LSU'S Biweekly Newsletter for Faculty & Staff
April 22, 2005 |
VOL. 21, NO. 13 |
Service is central to LSU’s mission. Time and again, the Center for Community Engagement, Learning, and Leadership (CCELL) program and faculty receive national accolades. Last month, Marybeth Lima, an associate professor of biological and agricultural engineering, was honored with the prestigious Ernest A. Lynton Award. The nationally recognized Lynton award is presented annually to a faculty member who connects scholarly expertise with service learning and community outreach. CCELL was also instrumental in LSU’s being named to The Princeton Review’s new book, “Colleges with a Conscience: 81 Great Schools with Outstanding Community Involvement.”
CCELL began 14 years ago with just two sections of English and has grown into a nationally recognized, trend-setting initiative that superbly supports the National Flagship Agenda. Faculty guided and supported, CCELL involves some 2,400 students, about 75 faculty, and more than 100 partners around the state in engaged instruction that enhances learning and fosters strong communities.
Academic service-learning, along with other innovative experiences such as undergraduate research opportunities and “high-tech teaching,” is a building block in the Flagship Agenda mandate to increase the quality of undergraduate programs. Just as scientists open their laboratories to aspiring researchers, faculty committed to service-learning combine rigorous course study with real-world settings. The payoff is tremendous for all involved. Linking learning to service adds substance to course content, complements faculty research, provides hands-on experience that augments learning, and addresses an identified community need.
Service-learning courses reach across academic disciplines and address a wide range of civic issues. Lima’s biological engineering students are transforming the playgrounds of East Baton Rouge Parish schools, creating safe and accessible playgrounds – one swing set
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| Brian Voss |
Brian D. Voss, a nationally known information technology leader at Indiana University, has been selected to serve as LSU’s Chief Information Officer. He officially began the job April 11.
As CIO, Voss will lead LSU’s Office of Computing Services – the university’s information technology organization – as it develops key IT infrastructure and services in support of the National Flagship Agenda. The Office of Computing Services is responsible for the extensive computing, network and application services that are used by LSU students, faculty, staff and administrators.
“Brian Voss is a leader in the IT field and I am pleased to have him on board at LSU,” said Chancellor Sean O’Keefe. “Technology plays a crucial role in what we do here at the university, and we are committed to finding the best and brightest people at all levels to help move LSU forward nationally and internationally.”
Voss said he plans to forge strong partnerships with the Center for Computation & Technology at LSU and its director, Ed Seidel, along with the LSU Board of Supervisors, to build an infrastructure and reputation that will bring LSU national prominence in the areas of campus IT services, high-performance optical networking and research computing.
At Indiana University, Voss served as associate vice president for information technology and as chief operating officer of Pervasive Technology Labs, a facility that researches the factors that drive the information economy and fosters the growth of information technology in Indiana.
“I am delighted that Brian Voss has accepted our offer to be LSU’s Chief Information Officer,” said LSU’s Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Risa Palm. “He has the skills, experience and vision to help LSU build a top-notch information technology environment in support of our students, our faculty, our researchers and administration.”
Voss brings with him experience in such initiatives as regional optical networking, which is the technology used by the Louisiana Optical Network Initiative, or LONI; national research and education networking, such as the National LambdaRail; and high-performance grid computing, such as LSU performs on its super computer, SuperMike.
“Brian’s credentials will be an asset to LSU and the state of Louisiana,” said Seidel. “I see his recruitment to LSU as another sign that the Flagship Agenda is advancing the university’s national reputation.”
Voss has more than 20 years of leadership experience in the information technology field, both in higher education and in the private sector. His experience spans operations and production services, application development, user support, telecommunications and research computing. Voss has represented Indiana University in national and international high-performance networking initiatives, including Internet2 and National LambdaRail. He oversaw the design and construction of the first university-owned and -operated optical fiber infrastructure in the nation, known as I-Light, and is a proponent of expanding broadband services – both in higher education and the community at large – to advance economic development.
He has authored a number of papers on a variety of IT subjects, and is frequently quoted by news organizations and IT publications, including The Chronicle of Higher Education, The New York Times, Wired, Computer World and the Indiana Business Journal.
Born and raised in the Indianapolis area, Voss graduated from Purdue University with a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering and did further graduate study at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business. He has held positions with Westinghouse Electric, Zenith Electronics and Mead Data Central during his career, and has served as a consultant to other institutions regarding IT support models and optical network infrastructure planning.
Wading through shallow waters off the southern coast of Belize, LSU Geography and Anthropology Associate Professor Heather McKillop and a group of graduate students and helpers peered intently at the lagoon floor. Using their hands to wave away silt kicked up by their movement, they were inching forward, shoulder-to-shoulder, when one of them noticed something odd emerging from the muck.
After taking turns digging away the mud by hand, the group discovered the peculiar object was a long, wooden post, sharpened at the base. That was only the beginning, however. What they had found turned out to be part of the only known surviving wooden structures of ancient Maya civilization. Soon thereafter, they would come across a long wooden paddle, more than a thousand years old and neatly preserved by the “peat bog” at the bottom of the lagoon.
Ultimately, McKillop and her group would find hundreds of other posts, providing solid evidence of Maya structures that were once large, salt-producing facilities. McKillop has detailed her discoveries, as well as their importance and meaning, in a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Indeed, her finds have sparked the interest of the scientific community and led to a grant of almost $25,000 from the National Geographic Society, which will allow her to begin mapping the wooden structures in Belize this summer.
“The discovery is on the same level as the discovery of other Maya sites, such as Tikal in Guatemala or Chichen Itza in Mexico,” said McKillop. “This marks a turning point in Maya studies, since never before have ancient Maya wooden buildings been discovered. We have a wealth of information on stone architecture – the temples, palaces and elite residences in ancient Maya cities, as well as the stone and earth foundations of the houses of the common Maya.”
McKillop added that the find “was totally unexpected.” In her 25 years of previous research, she said, she had discovered many underwater sites that were submerged by rising seas, but had never before found wood preserved in a peat bog. In the tropical rainforest setting of most ancient Maya sites, wood structures are prone to decay. Indeed, she said, wooden objects have been recovered from only a few ancient Maya sites, in particular, those that had unusual environmental conditions, such as dry caves or dry temple rooms.
Supported by funding from an LSU Faculty Research grant, McKillop, the William G. Haag Professor of Archaeology at LSU, was in Belize researching Maya salt production in the country’s coastal region. She had previously discovered pieces of jars, bowls and other materials used for salt production in the general area of Punta Ycacos Lagoon, where the posts and paddle were found. She was attempting to determine if the salt-production activity on the Caribbean coast would have been sufficient to provide salt supplies for the massive Maya cities deep within the Yucatan Peninsula.
The discovery of the new buildings and, in particular, the paddle, make it clear that the area was once a thriving zone of salt production that was largely swallowed up by rising seas during the last millennium. Initially, McKillop and her team had identified only four sites for salt production along the coast, but exploring beneath the water led to the discovery of 41 additional, submerged sites. Some 23 of these involve wooden structures.
While researchers had previously suspected that the Maya had used canoes to move the salt produced along the coast to the interior cities, the paddle – which was radiocarbon dated to between 680-880 A.D. – represents the “first primary evidence of waterborne navigation of the ancient Maya,” said McKillop. Indeed, images of Maya gods in canoes, holding paddles exactly like the one found by McKillop, have been found on carved bones in a temple of the Tikal Maya site.
While previous research has examined the economies of Maya cities and households, the discovery of the major salt-production facilities and delivery system represents a “new type” of Maya economy to be studied, McKillop said.
For her part, McKillop intends to begin mapping the underwater sites and continuing the search for other such sites this summer, with the help of the National Geographic Society grant.
McKillop also recently received a grant from the Foundation for the Advancement of Mezoamerican Studies Inc., or FAMSI, that will support her research relating to the paddle.
“I’m thrilled to be awarded grants from the National Geographic Society and FAMSI, which will allow us to begin mapping the wooden structures and to continue the search,” said McKillop. “I expect we’ll make more discoveries. Perhaps a canoe.”
For more information, contact McKillop at 225-578-6178 or hmckill@lsu.edu.
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Marian Caillier Augustine
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Marian Caillier Augustine, former interim executive director of the Office of Human Resources, is now the assistant vice chancellor for Human Resource Management.
In this position, Augustine will serve as the chief human resource officer for LSU’s campus, which involves supervising and directing in the areas of benefits, compensation, academic policy, employment, training and development, employee relations, equal opportunity programs and human resource information systems. Her leadership in human resource management applies to university administrators, faculty and staff on campus.
She replaces Forest Benedict, who is now the vice president of the LSU System Office of Human Resources.
Augustine said, “I am pleased and excited to continue serving in the chief HR position at LSU.”
Her career at LSU began in December of 1993, shortly after earning her bachelor of arts in speech communication at LSU, as a compliance programs specialist in the Equal Opportunity Programs Office.
She also received a master of business administration from LSU in 1998.
In October of 1995, she moved into the Office of Human Resource Management as a human resource analyst. She then accepted the position of the employee relations manager in October 1996 and went on to serve as the director of employee relations and equal opportunity programs in 1997.
Augustine held the job of interim executive director from August 2003 to December 2004. In all of her capacities in HRM, Augustine has made her mark.
In the span of her career at LSU, she made several contributions to HR policy, including:
In addition to her work in the Office of HRM, Augustine has served as chair of the LSU Black Scholars Program and co-chair of the LSU Commission on the Status of Women. She was selected as one of 35 individuals internationally to attend the 2003 Oxford Round Table discussion on Human Rights and Employment Discrimination at the University of Oxford in Oxford, England.
Results of an annual statewide opinion study funded by LSU’s Reilly Center for Media & Public Affairs reveal that Louisiana citizens generally feel that the state is moving in the right direction and economic confidence is on the rise. However, public education remains the state’s most important problem and Louisianians perceive that non-residents have a negative image about the state and believe that image affects the economy.
These are some of the findings of the 2005 Louisiana Survey, which is fully attainable at the LSU Public Policy Research Lab Web site, http://www.survey.lsu.edu. This is the third in a series of annual surveys designed to establish benchmarks and assess progress, as well as regressions, in citizen perceptions of state government services. The survey also breaks down the results into demographic information such as gender, race, age, region, income and education, and political party affiliation.
“It is LSU’s primary mission to advance Louisiana. The annual Louisiana Survey is one example of the university’s commitment to provide the expertise and scholarly resources to help address issues of key concern to our citizens,” said Chancellor Sean O’Keefe.
A majority of respondents, 52 percent, said they believe the state is moving in the right direction, up from 48 percent in 2004. According to Kirby Goidel, co-director of the PPRL and principal investigator of the 2005 Louisiana Survey, the small but statistically significant movement toward more positive attitudes about the direction of the state seems to reflect a change from uncertainty to growing optimism among the survey’s respondents.
Other evidence reflecting the shift to greater optimism of Louisiana’s citizens is shown in the level of economic confidence citizens are experiencing. On each of the measures included in the survey – personal finances, state economic conditions and national economic conditions – respondents reported that conditions have improved during the past 12 months. The most dramatic shift in citizens’ perceptions is seen in respondents’ beliefs that the state economy has improved during the past 12 months, increasing from 16 percent in 2004, to 27 percent in 2005.
As in the previous two years, education remained the single most important issue to Louisiana residents. The economy/jobs came in second while health care remains the third most important problem. A plurality of respondents, 34 percent, identified education as the most important issue, reflecting an increase over the 31 percent level in 2004, but six points less than the 2003 survey. The percentage selecting the economy/jobs decreased from 26.5 percent in 2004 to 18.9 percent in 2005, indicating a significant drop in economic concerns, reflecting greater economic confidence. Respondents’ views of health care increased slightly from 12 percent in 2004 to 14 percent in 2005.
New to the Louisiana Survey were questions evaluating respondents’ opinions about economic development and Louisiana’s image. Fifty-three percent of respondents reported that they believed the image others had of Louisiana was either negative or very negative and an identical 53 percent of respondents said that image hurt when it comes to attracting business to Louisiana. While respondents cited public education, health care and infrastructure as key to advancing the state, they also said improving public schools is the single most important thing Louisiana can do to attract business to the state.
When asked about the quality of the workforce compared to other states, a plurality of respondents, 43 percent, said the workforce in Louisiana was less skilled, 33 percent said the workforce was about the same and 10 percent said the workforce was more skilled.
The results of the economic development and Louisiana image portion of the survey were based on roughly half, 464, of the respondents and were similar to earlier business image surveys the PPRL conducted this year. Both Louisiana businesses and non-businesses identified improving public schools and workforce training as an important element in economic development.
The 2005 Louisiana Survey is a telephone survey of 964 randomly selected Louisiana residents 18 years old or older. It includes several split-ballot questions in which approximately half of the respondents were asked a particular series of questions, while the another half of respondents were asked a different series of questions. The approximate margin of error for the overall survey is 3.2 percent and is 4.6 for the split-ballot questions. The survey was conducted between Dec. 6, 2004 and Feb. 21, 2005.
The Public Policy Research Lab is a partnership of the Manship School of Mass Communication’s Reilly Center for Media & Public Affairs and the E. J. Ourso College of Business. The lab is housed in the Campus Federal Credit Union Building at 3535 Nicholson Dr. Ext.
The College of Basic Sciences recently hosted the 30th annual Dean Arthur R. Choppin Honors Convocation. The event recognized the following faculty and staff members.
Tiger Athletic Foundation College of Basic Sciences Teaching Awards:
College Research Award:
Recognition Awards: