect invasions will be problematic and help managers decide where to allocate resources to avoid widespread tree death.

Using information about what trees an insect feeds on in its native habitat as well as its feeding method (wood, sap, or leaves, for example), the new model evaluates whether a newcomer insect has a high probability of killing a population of North American trees, even before it arrives.

UGA researchers are building a similar database and model for nonnative insects that utilize hardwood trees, such as maple, oak, and ash. Both the conifer and hardwood tree databases will be publicly available for other scientists to use. They are also partnering with the Davey Tree Expert Co. to develop a mobile app that foresters could use to determine potential insect threats if a species of tree is planted in a specific location.

MONEY PROBLEMS

ASPIRE Clinic Helps Couples Handle Financial Stressors

Financial therapy, a relatively new field that combines the emotional support of a marriage counselor with the money mindset of a financial planner, could help couples navigate disagreements, money concerns, and financial conflicts before those issues can tear relationships apart.

“Money is a big thing, and ignoring it is impeding satisfaction in relationships,” says Megan Ford, a couples and financial therapist at UGA who studies money and relationship satisfaction. “Therapists need to work together to solve problems that occur around financial behaviors of couples and learn how to connect to all of their emotions.”

Ford, the clinical director of the ASPIRE Clinic at UGA, which provides counseling and educational services including financial therapy, is collaborating with John Grable, the Athletic Association Endowed Professor of Family and Consumer Sciences. The two are exploring what influence financial therapy can have on relationship outcomes and how gaining a better understanding of these issues might affect a couple’s decision to seek help from a financial planner and a family therapist.

DAWGS LOVE CATS

Study Pairs Aging Adults with Foster Cats

Research shows having a pet, like Kirby Lou (shown here), can ease feelings of loneliness in older adults.

A collaborative study in Athens is trying to determine if having a pet can improve the mental state of older adults.

Foster cats are being placed with people 60 and older, and researchers are evaluating the impact of the companionship.

“Much suffering among older people living alone is the result of boredom and feelings of helplessness and loneliness,” says Sherry Sanderson, one of the researchers and an associate professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine. “Animal companionship is a known antidote to loneliness.”

Research has shown that seniors with pets are 36% less likely to report loneliness than non-pet owners, experience reduced stress, have fewer doctor visits, have reduced blood pressure and risk for heart disease, and develop a sense of purpose that comes with helping a homeless cat.

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UGA to Z COMMENCEMENT

The Places They’ll Go

More than 3,000 new alumni celebrated fall Commencement on Dec. 13. dorothy kozlowski

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The University of Georgia welcomed its newest alumni during fall Commencement on Dec. 13, with more than 3,000 undergraduate and graduate students eligible to walk in the ceremonies.

Undergraduate students heard from Kessel D. Stelling Jr., of the University System of Georgia Board of Regents and chairman and CEO of Synovus Financial Corporation, who urged the new graduates to embrace change and the challenges it sometimes brings.

Libby V. Morris, Zell B. Miller Distinguished Professor of Higher Education and director of UGA’s Institute of Higher Education, emphasized the importance of embracing opportunities at the graduate ceremony.

The university awarded Sanford H. Orkin M ’55, HON ’19 an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree during the undergraduate ceremony. Orkin and his late wife, Barbara M ’56, both attended UGA. The university also awarded a posthumous Specialist in Education degree in educational administration and policy to Kayon Joy Lindsay.

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GREAT COMMITMENTS

A New Grant Strengthens the Fight Against Human Trafficking

Spring Commencement Speaker Maria Taylor ABJ ’09, MBA ’13, sports analyst and host for ESPN and the SEC Network (right, above), will deliver the Commencement address at the spring 2020 undergraduate ceremony.

NUTS!

Pecan Do It!

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Hurricane Michael wreaked havoc on Georgia’s pecan industry in October 2018, but pecan tree varieties developed at UGA are being used to help the state recover from the storm’s impact.

Georgia is the top pecan-producing state in the U.S., with more than 170,000 acres planted in pecan trees. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Georgia lost an estimated 200,000 trees, as a result of the storm. While the destruction was devastating, researchers hope farmers in southwest Georgia will be able to replace the older, disease-susceptible trees they lost with disease-resistant varieties such as “Avalon,” a variety released

by UGA breeders in 2016.

Disease-resistant varieties will provide Georgia producers more long-term sustainability while keeping the supply chain strong for consumers.

The University of Georgia has been selected to receive $15.75 million from the U.S. Department of State to expand programming and research to measurably reduce human trafficking.

The new award, funded by the State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, will scale up the UGA-based African Programming and Research Initiative to End Slavery’s current anti-human trafficking work in Sierra Leone and Guinea, as well as expand efforts to Senegal.

David Okech (left, below), an associate professor of social work at UGA and director of the program, is leading the project.

The research initiative will also launch a Prevalence Reduction Innovation Forum. The first of its kind, the forum will enlist scholars from universities around the world to test and develop the best ways to estimate the prevalence of human trafficking.

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UGA to Z Professor Chris Bland (right) and postgraduate resident Jasleen Bolina walk down a hallway inside the R. C. Wilson Pharmacy Building.

FALSE ALLERGENS

Researcher Working to Correct Penicillin Misconception

Think you’re allergic to penicillin?

You may be wrong, according to new UGA research.

More than 30 million people in the U.S. think they’re allergic to penicillin, costing millions of dollars every year in added health care costs.

Even people who’ve had reactions to the antibiotic in the past may no longer be allergic to it.

Verifying whether you’re truly allergic could be as simple as answering a one-page questionnaire that focuses on whether the “reaction” was really just a side effect of the medication, says Christopher M. Bland, a clinical associate professor at the UGA College of Pharmacy.

After pharmacy students interviewed patients who had listed a penicillin allergy on their medical records, Bland was able to immediately reduce the number of those who think they had a penicillin allergy by 20%.

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0 TANNENBAUM A team from the Warnell School of Forestry submerged nearly 30 Christmas trees to create habitat for the fish in Lake Herrick.

Christmas Trees Create New Lake Habitat

In January, with the help of students and staff in the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, some 30 Christmas trees were delivered to their final resting place—at the bottom of Lake Herrick. By dropping discarded Christmas trees in key portions of the lake, their branches become places of refuge for fish and, over time, help improve the quality of the lake bottom.

The tree-drop event is the brainchild of fisheries undergraduate Jordan Horvieth. She and her fellow students used sonar to map the bottom of Lake Herrick and determined there was a need for additional fish habitat. Over the years, the bottom had become awash in sediment, and the original woody structures had all decayed.

Warnell professor James Shelton says dropping trees into older lakes is one of the best ways to reestablish fish habitat. “The woody structure actually attracts fish,” he says. Even though this is the second year the team dropped trees, it will take several more years to determine how it affects the fish population. But, Shelton says, the lake is constantly monitored through several classes that meet there.

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c o m m i t t o g e o r g i a c a m pa i g n : s o lv i n g g r a n d c h a l l e n g e s

SOLVING GRAND CHALLENGES

The power of a professorship can start with one generous gift.

D

espite the arrival of a vaccine in 1921, effective treatment options since 1952, and numerous disease prevention campaigns, tuberculosis (TB) remains uncontrolled in many parts of the world.

In Africa, millions of new TB cases are reported each year as the disease can be spread by simply coughing.

For more than 30 years, Christopher C. Whalen

measure for where the cases have spread the disease.”

Last year, Whalen was named to the Karen and Jim Holbrook Distinguished Professorship in Global Health in support for his humanitarian research efforts. The Holbrooks established this fund to support global health research and increase international collaborations. They simultaneously

“Jim and I wanted to give back to the University of Georgia, a very special place in our lives, and to support two areas I feel passionate about: public health and international opportunities for students. We are fortunate to have an investigator of Dr. Whalen’s caliber hold this chair.”

—karen holbrook

has dedicated his career to preventing the spread of TB. As a physician-epidemiologist, and leading international researcher, he is committed to stopping this deadly disease.

“To make progress in curbing the epidemic of TB, new cases must be prevented,” Whalen says. “By the time a case is diagnosed and treated, the next generation of cases has already been newly infected.”

A partnership with Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, aids Whalen’s research and prepares the next generation of public health professionals and scientists to battle epidemics like TB. In 2018, the team was awarded a $2.6 million National Institutes of Health grant to map TB transmission in Uganda using a combination of patient lab samples and cellphone records.

“Everyone is carrying a cellphone,” Whalen says. “By using archived cellphone records, we can map where TB cases move and then use that map as a surrogate

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created a graduate fellowship in global health to expand experiential learning activities for students in international public health.

Karen Holbrook served as provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at UGA from 1998 to 2002 before going on to serve as the first woman president of Ohio State University. During her time at UGA, she advocated for international research collaborations and new programs in the biomedical and health sciences, which eventually led to the creation of the College of Public Health.

She has also served as interim president of EmbryRiddle Aeronautical University and is now the Regional Chancellor of the University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee. Jim Holbrook is a retired oceanographer and past deputy director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Pacific Marine Environmental Research Laboratory.

c o m m i t t o g e o r g i a c a m pa i g n : s o lv i n g g r a n d c h a l l e n g e s

CHRISTOPHER C. WHALEN, M.D. KAREN AND JIM HOLBROOK DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR IN GLOBAL HEALTH, UGA DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR, DIRECTOR OF THE GLOBAL HEALTH INSTITUTE

“Our world today is an increasingly interrelated global community. Infectious diseases that threaten one community, one place, do not respect geographical boundaries. An outbreak in Africa today could spread to the U.S. tomorrow.”

WHEN THE WORLD CALLS, BULLDOGS ANSWER.

andrew davis tucker

UGA researchers are committed to solving the grand challenges facing society. One great idea can change the world and one generous gift can make that idea a reality. By establishing a professorship or graduate fellowship at UGA, you can play a critical role in improving lives across the state, the nation, and the world—just like the Holbrooks. Make your gift by June 30 to be a part of the historic Commit to Georgia Campaign.

GIVE.UGA.EDU/SOLVING-GRAND-CHALLENGES shannah montgomery

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I

t takes a lot of work, money, and time to make a field fit for play.

In the case of the turfgrass breeding program at the University of Georgia, it took the creation of upwards of 25,000 new hybrid grasses before a final product was launched into the market. The entire journey was anchored by a research, discovery, and development process that dates back nearly a century.

The turfgrass that carpets Vince Dooley Field at Sanford Stadium (along with a majority of other SEC stadiums and many other fields ranging from World Cup pitches to the Summer Olympics Games) is Tifway 419, which was developed at the University of Georgia Tifton campus in the 1960s.

The warm-weather bermudagrass hybrid is well-known for its durability and speed of recovery—two important qualities for a sports field as well as your standard front lawn. There are few things in our environment as seemingly simple as grass.

But at the University of Georgia, there are few things more rigorously tested.

The turfgrass industry employs 87,000 Georgians and generates an estimated $9 billion in economic impact every year.

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by eric rangus ma ’94 and leigh beeson ma ’17

“People take for granted that grass just grows, but it takes 15 to 20 years of research for it to end up on their lawn,” says Wayne Hanna, a professor of crop and soil sciences at UGA Tifton.

Hanna should know. He’s been growing grass in South Georgia for 49 years, first with the Department of Agriculture and then with UGA’s Institute of Plant Breeding, Genetics, and Genomics.

Still, regarding research time, Hanna actually sells himself a little short. UGA’s latest turfgrass product, developed by Hanna and associate professor Brian Schwartz, was 25 years in the making.

TifTuf, which hit the market in 2017, was selected from more than 27,000 bermudagrass cultivars over those 25 years. It’s the strongest turfgrass ever produced at UGA, and it uses 38% less water than previous grasses. Its versatility is difficult to beat too.

TifTuf can be found on the lawn in front of the Sydney Opera House in Australia and the great lawn at the Atlanta Botanical Garden. When you walk across the grass of North Campus, you are walking on TifTuf. “It’s kind of a neat story of the old guy and the new guy working together

toward solving the problem of drought tolerance,” says Schwartz, who took over leadership of UGA’s turfgrass program from Hanna in 2009. When Schwartz got to Tifton, he studied years of Hanna’s work and the hybrid grasses he developed—taking into account qualities such as shade tolerance, drought tolerance, and appearance—researching and testing breed after breed until TifTuf was selected as the most elite.

Their work was just the latest accomplishment in a long line of distinguished research that was begun before World War II by one of the 20th century’s most important scientists.

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Green Grass Grows

Fields of Discovery

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The research of Wayne Hanna (left) and Brian Schwartz led to the creation of TifTuf, a bermudagrass hybrid that is the strongest UGA has ever produced.

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Planting Seeds

The University of Georgia has been an innovator in turfgrass research and development since the 1930s, and the man most responsible for that is a legend in agricultural science: Glenn Burton. Soon after his arrival, the Nebraska native began experimenting with bermudagrasses in an effort to come up with useful forage grasses to feed the South’s cattle.

At the time, bermudagrass was a controversial choice because farmers considered it invasive, but Burton was undeterred. His perseverance paid off. After a few years of research, Burton created a hybrid grass that, once it was planted, more than doubled forage production across the South.

He continued his work and released newer and better grasses that are still found in fields around the world to this day.

Burton’s work on forage grasses caught the attention of the United States Golf Association. At the time, many courses across the country were covered by painted sand and little else. Burton developed grasses for this growing sport.

That work led to the creation of Tifway and Tifgreen, two bermudagrass hybrids, in the 1950s. For years, Tifway covered more golf courses, athletic fields, and lawns than any other turf varieties in the world.

He developed pearl millet hybrids as a drought tolerant annual summer grazing crop for the southern U.S. and cooperated with scientists in India to encourage

UGA has been an innovator in turfgrass research since the 1930s, and all of the university’s products start with “Tif” to honor Tifton, where most of the research is done.

hybrid production in that country.

“I don’t think I’ve ever met a person or known a person who was more dedicated to research than he was,” says Hanna, a disciple of Burton’s and his colleague for more than 30 years. When Burton retired in 1997 after 61 years at UGA, his career accomplishments included the National Medal of Science, multiple honorary degrees, and membership in four agricultural halls of fame.

Watching Them Grow

“Just like an oak tree or a rose, turfgrass is a living plant,” says Clint Waltz, an extension specialist at the Turfgrass Research and Education Center at UGA Griffin. “It has an organic surface and a root system. It has actively growing leaves, and it’s photosynthesizing. What makes turf different from many other plants is that we want people to use and play and run around on it.”

Turfgrass is also big business and a huge economic driver for the state. The turfgrass industry employs 87,000 Georgians and generates an estimated $9 billion in economic impact every year.

As such, UGA devotes significant resources to this important area. UGA’s Turf Team includes more than 20 faculty and staff in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences spread across campuses in Tifton, Griffin, and Athens. In 2017, after three years of construction, the

university opened new turfgrass research and education facilities on each campus, with the goal of keeping the university at the forefront of turf breeding programs across the nation.

In Tifton and Athens, new greenhouses support UGA’s expanding warm-season turf breeding program. Athens also has a new classroom/office complex for undergraduate teaching and research. But the largest new facility is the Turfgrass Research Building in Griffin. It houses a bevy of turfgrass scientists, staff, and students, and provides them with state-of-the-art laboratory, classroom, and greenhouse space.

It’s an emphasis on research is what drives the entire turfgrass operation. And it’s the products that come from that research that benefit young athletes, scratch golfers, dedicated gardeners, and most anyone who enjoys a nicely manicured yard.

“Our goal isn’t to just put out something quickly just to see if it will work or make money,” Schwartz says. “We’re really trying to base things in long-term science. If someone spends thousands of dollars on their lawn, you’re not supposed to replace it every couple of years. You would expect for it to be there maybe for the rest of their life.

So, we’re not looking for short-term fixes.

“UGA’s turfgrass program has been going for close to 80 or 90 years. We have a lot to live up to.” GM

Learn more about Glenn Burton, the founder of turfgrass research at UGA at NEWS.UGA.EDU/GLENNBURTON.

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Small Box Series co-founder Lisa Yaconelli announces the evening’s performers.

BOXING DAY

UGA alumni and faculty are among the performers in one of the Classic City’s newest artistic ventures

by eric rangus ma ’94 photography by chad osburn

T

imera Temple is a bit of a carpenter.

Actually, Temple is a lot of things.

She is an artist, entrepreneur, dancer, choreographer, acrobat, and a mother of four. She’s a busy person but not so busy that she can’t make time for a friend.

“Lisa knows I like to build things,” says Temple AB ’05, MS ’11. That’s Lisa Yaconelli, a dancer and choreographer who has been a staple of the Athens arts community for some 15 years.

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On a 2016 trip to the West Coast, Yaconelli attended a performance in Portland called Ten Tiny Dances. It featured performers who created live works on 4-by-4-foot raised stage. That event, along with a house show by her brother in California, inspired Yaconelli to combine the two ideas in Athens. She envisioned a small stage incorporating music, dance, and poetry with a casual community feel.

“Lisa asked me to build her a box,” Temple recalls. “So, I went to my dad’s wood

shop in Royston and got to work.”

The box Temple built, a sturdy 4-by-4 hollow hunk of wood with handles, is a marvel of simplicity that carries an enormous amount of symbolic power. It is the focal point of the Small Box Series, one of Athens arts community’s newest offerings, and one that perfectly blends every aspect of the UGA community—alumni, faculty, students, and staff—with the wider community beyond.

Clockwise from top left: Aesia Cade-Brown kicked off the night with her spoken-word performance, “Where’s the Heart?” Lisa Yaconelli, a dancer herself, also took to the Small Box. Jeremy Roberts (right) and UGA alumnus Joseph Leone made their Small Box debuts.

Why a box? Yaconelli says that many of the Small Box Series’ founding members had kids and were very busy when they began.

“The box made choreography and creation feel possible,” she says. “It was the size of a space in our kitchens or living rooms. It gave us a way to make art even though our lives were so crowded.”

“Small Box is really all ages, all access,” says Rebecca Gose, associate professor of dance in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. She has performed at several Small Box Series events, including the most recent one in September. “There aren’t questions about who is an artist and who isn’t. Instead, the question is ‘what do you have to say?’

That 4-by-4 box is a great equalizer.”

Since its debut in October 2016, the series has encompassed all of the creativity, edginess, and quirkiness the Classic City’s art scene has offered for years all wrapped up in a neat, um, box. The series and its founders—including UGA associate professor and alumna Anne Shaffer AB ’98, alumnae Jennifer Tweed Morlock BS ’97 and Laura Glenn AB ’96, and Amanda Martin—were featured in the documentary “Athens Rising” about the art scene in Athens, and for the first couple of years, shows popped up in eclectic spaces all over town—side rooms of downtown businesses, bars, a yoga studio with a tree growing in the middle of it, and even someone’s backyard.

Recently, though, the series may have found a permanent home at NIMBL, a dance

studio and small, versatile performance and meeting space in Athens’ warehouse district just north of the loop off Chase Street.

Yaconelli co-owns the spot with Laura Hoffman MLA ’05 and Maryn Whitmore BSEd ’01, who are also frequent Small Box performers.

When set up for Small Box, the NIMBL space comfortably fits about 100 attendees, which is the perfect size for the event.

“The Small Box Series offers a really wonderful focal point where an unbelievable range of people drift in. They have a moment, they do their thing, then drift out,” says Brent Temple AB ’04, MSW ’12, Timera’s husband and performing partner. But before they drift out, they leave one heck of an impression.

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To kick off the most recent Small Box event, Aesia Cade-Brown delivered a spoken-word performance while seated on the box. Sisters Ari and Mara Bastow danced around and on top of it. Joseph Leone BSA ’75 of Atlanta made his Small Box debut, first performing solo with his guitar while standing on the box, and then in a duet with Jeremy Roberts, who wielded an oud, an instrument that resembles a lute. For that, they sat on the box’s front edge. Yaconelli also danced, never leaving the 16-square-foot stage.

The Temples’ performance was a showstopper.

Brent sat on the box, singing songs and relating an off-the-wall (and true) story about a street person in London conning him out of money for ice cream.

Timera performed in tandem on a trapeze above the box, improvising her aerials to play off not just her husband’s delivery but the crowd’s reaction.

“I don’t even know what I was doing,” Brent laughs, understating his contribution. “She was framing the performance and giving it value. At one point, I heard someone chuckle and then the room just opened up.

Top: Ari and Mara Bastow dance the appropriately named, “Sisters.”

Brent and Timera Temple’s performance was a showstopper.

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Rebecca Gose, associate professor of dance, created “This Too Shall Pass,” a modern dance to help her tell the story of her mom, who died in 2018.

Gose debuted it at Small Box.

The audience was just buoyant and supportive.”

For the final performance of the evening, the tone was markedly different—although in the end, the audience was just as supportive but mesmerized in an entirely different way.

“This is going to be therapy and art mixed together. I hope you are up for it,” Gose remembers telling Yaconelli when they were discussing “This Too Shall Pass,” the premiere of a modern dance performance she created to honor her mother, Alice, who passed away in February 2018.

Unlike the other artists that evening—unlike any artist who has ever performed at Small Box, in fact—Gose did not stand or sit on the box. She turned it on its side and used it as a shadow box. Family photos and films of her mom’s life were projected onto it. Gose did lean on or at times touch the box with her hand to spellbinding effect during her performance.

Andrea Trombetta AB ’99, MFA ’05, a frequent Small Box performer, took the lead

on designing the elaborate set. It included recipes in Gose’s mom’s handwriting blown up to make a background collage and a variety of furnishings from her home. On top of the Small Box sat a blue purse.

“That purse was by her bedside when she died,” Gose said. “It still has her wallet and everything in it. That purse went everywhere with her. It haunted me. I didn’t know what to do with it. So, eventually, I made it into an art piece. It changed the connotation.”

Gose describes “This Too Shall Pass” as part of the therapeutic process of dealing with her mom’s death. On this night, there were about 100 other people to help her get through it too.

At times, Gose’s performance narration was funny, sad, frustrated, poignant, full of longing, and sometimes all of those at once.

As she danced, Gose’s movements deepened the story, utilizing every inch of the space.

If an audience member’s eyes left her even for a second, it was to dart over to the loop of photos and images flashing onto the Small Box. When it was over, the crowd, which had been pin-drop silent, burst into applause.

Afterward, all of the artists stuck around to talk with friends and other fans. Kids darted back and forth, finally getting to release some energy after having bottled it up for nearly 90 minutes. (One neat aspect of the Small Box Series is that it’s for all ages.

While some of the content may be heavy, the presentation rarely is.)

The next Small Box Series performance, the 12th since its debut, is scheduled for NIMBL in early 2020, and it’s already being planned. According to the Facebook promotion, there will be a whole slate of new artists, including more UGA alumni, along with “humor, honesty, melting glaciers, broken bodies, GM old friendships, and mustached rodents.”

Learn more about Rebecca Gose and UGA’s Department of Dance at DANCE.UGA.EDU. geo rgia maga z ine | s prin g 2 02 0

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INNOVATION DISTRICT

ta k i n g s h a p e America’s rise to become an economic powerhouse coincided with its leadership in turning scientific discoveries into new technologies. In recent decades, however, the application of scientific knowledge into new solutions has lagged, at least in part, because of a disconnect between academic discoveries and industry development, according to a 2019 report from the National Bureau of Economic Research. The University of Georgia is aiming to help close the gap between academic discoveries and real-world solutions through its Innovation District initiative. by aaron hale ma ’16

Q

uietly and over several years, the University of Georgia has become a hotbed for innovation and entrepreneurship.

Take the team of students who built a tissue box-sized satellite to monitor the health of Georgia’s coastline from space. Or assistant professor Hitesh Handa, who is creating coatings to make medical devices safer. Take geology professor Valentine Nzengung, who invented chemical products that can neutralize discarded weapons and explosives, turning them into a nonhazardous waste. Or recent graduate Kaitlin Lutz BBA ’19, who started the web platform New Crew to help contractors find skilled workers and grow their businesses. There are still dozens of other student and faculty teams starting new ventures based on their ideas and university research.

And then there are the numbers. Among U.S. universities, UGA ranked No. 1 for new products to market in 2018, and for 11 straight years, UGA has been in the top 10 for new licenses and options based on faculty research. Add to that an

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explosion in student entrepreneurship through the Entrepreneurship Certificate Program and other experiential learning activities.

At its best, this activity can take great ideas discovered and developed at UGA and turn them into something tangible, something that can benefit society, something that can promote economic growth. To connect this activity and amplify it, the university has launched the Innovation District initiative: a vision for a dynamic ecosystem of places, programs, and people all working together to foster innovation, entrepreneurship, and experiential learning.

“The future of this state and our nation depends on our ability to find answers to pressing challenges, to develop new technologies and businesses that strengthen our communities and our economy, and to prepare our students for the future,” says President Jere W. Morehead JD ’80. “The Innovation District, when fully developed, will do just that, and we are excited about the early progress of this initiative.”

TOP5 university for new products to market

top5

for 11 straight years, UGA has been in the

for new licenses and options based on faculty research

+

775 products have reached the market

The Faculty Innovation Fellows program provides resources and mentorship for promising researchers and inventors. Hitesh Handa (left) and Jenay Beer were the program’s inaugural fellows.

programs

T

he promise of the Innovation District began with grassroots programs. The Office of Research’s Innovation Gateway is leading the way for UGA technology transfer and faculty startup formation, and the Student Entrepreneurship Program offers courses and experiential learning opportunities for students wanting to test their startup ideas.

Other programs, such as the New Media Institute and FABricate, are promoting innovative thinking in a particular field.

These opportunities range from semes-

ter-long projects that bring students together with industry partners to intensive accelerator programs that help faculty members and students develop business plans to take their ideas to market.

Three years ago, UGA became the largest university in the nation to make experiential learning a requirement for graduation.

The Innovation District is expanding this effort by creating opportunities for companies and startups to engage with students through project-based learning.

k e y u g a pa r t n e r s :

new programs:

Innovation Gateway Student Entrepreneurship Program Office of Industry Engagement New Media Institute Small Business Development Center Office of University Experiential Learning

Faculty Innovation Fellows Startup Mentor in Residence Dawg Camp Innovate Innovation Boot Camp Innovation District Seminar Series

pa r t n e r s h i p s While each of these programs is thriving on their own, the vision for the ecosystem is to get them to work together, says Kyle Tschepikow PhD ’12, assistant to President Morehead and the lead for the district initiative. The idea is to bring creative people together from a variety of backgrounds and spark new ideas and collaborative ventures.

“We believe a cohesive innovation ecosystem is a stronger innovation ecosystem,

so we’re trying to find ways to coordinate more effectively among the many components and assets already in place at UGA,” says Tschepikow, who works with an 18-member launch team, with representatives from areas across campus, along with faculty input and an external advisory board that provides community and industry insights on the initiative.

Since the Innovation District Initiative launched in 2018, the university has introduced a new menu of programming to enrich the ecosystem. For example, this fall UGA named former Chick-fil-A executive and serial entrepreneur David Salyers BBA ’81 UGA’s first startup mentor-in-residence, providing guidance and encouragement to student and faculty entrepreneurs. The new Faculty Innovation Fellows program (see photo) selects promising researchers and provides specialized resources and mentorship to nurture their entrepreneurial spirit.

The challenge will be to foster coordination among these various programs without undermining what’s made them so successful up to this point. Part of that conversation is making sure administrative barriers are not stopping UGA innovators from following through with good ideas.

dorothy kozlowski

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the campus of the future

her

Studio 225, the Center for Student Entrepreneurship and the first step in creating a physical footprint for the Innovation District, opened in March 2019. It hosts student pitch competitions and meeting spaces for student startups.

ty dri ve

hul et tre l s

C

urrently, the beginning stages of the physical Innovation District are developing along Broad Street, where downtown Athens and UGA’s campus meet.

Here, the organizers believe, the district can thrive as a magnet for startup formation and economic development alongside the Classic City’s vibrant art, music, and food scene.

Looking ahead, the university has designated other areas near North Campus and downtown for future development for the district when the demand and opportunity arise.

But Tschepikow emphasizes that this initiative goes beyond an area with specific borders. “The Innovation District is more than a place or set of buildings,” he says. “It’s an ecosystem that will reach across campus

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do

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and across town, and at the same time, it’s a diverse community of creators, innovators, and entrepreneurs, all who want to see their ideas make a positive impact on the world around us.”

Ultimately, the aspirations for the Innovation District go beyond the university’s physical campus and even its faculty and students. Because the district’s goal is to make UGA ideas impactful, developing partnerships internally and externally is essential for success. The university is actively looking for potential partnerships with outside businesses and community organizations that can benefit from UGA research and student-led projects—and help students and faculty ideas reach their potential. GM

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UGA is renovating the Spring Street Building, which is just a block away from the Arch, thanks in part to a gift from the Delta Air Lines Foundation. When complete, the facility will house faculty startups and serve as a hub for industry engagement.

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The university is relocating staff from the Startup Program, Technology Licensing, and the Office of Industry Engagement to Terrell Hall to create a single point of access into research commercialization.

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While the district is taking shape, the Jackson Street Building is hosting seminars and networking opportunities for faculty, students, and the community.

For more information about getting involved with the Innovation District visit INNOVATION.UGA.EDU.

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A Path to a Cure UGA’s Ted Ross is working on a universal vaccine that would provide years of protection from the many types of flu by leigh beeson ma ’17

photography by peter frey bfa ‘94

I

f Ted Ross can pull off his plan to make flu season a thing of the past, he’ll become something of a scientific superhero.

But if you’d told an 18-year-old Ross that one day he’d be leading the charge to make a universal flu vaccine, he probably would’ve said, “Assuming I make it through calculus first.”

Growing up, Ross’s parents had instilled in him that education was the path to a good job and meaningful career.

Grades were important. And he wasn’t making the kind of grade he would’ve liked in that advanced math class.

“I was making A’s in biology but not in calculus. That’s how I decided I was going to be a biologist,” Ross says with a chuckle.

He figured out what he was good at early on and stuck to it. Now, some 30

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years after earning that bachelor’s in zoology (which he chased with a master’s and doctorate), Ross is on the road to making scientific history.

His journey to securing the largest grant ever received by the University of Georgia started with a puzzle: How do we develop a flu vaccine that works against multiple strains of the virus but doesn’t have to be given every year? Ross’s $130 million contract with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is helping him put the pieces in place.

The grant, which could last up to seven years, established sites across the country with three distinct missions: one group designs, develops, and evaluates potential vaccines; another manufactures and tests the vaccines; and the others are in charge of conducting the Phase I and Phase II clinical trials.

These Collaborative Influenza Vaccine Innovation Centers, or CIVICs, bring together 200 scientists from over 100 universities and research institutions around the world in a coordinated, multidisciplinary effort to develop universal flu vaccines.

Housed in UGA’s College of Veterinary Medicine, Ross’ lab is one of the design sites. His team draws from more than a dozen international institutions and from UGA’s own vaccine center, Department of Infectious Diseases, and College of Public Health.

Calling the project a massive undertaking would be an understatement. But it’s one the world desperately needs one, and Ross is committed to seeing through to the end.

peter frey

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2 5

Only

Why flu?

There’s a very common misconception about flu that Ross wants to squash.

“People say, ‘Oh, I got a little touch of the flu.’ That’s not true,” says Ross, the Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar of Infectious Diseases. “If you get influenza, you will be in bed and feel very sick and ill and nauseated.”

Ross would know. He had a run in with the flu when he was getting his doctorate. He was working in his lab at Vanderbilt when he suddenly felt so ill that he needed to go home.

Problem was, he had walked to work. He made it as far as the university’s medical center before realizing he wasn’t going to make it home. He went directly to the ER. Flu has become so ubiquitous in modern day life that people forget how dangerous it can be. Every year in the U.S., the virus kills tens of thousands, making it a bigger cause of death than car accidents. Worldwide, that number climbs to more than a quarter of a million. Hundreds of thousands more are hospitalized like Ross was.

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out of every

people get a flu shot. source: cdc

Those hospitalizations translate into huge economic loss. The NIH estimates that flu costs the average community across the country around $2.47 million annually. That adds up to billions of dollars lost in productivity due to a virus that could be prevented with a better shot.

But the flu virus’ ability to constantly evolve and develop new and more virulent strains makes it difficult to fight.

It’s also the reason why annual flu shots only reduce your risk of getting the flu in a given year by 40% to 60%, which might explain why only about two out of every five people get a flu shot, according to the CDC. “For measles, mumps, rubella, there’s really only one version of the virus; others like polio, there are just a couple of versions,” Ross says.

“Designing a vaccine that works against every single flu strain now and in the future is a really high-bar challenge.”

But it’s one Ross and his colleagues are eager to tackle.

His lab will use a complex algorithm to analyze the different varieties of a given type of flu to determine the common characteristics among its different strains. Then, they’ll create a molecule with those characteristics that can be put into vaccines. Like a traditional shot, the molecule will help the body’s immune system recognize and attack the flu virus, no matter which strain caused the infection.

UGA researchers will focus specifically on how a new vaccine can better protect particularly vulnerable populations—like children, the elderly, and those with weakened immune systems—who are more likely to be hospitalized or die from the virus.

types of flu There are four main types of flu: A, B, C, and D.

Influenza A is the culprit behind headline-making pandemics of flu.

Its ability to mutate and create new subtypes makes it hard to predict.

Along with Influenza A, Influenza B is a main driver of seasonal flu outbreaks.

Influenza C causes mild upper respiratory infections, and Influenza D mainly affects cattle.

The flu costs the average community across the country around

2.47

$

mi ll ion annually.

The annual flu vaccine contains the two A and two B strains experts think will be the ones that get people sick that year.

source: cdc

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Ted Ross, GRA Eminent Scholar of Infectious Diseases, is leading the UGA team that is developing a universal flu vaccine.

Getting there As fascinating as he finds flu now, Ross didn’t start his career thinking he would be battling one of the most common viruses on Earth. “Most of my friends were planning to go to med school and become doctors. If you talk to someone in biology, 90% of them are ‘going to go to med school.’”

But Ross didn’t want to be a doctor—at least not that kind of doctor.

He had been fascinated by science ever since he watched the moon landing as a kid.

When he got to college at the University of Arkansas, he took a gig as a lab tech working on fetal alcohol syndrome and its effect on brain tissue.

That led to working on human T-cell leukemia virus, a cousin of HIV, as a grad student. Ross continued to work on HIV after earning his doctorate and taking a position at the Emory Vaccine Center in Atlanta. But soon his attention was drawn to another deadly virus: flu.

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It was the end of the 1990s, and Hong Kong had a flu outbreak unlike any seen in years.

The virus killed three out of every four people it infected, a rate that nearly echoed the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic that killed at least 50 million people worldwide and infected one out of every three. The CDC was overwhelmed and worried the world was facing another catastrophic pandemic. The organization asked Emory researchers to pick up the slack in the lab while they handled the public health side.

Ross was one of those researchers, and over the next decade his lab would shift from primarily focusing on HIV to flu. “I got into influenza sort of through the back door,” he says.

When Ross was at the University of Pittsburgh, a conversation he had with a grad student set off a chain of events that would ultimately lead to the CIVIC grant.

“We realized one of the problems we had with flu at that time was that we didn’t

have a lot of information about new emerging strains that were circulating,” Ross says. Whenever a new outbreak occurred, scientists flocked to the site, getting samples of the virus and uploading them into public databases. It flooded the databases with information on those massive outbreaks but didn’t account for the variety of other flu strains circulating throughout the rest of the world at the same time.

So, they created COBRA, a computer program that synthesized the different subtypes of a particular strain of pandemic flu.

It caught the attention of a pharmaceutical company. Could the researchers use COBRA for run-of-the-mill, seasonal flu? “We said, ‘Sure. If you give us the money, we can do that.’”

Now, about a decade after that research-altering conversation, Ross is poised to make flu research history.

A team effort Despite being the face for flu research at UGA, Ross isn’t doing it alone.

Four other researchers working on the CIVIC project are the College of Pharmacy’s Eva Strauch and the College of Public Health’s Andreas Handel, Ye Shen, and Justin Bahl (who has a joint appointment

is determining how the virus infects people and how vaccines can be effective at blocking that from happening. Jarrod Mousa, an assistant professor of infectious diseases, investigates how antibodies bind to the flu virus and how a vaccine can prevent that from happening. And Karen Norris, GRA Eminent

“Designing a vaccine that works against every single flu strain now and in the future is a really high-bar challenge.”—t ed with the Department of Infectious Diseases in the College of Veterinary Medicine). All of Ross’s colleagues and lab staff in the Center for Vaccines and Immunology play a pivotal role in the process as well.

Mark Tompkins, a virologist, immunologist, and professor of infectious diseases,

ros s

Scholar in Immunology and Translational Biomedicine, is a renowned animal model expert who tests the vaccine candidates, a key step needed before the shots can move on to clinical trials.

The collaborative atmosphere is one reason UGA became a CIVIC site.

“Certainly, there are programs where you have a researcher in a silo doing their work, and they can have a very productive career,” says Tompkins. “But when you look at groups that have regular afternoon teas where they just get together and talk, those interactions can synergize into really unexpected new ideas as well as really strong collaborative, synergistic programs. And that increases the trajectory of the research.”

And all the researchers are quick to point to their lab crew—undergrads, graduate students, postdocs, and research professionals— as the workhorse of the entire operation, as well as their reason for being at UGA. The students and lab staff have been valuable assets in getting the universal vaccine research to this point and will continue to be as the research moves forward.

As for Ross, after 15 years of working on flu, he’s finally at what he calls the halfway point. The next steps will involve determining which vaccine candidates are the most promising and getting them into Phase I and then Phase II trials. “Flu is probably what I will be doing for the rest of my career,” says Ross.

But he wouldn’t have it any other way.

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The Center The Center for Vaccines and Immunology was established in 2015, with Ted Ross serving as the founding director. Housed in the College of Veterinary Medicine, the center’s faculty focus on the immunology of infectious diseases and how vaccines work in different populations based upon age, gender, and ethnicity. It also serves as a training ground for the next generation of researchers, relying on both undergraduate and graduate students in addition to post-doctoral research associates.

The center added two more faculty, Chester Joyner and Anne S. De Groot, during spring 2020, in addition to assistant research scientists Anne Bebin-Blackwell and Giuseppe Sautto, who came aboard in fall 2019. The center will eventually include a total of 150 staff scientists, post-docs, and students.

Karen Norris

Mark Tompkins

Karen Norris is a renowned expert in translational medicine and developing high-level models that help move treatments and vaccines from the lab into clinical trials.

Her lab focuses on infections associated with people who have compromised immune systems, pregnant women, infants, and the elderly. Norris’s team has established models for Pneumocystis pneumonia, an illness that sometimes develops in patients with HIV/AIDS; respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV; cardiopulmonary diseases, like COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease); and diabetes.

Mark Tompkins is the only center faculty member recruited from within UGA. His research focuses mostly on human and zoonotic influenza, which crosses the barrier from animals to infect people, like bird or swine flu. As part of the Emory-UGA Center of Excellence for Influenza Research and Surveillance, which is funded by the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Tompkins’s goal is to determine how a flu virus will mutate across animal and then human populations through explorations of the virus at the cellular and host levels. His lab then finds ways to exploit these interactions to develop vaccines, antiviral drugs, and treatments for human and animal use.

GRA Eminent Scholar in Immunology and Translational Biomedicine

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Professor

The Newcomers Chester Joyner Assistant Professor

Coming onboard in January 2020, Chet Joyner’s work focuses on a major cause of malaria: Plasmodium vivax.

The parasite remains a major obstacle for public health officials in their battle to control and eliminate malaria because it can remain dormant in the liver, causing no real symptoms of the disease until the parasite reactivates.

Anne S. De Groot

Jarrod Mousa

Senior Research Professor

Assistant Professor

Jarrod Mousa’s lab concentrates on the immune system and the antibodies your body uses to fight infection. Viruses, bacteria, parasites, and fungi have surface-level proteins that attach themselves to host cells. The goal for the Mousa lab is to harness the immune system to work more effectively by determining where antibodies bind on virus molecules and which spots are the most effective at knocking out the virus. The answers the lab finds are the basis of future vaccines and therapeutics.

A practicing physician, immunologist, and co-founder and CEO of the pharmaceutical company EpiVax, Annie S. De Groot is a board-certified internal medicine and infectious diseases physician. While at Brown University, De Groot worked at the intersection of immunology, bioinformatics, and genomics to find ways to make vaccines more efficient and more effective, founding EpiVax, which develops commercial-grade tools used by the largest pharmaceutical companies, in 1998. She later became the director for the University of Rhode Island’s Institute for Immunology and Informatics before arriving at UGA in 2020. GM

Support the Center for Vaccines and Immunology’s fight against flu at GIVE.UGA.EDU/CVI

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ON THE BULLDOG BEAT

Center of

Campus by rachel floyd ab ’19

photography by peter frey bfa ‘94

A

fter more than 60 years of providing Athens visitors with comfortable accommodations, sophisticated conference spaces, and a vast array of continuing education and youth programs, the UGA Center for Continuing Education & Hotel was due for a makeover. Beginning in May 2019, the Georgia Center underwent an extensive renovation inside and out.

The Georgia Center was one of the first facilities of its kind, housing a continuing education center, conference rooms, and a hotel all under the same roof.

Many of UGA’s most distinct offerings can be found at the center.

For instance, the Savannah Room restaurant’s strawberry ice cream pie has been a dessert staple since the 1960s. And students from the Hugh Hodgson School of Music can be seen—and heard—performing during Tuesday Tunes, a music series hosted by the Georgia Center on the first Tuesday of every month.

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New carpet for the public areas, ballroom, and auditoriums was designed by Emily Newdow, the Georgia Center’s assistant director of facilities management.

About 150 of the 200 hotel rooms were completely renovated, which included modernizing restrooms and replacing carpet with hard flooring.

The Uga Suite hosts the beloved mascot for home games during football season.

The lobby was opened up to allow guests to see food and beverage options at the Bulldog Bistro.

The hotel also is home to the famous Uga Suite, a comfortable accommodation featuring memorabilia provided by the Frank W. “Sonny” Seiler BBA ’56, JD ’57 family, the owners of the Uga line of bulldogs.

The goal of the renovation was to bring the aesthetic of the building

back to match the history of the center and its midcentury modern architecture. Recently retired Georgia Center director Dawn Cartee, who oversaw the project, said the renovations were like an archaeological dig. The plans first addressed the facility’s structural issues, including leaks in the exterior brick and outdated HVAC systems, and soon snowballed into a massive renovation.

The project was crunched for time, having to accommodate a 24-hour operation and the first home football game that was fast approaching on Sept. 7. Workers were even laying sod on Lumpkin plaza the night before kickoff to ensure the space was ready for the next day’s tailgaters.

But the facilities weren’t the only things revamped. The staff also went through extensive training to build upon the customer service capabilities at the center, a unit of Public Service and Outreach. Though the project was completed in October, Cartee says it’s not just the new look that makes the hotel the best place to stay on campus.

“It’s in the heart of campus, the heart of Athens—staying at the Georgia Center is an experience like no other,” she said. “It’s not just the hotel, but it’s the team here that’s made it that way.”

Little Details ex t erior • Exterior brick and windows were replaced to increase energy efficiency.

• New HVAC systems were installed, along with a new dehumidifying system to heat and cool the building more efficiently.

int erior

• Original woodwork like that in Masters Hall was used throughout different areas of the hotel, including the front desk area, the Bulldog Bistro, and the elevator vestibules, keeping the midcentury modern look consistent.

• Solid walls were replaced with glass in the Magnolia Ballroom.

New curtains with heat-reflecting fabric were added to reduce the building’s heat absorption and blackout curtains with a high acoustic rating to ensure high-quality audio levels for presentations.

• Changes included even the smallest details, such as different music played throughout the center, a custom scent, and elevator wraps with pictures of Georgia traditions, like Uga and the Arch.

To plan your stay at the Georgia Center, visit HOTEL.UGA.EDU.

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35

THE NATION

news and events

Celebrating Bulldog Entrepreneurs

The Bulldog 100 celebrates Dawgs on top by recognizing the 100 fastest growing businesses owned or operated by UGA alumni. The 11th annual Bulldog 100 Celebration took place Feb. 8—and was held in Athens for the first time. Congratulations to this year’s No. 1 fastest growing business, LeaseQuery, and CEO George Azih BBA ’03 and Chief Revenue Officer Chris Ramsey BS ’05. LeaseQuery is a leader in technical accounting and accounting research. To see where the other businesses ranked this year, visit alumni.uga.edu/b100.

from the uga alumni association

Congratulations to the 2020 Alumni Award Recipients

Alumni Career Resources

The 83rd annual Alumni Awards Luncheon celebrates the achievements of distinguished alumni, faculty, and friends of UGA and will be held April 24 on campus. This year’s award recipients are: Alumni Merit Lynda Bradbury Courts AB ’63 Alumni Merit | Hon. Johnny Isakson BBA ’66 Faculty Service | Peter Shedd BBA ’74, JD ’77 Friend of UGA | Sanford M ’55, HON ’19 and Barbara Orkin M ’56 Family of the Year | The Holmes Family Young Alumni Christina Swoope Carrere BS ’11

A BULLDOG BARK TO ...

In honor of its 50th anniversary in 2019, the Zeta Psi Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc. established two $50,000 Georgia Commitment Scholarships at the University of Georgia. More than 300 sorority members donated $142,886 to assist underserved students who have overcome obstacles on their journeys to UGA. Thank you to these committed alumnae for helping to remove barriers and open doors for students.

Bulldogs Never Bark Alone … especially when it comes to career development. The UGA Career Center offers free professional development and career coaching services and resources for all alumni—from recent graduates to established professionals. Visit career.uga.edu/alumni to sign up for webinars and access other valuable tools.

Nominations Open!

Nominations are being accepted for the 2021 Bulldog 100 and the 40 Under 40 Class of 2020. If you know a Bulldog business owner or an outstanding UGA graduate under the age of 40, nominate them today.

alumni.uga.edu/40U40 alumni.uga.edu/b100 Women of UGA held its annual Cookies & Cocoa with Hairy Dawg in November. Families were invited to take photos with Hairy Dawg, write letters to Uga X, and decorate cookies. Special guests, such as Super Bowl champion and children’s y ph ra author Malcolm Mitchell AB ’15, og t o m. m i xo n p h Miss UGA Briana Hayes, and former UGA All-America punter Drew Butler ABJ ’11, read holiday stories throughout the afternoon to the youngest Bulldogs. Shown here are Tosha BSFCS ’05 and Dwayne PhD ’05 Wright and their son, Quince.

timothy nichols, iii

CHAPTER SPOTLIGHT

CHAPTER NAME: San Diego CHAPTER PRESIDENT: Tara Shah AB ’98 NUMBER OF ALUMNI IN THE AREA: 1,040

Find your chapter: ALUMNI.UGA.EDU/CHAPTERS special

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The San Diego Chapter hosted 10 events in 2019 to connect local alumni, including a Dawg Day of Service, Welcome to the City event, and well-attended gamewatching parties. The chapter also is well on its way to endowing a San Diego Chapter Scholarship Fund, which will provide financial support to an aspiring Bulldog from the San Diego area in perpetuity—establishing a permanent connection between the Classic City and California. If you live in the San Diego area, the chapter hopes to see you at an event soon.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Stay connected with us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. #AlwaysADawg // ALUMNI.UGA.EDU/SOCIAL

DON’T MISS OUT

Thanks to the Southern California Alumni Chapter for hosting a volunteer event last fall in Los Angeles.

THURSDAY-SATURDAY, MARCH 26-28 2020 Alumni Weekend

Ready to feel like a student again—without the all-nighters and final exams? Alumni Weekend will show you campus and introduce you to student life in 2020. It’s a guaranteed great time for UGA alumni of all ages. Space is limited.

alumni.uga.edu/weekend

@dawgsinsocal

TUESDAY, MARCH 31

Senior Signature Deadline All students graduating in May or December 2020 have until March 31 to donate to Senior Signature and ensure their names appear on the Class of 2020 plaque in Tate Plaza.

alumni.uga.edu/seniorsignature

WEEK OF APRIL 18

Georgia Giving Week Calling All Dawgs! Join fellow Bulldogs for the second annual Georgia Giving Week, which kicks off on G-Day again this year.

The week is all about the power of collective giving—and when Bulldogs commit to something, they get it done.

When legendary chef Nathalie Dupree (in blue) celebrated her 80th birthday at the James Beard House last fall, she was surrounded by four UGA alumnae chefs (left to right): Cynthia Graubart ABJ ’82, Anne Byrn BSHE ’78, Virginia Willis AB ’88, Rebecca Lang ABJ ’99, and Kelly Litton.

@womenofuga

givingweek.uga.edu

A group of Latinx alumni hosted an Ugly Sweater Social in Atlanta in December—it’s great seeing groups of alumni building their own Bulldog networks.

FRIDAY, APRIL 24

83rd Annual Alumni Awards Luncheon Celebrate the achievements of distinguished alumni, faculty, and friends of UGA.

alumni.uga.edu/alumniawards

SUNDAY, APRIL 26

UGA Rooftop Takeover at Ponce City Market Join UGA Young Alumni for rooftop revelry and scenic views atop Ponce City Market in Atlanta. The space will be decked out with Bulldog spirit and is a great opportunity for alumni, friends, and families to show their UGA pride.

alumni.uga.edu/youngalumni

@ugalxaa

Shout-out to the London Chapter for showing their Bulldog spirit “across the pond” during a game-watching party in October.

For more events, visit alumni.uga.edu/calendar.

contact us: Moved? Changed your name? Added a new Bulldog to the family? Let us know! alumni.uga.edu/update or (800) 606-8786.

@londondawgs

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37

class

notes Compiled by Rachel Floyd AB ’19, Madeleine Howell, and Mary Calkins

1960-1964

for her research on composer

Sandy Alley ABJ ’62 retired

Jean Sibelius.

from her position as region-

James Roberts Jr. BS ’69

al affairs director with the

retired from NASA’s Kennedy

National Park Service in

Space Center after 30 years.

Washington, D.C.

He is now senior principal

Henry Duggan BBA ’64

of engineering systems at

released his book Silver’s

Northrop Grumman in Mel-

Odyssey.

bourne, Florida.

Marjorie Singley-Hall ABJ ’69

1965-1969

is CEO at S & A Railroad Ties

Susan Hudgens Harper

and chief compliance officer

BSHE ’67, EdS ’94 is serving her

of Tie & Timber Technologies. special

second term as chair of the Georgia Department of Early

1970-1974

Care and Learning.

Proctor Chambless AB ’71

Muriel Pritchett ABJ ’67,

retired from the Ministry of

MA ’78, MFA ’85 wrote her

the Word and Sacrament in

third novel, Rotten Bananas

the Presbyterian Church. He

and the Emerald Dream.

served churches in six states

Ralph Winter BSEd ’67 was

over 42 years.

named president of the 392nd

Cliff McCurry BBA ’71 was

Bomb Group Memorial Asso-

inducted into the Junior

ciation. The 392nd was a U.S.

Achievement Savannah

Army Air Corps base located

Business Hall of Fame. He

in Wendling, East Anglia, U.K.,

is an emeritus trustee of the

from July 1943 to June 1945.

UGA Foundation and the

Winter’s father was stationed

Terry College of Business

there during World War II.

Alumni Board.

Glenda Goss AB ’69 received

Steve Rogers BS ’71, MBA ’73

the 2019 Fredrik Pacius Me-

retired from his position as

morial Prize from the Swedish

business development man-

Literature Society of Finland

ager at Mercedes-Benz USA

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YOUR HONOR

Making History It’s not often one person gets to make history twice.

But that’s what happened in November when Tamika Montgomery-Reeves JD ’06 was named to the Delaware Supreme Court, becoming the first African American associate justice in the history of the court.

In 2015, Montgomery-Reeves (shown above when she was a UGA law student) became the first African American to be named vice chancellor of the Delaware Court of Chancery. She was also only the court’s second female vice chancellor. The Delaware court is recognized as the nation’s preeminent forum for disputes involving corporations, and with about 65% of Fortune 500 companies incorporated in the state, the Court of Chancery is one of the most important courts for corporate law.

Prior to being named to the court, Montgomery-Reeves served as a partner in a New York law firm specializing in corporate law and governance, business litigation and counseling, and securities litigation.

CLASS NOTES APPLAUSE FOR ALUMNI

All Dressed Up

Danielle Hosker AB ’01

sp

special

special

T

hree women over three business days completely changed Danielle Hosker’s life.

Hosker AB ’01 had founded two successful luxury linen and home good lines, Antage Bleu and Baby Bleu, but she was waking up in the middle of the night thinking of dresses.

“I told my husband I’ve just got to flesh this out,” Hosker says. “I know it’s going to be a failure, but I just need to do it and put it to bed so I can get back to work.”

Except she didn’t fail.

Still unsure of herself, Hosker packed up the small collection of evening wear she produced under the label Mason Hosker and headed to a store in Raleigh,

North Carolina, on a Friday. One of the store’s buyers happened to be there—a rarity in the fashion world—so Hosker showed her the line. The buyer’s compliments gave Hosker the confidence she needed to go big.

The following Monday, she flew to Washington, D.C., to try and sell her line to Saks Jandel, an iconic high-end boutique in Maryland that clothed everyone from secretaries of state to first ladies before closing in 2016.

“I had been trying to contact the buyer, and of course she never responded,” Hosker says. “I was so ignorant to not realize that it’s very rare to get in front of a buyer, but I just walked in.”

ec

ia

l

Again Hosker lucked out. The buyer was there, and when Hosker showed her the lookbook, the buyer wanted to see more. “She said, ‘You can show me three pieces,’ but three pieces turned into the whole collection. And she loved it.”

The buyer told Hosker she needed to go to New York. She drove there the next day and was signed to a showroom by its owner, bypassing the route most new lines have to make it through—market, stores, and then showroom.

Mason Hosker was picked up by Rent the Runway, an online designer clothing rental service, almost immediately, along with a string of what Hosker calls “amazing, die-ifI-could-get-in-there” boutiques.

After opening her flagship store in Charleston, Hosker’s line (one piece is modeled above right) began getting rave reviews from Self to Martha Stewart Weddings, which said her gowns “empower the wearer with a radiant sense of elegance— and absolutely captivate everyone within eyesight.” Hosker herself was named one of Southern Living’s 50 Most Stylish Southerners.

“I never dreamed of being a fashion designer,” Hosker says. “It was never on my radar. But looking back at how my life lined up to put me in the right place at the right time with the right people, all these building blocks of life added up to exactly what I’m supposed to be doing with my life.”

written by leigh beeson MA ’17

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39

CLASS NOTES International Risk Management Institute and CEO of WebCE. Craig Miller ABJ ’77 was appointed by Gov. Brian Kemp BSA ’87 to the Georgia Film, Music, and Digital Entertainment Commission.

Steve Morrow BSEH ’77 retired from the Coca-Cola Company after 40 years.

Jerry Mason AB ’78 retired from his position as assistant district attorney at the DeKalb County District Attorney’s Office.

Donna Kerr BSEd ’79, MEd ’81 is a complex case manager for Manley and Associates in Atlanta.

Lee McMichael ABJ ’79 received the Sales Director of the Year Award from Strand Hospitality Services. He works at Hampton Inn on the River in Helen.

1980-1984 Mark Bland BSA ’80 is corporate human resource director at Claxton Poultry Farms. He is the president of the board of directors of Pineland Telephone in Alexandria, Virginia.

1975-1979

bles for Habitat for Humanity

Maxine Burton BSEd ’72, MEd ’78

Leanne French BS ’76, MS ’79

families.

was inducted into the Fourth

retired from her position as

Randall Duncan AB ’77, MPA ’85

Annual Forsyth Central Hall of

production geologist at Shell Oil

is an immigration officer for the

Fame at Forsyth Central High

Company.

U.S. Department of Justice.

School in Cumming.

Kevin Grigsby AB ’76 is senior

Jack Gibson BBA ’77, MBA ’79

Jack Butler BBA ’74 released

director of member organiza-

received the Gottheimer Mal-

Applications of Enterprise GIS

tional development at the Asso-

ecki Memorial Award from the

for Transportation, which was

ciation of American Medical

Society of Chartered Property

issued by the U.S. Department

Colleges in Washington, D.C.

and Casualty Underwriters for

of Transportation.

Tom Schulte BBA ’76 is the

his outstanding contribution to

CEO of Your Family’s Table, a

the field of risk management.

nonprofit that builds kitchen ta-

He is president and CEO of

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Cooperative, member of Candler County Hospital Authority, and owner of Arrowhead Farms.

Monica Franklin AB ’82 is head golf professional at Brays Island in Shelton, South Carolina.

Emily Munnell ABJ ’82 is a communications coordinator in Development & Alumni Relations at UGA. Dale Cabaniss AB ’83 is the director of the United States Office of Personnel Manage-

CLASS NOTES

APPLAUSE FOR ALUMNI

Animal Magnetism

Delia Owens BS ’71

D

elia owens was already a world-renowned wildlife biologist and co-author of three nonfiction bestsellers when she decided to write her first novel, Where the Crawdads Sing.

“Writing nonfiction is like riding your horse inside the corral: You have to stay within the fences of the facts.

But when you write fiction, it is like riding the horse through the gate and galloping across the meadow,” says Owens BS ’71. Her attraction to animal metaphors is understandable. She spent nearly a quarter century conducting groundbreaking research on some of Africa’s most charismatic creatures.

In many ways, Owens was a groundbreaker before she ever left the States. A native of Thomasville, she studied zoology at UGA and was one of the few women in the program at the time.

Her dream was to go to Africa to study wildlife, which she did for the first time in 1974. She and her then-husband Mark MEd ’72 traveled to the remote Kalahari Desert, where they lived close enough to lions and hyenas to identify them by name. After returning to the States to earn doctorates, the pair relocated to Zambia where they were instrumental in helping elephant populations recover.

They chronicled their work in three best-selling, award-winning memoirs, Cry of the Kalahari (1984), The Eye of the Elephant (1992), and Secrets of the Savanna (2006).

“Everybody needs to see wildlife the way we saw it,” she says. “Eventually we see a lot of ourselves in them.”

Owens’s idea that human and animal worlds are intertwined is the theme that underlies her first work of fiction, Where

dawn marie tucker

the Crawdads Sing. Released to universal acclaim and massive sales in August 2018, the book crosses genres—thriller, mystery, character study—but, most importantly, it also serves as a reflection of Owens’s life’s work and experience.

The book takes place in North Carolina.

(Owens lives in Asheville.) Owens’s heroine, Kya Clark, is a loner who often acts on instinct and, through the course of the book, learns the importance of a supportive community. Owens observed the same among the animals in Africa and recently discovered it with the friends in her own life.

By the end of 2019, Where the Crawdads Sing had sold more than 4 million copies.

One of the first copies was bought by ac-

tress Reese Witherspoon, who liked it so much that her production company is developing it into a film.

Over the summer, Owens met with the Academy Award winner to discuss the project, and the author came away impressed and excited. Production will continue through 2020, and Owens will serve as a consultant on the film.

Owens notes that she and Witherspoon casually discussed casting, although Owens is quick to add that she’s lacking in the area.

“Oh, it’s been so long since I’ve paid attention to the movies,” she laughs. “I thought a good person to play [19-year-old] Chase Andrews would be Robert Redford.”

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41

CLASS NOTES ment.

John Neel Jr. BBA ’84 was appointed by Gov. Brian Kemp BSA ’87 to the Georgia Film, Music, and Digital Entertainment Commission.

Rob Owen AB ’84, MA ’86 is an attorney at law with his own practice in Chicago.

Carol Preisinger AB ’84 is director of golf instruction at Kiawah Island Club in South Carolina.

She has been a GOLF Magazine Top 100 Teacher since 2005.

Tina Roddenbery ABJ ’84, JD ’87 is a partner at Boyd Collar Nolen Tuggle & Roddenbery.

The firm was recognized in the 2020 edition of the U.S. News and World Report’s Best Law Firms as a Tier 1 Atlanta law firm in family law.

1985-1989 John Hayden BS ’85 is a member of the National Advisory Council to the president of Dixie State University in Saint George, Utah.

Renee Lodge BS ’85 is director of health information management at Troy Regional Medical Center in Alabama.

George Monk BBA ’85 is general manager of the Georgia Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Company.

Carol Ann Stovall ABJ ’85 is an executive respiratory business specialist with BoehringerIngelheim Pharmaceuticals in Savannah.

Zack Jones BBA ’88 is founder of

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CLASS NOTES

APPLAUSE FOR ALUMNI

Family Pharm

Ben Ross PharmD ’08

dorothy kozlowski

T

he third week of june 2008 was a big one for Ben Ross.

That Thursday, he took his final boards to become a licensed pharmacist. On Saturday, he married his longtime girlfriend, Lauren Scott. Their honeymoon followed, and the day after it was over, Ross PharmD ’08 started his new job as a pharmacist and co-owner of Forest Heights Pharmacy in Statesboro.

That week was the culmination of a path that began roughly when he learned to walk.

Ross’s father, Virgil “Sonny” Ross BSPH ’74, had run the pharmacy in their hometown of Sylvania (about an hour south of Augusta) since before Ben and his brother Matt AB ’04 were born. As children, they helped out when they could. When Ben got his driver’s license, his first job was as a delivery driver.

When he entered the University of Georgia’s College of Pharmacy, Ross spent his summers working in the back of the store, learning about the business first-hand.

“I’m passionate about the profession of pharmacy and about the independent setting,” says Ross.

That independent setting is important. For

many rural Georgians (and rural Americans, for that matter), the only way they can get what are frequently life-saving prescriptions is through independent pharmacies. Their hometowns are just too small for chains to service.

That’s where pharmacists like Ben and Sonny Ross come in. In the case of the senior Ross, they can serve their communities for decades, becoming institutions in the process. Ben and his dad discussed him joining the family business, but his role in Statesboro was fast-tracked when his dad’s partner at Forest Heights was diagnosed with cancer and needed to retire from the business. That’s when Ben stepped in.

“Serving our community is a core value,” Ross says. “We were a new store, and not being originally from Statesboro, we didn’t know a lot of people. We built the store from the ground up. It was a struggle, but it’s been a great experience.”

For Ross, serving the community meant becoming part of that community: He is a Rotarian and serves on the boards of Ogeechee Technical College and a local bank. In that time, Forest Heights has also expanded to include a gift shop that Lauren manages. Their

children—Lanie, 9; Lucy Kate, 5; and Reid, 1; —are frequent visitors.

The gift shop isn’t the only way Ross’ portfolio has grown.

When Sonny Ross retired in 2018, Ben became the majority owner of the pharmacy in Sylvania. Since the summer of 2018, Ross has acquired partnerships in three additional independent pharmacies in rural eastern and southeastern Georgia: Coastal Drug in Midway, Crawford & Breazeale Drug in Lincolnton, and Clark Drug in Waynesboro. At two of the locations, his partners are fellow UGA alumni—Starr Clark BSPH ’87 in Waynesboro and Samir Shah PharmD ’08 in Lincolnton.

At Ben Ross’s pharmacies, management remains local, and he is dedicated to his adopted hometown. The roots he planted in Statesboro back in 2008 have grown pretty deep, and he understands the needs of the community.

“When you own an independent pharmacy, it’s so much more than a business,” he says.

“Your customers are your family. You want to make sure they are taken care of.”

written by eric rangus MA ’94

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43

CLASS NOTES

44

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CLASS NOTES APPLAUSE FOR ALUMNI

The Author Next Door

W

hen she was a girl, sarah Stanley Fallaw AB ’98, MS ’98, PhD ’03 would sit at the dining room table with her father, the celebrated writer and business expert Thomas Stanley PhD ’74, and help him collate stacks of survey responses. Clearly, she was always destined to become a researcher—and to work with her dad.

When Stanley’s fourth book, The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America’s Wealthy, hit The New York Times bestseller list in 1996, he mailed his daughter a copy of the announcement he’d received from his publisher. Fallaw, a sophomore at the time, tacked it to her

Sarah Stanley Fallaw AB ’98, MS ’98, PhD ’03

joanne mcrae

door, which impressed her sisters in the ADPi house.

The Millionaire Next Door became a seminal work in the study of wealth accumulation. That wasn’t specifically Fallaw’s interest, but the work she was doing at UGA complemented it well.

Fallaw studied industrial-organizational psychology and worked with Garnett Stokes MS ’80, PhD ’82, who was head of the UGA psychology department at the time.

After earning her doctorate in applied psychology, Fallaw moved into consulting and eventually joined a research organization founded by her father, the Affluent Market Institute. She also

founded her own firm, DataPoints, which blends personal finance analytics with psychological assessment. It’s this subject, which has been central to Fallaw’s career, that brought her work together with that of her father.

“In 2012, I began to look at the data and the research he had conducted,” Fallaw says. “I looked at personal finance from an academic perspective to see if you could actually predict who was going to be the next millionaire next door.”

With the 20th anniversary of her father’s book coming up, they began collaborating with the intention of writing an update. Tragically, that work was cut short in 2015 when Stanley was killed by a drunk driver. Fallaw wanted to keep her father’s work alive, though, and after taking some time to recover, she restarted the project.

It took several years, but in October 2018, The Next Millionaire Next Door: Enduring Strategies for Building Wealth was released to wide acclaim. The book carries both father’s and daughter’s names and successfully blends their expertise in research, analytics, and lobbying for the smart choices that lead to improved financial health.

“The Next Millionaire Next Door has really led to the work I do today, which is helping people understand the characteristics about themselves that will help them reach their financial goals,” she says. “It’s a different take on the science I started with, but I think it’s much more practical.”

Fallaw doesn’t intend for it to be her only book. She and her husband Tim BBA ’97, JD ’00 (who works with her at DataPoints), are already working through some ideas. For the time being, though, Fallaw is happy reflecting on the success of her work with her dad.

“It’s a nice closing to his life and legacy,” Fallaw says. “I think he’d be proud of this book, the work that we’re doing, and how many people we’ve touched.”

written by eric rangus MA ’94

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45

CLASS NOTES CottonTown Brew Lab in

Drew Mitchell AB ’90

Use One. It is her sixth

Columbia, South Carolina.

released his book GRIT in

publication.

Allison Levie ABJ ’88 mar-

January 2019. The book

Dagan Sharpe ABJ ’96

ried Jay Adler in January

details the life and death

has authored four books,

2018. She is a senior con-

of UGA student and foot-

including Highways End,

sultant for FIS in Orlando,

ball player Von Gammon.

Full Disclosure, Strong & The

Florida.

Mala Sharma ABJ ’90

Kingdom Scrolls, and The

Catherine Ostick ABJ ’88

was appointed by Gov.

Dinosaur Did It.

is a consular assistant in

Brian Kemp BSA ’87 to the

Brent Sweitzer ABJ ’97 is

American Citizen Services

Georgia Film, Music, and

a professional counselor

at the U.S. Embassy.

Digital Entertainment

with his practice, Sweitzer

William Ostick ABJ ’88 was

Commission.

Counseling, in Cumming.

appointed public affairs of-

Wendy New BSFCS ’91 is

Christy Hulsey ABJ ’98

ficer for the U.S. Embassy

founder and principal of

is creative director and

in Mexico City.

New Strategies, a con-

owner of Colonial House

Stephanie Stuckey AB

sulting firm specializing in

of Flowers in Atlanta.

’88, JD ’92 is the president

strategic planning, board

Robyn Painter AB ’98 is a

and CEO of Stuckey’s, the

and membership develop-

general attorney at the

famous American roadside

ment, and special event

U.S. Department of Educa-

franchise. Her grandfather

marketing and manage-

tion in Atlanta.

W.S. “Sylvester” Stuckey

ment.

Jason Shepherd AB ’98

Sr. M ’29 opened the first

Chris Manzi BBA ’93 is the

was named to the Political

store in 1931. Her father,

founder and executive

Science Advisory Board

Billy Stuckey Jr. BBA ’56,

director of North Georgia

for the Kennesaw State

MBA ’59, JD ’59, remains

Junior Golf in Athens.

University School of Gov-

active in the company as

Lareece Reynolds AB ’93 is

ernment and International

an advisor.

a Latin teacher at Morgan

Affairs.

Tracy Allison BSEd ’89

County High School in

Alicia Mooney Macchia

retired from her position

Madison.

BFA ’99 is owner of Alicia

as assistant principal of

Tonjie Clark BSEd ’94 is

Mooney Interiors in Win-

North Habersham Middle

principal of Restorative

terville.

School in Habersham

Christian Ministries in

John Raulet AB ’99 was

County.

Fairburn.

appointed by Gov. Brian

Lisa Lancaster BS ’89 is

Anthony Proffitt BSFCS ’94

Kemp BSA ’87 to the Geor-

an associate professor of

is the program director at

gia Film, Music, and Digital

medicine at Vanderbilt

WXNX/93X in Fort Myers,

Entertainment Commis-

University Medical Center

Florida.

sion.

1995-1999

2000-2004

1990-1994

Elizabeth Ross Hubbell

Andy Johnson BS ’00 is a

Kari Love AB ’90 is the CEO

BSEd ’95 co-authored

director at Sony Pictures

of the Atlanta Women’s

Instructional Models: How

Entertainment in Culver

Foundation.

to Choose One, How to

City, California.

in Nashville.

46

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my georgia commitment

CLASS NOTES

giving students that “aha” moment

While he was a student at the University of Georgia, Vice President for Student Affairs Victor Wilson experienced a pair of lifedefining moments. Today, he gives to his alma mater to help students find the same inspiration.

O

n Sanford Drive, not far from Park Hall, there is a small grassy area that largely goes unnoticed. But for Victor Wilson BSW ’82, MEd ’87, this nondescript greenspace marks the start of his collegiate journey. He once stood on this lawn as a reporter for his Decatur high school’s newspaper. At the time, he was unsure where to attend college. In that moment, however, certainty struck: he would be a Bulldog. Now, he’s dedicated more than 25 years to UGA. “That was where my life changed,” Wilson says. “Everything I am and everything I do is because of this university.

It all started on that little patch of grass.”

While at UGA, with campus buzzing from the 1980 national championship, a second watershed moment for Wilson occurred. This time, he was an orientation leader, traversing campus backward as he described his UGA experience to prospective students. “Right then, I knew that was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life,” Wilson says.

He promptly changed from a pre-med track to pursuing a bachelor’s degree in social work and, later, a master’s degree in student affairs. His first job was in the UGA Office of Admissions, directing New Student Orientation. Opportunities then took him to other universities, but he returned to UGA in 2013 as vice president for student affairs.

One constant Wilson has witnessed, through years of change and growth, is that UGA remains a place for personal transformation. At the start of each academic year, he recognizes the same wide-eyed look in first-years’ wary, yet excited, eyes. During Commencement, he shakes hands with students who have been challenged to discover more about themselves and the world around them. In between, he witnesses students experiencing “aha” moments like his—ones that instill a confidence to push forward in the pursuit of dreams. Wilson knows that these turning points happen not only in the classroom but also outside of it.

That’s why his gifts to UGA have supported a variety of areas

GIVE.UGA.EDU

peter frey

on campus, including Arch Society, Blue Key, the Dean of Students Support Fund, Multicultural Services and Programs, UGA Miracle Dance Marathon, and a variety of scholarship funds. Wilson also established a scholarship, named for his mother, for members of UGA’s Black Male Leadership Society.

Wilson hopes his financial support will serve as a source of encouragement and pride for students navigating college.

“I want students to have that dancing moment when the light comes on. That’s why I give,” Wilson says. “When I ask alumni about their most important takeaway from UGA, nine times out of 10, they don’t recite something from a textbook. They talk about serving as president of their fraternity, working as a resident assistant, or volunteering in their community.”

There are many ways to support students during their collegiate journeys. Join Vice President Wilson in fostering a campus that inspires “aha” moments throughout the year. Make your gift by June 30 to be a part of UGA’s historic Commit to Georgia Campaign. GIVE.UGA.EDU/WHERE-TO-GIVE.

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47

CLASS NOTES Krista Merry AB ’00, MS ’03

Lisa Beasley BSFCS ’01 is a 5th

mander in the U.S. Navy serv-

works at River Valley Regional

co-authored the book, Mapping

grade STEM lab teacher at

ing at Naval Hospital Beaufort

Commission Americus, which

Human and Natural Systems.

Madison County Schools.

and is chief medical officer

serves local governments

She is a research professional

Sara Hornbuckle BBA ’01 is op-

at the Naval Health Clinic

with development and transit

at the Warnell School of For-

erating systems director at Turf

Lemoore in California.

services.

estry and Natural Resources.

Masters Lawn Care in Roswell.

Rachel Schmidt AB ’02 is

Jason Morgan AB ’04 is infor-

Kevin Wuzzardo ABJ ’00 is

David Bernstein BBA ’02

founder and director of Target

mation systems coordinator at

managing editor at FOX13

released his novel The King of

Language in Columbus.

Broadway/San Diego, a presen-

News in Memphis after

Pawleys, a coming of age story

Jarrod McCarthy AB ’03, MA ’05

tation company that brings live

spending the previous 13 years

that stemmed from his love of

was named to the top for of

entertainment to theater venues

at WWAY-TV in Wilmington,

Pawleys Island, South Carolina.

Rural Leader Magazine’s 40

in San Diego.

North Carolina.

Jim Ripple BS ’02 is a com-

under 40 list. McCarthy

Kim Wendland BSFCS ’04 is pursuing a master’s degree in applied behavior analysis from the Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne.

2005-2009 Justin Jenniges BSFCS ’06 was ranked 34th on Forbes magazine’s Best Next Generation Wealth Advisor. He is a wealth advisor at Morgan Stanley.

Heather Sorensen AB ’96 is director of human resources for PowerDMS in Orlando, Florida.

Drew Bragg BSEd ’08 is assistant principal at Coahulla Creek High School in Varnell.

He and his wife recently welcomed their first child.

Meredith Reagan AB ’08 is a health communication specialist for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the Center for Global Health.

Derell Hardman BSA ’09 is a program coordinator of technical services in the UGA Department of Food Science and Technology’s extension outreach program.

Anna Harrell BS ’09 is assistant

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CLASS NOTES

APPLAUSE FOR ALUMNI

Social Media Superstar

T

o be clear, tj adeshola’s job is not fun.

“What’s a word that’s better than fun?” says Adeshola MA ’08, head of U.S. sports for Twitter. He smiles easily, laughs even more easily, and carries himself with a mix of confidence and self-deprecation. “I would like to say it’s perfect. It’s epic. It’s a blast. It’s just the best.”

“But it’s also hard,” he adds. “It’s busy. It’s taxing. Sports is not a 9-to-5 job.”

Neither is social media leadership, and few work harder than the New York-based Adeshola and his team of seven, which is spread across the country. They partner directly with

TJ Adeshola MA ’08

peter frey

professional sports leagues—the NFL, NBA, and MLB League Baseball to name a few—the NCAA, and even individual athletes to streamline and amplify their Twitter presence. The job requires energy, ambition, creativity, the ability to think on one’s feet, and the highest level of communications skills. Adeshola checks every box.

It’s a job (and a platform, for that matter) that didn’t exist when Adeshola earned his master’s from the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication.

During the fall of his second year of graduate school, Adeshola learned that ESPN’s College GameDay would be broadcasting

from Athens. So, he got up early and headed out not to watch the show but to, in Adeshola’s words, “find the person who seemed the most important” and ask for an internship.

He was successful. Three months later, Adeshola was interning in Bristol, Connecticut. After he graduated, that internship turned into full-time employment. Adeshola worked in business operations at the network and soon noticed a new way that people were communicating.

“While I was at ESPN, Twitter was taking the world by storm, and I was always obsessed with it,” Adeshola says. “But it was really intimidating because I didn’t know how to establish my voice.”

Adeshola chose to be cautious. He didn’t tweet until he had gained 100 followers. (He now has more than 10,000 personally, and Twitter Sports numbers more than 15.3 million.) “The beauty about identity is that we learn something new about ourselves every day,” he says. “Different communities communicate in different ways, so my voice is constantly evolving. That’s emblematic of life, which is what I love about Twitter.”

Adeshola likens Twitter Sports’ atmosphere to that of a global sports bar. “The game’s on.

You might be cheering for Georgia; someone else is cheering for Florida. You’re jabbing at each other. You’re upset. You’re happy. It’s really this holistic experience that allows you to jump into a community and converse about something that’s happening in real time.”

Those conversations, both on Twitter and in person, are things that Adeshola takes seriously. A lot of them also involve his unabashed love for the University of Georgia, a school he first encountered in person at a basketball camp run by former Bulldogs coach Jim Harrick. Since graduation, he returns to Athens as often as he can. He enjoys talking not only with students but with anyone starting their career.

“I try to talk to students as much as I can. I’ll do Google hangouts,” he says. “Because mentorship has been such an important tool for me to get to where I am today, I try to have a coffee with someone I don’t know every week. Someone who is aspiring to have a career in sports or tech. It’s also important for me to extend an olive branch to people who look like me.”

Adeshola calls it helping “the next version of himself” become a success.

written by eric rangus MA ’94

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CLASS NOTES

MILITARY MUSICIAN

Leader of the Band In January 2019, U.S. Air Force Col. Don Schofield BMus ’89 assumed command of the United States Air Force Band, the premier musical unit in that branch of the United States military. In this role, he commands the 184-member unit comprising the Concert Band, the Airmen of Note, the Singing Sergeants, the Strolling Strings, the Ceremonial Brass, Max Impact, and a support staff of administration, librarians, public affairs, and marketing specialists. Members of all these units performed at Schofield’s change of command ceremony in Washington, D.C. Schofield earned a bachelor’s degree in music education at UGA, where he was a member of the Redcoat Band.

special

He was commissioned into the United States Air Force in 1997. He served as

squadron commander at four different bases. Under Schofield, the band became an important diplomatic tool, broadcasting events to 60 countries and reaching more than 1 billion people.

“We took that very seriously and we wanted to make sure we presented the best that America has to offer,” Schofield says.

His diplomatic efforts resulted in the U.S. Air Forces in Europe Band being selected as the best Air Force Public Affairs Unit in the Air Force, and Schofield was chosen as the top Public Affairs Field Grade Officer in Europe.

—marion english AB ’88

of health care administra-

assistant director of fraternity

March 2019. She is an associ-

’19 is an attorney at Fortson,

tion at Mayo Clinic College

and sorority life at the Univer-

ate at Wiley Rein law practice

Bentley, and Griffin law firm

of Medicine in Rochester,

sity of San Diego.

in Washington, D.C.

in their tax, trust, and estates

Minnesota.

Christal McCamy BBA ’15 is

Byron Stufken BBA ’15 is an

practice in Athens.

pursuing a Juris Doctor at

assistant vice president in the

Kristen Carter AB ’17 received

2010-2014

Brooklyn Law School in

Entertainment Practice Group

a master of literature degree

Cassandra Waldrop BSFR ’13

New York.

at Marsh & McLennan Com-

at Queen Mary University in

is a research professional at

Allie McFadden ABJ ’15

panies in Los Angeles.

London.

the Warnell School of Forestry

married Will McFadden ABJ

Jason Burnett BSA ’16 was

Jillian Ready BLA ’17 is a

and Natural Resources at

’15, AB ’15 in July 2018. She is

promoted to sales manager at

registered landscape archi-

UGA.

a communications officer at

Pilgrim’s in Athens.

tect at Johnson, Laschober,

Olivia Carlisle BFA ’14 is a

Georgia Tech. Will is a team

Emily Cox BS ’16 was promot-

and Associates in Augusta.

natural science illustrator fea-

beat reporter for the Atlanta

ed to assistant vice president

She married Campbell Ready

tured in various publications.

Falcons.

at Guy Carpenter in Chicago.

PharmD ’19 in March 2018.

Carlisle is also on the board of

LeAnn Moss BSEd ’15 is a

Jeremy Long BSA ’16 is pursu-

Camden Stovall BSEd ’17

directors for the Athens Art

special education teacher at

ing a doctoral degree at the

received her master’s of in-

Association.

Military Magnet Academy in

Mississippi State University

ternational business from the

Charleston, South Carolina.

College of Veterinary Medi-

University of South Carolina in

2015-2019

Chiara Tondi Resta AB ’15

cine in Starkville.

Columbia. She is an associate

Kristen Lemaster AB ’15 is

married Chris Halsted in

Lindsey Woodard AB ’16, JD

buyer at Volvo North America

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CLASS NOTES APPLAUSE FOR ALUMNI

The Soprano

Jennifer Holloway BMus ’00

arielle doneson

sp

F

e

cia

l

or some, the path to finding their passion is uncertain. But for Jennifer Holloway, it was clear from the get-go.

“I always knew that I wanted to pursue music in some form,” says Holloway BMus ’00, as she recalls giving recitals of “Mary had a Little Lamb” on her neighbors’ rickety old piano while growing up in Gwinnett County.

Throughout her childhood and time in college, she thought she would be teaching music. She started out at UGA as a music education major with a concentration in instrumental music, but eventually changed that emphasis to voice. Meanwhile, she participated in a multitude of music-focused

student groups and performed in nearly every campus ensemble.

It wasn’t until her final year at UGA that the Hugh Hodgson School of Music’s opera program debuted and stole her heart.

“Everything started at UGA,” she says.

“I did not know about opera before being there. The voice and opera program at Georgia was so integral, and I am an opera singer because of what the program showed me.”

After graduating from UGA, Holloway moved to New York City to pursue a master’s degree in voice performance from the Manhattan School of Music. Soon after, she began traveling the world, starring in operas on stages everywhere from Vienna to Sao Paulo.

Her first role as a young artist was at the Santa Fe Opera, where she took the role of Prince Charming in Cinderella. As her career developed, she depicted Donna

Fulvia’s character in Rossini’s La Pietra del Paragone in both Parma, Italy, and Paris, France.

Recently, Holloway wrapped up a show in Georgia, starring as the title character in the Atlanta Opera’s production of Salome, the story of biblical King Herod’s troubled stepdaughter.

Holloway explains that Salome is often portrayed on stage in a negative light. But, it is the soprano’s job to work with the director and cast to create a fresh take on the script that is a reflection of creative thinking and personal interpretation.

Of course, Holloway takes a personal lens in analyzing her character not only in Salome but in all of the roles that she plays. To her, that is the beauty of being an opera singer.

“There is something real about the passion that we show,” she says. “What we’re there to do is share this passion with the audience.”

written by madeleine howell

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51

CLASS NOTES

52

in Greensboro, North

Enya Spicer AB ’18 is social

Jacob Kepes AB ’19 is pursu-

ing a master’s in nonprofit

Carolina.

media coordinator and

ing a doctorate in sociology

management and leadership

Graham Dempsey BS ’18

content producer at Taylor’s

at Ohio State University.

from the UGA School of

is pursuing a master’s in

Auto Max in Great Falls,

Danny McArthur AB ’19 is a

Social Work.

management studies at Duke

Montana.

community voices reporter

Nikita Vantsev BS ’19 is

University’s Fuqua School of

Summer Trotman AB ’18 is

at the Northeast Mississippi

pursuing a doctorate in

Business.

a sixth grade social studies

Daily Journal in Tupelo.

cellular and molecular

Katherine Harris BSW ’18

teacher at Cedartown Middle

Amanda Morris BSEd ’19 is a

biosciences at the University

is pursuing a law degree at

School.

resort activities coordinator

of Pennsylvania.

Stetson University College of

Hailey Branch AB ’19 is a

at Walt Disney World.

Law in DeLand, Florida.

client services coordinator

Chanmeet Narang BBA ’19

Brooke Hull BS ’18 is pursuing

for CBRE in Atlanta.

is an investment banking

a doctorate in molecular bi-

Jordan Einstein BBA ’19 is

analyst at B. Riley Financial in

ology at Princeton University.

pursuing a law degree at the

New York.

Eunice Kim AB ’18 is an oral

University of Pennsylvania

Andrew Nolan BBA ’19 is a

historian at Columbia Uni-

Law School in Philadelphia.

connected services analyst

versity in New York.

Chrystla Hodge BSEd ’19 is

in the graduate rotational

Roshni Siddique BSBchE ’18 is

a kindergarten teacher at

program at the Volkswagen

agricultural & environmental sciences

a software consultant at Red

Muscogee County Schools in

Group of America.

Samantha Belanger MS ’14 is

Clay Consulting.

Columbus.

Kayla Smith AB ’19 is pursu-

the R&D manager at Diana

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grad notes

CLASS NOTES APPLAUSE FOR ALUMNI

Educational Entrepreneurship

Cindy Quinlan BBA ’02, MEd ’03, EdS ’09

I

peter frey

special

magine graduating from high school with $200,000 in sales from a business you started as a freshman.

That’s the reality for some students at Brookwood High School in Snellville thanks to Cindy Quinlan BBA ’02, MEd ’03, EdS ’09.

The history-loving, world-traveling educator is on a mission to disrupt education through entrepreneurship. And launching businesses is only one part of the equation.

“An entrepreneurial mindset fosters problem-solving, resiliency, and adaptability—all of the qualities we need to be successful in the world,” she says.

But, Quinlan explains, entrepreneurship is not an easy subject for teachers to tackle.

“The first year—I’ll be honest—I absolutely failed. That’s what I tell teachers I train now.” That initial setback pushed Quinlan to rethink her strategy. She began attending workshops through Real LEDGE, a nonprofit organization promoting economic development through entrepreneurship education. “That’s where it all clicked for me,” she says.” I discovered how to incorpo-

rate experiential learning to keep students engaged in the classroom.”

Quinlan realized the key to entrepreneurship education is framing subjects and posing interactive questions that foster critical thinking. This can take the form of launching a school-based enterprise, designing a new product, or addressing community issues through social entrepreneurship.

Through this new approach, Quinlan’s students weren’t just learning about entrepreneurship; they were practicing it. “One student launched a monogram business,” she says. “She reinvested her money into her education and paid her way through college with a business that she started in my classroom as a 15-year-old.” And she wasn’t alone. In eight years, the number of students launching businesses in Quinlan’s class quadrupled.

What if every student had access to those tools? That question inspired Quinlan to share her strategy with others. Now, she leads workshops around the world, most recently in Stara Zagora, Bulgaria (above, left), where

she helped local teachers create implementation plans to engage their students and address social issues in their communities.

“I hope that training helped change the lives of students I’ll never meet,” she says.

For Quinlan, entrepreneurship is about more than making money—it’s about changing the world. “When students have the ability to think entrepreneurially, it’s the solution to poverty.”

Quinlan imagines a world where students across all disciplines learn entrepreneurial skills. To help spread the power of entrepreneurship education to others, she and Angelia McLane, Brookwood’s language arts department chair, launched EntrepreNOWship. The platform provides entrepreneurship education lesson plans for teachers worldwide. “We’ve written all the curriculum ourselves,” she says. “I’ve been able to do what I’ve done because I’ve learned so much from the people I’ve worked with throughout the years. It’s amazing to see so many great teachers out there helping prepare the next generation.”

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53

CLASS NOTES Food in Commerce.

lina. She is president of the

education

high school students with

Sarah Willet PhD ’19 is RD&A

Greenville Music Teachers

Emanuel Larkin Jr. MEd ’75

career-related information and

scientist at Kerry, a taste and

Association.

received the 2019 Savannah

experiences in psychology and

nutrition company in Beloit,

Meirav Shvorin MFA ’17 is an

State University National

research.

Wisconsin.

assistant professor at Converse

Alumni Association Distin-

Adrienne Mayfield MEd ’99,

College. She lives with her

JD ’14 published her book, I’m

arts & sciences

guished Community Service

husband and son in Greenville,

Award. He serves as Area 12

Tired of This Church. Mayfield is

Joseph Giambrone PhD ’77

South Carolina.

director of the Georgia Retired

an attorney and owner of her

retired from his position as a

Campbell Ready PharmD ’19

Educators Association.

own practice, and has her own

professor in the Department

is the director of pharmacy at

Melinda Spencer MMEd ’78

podcast, Beauty for Ashes.

of Poultry Science at Auburn

Burke Medical in Waynesboro.

retired from teaching at Lee

Jonathan Warner MEd ’02 is

University.

He married Jillian Ready BLA ’17

County Schools.

president of Workforce Train-

Jeff Bedwell MS ’01, PhD ’04 is

in March 2018.

Simpfronia Taylor MEd ’96, EdD

ing Partners in Marietta.

an associate professor in the

Lindsay Tigue PhD ’19 is an as-

’11 received the Esther Katz

Rose Opengart PhD ’03

psychology department at the

sistant professor of English and

Rosen Precollege Psychology

released her first book, Find

University of Central Florida.

creative writing at Eastern New

Grant from the American Psy-

Your Where: Turn the Tables,

May Lauren Brinkman MM ’12

Mexico University in Portales.

chological Foundation for her

Negotiate your Success, and Live

is owner of Brinkman Piano in

project called Project Fly High,

Life on Your Own Terms.

Simpsonville, South Caro-

which will provide precollege

Scott Schamberger MEd ’06 was appointed head of school at Indian Springs School in Woodberry Forest, Virginia.

Edward Hutchinson MEd ’09 and Shelly Hutchinson MSW ’00 are co-founders of the Social Empowerment Center, a mental health and social service agency, in Lawrenceville.

Alisa Swain MAT ’11 released her book, The New Teacher’s

Guide: A New(ish) Teacher’s Honest Advice for Better Classroom Management, in 2018. She is a teacher in Gwinnett County and started a consulting company that coaches teachers on effective ways to build relationships with students and manage classroom behaviors.

Amber Candela PhD ’14 was one of 102 St. Louis-area educators to receive an Emerson’s

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CLASS NOTES

The award honors educators

forestry and natural resources

for their achievements and

Wendi Weber MS ’97 was

dedication to the field.

among the inaugural winners

law

Jimmy Colquitt PhD ’14 was

of the Theodore Roosevelt

James Y. Rayis JD ’82 is the

a fourth year candidate in the

named interim dean for

Government Leadership

chairman of the State Bar of

Emory University Psychoana-

academic affairs at the Mercer

Awards. She is the North

Michigan International Law

lytic Psychotherapy program.

University School of Medicine

Atlantic-Appalachian regional

Section for 2019-2020.

and is faculty and simulation

director for the U.S. Fish and

specialist for the medical

Wildlife Service.

public & international affairs Alex Palmer Sullivan MPA ’16

Burak Turkman PhD ’16 is a

journalism & mass communication

professor at Istanbul Universi-

Carol Ann Stovall ABJ ’85 is an

John McCleary MPA ’18 is a

ty at the Cerrahpasa College

executive respiratory business

grant administrator for the

of Education.

specialist with Boehringer-

state of Missouri.

Excellence in Teaching award.

school and associated residency programs.

Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals in

social work

Savannah.

Renee Nimako MSW ’08 is a medical social worker at Piedmont Henry Hospital. She is

married Ryan Sullivan in June.

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55

FACULTY FOCUS

Jeffrey Jones

Executive Director, Peabody Awards Director, Peabody Media Center Lambdin Kay Chair for the Peabodys Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication

“The tremendous satisfaction of directing the Peabody Awards is annually examining how multiple media genres and platforms—through entertainment, documentary, and news, across TV, podcasts, and web—provide amazingly rich and powerful stories that serve citizenship in truly important ways.”

Jeffrey Jones is a leading scholar in media studies. As director of the University of Georgia’s George Foster Peabody Awards, Jones oversees the most prestigious prize in broadcast and digital media.

Through the Peabody Student Honor Board, he also leads Grady College students in annually judging and selecting winners of the Futures of Media Awards for digital storytelling. The process helps students learn how to critically assess what they’re seeing and reading across media, a much-needed skill in today’s media-centric culture.

dorothy kozlowski

Endowed chairs, positions that receive supplemental support generated from private donations, are essential to recruiting and retaining leading faculty who are committed to world-changing research and preparing the next generation of problem-solvers, pioneers, and leaders. Learn more about supporting UGA’s leading faculty at GIVE.UGA.EDU/GM.

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57

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