OCTOBER 2001

COMPRESSION

CLEANER GAS
An FSU chemist has won a national award for his efforts to help oil companies produce cleaner-burning gas and diesel fuel.
"We want the sulfur out of gasoline, because that is what makes acid rain," said Alan Marshall, whose work at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory has brought him the award in analytical chemistry that the American Chemical Society will present in April 2002.
Marshall has designed a tool that detects compounds hidden in complex mixtures like crude oil. His ion cyclotron resonance machine helps oil companies identify sulfur faster and better than any other tool in the world.
More than 300 labs are using Marshall's design.

STUDENT HEALTH
At least half of America's youth are at risk of obesity and cardiovascular disease, because they have poor eating habits and get very little exercise, according to a recent FSU study.
"Most parents don't even realize that their child is not getting physical education or recess," said Millie Kissinger, director of a youth fitness and tobacco prevention project of FSU and the American Heart Association.
She says the purpose of the project is to get Florida students to spend more time in regular physical fitness activities.
Evaluation reports of the two-year-old program suggest that it's working.
So far, 10,000 Florida students in more than 100 schools have been in the program.

HEADLINES
FSU Headlines television and radio programs are now available through the university's Internet home page. Visit www.fsu.edu and click on the News & Events icon.
FSU Headlines is a news magazine program produced by the Office of University Communi-cations. It is a three-minute program each morning on public radio in Tallahassee.
If you enjoy watching FSU Headlines and other university-related programming on Sunshine Network, your Saturday wake-up call arrives 30-minutes sooner. FSU's Saturday time slot is now slated for 7:30 a.m. The time slots on Thursday (4:30 p.m.) and Friday (7:30 a.m.) remain the same.

A TEACHER OF THE YEAR
Sharon Presson Cunningham, who received a master's degree from FSU in 1987, was named the national Family and Consumer Science Teacher of the Year at a meeting in June of the American Association of Family and Consumer Sciences.
Cunningham teaches consumer sciences at Broad Run High School in Ashburn, Va.

ARTS FESTIVAL
So far, FSU's 2002 arts festival has lined up literature, music, visual arts and theater: writer Joyce Carol Oates, violinist Joshua Bell, treasures from the Ringling and Appleton Museums and "The Tempest," performed by the Aquilina Theatre Co., are already scheduled for Feb. 14-24.
Also in the lineup are pianist Garrick Ohlsson, Ronald K. Brown and his Evidence dance company, a retrospective of the art of Ralph Hurst and a free Saturday Matinee of the Arts. The full schedule will be available as it develops at www.fsu.edu/~artsfest.
Series tickets go on sale in November at Florida State's Fine Arts Ticket Office, 850-644-6500. Single tickets will be available in January. For more information, call 850-644-1000 or e-mail artsfest@www.fsu.edu.

HE'S NOT LIBERAL
David Coursey, an associate professor in FSU's Askew School of Public Administration and Policy, said he didn't mind when the Florida State Times reported in August that his new yellow Porsche carries a license tag that says "Gore Won."
But he did mind being called "liberal on social issues."
"Libertarian," he told the Florida State Times. He's not liberal-he's libertarian.
That's a pretty serious mistake, given the considerable difference between the two.
We apologize, and promise to be more careful, as he requested, about getting things right.

SENDING BOOKS TO RUSSIA
Bob Broedel, an engineer in the FSU meteorology department, has for several years sent English language books to a university library in southern Russia.
On March 25, Kuban State University in Krasnodar opened a new center-the Southern Center of American Culture, Education and Research-and included in the ceremony an exhibition of several hundred books Broedel had donated.
The purpose of the center, one of seven in Russia, is to collect and disseminate information about the United States, including culture, history and politics.

BILLS ARE HARD TO PAY
Some of the bills that came in the mail to FSU this year have been surprisingly high.
The electric-power bills soared-$3.5 million more than the $11.5 million the university had expected to pay in the fiscal year that ended June 30.
All the other major educators in Tallahassee-FAMU, Tallahas-see Community College and the public schools-had the same problem: they hadn't budgeted enough money for those bills.
John Carnaghi, vice president of finance and administration at FSU, said that when the power bill first came in too high, he brought the matter up with the power company, which in this case is the city of Tallahassee.
"Our usage, at least at that point in January, was almost flat," he said. "The costs were escalating rapidly. And we certainly all knew what was happening in the world of natural gas."
The city uses natural gas, which is cleaner than coal but costs more, to generate power. The price of natural gas peaked in January at more than twice the price in October 1999. Carnaghi said some campus improvements, such as sidewalk repairs and equipment replacement, were put on hold to pay the bills.

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