Notable

Mario Moccia, SIUC's director of athletics, will serve on a prestigious NCAA committee that seeks to improve academic performance and graduation rates in Division I college basketball.

Mario Moccia

The blue-ribbon panel will spend the next 12 to 18 months developing strategies to combat graduation rates in men's basketball that are among the lowest in Division I athletics.

"I am honored to participate in this important endeavor," Moccia said. "First and foremost, student-athletes are in school to get a quality education, graduate and become productive citizens. This committee is designed to make sure men's basketball student-athletes reach their full potential."

Specifically, the committee will analyze research and literature regarding the academic performance trends of Division I men's basketball student-athletes. It will identify factors in the sport that may be impairing the academic performance of these student-athletes.

"Fan interest in the sport of men's basketball has sky-rocketed in recent years," Moccia said. "At the same time, many student-athletes in this sport are not performing in the classroom at the same level as other student-athletes. We need to figure out why that is."

"We are not interested in changing the people who play on the court," said NCAA President Myles Brand. "We are interested in helping those who play be successful."

After the group identifies changes that could enhance academic performance, it will submit a set of recommendations to the Division I Board of Directors.

Moccia is one of 25 committee members, which includes university presidents and chancellors, head coaches, commissioners, directors of athletics and faculty athletics representatives

"Our fans can be proud that the success of the Salukis on the court has enabled me to sit at the table where these important decisions are being made, and that Southern Illinois will have a voice on a national level," Moccia said.

Ella P. Lacey, an SIUC associate professor emerita and most recently interim director of University Professional Advancement, received the top-level volunteer service award from the President's Council on Service and Civic Participation in cooperation with the Peace Corps during a regional Peace Corps reception held May 23 in Chicago.

Peace Corps Deputy Director Jody Olsen presented Lacey with the "call-to-service" pin, which honors those who have logged 4,000 or more hours of volunteer service. Lacey, whose working expertise centered on community health education and health systems organization, spent two years in the Peace Corps in Malawi, working in a district health office and training area health care providers how to set up programs and upgrade staff skills. She also coordinated Malawi's first campaign against polio.

She put that experience to good use after her Peace Corps service ended when the Centers for Disease Control recruited her to assist with a worldwide polio eradication campaign. As part of that volunteer experience, she worked in Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, India and Sierra Leone.

Lacey, a three-degree graduate of SIUC, held cross-appointments in the medical school and in health education before retiring in 1995. She was named a Woman of Distinction in 1991.

George W. Bush created the President's Council in 2003 as a way to thank volunteers and inspire others to follow their example. It has since bestowed more than 400,000 awards for service ranging from 50 hours for children to 4,000 or more. A two-year stint in the Peace Corps represents 4,000 hours.

Two faculty members in SIUC's Department of Radio and Television are recipients of Fulbright grants that allow them to pursue research and teaching opportunities with scholars and students in other countries.

Assistant professor Lisa Brooten is a Fulbright Scholar grantee to the Northeast and Southeast Asia Research Program. Meanwhile, professor emeritus Leo A. Gher received a Fulbright Fellowship to teach international mass media in Azerbaijan in 2008.

The Department of Radio and Television is part of the College of Mass Communication and Media Arts.

Brooten's research in Thailand and the Philippines will look at the newly emerging media reform efforts in those two countries. The Fulbright Fellowship allows Brooten to spend three months in both countries, beginning with the spring 2008 semester, she said.

"I'm very grateful to receive one," she said. "From what I understand, the Fulbright Fellowship is meant as international cultural exchange. It's exciting to be a part of that vision."

"I'm glad to be able to represent SIUC as part of the Fulbright program," she said.

Gher, meanwhile, is receiving his second Fulbright Fellowship. In 2001, he received a Fulbright grant to teach communication law in Croatia.

In Azerbaijan, Gher will conduct seminars on media law, policy and globalization. He will also work with faculty at the newly established Academy of Journalism in Baku to develop a new radio and television curriculum. Gher will conduct a seminar dealing with the social effects of media globalization, and also deliver two lectures.

A faculty member and graduating senior from SIU School of Medicine in Springfield received the 2007 Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine Awards. Dr. David S. Resch, associate professor of medicine and psychiatry and acting chair of medicine, and Dr. Emily R. Young, a 2007 graduate, were announced as recipients at the medical school's graduation in May. Awarded by the Arnold P. Gold Foundation, the national honor is given at many U.S. medical schools to a faculty member and graduating senior who demonstrate compassion, respect for patients and families, and clinical excellence.

Dr. David S. Resch

Resch joined SIU's faculty in 1992. He completed his residencies in internal medicine and psychiatry at SIU and University of Iowa (1990, 1992). Resch earned his medical degree at SIU (1986) and his bachelor's degree at Illinois Wesleyan University (1982). He is board certified in internal medicine, psychiatry and neurology, with added qualifications in geriatric psychiatry and psychosomatic medicine.

Resch is chair of the board for SIU Physician & Surgeons as well as chief of SIU's internal medicine-psychiatry division. He also is medical director for the internal medicine-psychiatry unit at Memorial Medical Center. His other honors include SIU's 2007 Golden Apple Award for outstanding teaching and the Illinois Department on Aging mental health and aging champion. He is a member of Alpha Omega Alpha medical honor society.

Dr. Emily R. Young

After her first year in medical school, Young participated in a summer medical mission trip to Brazil and later traveled Honduras for two weeks with other health professionals representing the Christian Medical and Dental Association. She volunteered for Habitat for Humanity in Springfield as well at a local free clinic in Carbondale.

Young will begin her residency in internal medicine and pediatrics at the University of Tennessee College of Medicine in Memphis in July. She is the daughter of Melvin and Marilyn Young of Buckley.

A lecturer in SIUC's Department of Cinema and Photography is a 2007 Guggenheim Fellowship recipient.

Bruce Charlesworth

Bruce Charlesworth, a multimedia artist who lives in Murphysboro, is among 189 artists, scholars and scientists selected from nearly 2,800 applicants for awards totaling $7.6 million. The average award is $40,211, according to the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and is directed toward assisting research and artistic creation.

The award surprised Charlesworth, who just finished his first year as a lecturer at SIUC. He has applied for funding for several years and received many other grants from other foundations and organizations, but the Guggenheim Fellowship "is the one I have never been able to crack."

"This is great. It is really going to make a difference for me," said Charlesworth, who is working on a series of projects.

Professor Gary Kolb, director of SIUC's New Media Center and associate dean in the College of Mass Communication and Media Arts, described Charlesworth's accomplishments, including the fellowship, as "noteworthy."

"Bruce is a wonderful and talented artist and a great asset to our arts community here in Southern Illinois and at the University," Kolb said. "He has contributed significantly to the College of Mass Communication and Media Arts this year, teaching four classes for us in new media and video. Bruce has been internationally known as a photographer, filmmaker and media artist since the 1980's and has had his work exhibited in many important venues. This Guggenheim Fellowship is yet additional recognition of the fine quality of his work. We are proud to have him teaching with us here in MCMA."

A portion of the fellowship will go into research for development of a new multimedia narrative environment about anticipation and the passage of time, Charlesworth said. He will develop and design the project, produce the video and audio portions, and work out technical issues with the help of consultants. He also will be finding exhibition venues for the finished project.

The environment will include several connected rooms, each with its own physical structure, detail, ambience and its own sequence of events shown on video, Charlesworth said. Movement and touch sensors will trigger the sensory media, he said. Viewers will be active participants.

Sally G. Shafto, executive director of the Big Muddy Film Festival, will provide an introduction to Abel Gance's epic 1927 film "Napoleon," on Saturday, July 14, at the St. Louis Art Museum. Shafto's introduction begins at 1 p.m. The film is being shown in conjunction with the museum's new exhibition, "Symbols of Power: Napoleon and the Art of the Empire Style 1800-1815. The exhibit opens on Saturday, June 16, and runs through Sept. 16. The screening on July 14 is Bastille Day in France, the French equivalent of July 4.

"The film is absolutely breathtaking; it is the film that made me realize the cinema was an art and not just a form of popular entertainment," said Shafto, whose recently completed book, "The Zanzibar Films and the Dandies of May 1968," looks at a group of young French filmmakers in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Kounosuke Watabe, professor of medical microbiology, immunology and cell biology at SIU School of Medicine has been awarded a three-year federal grant from the U.S. Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity to study the use of golden rod extract as a therapy for prostate cancer.  The total budget for the grant is $541,380.

The study will examine whether extract from the plant, golden rod, is effective in inhibiting the fatty acid synthase enzyme in prostate tumor so that it blocks the growth of the tumor.  Golden rod previously has been used to treat various urological diseases.  This study may lead to the development of new treatments for prostate cancer.

Kounosuke Watabe is also a member of the SIU's SimmonsCooper Cancer Institute.