FEBRUARY/MARCH 2000

COMPRESSION

Loss of Amato

Chuck Amato, Florida State's assistant head football coach, defensive line and linebacker coach, has taken the head coaching post at his alma mater, North Carolina State.

At a press conference in Raleigh, Amato compared himself to actress Susan Lucci, who was nominated, but not chosen, for 18 Emmy awards. Amato has been a valuable assistant - some say the best in college football - for 20 seasons.

Pensacola bridge

When football fans return to Doak Campbell Stadium in the fall of 2000, they may be pleased to see how far road construction around the University Center complex has come.

The three-phase Pensacola Street Realignment Project - phase II got under way Nov. 15, - will eventually bring the dismantling of the Pensacola Street bridge that separates Campbell Stadium from Dick Howser Stadium.

Once the bridge is gone, the area will become a pedestrian- and bicycle-friendly greenspace that more naturally joins the University Center with the rest of the campus. Pensacola Street and a widened Stadium Drive also will form a new T-intersection.

The latest phase of the project began with the closing of Stadium Drive from St. Augustine Street to Gaines Street. In mid-December, Gaines Street was closed from Stadium Drive to Woodward Avenue. Finally, the section of Stadium Drive beneath the Pensacola Street overpass was closed in January.

The closures are allowing construction crews to, among other things, add lanes, including turn lanes, and bike paths, and build better drainage systems. Also, a better entrance is being added to the south end zone of the stadium complex.

All three phases of the project are expected to be finished in July 2001.

Distance learning

Distance learning has exciting possibilities.
But it also has a history of some dreary abuse, and the federal Department of Education has enlisted FSU to help sort the two out.

On one side is the excitement of being able to learn, or teach, almost anything from any distance, at any time of the day or night. Students don't have to be in Rm. 112 at 8 a.m. Monday to find out what a celebrated professor knows about a subject. Students don't even have to be on the same continent.

But they do have to be enrolled in a class, guided through a well organized presentation, set up to ask and answer questions and, usually, tested at some point.
Without all that, they might just be in a correspondence school, where the school can take their money, often supplied by federal financial aid, and not give back much.

FSU is one of 14 institutions embarked on creating a model of distance learning that offers all the exciting advantages without the dreary possibilities.
"With distance learning, the student isn't necessarily tied to residential start and finish dates," said Alan Mabe, FSU dean of graduate studies who is administering (along with Patricia Hayward, associate vice president for academic affairs) the five-year program to create a model of distance learning for the U.S. Department of Education.

"We'll be looking at ways that will ensure compliance with all laws, but that won't shut students out simply because they don't fit the current model," he said.
Mabe said FSU was selected because of its record with distance learning and excellent financial aid performance.
He cited FSU's top 50 ranking by Yahoo for "most wired university," its 2+2 program that links with community colleges and other well regarded distance learning programs.

Governor's press secretary

Liz Hirst, 37, a 1984 FSU graduate with a bachelor's degree in communication, is Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's new press secretary.

Hirst, 37, has been communications director for the United Way of the Big Bend, news anchor and reporter for a local television station and, most recently, spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

Scott on board

Winston Scott, Florida State's new associate vice president for student affairs, hasn't completely given up his recent professions as an astronaut, pilot, navy captain and engineer.

He has agreed to serve three years on the Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board of the National Academy of Sciences.

The board advises the U.S. government on aeronautics engineering. The issues include airworthiness of civil aircraft, maintaining U.S. leadership in aeronautics, meeting future air and space transportation needs, upgrading the space shuttle and protecting the space shuttle from orbital debris.

Scott says the board has heavy impact on government spending for aeronautics research and development and can influence the safety and efficiency of civilian and military aircraft.

"This is truly an honor for me personally, and I certainly hope that it reflects positively on FSU," he said.
Scott earned a bachelor's degree in music at FSU in 1968 and then went to the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., where he earned a master of science degree in aeronautical engineering in 1980.

Auditor general

Florida Deputy Comptroller William O. Monroe, 49, a 1973 graduate of Florida State University with a bachelor's degree in accounting and finance, has been named the state's auditor general, with the job of auditing all state agencies, colleges and school boards.

In Florida, the auditor general works for the Legislature and also audits cities and counties on request from the Legislature or voters.

The role of beer taxes

Higher beer taxes will raise revenue for the state, but they won't stop people from drinking, and they won't reduce the number who are killed by drunk-driving accidents, a new study shows.

"If your objective is to reduce DUI fatalities, let's look at the other options," said David Rasmussen, director of the DeVoe Moore Center for Critical Issues in Economic Policy and Government at FSU.

The other options, he said, include more enforcement of laws already on the books, such as open container bans, implied consent laws and the laws against driving after drinking enough alcohol to fail a breath-alcohol test.

"A state with a large population that follows a religion that prohibits drinking may have high alcohol taxes and low numbers of DUI fatalities," the study said, "... but the high taxes are not likely to be the cause of the low fatalities."

The study showed that religious sentiment and beer market regulations had more influence on drinking and driving than taxes.

When taxes are raised, the researchers suggested, drinkers may buy cheaper beer, but they won't buy less.

Research royalties

Florida State's research royalty revenues have skyrocketed, putting FSU at No. 3 in the nation for the amount received.

Florida State's total in fiscal 1998 was $46.6 million. The only universities earning more that year were the 10-member University of California System, with $73 million, and Columbia University, with $61.6 million.
Most of the record windfall comes from a chemical process that creates the cancer-fighting drug taxol, developed by chemistry Professor Robert Holton.

"It's one of those rare and unusual discoveries that many universities will go decades without," said Ray Bye, FSU's interim vice president for research. "I would speculate, if it's not already, it will become the most significant single discovery from a revenue standpoint."
The rankings are determined by the Association of University Technology Managers.

FSU scientists may keep 40 percent of their invention's earnings; 30 percent goes to the researcher's department; and 30 percent goes back to FSU for research investment and operations.

World-record memory

Dr. Rajan Mahadevan, a University of Tennessee psychology instructor who has a doctorate in psychology from FSU, has recently appeared on national television displaying the memory that put him in the Guinness Book of World Records several years ago.

He appeared on a segment of NBC's Dateline that examined theories that mental abilities like memory are learned or hereditary.

In 1981, Mahadevan was in the Guinness records for reciting the mathematical constant, pi, to 31,811 digits. Psychologists use the digits of pi, which is an endless number expressing the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, as a memory test.

A native of Madras, India, Mahadevan has been involved in studies of memory at Kansas State University, the University of Minnesota and Florida State.

Mahadevan said research indicates that memory is an acquired skill that can be taught and learned.

Nuclear cleanup

Florida State is involved in the cleanup of one of the most terrifying accumulations of dangerous wastes in the world: the waste materials generated by nuclear arms production in the Cold War arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Now that the Soviet Union has disintegrated, the cleanup is left for the United States and Russia, at sites and facilities in both countries.

FSU provides technical assistance and coordination of about 20 projects of the two nations, conducted by the U.S. Department of Energy and MINATOM, Russia's Ministry of Atomic Energy.

FSU offers its help through the university's Institute for International Cooperative Environmental Research, directed by Roy C. Herndon.

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