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“Let me just take a moment to absorb this,” Gunn says, her eyes misting over.

This would be a big moment for any scholar, but for Gunn the news caps an academic career that has been far from conventional. As a young woman and mother, she spent years before graduate school working in a foundry making sewer pipes and dodging red-hot sparks shooting out of crucibles of molten iron, then in coal mines where one of her jobs was setting off dynamite. “That was a great job!” she exclaims.

A native of Kentucky, Gunn’s improbable career trajectory began at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. She chose the small, experimental institution because it allowed her to design her own coursework keyed to a lifelong interest in social and economic reform inspired by the civil rights and antiwar movements of the 1960s. By the time she completed her senior thesis, she was already embarked on a life of blue-collar work in Atlanta where she worked, at various times, as a waitress and as a driver delivering meals to Eastern Airlines airplanes.

After a brief spell in North Carolina, where her then-husband was a labor organizer in the textile industry, the couple moved to Birmingham, Alabama, and Gunn ended up at U.S. Pipe & Foundry, at the time under court order to add women and African Americans to its labor force. Then, in 1979, she landed a job with U.S. Steel. It was there that she set off dynamite charges and also worked in an even riskier job—timber car operator— delivering, cutting, and fitting upright beams to shore up the roof of an aging 800-foot-deep mine. “That’s what I did when I was pregnant,” she smiles.

Altogether, Gunn worked four years in the mines. It was during a brief spell as a staff person at the University of Alabama that she decided she wanted a career that would allow her to combine her interests in science and history with her background in heavy industry. Assisted by a fellowship from the National Science Foundation, she enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania in 1979 at age 34, completing her Ph.D. the year she was hired by the University of Minnesota.

Today, her scholarly interests in health policy and occupational medicine have converged in a book project on the history of rural medical practice in 20th century America.

“There are two themes that are consistent,” she says of her unusual life’s path. “One, I have always believed in public education and in the responsibility of society to educate our citizens. The other is a belief that education is really about creating a community of learners.”

A community of learners, Gunn says, that she has the good fortune to have found at the University. —Rich Broderick

AIDS Prevention Online
When the HIV/AIDS epidemic took hold nearly three decades ago, public health educators recognized the imperative of going directly to high-risk populations to wage prevention campaigns. In the 1980s and ’90s, that meant visiting bars, neighborhoods, and other hangouts. That strategy worked: Beginning in the mid-1980s, infection rates among gay and bisexual men had begun to decline. But that changed in the mid-1990s, when cases of HIV/AIDS among 18- to 24-year-old men began to creep upward again.

Simon Rosser, a veteran AIDS researcher at the University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health, has documented one reason for the alarming rise in cases: Increasingly, young men find partners on the Internet. Now, Rosser and Joe Konstan, a professor in computer science and engineering, have launched the world’s first online HIV risk-reduction intervention, called SexPulse. The Web site, five years in the making and made possible by a $3.5 million federal grant, is currently in the testing phase.

“If we don’t do HIV prevention outreach right or in a way that’s most responsive, we’re going to have a new HIV epidemic. There’s enormous urgency in addressing gaps in HIV prevention,” Rosser says.

The researchers hope to drive people to the SexPulse Web site by posting ads and links on gay social networking sites. If the online prevention model works for HIV/AIDS, it could be adapted for other public health purposes, such as cancer prevention, substance abuse, and obesity prevention. One byproduct of the collaboration between Rosser and Konstan: The two now teach a course in e-public health, which focuses on developing online health interventions.

Border to Border on Peanuts
When you’re driving from Texas to Canada in a car that’s powered by the sun, how do you fuel yourself? Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, of course. The University of Minnesota Solar Car Team received the unofficial “sandwich award” in July at the conclusion of the 2008 Solar Car Challenge, a 10-day, 2,400-mile race from Plano, Texas to Calgary, Alberta. Jars of unique-flavored peanut butter and jelly were presented to the team in recognition of the 60-plus PB&J sandwiches per day consumed by the 20-student crew during the race. The U team finished fifth out of 24 cars and also garnered first place awards for best workmanship and excellence in mechanical design. In addition, electrical team leader Adam Shea won an individual Esprit de Corps award for helping other teams during the race. Prior to the start of the race, the team won three awards: best-prepared team, fastest figure-8, and fastest lap. Never underestimate the power of PB&J.

Food for Thought
Students who dine on campus will have to find an alternative to using food trays for their makeshift toboggans, since U dining venues will go trayless beginning this fall. The move is being made in the interests of environmental stewardship, according to ARAMARK, which provides dining services on campus. The food vendor found in a study last year that without trays, diners waste less food—approximately 1.5 ounces per person, which translates into a reduction of about 25 percent per person per year. Other benefits of going trayless included a one-third to one-half reduction in the amount of water used in the kitchen, as well as a decrease in the use of washing chemicals, detergents, and drying agents.

OVERHEARD ON CAMPUS
“It would have been cool to have the exposure.”
—University of Minnesota student Caitlin Jo Scott registering her disappointment following the University’s decision not to allow the school’s logo to appear in the Collegiate Collection of lingerie company Victoria’s Secret. Scott was quoted in the Chronicle of Higher Education.