This Month's Top Stories . . .

• Admission Applications at Record Level
• $16.5 Million Grant to Fund Vermont Genetics Network
• Campaign Passes $220 Million Mark at 88% of Goal
• Vermont and UVM Producing Peace Corps Volunteers
• Student Takes Top Honors at Linguistics Conference
• Goya, Mazur Exhibits Come to Vermont
• UVM People in the News
• Four UVM Teams Competing for Championships
• Campus Kudos
• In Memoriam: Valerie Ann Moore

Admission Applications at Record Level (up^)
Applications to the University of Vermont have risen 36.7 percent over last year's record level, setting a new high of 17,616 as of mid-February compared with 12,890 as of the same time a year ago. Before last year, the record was 11,953, set in 1987 at the height of UVM's public ivy era. Applications have more than doubled since 2001. Diversity in the applicant pool also increased significantly, with a 63.4 percent rise in the number of applicants identifying themselves as African American, Asian American, Latino, or Native American. Applications from in-state students also set a new record of 2,143, rising 19.3 percent over last year's total of 1,796. Kaplan/Newsweek cited UVM as one of the nation's 25 hottest schools in its 2006 College Guide. More at www.uvm.edu/news/.

$16.5 Million Grant to Fund Vermont Genetics Network (up^)
The National Center for Research Resources (NCRR) at the National Institutes of Health has awarded a $16.5 million grant to the University of Vermont and Judith Van Houten, George H. Perkins Professor of Biology and the grant's principal investigator, to fund the Vermont Genetics Network (VGN), a scientific collaboration furthering biomedical research, education outreach, and infrastructure building between UVM and its five VGN partner institutions: Castleton State College, Johnson State College, Middlebury College, Norwich University, and St. Michael's College. The award is the largest single competitive research grant in UVM's history. Full story at www.uvm.edu/news/.

Campaign Passes $220 Million Mark at 88% of Goal (up^)
The Campaign for the University of Vermont continues to make progress toward its $250 million goal. A total of $220,374,187 in gifts and pledges were received through January 27, 2006, or 88 percent of the goal. Gifts for scholarship support, the top campaign priority, stand at $61,805,000, or 59 percent of the $105 million goal. The campaign runs through June 30, 2007. Visit the campaign website at www.uvm.edu/~campaign.

Vermont and UVM Producing Peace Corps Volunteers (up^)
The University of Vermont ranked 24th among medium-size colleges and universities on the Peace Corps' annual list of "Top-Producing Colleges and Universities 2005," tied with Duke University, Emory University, Harvard University, and Marquette University. The State of Vermont along with Oklahoma, also had the highest increase in Peace Corps volunteers in the nation in 2005, as well as the highest number of volunteers per capita. Those are gratifying results for Carmen Jaquez, Peace Corps recruiter for UVM and the Vermont region and herself a former Peace Corps volunteer in Uganda. Read more at www.uvm.edu/theview/.

Student Takes Top Honors at Linguistics Conference (up^)
A UVM undergraduate student's research project earned top honors at a national linguistics conference, a rare accomplishment in a competition usually dominated by doctoral students. Senior communication sciences major Katherine Sadis was awarded the Charles A. Ferguson Prize for Best Student Poster at the NWAV 34 (New Ways of Analyzing Variation) linguistics conference held at New York University last fall. Sadis's senior research project, "Learning to Talk Native: Listeners’ Perception of Speech from Three Dialect Areas, " documented the ability of adults to detect regional accents in the speech of small children. Full story at www.uvm.edu/news/.

Goya, Mazur Exhibits Come to Vermont (up^)
An unprecedented display of Francisco Goya's celebrated Los Caprichos (1799), a masterpiece of artistic expression and social commentary by one of the greatest artists of the late 18th century, is on exhibit at UVM's Robert Hull Fleming Museum through May 14. Featuring the complete set of 80 black and white prints, Los Caprichos offers an illustrated discourse on the corruption and degeneracy of the artist's time. Also at the Fleming through May 14 is "The Inferno of Dante by Michael Mazur," a contemporary, visual interpretation of the horrors that greeted Dante Alighieri during his unforgettable tour through the depths of hell. The 41 black and white prints, originally commissioned to illustrate American Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky's recent translation of Dante's Italian classic, reflect a haunting but ultimately redeeming journey. More at www.uvm.edu/~fleming/.

UVM People in the News (up^)
An Associated Press story on the high rate of seasonal affective disorder in Alaska featured comments by Kelly Rohan, professor of psychology, who explained that traveling in order to flee the dark, Alaskan winter can backfire when residents return home and the symptoms reappear. The article appeared in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Charleston Gazette, the San Diego Union Tribune, and the Raleigh-Durham Herald-Sun among other publications. For other recent stories by and about UVM people in the national and regional news media see http://www.uvm.edu/news/?Page=http://www.uvm.edu/%7Euvmpr/ucomm/uvminthenews.html.

Four UVM Teams Competing for Championships (up^)
Four University of Vermont teams -- men's basketball, women's basketball, men's hockey and skiing -- are competing for championships this week. The ski team started things off in pursuit of a national championship in Steamboat, Colorado, at the 2006 NCAA Ski Championships, and was in forth place as of the end of the day Thursday. The three-time defending America East Men's Basketball Champion Catamounts are at Albany on Saturday, March 11, for the 2006 America East Championship Game. The game airs nationally on ESPN2 at noon. It is UVM's fourth straight trip to the conference title game. The sixth-seeded Catamounts, the lowest seed ever to advance to the final, will face top seed Albany in a bid to become only the second America East school ever to win four straight conference titles. The women's basketball team earned the #7 seed in the America East Women's Basketball Championship and will face #2-seeded Stony Brook at the University of Hartford on Friday, March 10 at noon. The men's hockey team made its first Hockey East postseason appearance Thursday, March 9, against Boston College, the second seed in the Hockey East Tournament, in a best-of-three series The Cats lost the first one 3-2 Thursday night in overtime. Game two is tonight, Friday, March 10, at 7 p.m., and will air on NESN. There are several "Watch Here" locations in Vermont to gather for the weekend's televised games. More at http://www.uvm.edu/~sportspr/?Page=News&storyID=7517.

Campus Kudos (up^)

Saleem H. Ali, assistant professor of environmental studies in the Rubenstein School, has been appointed to a three-year term on the World Commission on Protected Areas. The Commission advises the United Nations system on matters of conservation and strategic environmental priorities in ecosystem management.

Dennis Clougherty, professor of physics, wrote an article, "Jahn-Teller Solitons, Structural Phase Transitions, and Phase Separation" published in the February 3 issue of Physical Review Letters, the journal of the American Physical Society.

Bob Constanza, Gund professor of ecological economics and director of the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics, and Matthew Wilson, assistant professor in the School of Business Administration, co-authored "Linking Ecology and Economics for Ecosystem Management," an article to appear in an upcoming issue of BioScience, the journal of the American Institute of Biological Sciences.

Alice Fothergill, assistant professor of sociology, and Mary Val Palumbo, adjunct associate professor of nursing and director of the Office of Nursing Workforce, were published in the September/October, 2005, issue of the journal Public Health Nursing with their article on "The Volunteer Potential of Inactive Nurses for Disaster Preparedness."

Sarah Heil, research assistant professor of psychiatry, was lead author on a paper on how to improve HIV/AIDS risk knowledge among cocaine-dependent outpatients entitled, "Characterizing and improving HIV/AIDS knowledge in cocaine-dependent outpatients," in the August, 2005, Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology. The article will also be featured in an upcoming issue of the "News and Events" series published by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Co-authors include Stacey Sigmon, research assistant professor of psychiatry, and Stephen Higgins, professor of psychiatry.

Stephen Higgins, professor of psychiatry and psychology, was elected president of the College on Problems of Drug Dependence for 2006-2007. The College is the longest standing scientific organization in the United States dedicated to the study of drug dependence.

Dr. James Hudziak, professor of psychiatry and medicine, published a paper, "The Obsessive Compulsive Scale of the Child Behavior Checklist Predicts Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: a Receive Operating Characteristic Curve Analysis" in the February, 2006, Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. Catherine Stanger, adjunct associate professor of psychiatry, was a co-author. Dr. Hudziak co-authored "The relations between DISC-IV DSM diagnoses of ADHD and multi-informant CBCL-AP syndrome scores," in the March-April edition of Comprehensive Psychiatry.

Dr. Edward Krawitt, professor of medicine, published a Medical Progress Review article entitled, "Autoimmune Hepatitis," in the January 5 New England Journal of Medicine. A leader in the field of chronic hepatitis research, Krawitt was also lead author of an article, "Peginterferon alfa-2b and ribavirin for treatment-refractory chronic hepatitis C," in the August, 2005, Journal of Hepatology, with co-authors Takamaru Ashikaga, director of medical biostatistics and biometry, and Dr. Nicholas Ferrentino, associate professor of medicine.

Loka Losambe, professor of English, explores African subjectivity and its representation in African literature in a collection of essays titled Borderline Movements in African Fiction (Africa World Press).

Jennifer Lussier, a former UVM psychiatry pre-doctoral fellow, published a paper, "A meta-analysis on voucher-based reinforcement therapy for substance use disorders," in the January issue of the journal Addictions. Co-authors include Stephen Higgins, professor of psychiatry and psychology and the originator of voucher-based reinforcement; Sarah Heil, research assistant professor of psychiatry, and Gary Badger, biostatistician in medical biostatistics and lecturer of mathematics and statistics.

Susan Maude, assistant professor in early childhood special education/integrated professional studies, co-authored an article, "Educating and Training Students to Work with Culturally, Linguistically, and Ability Diverse Young Children and their Families," in the January issue of Zero to Three.

Wolfgang Mieder, professor and chairperson of the Department of German and Russian, authored of four articles published in Germany, Russia, and Spain. "Mitten im Strom soll man die Pferde nicht wechseln" appeared in Zeitschrift für germanistische Linguistik. "Zu den sprichwörtlichen Aphorismen von Werner Ehrenforth" interprets the proverbial aphorisms of the modern German writer Werner Ehreforth in Russia's Nauchnyi vestnik. "`Luftschlösser bauen': Traditionelle und innovative Funktion eines redensartlichen Wunschbildes" appeared in Spain's Lo ajeno en lo propio. And "Frases proverbiales en las cartas de Abigail Adams" was published in Paremia, a Spanish yearbook of proverb studies. Mieder is also the author of a new book, Proverbs are the Best Policy: Folk Wisdom and American Politics (2005), examining the role of proverbial speech on the American political stage from the Revolutionary War to the present.

Jane Okech, assistant professor in integrated professional studies, was honored as the author of the outstanding article of 2005 by the editorial board of the Journal for Specialists in Group Work. The article, "A Qualitative Exploration of Group Co-Leader Relationships," was published in the June, 2005, issue.

Dr. David Rettew, assistant professor of psychiatry, Alicia Doyle, graduate student in psychology, and Dr. James Hudziak authored "The genetic architecture of Neuroticism in 3301 Dutch adolescent twins as a function of age and sex: A study from the Dutch Twin Register," in the journal Twin Research and Human Genetics (Vol. 9, Number 1, pp 22-24).

Stacey Sigmon, research assistant professor of psychiatry, received the 2006 Young Psychopharmacologist Award of the Division of Psychopharmacology and Substance Abuse from the American Psychological Association. Sigmon is lead author of "An injection depot formulation of buprenorphine: Extended biodelivery and effects," in the March, 2006, edition of the journal Addiction. Sigmon was also awarded a four-year, $3 million R01 grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to develop an effective treatment for prescription opioid abuse. Titled, "Effective Treatment for Prescription Opioid Abuse," the project will provide free treatment to approximately 225 opioid-dependent patients.

Russell Tracy, professor of pathology and biochemistry and senior associate dean for research and academic affairs at the College of Medicine, co-authored a study, "Thyroid Status, Cardiovascular Risk and Mortality in Older Adults," in the March 1 Journal of the American Medical Association. Tracy and his research colleagues found an association between subclinical hyperthyroidism and the development of atrial fibrillation, a disorder characterized by inefficient pumping in the heart's two upper chambers, which can lead to blood clots and strokes.

Dr. Peter VanBuren, associate professor of medicine and molecular physiology and biophysics, authored a paper, "Single-myosin crossbridge interactions with actin filaments regulated by troponin-tropomyosin," in the November 22, 2005, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. Contributors to the research project included Neil Kad, research associate in molecular physiology and biophysics; Scott Kim, research technician in molecular physiology and biophysics; David Warshaw, professor and chair of molecular physiology and biophysics; and Josh Baker, a former postdoctoral associate now serving as assistant professor of biochemistry at the University of Nevada.

Dr. Scott Waterman, associate professor of psychiatry and associate dean for student affairs, has been selected to receive the Nancy C.A. Roeske, M.D., Certificate of Recognition for Excellence in Medical Student Education from the American Psychiatric Association committee on Medical Student Education.

Dr. Daniel Weiss, assistant professor of medicine, was lead author of a report titled "Limited Restoration of Cystic Fibrosis Lung Epithelium In Vivo with Adult Bone Marrow–derived Cells," in the January 15 issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. Co-authors included Roberto Loi, postdoctoral research associate in medicine; Travis Beckett, laboratory technician in the department of medicine; Kaarin Goncz, research assistant professor of medicine; and Dr. Benjamin Suratt, assistant professor of medicine. The research, carried out in the Vermont Lung Center, was the subject of a Reuters Health article and was featured on WebMD and a number of other health-related web sites.

In Memoriam (up^)

Valerie Ann Moore, assistant professor of sociology, an inspiring teacher and scholar of sex and gender, race and ethnic relations, and the sociology of youth and children, died peacefully in her home February 1 in the company of family and friends. Her memory was honored with a moment of silence at the February meeting of the Board of Trustees.

Dateline UVM Would Like to Hear from You: (up^)
Send comments, questions, and address changes to Dateline UVM Editor Jay Goyette (jay.goyette@uvm.edu).