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November 2, 1998
Volume 51, No. 10


TABLE OF CONTENTS

CAMPUS NEWS

New high-speed network connection will help Emory researchers move into fast lane

New faculty council to help decide science initiatives

First Person: Rivadeneira finds value in even smallest foreign 'service'

McDonough and her monkeys have incentive for research

United Way drive in full swing, plenty of time to give

Get tips on evaluating 'extraordinary' at next Great Teachers Lecture

Issues in Progress

New MPH links Peace Corps volunteer service and course work

Irish songwriter Sands graces a "Celtic Autumn Evening" Nov. 6

International Affairs


Special Collections receives notable Afro-Caribbean works

Emory has acquired a collection of approximately 200 books from the library of the late author Rene Maran. The Martinique-born writer, whose career spanned from 1920 to 1960, is widely regarded as the fountainhead of black French intellectual thought in the Caribbean and Africa and is credited with encouraging a generation of writers during his career.

The recipient and reviewer of thousands of books in his lifetime, Maran's collection consisted of French colonial, African, Caribbean and some African-American works. His library was divided at his death and a large section donated by his widow to the University of Dakar in Senegal. The remaining portion is now Emory's and includes many titles acquired by Michel Fabre, founding director of the Center for Afro-American Studies at the University of Paris, who spoke at Emory along with wife Geneviève last week.

Nobel laureates to discuss reconciliation vs. restitution

A free public forum, "Nobel Conversations with Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Wole Soyinka: Truth and Reconciliation or Truth and Restitution?," will take place at 7 p.m. Monday, Nov. 9, in the P.E. Center. Soyinka, the 1986 Nobel Prize winner for literature and Woodruff Professor of the Arts, annually hosts a fellow Nobel laureate for a public dialogue. Tutu, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, is a visiting professor of theology for the 1998-99 academic year.

Soyinka is an outspoken opponent of the military regime in his native Nigeria and currently is calling for a government of national unity and the establishment of a national truth commission to investigate abuses of the late dictator Gen. Sani Abacha.

Tutu, an Anglican archbishop, has recently completed his two-year role as chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the group designed to uncover the facts behind crimes and abuses in apartheid-era South Africa and promote healing. Soyinka and Tutu each will speak briefly on the topic and then jointly take questions from the audience.

 

 

SCHOLARSHIP & RESEARCH

New tenured faculty have variety of interests, experience

Galloway helps develop painless incontinence treatment

Faculty receive funds to help commercialize research


McCormick leads international nutrition meeting

Donald McCormick, Callaway Professor of Biochemistry, recently led a group of renowned nutrition-related scientists from around the world in a meeting in Bangkok, Thailand, to clear any muddy waters that may exist concerning current recommendations for human intake of vitamins and minerals.

The group met in September at the joint Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations/World Health Organization (FAO/WHO) Expert Consultation on Human Vitamin and Mineral Requirements. They reviewed the most up-to-date scientific knowledge about vitamins and minerals and their effects on human nutrition, health promotion and disease prevention in both developing and developed countries. They will now begin outlining practical recommendations, help clarify controversy and propose new guidelines to help promote optimum health.

McCormick is internationally recognized for his research on vitamins and recently helped author recommendations on B-complex vitamins for the United States. The last FAO/WHO guidelines relating to vitamins and minerals were issued in 1974.

 

Paralysis communication device draws world's attention

Two Emory neurology professors have generated a torrent of worldwide media interest with their discovery of a technique that may help patients communicate when they are paralyzed and unable to speak.

Roy Bakay, professor of neurosurgery, and Phillip Kennedy, clinical assistant professor of neurology, have developed a "neurotrophic electrode"-a tiny, hollow glass cone that can be implanted into the motor cortex of the brain to help a patient send signals to "will" a cursor to move on a computer screen and communicate by selecting icons or phrases.

The two professors began testing the technology, which Kennedy first conceived as a graduate student at Georgia Tech 12 years ago, on animals at Yerkes in 1988. The National Institutes of Health recently awarded funding for them to implant the electrode in three patients.

After Bakay presented the research at the Society for Neurological Surgeons meeting in Seattle in early October, a story appeared in the Seattle Times, followed soon by calls from media all over the world including CNN, BBC, NPR's "All Things Considered," The New York Times, Reuters and others.