Campus Digest
9/15/2004 | | E. Thomas Sullivan. Photo by Patrick O'Leary |
A Coherent Vision
E. Thomas Sullivan became the University's new senior vice president for academic affairs and provost this July. As the U's chief academic officer, Sullivan takes a position that is as wide as campus and as deep as its population of students and scholars.
In simple terms, the mission of the Office of the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost is to help the University achieve its goals for academic excellence while judiciously allocating the resources that support the U's teaching, research, and outreach obligations. Second in rank to President Bob Bruininks, Sullivan has direct responsibility for the academic planning and budgetary affairs for all colleges and academic units on the Twin Cities campus except for the Academic Health Center. He also oversees central support units and student affairs and provides leadership on issues related to faculty promotion and tenure, academic policy, and graduate and professional education. Here is more about Sullivan as he steps into his new role:
Who: E. Thomas Sullivan
What: Senior vice president for academic affairs and provost
Education: B.A. '70, Drake University, political science and history; J.D. '73 (magna cum laude), Indiana University.
Brief résumé, 1973-95: Law clerk for a federal district judge in Miami; trial attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice and a senior associate at a Washington, D.C., law firm; professor at the University of Missouri, Columbia, and Washington University in St. Louis; visiting scholar at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., Cambridge University in England, and the University of California, Berkeley; dean of the University of Arizona College of Law.
University of Minnesota experience: Dean of the Law School, 1995-2002; full-time teacher and researcher and the Irving Younger Professor of Law, 2002-04.
First task as provost: "The president has asked me to chair a University-wide committee, which we call 'Strategic Directions,' that is designed to look very carefully at the fundamentals of our mission, of our goals and aspirations, of our values. And once those principles have been reaffirmed or identified, to move forward with a strategic plan to implement those in a way that we align our resources, be they public or private, with our academic and intellectual priorities.
"We hope to have a coherent vision and those framing principles in place by late fall for discussion before the Board of Regents."
What alumni should know: "We need to hear from our alumni about where they see the strengths and the priorities of the University, and second, for them to know that [rethinking the strategic directions of the University] is a process that has now begun and it's an important process, and President Bruininks' agenda for the University, both short term and long term, is that we really do build excellence through a coherent vision."
Fake Quakes
What: Multi-Axial Subassemblage Testing (MAST) Laboratory, part of the Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation, a system of 17 major laboratories around the United States linked by a high-speed computer system. The network is designed so that each facility has unique abilities and so that similar structures can be simultaneously tested at multiple sites, with results from one lab affecting tests at another.
Who: MAST is part of the U's Department of Civil Engineering, with participation from the departments of computer science and engineering and electrical and computer engineering. The facility is open on a contract basis for outside researchers.
Where: The MAST lab is on the eastern edge of the Minneapolis campus's East Bank, at 2525 Fourth St. SE.
How: An enormous crosshead of four-foot-thick steel with eight hydraulic arms can move to precise instructions. Structures and large components are bolted between the crosshead and the floor (a five-inch- thick steel plate over several feet of concrete) and pushed, pulled, twisted, and squashed over weeks of testing. In essence, MAST allows researchers in the network to test their designs and structures up  | | The enormous crosshead mechanism at the heart of the new Multi-Axial Subassemblage Testing Lab. Photo courtesy of MAST. |
to 28 feet tall in simulated earthquakes, high winds, and other stressful situations. MAST is by far the largest and most sophisticated lab of its type in the world.
When: A grand opening ceremony is set for September 24. The lab will open for research work on October 1.
Why Minnesota: The expertise of the U's civil engineering faculty, particularly lab director Catherine French (B.S. '79) and co-investigators Carol Shield and Jerome Hajjar, convinced the National Science Foundation to award the University $6.5 million to build the facility and $900,000 a year to operate it for 10 years. The U spent $2.2 million to design the lab and prepare the site. "We have some of the best people in the country in seismic testing here at Minnesota," Shield says. The computer network makes physical location irrelevant. "Why build it in California?" Shield jokes. "An earthquake could destroy it."
Discoveries: U research findings
HIV Resistance
University scientists have identified a cellular protein that might help the body ward off HIV and AIDS. The protein, called APOBEC3F, resists HIV and appears to work independently but alongside an already discovered protein that also battles the virus and may help explain why some people are more resistant to HIV. The two proteins, called retroviral restrictors, work to mutate HIV after it enters cells and reduces the virus's ability to use the cells to keep spreading. But HIV has evolved a counter-defense protein called viral infectivity factor (VIF); more research is needed to determine whether retroviral restrictors in some people are able to evade VIF and why, as well as whether any potential therapies might result from the discoveries. The study was published June 24 in the on-line journal Current Biology.
Blocking Breast Tumors
University researchers have identified a "major hub" for breast tumor growth activity that, if inhibited, blocks tumor growth. Translation factor 4F is part of a cell's protein synthesis machinery and vital to cell life and growth. Certain proteins have been associated with tumor growth, but this is the first study that identifies a "key chokepoint" to prevent those proteins from giving off cancerous signals. U researchers are already working on drugs that will regulate 4F's functions and could begin lab testing within a year. The study was published June 14 in the journal Cancer Cell.
Homesick Immigrants
Immigrants to North America are at high risk for contracting disease when they return to their native countries to visit, a University review of travel and medical data has found. Approximately 10 percent of the population in the United States was born outside the borders, but that group makes up 40 percent of the international travelers. Researchers have learned that immigrants tend to lack pre-travel care, have incomplete vaccinations, and can lose some of their immunity to native diseases over time. Immigrants also tend to stay in higher-risk locations and visit for longer periods than other travelers. Upon returning to North America, their diseases are often improperly diagnosed by physicians. The researchers urged that doctors take full travel histories from North American immigrants and offer full pre-travel health information. The review was published June 16 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Surrogates for PKU Mothers
Women with the genetic disease phenylketonuria (PKU) can still have healthy babies by using surrogate mothers, a University study has found. Although PKU, an inability to properly synthesize protein that can lead to mental retardation and neurological disorders, can be managed through a strict diet, women with the disease have high rates of spontaneous abortions and fetal abnormalities. A surrogate mother carried a PKU mother's fertilized egg, and the baby has shown normal development for more than a year since birth. The researchers urge physicians to discuss the surrogate mother alternative with PKU women who wish to have children. The study was published June 3 in the journal Molecular Genetics and Metabolism.
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