UNCG research

              spring 2006 Research, Scholarship and Creative Activity
uncgresearch Life after death row
Once released, how do exonerees resurrect their lives?
page 8This spring the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
released an extensive revision to how it classifies U.S. colleges and universities.
UNCG is now listed as a Research University (High Research Activity). This clas-sification
puts us in the same company as Clemson University, the University of
Oregon, the College of William and Mary, George Washington University and Wake
Forest University. Now others will recognize what we’ve known all along: UNCG
has a wide breadth of research activity, ranging from basic science to health to
economic development. In this issue of UNCG Research, we share with you a few
of the many exciting projects that have engaged our faculty.
More than half of the articles are health-related, reflecting the campus strength
in this area. Projects range from understanding disease mechanisms at the cel-lular/
molecular level to self-sustaining programs in the community. For instance,
Dr. Michael McIntosh is investigating the role of specific dietary fats on the
development of fat cells. This level of understanding is necessary to eventually
control the obesity epidemic. The AD/HD Clinic, under the direction of Dr. Arthur
Anastopoulos, serves the community as well as conducts pioneering research. The
work of him and his colleagues to understand how genes impact the expression of
AD/HD can potentially revolutionize its treatment.
UNCG faculty research also contributes critical information to understanding
our environment. Dr. Anne Hershey’s assessment of the health of river basins is
crucial to protecting our water supply. Dr. Keith Debbage’s work in urban devel-opment
is essential to managing the changes occurring in the economic profile
of the area surrounding the UNCG campus and serves as a model for similar
changes nationwide.
Efforts by UNCG faculty in the social sciences will dramatically influence the devel-opment
of the nation’s social capital. Dr. Saundra Westervelt’s research with the
wrongly convicted seeks to find answers to how people readjust to everyday life
after death row.
Additionally, the arts define and enrich our campus. Billy Lee’s bold sculptures have
been exhibited worldwide. This year, the nationally acclaimed creative writing pro-gram
was strengthened by the addition of Craig Nova, a prolific author of fiction.
Undergraduate students have always been closely integrated into UNCG’s research
program. One such example is the work of Christian Sykes, a senior majoring in
mathematics, and his mentor, Dr. Jan Rychter, who conducted research on evolu-tionary
game theory. To further strengthen the role of undergraduate students in
research, Dr. Mary Crowe joined the campus faculty as the Director of the Office of
Undergraduate Research in February.
UNCG is an exciting, evolving campus. Watch us grow.
Rosemary C. Wander, PhD
Associate Provost for Research and Public/Private Sector Partnerships
For more information about research at UNCG and the Office of Research and
Public/Private Sector Parnerships, go to www.uncg.edu/research.
uncgresearch
S p r i n g 2 0 0 6 ° Volume 4
UNCG Research is published by
The Office of Research
and Public/Private Sector Parnerships
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro
PO Box 26170
Greensboro, NC 27402-6170
336.256.0426
Associate Provost for Research
and Public/Private Sector Partnerships
Dr. Rosemary Wander
Administrative Assistant
Debbie Freund
Associate Vice Chancellor
for University Relations
Helen Dennison Hebert ’97 MA
Editor
Beth English
Art Director
Lyda Adams Carpén ’88, ’95 MALS
Photography Editor
Chris English
Contributing Writers
Dana Damico
Tiffany Edwards
Dawn Martin
Stephen Martin
Sean Olson
Stephen Rice
Contributing Photographers
Jim Hill
David Wilson
Contributing Illustrator
Mitre Design
Advisory Board for UNCG Research
Dr. Don Hodges
Director, Music Research Institute
Dr. Keith Howell
Associate Dean for Research, School of
Health and Human Performance
Dr. Garrett Lange
Interim Associate Dean, School of
Human Environmental Sciences
Dr. Ric Luecht
Professor, Department of
Educational Research Methodology
Dr. Kevin Moore
Associate Dean for Research,
College of Arts & Sciences
Dr. Prashant Palvia
Professor, Information Systems
Dr. Debra Wallace
Director of Research, School of Nursing
Dr. Ludwig van Broekhuizen
Executive Director, SERVE
The University of North Carolina at Greensboro
is a diverse, student-centered research univer-sity,
linking the Triad and North Carolina to the
world through learning, discovery and service.
UNCG Magazine is printed on recycled
paper made with 50 percent de-inked
fiber, processed chlorine free.
18,000 copies of this public document were
printed at a cost of $13,825 or $.77 per copy.
uncgresearch
6 Research excellence 2005 Dr. Sandra Shultz makes an impact in women's sports injuries, and Dr. Prashant Palvia looks at global information systems.
8 Life after death row Once released, how do exonerees resurrect their lives?
16 Fat pharm Is conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) a magic formula for weight loss? CLA has been shown to cause mature fat cells to shrink, but Dr. Michael McIntosh warns too many questions are unanswered.
20 The perfect form Sculptor Billy Lee believes experience informs art. And then art informs itself.
24 Water's long, strange trip Biologist Anne Hershey studies lakes and streams to gain insight on balancing nature and development.
2
therightidea
30
theword’sout
33
up&comingIt is possible that in a very few years the medical capacity for preventing all genetic forms of disability will be a reality. Is there a right to life for individuals with disabilities in this context? Will parents who may carry the genes for disabilities have the right of reproduction taken from them?” Dr. David Smith in his book, “In Search of Better Angels”
“
R
emoving labels
With an eye on the past, specialized education services professor
Dr. David Smith asks some chilling questions of the future.
Smith has researched the history of mental retardation, eugenics and the mislabeling of people with disabilities. He believes great danger comes with using the label “mild retardation.” About 50,000 people were sterilized in America in the early 20th century in the eugenics move­ment. They were not severely disabled, Smith said, but rather were sim­ply poor, low-achieving or promiscuous.
“I really think that mild retardation to a large extent has been a myth that was created to cover a lot of human problems,” he said. “It was a term applied to children who were problematic in some way. If we look at that category today, nationally, we would find inordinate numbers of minority children, particularly minority boys who fall in that category.”
Labeling children carries meaning for teachers and health profes­sionals, and labels can be used savagely by peers. “If you’re called retarded that sends a message that’s quite different than being referred to as having a learning disability, and it places you at risk for having all sorts of educational and social consequences,” Smith said.
Through his research, Smith met a man he calls Montgomery. Montgomery had Down syndrome and was called retarded. Asked if he could be granted three wishes, Smith said Montgomery asked for four — “ride a motorcycle, smoke cigarettes, look at Playboy if I want to and not be called retarded.”
Smith is convinced the mild retardation label needs to be changed to something broader like intellectual or developmental disability. But given the rapid advances in genetic research, Smith said it is crucial that the entire perception of disabilities change.
“What’s happening now is that we have genuine science that is telling us so much about the human genome, the genetic make-up of human beings and is allowing for the manipulation of the genetic nature of human beings,” he said.
That, Smith said, brings more unsettling questions: “What is illness? What is health? If we are going to intervene to change people, what should we change and what should we not?”
therightidea
As jobs in textil es and other manu­facturing industries vanish, city leaders are fighting to reinvent Greensboro’s economy. Increasingly, they turn to Dr. Keith Debbage, associate professor of geography, for help.
With expertise in urban planning and economic development, Debbage has emerged as an influential thinker in Greensboro. He has served as a consultant to business recruiters and planning officials on several major projects, including reports on the region’s biotechnology, transportation and logistics sectors.
His latest project: serving as a policy ana­lyst for a major land-use and transportation study, known as the Heart of the Triad project.
Debbage and others involved with the project hope to create a well-coordinated plan for economic growth on thousands of unde­veloped acres in the middle of the Triad. With a FedEx hub under construction and a Dell manufacturing plant already operating in the center of the region, future development is inevitable, Debbage said. But residents and civic leaders can heavily influence the course that growth follows — and make the area appealing to both families and top-notch employers — by planning ahead.
Debbage has been plotting a comprehen­sive map of all the building projects that are planned for this area — a resource that has not previously existed. It offers the best pic­ture yet of how development is unfolding.
He, along with a team of experts, is recom­mending how this land should be devel­oped in terms of road building, land use, zoning patterns, and even marketing strate­gies. He envisions “activity centers” that blend residential and commercial develop­ment, creating an inviting business climate and a high quality of life for residents.
“In terms of a project in our region, this is by far the biggest one I’ve worked on,” Debbage said. “It’s combining basically every­thing I’ve done for 15 years into one project.”
Charting a course
Tim Rick ard/News and Record
2 uncg research
spring 2006 3
The root of
risky behavior
Before joining UNCG as an assistant professor in the School of Nursing, Dr. Robin Bartlett worked for 14 years as a registered nurse. She spent 10 of those working with chil­dren and adolescents in psychiatric hospitals.
“I was concerned during that time about our very problem-based focus,” she said. “We’re always very concerned with what’s wrong with kids, what’s wrong with families.”
Bartlett became intrigued with studies on what put kids at risk and what prevented them from developing problem behaviors.
Her study examines problem behaviors in adolescents and how they are linked to various risk or protective factors. Risk factors included low-self esteem. Protective factors included parental support and friends.
Bartlett mined data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Researchers interviewed thousands of ado­lescents in grades 7 through 12 across the country in two waves between 1994 and 1996. Respondents were re-interviewed in a third wave in 2001 and 2002.
Bartlett divided the behavior into three clusters: typical, problem and deviant. Adolescents in the typical cluster engaged in few problem behaviors such as skipping school, being rowdy or using alcohol. Those in the problem cluster reported having multiple sex partners and not using contraceptives. Those in the deviant cluster also reported sell­ing drugs and using weapons.
In the first year of the study, Bartlett found 73 percent fell in the typical cluster, 23 per-cent in the problem cluster and 4 percent in the deviant cluster. In the second year of the study, those numbers changed to 47 percent in the typical cluster, 45 percent in the problem cluster and 8 percent in the deviant cluster.
Among her findings: Adolescents in the typical cluster reported the highest self-esteem at both points; paternal support trailed mater­nal support in all the clusters and those in the deviant cluster reported lower parental support than others; and boys had higher self-esteem than girls in every cluster.
Recently Bartlett and her co-authors were awarded the D. Jean Wood Nursing Scholarship Award for a paper on this research from the Southern Nursing Research Society.
Brain gain
Growi ng up, Dr. Jennif er Et nier was always involved in sports. As an adult, her interest evolved from strictly sports to the health implications of physical activity.
Specifically, Etnier studies how an active lifestyle improves the brain, from learning and memory to response time and moods.
E E
tnier
, an associate professor in the Department of Exercise and Sport Science, studied 20 women with fibromyalgia syndrome (essentially chronic pain syndrome) during a year-long study funded by the university. Half of the group was assigned a moderate exercise routine. The other half began exercising after six months. Early data suggested a link between fitness level and cognitive performance. The mid-point of the study also showed that the women who exercised showed cognitive improvement — and reported less depression — while the inactive women showed no change.
R R
esults
from the final testing session were not available at the time of this story.
E E
tnier
said older adults' chief fear is losing their mental abilities. Because the popula­tion is aging, and because more people are working longer, it is imperative that researchers understand the link between physical activity and mental health.
“Anything we can find out about behavioral interventions that might promote cognitive function or prevent declines will have important implications for a large group of people.”
E E
ven
short bouts of exercise carry big benefits. Her study of 16 men and women 55 and older showed participants who walked on a treadmill for 20 minutes
performed better on cognitive tests than older adults who
read
a book for 20 minutes.
The benefits started five minutes after the walkers stopped and continued up to two hours. “I was surprised at the duration of the response,” Etnier said. “I wasn’t surprised that there was a response.”
E E
tnier
hopes to get a $1.5 million grant from the National Institutes for Health to study physical activity and Alzheimer’s disease. She believes fitness routines could be most help­ful for people at greatest risk for the mental disease. People as young as 30 who have the genetic marker for Alzheimer’s already show structural differences in their brain, she said. The study could show people at risk for the disease who exercise in their 30s build better brain protection for their 60s. therightidea
Longevity exists through adversity.
Dr. Paul Knapp’s study of tree-ring data from the ponderosa pine
and western juniper trees seems to prove it. These species, which grow in
harsh, arid conditions, can live to be 800 and 1,600 years old, respectively.
Knapp, a geography professor, has long been fascinated with dendro-ecology
— the study of trees and their environments. He uses tree-ring
data to help unlock the mystery of past climatic change, looking for pat-terns
of drought and growth that may be repeated. His research could
have long-range implications for managing the ecosystem in the western
United States.
A native of Corvallis, Ore., Knapp heads west each summer, hiking
to forests that have had minimal fire suppression, grazing and cutting.
He extracts core samples from trees at least 300 years old and examines
their rings. Years with favorable climatic conditions are noted in wider
rings.
“Tree ring data allow us to document conditions with annual preci-sion,”
Knapp says. “We can extend the climatic record back hundreds
and, in some places, thousands of years.”
In one project, Knapp reconstructed the climate during the travels of
Lewis and Clark, finding they had a fortuitous journey – capitalizing on
an unusual period without severe drought or extended wet conditions.
Knapp’s research also has helped identify zones where droughts are
more common and last longer. “Some rapidly growing cities exist in dry
climates,” he said. “These studies show that you can have extended dry
periods, which can present severe water shortage problems.”
In addition to droughts, Knapp has examined how some trees have
responded to increased atmospheric carbon dioxide levels during the
past century, a phenomenon caused by fossil fuel combustion and defor-estation.
Increased carbon dioxide seems to help western junipers and
ponderosa pines use water more efficiently.
“This can lead to a longer growing season — as an analogy, these
trees are getting better gas mileage,” Knapp says. As the trees are able
to grow in drier conditions, the treeline could eventually drop to lower
elevations, changing the composition of entire ecosystems.
Knapp’s future research will look at windstorms along coastal Oregon
and Washington — events that also leave their mark in tree rings. As with
drought and wet cycles, these patterns of high winds could have implica-tions
for tree growth, fire cycles and even the lumber industry.
“Patterns repeat themselves,” he says. “The fact that it has existed
means it could happen again.”
The truth in trees
As an audiologist, Dr. Susan Philips often worried about her
teenage son listening to loud music that could damage his hearing.
But it wasn’t the typical rock concerts or blaring radios that
concerned her. She actually worried about the classical musical
classes he took at UNCG’s School of Music.
Turns out she was right.
Her research, part of UNCG's Music Research Institute, has
shown that sound levels in music practice rooms average about 88
decibels, high enough to trigger an OSHA investigation in industry,
and can peak at 130 decibels, equivalent to an airplane taking off.
“I read somewhere that orchestras are as loud as a rock band,
and it really grabbed my attention,” said Phillips, an associate pro-fessor
of audiology in the Department of Communication Sciences
and Disorders. “I thought we should check to see if these students
are getting overexposed.”
Phillips tested the hearing of 108 undergraduate music stu-dents,
all of whom volunteered for the study. Forty-eight percent
had a “notched” audiogram, which indicates noise-induced hearing
damage, or a drop in sensitivity to a particular pitch.
This year, Phillips has extended her study to all music students.
Already, about 70 percent of freshmen and sophomores show signs
of hearing damage.
“Even a small amount of this type of hearing loss might change
their pitch sensitivity, which as you can imagine is crucial for a
musician,” Phillips said. These students can also have more diffi-culty
hearing amid background noise.
Because of the evidence of hearing damage, the School of Music
is considering establishing a hearing protective policy, which would
require students to have their hearing tested every year. It may also
provide students with musicians’ earplugs.
To further her research, Phillips recently started asking the
students she tests about their family history of hearing loss and
music study. Next year, she plans to work with Malcolm Schug, an
associate professor of biology, to probe the genetic causes of noise-induced
hearing loss.
Phillips said the sheer number of music students with some
hearing loss surprised her.
“From the viewpoint of an audiologist, it’s just scary to think
that they’re doing this to their ears. It’s damage to the inner ear, and
that’s permanent. There isn’t a darn thing you can do about it. And
it’s so insidious because it doesn’t literally hurt. You don’t know it’s
happening until it’s too late.”
The sound of hearing loss
4 uncg research
s p r i n g 2006 5
The genetics of AD/HD
Determining the role that genes play in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder — or AD/HD
— is the goal of a five-year, federally funded collaborative study led by UNCG's Dr. Arthur Anastopoulos
and researchers from Duke University.
Anastopoulos, a professor of clinical psychology and head of the university’s AD/HD clinic, hopes to
disentangle the genetic understanding of the disorder that is marked by inattention, hyperactivity and
impulsiveness.
AD/HD affects up to 5 percent of schoolchildren and up to 4 percent of adults.
Anastopoulos is collaborating on the study with researchers at the Center for Human Genetics and
the Department of Psychiatry at Duke University.
“Most genetic research these days has tended to view AD/HD as a homogenous condition,”
Anastopoulos said. “But our point is it’s heterogeneous and varies along several important clinical
dimensions.”
About 30 genetic markers, or abnormal gene patterns, have been linked with AD/HD. Researchers
do not know why there are so many, Anastopoulos said. “We’re trying to impose a little bit more preci-sion
in how AD/HD is defined in order to say which genes go with which clinical presentation,” he said.
People with AD/HD can show differing features: some are inattentive types while others are inat-tentive
and hyperactive. Some have learning disabilities, depression and anxiety as well as typical
AD/HD markers. Additionally, AD/HD can change with age. A child with primarily inattentive AD/HD
could, two years from now, show hyperactive impulsive features as well.
Results of the study could change treatment for AD/HD because genetic markers could signal the
most effective medication.
Researchers will test blood samples from more than 300 children ages 5 to 13 twice — with a
two-year interval. A third of the children will be tested at the UNCG clinic, the remainder at Duke. The
parents and siblings of the participants will also be tested.
Anastopoulos said the first phase of the study could be complete in 2007.
Anastopoulos is also working with Duke on a study that tests the common perception that col-lege
students are misusing stimulants used for AD/HD treatment to stay awake. Researchers surveyed
incoming freshmen at Duke and UNCG. They asked the students whether they know people using such
drugs as Ritalin, Concerta, Adderall and Methylin who don’t have AD/HD, and whether they know people
selling their prescriptions.
Researchers plan to re-interview the 1,500 respondents next year to see whether their perceptions
have changed.
Game theory for the birds
Sometimes stealing can be a good thing.
Since the summer of 2005, Christian Sykes, a senior mathematics major, has been studying kleptoparasit-ism
(food stealing) in gulls by using evolutionary game theory.
Evolutionary game theory is an offshoot of classical game theory, which is a study of human behavior
that involves mathematics and economics and assumes that individuals in a population make the best
choices.
Taking it a step further, evolutionary game theory assumes changes in behavior are a result of changes
in the environment. A population adapts to a situation over long periods of time in order to survive.
Sykes’ study, under the direction of math professor Dr. Jan Rychtar, has examined gull populations
with identical (monomorphic) characteristics and has found that the fitness of individuals in a population
is related to the time it takes to acquire food sources. The longer it takes an individual to find food, the less
fit they are.
Gulls exhibited four kinds of behaviors in this study: that of hawk, dove, marauder and retaliator.
Hawks always attack for food and always resist being attacked. Doves never resist and never attack.
Marauders always attack yet never resist. Retaliators never attack but always resist attack.
He has found hawk and marauder behavior to be the most stable, meaning that when a species arrives at
that behavior, it does not change. In a monomorphic population it is almost always advantageous to steal.
The next phase is to study a polymorphic population. This time Sykes will see if avian thieves find the
same advantage in stealing from birds less like themselves.
Joint resolutions
Research Excellence Professor Dr. Sandra Shultz studies a problem that has plagued female athletes for years — why do a greater number of women than men tear their anterior cruciate liga­ment (ACL)? And what can be done to prevent it? Shultz, an associate professor in the School of Health and Human Performance, has been working on this question for the last 10 years.
Whatat is the ACL: The ACL — the anterior cruciate ligament — is one of the major sta­bilizing ligaments in the knee. It’s important for controlling excessive motion in the knee, especially during landing, cutting, sudden stop-and-start kinds of maneuvers.
Why stu dy this ar ea: I worked as a certified athletic trainer for women’s basketball at UCLA for five years, and we had our share of ACL injuries. That puts an athlete out for an entire season and sometimes they never go back to the same level they were before. So my interest was in how we can stop those injuries to begin with.
Areas of focus : It’s a complicated issue and there’s probably not one single answer for it. … The two areas that I focus on are the anatomical and the hormonal differences between males and females, and how these differences influence how the knee joint func­tions during dynamic activity.
The role of hormones: About a year ago HHP Dean Dave Perrin and I finished a three-year National Institutes of Health study that examined how knee laxity changes across the menstrual cycle in women. We found that after ovulation and early in the second half of the cycle, once estrogen rises, there is an increase in knee laxity. The interesting thing about this is not all the women experience these cyclic changes in knee laxity. While some people have a dramatic increase in knee laxity others really showed no change.
N
ext st eps : Right now, we’re at the “so what” factor. Now that we have observed these increases in knee laxity across the cycle, does this have an effect on how the knee joint functions during sport activity? So the next step is to do some neuromuscular and biomechanical studies to examine that. We want to compare those who have relatively greater knee laxity and those who experience knee laxity changes across their cycle to those who do not by measuring their muscle activity, their joint motion and their joint forces during weight-bearing activity. Do we see greater displacements in the joint? Do we see the muscle having to work harder to stabilize the joint as a result of this increased knee laxity? It may be that the body compensates very well for this increase in laxity or it may put the knee at greater risk.
Why this ar ea of stu dy may be contr overs ial : I don’t think people want to hear that hormones may play a role in ACL injury. And there are conflicting studies in the literature. Some say knee laxity doesn’t change; others say it does change. I think it really might have to do with when the measurements are taken and the fact that not all women experience these changes. Also if it’s just about hormones then one would expect every female to tear their ACL, and we know that doesn’t happen. However, we need to appre­ciate that not all women experience the same hormone profiles, and our research suggests that the knees of some women are more responsive to hormone changes across the cycle than others. We may need to focus on the women who demonstrate these changes and see how they’re responding differently because we know that not all women tear their ACL. So the next question is, does an increase in knee laxity put them at greater risk?
Prevention: We know that preventative training programs work; we just don’t know what exactly we’re targeting at this point. I think if we can stay devoted to identifying the risk factors that cause ACL injury, then we can be more specific and effective in our train��ing programs. That’s ultimately where we need to go with this.
2005researchexcellence
6 uncg research
s p r i n g Going global
Research Excellence Award winner, Dr. Prashant Palvia, the Joe Rosenthal Excellence Professor in the Bryan School of Business and Economics, has been at UNCG for six years. In that time, he helped establish a PhD program in Information Systems, the only one of its kind in the state; edited the Journal of Global Information Technology Management; and has set to work to create a Global Information Technology Center. Initially the head of the Department of Information Systems and Operations Management, he moved to become the director of the PhD program in Information Systems, allowing him more time for research in global information technology management.
D
escr ibing informatation syst ems in la yman’s terms: Information systems, in a nutshell, deal with the application of computers and information technology to busi­ness and organizational needs. It’s more about the applications and the use of technology, rather than the computer hardware, software, and technology per se.
Researc hing how compapanies bu ild global informatation syst ems:
We identified eight different approaches which companies use to develop IS applica­tions. For some, it was not a strategic decision at all, meaning companies did not neces­sarily say in the beginning, ‘OK, we’re going to use this type of strategy and stick with that.’ We found these applications typically take one to three years to build. As they moved along they found they needed to make changes in their strategies. And they did. We found they made two, three, even four changes during development. It was not a static but more of a dynamic decision.
Why a global focus ? One thing I found in my almost 15 years of conducting research in global information systems is we tend to be very ethnocentric, very U.S.-based in our research. We need to go beyond that. What we learn may not necessarily be appli­cable in other parts of the world. That observation is what’s basically driving my research.
Where he wawants his researc h to go: We have looked at some other countries. I was able to classify countries into four categories [advanced, newly-industrialized, devel­oping, under-developed]. … We want to study the issues methodically where we use a uniform methodology in maybe 10-12 countries every three years or so. … What are their major concerns, major issues, and how do they evolve over time?
Why he class ifies China and India as developing countr ies: China and India — they are fast developing and will soon catch up with the advanced nations. I can speak for India being that I was born there. They sort of have two tiers of populations, if you will. The one tier is the advanced and doing pretty well in terms of their use of tech­nology. And then there are the masses who are very primitive in the use of the technology. I know that’s true for China too. … That would be a great area of research — how do we bring the masses up and have them experience the technological revolution? They often get left behind.
O
n the Gl obal Informatation Technology Center he hopes to cr eatate: We will look at issues and problems at the international level. And we’ll also look at how we can help companies in the Triad and North Carolina so that they can work internationally in terms of their IS issues. Our primary goal will be research but our secondary objective will be a more practical orientation in terms of being able to help them.
The benefits of a global society: With technology, frankly, we’re not really an isolated world. The world is our forum. So I don’t think we can continue to afford to be U.S.-centric. We really need to understand the issues and the challenges. … If we are a truly open and capitalistic society, that’s where we’re headed — to a global society. It’s going to cause some short-term pains and bumps but I believe personally, over the long term, it’s going to be a win for all — the U.S. and the rest of the world.
r
spring 2006 7
8 uncg research
Three years ag o, Dr. Saundra Westervelt boarded a plane to visit former death row inmate Charles Fain in Idaho.
Westervelt, associate professor of sociology, wanted to talk with him about how he was read­justing to society. About how he handled small things like doorknobs and metal utensils and spicy food. How he adapted to ATMs and pay-at-the-pump gas stations. How he handled finding a job, getting health insurance and maybe sleeping with another person.
How he dealt with people who still thought he was guilty.
Fain had served 18 years on death row for the rape and murder of a 9-year-old girl. At his trial, microscopic hair analysis and two jailhouse snitches provided the evidence needed to sentence him to death. DNA analysis was not yet in use.
E E
ighteen
years later, the snitches recanted and DNA examination of the hairs found on the girl revealed they were not his. He spent 18 years of his life in a single cell for something he didn’t do.
Westervelt’s research project — titled “Life After Death: Life Histories of Innocents after their Release from Death Row” — was funded by UN CG’s External Proposal Development Incentive Program and the Fund for the Advancement of the Discipline of the American Sociological Association. It examines the impact of a wrongful capital convic­tion and incarceration on exonerees. As of March 2006, 123 people nationally had been released from death row due to substantial evidence of their inno­cence. Westervelt and her co-investigator, Kimberly Cook from The University of North Carolina at Wilmington, have interviewed 16 and hope to inter­view more as funding allows.
As a sociologist, Westervelt is particularly inter­ested in the coping strategies exonerees used — Do they confront issues head on? Do they seclude them­selves? What types of factors affect their abilities to cope and move forward?
“These are people suffering trauma in the most
O
n the cover Alan Gell, one of the exonerees in Dr. Saundra Westervelt’s study, was acquitted and released from prison in 2004. In an interview with The News & Observer, he talked about his prison uniform. “A red jump suit is dead man walking. You’ve lost your life. To this day, I cannot stand the color red. To me, it’s a reminder of death.”
Photograp hy by the Ral eigh News & Obs erver
Lifeafterdeathrowspring 2006 9
Lifeafterdeathrow
acute way,” Westervelt says. “They are struggling with things the vast majority of us can’t imagine. And they manage it with integrity and dignity. Faith and integrity and dignity.”
She found Fain coped by turning to the church. He had found comfort in religion while on death row. After his release he joined a large, contemporary church in his community and attended services faithfully.
Their interview took place on a Saturday and he invited Westervelt to go with him to a service that evening. She accepted, and that evening they sat amid more than 600 people singing worship songs. Then the minister got up to deliver the sermon.
“And the sermon was about Paul and Paul’s years while he was incarcerated for preaching. And it was about the letters that he wrote. It was about hope. About how to find hope when you’re imprisoned for something you didn’t do.”
She listened in stunned disbelief.
“And I finally looked over at Charles and said ‘I can’t believe I’m sitting here listening to this, sitting next to you.’ And he just looked at me and said, ‘God works in mysterious ways.’ It was one of those,” she shivers, “chill moments. … We have many moments like that. Chilling moments. Wrenching moments.”
Pract ical concerns
“Hope is like a little kid learning to walk. He falls, he falls. He don’t stay on the ground. He cries. He finds ways to get up and walk again. I been in there almost 18 years. But you just find ways to get up and walk again. Just like a little kid. The whole thing is to think positive.” — Juan Melendez, convicted of the murder of a beauty salon owner based on the testimony of the actual murderer
Factors that impact exonerees’ re-entry into society range from mundane things such as learning to walk near a fence without fear to life-altering emotional issues such as dealing with a loss of self.
“I was just lost, a lost soul,” Greg Wilhoit said in the July 24, 2001, issue of Investigative Reports. “Am still not completely found. And I’m not a whole person anymore. I’m just a part of a person. I don’t
By Beth English, UNCG Researc h editor10 uncg research
Life after death row
have any high expectations anymore like I used to because I know they’re not going to really reach fruition, so I just kinda coast, not much different than death row.”
Westervelt and Cook categorize the issues they confront into four basic areas: practical problems (financial problems, employment, relearning the basics), grieving and loss, stigma and loss of reputation, and reintegration.
First on the list for many when they are released is finding a job. For some, it’s an easy matter. Fain, who was cleared with DNA evidence, didn’t have too much difficulty because people felt more sure of his innocence. And Juan Melendez was a hero for the people of Puerto Rico. Crowds met him at the airport when he arrived. An old friend who owned a plantain plantation offered him a job on the spot.
“They’re the lucky ones,” Westervelt says.
Some become self-employed. Kirk Bloodsworth was a crabber. Gary Gauger, a farmer.
But for the rest, it’s far trickier. Every employment application asks: Have you ever been convicted of a felony? What do you do when the answer is yes, but you were later cleared? Applications do not offer an area to explain.
E E
xoner
ees have tried a variety of solutions. Some attach an expla­nation. Shabaka Brown simply wrote n/a, not applicable. A few months later, he got a call from the company saying he had lied on his application. But he felt it was the most honest answer he could give.
Having records expunged would be the most helpful thing for exonerees but that typically involves asking for a pardon from the governor. For Alan Gell, that’s more than he can do. “He says, ‘I didn’t do anything wrong. I don’t want to ask for a pardon. I absolutely won’t do that,’” Westervelt says.
An alternate is to sue the state in order to expunge the records, but that requires money, which again requires a job.
The difficulty in finding a job complicates getting medical insur­ance. And quite a few of the exonerees have medical problems that range from vision issues to arthritis and joint problems. Several also complain of stomach problems which Westervelt attributes to their diet while in prison. “No spicy foods. No salt, no condiments. Lots of starch, potatoes, turkey, chicken.”
Some also have trouble with stamina. Juan Melendez talked about relearning to walk because he was only outside for an hour a day.
Gr
ieving and loss
“About a month and a half, two months after my arrest, I had a dream. And I was speaking with my mother. And then I realized, I said, ‘Oh, wait a minute, but you were killed.’ And then she faded away. I asked for a hug [begins to cry], I asked for a hug and then she faded away, and I started crying. And I woke up crying, and I …that, I suppose would have been the…that was as close as I had come to mourning their murders, their deaths….I feel like I’m a plastic barrier holding back the ocean. You know, not much substance and a lot weight.” — Gary Gauger, who was convicted of killing his parents in their home and was later released when the actual killers confessed
Beyond the practical concerns of everyday life are the emotional costs of prison. With time in prison ranging from two to 26 years, many exonerees lost loved ones. All lost years of freedom.
Kirk Bloodsworth lost his mother, his pri­mary source of support, five months before he was released.
“I can hear him talking about this and just sobbing,” Westervelt says. “You know that guttural kind of sobbing — the kind you hear from children who are so completely over­whelmed. ... He never got to say good-bye.”
He told Westervelt about going home to his family’s house and encountering all his mother’s things. At moments, he would stand in her closet just to smell her clothes. One morning he was having a hard time getting up and he thought he heard her. He went in the kitchen and could have sworn he smelled her cigarette, as if she had just left the room.
Shabaka Brown lost his mother and two brothers while he was in prison. One brother died because he couldn’t get a kidney trans­plant. Shabaka had been tested and matched as a potential donor, but they wouldn’t let him leave prison long enough to have the opera­tion to save his brother. His mother died of a heart attack and stroke on the day his death warrant was signed.
R R
eestablishing
ties with existing family members is also difficult, Westervelt says. Perry Cobb’s daughter was kidnapped and raped while he was in prison. “He has guilt for not being there. Lost time, lost memories. No amount of compensation can give that back to you.”
And then there is the loss of friends. Juan Melendez said one of the hardest parts of being on death row was when someone was led off to be executed: “You got a man next door to you for nine years…ten years. You become attached without even know­ing it. And now they come, they snatch him, they kill him. Then you think, ‘I’ll probably be next.’ So that was the part that I say was the hardest part me in there, when they kill people.”s p r i n g 2006 11
Stigma
“…I’m this person…this heinous murderer that stomped my baby. My oldest child…in the book [a chapter on her case appeared in a book about women on death row] it says I took him and threw him out of a movin’ pick up truck. ...They have just destroyed my life! …And I’m angry. I am very angry because I can’t get back what they took from me! I can’t get that back! And that’s the part that makes me mad [getting emotional]. It makes me mad because I got children, and my kids hear this. ‘OK. Well, you know your mama ain’t no good’… ‘your mama killed your brother.’ That’s why I went and got my tubes tied [laugh­ing] because…I was scared to have another baby here in Columbus, Mississippi.” — Sabrina Butler-Porter, convicted of felonious child abuse in the death of her 9-month-old son, later released when new witnesses corroborated Butler’s side of the story and the medical examiner reevaluated the evidence of abuse
“They want so desperately for people to believe them,” Westervelt says. “People call them out in the grocery store. They think they got out on a technicality.”
When Westervelt and Cook ask what they do when people think they are still guilty, most say they try to ignore it. “But it makes them angry, of course.”
Kirk Bloodsworth was convicted of sexually assaulting and bru­tally killing a 9-year-old — one of the most heinous crimes of all. Eyewitness testimony linking the two together was the primary evi­dence at trial.
N N
ine
years later, he was exonerated by DNA evidence. Ten years after that, the DNA identified the actual killer.
But for those 10 years, Kirk lived with the specter of his supposed crime.
For 10 years he lived with people who wrote “child killer” in the dust on his truck, which was his home for the first several months after his release. Or, as it happened one day as he went door to door looking for work, someone recognized him and yelled, “Child killer in the neighborhood! Child killer in the neighborhood!”
“And then the prosecutor put the DNA in the database and got a hit and lo and behold if the actual offender didn’t live right down the hall from him while they were both in prison. They could have spared him that.”
DNA evidence is something most people feel definitively clears a person of the crime. But out of 123 exonorees, only 14 were released as a result of DNA testing. Many more are released because of prosecuto­rial misconduct.
That misconduct takes many forms — not turning over evidence that would clear the defendent, not revealing inducements given to jailhouse snitches, mistaken eyewitness testimony, police problems, false confessions, etc.
In the case of Perry Cobb, he was sentenced based on a single eyewitness testimony. The physical evidence didn’t match. Years later, it was discovered that the eyewitness was the woman who drove the
Below left, Alan Gell and his sister Frankie Johnson talk outside the family home in Lewiston at the end of Gell’s first day of freedom. “When I first got home I was having a lot of problems with sleeping. To lay down in a pitch black room that was totally silent, that was alien to me. In prison, the lights never go off. When I got home for the first time in almost 10 years, I got to see and feel darkness. It was frightening. It was like a kid being scared of the dark.” Below right, Jeanette Johnson joyfully hugs her son after he is found not guilty.12 uncg research
getaway car in the murder. She was detracting attention from her boy­friend, the actual offender.
“Sometimes I’m still surprised by how wrong it can go,” Westervelt says. “I’ve seen some of the most egregious stories. Oh my God, you wouldn’t believe it.”
In one case, a paid attorney showed up drunk every day in court. He even threw up in the judge’s chambers. And yet the decision for death stood.
In response to some of these issues, North Carolina has created an Innocence Commission, the only one of its kind in the U.S. They take on policy issues — such as mistaken eyewitness testimony — and create new procedures to be followed and distribute them to police departments.
O
n the outs ide
“I’ve been very blessed, very fortunate. I don’t wanna let my friends down. I can’t pay ’em back money-wise. The only thing I can hopefully do is make ’em proud and let ’em know … that I am who I am because they helped save my life. …I’m gonna make them proud for the rest of my life. ���They struggled and stressed for those 10 years while I was in prison…worryin’ about me, won­derin’ what they could do, while they’re still livin’ their own lives, takin’ care of their own families, wonderin’ what they can do to help Ray. It’s like, you know, that’s something…[pauses because is getting emotional]…That’s gonna be my mission, my goal.” — Ray Krone, convicted of the murder and kidnapping of a female barkeep and released when DNA from hairs found on the victim were not his but did match a convicted sex offender who lived 600 yards from the bar
R R
ay
Krone is one of the lucky ones. Having a support system is critical to making a readjustment to society. As Westervelt says, “It matters what they have to go back to.”
People used to cross the street so they wouldn’t have to walk near Kirk Bloodsworth. Sabrina Butler-Porter can’t get a job as a Wal-Mart greeter because she’s so recognizable.
“When the community accepts you, it makes all the difference,�� Westervelt says. “The prosecutor can make things better or worse. The media can make things better or worse. To some extent, it mat­ters what kind of crime you were convicted of. And I would venture a guess it matters who you are.”
Those who have family support, a public apology by officials, the identity of the actual offender and community acceptance will have an easier time than those who do not.
U U
ltimately
, Westervelt and Cook have found that exonerees usu­ally choose one of two approaches to coping — strategies based on a promotion focus or those based on a prevention focus.
Those who choose a prevention-focused strategy are trying to avoid negative consequences by using self-destructive behavior (alco­hol, drugs, etc.), avoidance and isolation from others as a strategy to get through the day. They also find they have an inability to make meaning from what happened to them.
Gary Gauger, the man who was accused of killing his parents, tends to choose isolation. “I hate to even have the phone ring. I don’t like to talk to people on the phone. So, what’s the point? I can’t write letters. I can’t talk on the phone. I don’t like to visit. I don’t like to go anywhere. I don’t like to leave the house. What’s the point? I tried to initiate contact (with my grown children) and I couldn’t follow through. So I just…you know… and you think I’ll do better in the future, and the days go by, and pretty soon it’s one year, it’s three years, it’s five years, it’s, you know?…Don’t wanna bust out of my comfort zone. Don’t wanna grow.”
Whenever Gary speaks of his death row experience, it shuts him down for three to four days, Westervelt says.
Some move to evade community opinion. One North Carolina exoneree, who Westervelt hasn’t had an opportunity to interview, moved to Hawaii. “Now that’s a management strategy. …Some
Life after death row
The day after being released from prison, Gell shows off his new driver’s license to his mother. Gell passed the written and driving tests on the first try. “It had been about 14 years since I took a driver’s license test. … That was definitely a monumental moment.”s p r i n g 2006 13
Charl es FaFain
• Convicted of rape and murder of a
9-year-old girl
• Primary evidence at trial Microscopic hair analysis, two jail­house snitches
• Reason for exoneration DNA examination of hairs found they did not match those on girl, snitches recanted
• Time served on death row 18 years
Jua
n Melendez
• Convicted of armed robbery and murder of owner of a beauty salon
• Primary evidence at trial Testimony of actual offender who was deflecting attention from him­self and who was police informant at the time
• Reason for exoneration Prosecution withheld evidence of statements made by actual offender, ineffective assistance of counsel
• Time served on death row
“17 years, 8 months, 1 day”
D
elb ertrt Tibbs
• Convicted of murder of a 27-year-old man and rape of his 16-year-old female friend
• Primary evidence at trial Cross-racial eyewitness testimony of girl, jailhouse snitch testimony
• Reason for exoneration Insufficient and tainted evidence
• Time served 3 years, 5 years out on bond awaiting DA decision
Gar
y Gau ger
• Convicted of the murder of his
parents in their home (where he also lived)
• Primary evidence at trial
No physical evidence, supposed
confession
• Reason for exoneration Confessions to an undercover fed­eral agent by two Outlaw motorcycle gang members, suppressed by prosecution for almost a year
• Time served 3 years in general population
Ray Krone
• Convicted of the murder and kid­napping of a female barkeep
• Primary evidence at trial ‘Expert’ testimony that his bite marks matched those on the victim
• Reason for exoneration DNA from hairs found on victim were not his but did match a convicted sex offender who lived 600 yards from bar
• Time served 3 years on death row, 7 years general population
Sabr ina Butl er
• Convicted of felonious child abuse in the death of her 9-month-old son
• Primary evidence at trial Conflicting statements made by Butler immediately after son’s death at hospital, testimony by medical examiner of evidence of abuse
• Reason for exoneration New
witnesses corroborating Butler’s side of story, medical examiner changed mind
• Time served 2 years on death row, 3 years in jail awaiting retrial
Kirk Bloodsw ortrth
• Convicted of the rape and murder of a 9-year-old girl
• Primary evidence at trial Several eyewitnesses saying the two were seen together
• Reason for exoneration DNA test­ing excluded him from contributing any of the physical evidence (10 years later in 2003, the DNA identi­fied the actual offender)
• Time served 2 years on death row, 7 years in general population
Shabaka Brown
• Convicted of the rape and murder of a store owner
• Primary evidence at trial Testimony by co-defendant,
ballistics evidence
• Reason for exoneration False and misleading evidence knowingly sub­mitted by prosecutor
• Time served on death row 14 ½ years (came within 15 hours of his own execution)
Gr
eg Wilhoit
• Convicted of the murder of his wife
• Primary evidence at trial Two ‘experts’ identified his bite mark on her body
• Reason for exoneration Ineffective assistance of counsel, 12 of coun­try’s top odontologists excluded him as source of bite mark
• Time served 4 years on death row, 2 years on bond awaiting retrial
Walt alter McM illa n
• Convicted of the murder of an 18-year-old female clerk at a local dry cleaners
• Primary evidence at trial No physical evidence; coerced jailhouse snitch testimony
• Reason for exoneration Snitch recanted and revealed he had been coerced by police; prosecutors with­held evidence
• Time served 6 years on death row (including approximately 1 year prior to original trial)
GarGarGar
y JaJames and Timothy Howarwar d — co-defendants
• Convicted of aggravated robbery and murder in the shooting death of a bank guard during a robbery
• Primary evidence at trial Mistaken eyewitness testimony, including two police informants; prosecutors with­held exculpatory evidence
• Reason for exoneration Indepth investigation by Centurion Ministries revealed the evidence withheld by prosecutors
• Time served 26 years in prison; the first 13 months on death row
Da
vid Keataton
• Convicted of the first-degree murder of an off-duty deputy sheriff during a holdup at a local grocery store
• Primary evidence at trial Five eye­witnesses identified Keaton as the gunman; coerced false confession used against him at trial; no physical evidence
• Reason for exoneration Eyewitness identification was ‘enhanced’ when witnesses were shown photos of Keaton; new evidence of his false confession sur­faced; prosecutors convicted three others unrelated to Keaton for the same crime (while Keaton was still incarcerated)
• Time served 1 year on death row; 1 year in general population (remained in prison on unrelated charge for another 5 ½ years)
Ala n Gell
• Convicted of the robbery and mur­der of a retired truck driver
• Primary evidence at trial Witnesses testimony presented by Gell's ex-girlfriend and her best friend, both of whom admitted to being at the scene of the homicide
• Reason for exoneration Prosecutors withheld evidence dur­ing the trial, including an audio tape of one of the girls who said she had to make up a story about the murder
• Time served 4 years on death row, 2 years general population
Perr y Cobb
• Convicted of first-degree robbery and murder of two men
• Primary evidence at trial Eyewitness testimony
• Reason for exoneration Eyewitness told an assistant state attorney that she and her boyfriend had committed the robbery and the boyfriend had killed the two men
• Time served 4 years on death row, 3.5 years in general population
Ma
dison Hobl ey
• Convicted of 7 counts of felony murder (including that of his wife and infant son), one count of arson, and 7 counts of aggravated arson
• Primary evidence at trial Witnesses placed Hobley at a gas station filling a gas can shortly before the arson; police officers testified that Hobley had given a vol­untary confession, though no record of the confession existed
• Reason for exoneration Prosecutors withheld evidence that Hobley's fingerprints were not found on the gas can entered into evidence at trial and that a second gas can was found at the scene that was apparently destroyed by police prior to trial — Hobley was exonerated by gubernatorial pardon
�� Time served 8 years on death row, 5 years in general populationExonereesinterviewed to-date14 uncg research
choose to isolate and rebuild a new identity not founded on this.”
While Kirk Bloodsworth stayed in his community, he initially tried running from his past. But as time went by, he discovered that wasn’t working for him. Then he attacked it head-on.
His shift isn’t unusual. “People’s coping practices change through life,” Westervelt says.
Those who shift to a promotion-focused strategy try to create posi­tive outcomes by disclosing their past, making meaning out of what happened to them, becoming public advocates and connecting to fel­low exonerees.
Many choose to fight for legislation that would abolish the death penalty.
“It allows them to tell their stories over and over and over. And most of the time their stories get validation. It validates their reinter­pretation of self. That’s helpful for coping. It allows them to reconstruct a new identity based on the incident. If you look at trauma survivors in general, retelling their stories is important.”
But it has a down side. Such work is exhausting on a number of levels. Shabaka Brown used to fight against the death penalty but does not do it any more. “I think it tires them out.”
Compensat sation
“I have a 4-year-old now. It’s important that I choose to do something for research that is valuable enough in my mind. Something worthy of being away. I want to do something to make this a better place.” — Dr. Saundra Westervelt
Hearing all of these stories does not come without personal reac­tions. Westervelt is a researcher, but she’s also a mother and a person who cares deeply about what happens to these wronged people.
U U
ltimately
, she wants this research to help those who work with exonerees and inform those who have an opportunity to change things for them.
“Most consider the exoneration to be the victory. But it’s not a vic­tory if we re-victimize the person when they get out.”
In some states, compensation is offered to the exoneree but not in every state.
“We would argue stringently it’s a good thing but it’s not the end-all thing,” she says.
For one, most don’t know how to manage money. Kirk Bloodsworth received $300,000 and it quickly dwindled away.
“They are not very adept at social interaction, and people come out of the woodwork and want money. It can’t be thought of as the only solution.”
She believes the system has a continuing obligation to help these people as they readjust to life. But before the system fulfills these needs, it needs to be aware of what those needs are.
“It’s not enough to say, ‘You’re out now.’ We have an obligation to them. As a society, we owe them a debt.” r
Life after death rowA sampling of interview questions:
What was your first day out of prison like?
D
id you receive anything at all from the prison or state upon your release? If so, what? If not, what do you think they should have provided for you?
D
id you have particular people who seemed to always be in there with you in the fight (advocates)? People who maybe had hope when you didn’t? Did such people come and go? How did that affect you?
O
nce you got used to the idea, what did you begin to think about as far as what would happen once you were released? A job? Your family? Where you’d live? What? Had you already been thinking of these issues prior to your acquittal?
A
fter this initial stage of being released, how prepared were you for rebuilding your life? What do you wish you had had then as a way to prepare for your release?
What has life been like since your release, with regard to . . .
• feelings about self and family, values, beliefs about justice system?
• family responsibilities, participation and support?
• participation in friendship networks?
• employment status, employment opportunities, employment obstacles?
• reintegration into community life?
H
ow, if at all, have any of these things changed from your life before the conviction and how have they changed since your release?
H
ow did the community react to your release and the evidence of your innocence?
H
ave you had to cope with people who still believe you to be guilty? How do you cope with that? Do you try to fight back, convince them otherwise, or just retreat?
What would your life have been like if this had not hap­pened to you?s p r i n g Post-release needs
1. A plac e to call home
• material support
• practical support
• emotional support
2. Safety and freedom
• safety from any real threat of death
• freedom to explore/define oneself in the world
Alan Gell, left, and Darryl Hunt, right, lobby legislators to support the moratorium on the death penalty at the North Carolina Legislature at the beginning of a short summer session. Hunt was released from a sentence of life in prison due to DNA evidence that fully exonerated him.
O
n Apr il 12, 2006, Gell waswas arr est ed again — this time on charges of statutory rape and indecent liberties with a minor, a former girlfriend who was 15 at the time. Re-incarceration is not an uncommon thing among exonerees, Westervelt says. “They struggle when they get out, and many cite they are under a great amount of scrutiny. They feel a pressure to be super-clean.
Re-incarceration is part of the readjustment problem.”
3. Recognition and understa rstanding
• recognition of the trauma inflicted on them – may be best accomplished by telling the story to others (privately or publicly). With exonerees, it usually involves an immediate press conference.
• understanding by those who hear the story, thus creating a ritual of reconnection. This is essential for those who share in that person’s private life as well as those who are aware of the person as a somewhat public figure.
4. Reconnect ion
• with self — having integrated the lessons of the experience
• with primary group others — family, close friends, attorney, associates
• with the wider world as a person of con­sequence whose life experience matters to the larger public on issues of prosecution, persecution, and prevention
A
dapted from Judith Herman's “Trauma and Recovery” (1997)
spring 2006 15
16 uncg research
Dr. Micha el McIntosh of th e Depapartm ent of Nutriti on is a broad-shouldered man with a rock-hard handshake and the look of extreme fitness.
A nutritionist and registered dietician, McIntosh works out regularly, watches what he eats and preaches moderation as the key to staying healthy.
Curiously, his research focuses heavily on conjugated linoleic acid, a naturally-occurring fatty acid that is sold commercially and hyped as a “miracle” weight loss pill. Advertisers boast that CLA promotes weight reduction and increases muscle mass.
Don’t believe the hype, says McIntosh, who recently directed a four-year study of the role CLA plays in shrinking fat cells and inhibiting fat cell growth.
“I wish there was a magic formula, but I think it’s moderation,” he said. “I have to work out every day. It’s really a question of moderation and lots and lots of physical activity.”
McIntosh’s research has serious implications for obesity management. Statistics show that 64 percent of American adults are overweight and nearly half of those are obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Fifteen percent of children ages 6 to 11 are overweight as are 15 percent of adolescents ages 12 to 19.
If scientists identify how CLA works, they might be able to create a similar substance to treat obesity without harmful side effects.
CLA is found mostly in dairy products from ruminant animals including cows, goats and lambs, and it is passed on to humans when they eat these products. CLA is a byproduct of the fermentation process that occurs in ruminants — animals with a special digestive system.
At least 28 varieties of CLA exist but the most abundant isomers — compounds that have the same kind and number of atoms but differ in the atomic arrangements in the molecule — in animal products are the cis-9, trans-11 isomer, which accounts for about 80 percent of the isomers, and trans-10, cis-12, which accounts for about 10 percent.
In their lab in Stone Building, McIntosh’s students and a technician inject a concentration of 30 micromolar of chemically-processed CLA into human fat cells under the skin (CLA in
fatpharm
By Da na Da mico
Illustrat Illustrat
ion
b
y Mitr e Design
Is conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) a magic formula for weight loss? CLA has been shown to cause mature fat cells to shrink, but Dr. Michael McIntosh warns too many questions
are unanswered.s p r i n g 2006 17
18 uncg research
BSA
9, 11 CLA
10, 12 CLA
10, 12 CLA + Rosiglitatazone
Trans-10, cis-12 CLA's suppression of lipid content is reversed by the hypoglycemic, anti-diabetic drug Rosiglitazone
Trans-10, cis-12 CLA increases the levels of p-1kk, a marker of imflammation, in human adipocytes
s p r i n g 2006 19
human blood levels ranges from 10-70 micromolar). The fat cells, which are stored in liquid nitrogen, come mostly from abdominal tissue.
The first indication that CLA affects the cells can be seen just three hours after injection. “We see this through our markers, the assays that we do, to measure cell signaling,” McIntosh said.
McIntosh’s team has found that trans-10, cis-12 CLA — not cis-9, trans-11 CLA — inhibits baby fat cells from filling with fat and causes mature fat cells to shrink. When cis-9, trans-11 CLA is injected by itself, fat cells actually grow, McIntosh said.
The shrinkage of the fat cells is due largely to the suppression of glucose and fatty acid uptake. “We think it changes the signals within cells to stop taking up glucose and fatty acids — hence the triglycerides — and that’s why the cells get skinnier,” he said.
The bad news is the body needs a place to store the extra energy it consumes. Glucose and fatty acids are the building blocks of triglycerides, the storage form of fat. If CLA prevents the formation of triglycerides, then fat circulates in the blood where it can be taken up dangerously by organs.
O O
ne
clinical study showed that the trans-10, cis-12 iso­mer reduced body weight but it worsened patients’ diabetes, McIntosh said.
The CLA suppression of glucose and fatty acid uptake is also associated with the secretion of pro-inflammatory cytokines, McIntosh’s team has found. The inflammatory hormones cause hypertension, diabetes and athroscelerosis, which is the accumu­lation of lipids in arteries that leads to plaque formation.
McIntosh is submitting a manuscript for publication on this issue.
When he adds several types of pro-inflammatory agents to human fat cell cultures, the inflammatory response is “huge.” One study shows that morbidly obese people produce more inflamma­tory cytokines than moderately overweight people, he said.
“It’s one of the hottest areas in obesity research,” McIntosh said.
E E
xactly
what makes trans-10, cis-12 CLA trigger cytokine pro­duction and impair glucose and fatty acid uptake remains unclear.
McIntosh is seeking a five-year, $1.6 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to study the mechanism that makes it happen. He wants to identify the molecular events that occur in the first three hours after CLA is injected.
Currently, CLA is sold as a dietary supplement at health food stores and online. Most supplements advertise that they contain equal parts trans-10, cis-12 CLA and cis-9, trans-11 CLA.
McIntosh warns that the supplements are totally unregulated by the Food and Drug Administration, and their effectiveness in humans is unproven.
“People can say they do all of these wonderful things,” he said. “All of them can be snake oil.”
O O
ne
maker of CLA suggests that the supplements could improve immune health, heart health and the maintenance of nor­mal blood glucose levels, according to its marketing materials.
McIntosh said at least 10 human studies show consum­ing CLA supplements caused some weight loss or fat loss, but another 20 studies indicated it did not reduce body weight or fat in humans. Ninety percent of animal studies show weight loss but the animals are given much greater quantities of CLA, he said.
Potential adverse side effects and too little information on the efficacy of the supplement make it difficult to advocate using it, he said.
McIntosh said many questions remain unanswered. If CLA decreases body fat, then how much and which type of isomer does one need to take daily? When would CLA be contraindi­cated? What is the most reliable source of CLA? What are the potential side effects? Will taking enough CLA reverse or decrease obesity without side effects?
McIntosh’s interest in both nutrition and teaching coalesced continents away in the small West African country of Cameroon. McIntosh worked in the French-speaking country as a member of the Peace Corps from 1974-78.
During his first year there, McIntosh volunteered to fill in for a missionary teacher who fell ill. His short stint teaching English to seventh- to ninth-grade students actually lasted three months, and he got the itch to teach from that experience. “That’s when I got excited about teaching,” he said.
He was also exposed to nutrition for the first time when, as an inland fisheries volunteer, he helped build small lakes and big fish ponds. He taught people on the country’s northern plateau to raise tilapia, an algae-plankton feeder that thrives in ponds with little oxygen.
McIntosh, who has been teaching at UN CG since 1989, describes his position as the principal investigator of a team of researchers. That team is currently comprised of graduate students Soonkyu Chung, Arion Kennedy and Amanda Troy; undergraduate student Kristina Martinez; and Kathy LaPoint, a research technician III whom McIntosh supports with funds from his grant proposals.
McIntosh said his students design the experiments, treat cul­tures and harvest cells, conduct assays that measure the outcomes of treatments, analyze data, and prepare data for presentations and publication in peer-reviewed journals.
He said his job is to find money for research, mentor the stu­dents during their research training and coursework and help them transition into their next professional endeavor.
He loves his work. “I never really questioned doing some­thing else,” McIntosh said. “It’s not a job. It’s more like a profes­sion that I enjoy — both the research and the teaching.” r
fatpharm20 uncg research
By Sean Ol son, St aff writer
P
hotography by David Wilson, St aff Photographer
The Perfect Form
For Depapartm ent of Art Profess or Bill y Lee, research is less likely to include a lab coat than a pair of plaster-spattered coveralls. He doesn’t stock beakers or centrifuges in his studio, but he’s got plenty of molds, models and a hell of a lot of intensity.
Sure, he’s worked with ALCOA Aluminum on metallurgy research because he was interested in the light fragmentation of metal surfaces for sculptures. He’s also studied as a fellow at one of the world’s premier engineering schools — the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
But for Lee, research also means observing, seeing things and noting them, even mundane or ordinary things: the way a building presents itself on the horizon, the simple sexiness of a disc.
“The term ‘research,’ for me, evokes a methodical and systematic gathering of information which is subsequently evaluated according to a process characterized by logic and analytical rigor,” says Trevor Richardson, curator and critic. “Artists, for the most part, work in a much more intuitive way. They amass information in a more random, associational fashion than their scientific peers.”
E E
xperience,
Lee believes, informs art. And then art informs itself.
Take “Eos,” a piece that Lee did in Guilin Yuzi-Paradise Sculpture Garden in China. The 27-ton piece includes two simple discs or wheels that, on the interior, have slight and smoothly worked convex portions. That piece inspired Lee to use discs to explore the sensuousness of simple objects in another piece.
“Right now, I’ve stopped working on what I call the big head pieces [such as “Eos”] because I’m working on this,” Lee says, touching a small piece, which looks like two discs, the size of din­ner plates only thicker. The discs are part of a piece he is working on for a proposal for a sculpture park in Shanghai.
Lee sees something wonderful in taking inert, hard material such as granite and transcending that hardness by sculpting it into a something that is sensuous without being figurative.
“I really like this piece,” Lee says, gently touching the discs. “The interior is remarked by a smoothness. It’s very sensual, like a breast or but­tocks. Outside, it isn’t worked. It’s rough. I’m interested in that, the idea that from such a simple form, you can get that sense, that sensuousness.”
Pop-artist Andy Warhol believed the more he looked at things, the more likely they were to lose all meaning whatsoever. Lee believes that the more one looks at something, the more it changes.
Billy Lee’s studio
(right) is an assemblage of cake pans, plaster and works in progress. His sculptures play on the ideas of form and sensuousness.
s p r i n g 2006 21
22 uncg research
The Perfect Form
“Perception and observation are ongoing and always challenging,” Lee says. “One is constantly honing one’s perception through observation.”
Dr. Carl Goldstein, professor and coordinator of art history at UN CG, agrees.
“This study of form, your eye for form, is constantly being refined. It’s not something you are born with. It’s something you have to work at, pay attention to,” he says.
The practicalities of Lee’s art can be difficult. The margin of error for 27 tons of granite is much different than say, a canvas and paints. You don’t just take a block and start cutting.
Lee starts by making small-scale works. Take that convex shape on “Eos,” which he is using in the other piece, a pair of discs between which a human figure is suspended. He uses plaster to make models. But, to get different curves, he uses somewhat unusual research tools: various-sized cake pans to make the discs, and several different bowls and woks to mold the plaster and get just the right curvature.
It’s all part of the process, Lee says.
“
I
t takes so long to kick the idea around. It’s just in your head, you know? But this is a way to kick the idea around.”
GE
TTING HI S HAND S ON ART
As a child growing up in England, Lee had no idea he would study art. He didn’t come from a family of artists. When he was in “state school” (high school), he was more interested in shop than almost anything else.
“I’d always made things and enjoyed making things with my hands, so I was always more interested in these vocational classes. Shop classes,” he says. “I guess I enjoyed making those sorts of things and excelled at it. But an art master introduced the idea of going to art school where I could continue to work with my hands.”
Sure, he holds a BFA from the Birmingham College of Art and Design, and an MFA from the Royal College of Art in London, Britain’s premier art school. But he is also the only artist to be named a Kennedy Scholar. The Kennedy Scholarship is a British fellowship in honor of John F. Kennedy that funds students’ post-graduate studies at Harvard University or MIT.
Lee spent time at MIT’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies, to which he and 12 other fellows from vari­ous art disciplines were invited to work on collaborative projects in art, science and technology.
Given this experience, Lee sees a lot of crossover between architecture, engineering and art.
“When you look at sculpture in the larger sense, it seems like it encompasses all of these things. Pure engineering is a kind of abstract creative process. As a visual artist, I think there is more in common than uncommon with, say, engineering or architecture.”
E E
ngineers
have worked with Lee to certify his calculations of the load-bearing strength of certain sculp­tures, to calculate wind-bearing or to calculate materials’ ability to withstand earthquakes. He often talks with architects about things such as the strength of certain kinds of concrete.
That very analytical side — that MIT side — seems to heavily influence his work; some of it looks almost engineered with its straight and hard lines and edges, its severe angularities. And, yet, in the hard granite among the geometric forms, Billy’s work has a smoothness here, a rounded edge that makes it … well, human.
His work has certainly found favor in the art world. It is shown around the globe, from Greensboro to as far away as Japan, China, Hungary and Britain. He’s held solo exhibitions at the Royal Society of British Sculptors in London, the MB Modern gallery in New York, the Galeria Zero in Barcelona, Inoue Gallery in Japan, and taken part in group shows at the Guggenheim in Venice — just to name a few.
FO
RMS AND ABSTRACTS
Looking at images of Lee’s mammoth art that rests in a sculpture park in China, the forms are heavy and seem abstract and daunting. But then … a head appears, a torso … large discs or wheels are legs. And, sud­denly, it occurs to you — these aren’t things. They are human. Or almost human. They are gods.
In that sense, he seems to have mastered the delicate balance of spanning abstraction with the figurative.
“The syntax the sculpture employs may still be essentially minimalist, but Lee has infused it with a subtle, anthropomorphic presence,” Richardson wrote of Lee’s work in Sculpture magazine.
“Billy’s training had to do with recognizing differences in form, and exploiting those differences, doing something different with that. That’s something that’s very … complex,” says Goldstein.
Given his teaching schedule and the medium Lee has chosen to pursue, it’s amazing that he has done so much.
Lee will continue his work in several weeks when he travels again to China to start on a number of pieces for a solo exhibition that will be shipped back to the states.
“Making sculpture is physically exhausting, and Billy works all the time,” Goldstein says. r s p r i n g 2006 23
1. EO S 2004, Black granite, Memorial Rose Garden, Chin Pao Shan, Taipei, Taiwan. Permanent Collection. 2. BigHead 2005, 16' height, Black Granite, Goodwood Sculpture, W.Sussex. UK. Permanent Collection. 3. untitl ed Greensboro, Collection of Jane and Richard Levy. 4. KISS 2005, 80" dia., Black granite, Guilin, China. 5. Matt Matt huis Rex 1996, 18' x 15' x 35', cast iron and steel, Dunaujvaros Sculpture Park, Hungary. Permanent collection. Photos 1,2, 4 and 5 provided by Billy Lee.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.24 uncg research
Water's long, strange trip
E
very drop of water has a story.
If it could speak, it could recount tales of the lands it has traveled,
the organisms it has harbored,
the part it has played in sustaining
the web of life.
Dr. Anne Hershey, a biologist who has studied lakes and streams from areas
both bustling and pristine,
is interested in the story a drop of water can tell about how its travels alter natural cycles. What living things are surviving within?
How plentiful are they? How are they changed by its journey through the landscape? What nutrients does it contain
and are they in balance?
The life story of a drop of water is inextricably linked to our own. After all, only 1 percent of the earth’s water supply is fresh water, and as the population grows,
this limited resource is constantly impacted and placed in greater demand.
By Tiffany Edwarwar ds
Gr
eensb oro Photograp hy by Lee Adams
Alaska n Photograp hy by Matt Matt Keyse
This page, an Alaskan landscape
Facing page, North Buffalo Creek, Greensboros p r i n g 2006 25
26 uncg research
In the past, scientists studying lakes and streams have usually focused on the water-body itself, rather than thinking of it as an inte­grated part of the landscape. Through a series of studies in North Carolina and Alaska, Hershey is looking at the way freshwaters are affected by the land that surrounds them. For example, it is well known that the biological health of a stream suffers when it flows through an inner-city park, rather than a forest glen. However, it is not known whether and to what extent an urban stream can recuperate after gov­ernment restoration projects return its banks and bottom to a more nat­ural state. In addition, can a stream recover from point-source effluents, such as treated water from sewage treatment plants? Hershey hopes to learn more about the resiliency of freshwater systems in light of such factors. Far away in Alaska, she is looking at what changes occur in the biology of a lake when global warming transforms the surrounding tundra from grassland to shrub-covered hills.
Life as an Urba n Str eam
U U
rban
streams are unlike their rural cousins. Storm water, which is funneled into the streams through a system of gutters and pipes, fills urban streams with sediment, and the swift-flowing water cuts deep into the banks. Straight, sand- and silt-bottomed streams tend to have higher temperatures, offer few places for fish and other organisms to live, and clog the gills of fish and the invertebrates they would feed on.
“There are a lot of things missing that result in loss of function. There is low biodiversity,” Hershey said. “For example, if you sampled a forested stream, you might find 100 or more species of invertebrates and a few dozen species of fish. In an urban stream, you find a few dozen invertebrates and less than a dozen species of fish.”
Because the water runoff from pavement does not pass over tree roots to be filtered, it carries pesticides and nitrogen- and phosphorus-rich compounds such as lawn fertilizers, sewage overflow and animal manure into streams. Healthy streams have the capacity to absorb some such pollutants from the land. However, in urban environments, the streams are overwhelmed by the abundance of incoming nutri­ents. As the streams feed into larger waterways, the problem increases exponentially. In North Carolina, for example, nitrate-rich water at the end of the Cape Fear River basin provides a hospitable environment for Pfiesteria, a toxic alga that has been blamed for fish kills and human health problems.
In the past few decades government officials have begun to man­date stream restoration and require controls on pollutants in streams. The restoration projects usually require the regrowth of trees and other vegetation along stream banks (riparian zones), the rebuilding of bends in the stream (meanders), and the introduction of rocks, which provide essential habitat for fish and invertebrates. The projects are costly. In a 2004 report, the N.C. Ecosystem Enhancement Program estimated that the state’s 19 urban stream restoration projects cost an average of $201 per foot to complete.
Few scientists have studied how effective these well-meaning mea­sures have been. Hershey is leading a team of students to determine precisely what effects development has on streams and whether resto­ration effects are successful countermeasures. Their efforts have been funded by the Water Resources Research Institute and the Julia Taylor Morton Endowment Fund.
N N
orth
Buffalo Creek, which flows through Greensboro, is among the headwater streams of the Cape Fear watershed. It was identified as impaired in the Cape Fear Basinwide Water Quality Management Plan in 2000. The study cited in-stream habitat degradation, impaired biological communities and the presence of fecal coliform bacteria.
In an article published last year by the North American Benthological Society, Hershey and student A.J. Ulseth reported the results of an examination of nine sites along North Buffalo Creek. Selected on the basis of how the land next to the waterway was being used, the sites stretched from Hamilton Lakes Park to Rankin Mill Road and encompassed the waters upstream and downstream of the North Buffalo Creek Waste Water Treatment Plant.
The water in North Buffalo Creek downstream from the water treatment plant contains about 50 percent treated sewage. During the water treatment process, Hershey said, most of the carbon (organic matter) is removed from the water but most of the nitrogen remains. In fact, the nitrogen content of the water downstream from the treat­ment plant tested as much as 10 times higher than the water sampled upstream of the plant. The water samples were taken about every two months from June 2001 to June 2002. Hershey and her students are studying what happens to all that nitrogen in the stream, by measur­ing how much of it can be processed by the stream biota.
In addition to studying the consequences of point-source efflu­ents such as the water treatment plant, her students are also looking upstream of the plant to gauge North Buffalo Creek’s health after restoration efforts. Graduate student Robert Northington examined fish populations in restored and unrestored sites and discovered that while there were more fish in restored sites than in unrestored, there still weren’t as many fish as one would find in a forested site. Another student, Erin Lynam, found that there was more oxygen present in the water of restored sites than in unrestored sites.
The overall restoration benefits, however, Hershey cautions, have been minimal.
“It turns out restoration is doing some good, but it’s not doing enough,” she said.
Less ons from the Arct ic
In Alaska, Hershey applies the same theory — the health of the earth’s water supply cannot be separated from the landscape in which it resides — to a vastly different locale.
Hershey’s specialty is studying the relationship between benthic (bottom) and water column dwellers. Since coming to UN CG more than seven years ago, she has studied biotic communities in almost 200 arctic lakes. Her studies have been funded by the National Science Foundation.
“In Alaska, you can study how lakes are supposed to work — with a minimum of human interference,” Hershey explained. In addition to being subject to contaminants, lakes/reservoirs in the Triad are too large for whole lake experiments.
Water's long, strange trip
U
rban streams are unlike their rural cousins. “There are a lot of things missing that result in loss of function. There is low biodiversity. If you sampled a forested stream, you might find 100 or more species of invertebrates and a few dozen species of fish. In an urban stream, you find a few dozen invertebrates and less than a dozen species of fish.”s p r i n g 2006 27
Above and right are images of Alaska. With the increase in global warming the landscape in Alaska is changing at a much greater rate than the rest of the world. More greenery means more carbon in the lake food web. More carbon in the food web could increase lake productivity and
alter food webs.
Below and left are images from North Buffalo Creek in Greensboro. As an urban stream, North Buffalo Creek has its set of challenges, ranging from pollutants to fast-flowing storm water runoff. With stream restoration, some viability has returned but not as much as needed. 28 uncg research
E E
ach
summer, Hershey heads to Alaska with a team of half a dozen students who are conducting individual projects. From mid-June through August they stay in permanent tents at a research facil­ity owned by the University of Alaska. The days, lit by 24-hours of sunlight and subject to unpredictable temperature changes, are long. Scientists often work 14 to 16 hours a day. After eating breakfast pre­pared by the camp cook, the scientists board a helicopter that trans­ports them to remote research sites. After returning from the field, they are awake for several additional hours, processing samples in labora­tories housed in double-wide trailers.
“These studies are helping us determine how important the land­scape setting is in lake productivity. Limnologists (those who study lakes) traditionally focused on algae and ignored organic matter from terrestrial sources,” she said.
“We’re finding dissolved organic carbon is very important in the lake food web — much more important than previously thought.”
Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) enters the lake system when veg­etation and other life decompose and rain water carries the remains into the lake. The presence of DOC often is evident to the naked eye, casting a brownish stain in the water.
At the lake bottom, bacteria begin the process that will eventually feed much of the lake biotic community. Anaerobic bacteria — which survive without oxygen — convert much of the DOC to methane. The methane rises in the form of bubbles and is captured by aerobic bacte­ria, which process the carbon into a form that can be eaten by inverte­brates, and subsequently fish.
By using stable isotopes, Hershey is able to find whether lake organisms are feeding off nutrients that are produced within the lake — by algae — or DOC entering from outside the lake. She and her colleagues add a tracer of 15N — ammonium chloride, — 15N-NH4Cl — to four lakes in different landscape settings. This tracer is easily followed in the food web because 15N can be distinguished from 14N using mass spectroscopy. Most ammonium in the lake is 14N-ammo­nium, so adding a small amount of 15N creates a strong tracer. Algae readily take up ammonium (either 14N or 15N) as a source of nitrogen for making proteins and other important molecules. Any animals that feed on algae can also be traced by collecting them, then measuring the concentration of 15N in their tissues.
If the organisms weren’t feeding on algae, then they must have relied on a food source from the surrounding terrestrial environment, part of which becomes available to them from bacteria processing DOC to meth­ane. The methane that is produced by bacteria when consuming DOC, then consumed through the food web by other bacteria, invertebrates and fish, can also be traced using stable isotopes because methane has a very low concentration of 13C compared to other forms of organic carbon.
Due to global warming, which is affecting arctic climes at a much higher rate than the rest of the world, the landscape in Alaska is changing, and the abundance of shrubs on the tundra is increasing. Dr. Roy Stine, a professor in the Department of Geography, used GIS technology to map the amount and location of vegetation in the region from 1978 to 1999. The maps showed marked increases in vegetation, which is introducing greater amounts of carbon into the lake food web. Science magazine reported in 2005 that a similar pattern is occur­ring in other parts of the arctic.
Further study is required to determine how far reaching the con­sequences of these changes will be. Hershey said possible outcomes could be: the acceleration of lake aging (which would cause the lakes to build up sediment and grow shallower and warmer), changes in the fish population (this has already begun) due to streams drying up and changing course, and the incapacity of the food web to metabolize methane quickly enough.
“Methane is a very powerful greenhouse gas that exacerbates the problem of climate change. Any methane that is produced in the lakes but not consumed is released to the atmosphere,” Hershey said.
She hopes to compare histories of the lakes she has sampled, which vary in age from more than 700,000 years old to those 12,000 years old, to see how the various lakes control DOC and methane differently.
Rippl es
Hershey’s work illustrates that the small day-to-day activities of our personal lives produce ripples that can be felt hundreds, even thousands, of miles away and may cause damage that isn’t easily undone. From the chemically greener lawns that result in fish kills to the emissions from one’s morning commute that alter the diet of lake organisms in Alaska, life on earth is interconnected and messy.
“When we try to pick out anything by itself,” author and conserva­tionist John Muir once wrote, “we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.” r
Water's long, strange trip
Geography professor Dr. Roy Stine and his students have used GIS technology to map changes in vegetation in Alaska. These images are a principle component analysis of the Upper Kuparuk Basin from 1985, center, and 1999, right. The changing color tones represent changing vegetation cover. For example, Shrub Tundra is seen as light yellow-green. By 1999, Shrub Tundra is seen throughout the image. s p r i n g 2006 29
A rainbow arcs across the Alaska work camp where Anne Hershey and her students spend six weeks each summer. Each morning a helicopter lifts them to remote research sites. At the end of the day, the scien­tists spend several hours pro­cessing samples in laboratories housed in trailers.
Below, Hershey, left, and graduate student Matt Keyse demonstrate the use of a multi-probe, which measures several aspects of water qual­ity in North Buffalo Creek.30 uncg research
As an expert in modern religious thought, Eugene Rogers, professor
of religious studies, was dismayed to find academic theologians con-signing
the Holy Spirit to irrelevance.
In his newest book, Rogers upends conventional wisdom on the
topic. “After the Spirit: A Constructive Pneumatology from Resources
outside the Modern West,” published last year, challenges readers to
reassess their views of the Spirit.
“To think about the Spirit it will not do to think ‘spiritually:’ to
think about the Spirit you have to think materially,” said Rogers. In
modern theology, he contends, the Spirit has become a disembodied
entity of sorts without a tangible home — and conversations about it
have consequently lacked depth and urgency.
In Eastern Christian traditions, however, the Holy Spirit is more
firmly grounded in religious culture through links to holy sites, holy
people and holy things. Drawing on this tradition, Rogers explores
the role of the Spirit in a variety of Gospel stories, ranging from the
annunciation to Jesus’ resurrection. In doing so, he reminds read-ers
of the Spirit’s important ties to the tangible world as well as its
unique place in the Trinity.
Jeffrey Stout, professor of religion at Princeton University, has
called “After the Spirit” “a learned, eloquent, gracious response to
the dearth of theological reflection on the Holy Spirit in the modern
Christian West.”
Rogers, who earned his doctorate at Yale, joined UNCG’s faculty
last year after 12 years at the University of Virginia. He is the author
or editor of four books and more than 20 articles and translations.
theword’sout
Christian practice insists on a Trinity of Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit. Yet Christian theology has had trouble
explaining what the Holy Spirit adds. Anything the Spirit
could do, Christ could do better.” Dr. Eugene Rogers
“
Finding the spirit
Dance meets anthropology
When Robin Gee, assistant professor in the Department of Dance,
talks about her research on the Mande in western Africa, she sounds
almost as much an anthropologist as a dancer.
“I’m a traditional artist, and traditional art is really very tied to
social practice, so I chose to pursue a research agenda that encom-passes
both scholarship and performance,” Gee said.
The Mande is a diverse ethnic group that is nonetheless tied by
common language, history, tradition — and dance.
“There is one dance that binds them all, the Doundounbah. It’s
essentially a male-centered dance, a dance of strength and precision,
and I’m looking at the way women are integrated into that dance,”
Gee said. “It’s a dance that’s a prelude to hunting, a prelude to war.
Since women weren’t traditionally part of that context, they played a
secondary role. Now, the context has changed, so a woman’s role in
the dance has changed.”
As the Mande and other groups in Africa have gone from a tradi-tional,
more rural environment to a more urbanized one, Gee is inter-ested
in how they — and their dance — have changed as a result,
especially how women’s normally secondary role has become more
and more essential or primary in the dance.
As part of her research, Gee participates in dances in rural and
urban settings, what she calls “embodying the research” or learn-ing
the dances herself, and then teaches them in her classes. So far,
she has traveled to Guinea twice on such research trips. She plans to
travel to Africa at least two more times. Eventually, she hopes to cho-reograph
her own pieces based on her research.
s p r i n g 2006 31
I was listening to some Rufus Thomas.
“Push and Pull,” I believe it was, or maybe it was “Walking the
Dog”? Both of them feature a saxophone sounds like it’s sliding
upside you in bed on a bone cold night, and look — there are
just certain songs which, look, if you hear them and your ass
does not in any way respond, I am talking not the slightest slow-twitch
muscle memory if you’re old and the minimal sway if
you’re still young enough to shake it, well, look — it’s hopeless.
Give it up. What is even the point?
I had Rufus turned up loud while I fixed breakfast for my lit-tle
brothers. Froot Loops and canned peaches which Carter likes
them drained and Tank cares nothing for the peaches themselves,
he’s all over the syrup. Ten in the morning and Carter and Tank
were playing up under their bed with soup spoons to catapult
plastic army sergeants up into the box springs. I had called them
and I had called them.
I stood in the kitchen, moving to Rufus. It occurred to me to
wonder where my daddy was but when he’s All Clear he likes
to get up early and mess around outside. He’s got a vegetable
garden going every season he’s well enough to get something
in the ground good after the last hard frost. Me and Tank and
Carter, we used to help him out hoeing and especially watering
which we liked because Tank would plant his sergeants in the
furrows and we’d flood their asses head over heel down out of
there when the levee broke high up in the pretend mountains
(there being nothing higher than an anthill within fifty miles of
our corner of southeastern North Carolina) flooding also in addi-tion
to the sergeants, Tank’s namesake tanks, my long-gone older
sister’s troll dolls, Cracker Jacks we would be eating to keep up
our strength while hoeing and watering and whatever else pack-rat
Carter would stick out there to get obliterated by the awe-some
force of nature. But sooner than later it turned itchy and
hot out in that garden and my daddy would tell us it’s okay boys
y’all are now officially off the clock and we’d get on our bikes
and take off. Bye now, Daddy, you better put on some sunscreen!
He’d holler back at us to be sure and hydrate. We might see him
again in an hour or sometimes not until suppertime, it did not
matter when he was All Clear.
The Froot Loops were puffing up, pink-milk-soaked for
nearly an hour while I did not bother looking out for my daddy
and called to my brothers who did not come and did not come.
Could have been they hollered something smart-assed back at
me. Likely I had turned up Rufus even louder, was walk walk
walking that dog or doing that dance they call the Push and Pull.
All I know is somehow I felt it, through the sweet saxophone and
a rhythm section so slaphappy it slung water out of the muddy
Mississippi all over them boys’ breakfasts when I went to pour
some milk in their glasses: the end of the All Clear in my poor
daddy’s head.
That morning my daddy went off for the worst time,
Publishing that first book. So many would-be, daydream writers think
about it. The readings. The movie deals. The billions in royalties.
“Many young writers think if they publish their first book, that it will
change their lives,” said Craig Nova, professor in the department of English.
“It doesn’t. Or, if it does, it changes your life for the worse.”
Take it as a note of experience. At the fresh age of 26, after publishing
his first book, the award-winning “Turkey Hash,” Nova went back to work. He
worked as a cabbie in New York. He worked in construction. He drove a truck
and managed real estate.
“If I got a little extra money in the bank, whatever I was doing, I’d drop it,
and take up writing full time until it ran out,” Nova said. “I didn’t really start
making a living at it until my fourth book.”
Now, after 12 books and 25 years making a living at novels, Nova, the
Class of 1949 Distinguished Professor in the Humanities at UNCG, has the hard
work part of writing down pat. During his hard-scrabble days, his schedule
went something like this: work for 12 hours; eat and get a nap; write for a few
hours; go to bed. Repeat.
He’s also got the research stuff down, too. Nova believes experience is
the way to inform writing.
When he was writing a book having to do with doctors, he spent time in
an emergency room. When he was writing about a female cop who worked the
vice squad, he spent eye-opening time with the New York City vice squad.
“I like to be around people when they are doing things. Not talking,
understand, but doing things,” Nova said.
So, when he heard about a shooting that involved state troopers, he
began his research by riding around with a highway patrolman.
“In order to be able to write about this thing, I was out there riding with
him at 110 miles an hour. You know, incredibly exciting. But … I had to admit
I was just having fun or spending time with someone whose life was more
exciting than mine on an hour-to-hour basis. And that’s no way to write a
book. You write a book the old fashioned way — one word at a time.”
All those words ended up being “Cruisers,” his 2004 book about a dis-turbed
man crossing paths with a state trooper.
Now he is finishing up another book, a novel about a female police officer
in 1930s Berlin.
For research, he read histories of police departments in the Weimar
Republic and visited Berlin and the Berlin Police Museum. He also sees, in the
political tensions in that place and that time, parallels to our own country and
our own time.
“Besides,” Nova admitted, “I just wanted to tell a great story.”
The study of writing
Department of English Professor Michael Parker is the author of five books, the most recent of which is the acclaimed
“If You Want Me to Stay.” One critic ranked it among the greatest rock novels ever. Rhythm and blues, rock and roll
play like a sultry soundtrack behind the plot of a boy trying to find his mother after his father goes mad again. Other
critics have hailed Parker’s use of language in rendering an accurate depiction of the eastern North Carolina accent of
a teenage boy. The following excerpt begins the book.
32 uncg research
theword’sout
Typicall y bra nded as hot-tempered and politically disengaged, young men of the Civil War era were in truth very interested in the fate of their state and country, historian Peter S. Carmichael argues in his latest book, “The Last Generation: Young Virginians in Peace, War and Reunion.”
“These men certainly engaged in mischief, such as drinking, gam­bling and hunting, but they also had vibrant intellectual lives,” he said.
Carmichael takes a critical look at the writings of young 19th cen­tury Virginians and provides fresh insight into how members of this generation formed their identities as Southerners and defined the roles they played in the Civil War and the Reconstruction. The history profes­sor examined 75 master’s theses from the 1850s, as well as articles in literary magazines and transcripts from debating societies of the time. The resulting 343–page book was published by the University of North Carolina Press in May as part of the acclaimed Civil War America Series.
“There was more diverse opinion over the question of disunion in the upper South than was generally believed,” the professor said. “The youth preceded their elders in calling for secession. The elders saw political action, such as burning the flag in effigy, as ‘childish,’ and as ‘boys being boys.’ This book takes young people seriously, on their own terms.”
Y Y
o
ung men believed secession would improve their professional futures in the South, and at the same time, protect their region from the supposed abolitionist designs of the North. Moreover, their pleas revealed a vision of slavery coexisting with a modern economy that included light industry, railroads and urbanization. Carmichael’s book challenges those his­torians who see Southerners as defenders of an insu­lated, agrarian way of life.
Y Y
et,
the political posi­tions of the Last Generation shifted throughout their lifetimes.
“We can see how people’s loyalties and identities are transformed by war,” Carmichael said.
The destruction of the war eventually turned these men into zealots who refused to admit the possibility of defeat. After the war, they preached reunion and reconciliation; yet, at the turn of the cen­tury, the mythmaking began, Carmichael said.
“They romanticized their experience to make sure certain political voices would be forgotten. The war became a war between brothers, not a war over slavery,” he explained.
Carmichael gave talks about his new book across the eastern United States last year, including stops at the Civil War Institute in Gettysburg and at Jefferson Davis’ home.
The top ensembl es at the School of Music have captured their creative energies on compact disc. The UN CG Jazz and Wind ensembles released “vision” and “ra!,” respec­tively, in 2005.
The Jazz Ensemble recording features nine tracks, seven of which are original composi­tions by students in the Miles Davis Jazz Studies Program. Director Steve Haines also lent his writing talents to an arrangement and to a composition honoring his native Canada.
“vision” is the seventh CD released by the Jazz Ensemble. Last year’s ���Live with Dewey Redman” drew the attention of Jazz Education Journal reviewer Herb Wong, who gave the recording a Blue Chip Award, citing the students’ strong composing talents.
“ra!” is the 13th recording released by the UN CG Wind Ensemble. The CD features “The Courtly Dances from Act 2 of the Opera Gloriana, Opus 53” by Benjamin Britten, arranged by Jan Bach; “Symphony No. 2” by Frank Ticheli; “Niagara Falls” by Michael Daugherty; “Ra!” by David Dzubay; “Sinfonietta” by Ingolf Dahl and “Radio Waves” by Frederick Alton Jewell. Director Dr. John Locke led the ensemble; Doug Presley guest conducted “Niagara Falls.”
Wind Ensemble CDs cost $10. Purchasing information is available at www.smcamp.org/windensembleCDs.htm. Jazz Ensemble CDs cost $15 and are available at http://jazz.uncg.edu.
The Last Generation:
Young Virginians in Peace, War and Reunion
By Peter S. Carmichael
U
niversity of North Carolina Press
E
nsembles share musical visions p r i n g 2006 33
Is the baby sad or angry or
happy? You would think if
the mom was more accurate,
she’d be more sensitive. But
that’s not enough. You need
to be accurate, and you still
need other things.”
Dr. Esther Leerkes
“
New mothers face many chalenges — learning to feed
their babies, dealing with lack of sleep, sorting through advice from
friends and family. But responding sensitively to their crying infants
may be one of the most daunting tasks.
Crying means a baby needs something, but it can be difficult to
determine exactly what. At the same time, society often judges mothers
on their ability to manage their infants’ distress.
Dr. Esther Leerkes is hoping to uncover more about the process
mothers use to respond to infant distress — in an effort to learn more
about parenting and its effects on early childhood development.
“A lot of people look at broad personality traits or risk factors in
relation to the quality of parenting,” says Leerkes, an assistant professor
of Human Development and Family Studies. “I was more interested in
what mothers are thinking and feeling about their infants’ distress — in
the moment — and how that relates to how the mothers are behaving.”
Leerkes found that mothers who respond sensitively to infants
— which means quickly, frequently and in a way well matched to the
infants’ needs — have several abilities, including being able to identify
their infants’ emotional state.
“Is the baby sad or angry or happy? You would think if the mom
was more accurate, she’d be more sensitive,” Leerkes says. “But that’s
not enough. You need to be accurate, and you still need other things.”
These abilities include:
• Feeling empathetic, rather than annoyed or anxious, in response to
crying.
• Finding positive and realistic causes for an infant’s crying.
• Responding based on the infant’s emotions, not your own.
• Being confident.
“What seems to predict these feelings and thoughts?” Leerkes asks.
“I don’t think it’s surprising that the way we were parented in child-hood
is very much related. But other things matter too, including the
mother’s personality and the quality of her current partner/marital
relationship.”
After beginning her research at the University of Vermont, Leerkes
is continuing her project now with a more diverse parent sample. She
is studying about 100 families and hopes to expand to 300. The moth-ers
are interviewed while pregnant and return when their infants are
6 months old, toddlers and, hopefully, preschool age.
With the aid of funding from the National Institute of Child Health
and Human Development, Leerkes and her researchers observe the
mothers and infants. They often create situations that are mildly
frightening or frustrating for the infants and then observe the mothers’
response.
While much research has been done in free play or problem-solv-ing
settings, Leerkes says few studies have delved into highly emo-tional
times — when children are distressed.
“Yet I think this should be most related to how they do later in
life,” Leerkes says. “I’m interested in seeing if how mothers respond to
infants’ emotions is related to how these infants develop, socially and
emotionally, during early childhood.”
up&coming
The Office of Research and
Public/Private Sector Parnerships
PO Box 26170
Greensboro, NC 27402-6170
Non-Profit Org.
US Postage Paid
Greensboro, NC
Permit 533
This August 2005 SPOT image portrays the research area around Alaska's Lake Toolik merged with a Digital Elevation Model (DEM) of the same area with same spatial resolution of 5m. The image shows the band 4 (elevation) in red, band 2 in green and band 1 in blue. Images such as these have been used to map changes in vegetation in Alaska which coincides with biologist Dr. Anne Hershey's research on the health of lakes in Alaska. To read more about her research, see page 24.