Campus Digest
5/11/2004 | | A 1429 portolan chart painted on goat skin is among the holdings at the James Ford Bell Library. Image courtesy of Bell Library |
Old Map Suggests New Route
Susan Stekel Rippley, assistant curator at the University's James Ford Bell Library, home to rare, 500-year-old maps and books, is happy to bring out some of her favorite items from the world-renowned collection. A 1483 volume recounts Marco Polo's travels in Asia more than 100 years earlier. Reports written by Jesuit missionaries on North America in the 1600s offer fascinating details of the life and the land that was just being explored. A hand-written account by a Venetian nobleman of his travels across the Middle East and India in the early 1600s details the culture and people with illustrations provided by a French artist he met along the road. And a 1466 portolan chart—a nautical map hand-painted on animal skin—includes vivid and colorful images around the serious business of noting every feature along the European and North African coastlines. "There are some one-of-a kind items, some true treasures here," Rippley says. "It's these kinds of special collections that set the U Libraries apart."
A 1424 portolan chart in the Bell Library caught the eye of retired British navyman Gavin Menzies. Large islands are pictured far across the Atlantic on this and other charts of that era, decades before Columbus sailed. Most consider the islands to be based on either myths or tales of long-ago explorers who may have reached North America. Menzies, however, comes to a different conclusion in his recent best-selling book 1421: The Year China Discovered America, which claims Chinese fleets mapped the globe in the early 1400s. While many scoff at the theory, Rippley appreciates that nearly six centuries after the map was created someone can find something new. "It's kind of neat that he could look at this and see something no one else had," she says. "This collection is here for students and scholars to use. Sometimes a student will use items here as the basis for their dissertation, and they help uncover a lot of the detail."
The Bell Library began in 1953 with the donation of 600 books and a handful of maps by James Ford Bell (B.S. '01), founder of General Mills, a former University regent, and also namesake of the U's Bell Museum of Natural History. Bell's original collection focused on European trade, especially fur traders and others in the Upper Midwest. The collection has grown now to some 25,000 rare books and about 2,500 maps, and the focus has expanded to include early European trade and expansion around the globe. Under the care of recently retired curator Carol Urness (B.A. '56, M.A. '60, Ph.D. '82), the library's map collection grew and has become its best-known set of holdings.
The library is open to the public, and all its holdings are cataloged on-line. "We're a public institution and we're open to the public," Rippley says. "We're happy to help anyone with an interest."
Bell's founding donation also included an endowment and funds to create the James Ford Bell Room, which looks and feels like the study in a European manor, softly lit and filled with antique furniture and rugs. It's an appropriate transition from the linoleum and fluorescent lights on the fourth floor of Wilson Library to the world of antiquity. A nonprofit group, the Associates of the James Ford Bell Library, helps with fund-raising, public lectures, and presentations and publishes books and newsletters.
-Chris Coughlan-Smith, '86
Students Spring into Community Service
On their way back to Minnesota from Washington, D.C., this March, a busload of college students stopped at a steakhouse in Pickering, Ohio, for their last spring break meal together. They bounded inside and asked for a table for 43. Then they proceeded to give the overwhelmed waitstaff a hand. "We were taking orders, serving beverages, busing tables," says freshman Nick Lindberg, of North Branch, Minnesota. "And we cleaned the restaurant up before we left. We were out there paying it forward to the steakhouse. It was a huge testament to our group." They also left a hefty tip on the table.
Good deeds and serving others  | | As part of the Pay It Forward Tour, students helped with community projects from Minnesota to Washington ,D.C., over spring break. Photograph Courtesy of Students Today, Leaders Tomorrow. |
is what this group of students—most of them University of Minnesota freshmen—had been doing all week on "Operation: Pay It Forward Tour," a bus trip to U.S. cities from Minneapolis to Washington, D.C. It all began last September, when three students sat up chatting at 3 a.m. about their dreams and chasing them. They formed a group called Students Today, Leaders Forever and devised the Pay It Forward bus tour.
"Our basic dream was to prove that one student can make a difference," says Irene Fernando, of Carson, California. "We're saying, hey, if you love doing something, do it, be the best at whatever you are, and take initiative." By performing community service projects, Fernando says, the student leaders also wanted to crack the stereotype about college students misbehaving on spring break.
The students first traveled to Chicago, where they worked at an affordable housing expo and helped children create flower arrangements for elderly citizens. In Canton, Ohio, they paired up with community members to pick up trash from neighborhoods. In Greensburg, Pennsylvania, they packed 700 boxes of food at a food bank. In West Philadelphia, the students learned about a local resource center's affordable housing, employment, and social services and then headed out into the community to encourage residents to take advantage of its offerings. In Washington, D.C., members worked in a soup kitchen and met with U.S. congresspeople.
"The idea is to change the world little by little," says Brian Peterson of Crookston, Minnesota. "We wanted people in each city to carry on the message. It was the best way we thought of to spread the message outside Minnesota."
Students Today, Leaders Forever now has about 30 members, and the University of North Dakota recently formed a chapter. "Our goal for next year is to have 10 buses meet in D.C., and down the road who knows where it will go," says Greg Tehven of West Fargo, North Dakota. "We feel that, as students, we can be leaders and we need to take initiative, and if we don't like something we might as well change it. It's not going to get any better just thinking about it."
-Shelly Fling
Web hit: The Image Bank
With 17,000 images of Twin Cities landmarks, open spaces, and various types of commercial and residential developments, the Image Bank is of interest to those searching for better urban design ideas—or those who just like good pictures. A product of the U's Design Center for American Urban Landscape, the archive (www.designcenter.umn.edu/imagebank) contains a "best of" section that should be especially interesting to anyone who has ever lived in the Twin Cities. It includes images of the downtowns, parks, lakes and rivers, and the East Bank of the Minneapolis campus.
Both aerial and ground-level images are meant to portray how design can be used to make the metropolitan landscape more livable and sustainable—exactly the Design Center's mission. The center's founding director, Bill Morrish, began collecting images as a way to help residents and developers understand community design. Current director Ann Forsyth drove the process of organizing the images into a searchable on-line database.
The Image Bank is searchable by many different methods, and medium resolution photos suitable for most presentation purposes can be downloaded for free. High-resolution images are available for $7 each.
Discoveries
U research findings
Do Ask, Do Tell
Women are taking more medications than generally believed and are not likely to tell their doctors about all the medicines and herbal supplements they take. A study led by faculty from the University's College of Pharmacy looked at 567 women who visited gynecologists at rural clinics in the United States. Interviewers found that 92 percent took prescription medications and 96.5 percent used over-the-counter medicines like aspirin, antacids, and vitamins. In addition, 59.1 percent used herbal supplements. But researchers found that women generally only reported the medicines and supplements  | | Downtown Minneapolis, one of thousands of miages at The Image Bank. Photograph courtesy of Design Center for the American Urban Landscape |
to their gynecologist that they felt had an impact on their obstetrical care. However, prescription drugs do interact with over-the-counter medicines and herbal remedies. St. John's wort, for instance, can interfere with the effectiveness of birth control pills, and the herb kava can counteract antidepressants. The report was published in the February Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
Harassment Goes On
Despite laws and policies against workplace sexual harassment, such behavior remains a common social phenomenon—and, more than ever, victims include men and adolescents as well as women, according to research done by University sociologist Chris Uggen. He and a colleague analyzed survey results from 1,010 St. Paul high school students in 1988, received follow-up responses from 742 of them in 1999, and conducted in-depth interviews with 33. One-third of young women reported being sexually harassed by their mid-20s; for men the figure was 14 percent. However, using a checklist of harassing behaviors, the researchers found that 60 percent of women and 58 percent of men had experienced some form of harassment. Those who had been harassed as adolescents were far more likely to be harassed as young adults. Men who were targeted tended to be those who did not conform to traditional masculine stereotypes in appearance, in beliefs about gender roles (such as related to housework), in feeling secure financially, and in other ways. The results appeared in the February issue of the American Sociological Review.
Fruit, Grains, and Heart Health
Three to four servings of fruit or grains a day could cut the risk of dying of heart disease by 25 percent to 30 percent, according to a researcher now at the University. The reduced risk was linked to dietary fiber, yet researchers found no such benefit from vegetables, possibly because a large amount of vegetables eaten by Americans are "starchy" vegetables like potatoes and corn. The link between dietary fiber and heart health has long been known. This study, which examined data from more than 330,000 people who participated in various dietary studies, found that those who ate 10 grams of cereal fiber a day had a 25 percent lower risk of dying of heart disease. With fruit fiber, the risk dropped to 30 percent. According to lead author Mark Pereira, an assistant professor of epidemiology who conducted the study while at Harvard University, starchy vegetables have some adverse effects on the heart. If more people were eating leafy, green, dark yellow, and orange vegetables, the positive effects of vegetable fiber may have been apparent, he says. The study was printed in the February 23 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.
Overneard on Campus
"Get involved. . . . Find a candidate you believe in. If you're a Republican, fine, find a Republican you believe in. If you're a Democrat, even finer, find a Democrat you believe in."
—Geraldine Ferraro, appearing on campus for the lecture "The Path to Equality: The 1984 Mondale/Ferraro Ticket," on her advice for women who want to get into politics.
"Time is not on their side, so I and others like me just keep trying to find a cure, be it breast cancer, diabetes, spinal cord injury, heart disease, or children with Fanconi anemia. If you could see what I see and hear what I hear, you would be both moved to tears and at the same time energized to make some small difference each day in these people's lives. I see that stem cells might make that difference."
—Dr. John Wagner, a University pediatrics professor and stem cell researcher, on why he favors embryonic stem cell research.
"I'm all for the research effort at the University, but I'm opposed to embryonic stem cell research. It could have potential, but it is not worth the cheapening or danger to human life. If the powerful can utilize the weak, that's a bad precedent to set."
—Dr. Steven Calvin, assistant women's health professor and co-chair of the University's Program in Human Rights and Medicine.
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