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BYU Today

College Buzz


Education

Dropout Prevention: Fifty-one percent of students with emotional and behavioral disorders drop out of school; the best way to help such students is early detection. An article published in Principal Leadership and coauthored by Ellie Wright Young (BS ’86) and three BYU undergraduates educates school leaders about screening processes that help identify disorders in students.

Engineering and Technology

Flame in the DarknessFlame Fame: Mechanical engineering professors Tadd T. Truscott and Dale R. Tree (BS ’86) were featured on National Public Radio’s Science Friday for creating the first-ever 3-D Light Field Imaging reconstruction of a flame. Their goal is to map a flame’s three-dimensional shape, velocity field, and temperature to develop technologies that burn fuels more cleanly and efficiently.

Family, Home, and Social Sciences

Vexed Voters: Political science professors Christopher F. Karpowitz (BA ’94), J. Quin Monson (BA ’96), and Kelly D. Patterson (BA ’82) published a study in Public Opinion Quarterly showing that voters in the political minority in their neighborhood feel 30 percent less confident in the privacy of their ballot.

Fine Arts and Communications

Mark Magleby

Mark Magleby

New Director: Mark A. Magleby (BA ’89) is now director of the BYU Museum of Art. Magleby replaces Campbell Gray, who accepted a directorship at the University of Queensland Art Museum in Brisbane, Australia. A BYU art history professor for 14 years, Magleby specializes in 18th-century art and architecture, 20th-century European art, and contemporary art theory and criticism.

Humanities

Major Changes: Previously a minor only, Arabic is now offered as a double major in BYU’s Department of Asian and Near Eastern Languages. The new Arabic major must be paired with a primary major, such as Middle East studies or linguistics.

Kennedy Center

Food for Thought: The Center for the Study of Europe (CSE) started a new speaker series, Café CSE, that pairs up scholars of European culture, literature, and economy for dialogues on hot topics. Catch the lively discussion on the fate of the euro, featuring political science professor Wade A. Jacoby (BA ’87) and economics professor Richard W. Evans (BA ’98), at kennedy.byu.edu/archive.

Law School

Law Students, J. Reuben Clark New Court Quarters: The J. Reuben Clark Building just got a new state-of-the-art trial courtroom, featuring an attorney’s well, a bench for three justices, a jury box, an attached jury deliberation room, a rotatingpodium, and computerized lighting that will help set the scene.

Life Sciences

Acclaimed E. coli: A team of nine BYU undergrads bested teams from the likes of Harvard and Duke to win aE. coli gold award in the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) Regional Jamboree. The BYU students advanced to the competition’s world championships with their project, which aims to detect colon cancer using fluorescent E. coli bacteria.

Marriott School

Foreign Exchange: In January 2012 BYU’s Whitmore Global Management Center added two new exchange programs, allowing students to study at the Escuela de Administración de Negocios in Lima, Peru, and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. The center also recently selected seven undergrads to be its first global ambassadors.

Physical and Mathematical Sciences

Globe International Champs: Geology students Matthew H. Davis (’13) and Forrest D. Roberts (BS ’11) took home the 2011 Society of Exploration Geophysicists Challenge Bowl championship in a landslide victory over a team from Nigeria.

Nursing

National Student Nurse: Senior Jaclyn T. Coleman (’12) was elected as a director of the National Student Nurses Association board. She is one of 10 students on the board.

Religious Education

Professor to President: To date, 20 BYU religion professors have served as mission presidents, 14 called while teaching at BYU and six called before, according to the fall 2011 issue of the Religious Education Review. The issue also shares which religion professors have served as General Authorities and on Church committees.