U.S. Public and Private Higher Education
News releases, reports, statements and associated documents from public, private and community colleges in the U.S.
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Western Washington University's Kaiser Borsari Hall Project Wins Bronze Holcim Award
BELLINGHAM, Washington, Dec. 1 -- Western Washington University issued the following news release:
At a ceremony in Venice, Italy on November 18, the Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction recently awarded Western Washington University's Kaiser Borsari Hall project and the design team at Perkins&Will a "Bronze Award" for the North American region, one of only two projects in the United States and the only university building globally to win a Holcim Award this year. The Holcim Awards recognize "diverse and innovative real-world approaches to creating a more sustainable built environment."
"We
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BELLINGHAM, Washington, Dec. 1 -- Western Washington University issued the following news release:
At a ceremony in Venice, Italy on November 18, the Holcim Foundation for Sustainable Construction recently awarded Western Washington University's Kaiser Borsari Hall project and the design team at Perkins&Will a "Bronze Award" for the North American region, one of only two projects in the United States and the only university building globally to win a Holcim Award this year. The Holcim Awards recognize "diverse and innovative real-world approaches to creating a more sustainable built environment."
"Weare honored by this international recognition for Kaiser Borsari Hall and are so grateful to our partners at Perkins&Will and Mortenson for their excellent work bringing the vision to life," said Joyce Lopes, Vice President for Business and Financial Affairs. "We are strongly committed to reducing our carbon footprint at Western and hope that Kaiser Borsari Hall can serve as inspiration and prototype for more sustainable buildings on university campuses across the country."
Kaiser Borsari Hall is designed to meet the International Living Future Institute's "smart building" standards, the first university STEM building in the United State to track zero energy and zero carbon certification through the institute. It will achieve a 63% reduction in embodied carbon over conventional construction methods and a 100% reduction in operational carbon, using a mass timber structure and rooftop solar panels for on-site energy generation. The Holcim Awards 2023 Jury for North America noted, "The project considers functionality and sustainability, and successfully pushes boundaries for the integration of engineering systems and energy storage."
The location of the site adjacent to the Sehome Arboretum allows the use of native and climate-adaptive plants to form a habitat bridge between the arboretum and the campus core. The landscaping will also help reduce stormwater runoff and outdoor water use.
Kaiser Borsari Hall will house electrical and computer engineering, energy science, including the nation's only undergraduate program in energy studies, and computer science. Its high-performance design will serve as a living laboratory for cross-disciplinary collaboration and hands-on learning. Construction is scheduled for completion in early 2025.
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Original text here: https://news.wwu.edu/western-washington-universitys-kaiser-borsari-hall-project-wins-bronze-holcim-award
University of California-Davis: A Mixed Origin Made Maize Successful
DAVIS, California, Dec. 1 (TNSres) -- The University of California Davis issued the following news:
By Andy Fell
Maize is one of the world's most widely grown crops. It is used for both human and animal foods and holds great cultural significance, especially for Indigenous peoples in the Americas. Yet despite its importance, the origins of the grain have been hotly debated for more than a century. Now new research, published Dec. 1 in Science, shows that all modern maize descends from a hybrid created just over 5,000 years ago in central Mexico, thousands of years after the plant was first domesticated.
The
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DAVIS, California, Dec. 1 (TNSres) -- The University of California Davis issued the following news:
By Andy Fell
Maize is one of the world's most widely grown crops. It is used for both human and animal foods and holds great cultural significance, especially for Indigenous peoples in the Americas. Yet despite its importance, the origins of the grain have been hotly debated for more than a century. Now new research, published Dec. 1 in Science, shows that all modern maize descends from a hybrid created just over 5,000 years ago in central Mexico, thousands of years after the plant was first domesticated.
Thework has implications both for improving one of the world's most important crops and for understanding how the histories of people and their crops influence each other.
"It's a new model for the origins and spread of maize, and how it became a staple across the Americas," said Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra, professor in the Department of Evolution and Ecology at the University of California, Davis, and senior author on the paper.
For the last few decades, the consensus has been that maize (Zea mays) was domesticated once from a single wild grass -- called teosinte -- in the lowlands of southwest Mexico about 9,000 to 10,000 years ago. Known as corn in the United States, maize is not only a staple of diets around the globe, but also can be processed into sweeteners, ethanol fuel and other uses.
More recently, though, it's become clear that the genome of modern maize also contains a hefty dose of DNA from a second teosinte that grows in the highlands of central Mexico.
Ross-Ibarra and collaborators in the U.S., China and Mexico analyzed the genomes of over a thousand samples of maize and wild relatives. They found that about 20% of the genome of all maize worldwide comes from this second highland teosinte.
New model for spread of maize
These new findings suggest that, though maize was domesticated around 10,000 years ago, it was not until 4,000 years later, when it hybridized with highland teosinte, that maize really took off as a popular crop and food staple. This is also supported by archaeological evidence of the increasing importance of maize around the same time.
The new crop spread rapidly through the Americas and later worldwide. Today, about 1.2 billion metric tons are harvested each year globally.
The hunt for why highland teosinte enabled maize to become a staple is still underway, Ross-Ibarra said. The researchers did find genes related to cob size -- perhaps representing an increased yield potential -- and flowering time, which likely helped maize, a tropical crop, to grow at higher latitudes with longer days.
Hybridization may also have brought "hybrid vigor," where a hybrid organism is more vigorous than either of its parents. The researchers observed that genomic segments from highland teosinte contained fewer harmful mutations than did other parts of the genome.
While the initial hybridization may have been accidental, it's likely that Indigenous farmers recognized and took advantage of the novel variation introduced from highland maize, Ross-Ibarra said. Even today, he said, "If you talk to Mexican farmers, some will tell you that letting wild maize grow near the fields makes their crops stronger."
NSF grant
A team led by Ross-Ibarra with Professor Graham Coop at UC Davis, archaeologists at UC Santa Barbara and geneticists at Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences was recently awarded a $1.6 million grant from the National Science Foundation to study the co-evolution of humans and maize in the Americas. They will use genetics to look at how humans and maize spread across the continent and how populations of both maize and humans grew and shrank as they interacted with each other.
"We will incorporate human genetic data, maize genetics and archaeological data in an effort to answer many of the questions raised by our new model of maize origins," Ross-Ibarra said.
Co-authors on the Science paper are: at UC Davis, Erin Calfee, Sowmya Mambakkam, Mitra Menon, Carl Veller and Daniel Runcie; Ning Yang, Yuebin Wang, Minliang Jin, Lu Chen, Songtao Gui, Wenqiang Li, Jingyun Luo, Shenshen Wu, Siying Wu, Yingjie Xiao and Jianbing Yan, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan; Xiangguo Liu, Jilin Academy of Agricultural Sciences; Miguel Vallebueno-Estrada, Laboratorio Nacional de Genómica para la Biodiversidad, CINVESTAV Irapuato, Guanajuato, México; Brian Dilkes, Purdue University; Xingming Fan, Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences; Thomas Harper, Pennsylvania State University; Samantha Snodgrass, Iowa State University; Douglas Kennett, UC Santa Barbara; Yanli Lu, Sichuan Agricultural University; Xiaohong Yang, China Agricultural University; and Michelle C. Stitzer, Cornell University.
The work was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the U.S. National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
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Original text here: https://www.ucdavis.edu/news/mixed-origin-made-maize-successful
SUNY's University at Albany: Study - Climate Change Has Increased Atmospheric Instability Over Past 40 Years
ALBANY, New York, Dec. 1 (TNSres) -- The State University of New York's University at Albany issued the following news:
By Mike Nolan
While the impacts of climate change vary across the globe, most scientists agree that, overall, a warming environment is increasing both the frequency and intensity of severe weather events such as tornados and intense thunderstorms.
The formation of these severe storms requires instability or unstable conditions in the atmosphere, which climate models project will increase under greenhouse gas-induced global warming. However, how atmospheric instability has changed
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ALBANY, New York, Dec. 1 (TNSres) -- The State University of New York's University at Albany issued the following news:
By Mike Nolan
While the impacts of climate change vary across the globe, most scientists agree that, overall, a warming environment is increasing both the frequency and intensity of severe weather events such as tornados and intense thunderstorms.
The formation of these severe storms requires instability or unstable conditions in the atmosphere, which climate models project will increase under greenhouse gas-induced global warming. However, how atmospheric instability has changedover recent decades remains unclear.
Atmospheric scientists at the University at Albany and China's Jiangsu Meteorological Observatory recently co-published a new paper in AGU's Geophysical Research Letters that finds unstable atmospheric conditions have significantly increased over the past 40 years.
The finding further validates the connection between climate change and severe weather events.
"Atmospheric instability is necessary for the occurrence of convection and vertical mixing in the atmosphere," said Aiguo Dai, study co-author and a Distinguished Professor in UAlbany's Department of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences. "Thus, whether the atmosphere becomes increasingly unstable under greenhouse gas-induced global warming has major implications for the occurrence of severe weather, such as tornadoes and other violent storms."
"The increasingly unstable conditions reported in our study are significant and consistent with climate model-project responses to increased greenhouse gases," added Jiao Chen, the study's lead author and a researcher at Jiangsu Meteorological Observatory. "It suggests that the atmosphere will continue to become less stable, and we will likely see more severe weather in the future."
To arrive at their findings, the researchers relied on atmospheric data collected by weather balloons since 1979, with a focus on long-term records of upper-air temperature and humidity around the globe.
During balloon flights, atmospheric data is collected and transmitted in real time to a ground computer through a small, expendable instrument package, called a radiosonde. Due to frequent changes in sounding sensors over the last four decades, the balloon data used by the researchers was homogenized to ensure that it was consistent.
Their analysis showed that the atmosphere has become increasingly unstable (between 8 and 32 percent) and more favorable for severe weather conditions over most land in the Northern Hemisphere from 1979 to 2020.
The increased unstable conditions mainly resulted from increased low-level moisture content and warmer air temperatures.
"Our research team, and others, have devoted considerable efforts to using publicly available weather balloon data to analyze the impacts of climate change," said Dai. "The new study results are consistent with previous findings that have shown an increased frequency of severe weather events under global warming. It's a positive step for the use of homogenized radiosonde data in both atmospheric reanalysis and longer-term climate change studies."
Although the weather balloon data used mainly covered the Northern Hemisphere, the researchers found similar results in more sparsely distributed land locations in the tropics and Southern Hemisphere, which suggests the atmosphere has become increasingly unstable across the globe.
Along with this study, Dai has also published findings on several other climate change-related projects, including a 2022 study that explored how Arctic sea ice has impacted surface temperatures in both the Arctic and North Atlantic Ocean over multiple decades.
He was recently included on Clarivate's 2023 Highly Cited Researchers list, which recognizes the top 1 percent of researchers from around the world who have demonstrated significant and broad influence in their chosen field or fields of research.
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JOURNAL: Geophysical Research Letters https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2023GL106125
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Original text here: https://www.albany.edu/news-center/news/2023-study-climate-change-has-increased-atmospheric-instability-over-past-40-years
Penn State York to Celebrate Fall Commencement on Dec. 15
YORK, Pennsylvania, Dec. 1 -- Pennsylvania State University York campus issued the following news:
Penn State York is celebrating its annual fall commencement on Friday, Dec. 15 at 6 p.m. in the Pullo Family Performing Arts Center at the campus. Jeffrey L. Rehmeyer II is the commencement speaker.
Rehmeyer is the past president of the CGA Law Firm based in York, Pennsylvania, and served in that role for 10 years. Additionally, he is a member of the firm's executive committee and has been for 20 years. The CGA Law Firm serves clients throughout South Central Pennsylvania. Rehmeyer provides counsel
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YORK, Pennsylvania, Dec. 1 -- Pennsylvania State University York campus issued the following news:
Penn State York is celebrating its annual fall commencement on Friday, Dec. 15 at 6 p.m. in the Pullo Family Performing Arts Center at the campus. Jeffrey L. Rehmeyer II is the commencement speaker.
Rehmeyer is the past president of the CGA Law Firm based in York, Pennsylvania, and served in that role for 10 years. Additionally, he is a member of the firm's executive committee and has been for 20 years. The CGA Law Firm serves clients throughout South Central Pennsylvania. Rehmeyer provides counselin a variety of areas including business entity formation, business and estate planning, personal matters, intellectual property, and real estate matters (residential and commercial purchases, sale, leases, financing and settlements), among others.
Rehmeyer is a graduate of Penn State Dickinson Law, where he earned a juris doctorate and graduated cum laude. He also holds a bachelor of arts in economics from California State University at Long Beach and graduated with honors. He is a member of the Woolsack Honor Society and was editor and author of the Dickinson Law Review. He serves on the Penn State York Advisory Board as a member and general counsel, the Executive Committee, and Community Engagement Advisory Group. He is also involved with the Graham Fellows Program for Entrepreneurial Leadership at Penn State York.
In addition to hearing from Rehmeyer, Penn State York will continue its open microphone tradition, which affords graduates a brief opportunity to address the audience for a moment.
The campus will award associate and baccalaureate degrees during the program. The ceremony is free and open to the public.
For those who cannot attend the event, Penn State York's commencement can be viewed on Comcast cable channel 18 or streaming live on the campus website (http://york.psu.edu/academics/commencement).
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Original text here: https://www.york.psu.edu/story/16231/2023/11/30/penn-state-york-celebrate-fall-commencement-dec-15
New Director Named at the SOAS South Asia Institute
LONDON, England, Dec. 1 -- SOAS, University of London issued the following news:
SOAS is pleased to announce that Dr Subir Sinha, a specialist in South Asian politics, has been appointed as the new Director of the SOAS South Asia Institute (SSAI).
The SSAI represents the most extensive and diverse community of scholars focusing on South Asia of any university in Europe. Its members' research and teaching activities relate to the region, particularly India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Bhutan.
Dr Sinha's expertise in South Asian politics includes populism, political ecology, agrarian
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LONDON, England, Dec. 1 -- SOAS, University of London issued the following news:
SOAS is pleased to announce that Dr Subir Sinha, a specialist in South Asian politics, has been appointed as the new Director of the SOAS South Asia Institute (SSAI).
The SSAI represents the most extensive and diverse community of scholars focusing on South Asia of any university in Europe. Its members' research and teaching activities relate to the region, particularly India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Bhutan.
Dr Sinha's expertise in South Asian politics includes populism, political ecology, agrarianpolitical economy, social movements and state-society relations in development. He is also leading an independent public inquiry into the violence between South Asian communities that took place in Leicester last September.
Professor Laura Hammond, Pro-Director of Research and Knowledge Exchange, said: "The SOAS South Asia Institute plays a major role in enhancing our research and impact through strengthening links with our alumni, securing philanthropic funding and helping to inform the public debate on a range of issues. We very much look forward to welcome Subir in the role who will take forward this work and provide academic leadership for South Asian studies across the School."
Dr Sinha said: "I am very excited to take up the Directorship of the SOAS South Asian Institute. Continuing its role as a platform showcasing new directions in research in South Asia, and hosting events featuring art, cinema and literature from this region, I plan also to use it as a portal to make new links with the South Asian diaspora, and with universities in South Asia, and to use online tools to host workshops, conferences and podcasts relevant to South Asia.
"Most of all, I look forward to working with our dynamic staff and students to develop relevant and cutting-edge programs that showcase to our university, and to London at large, what a SOAS vision of South Asia in the 21st Century looks like. I am grateful to SOAS for this opportunity."
Dr Sinha will be in the post from January 2024.
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Original text here: https://www.soas.ac.uk/about/news/new-director-named-soas-south-asia-institute
Nanyang Technological University: Partnerships to Enhance Learning for Maritime Students
SINGAPORE, Dec. 1 -- Nanyang Technological University issued the following news release on Nov. 30, 2023:
NTU Singapore and Shanghai Maritime University (SMU) have established new partnerships aimed at enhancing the learning experience for maritime students in both universities.
Two new five-year collaborations will allow SMU students to study full-time at NTU Singapore's School of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) in the final year of their four-year undergraduate degree programme.
The students also have the option to enrol in selected one-year full-time Master of Sciences postgraduate
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SINGAPORE, Dec. 1 -- Nanyang Technological University issued the following news release on Nov. 30, 2023:
NTU Singapore and Shanghai Maritime University (SMU) have established new partnerships aimed at enhancing the learning experience for maritime students in both universities.
Two new five-year collaborations will allow SMU students to study full-time at NTU Singapore's School of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) in the final year of their four-year undergraduate degree programme.
The students also have the option to enrol in selected one-year full-time Master of Sciences postgraduatedegree programmes at NTU, subject to the usual admission requirements.
Students from both NTU and SMU will also benefit from cross-country exchange, under an agreement which allows up to 24 students from each side to participate in an immersion programme each academic year.
The partnerships were inked at NTU on Thursday, by NTU Associate Provost (Undergraduate Education) Professor Gan Chee Lip and SMU Vice Chair of Shanghai Maritime University Council Ms He Li.
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Original text here: https://www.ntu.edu.sg/news/detail/partnerships-to-enhance-learning-for-maritime-students
Illawarra Cancer Carers Gift Over $1.2m to UOW
WOLLONGONG, Australia, Dec. 1 (TNSres) -- The University of Wollongong issued the following news release on Nov. 30, 2023:
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Presentation celebrates ongoing support of groundbreaking cancer research
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The generous support of the Illawarra's Cancer Carers (ICC) to the University of Wollongong (UOW) was celebrated during a presentation on Wednesday 29 November.
Throughout the 18-year partnership, ICC have gifted more than $1.2 million to UOW to support cancer researchers to continue their groundbreaking cancer research.
The ICC has supported cancer research projects, PhD programs, help
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WOLLONGONG, Australia, Dec. 1 (TNSres) -- The University of Wollongong issued the following news release on Nov. 30, 2023:
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Presentation celebrates ongoing support of groundbreaking cancer research
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The generous support of the Illawarra's Cancer Carers (ICC) to the University of Wollongong (UOW) was celebrated during a presentation on Wednesday 29 November.
Throughout the 18-year partnership, ICC have gifted more than $1.2 million to UOW to support cancer researchers to continue their groundbreaking cancer research.
The ICC has supported cancer research projects, PhD programs, helpretain local talent at the University, via funding for cancer research fellows and cancer research assistants, and made substantial contributions toward state-of-the-art laboratory equipment.
The ICC is a group made up of trained volunteers who support and care for people with cancer in the Illawarra. The gifts provided by the ICC to UOW are raised purely through fundraising events such as stalls, raffles, and an annual banquet.
Over the years, ICC has supported cancer research conducted by Emeritus Professor John Bremner and Clinical Professor Philip Clingan OAM, Professor Danielle Skroptea, honorary Professor Mori Aghmesheh, and funded the ICC PhD Top-Up Scholarships for students working on Cancer Drug Development projects.
The latest philanthropic addition was a $47,500 cash gift by ICC to UOW for a cancer research assistant for Senior Professor Marie Ranson and Associate Professor Kara Vine-Perrow's research lab.
Professor Ranson, from the School of Chemistry and Molecular Bioscience, is an expert in molecular biomarkers of cancer invasion and metastasis and has successfully led, and contributed intellectual property (IP) to several drug development projects.
Professor Ranson first received a $75,000 cash gift from ICC towards her research in 2009.
"The partnership has strengthened the level of community recognition of our research as the ICC have been long-term advocates and supporters for cancer research conducted by my team and collaborators in the Illawarra region," Professor Ranson said.
"This has also helped develop strong links with cancer clinicians in the local health district."
Professor Ranson said ICC's support has been vital in bridging the gap between government grants and enabled UOW to expand cancer research programmes.
The long-term benefits of the partnership have enabled the research team to gain international recognition in the research area, publish several scientific papers, present at conferences, and secure a successful Australian government NHMRC grant in 2020.
Since 2021, the ICC support has enabled Professor Ranson and Associate Professor Vine-Perrow to retain Chelsea Penney as a research assistant.
"Chelsea has provided invaluable assistance. She has worked across several projects, including finding new treatment options for metastatic gastric cancer using patient-derived circulating tumour cells, testing the effectiveness of a new drug, deflexifol, in treating brain tumours, and proving the safety and effectiveness of an implantable device for the improved localised delivery of chemotherapy or immunotherapy," Professor Ranson said.
The research is being conducted at the Molecular Horizons Research Institute, a global leader in visualising biological processes on an unprecedented scale to advance understanding of disease mechanisms and translate this knowledge into diagnostics, therapies and cures.
The 2023 gift to researchers was presented by the new Illawarra Cancer Carers' President Narelle Langridge during today's formal cheque presentation.
Geoffrey Failes, Vice President of Illawarra Cancer Carers said, "We continue to support the cancer researchers at UOW, we really believe that excellent and vital work is being undertaken into cancer research, cancer treatment and to hopefully one day find a cure."
"The important thing is that all the money we raise from the Illawarra Cancer Carers stays in this Illawarra area, either directly to the University or towards speciality equipment for the Illawarra Cancer Care Centre or the palliative care unit at Bulli Hospital."
After the event, attendees had the opportunity to tour the world-class facilities in the Molecular Horizons Laboratories.
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Original text here: https://www.uow.edu.au/media/2023/illawarra-cancer-carers-gift-over-12m-to-uow-.php
