University News
National Science Board Approves National Action Plan for 21st Century STEM Education
On Wednesday, The National Science Board (Board) unanimously adopted a motion to release for public comment a draft action plan to address critical 21st century needs in the nation's STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education system. Two overarching actions stressed in the plan are increasing coordination of STEM education--both horizontally among states and vertically through grade levels--and increasing the supply of qualified K-12 STEM teachers.
This national action plan lays out strategies to better enable and encourage stakeholders from local, state and federal governments, as well as nongovernmental STEM education stakeholder groups, to collaborate. The goal is to produce a numerate and scientifically literate society and to increase and improve the current STEM education workforce.
In recognition of the essential lead role of local and state jurisdictions in the nation's P-12 education system, one of the Board's recommendations would require that federal STEM education programs coordinate their activities with local and state education bodies, and a variety of stakeholder groups, through a new Congressionally chartered non-federal National Council for STEM Education.
Among its other recommended actions, the Board would also bolster STEM education programs at the National Science Foundation in order to address the needs of the U.S. for a competitive, well-educated workforce.
The Board developed this action plan, in part, based on a request from Congress in 2005. The Board held three public hearings around the U.S. and established a federal advisory committee, the Commission on 21st Century Education in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, to provide advice as the Board developed its action plan.
The Board is actively seeking public comments on the plan and hopes to integrate public comment into a final version for Board approval and release at its next meeting on October 3, 2007, the day before the historic 50th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik.
The National Science Board was established by Congress in 1950, and has two important roles. It provides oversight for, and establishes the policies of, the National Science Foundation. It also serves as an independent body of advisors to both the President and Congress on broad national policy issues related to science and engineering research and education.
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NIH Funds New Program to Investigate Causes and Treatment of Autism
The National Institutes of Health will intensify its efforts to find the causes of autism and identify new treatments for the disorder, through a new research program.
The Autism Centers of Excellence (ACE) program represents a consolidation of two existing programs, the Studies to Advance Autism Research and Treatment (STAART) and Collaborative Programs of Excellence in Autism (CPEA) programs into a single research effort.
The NIH Institutes providing funding and expertise for the effort are the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the National Institute of Deafness and other Communication Disorders, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.
Autism is a complex brain disorder involving communication and social difficulties as well as repetitive behavior or narrow interests. Autism is often grouped with similar disorders, all of which may be referred to collectively as autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The underlying causes of ASD are unclear. Currently, there is no cure for the disorders and treatments are limited.
The ACE program will encompass research centers and research networks. The research centers will foster collaborations between teams of specialists, who share the same facility so that they can address a particular research problem in depth. For example, specialists in brain imaging might collaborate with behavior researchers to determine if a particular behavior is associated with a difference in brain structure. They might also consult with a team of genetics experts to find a hereditary basis for their observations.
ACE networks consist of researchers at many facilities in locations throughout the country, all of whom work together on a single research question. Because networks encompass multiple sites, they can recruit large numbers of participants with a particular disorder.
Initially, five centers and one network will receive funding in 2007 to study ASD. Funding for a second set of ACE research programs will be announced in 2008.
All ACE award recipients will contribute their data to the National Database for Autism Research (NDAR). Housed at NIH, NDAR is a Web-based tool that autism researchers around the world can use to collect and share information on autism.
The 2007 ACE program Center award recipients are:
— Edwin H. Cook (University of Illinois at Chicago): Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago ACE Center will focus on understanding the repetitive behavior seen in ASD. Known as "insistence on sameness," this behavior is a hallmark of ASD. Examples of insistence on sameness include wanting to wear the same clothes every day, taking the same route to work or school, or becoming fixated on certain subject matter, such as buildings or cars. Center researchers will focus on genetic factors as well as brain chemicals and brain functions that could account for repetitive behaviors in people with ASD, and test whether genetic differences influence how individuals respond to certain medications intended to reduce the occurrence of these behaviors.
— Eric Courchesne (University of California, San Diego): Researchers at the UCSD ACE Center also will use brain imaging to track brain development in children believed to be at risk for autism spectrum disorders. Unlike other ACE program projects, which will attempt to identify forerunners of ASD in the siblings of children with ASD, the UCSD researchers will study infants who have been referred by their physicians. The physicians will make the referrals on the basis of a checklist of behaviors that are similar to those of older children with ASD. The primary goal of this center is to identify brain or other physical differences that might predispose a child to autism. The UCSD Center will collect some of the first information ever obtained on how the brains of very young children with autism process and respond to information.
— Geraldine Dawson (University of Washington). Researchers at the University of Washington ACE Center will seek to identify genes and other potential factors that may predispose an individual toward ASD, as well as factors that might protect against them. In addition to genes, the researchers will try to determine the risk of ASD by examining communication difficulties, early behaviors, patterns in the sounds babies make, and brain structure and activity patterns. Researchers will also try to determine whether certain types of interactions between the parent and baby can decrease the chances for ASD.
— Nancy J. Minshew (University of Pittsburgh): Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh ACE Center will study how people with ASD learn and understand information. Research shows that the ability to organize information into categories is critical to language development. The Pittsburgh researchers will use brain imaging techniques to study how infants at risk for autism and toddlers diagnosed with the disorder place information into categories. Researchers will also use brain imaging techniques to study which parts of the brain are activated in people with and without ASD when processing information and emotions.
— Marian D. Sigman (University of California, Los Angeles): Researchers at the UCLA ACE Center will seek to understand how ASD affects the ability to communicate. The researchers will try to find clues to language-related communications problems by looking at genes, behavior and brain structure and functioning. The researchers also are interested in disorders that affect the mirror neurons. Mirror neurons are brain cells that become active either when a person performs an action or watches the action performed by someone else. When many patients with ASD are asked to imitate behaviors, images of their brains show that their mirror neurons are less active than those of other people. The researchers will try to stimulate the mirror neurons of people with ASD by having them follow a set of instructions to complete a task.
The 2007 ACE program Network award lead recipient is:
— Joseph Piven (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill): In hopes of identifying brain differences in children who develop ASD, researchers at this Network of sites operating under the direction of the University of North Carolina will use brain imaging techniques to compile images of the brains of very young infants. Some of these children may go on to develop ASD. Their brain images will be compared to those of other infants, to identify differences between children who develop autism and those who do not. While previous studies have documented the enlarged brains often seen in ASD patients, little is known about the abnormal processes during early brain development in children with ASD. The research could offer new insights that lead to earlier diagnosis of ASD.
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Grant From Foundation is Largest in UC History
Continuing its commitment to improving the quality of patient care and fostering nursing excellence through education, the representatives of Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation announced $100 million in founding support to launch the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing at the University of California, Davis.
The commitment will help in founding a professional nursing school in Sacramento that emphasizes leadership, scientific rigor and multi-disciplinary training.
The goals are to graduate nurse leaders, educators, and researchers who will make positive, long-term systemic impacts to health care in California and throughout the nation.
The funding, to be allocated over 11 years, is the largest philanthropic grant to UC Davis and one of the largest in the history of the University of California. It is also the largest philanthropic gift in the nation in support of nursing education.
Pending approvals from the University‘s Academic Senate, the UC Board of Regents, the Board of Registered Nursing, the California Postsecondary Education Commission and other entities, UC Davis anticipates admitting its first students in master‘s and doctorate programs to the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing in the fall of 2008. Once all students are enrolled, the school is expected to serve 456 students.
The school will bear the name of Betty Irene Moore, who with her husband established the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation in 2000. Betty Irene Moore is an advocate for patient safety, quality nursing care and education and is the impetus behind the San Francisco-based Foundation‘s Betty Irene Moore Nursing Initiative. Betty‘s advocacy has ignited a movement around these issues, which will be further amplified through the new school‘s approach to nursing education.
Gordon Moore is the co-founder, past CEO and chairman emeritus of Intel Corp. A chemist and physicist, Gordon Moore is most widely known for "Moore‘s Law," the guiding principle for predicting the delivery of more powerful computer chips for semiconductors.
The Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing will be UC Davis' sixth professional school and will collaborate with the other professional schools to offer comprehensive, interdisciplinary training opportunities.
Once established, the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing at UC Davis will join professional schools of medicine, veterinary medicine, law, business and education.
In addition to the funding from the Foundation, a mix of public funding and additional philanthropic support from other donors will be required to realize the long-term vision for the school.
UC Davis also continues to actively pursue the creation of a professional School of Public Health, which is currently progressing through the approval process.
The nursing school is to be located at the Sacramento campus of UC Davis, sharing existing facilities with the UC Davis Medical Center and UC Davis School of Medicine. The school would be the fourth professional nursing program in the University of California system, joining schools of nursing at UCLA and UC San Francisco, and a nursing program at UC Irvine.
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Biz School Receives $21 Million Gift from Lippo Group
National University of Singapore (NUS) Business School can now move a step closer to being the best in Asia, with a boost of SG$21 million (US$13.8 million) from Indonesia business conglomerate Lippo Group. This is the school's single largest gift from a private donor.
The gift attracts a dollar-for-dollar matching fund from the Singapore Government, bringing the total funding to $42 million. A total of SG$15 million (US$9.8 million) will go into the development of its new flagship building at Kent Ridge campus, while SG$12 million (US$7.8 million) will form an endowment fund for two distinguished professorships to attract world-class faculty. The remaining sum will go into the Business School's Endowment Fund for various educational purposes.
In recognition of the Lippo Group's generous gift, NUS will name the new building the Mochtar Riady Building after Lippo Group's founder and chairman. The two distinguished professorships will be named the Stephen Riady Distinguished Professorship and James Riady Distinguished Professorship, in honour of Dr Stephen Riady and Mr James Riady, President and Chief Executive Officer of Lippo Group of Companies respectively.
This is the second gift that Lippo Group has made in two weeks to support education. Just last week, SJI International announced that it received a SG$1 million gift (US$657,000) for the school's building fund. In the last 12 years, the conglomerate has helped to build hospitals and schools in Indonesia, including 16 universities. The Riady family hopes to build 1,000 schools in the country.
Dr Stephen Riady sees funding education as the key to solving the "widespread disparity in wealth, education and healthcare" in Asia, and hopes this cooperation with NUS will encourage more businessmen to come forward to contribute to education in Asia. "Education will give people the right kind of mindset, skills and values. It will empower the people," he said.
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Alumnus Krishna Singh Gives $20 Million to Penn's School of Engineering and Applied Science
Krishna Singh has made the largest single gift in the history of the School of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Pennsylvania.
The $20 million gift will create the Krishna P. Singh Center for Nanotechnology, a planned 100,000 square-foot facility that will serve not only the Penn campus but the entire Philadelphia region. It will function as a crossroads of multi-disciplinary fundamental and translational research, education and innovation.
Singh is the founder, president and chief executive officer of Holtec International in Marlton, N.J., an energy-technology company he established in 1986. Holtec customers include more than 150 U.S. power-generation stations and more than 80 commercial nuclear-power plants. More than 80 percent of all spent nuclear fuel produced in the United States, South Korea, Mexico, Brazil, Taiwan and the United Kingdom is stored with Holtec equipment.
Singh is a member of the SEAS Board of Overseers and has served as an adjunct professor of mechanical engineering at Penn. He is a member of the American Nuclear Society, a fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and a director of the Nuclear Energy Institute. He received his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering in 1972 from Penn and a master's in engineering mechanics in 1969, also from Penn.
Singh divides his time between his primary residence in Jupiter, Fla., and a New Jersey home near Holtec headquarters.
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MIT Adds New Graduate Program in Microbiology
MIT has launched a new graduate program in microbiology, integrating departments and disciplines from around the Institute. More than 50 faculty members from 10 MIT departments and divisions will participate in the program.
Alan Grossman, professor of biology and director of the new program, said he came up with the idea after realizing how many departments use microbes in their research at MIT.
Grossman said he hopes the program will attract students who are interested in all aspects of microbiology, as well as chemistry, physics, engineering, or computation. Once enrolled in the microbiology program, students will spend their first year taking courses and doing laboratory rotations before choosing a lab for their graduate research. Participating departments include the Departments of Biology, Biological Engineering, Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Physics and Materials Science and Engineering.
The Committee on Graduate Programs approved the new program in May 2007.
The program will begin accepting applications for admission for the fall 2008 semester. Faculty serving as members of the Microbiology Graduate Committee are Grossman, who chairs the committee, Cathy Drennan of chemistry, Michael Laub of biology, Martin Polz of civil and environmental engineering, Leona Samson of biological engineering, David Schauer of biological engineering, Graham Walker of biology, Eric Alm of civil and environmental engineering, Kristala Jones Prather of chemical engineering, and JoAnne Stubbe of chemistry.
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UCLA's Confucius Institute to Open Aug. 16
UCLA this summer will become home to Southern California's first and only Confucius Institute, one of dozens of similar institutes in the United States and other countries that are designed to foster an understanding of Chinese culture and language.
The UCLA-based institute will work with regional partners to support Chinese-language education in K–12 public schools, including teacher certification, and to promote cultural and arts programming in the region. The official launch will take place Thursday, Aug. 16, at the UCLA Faculty Center with a program, lunch and panel discussion on strengthening Chinese-language education through regional collaboration in Southern California.
David Unruh, an assistant provost at UCLA who aided in development of the institute on the Westwood, Calif., campus, said the institute will build upon and enhance the strengths of existing activities in and around Southern California, where Chinese culture and community are abundant and commercial ties to China are increasing.
The UCLA institute will be one of about 25 in the United States established with support from the Chinese Ministry of Education's Office of Chinese Language Council International (Hanban). The institutes take their name from the 5th-century B.C. Chinese philosopher and thinker who emphasized personal and governmental morality and supported the idea of education for all people, regardless of their background.
Among other efforts, the UCLA Confucius Institute will work with regional partners throughout Southern California to develop opportunitiesfor advanced language training, especially in the areas of translation and interpretation. It will also coordinate conferences and other events and maintain a Web presence at www.confucius.ucla.edu that will direct interested people to Chinese resources in the region.
Scott Waugh, UCLA's acting executive vice chancellor and provost, who oversaw the creation of the institute on the campus, said that UCLA is an ideal place for the Southern California branch of the institute.
Participants in the opening day panel discussion will include Michael H. Heim, a translation expert and professor in UCLA's Department of Comparative Literature; Christy Lao, an associate professor of elementary education at San Francisco State University; Ren Sun, an associate professor of molecular and medical pharmacology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA; Gay Yuen, a professor of language and literacy at the Charter College of Education at California State University, Los Angeles; and Shi Zhang, an associate professor at the UCLA Anderson School of Management.
Among those who are expected to attend the day's events are representatives from the Southern California Chinese language educational community, as well as guests from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, UCLA's educational partner in the Confucius Institute project and host institution for several of UCLA's ongoing China-exchange projects.
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Red Planet Mission: UT Dallas Professor Contributes to Exploration of Other Worlds
Dr. John H. Hoffman, a space scientist at The University of Texas at Dallas, was on hand Saturday as the Delta II rocket carrying the Phoenix Mars lander lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Base for a 10-month long journey to the Red Planet.
A physics professor and member of the University's William B. Hanson Center for Space Sciences, Hoffman is part of team of researchers lead by Dr. Peter Smith of the University of Arizona in Tucson who were selected in 2003 by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to lead an unmanned mission to Mars. The team, among other tasks, was asked to look for evidence of past habitability on Mars.
Phoenix, laden with sensors, is expected to land on the northern plains of the planet in late May 2008. Once there, an arm on the lander will dig a trench in the Martian surface to look for water ice and other water-related substances. The materials will be collected and analyzed in a series of small furnaces, and the effluents from the furnaces will be analyzed by a mass spectrometer system designed by Hoffman. The system will determine the presence of water and the mineralogical composition of soil samples.
In addition to performing sub-surface mineral studies, the UT Dallas spectrometer will analyze the atmosphere of Mars. If the planet had copious amounts of running water in the distant past, as channels on the surface indicate, the earlier climate was likely very different from that of today.
Hoffman, who received funding of approximately $4 million from NASA to build the system, has worked at UT Dallas and its predecessor research institution since 1966. He has designed and built scientific instruments that have flown on numerous exploration missions — both manned and unmanned — into space and to other planetary bodies and objects, including the moon, Venus and Halley's Comet.
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Weaver to Head Diversity Efforts in the Graduate School
Karen J. Weaver, a 1994 Princeton alumna, will return to the University as associate dean for academic affairs and diversity in the Graduate School, effective Aug. 1.
Since 2005, she has been the executive director of the Amistad Commission within the New Jersey Department of State. She has overseen statewide implementation of the Amistad mandate, which requires New Jersey's public schools to integrate African American history into the K-12 curriculum. She previously worked for three years as an educational consultant, providing services to a wide range of clients.
At Princeton, she will work closely with David Redman, associate dean for academic affairs in the Graduate School, and will have primary responsibility for recruiting and retaining underrepresented graduate students.
In addition to earning her bachelor's degree in history from Princeton, Weaver received a master of education degree from Harvard University, and two master's degrees and a Ph.D. in U.S. history from Columbia University. Between 1997 and 2004, she was a research fellow at Columbia's Institute for Research in African American Studies and helped establish a quarterly publication, Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture and Society, for which she served as senior associate editor from 1998 to 2000.
Weaver will succeed Danielle Gray, who resigned in January.
