FSU.com News

Orlando attorney Steve Rissman creates law school endowment

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 13:12:42 GMT

Orlando attorney Steve A. Rissman, a 1972 graduate of the Florida State University College of Law, has pledged $100,000 to create the Rissman Family Endowment at the school.

The gift will be eligible for a 50 percent match from the state of Florida. The state match will be added to the permanent endowment, creating a total endowment of $150,000. This endowment will be combined with other gifts to the Alumni Centennial Chair, which supports the dean of the law school.

“My family and I feel a real sense of identity with the law school. We go to many of the events and I even taught a course at the law school at one time,” Rissman said. “Dean Weidner has done a spectacular job at recruiting a top-notch faculty and attracting some of the best students in the country. We wanted to do our part to help.”

This is Rissman’s third significant gift to the College of Law. His first gift of $60,000 helped endow a professorship, and his second gift of $200,000 created the McConnaughhay & Rissman Endowment for Excellence. Both previous gifts were made with Rissman’s friend Jim McConnaughhay, a 1969 graduate of the law school.

“We are all very grateful to Steve for his continued generous financial support,” said College of Law Dean Don Weidner. “Steve is one of the reasons our programs continue to hit new highs.”

Rissman is a shareholder with the Orlando law firm of Rissman, Barrett, Hurt, Donahue & McLain, P.A. His practice focuses on workers’ compensation defense.

Stanley Kubrick Film Festival to feature works of legendary director

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 20:06:47 GMT

The Florida State University Student Life Cinema has scheduled a week-long festival focusing on the oeuvre of one of the giants in moviemaking: the late film director Stanley Kubrick. The Stanley Kubrick Film Festival will kick off on March 19 and run until March 26, and will feature screenings of some of the director’s best-known works.

Guest panelists for the festival include director-producer Jan Harlan, the executive producer of all of Kubrick’s films from “Barry Lyndon” (1975) until “Eyes Wide Shut” (1999), as well as the Kubrick project “A.I. Artificial Intelligence,” directed by Steven Spielberg in 2001 after Kubrick’s death. As Kubrick’s producer and brother-in-law, Harlan has an unparalleled perspective on Kubrick both as an artist and a family member. He has agreed to speak during three nights of the festival and will contribute a documentary, “Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures.”

Vincent D'Onofrio

Another guest panelist is actor-director Vincent D’Onofrio, who memorably portrayed Private Pyle in Kubrick’s 1987 war film “Full Metal Jacket.” D’Onofrio will join with Harlan for a special question-and-answer session following the screening of “Full Metal Jacket” on Friday, March 26. In addition, he will present two of his own films that he produced and directed when “An Evening with Vincent D’Onofrio” is held on Saturday, March 27.

“Stanley Kubrick was the most creative and independent of modern film directors,” said Bob Howard, director of Florida State’s Askew Student Life Center, which houses the Student Life Cinema. “This is a rare opportunity to see his films on the big screen and talk with Jan Harlan, the man who was most intimately involved with the production of his films, and Vincent D’Onofrio, the ‘actor’s actor’ who played one of Kubrick’s most unforgettable characters.”

Stanley Kubrick

Kubrick died of a heart attack in 1999 at the age of 70, just days after completing his final film, “Eyes Wide Shut.”

The schedule for the Stanley Kubrick Film Festival is as follows:

* Friday, March 19, 7 p.m.: “Paths of Glory” (1957) at All Saints Cinema, 918½ Railroad Ave.

* Saturday, March 20, 7 p.m.: “Lolita” (1962) at All Saints Cinema

* Monday, March 22, 4, 7 and 10 p.m.: “Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb” (1964) at Student Life Cinema, 942 Learning Way

* Tuesday, March 23, 7 and 10:30 p.m.: “Eyes Wide Shut” (1999) at Student Life Cinema

* Wednesday, March 24, 6:30 p.m. “Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures,” followed by a Q&A with Jan Harlan, at Student Life Cinema

* Wednesday, March 24, 10:30 p.m. “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968)

* Thursday, March 25, 6:30 and 10:30 p.m.: “The Shining” (1980), followed by a Q&A with Jan Harlan and Andrew Snyder of the FSU College of Motion Picture Arts, at Student Life Cinema

* Friday, March 26, 7 p.m.: “Full Metal Jacket” (1987), followed by a Q&A with Jan Harlan and Vincent D’Onofrio, Student Life Cinema

* Friday, March 26, midnight: “A Clockwork Orange” (1971) at Student Life Cinema

The day after the film festival concludes, D’Onofrio will screen two films that he directed and produced, “Five Minutes Mr. Welles” (2005) and “Don’t Go In the Woods” (2008), on Saturday, March 27. Both will be shown at the Student Life Cinema beginning at 7:30 p.m.

All screenings at the Student Life Cinema are free for Florida State University students with a valid ID and $5 for the general public, with the exception of “Full Metal Jacket” on Friday, March 26, and “An Evening with Vincent D’Onofrio” on Saturday, March 27, both of which will be $10 for general admission. “Full Metal Jacket” tickets can be purchased online at www.tickets.fsu.edu or by phone at (850) 644-6500 starting on March 8; all other tickets for Student Life Cinema events are available at the theater box office on a first-come, first-served basis.

The two films screened at All Saints Cinema will be regularly priced. Visit www.tallahasseefilmsociety.com for ticketing information.

For full festival information, including screening times and directions, visit www.movies.fsu.edu/kubrick.

In addition to Student Life Cinema, the festival is being cosponsored by Seven Days of Opening Nights, the Tallahassee Film Society and the Tallahassee Film Festival.

Florida State wins first national award for hazing prevention

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 21:17:26 GMT

The Florida State University is the first recipient of a new national award given to a college or university for innovative, year-round hazing prevention programming that focuses on education and intervention.

The Zeta Tau Alpha Award for Innovation in Hazing Prevention and Education comes with a $10,000 award to support future hazing prevention efforts in the Florida State community. The award, presented by HazingPrevention.Org and funded by the Zeta Tau Alpha Fraternity for Women and the Zeta Tau Alpha Foundation Inc., will be given at the NASPA (Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education) Annual Conference that will be held March 6-10 in Chicago.

Video: Florida State awarded for hazing prevention

Florida State University has been awarded by HazingPrevention.org for its innovative approach to getting a handle on hazing, which includes the anti-hazing website, http://hazing.fsu.edu.

“We are grateful for the recognition this award brings to our efforts and for the additional resources it will bring to the community,” said Adam Goldstein, associate dean of students at Florida State University. Goldstein said he believes Florida State won the award because of the way the university responded to the 2005 passage of Florida’s hazing law, the Chad Meredith Act.

“Staff from around the campus came to the table and asked hard questions about how we were communicating about hazing and harm reduction with our students,” he said. “In the end, we decided there was a way we could do things better.”

In order to reach student organizations, sports clubs, athletes and fraternities and sororities, the Student Affairs division created the Web site http://hazing.fsu.edu as a central portal for hazing resources, information and reporting. The site includes an interactive quiz to test students’ knowledge about hazing laws in Florida as well as the university’s expectations of students. An anti-hazing pledge is posted at the site along with the names of dozens of students who have taken the pledge.

“I have been so impressed with the hazing prevention work at Florida State since I first saw an early draft of their Web site,” said Tracy Maxwell, executive director of HazingPrevention.Org. “Featuring students from various walks of student life, this site does so much to educate the community about hazing and make clear its stance that the practice is not acceptable.

“Most impressive, however, is the use of a comprehensive, year-round approach to hazing prevention and education, precisely what this award seeks to recognize and encourage. By involving so many constituencies and approaches in the planning and execution of their programming, they have ensured successful outcomes and will serve as a role model to other campuses as they approach this work.”

Mary Coburn, vice president for Student Affairs at Florida State, said she is pleased that the work of Goldstein and the staff in the Dean of Students Office has received national recognition.

“They have done a wonderful job involving the entire campus community in this effort, and they’ve made sure that the message of zero tolerance for hazing is distributed broadly to all campus groups,” Coburn said. “I am so pleased that their work has been recognized as a model program.”

The award money will be used to support hazing research and assessment efforts, fund undergraduate and graduate student attendance at national hazing trainings and symposiums and support greater awareness of existing prevention efforts in the Florida State community, Goldstein said.

HazingPrevention.Org is a non-profit 501(c)3 organization whose mission is to empower people to prevent hazing. The organization sponsors institutes, training programs and National Hazing Prevention Week — observed on campuses across the country the last week in September each year — and serve as a clearinghouse for resources on the topic of hazing.

New center emphasizes collaboration between medicine and law

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 16:58:34 GMT

The Florida State University Center for Innovative Collaboration in Medicine & Law has been established to promote cooperation between two professions that often view each other warily.

The center, a joint effort of Florida State’s College of Medicine and College of Law, is based in the medical school. Marshall Kapp, previously the Garwin Distinguished Professor of Law and Medicine at the Southern Illinois University Schools of Law and Medicine, has been named its director.

“Its unique mission is collaboration starting at the student level, through the practitioner level, through the policy level — collaboration on behalf of the consumer, who’s the doctor’s patient and the lawyer’s client,” said Kapp, who is also a professor in the medical school’s Department of Geriatrics, a courtesy professor in the law school and an affiliate of the Claude Pepper Institute at Florida State.

Marshall Kapp

“Many law schools have health-law centers; many medical schools have medical humanities departments that touch upon legal issues. But I think both in terms of its potential educational program and projects it might do, this mission is unique for an academic enterprise.”

Kapp, who has a law degree and a master’s degree in public health, also is professor emeritus from Wright State University School of Medicine and for more than 20 years was on the adjunct faculty at the University of Dayton School of Law. He is current editor of the American College of Legal Medicine’s Journal of Legal Medicine and serves on the editorial boards of several other major journals in health law. He has published and spoken extensively on topics in health law, medical ethics, and law and aging.

Kapp said the idea for the center arose from informal conversations among faculty members at the medical and law schools.

“One of the premises of the new center is that, yes, there’s a certain innate distrust, and we’re not going to make everybody love each other, but we’re going to try to break down the barriers enough to at least identify the areas where we can work together,” Kapp said.

Among the center’s constituents, he said, will be policymakers, both public (such as legislators) and private (such as insurance companies).

“As an academic institution, we can present information and counsel without having our own agenda, other than wanting to benefit consumers — patients and clients,” he said. “I think if we can establish that credibility, legislators will come to us. Whether we do briefings, programs or publications for the policymakers, they will see what we have to say on issues.”

Among the many issues the center will address, he said, is end-of-life care.

“That issue is a good example of a situation where doctors’ anxieties and apprehensions about the law and their own legal exposure influence how they treat patients,” Kapp said. “So through this center, I want to identify those kinds of issues and ask: What are their apprehensions? Where do doctors get these legal fears? Are they justifiably worried, or is it a matter of misunderstanding and missing information? If that’s the case, then one remedy is education. And to the extent that doctors are justifiably fearful, to the extent that the law actually does work at cross purposes with ethics and medicine, what can we recommend to policymakers to change the law?”

Perhaps the best-known fault line between medicine and law, Kapp noted, is the debate over medical malpractice.

“The two primary objectives of the current system are to compensate people who are, through no fault of their own, injured while receiving medical care, and to improve medical care, to deter bad practice,” he said. “The question is: What’s the best way to achieve those two objectives? Is it the current tort system, or is it some other system? You can’t really talk a lot about collaboration between the two professions and ignore the liability concerns.”

But the field of medicine and law is much broader than just the liability question, he said, and there is much for this new center to explore.

John Fogarty, dean of the College of Medicine, is enthusiastic about the possibilities.

“This new center provides Florida State University an incredible opportunity to truly build collaborative programs between our medical school and law school that should set the national model,” Fogarty said. “Sharing faculty and resources and providing expertise and frameworks for looking at the difficult ethical, moral and health care-related concerns of our society should be a great benefit to our university and our state.”

Donald Weidner, dean of the College of Law, is equally optimistic.

“We hope to help bridge the gap between the professions of law and medicine,” he said, “to improve the health and justice systems for all our citizens.”

Management professor honored for decades of mentorship

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 20:36:31 GMT

A faculty member in the Florida State University College of Business is being recognized for his more than three decades of contributions to the development of scholars in the field of management, as well as the impact of his and his students’ research in the field.

Gerald Ferris, the university’s Francis Eppes Professor of Management and Psychology, has been honored with the 2010 Thomas A. Mahoney Mentoring Award from the Academy of Management. Given annually by the academy’s Human Resources Division, the international award recognizes an educator who has made significant contributions in the mentoring of doctoral students.

Gerald Ferris

“Mentoring Ph.D. students, and watching them grow into fine organizational scholars, is what I enjoy doing most,” Ferris said of the award. “Receiving recognition for this from the Academy of Management is particularly rewarding because it is what I truly love.”

Ferris has either served on or chaired doctoral committees for 91 Ph.D. candidates over the course of his career, which includes tenures at Florida State, the University of Illinois and Texas A&M University.

“We are exceedingly happy to call Dr. Ferris one of our own,” said Annette Ranft, the Jim Moran Associate Professor and chair of Florida State’s Department of Management. “He is truly representative of our dedication to providing individual attention to students and the global impact of one-on-one mentoring.”

The Academy of Management is the leading professional association for scholars dedicated to creating and disseminating knowledge about management and organizations. Founded in 1936, it is the oldest and largest scholarly management association in the world, with approximately 18,000 members from 103 nations.

Florida State Moot Court team wins National Security Law Competition

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 21:32:51 GMT

The Florida State University College of Law Moot Court Team has won the 2010 National Security Law Moot Court Competition. This year’s competition was held Feb. 13-14 in Washington, D.C., at George Washington University Law School. This is the second time that Florida State has won first place in this competition.

The winning team members were third-year law students Andrew Grogan, from Melbourne, Fla., and Michael Redondo, from Miami, Fla. Judge Brad Thomas of the Florida First District Court of Appeal was their coach.

Judge Bradford Thomas

“We are all very proud to be celebrating another victory by our Moot Court Team,” said College of Law Dean Don Weidner. “This superb win comes just one week after the team won first place in this year’s national Religious Freedom Moot Court Competition.”

Florida State defeated Cornell Law School in the final round of the National Security Law Moot Court Competition. Twenty-two teams participated, including those from Baylor Law School, Brigham Young University Law School, Duke Law School and the University of Michigan Law School. Richard Klingler, former general counsel to the National Security Council, Patricia Wald, former chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and James Woolsey, former director of the CIA, judged the final round of competition.

Professor awarded $1.5 million grant to help struggling readers

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 14:26:39 GMT

Barbara Foorman, the Francis Eppes Professor in the Florida State University College of Education and director of the university’s Florida Center for Reading Research, has been awarded a grant by the U.S. Department of Education to measure reading progress in struggling adolescents.

The $1.5 million grant aims to address the low levels of reading proficiency exhibited by many of Florida’s students. Foorman noted that 40 percent of students in grades 3-12 do not meet the criteria for “proficient readers” as measured by the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) and, according to Florida law, must receive intensive reading intervention.

Barbara Foorman

“Reading teachers and content-area teachers at the secondary level are particularly excited about having data and instructional resources to improve the reading comprehension of their struggling readers,” she said.

Video: Professor awarded $1.5 million grant to help struggling readers

Francis Eppes Professor Barbara Foorman discusses the significance of a $1.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education.

In an effort to provide schools with formative assessment to guide instruction, the Department of Education contracted with the Florida Center for Reading Research to develop screening, diagnostic and progress-monitoring measures for students in grades K-12. The new assessment is called the Florida Assessments for Instruction in Reading (FAIR) and has been used by more than 1.6 million students during the current school year. FAIR data are incorporated into the Progress Monitoring and Reporting Network, Florida’s K-12 database housed at the Florida Center for Reading Research.

“This research involves state-of-the art psychometric and growth modeling techniques that will shorten FAIR’s computer-adaptive testing time,” Foorman said. “It will help determine how much growth in ability is needed for students to pass the FCAT.”

The Florida Center for Reading Research was established in January 2002 and is jointly administered at The Florida State University by the Learning Systems Institute and the College of Arts and Sciences.

International award honors chemistry professor Naresh Dalal

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 18:47:05 GMT

Naresh S. Dalal, the Dirac Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at The Florida State University, has been selected to receive the 2010 Silver Medal for Physics/Materials Science from the International Electron Paramagnetic Resonance Society. The elite award has been bestowed only six times previously, and only twice in the past seven years.

Dalal was recognized for his “three decades of pioneering research in electron paramagnetic resonance, its novel application to a wide range of problems from studies of free radicals in toxicology and carcinogenesis to ferroelectric and magnetic phase transitions in quantum solids and high-temperature superconductivity, and for developments of new techniques particularly at very high frequencies and magnetic fields.” The award will be presented at the Worldwide Magnetic Resonance Conference in Florence, Italy, in July.

With more than 1,000 members worldwide, the International Electron Paramagnetic Resonance Society seeks to stimulate scientific development of an advanced technique for chemical analysis known as electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) or electron spin resonance (ESR) spectroscopy; facilitate communication among researchers; and encourage the use of this technique across a wide variety of research fields.

“When I started my research career, I found the area of ESR spectroscopy particularly fascinating,” Dalal said. “I never felt that I was working particularly hard over the years; it has just been a lot of fun.

Naresh Dalal

“I find it surprising that my international colleagues find my work to be ‘pioneering,’” he said. “Nevertheless, I am deeply honored to be recognized in this manner.”

Much of Dalal’s research in this area has been conducted in collaboration with the Electron Magnet Resonance user program of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Tallahassee.

Colleagues at Florida State say the international attention on Dalal’s work is richly deserved.

“This award recognizes an extraordinarily broad range of research accomplishments by Professor Dalal, ranging from fundamental electricity and magnetism to potentially major applications in medical imaging and solid-state devices,” said Alan G. Marshall, the Robert O. Lawton Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Florida State and director of the Ion Cyclotron Resonance Program at the magnet lab. “Moreover, his career is still ‘peaking,’ and I look forward to further groundbreaking developments over the next several years.”

“Dr. Dalal showed prescient wisdom early in his career when he recognized the enormous potential of magnetic resonance techniques for uncovering a wide range of fascinating aspects of molecular and materials behavior,” said Sir Harold Kroto, the Francis Eppes Professor in Florida State’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. “He embarked on a voyage of fundamental research allied with imaginative technical development, and this has led to his present position as the world-leading expert in a highly competitive and difficult branch of important research.”

(Kroto, a co-recipient of the 1996 Nobel Prize for Chemistry and Biochemistry, recently collaborated with Dalal on a landmark research project that could lay the groundwork for a new generation of high-powered computer chips and other data-storing devices. Click here to read more about that project.)

A former chairman of Florida State’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Dalal has published 390 journal articles that have been cited a remarkable 6,000 times. In 2007, Dalal was recognized as the top chemist in Florida by the Florida Section of the American Chemical Society, which bestowed upon him its annual Florida Award.

He also received the 2007 Southern Chemist Award from the Memphis Section of the American Chemical Society — an honor that recognized him as “an outstanding researcher who has brought recognition to the South.” In addition, Dalal was named a fellow of the American Physical Society in 1999, and in 2003 he was designated a Distinguished Research Professor, which recognizes outstanding research and/or creative activity, at FSU.

Education professor honored for research contributions

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 17:57:04 GMT

Jon C. Dalton, an associate professor in The Florida State University’s Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, has been named the 2010 recipient of the Outstanding Contribution to Literature or Research Award by NASPA – Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education.

“It’s certainly an honor to be recognized by your colleagues for contributing to the scholarship of the profession,” Dalton said of the award. “I’m so pleased to have been a part of the Student Affairs Division here at FSU, as well as a faculty member in the Higher Education Program. Colleagues in both these programs have been very committed to students and to advancing research and scholarship on student learning and development in higher education.”

To be considered for the Outstanding Contribution to Literature or Research Award, nominees must demonstrate professional commitment to student-affairs administration and engage in research activity that is applicable on a national level and highly utilized by student-affairs practitioners.

“Jon Dalton brings distinction to this NASPA award in that he is a role model for how one can effectively bridge the divide between scholar and practitioner,” said NASPA executive director Gwendolyn Jordan Dungy.

The honor is well deserved, said Marcy Driscoll, dean of Florida State’s College of Education.

“Professor Dalton’s work is well respected, and he maintains a great dedication to his research and work in his field,” Driscoll said. “The College of Education could not be more proud.”

Dalton will be presented with his award at NASPA’s national conference, scheduled to be held in Chicago in March.

Jon C. Dalton

Dalton is an associate professor in the Higher Education Program and director of the Hardee Center for Leadership and Ethics. He has been at Florida State for 20 years and served as vice president for Student Affairs from 1989 to 1999, and from 2000 to present as an associate professor in the Higher Education Program.

Dalton founded the annual Institute on College Student Values, which focuses on moral and civic education in college student learning and development. He serves as co-editor of the electronic Journal of College and Character and is a past president of NASPA. His research interests are in college student development, moral and civic education, organization and management of student-affairs services, ethics in higher-education leadership, and international educational exchange.

Formerly known as the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators, NASPA is the leading voice for student-affairs administration, policy and practice, and affirms the commitment of the student-affairs profession to educating the whole student and integrating student life and learning. With more than 11,000 members at 1,400 campuses in 29 countries, NASPA is the foremost professional association for student-affairs administrators, faculty, and graduate and undergraduate students. Members of the association are committed to serving college students by embracing the core values of diversity, learning, integrity, collaboration, access, service, fellowship, and the spirit of inquiry.

Former student has nation's top dissertation in nuclear physics

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 16:33:56 GMT

A recent doctoral graduate of The Florida State University has earned top honors in his discipline as the author of the nation’s best doctoral dissertation in nuclear physics.

Calem R. Hoffman, who received his Ph.D. in nuclear physics from Florida State in April 2009, has been named the winner of the 2010 Dissertation in Nuclear Physics Award, presented by the Division of Nuclear Physics of the American Physical Society (APS). The award was formally presented to him Feb. 16 at an APS meeting in Washington, D.C.

Calem Hoffman

“To have been nominated for the Dissertation in Nuclear Physics Award was already a great honor, and then to win it was truly amazing,” said Hoffman, who also earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in physics at Florida State in 2003 and 2006, respectively. “I am happy that this award will bring even more recognition to an already world-class physics department at FSU, and I was excited to represent my alma mater at the American Physical Society meeting.

“I simply had fun every day doing nuclear physics research at Florida State, and this honor was made possible by the opportunities Professor (Samuel L.) Tabor, the physics department and The Florida State University as a whole provided,” Hoffman said.

Hoffman's dissertation experiment was performed at Michigan State University. He is now a postdoctoral research fellow at Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago, one of the leading nuclear physics laboratories in the United States. His long-term goal, he said, is “to continue on with fundamental nuclear structure research at the highest level. I hope to continue the advancement of knowledge as it pertains to the structure of nuclei and the fundamental nuclear force.

“Being given the chance to view and participate in top-level nuclear research, especially as an undergraduate, paved the way to my current research position,” Hoffman said. “The knowledge and support I received from the physics department and the entire FSU faculty was truly wonderful.”

At Florida State, Hoffman conducted research under the direction of Tabor, with whom he worked as both an undergraduate and graduate student.

Calem Hoffman and Professor Samuel L. Tabor

“Calem was the top student in my introductory physics class at FSU, and he just kept getting better!” said Tabor, the Norman P. Heydenberg Professor of Physics. “In his graduate studies, he became an absolute master of every aspect of nuclear physics research, from designing, constructing and performing experiments to conducting an extremely careful analysis of the results to a deep search for the meaning of his work in a wider context.

“His research answered longstanding questions about the structure of atomic nuclei under extreme conditions,” Tabor said. “Calem published the research on which his dissertation was based in the leading nuclear physics journals in the world, and these have helped establish him as one of the world’s leading young nuclear scientists.”

Tabor’s praise was echoed by Mark Riley, chairman of the physics department, who also taught Hoffman in several courses.

“This is a magnificent achievement,” Riley said. ““I remember him being the best student in my modern physics class and doing a great job working with Dr. Tabor as an undergraduate researcher. He then went on to even greater success in graduate school with Dr. Tabor and the nuclear physics group. He is a star, and this award is shining light on this fact.”

A video of Hoffman discussing his research at FSU can be viewed here.

The Dissertation in Nuclear Physics Award was established to recognize and encourage outstanding scholarship as represented by an experimental or theoretical Ph.D. dissertation for a degree awarded by a North American institution within the past two years. It consists of a $2,500 monetary award and an allowance for travel to the APS’ spring meeting.

Hoffman also will receive a certificate from the APS containing the following citation: “For his dissertation describing the investigation of neutron-rich isotopes at the drip line, and, in particular, for the identification of a systematic reduction in the effective p-sd shell gap, indicating a weakening of the gap as neutrons are added.”

In addition to his award, he will give an invited talk on his thesis work at the APS meeting.

Hoffman is an active member of the American Physical Society and the Sigma Pi Sigma and Phi Beta Kappa honor societies.

FSU playwright Dan Dietz wins 'National Ten-Minute Play Contest' - again

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 16:28:51 GMT

For “Lobster Boy,” his haunting 10-minute play about a little boy who literally feels no pain and the brother who seeks to cure him, Assistant Professor of playwrighting Dan Dietz of The Florida State University has won the 2010 Heideman Award.

The prestigious prize goes to the winner of the annual “National Ten-Minute Play Contest,” which is sponsored by the distinguished Actors Theatre of Louisville and draws thousands of entries –– all 10 pages and 10 minutes long, or less –– from across the United States. Each year, Actors Theatre serves as host for the Humana Festival of New American Plays, the nation’s premiere showcase of new work.

At the upcoming Humana Festival, “Lobster Boy” by Dietz is among four new short plays that will debut at Actors Theatre of Louisville on March 27 and 28. Festival audiences typically include theatergoers from around the world.

Video: FSU playwright Dan Dietz wins national contest

Florida State University Assistant Professor of playwrighting Dan Dietz discusses his Heideman Award-winning play titled "Lobster Boy."

The 2010 Heideman Award is a remarkable encore performance by Dietz, who directs the Master of Fine Arts (MFA) program “Writing for the Stage and Screen” that is offered jointly by the School of Theatre, his faculty home, and The Film School at Florida State. A four-time finalist, Dietz earned his first Heideman in 2003 for the 10-minute play “Trash Anthem.” With this year’s win, he is one of just two playwrights nationwide to have claimed the prize more than once.

“I feel both honored and lucky to be the Heideman winner for a second time, since Actors Theatre has so rarely bestowed it twice on the same playwright,” Dietz said.

He calls “Lobster Boy” a “kind of unusual theatrical experience.”

Heideman Award winner Dan Dietz

“It’s a story told by a man in his 30s about two young brothers, the younger of whom was born without the ability to feel pain. The older brother hatches a plan to help his sibling learn how to experience pain –– with tragic and ironic consequences. The story is assisted by a series of slides that describe elements of the story being told. So the experience feels like part suspenseful story, part lecture. And, then the question arises, is the older man who is telling the story really the older brother within the story? It all makes for an experience that I hope will be creepy, poignant and, at times, even funny.”

After earning an MFA in Playwriting from the University of Texas-Austin in 1999 and teaching nearby at Southwestern University, Dietz joined the School of Theatre faculty at Florida State in 2007.

“I think my favorite thing about Florida State University and its School of Theatre is the energy, enthusiasm and dedication of the students,” he said.

“Nowhere have I seen a more motivated group of kids. They are absolutely determined to make theatre, even if it means doing everything themselves, from finding a theatre space to acquiring props and costumes to writing the script to getting people in the seats. It is no wonder FSU students are so successful after leaving the university. This scrappy, do-or-die attitude is what it takes to make it in the theatre, and they’ve got it in spades.”

In addition to his Heideman Award-winning 10-minute works, plays penned by Dietz include “Dirigible,” “Blind Horses,” “Tilt Angel,” “Americamisfit,” “The Sandreckoner,” and “tempOdyssey,” which was performed on stages from New York City to Los Angeles and named a finalist for the 2007 PEN USA Literary Award in Drama.

Dietz has been honored with a James A. Michener Fellowship, a Josephine Bay Paul Fellowship, and the Austin Critics Table Award for Best New Play. His work has been presented at the Kennedy Center, the Public Theater, CenterStage, the Playwrights’ Center, and the Summer Play Festival, among other venues. He has twice been named a finalist for the Princess Grace Award, and was a nominee for the Oppenheimer/Newsday Award.

Starting in 2011, the National Ten-Minute Play Contest and its Heideman Award will be jointly sponsored by City Theatre of Miami, Fla., and Actors Theatre of Louisville.

To learn more about the 2010 Humana Festival of New American Plays, slated for Feb. 21-March 28, visit the Actors Theatre Web site at www.actorstheatre.org/humana.htm. For additional information on the School of Theatre, part of the College of Visual Arts, Theatre and Dance at The Florida State University, go to http://theatre.fsu.edu/.

Researchers envision high-tech applications for 'multiferroic' crystals

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 21:39:33 GMT

Two of The Florida State University’s most accomplished scientists recently joined forces on a collaborative research project that has yielded groundbreaking results involving an unusual family of crystalline minerals. Their findings could lay the groundwork for future researchers seeking to develop a new generation of computer chips and other information-storage devices that can hold vast amounts of data and be strongly encrypted for security purposes.

Working with a team of researchers from various disciplines, Naresh S. Dalal and Sir Harold W. “Harry” Kroto, both world-renowned chemists and educators, took a close look at a family of crystals known as metal-organic frameworks, or MOFs. Employing both laboratory experimentation and computational analysis, they found that four such crystals possessed properties that rarely coexist.

“We identified these four crystals as ‘multiferroic,’ meaning that they are simultaneously ferromagnetic and ferroelectric in nature when cooled to a specific temperature,” said Dalal, Florida State’s Dirac Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry. (Ferromagnetism means a material possesses magnetic poles, while ferroelectricity refers to a material that possesses positive and negative electrical charges that can be reversed when an external electrical field is applied.)

“Normally, these two properties are mutually exclusive,” Dalal said. “Most materials are either ferromagnetic or ferroelectric based on the number of electrons in the ion’s outer electron shell. Therefore, finding four multiferroic materials at one time is quite scientifically significant and opens numerous doors in terms of potential applications.”

Multiferroic materials have been a hot topic of research in recent years, with researchers finding applications in the areas of hydrogen storage and the design of advanced optical elements, among others. Kroto sees another potential use: in the creation of high-powered computer memories and other data storage devices that can hold far more information than is currently possible.

Sir Harold W. "Harry" Kroto

“Theoretically, it might be possible to design devices that are much smaller and faster than the ones we use today to store and transmit data,” said Kroto, a Francis Eppes Professor in Florida State’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. “And with data split over two mediums, information could be encrypted in a way that makes it far more secure than is currently possible. This could have wide-ranging applications in areas as diverse as the aeronautics industry, the military, the workplace and even the average consumer’s home.”

Dalal pointed to another possible benefit — high-tech devices that make far less of an environmental impact.

“The four new multiferroic crystals that we have identified all substitute other, less toxic metals for lead, which is a potent neurotoxin,” he said. “By reducing the amount of lead that enters landfills, we also reduce the amount that enters our water supply — and our bodies.”

Dalal, Kroto and their colleagues recently published a paper on their findings in the peer-reviewed Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS). Their research was then summarized in a second article published in the prestigious international science journal Nature — a powerful symbol of the significance with which their findings have been greeted within the worldwide scientific community.

Naresh S. Dalal

“On the basis of the type of materials research I was keen to initiate here at Florida State, it was natural to collaborate with Dr. Dalal due to his deep understanding of the complexities of phase transitions,” Kroto said. “It is in particular the subtle aspects of phase behavior, well beyond those traditional ones exhibited by normal gases, liquids and solids, that led to this work being highlighted recently by Nature and Angewandte Chemie.” (The latter is a prominent, peer-reviewed scientific journal that reviews all aspects of chemistry.)

In addition to Dalal and Kroto, other collaborators from Florida State were Ronald J. Clark, an emeritus professor of chemistry and biochemistry who continues to conduct research; Prashant Jain, a graduate research assistant; and Vasanth Ramachandran, a graduate teaching assistant. Additional researchers were Haidong Zhou, an assistant scholar/scientist at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Tallahassee; Anthony K. Cheetham, Professor of Materials Science and Metallurgy at the University of Cambridge in England; and Brian H. Toby, a senior physicist at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois.

In the world of science, Dalal and Kroto are known as scientific heavy hitters, each with decades of research experience and scores of professional accolades to his credit. Kroto is perhaps best known as one of three recipients of the 1996 Nobel Prize for Chemistry and Biochemistry for his co-discovery of buckminsterfullerene, a form of pure carbon better known as “buckyballs.” He came to Florida State in 2004 after 37 years at the University of Sussex in England. Dalal, meanwhile, was recognized in 2007 as one of the top scientists in the southern United States by the Memphis Section of the American Chemical Society, which selected him to receive its Southern Chemist Award. That same year, he was named the top chemist in Florida by the Florida Section of the American Chemical Society, which bestowed upon him its annual Florida Award.

Florida State Headlines Radio

College of Business alumnus James Seneff receives Horatio Alger Award

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 16:42:12 GMT

James M. Seneff Jr., chairman and CEO of CNL Financial Group Inc. and an alumnus of the Florida State University College of Business, has been named a recipient of the 2010 Horatio Alger Award.

Seneff is one of 11 individuals who will be honored at the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans induction ceremony on April 9 in Washington, D.C. The group also includes former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and retired Gen. Tommy Ray Franks, former commander in chief of U.S. Central Command. According to the association, recipients of the award are dedicated community leaders who demonstrate initiative and commitment to excellence as illustrated by extraordinary achievements accomplished through honesty, hard work, self-reliance and perseverance over adversity.

James Seneff

“I am delighted to have been selected to receive the 2010 Horatio Alger Award,” Seneff said. “If any phrase captures the spirit of this association, it is ‘Opportunity still knocks.’

“I am humbled that in my life, opportunity knocked for me,” he said. “And I am pleased to join a long line of extraordinary individuals who serve as role models for young people through their dedication to the principles of integrity, hard work, perseverance and compassion for others.”

Seneff began his career early while growing up in Gary, Ind., where he started working in his father’s construction business. Then, while serving in Vietnam, Seneff wrote a 50-year business plan, which he put into action when he returned home and relocated to Orlando, Fla.

Video: College of Business Hall of Fame: James Seneff

Biography of the business life of Florida State University alumnus James Seneff, created for his induction into the Florida State College of Business Hall of Fame.

In 1973, with a $5,000 loan from a fellow entrepreneur, his father, Seneff began CNL Financial Group. Methodically, Seneff began buying properties in downtown Orlando, and by the end of his first year of business he had $500,000 of real estate assets under management. Since then, CNL has formed or acquired companies with more than $24 billion in assets focused in the retail, restaurant, hospitality, lifestyle and retirement sectors, making CNL one of the nation’s largest, privately held investment, real-estate services and development companies.

“We are extremely proud of Mr. Seneff,” said Caryn L. Beck-Dudley, dean of Florida State’s College of Business. “While he has always been a financial champion of The Florida State University and our college, he has more importantly been a dedicated mentor to our students.”

In 2006, Seneff was inducted into the Florida State University College of Business Hall of Fame in recognition of his enormous successes in real estate and his eagerness to give back to his alma mater.

To learn more about the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, visit www.horatioalger.com.

Founded in 1950, the Florida State University College of Business is one of the nation’s youngest business schools, yet it has become one of the 10 largest in the United States. It is the second largest academic unit on the Florida State campus with an enrollment of 6,107 students and boasts a distinguished full-time faculty of 100, including one Francis Eppes Professorship, eight Eminent Scholar chairs, three university-named professorships and 26 endowed professorships. For more information, visit www.cob.fsu.edu.

Florida State Moot Court team wins national advocacy competition

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 14:03:33 GMT

The Florida State University College of Law Moot Court Team has won the 2010 Religious Freedom Moot Court Competition. This year’s competition was held Feb. 5 in Washington, D.C., at George Washington University Law School. This is the second time in the four-year history of the competition that Florida State has won first place.

The winning team members were third-year law students Ana Barton, from Miami, and Steve Muscatello, from Boston. Tallahassee attorney Arthur Stern was their coach.

Steve Muscatello and Ana Barton

“We are all very proud of our Moot Court Team’s victory,” said College of Law Dean Don Weidner. “This continues a tradition of extraordinary success.”

The Florida State University team defeated teams from the University of Minnesota in the semifinal round and Duke University in the final round. Other law schools competing in the field of 18 teams included Boston College, Brigham Young University, George Mason University, George Washington University, the University of Arizona and the University of Iowa. Janice Rogers Brown of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and Milan Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit judged the final round of competition.

Florida State Law professors create scholarly e-journal on sustainability

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 17:11:17 GMT

Florida State University College of Law professors have created an interdisciplinary electronic journal to publish scholarship on all aspects of sustainable resource use and development.

Sustainability Law & Policy is edited by law professors Robin Kundis Craig, David L. Markell and J.B. Ruhl, who are among the nation’s foremost environmental law scholars. The e-journal is part of the Social Science Research Network’s (SSRN) electronic library.

Professor Robin Kundis Craig

“We wanted to sponsor an e-journal that would showcase cutting-edge scholarship, be interdisciplinary and address an important component of environmental law and policy that was not already being highlighted on SSRN,” said Craig, associate dean for Environmental Programs and Attorneys’ Title Professor. “We are encouraged by the fact that, by the time the e-journal was officially announced, scholars had already submitted 60 articles.”

“Our phenomenally productive environmental faculty has the pulling power and vision to make this work,” said College of Law Dean Don Weidner. “It is exciting that we roll this journal out the same year we roll out our new LL.M. program in Environmental Law.”

Video: Law professors create sustainability e-journal

Sustainability Law & Policy is an e-journal created and edited by law professors Robin Kundis Craig, David L. Markell and J.B. Ruhl, who are among the nation’s foremost environmental law scholars. The e-journal is part of the Social Science Research Network’s (SSRN) electronic library.

The LL.M., or Master of Laws, in Environmental Law and Policy is a postgraduate law degree that gives J.D. holders the opportunity to engage in a concentrated program in environmental and natural resources law.

Florida State’s Environmental Law program is ranked 11th best in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. In addition to being widely recognized experts in their fields, the program’s faculty members have served as visiting professors at Harvard Law School, the University of Virginia School of Law, the University of Texas School of Law and Vanderbilt University Law School.

Florida State Headlines Radio

Alumnus Barron takes office as Florida State's 14th president

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 13:18:15 GMT

Eric J. Barron has taken his position as 14th president of The Florida State University.

Barron, 58, succeeds T.K. Wetherell, who served the university from 2003-2010.

As he moved into his Westcott Building office, Barron listed his priorities for his first few weeks. “I really want to see the synergism of the strategic plan, the fundraising of the university, and how it is we show our face to the world,” he said. “Of course we’re also going right into the legislative session,” he added.

Barron earned a bachelor's degree in geology from FSU as an honors student in 1973. He holds master's and doctoral degrees from the University of Miami, both in oceanography.

Barron noted that his leadership style is based on transparency, communication and approachability. “An element of leadership that’s really crucial is whether or not people sense you’re approachable. Can people walk up to you as you walk up to the building, ask you a question as you’re walking across campus or send you an e-mail and realize that you want to listen,” he said.

Video: First Day: Eric Barron Q&A

Eric Barron sits down to discuss his first day on campus as president of The Florida State University. (Monday, February 8, 2010)

"I am extremely gratified and honored to return to my alma mater and serve as its next president," Barron said after his Dec. 8 selection by the Board of Trustees. "This is an outstanding university that is poised to become one of the finest in the world, and I look forward to helping it reach that goal."

Barron had been director of the highly prominent national laboratory, the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo., since 2008.

In an interview that appeared Feb. 3 in the prestigious journal Nature, Barron said he sees the major challenges of his new role as “to promote quality and student success in a constrained budget environment. Florida State University is functioning very well,” he said, “…but we ought to be able to do a much better job with philanthropy.”

Prior to taking the position at NCAR, Barron was dean of the newly formed Jackson School of Geosciences at the University of Texas at Austin.

From 1986 to 2006, Barron was at Pennsylvania State University, where he was professor of geosciences, director of the Earth System Science Center, director of the EMS Environment Institute, and finally dean of the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences.

Barron is a Fellow in the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Geophysical Union, the American Meteorological Society and the Geological Society of America. He has received many national awards as a scholar, researcher and distinguished lecturer, has published extensively and has been editor or a member of the editorial boards of a dozen academic journals. He has testified before Congress and has chaired numerous committees in service to the federal government, such as the NASA Senior Review for the Earth Sciences in 2005. He has chaired committees and panels of the National Research Council since 1987 and currently chairs "An Ocean Infrastructure for U.S. Ocean Research in 2030."

A highly visible scientist, Barron stressed his commitment to the full spectrum of academic disciplines, saying he is "an ardent supporter and advocate for the full spectrum of excellence in the arts and humanities, sciences, law, business and medicine."

A native of Lafayette, Ind., Barron has two grown children. He said he and his wife, Molly, are "a partnership" and that she will be an active participant in supporting Florida State University while he is president.

Florida State Headlines Radio

Record-breaking percentage of FSU law students give to annual fund

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 17:42:42 GMT

Eighty-one percent of Florida State University College of Law students have made cash contributions to the law school’s annual fund, making the 2010 rate of student giving the highest in the school’s history. Students contributed during an annual fund drive held Jan. 25-31.

Dean Don Weidner

“Generating a culture of philanthropy is critical as state law schools increasingly must rely on private funding,” said College of Law Dean Don Weidner. “The rate of student giving demonstrates that investments in our law school are paying great dividends.”

In addition to its phenomenal student giving, Florida State is one of the nation’s best law schools in terms of alumni giving rate, according to American Bar Association data.

“For the students, donating to the school is much more than a number,” said Student Bar Association President Andrew Fay, whose leadership was instrumental during the drive. “We look at the annual fund drive as an opportunity to show our gratitude to the faculty and administration for all of the hard work that goes into preparing us for the legal profession.”

Yes, ecology shapes evolution, but relocated guppies show reverse also true

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 17:35:39 GMT

In the natural stream communities of Trinidad, guppy populations live close together, but evolve differently. Upstream, fewer predators mean more guppies but less food for each; they grow slowly and larger, reproduce later and less, and die older. Downstream, where predators thrive, guppies eat more, grow rapidly, stay small, reproduce quickly and die younger.

While it is clear to ecologists that an ecosystem shapes the evolution of animals living in it, population biology experts such as Joseph Travis of The Florida State University believe the reverse can also be true, making the relationship between evolution and ecology a model of reciprocity.

Now, he can prove it.

The evidence comes from an experiment in evolution that Travis designed with David N. Reznick of the University of California-Riverside and their fellow members of an interdisciplinary research team. Findings from the study expand the body of knowledge about the interactions between evolution and ecology by demonstrating that evolutionary adaptations can also act as triggers for a cascade of in-tandem changes to both ecosystem and animal.

In the experiment, led by Ronald D. Bassar of UC-Riverside, the team used artificial streams –– filled with the same spring water and insect larvae found in Trinidad’s natural habitats –– to examine whether genetically distinct guppies from upstream or downstream had different effects on ecosystem processes. They compared the two types of guppies because earlier work showed that the little freshwater fish could evolve rapidly from a downstream “type” to an upstream “type.”

The team found dramatic differences between the effects of each type of guppy on the nutrient cycles and overall productivity of the stream ecosystems. Travis said the results, which emerged very rapidly during the experiment, predict that the team’s larger experiment –– introducing downstream guppies to upstream habitats –– will show that evolutionary change also will drive substantial changes in the ecosystem at the same time.

Dean Joseph Travis, Photo Credit: Michele Edmunds/FSU Photo Lab

“Within just four weeks, the two types of guppies drove the parameters of the artificial streams in very different directions,” said Travis, the dean of Florida State’s College of Arts and Sciences and a distinguished professor in its Department of Biological Science.

The study is described in the Feb. 1, 2010, online edition of the journal PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences). It was funded by a five-year, $5 million grant from the National Science Foundation’s Integrative Biological Research (FIBR) program.

It is essential that scientists better understand the evolution-ecology feedback loop and the surprising speed with which an ecosystem can be altered by adaptations in a species that populates it, said Travis, because so many animals and plants are evolving in response to ecosystem changes caused by humans. As an example, he points to the overharvesting of fish, which can cause some species to get smaller and die younger, which in turn could alter their ecosystem via a feedback loop that might eventually mean no fish to harvest at all.

“Evolution can be very fast,” he said. “When our research team started this project, we already knew that downstream guppies mature earlier, make more and smaller babies, have less colorful males, and tend to be more carnivorous and less herbivorous than upstream guppies. Past work by David Reznick, our study’s principal investigator, showed that if you take downstream guppies and introduce them to pools upstream with no guppies, the descendents of those founders will evolve to look like upstream guppies in a few dozen generations.”

Travis and team hoped that their experiment would reveal whether the two types of guppies, upstream and downstream, were different enough that switching out one for the other would cause substantial changes in ecosystem processes. They collected guppies from the two different Trinidadian stream communities and placed them in the replicate, artificial streams that they’d built alongside the corresponding natural habitats.

“We also were careful to calibrate any effects against purely environmental differences, such as what one might see if we compared different, naturally occurring densities of guppies in both natural upstream and more crowded downstream conditions,” Travis said. “So, our experiment simultaneously compared the ecological effects of guppies of each type in two densities, one double the other. That design enabled us to learn whether the changes we saw in the ecosystem processes were caused by the natural differences in guppy density or the differences in the guppy ‘type.’”

A male guppy from the upper mountain streams of Trinidad, Photo Credit: Courtesy, FSU Department of Biological Science

“Type” mattered. For instance, because downstream guppies ate more insect larvae and less plant material, they excreted more nitrogen and less phosphorus.

“The combined effects of different grazing and different fertilization patterns served to change algal growth rates, detritus decay rates –– because guppies can eat the little animals that eat decaying leaves –– and the overall oxygen consumption rates in the ecosystem,” Travis said.

“The evolutionary effects we documented are so large that an ecologist can no longer say, ‘Sure, you evolutionary guys can show some effect from genetically based differences, but those effects are small in the big scheme of things.’ Well, they aren’t small. The changes generated by the new guppy species are at least as great as those found by doubling the density of existing guppies.

“We also show that the standard approach to theory in ecology and evolution, which is to say, ‘Let’s keep ecological variables constant and study evolution’ or ‘Let’s keep evolutionary variables constant and study ecology,’ isn’t necessarily a good approximation for reality,” Travis said. “We now know that evolutionary effects and ecological effects can unfold on comparable time scales.”

Next, the researchers will examine how the feedback loop from the changed ecosystem shapes a new round of local adaptations in the relocated guppies.

The PNAS paper “Local adaptation in Trinidadian guppies alters ecosystem processes” was co-authored by Travis and research team colleagues from Cornell University, the universities of Nebraska and Georgia, Drexel University and Siena College, as well as UC-Riverside. To access a copy, visit www.pnas.org/.

Telecasts of oil drilling symposium to air on 4FSU (Comcast Channel 4)

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 20:39:53 GMT

This week, the Florida State University Institute for Energy Systems, Economics and Sustainability hosted the “Florida Symposium on Offshore Energy, Part II: The Inshore Challenges of Offshore Energy Prospects” to advance a public dialogue on the many issues that must be addressed in any offshore drilling proposal that the state of Florida may consider over the next year. Now, cable television viewers in Gadsden, Leon, and Wakulla counties will have an opportunity to view a recording of this event as 4FSU (Comcast Channel 4) makes plans to telecast it throughout the month of February. The air dates for the symposium on 4FSU are as follows:

FLORIDA SYMPOSIUM ON OFFSHORE ENERGY — PART II:

THE INSHORE CHALLENGES OF OFFSHORE ENERGY PROSPECTS

(Discussions by panels of experts in two main subject areas related

to offshore oil drilling: environmental and ecological questions and the need

for further research, and regulatory challenges that await any attempt

to allow offshore drilling along Florida’s Gulf coast)

Friday, Feb. 5, 7 p.m.

Saturday, Feb. 6, 6 p.m.

Monday, Feb. 8, 7 p.m.

Thursday, Feb. 11, 7 p.m.

Saturday, Feb. 13, 6 p.m.

Thursday, Feb. 18, 7 p.m.

Saturday, Feb. 20, 6 p.m.

Tuesday, Feb. 23, 7 p.m.

Saturday, Feb. 27, 6 p.m.

In addition, the “Florida Symposium on Offshore Energy, Part II: The Inshore Challenges of Offshore Energy Prospects” can be viewed online at www.ieses.fsu.edu.

4FSU will also rebroadcast the “Florida Symposium on Offshore Energy, Part I: Oil and Gas,” originally recorded on Nov. 2, 2009, on the following dates:

Monday, Feb. 22, 7 p.m.

Thursday, Feb. 25, 7 p.m.

Sunday, Feb. 28, 8 p.m.

The program for Part I can also be viewed online at www.ieses.fsu.edu.