April 27-May 2, 2003 Highlights
Celebrating
Graduation Across Utah and Beyond
 As
yet another academic year draws to a close at Utah State University,
many students are breathing sighs of relief while marching out
of the Smith Spectrum in Logan, knowing that their college career
is finally done.
But the Spectrum isn't the only building witness to exclamations
and excitement at this time of year.
In buildings and ceremonies all over Utah and even abroad,
students are voicing the satisfaction that can only be found
in a completed degree. Utah State University Extension and Continuing
Education students are joining the commencement exercises of
2003 in force, receiving a total of 428 degrees this year, according
to data gathered from Extension and Continuing Education personnel.
Making the trek to Cache Valley, one Extension student in particular
is playing a big part in the University commencement here in
Logan this coming Saturday. Teresa Garrett of Brigham City is
a mother of eight and president of her local school board. In
her spare time, she decided to finish her bachelor's degree
in elementary education, and along the way she was named the
College of Education Valedictorian.
All told, students from off-site campuses will receive 20 associate's,
288 bachelor's and 120 master's degrees. Further, 55 students
in China will receive Utah State degrees this year.
Ranging from as early as April 11 in Tooele and Brigham City
to as late as June 6 at Bluffdale, Utah State University commencement
exercises will be ongoing for nearly a two-month period. This
far-reaching celebration of graduation demonstrates that Utah
State University's reach extends far beyond the northern valleys
of Utah, affecting the lives of students from Moab to Vernal
and from Utah to China.
Utah
State Extension in Uintah County:
English
Gardener
 Margaret
Misso is an English-educated physicist turned engineer turned
Master Gardener who is making an impact in Vernal. Though past
70 herself, she took on a two-year project to brighten up the
Golden Age Center.
"I've always had a love for gardening, but because I was
working and living in large cities I didn't have much time or
space to do it," Misso says. "When I moved to Vernal
a couple years ago, I started looking for a project and ran
into Dave Haslem, Master Gardener and current Uintah County
Commissioner. He suggested the Senior Center."
"Master Gardeners are trained through Extension,"
explains Extension agent Boyd Kitchen. "We provide the
training in exchange for asking the master gardeners to do volunteer
service. Margaret has greatly exceeded her volunteer requirement
and has rallied others in the community to help with this and
other gardening projects."
To find out more about Uintah
County, click
here. For more about Extension in other counties take the
Extension
tour of Utah.
Utah
State Students Succeed in Many Areas
Nick Yengich Latin Competition
Recently, two Utah State students won first and second place
in the advanced section of the Nick Yengich Latin Competition,
a statewide competition. Jonathon Barney placed first with Daniel
Webb taking second. Congratulations to both of them.
National HR Games
Students from Utah State's Department of Management and Human
Resources and the College of Business are on their way to a
national competition in Orlando, Fla. Along the road to the
nationals the students captured top honors at the Utah and regional
competitions, where two teams represented Utah State. Only the
top regional team moves on to the national HR Games, a competition
that is part of the Society for Human Resources Management conference,
and once again, that team is from Utah State. Last year's team
took third place honors at the competition and this year's group
is aiming for the top.
Team members include Mary Arevalo, April Peterson, Megan Melosi
and Ben DeSpain. The team's coach-advisors are Alan Warnick,
Ron Godfrey and Mary Jo Blahna.
The Society of Human Resource Management is the leading professional
organization for HR practitioners. The HR games test students'
understanding of the common body of knowledge needed for professional
certification in the field of human resource management.
The national competition is June 23–24 in Orlando. Utah
State will compete against six other teams from across the country.
To get to the final six, Utah State defeated teams from Utah,
Hawaii, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado.
More than 200 teams competed nationally.
Utah
State Professors Receive Regional and National Attention
Northern Rockies Consortium for
Higher Education Prize
 Brock
Dethier, an assistant professor in Utah State University's department
of English, has received the Northern Rockies Consortium for
Higher Education (NORCHE) prize. Dethier's project, investigating
important aspects of ethics in undergraduate education, earned
the award.
NORCHE was founded in 1978 to foster creative improvement in
higher education in the four-state region of Idaho, Montana,
Utah and Wyoming. The NORCHE consortium consists of 32 institutions
of higher education in its member states. As part of the operation
of this consortium, the board of directors has established funding
for the NORCHE Prize for an Instructional Improvement Project.
The prize promotes individual or institutional projects for
faculty or instructional development, including inter-institutional
exchange relating to such development, in the member schools'
states.
Dethier's goals for the project include developing and testing
a research ethics unit that can be integrated into Utah State's
Intermediate Writing course (English 2010). The research unit
will be published and distributed to other universities and
adapted by other disciplines. Department of English grad student
Susan Andersen will serve as a research assistant on the project.
New Chemistry Discovery Featured in "Science"
 Two
years ago, a Utah State University researcher discovered aromaticity,
a property in chemistry that was initially thought to occur
only in organic material. Researcher Alexander Boldyrev, along
with his colleague Lai-Sheng Wang, a professor at Washington
State University and a researcher at the Pacific Northwest Lab,
made a breakthrough by discovering aromaticity in inorganic
material such as metals. Today, Boldyrev and Wang have made
another breakthrough and discovered antiaromaticity, a property
that makes materials weak.
The study, "All-Metal Antiaromatic Molecule," is featured
in the April 24 issue of "Science" magazine. Boldyrev
said his findings will explain, for instance, why certain metals
are stronger or weaker than others.
Aromaticity allows a substance to be strong or less reactive
to foreign substances. Since the strong substance, such as an
aromatic metal alloy, won't react easily, it is desirable for
many purposes in industry and in research.
Boldyrev's new findings dealing with antiaromaticity will help
chemists understand why certain materials are weaker than others
and why they are very reactive to foreign substances. The research
gives Boldyrev, an associate professor in the chemistry and
biochemistry department, a conceptual breakthrough in understanding
chemical bonding in metal clusters.
 Leica
Geosystems Award
Dr. Robert Gillies, faculty member in the aquatic, watershed
and earth resources department, and his co-author Nathaniel
A. Brunsell are second-place recipients of the 2003 Leica Geosystems
Award for Best Scientific Paper in Remote Sensing. Their paper
is titled "Incorporating Surface Emissivity into a Thermal
Atmospheric Correction." (Published in PE&RS; 68-12
pp.1263-1269)
Presentation of the award will take place during the American
Society for Photogrammetry & Remote Sensing’s 2003
Annual Conference in Anchorage, Alaska, May 8th.
utah
state today/archives/May
2003/archives
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