By Mary Jo Frank
From budget decisions that include tuition increases and a salary freeze for most employees to discovery of 11,000-year-old mastodon tracks, this summer has been a busy one for the U-M. For faculty and staff who were away, the Record offers its annual summer news roundup.
$630 million budget calls for
tuition increases, salary freeze
for most faculty and staff
The U-M’s 1992–93 $630 million budget, approved by the Regents in July, requires sacrifice but repositions “the University to face a future of modest increases in the General Fund,” according to Provost Gilbert R. Whitaker Jr.
Students will pay more with an overall 7.5 percent tuition increase (9.9 percent increase for instate undergraduates). In addition, the $50 per term infrastructure fee was increased to $100 per term and the $60 registration fee was increased to $80.
Along with tuition and fees increases, the amount of money available for financial aid is increasing by $12 million.
“The additional financial aid funds should significantly enhance our ability to attract to Michigan the very best graduate and undergraduate students, without regard to their financial situation,” Whitaker said. “The increases also show that we take seriously our commitment to keep the University open and accessible to every Michigan resident.”
While most faculty and staff will not receive pay raises, those who earn less than $25,000 on an annual basis will be eligible for merit increases under a special $800,000 salary program.
Whitaker said that the cost of a general salary program “is incompatible with the overall budget constraints that we face. Given the total size of our salary budget, a general increase program of any magnitude implies millions of dollars of incremental expenditure. However, the modest cost of the special program can be justified as a compassionate response to the needs of those making less than $25,000.”
Astronomers discover what
may be largest black hole
Astronomers at the U-M and the University of Hawaii’s Institute for Astronomy have discovered a “supermassive” black hole that appears to contain the mass of a billion suns in a galaxy 30 million light-years from Earth.
The dark object found in the center of galaxy NGC 3115 is 100 times more massive than any previously discovered black hole, according to astronomy Prof. Douglas O. Richstone.
The discovery is especially significant because it is based on star velocity measurements that allow scientists to measure or “weigh” the black hole. The discovery was reported in the July 10 issue of the Astrophysical Journal.
Natural resources school changes name, receives
$4.8 million EPA grant
The School of Natural Resources has a new name: the School of Natural Resources and Environment.
Approved by the Regents in July and effective Aug. 1, the name conveys the School’s current focus and identity more accurately, according to Dean Garry D. Brewer.
“As the world’s attention turns more and more to the increasingly challenging and urgent tasks for cleaning up, sustaining and managing the environment, the School has stepped into a leadership role,” Brewer said. “The School provides environmental education, environmental restoration and ecosystem management.”
The School also won a three-year $4.8 million grant from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to lead the country’s first environmental education consortium.
The grant establishes a national center for environmental education here. The Environmental Education and Training Program will create and disseminate training materials on the environment to teachers of kindergarten through 12th grade in public schools.
U chalks up win with robot named CARMEL
A Cybermotion K2A robot named CARMEL—equipped by U-M student engineers with a new brain, computer vision and synthesized speech—won first place in the “Artificial Intelligence Robotics Competition” held in July in San Jose, Calif. The event was sponsored by the American Association for Artificial Intelligence.
CARMEL finished the three-stage competition ahead of 11 other robots entered by university and corporate teams. Stanford Research International finished in second place and Carnegie-Mellon University took third.
Prof. John Kemink shot,
killed in Taubman exam room
John Kemink, 42, professor of otorhinolaryngology and director of the Cochlear Implant Program, was shot four times at close range at 12:02 p.m. June 25 in a Taubman Center examination room. He was pronounced dead at 12:38 p.m. A 68-year old patient, Chester Leo Posby, was arraigned on an open murder charge Sept. 1 in 22nd Circuit Court.
Office of Student Affairs
undergoes reorganization
The Office of Student Affairs is being reorganized to strengthen programs and provide better services to students.
Under the plan developed by Vice President for Student Affairs Maureen M. Hartford, three associate deans will report to E. Royster Harper, associate vice president for student affairs, who has assumed the additional title of dean of students.
Hartford’s goal is “to create a place where students can go for information or help on a broad range of issues, a place they feel they can go when they need answers.”
2 faculty members receive
MacArthur Awards
Two faculty members are among 33 persons nationwide to receive prestigious MacArthur Foundation Fellowships. They are John H. Holland, professor of psychology and of electrical engineering and computer science, and Ann Ellis Hanson, visiting associate professor of Greek and Latin.
Holland, an expert on cognition and artificial intelligence, will receive a five-year stipend totaling $369,000. Hanson, an independent scholar who studies ancient papyri and manuscripts, will receive a five-year stipend totaling $340,000.
Med Center launches
gene therapy trials
The world’s first gene therapy trial using direct transfer of modified human genetic material into the body to treat human disease was performed at the Medical Center in June.
On June 4 a gene was injected into a tumor of a patient with malignant melanoma. The goal: to trigger an immune response that will destroy tumors. This approach, known as in vivo gene therapy, differs from previous gene therapy techniques that remove cells, insert genes in the laboratory and return the modified cells to the body. The focus of the study is to modify tumor cells as they grow in the body to make them more susceptible to attack by the immune system.
Gary Nabel, associate professor of in-ternal medicine and biological chemistry and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, is the principal researcher.
On June 5 researchers began using human gene therapy for patients suffering from a lethal form of a disorder that causes extremely high blood cholesterol
levels.
Familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) is caused by abnormality in the LDL receptor, a liver protein responsible for breaking down the form of cholesterol associated with hardening and narrowing of the arteries (atherosclerosis) and increased risk of heart attacks.
A portion of a patient’s liver was removed to harvest cells, and genetically treated cells were then returned to the patient. Researchers hope to correct liver function using ex vivo (outside the body) gene therapy.
Principal investigator is James Wilson, chief of the Division of Molecular Medicine and Genetics, associate professor of internal medicine and of biological chemistry, and an associate investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Root named Pew Scholar
Terry L. Root, assistant professor of natural resources, has been named one of 10 scholars in the international Pew Scholars Program in Conservation and the Environment.
The program provides awards to outstanding individuals who are committed to research in the conservation of biological diversity. The awards provide $150,000 over a three-year period, enabling young scholars to undertake new and important work that existing funding sources do not support.
Business School inaugurates
Global Business Partnership
The School of Business Administration faculty joined with European counterparts in Brussels in May to inaugurate the Global Business Partnership (GBP).
The partnership, which includes the
U-M, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Brussels and Hiosubashi University in Tokyo, will conduct research into human resource practices, drawing on data from businesses around the world.
The GBP will take a cross-disciplinary approach to projects and will involve business and industry representatives in joint learning teams.
Examples of projects include: effective downsizing, elements needed for a successful global leader or organization, measurement of total quality management, skills needed by middle managers in global firms, and the effects of businesses on the environment.
Zaida Giraldo resigns
Zaida I. Giraldo, director of affirmative action and special adviser to the president since 1989, announced her resignation, effective June 30, at a June 1 program markting the 20th anniversary of the Office of Affirmative Action.
Jimmy A. Myers, associate director of the Affirmative Action Office since 1989, is serving as interim director.
A national search has been launched to fill the position of executive director of human resources and affirmative action. The executive director will be responsible for managing functions now headed by James R. Thiry, assistant vice president for personnel (who has announced he will retire in June 1994); Colleen Dolan-Greene, assistant vice president for academic affairs-personnel; and Myers.
Atkins appointed SILS dean Daniel E. Atkins III was appointed to a five-year term as dean of the School of Information and Library Studies, effective July 1.
Atkins, professor of engineering, is widely recognized as an outstanding researcher and teacher in the field of computer architecture and is the author of numerous articles on both computer architecture and higher performance special purpose processing.
Atkins succeeds Robert M. Warner, who continues to serve as professor of information and library studies and of history.
Blouin gives lecture at
new Russian State University for the Humanities
The U-M has initiated the first scholarly exchange program between an American university and the new Russian State University for the Humanities (RUSH). The exchange focuses on historical scholarship and modern archival principles.
Francis X. Blouin, director of the Bentley Historical Library, delivered the program’s inaugural lecture at RUSH in May.
Blouin and other U-M archivists are sharing methods used by the U-M and other American institutions to facilitate access to archival material.
Public Service Data Base
available on MIRLYN
Nearly 700 entries are on the Public Service Data Base, which is now a menu item on the Michigan Research Library Network (MIRLYN). The database includes the name and a description of the project/activity, the population it serves, the units involved and the kind of activity—consulting, teaching or research. Users can conduct key word searches to find items of interest.
Frank Williams, director of strategic planning in the Office of University Relations, who is in charge of the Public Service Data Base, says it is intended as a tool to increase communication among persons on campus with like interests.
Verbrugge named
Distinguished Research
Scientist
Lois M. Verbrugge, research scientist in the Institute of Gerontology, received the University Distinguished Research Scientist Award, which recognizes “exceptional scholarly achievement on the part of University researchers holding the rank of research scientist.” She will hold the title for the duration of her career here.
On sabbatical last academic year, Verbrugge was a visiting professor in the Department of Sociology at Johns Hopkins University and guest researcher at the National Institute on Aging’s Gerontology Research Center and at the National Center for Health Statistics.
Mastodon tracks discovered
at site near Saline
A U-M paleontologist has discovered more than 20 tracks or footprints of an adult male mastodon preserved for 11,000 years in ancient pond sediment at a site near Saline.
The animal lived near the close of the last Great Ice Age, according to Daniel C. Fisher, professor of geological and biological sciences and curator in the Museum of Paleontology.
Fisher said the find is the longest and most perfectly preserved set of mastodon prints ever reported. The clarity and detail preserved in the mastodon prints give the Saline site significant scientific value, he added.
The mastodon prints are nearly 20 inches across. Fisher estimated the adult male mastodon that made the prints stood between nine and ten feet tall at the shoulder, was 12 to 15 feet long, and weighed between five and six tons.
Theodore Spencer appointed
interim admissions director
Theodore L. Spencer, formerly associate director of undergraduate admissions, is serving as interim director of undergraduate admissions.
Richard H. Shaw stepped down from that post Sept. 1 to assume responsibilities as director of admissions and financial aid at Yale College, Yale University.
