200911

F O R P E O P L E W H O M A K E G R E A T T H I N G S H A P P E N A T U T N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 9

WHAT’S INSIDE

Campus Club closes and reopens as University Club in AT&T Center By Ashley Moreno

Casa Herrera university establishesinternational footprint

Photo by Paola Bueche

By Kira Taniguchi

In 2005, an uninhabited, 300-year-old house situated on a quarter of a block in Antigua, Guatemala stood in a state of

disrepair. Four years later, the complete-ly restored building has become an envi-ronment rich with opportunities for stu-dents, faculty and staff at the University of Texas, as well as other scholars around the globe.

Located one block from the center of Antigua, the colonial house has 26 rooms, which include a lecture hall, dor-mitories, digital workspaces, teaching spaces, offi ces and a full kitchen. Casa Herrera is one of fi ve houses included in the original layout of the city.

Th e restored Casa Herrera opened its doors June 1, 2009, marking the fi rst per-manent UT footprint in another country and opening up a world of possibilities for Mayan and Mesoamerican scholars. Th e

Scholars in Residence program at Casa Herrera enables students to reside at the house for as many as three months and pursue their studies in an authentic Me-soamerican environment. Th e program is the only one sponsored in the U.S., and is operated by the Department of Art and Art History along with Fundación Pan-taleón. Two UT students are currently participating in the program.

“It is the fi rst center outside of the U.S. in a key place like Antigua for Me-soamerican studies,” said Paola Bueche, senior program coordinator. “It puts us [the University] in a diff erent league.”

Casa Herrera’s aim is to facilitate aca-demic programming, symposia, lectures, workshops and classes, said the depart-ment’s Assistant Director of External Aff airs Carolyn Porter.

“For the fi rst time, scholars, students and interested members of the world can come together in a non-governmental,

politically neutral environment to really delve into and discuss the questions that are shaping the fi eld of ancient Meso-america studies today,” Porter said.

Th e University fi rst became involved with Casa Herrera in 2005, when Da-vid Stuart, director of the Mesoamerica Center, heard about the house through Barbara Arroyo, a classmate he knew from graduate school and president of the board of directors of Fundación Pan-taleón.

“He was able to translate his ideas for the activities of the space to her, and she was able to verbally give him a descrip-tion of the property,” Porter said. “In 2005, he was able to view the property.”

When UT fi rst became involved, Casa Herrera sat abandoned. “Th e casa itself as a house had not been prioritized by the Fundación, so it was in a state of extreme disrepair,” Porter said. “So our conversa-tion allowed the foundation to initiate a

Continued page 8

p2 2009 Hamilton book Awards

More than 100 books nominated for fi ve awards

p3renita ColemanResearch showspublic relations professionals areethical thinkers

p3renita ColemanResearch showspublic relations professionals areethical thinkers

p4Mark updegrove

New director of LBJ Library

and Museum

p4Mark updegrove

New director of LBJ Library

and Museum

p7 Petrobelli Altarpiece Missing piece found at Blanton

1

• our campus • november 2009

Advertising retail Advertising director Jalah Goette

retail Advertising Manager Brad Corbett

Account executive Carter Goss

student Ad director Kathryn Abbas

student Ad Manager Ryan ford

Local display Account executives Lauren Aldana Taylor Blair Tommy Daniels Jordan Gentry Meagan Gribbin Anu Kulkarni Darius Meher-Homji Natasha Moonka Ashley Walker

Contributing stAff Writers Tara Haelle Seamus McAfee Emily Pennington Kira Taniguchi Elena Watts

Photographers Debbie Finley Tara Haelle

Layout & design Elena Watts

student editors Emily Pennington Kira Taniguchi

editor Elena Watts

“our Campus” welcomes input

from faculty and staff. Please

contact elena Watts at 232-8351

or [email protected] with

your suggestions for upcoming

editions.

for advertising info, call 471-1865

www.insideourcampus.com

our campus • november 2009 • page 3

Hamilton book AwardsBy Elena Watts

On Oct. 28, eight faculty members of the Univer-sity of Texas at Austin

left a formal cocktail reception and dinner at the Four Seasons Hotel with their colleagues’ ad-miration and thousands of dol-lars in their pockets.

The University Co-op co-host-ed the 13th annual Hamilton Book Awards with the University of Texas. It was the “Oscars” of UT academia, where five of 100 faculty who penned books in the last year earned Professor Rob-ert W. Hamilton Book Author Awards. Three others were rec-ognized and amply rewarded as University Co-op Fine Arts, Best Research Paper and Career Re-search Excellence awardees.

Like the promenade made by Hollywood’s elite down the red carpet at the biggest movie event of the year, guests sauntered along accordion-style screens built of 100 giant-sized covers of the nominated books that spanned opposite sides of the cocktail re-ception.

“I wanted to recognize our faculty for the work they accom-plish,” George Mitchell, president of University Co-op, said. “There are some awards on campus, but I do not think they are enough for the caliber, quality and quantity of faculty and staff members we have at this great University.”

The University of Texas at Austin’s faculty and research

staff who published books be-tween September 2007 and De-cember 2008 were eligible for the $10,000 grand prize and four $3,000 runners-up book awards. The research paper, which earned a $5,000 award, had to be com-posed the preceding year and the career research excellence award, also worth $10,000, was based on work spanning many years. The $3,000 fine arts award rec-ognized outstanding exhibition, performance or other forms of professional creativity.

The 2009 Hamilton Book Awards review committee, com-posed of 13 faculty and staff members from different depart-ments and schools, was appoint-ed by Vice President for Research Juan Sanchez.

“We select a representative group capable of evaluating the pool of nominations any given year, so the [review committee] membership varies depending on the represented areas each year,” Liza Scarborough, coordinator for the vice president of research, said.

The award is named for Dr. Robert W. Hamilton, Minerva House Drysdale Regents Chair Emeritus in UT’s School of Law for his 40 years of service in the

classroom and his contributions to the University Co-op’s success during his 12-year reign as the board’s chairperson.

“It is Dr. Hamilton’s vision and cutting edge thinking that brought us here today, what makes the Co-op the successful institution it is,” Mitchell said.

Hulan Swain, assistant to the president and corporate secretary for University Co-op, said Mitch-ell had the idea to honor Hamil-ton because the Co-op, which had for years been in the red or barely surviving, grew a lot dur-ing the years Hamilton served on the board.

The ceremony, which was moved from the spring to the fall for the first time this year, needs little publicity, said Swain. Most faculty and staff know to submit their work. All of the nominees are invited to the ceremony and dinner, and their photos and book titles appear in the program.

“They don’t know until that evening who the winner is. A lot are disappointed, but then at the same time they have this as a nice evening,” Swain said. “Even if they are not celebrating their own win, they are celebrating their colleague’s win.”

Margo Sawyer, committee re-

view member and professor in the Department of Art and Art His-tory, said committee members were given a stack of books and a certain amount of time to rank and give them back before getting another stack. She said the facets of the reviewing process exposed her to areas of scholarship that were unfamiliar and exciting.

“Discussions of the delibera-tions of the committee were such a joy to be in because it was about the pure essence of scholarship on campus and the vitality and im-portance, it was as esoteric as the subject matter, the book we were looking at,” Sawyer said. “You’re looking at scholarship from your peers and you’re really trying to find who rises to the top.”

She championed a book, “Re-forming the Moral Subject: Ethics and Sexuality in Central Europe, 1890-1930,” by the De-partment of History’s Tracie M. Matysik that made it into the top five. “For me, it was a book I wanted to go out and buy. It was dense and poetic with a lot of in-teresting questions,” Sawyer said. “It was a fantastic subject that has broad implications to not only that time but today, and gives his-toric insight into issues that

Continued page 6

Photo Debbie FinleyHamilton Book Award grand prize winners, Thomas O. McGarity and Wendy E. Wagner with Victoria Rodriguez and Mechele Dickerson.

2

m edic a l pa r k ort hopa edic clinic

1301 w. 38th st. medical park tower, suite 102 512-454-4561

Fracture Care, Joint Replacement, Sports Medicine, Foot and Ankle, and General Orthopaedic Care

• our campus • november 2009 our campus • november 2009 • page 3

renita Coleman’s research on ethical thinkersStudy shows public relations professionals rank seventh among twenty professionsBy Tara Haelle

Public relations profession-als have joined the ranks of medical professionals

and journalists as sound ethical thinkers, according to a study coauthored by UT journalism professor Renita Coleman. The study, which appeared in the July 2009 “Journal of Public Relations Research,” said this is “good news for a profession that is often char-acterized as engaging in unethical practices.”

“The Moral Development of Public Relations Practitioners: A Comparison with Other Profes-sions and Influences on Higher Quality Ethical Reasoning” is the first research project to empiri-cally measure the moral develop-ment of working public relations professionals. Coleman coau-thored the study with University of Missouri-Columbia journal-ism professor Lee Wilkins, with whom she published a similar

study looking at journalists’ ethi-cal reasoning in 2005.

“We just wanted to know where public relations professionals would score compared to journal-ists and other professionals who have taken it,” Coleman said. “We didn’t make any predictions as to where they would [fall].”

Results show that public re-lations professionals rank sev-enth among the 20 professions that have been tested, just below dental students and nurses. The study utilized the Defining Issues Test (DIT), which has also been used to test the ethical reasoning of doctors, business profession-als, philosophers, college students and prison inmates.

The test presents six ethical di-lemmas for which the subject must determine how important 12 dif-ferent considerations are in mak-ing a decision. Though worded to be specific to each scenario, the statements that test-takers rank

address such questions as, “What would most benefit society?” and “Will the community’s laws be upheld?” The ranking method en-sures the subject’s ethical reason-ing is being tested instead of the particular course of action they would take in a scenario.

“We have an ethical muscle, and learning how to use it better makes us stronger ethical think-ers,” Coleman said. One goal of the research is to find out which factors correlate highly with moral development in the public relations field, she said. If the re-searchers could identify factors that might improve profession-als’ ethical reasoning, then that information can be presented in training seminars and industry publications.

Two of the scenarios in the testing instrument are specific to a job in public relations. One deals with confirming or deny-ing leaked information about

a school closing, and the other concerns whether to inform hired experts about the potential abuse of an herbal medicine. The other four original scenarios involve “whether a high school principal should censor a student newspa-per; whether a neighbor should turn in an escaped prisoner who has led a model life; whether a doctor should help a patient com-

mit suicide; and whether a man should steal a drug to save his dy-ing wife,” according to the study.

The results, from 118 profes-sionals randomly selected from the 400 largest public relations firms in the U.S., showed that subjects scored better on the di-lemmas specific to public relations issues, which Coleman attributed to the professional expertise they

Continued page 11

Photo Tara Haelle

3

*Our Surcharges (incl. Fed. Univ. Svc. of 9.5% of interstate & int’l telecom charges (varies quarterly), 7¢ Regulatory & 85¢ Administrative/line/mo. & others by area) are not taxes (details: 1-888-684-1888); gov’t taxes & our surcharges could add 6%–26% to your bill. Activation fee/line: $35 ($25 for secondary Family SharePlan lines w/ 2-yr. Agmts).

IMPORTANT CONSUMER INFORMATION: Subject to Customer Agmt, Calling Plan, rebate form & credit approval. Up to $175 early termination fee/line, up to 40¢/min after allowance & add’l charges apply for data sent or received (incl. Mobile Web ads). Friends & Family: Only domestic landline or wireless numbers (other than directory assistance, 900 numbers or customer’s own wireless or Voice Mail access numbers) may be added; all qualifying lines on an account share the same Friends & Family numbers, up to account’s eligibility limits; My Verizon required to set up and manage Friends & Family numbers. Offers & coverage, varying by service, not available everywhere. Network details & coverage maps at verizonwireless.com. © 2009 Verizon Wireless.

CALL 1.800.2JOIN.IN CLICK verizonwireless.com VISIT your nearby Verizon Wireless Communications Store

Now you can call more. And save more. Unlimited calling to your top 10 numbers and our 80 million customers.At no extra cost you can:• Choose 10 numbers anywhere in America, on any network, even landlines. With any Nationwide Family SharePlan® 1400 Anytime Minutes or more. Activation fees, taxes & other charges apply.*

• Talk all you want with America’s Largest Mobile to Mobile Calling Family. Over 80 million strong.

It’s the best value in wireless!


By Seamus McAfee

In his new post as director of the Lyndon B. Johnson Li-brary and Museum, Mark

Updegrove is roaming the same halls as one of his idols. In a space seen by few museum visitors on the top floor, Our Campus talked with Updegrove in the same chairs where the building’s namesake was interviewed by the late UT alumnus and journalistic lumi-nary Walter Cronkite. For Upde-grove, who has studied the former president for years, working in his library is a dream.

Updegrove had a diverse ca-reer before arriving in Austin as director of the library. Although he majored in economics at the University of Maryland, he has worked mainly in media and marketing. He was publisher of “Newsweek,” president of “Time” magazine’s Canadian edition and political commentator for network news. Most recently he worked for

South Carolina marketing firm Rawle Murdy Associates, Inc. Updegrove also wrote two books on the U.S. presidency: “Second Acts: Presidential Lives and Lega-cies After the White House” and “Baptism by Fire: Eight Presi-dents Who Took Office in Times of Crisis.”

The seedling to become director was planted in Updegrove’s mind more than ten years ago while he was with “Time” magazine. Put-ting together a program called “‘Time’ and the Presidency,” Up-degrove met Sharon Fawcett, the head of the presidential libraries. Fawcett, impressed with his back-ground and knowledge of the sub-ject after his first book published, suggested he think about a career as a presidential library director.

“At that point, I said, that sounds very appealing, but the one job I’d really be interested in is the director of the LBJ Library,” Updegrove said. “I think that this library has always set the standard for leadership among presidential libraries.”

Fawcett recommended him for the job and Updegrove was ap-

proved by Adrienne Thomas, the U.S. acting archivist. He officially started in October, filling the gap left by the departure of former-Director Betty Sue Flowers, in May.

While being a lifetime scholar of history makes Updegrove a natural fit for the job, his sales background may also come in handy because the library is yet to be seen by many UT students.

“Part of my responsibilities is ensuring we get the word out about what this library has to of-fer,” he said. “We live in a town where we have Lady Bird Lake, and LBJ buildings, and KLBJ FM radio, and you have all these things that are branded with LBJ, but I wonder how many students really know who LBJ was and what he accomplished.”

The library chronicles the con-tributions of the Johnson family to the nation and the city of Aus-tin over the years. As director, Up-degrove will oversee the display of thousands of relics from the John-son era, detailing everything from the segregated South of the ’60s to the Vietnam War. He will also

updegrove new director of LbJ Library and Museum

4

9616 N. Lamar Blvd. Ste. 159Austin, TX. 78753

512-835-9226Government & Private Insurances accepted. Hablamos Espanõl

Vision is the Window to the World….

….La Visión es la Ventana al Mundo

CLEAR VISION OPTOMETRY

Comfort | Integrity | Excellence

www.kaliherdentistry.com

4300 Medical ParkwayAustin, TX 78756

Offi ce: 512-453-3100

Accepts most major insurance5 minutes from campusTREY KALIHER, DDS

General Dentistry

Join UNIVERSITY UNITED METHODIST CHURCH

Sundays for traditional or informal services. We are an

inclusive church and welcome everyone.

Lots of free parking, too.

www.uumc.org

If God had arefrigerator,your picture

would be on it.

,

Tony’s Southern Fried Chickenand a frequent diner program.

(No wonder you’re hungry.)

Join us Monday & Tuesday Nights for

Tony’s Southern Fried Chicken, made famous

by Texas Monthly and ask about our frequent

diner program. Its easy to get rewarded!

Open ‘til midnight 7 Days a Week

4206 Duval St. • 458-3168(Just north of UT @ 42nd & Duval)

Open ‘til midnight Friday & Saturday

4521 West Gate Blvd. • 899-2700(Central Market So., West Gate & 290)

Saturday & Sunday Brunchwww.HydeParkBarAndGrill.com

HAPPY HOUR 4-7, MONDAY-FRIDAY

$2 off Well Drinks, $1 off Premium Drinks, Margaritas

& Beer; 1/2 price Appetizers (Monday-Thursday)

NEW

J O I N U S F O R A T R A D I T I O N A L T H A N K S G I V I N G D A Y F E A S T !


manage a $32 million renovation of the library that will repair the LBJ plaza, add classrooms and an auditorium that seats 1,000 and landscape the area in memoriam of Lady Bird Johnson.

The responsibility of the library director, Updegrove explained, is not to micromanage the staff, but to coordinate the library’s big pic-ture agenda and action. He said the objective is simply to get stu-dents inside the library.

“I don’t think I’m needed to run the daily operations of the library—that’s being done,” he said. “What I’d like to do is create and get our staff to rally around a vision of what this library should be in the 21st century.”

Barely settled in, Updegrove is already putting together a high-profile speaker series for the library next year. “My dream would be to see President Obama come to this library for a variety of reasons,” he said. “Not the least of which [is] the man whose name is on the building passed the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, which helped us to have an African-American president in 2008.”

Updegrove said he will focus on the era during which Johnson pre-

sided when the library changes its permanent exhibit next year. “I re-ally want to make the ‘60s be a big part of what we do. We shouldn’t only be about Lyndon Johnson … we should also be about the times in which he [was] in the White House, and that’s the 1960s,

which I think are the most cul-turally-relevant times of the 20th century,” Updegrove said.

“I’m in the job I want,” he said. “Not only are you in a place that houses that archive of that ad-ministration—which is really ex-citing to me—but it’s also an op-

portunity to bring history alive to people that may not appreciate it right now. That’s why I think it’s so important to have folks on the UT campus understand who we are and what we do, and to be a part of it.”

When Mark Updegrove is not working as the new director of the LBJ Library and Museum,he goes to South Carolina to see his family, which is still in the process of moving. He has two children with whom he tries to spend every available hour.

LBJ’s LEGACYHarry Middleton, a former direc-

tor of the LBJ presidential library and speechwriter during Johnson’s term as 36th U.S. president, said Johnson has yet to receive all the credit due to him. In January of 2009, Middleton criti-cized President Obama for allegedly overlooking Johnson’s contributions during his campaign, claiming Obama never mentioned Johnson’s critical role in the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which opened voter registration to all Americans and is credited with helping people of all races hold political office.

Much of Updegrove’s interest in John-son is focused on his post-presidency. Updegrove’s book “Second Acts” focus-es on what presidents do after leaving office and is largely inspired by Johnson. “I saw a photograph of Johnson with long hair, and it contrasted so sharply

with the way he looked in office,” Upde-grove said. “It occurred to me how much in his post-presidency he looked like the anti-war demonstrators who had helped drive him out of office. I wondered if that was the gesture of a man who des-perately wanted to be loved appealing to that same constituency. Because I think he was largely misunderstood by then.”

Meanwhile, Updegrove’s book “Bap-tism by Fire” was not inspired by Obama, but by the office he acquired. “When I was writing it I did not know that Ba-rack Obama would become president. I did know that the 44th president would inherit an unprecedented crisis—unfin-ished wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, an economy that was in a state of free fall and so many other situations,” Upde-grove said. “And so I looked at other presidents who themselves came into office during times of unprecedented crisis.”

As a historical author, Updegrove hopes to “lend historical context to con-temporary situations.” He believes one of the biggest lessons President Obama can learn from the late LBJ is how to clear one of his biggest hurdles.

“One of the reasons I think it’s impor-tant to know about Lyndon Johnson and what he accomplished himself is that he’s the only modern president to have passed meaningful health care reform,” Updegrove said. “There are lessons the Obama administration can learn from LBJ on how to go about doing something where the obstacles are so formidable.”

“These are very meaningful times for Obama, and challenging times can of-ten make great leaders. You see it with Washington, and Jefferson, and Lin-coln, and FDR, and Truman,” Upde-grove said. “Those are great presidents, partly because they dealt with the most challenging and darkest of hours.”

5

9041 Research Blvd., Suite 240

Hwy 183 @ Burnet Rd., above Black-Eyed Pea

732-2211

Some discounts, coverages, payment plans, and features are not available in all states or in all GEICO companies. Government Employees Insurance Co. GEICO General

InsuranceCo.GEICO IndemnityCo.GEICOCa-sualtyCo.These companies are subsidiaries

of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. GEICO auto insurance is not available in MA. GEICO:

Washington, DC 20076. © 2007 GEICO. The GEICO gecko image © GEICO 1999–2007

CALL AND YOU COULD

SAVE.CLASS

DISMISSED.

C ALL FOR A FREE R ATE QUOTE

photo Tara Haelle


affect us now.”Sawyer pushed to include Mat-

ysik’s book because she said the awards are not only about the stars, but also about nurturing the next generation of stars. Her stand was that a cross section of careers should be represented.

“[It’s a ] broader acknowledgement of excellence, it’s about celebrating careers: one in full bloom and one about to bloom,” she said. “And I would say that all of them in that top tier were all really exciting books and it was really hard…there were a number of them that should have been in it so it was a really interesting deliberation.”

Hamilton Book AwardsContinued from page 2

Hamilton Book Award Grand Prize Winners“Bending Science: How Special Interests Corrupt Public Health” By Thomas O. McGarity and Wendy E. Wagner

The subject matter of the win-ning book, “Bending Science: How Special Interests Corrupt Public Health,” written by two professors in the School of Law was omni-perti-nent to the current debate and posed interesting questions, Sawyer said.

“How of the moment that re-search is—I think everyone was re-ally excited and you want that book and award to make an impact and [have] momentum,” she said.

Paulo Ferreira, associate profes-sor in the Department of Mechani-cal Engineering and book award committee review member, said that coming up with criteria was an interesting procedure and exercise because the books were generally so diverse.

“We were looking for impact in an academic setting and broadly, and in community and even worldwide,” he said. “Some books could be narrow in terms of topic but extremely well written, and some were broad but more shallow. So we tried to look at those things.”

Ferreira said he went back and forth between two books: “Bend-ing Science” and “The Origin of Speech.”

“Depending on the argument, I would go to one side or the other,” he said. “I was in favor of the one that won, it was timely, [and] a bit contro-versial because it exposes a big prob-lem nowadays, in general, in science, and also can generate quite a bit of discussion about things that happen that people don’t want to discuss.”

Although the grand prize-winning book had a broader impact, Ferreira said “The Origin of Speech” by Peter

F. MacNeilage represents a lifetime of work.

“It is an outstanding scholarly work … it is really a compilation of the author’s career,” he said. “It’s thick reading, so it is not something someone outside would pick up and read—it’s going to be a little more fo-cused on the academic setting. But the implications are very broad and those are the kinds of books that in-fluence.”

At the ceremony, Ernst & Young Professor of Accounting and Uni-versity Co-op Board Chairperson Michael Granof said, “Our grand prize-winning book suggests that the high regard in which we hold our scientists may be misguided.”

In his introduction, he said the book argues and documents with compelling evidence that sound sci-ence is undersold by special interests seeking search results that favor their products and public policies.

“It makes it clear that when the scientists join forces with politicians, lawyers and corporate executives to promote a common cause, they cre-ate, quite literally, a deadly combina-tion,” Granof said.

McGarity said that he and Wag-ner hope the book generates a greater concern for manipulation of the sci-entific process in academia.

“We hope that shining a light on how outsiders affect research in uni-versities and medical schools will encourage academic institutions to do a better job of preventing abuse by academic scientists and of pro-tecting academic scientists from ha-rassment by outsiders,” McGarity said. “We also hope that the book will encourage academic scientists who tend to shy away from contro-versial scientific research with public policy implications to become more actively involved in helping policy-makers avoid relying on manipulated [“bent”] science.”

University Co-op Fine Arts AwardMichelle Habeck, assistant professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance

Dean of the College of Fine Arts Doug Dempster, who names a jury of four adjudicators from the col-lege to select the winner, presented the University Co-op Fine Arts award to Michelle Habeck for her lighting design.

“The college [of fine arts] is home to many artists and musicians who sometimes feel like resident aliens in the culture of a research university where the hard currency is exchanged in terms of research and ex-perimentation and schol-arship,” Dempster said.

Among her credits for the past year, Dempster said Habeck designed the lighting for five major theatrical productions in-cluding the world premier of off-Broadway’s “Fifty Words” by playwright Michael Weller and the lighting design for the 50th anniversary revival of Lorraine Hansberry’s “Raisin in the Sun,” which toured several of the most prestigious theatres in the country and was directed by legendary Lou Bellamy.

“Habeck is one of the very few lighting design-ers that the estate of the

recently deceased August Wilson has authorized as a lighting designer who is allowed to design for his shows, and he was very particular about who could direct or design for his shows, and you have to actually be licensed to do that,” Dempster said. “And Habeck is one of the very few lighting designers who has that authority.”

Habeck said she is the first female faculty mem-ber in 13 years to receive the award, and only the second ever from the De-partment of Theatre and Dance.

“It is important for the University to continue its support of working art-ists in their given artistic fields,” Habeck said. “We are the makers of work, be it light in my case, or clothes, or sets, or sound, sculpture, prints, move-ment, gestures, music or voice.”

Habeck said artists’ con-tributions to the expres-sion of our humanity sits as high on the shelf as any of the most excellent book contributions rightly hon-ored during the same cel-ebration.

“Congratulations to all who where nominated and to all who won,” Habeck said. “I am humbled and honored to be in their company.”

2009 Award Winners

Hamilton Book Awards

• “Bending Science: How Special Interests Corrupt Public Health” by Thomas O. McGarity and Wendy E. Wagner

• “Saving Savannah: The City and the Civil War” by Jacqueline Jones

• “The Origin of Speech” by Peter F. MacNeilage

• “Reforming the Moral Subject: Ethics and Sexuality in Central Europe, 1890-1930” by Tracie M. Matysik

• “Essentials of Pharmacoeco-nomics” by Karen L. Rascati

University Co-op Fine Arts Award

• Michelle Habeck, assistant professor, Department of Theatre and Dance

University Co-op Best Research Paper Award

• “Accountability Texas-Style: The Progress and Learning of Urban Minority Students in a High-Stakes Testing Context” by Julian Vasquez Heilig

University Co-op Career Research Excellence Award

• J. Tinsley Oden, associate vice president for research, director of Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences, Cockrell Family Regent’s Chair in Engineer-ing No. 2, Peter O’Donnell Jr. Centennial Chair in Computing Systems, professor of aerospace engineering and engineering mechanics and professor of mathematics

6

Photo Debbie Finley


University Co-op Best Research Paper“Accountability Texas-Style: The Progress and Learning of Urban Minority Students in a High-Stakes Testing Context” By Julian Vasquez Heilig

Sanchez also appoints four fac-ulty members to the Research Ex-cellence Awards Committee, this year including Dean Judy Ash-croft of the Division of Instruc-tional Innovation and Assess-ment, to select a faculty or staff researcher who was the principle

or sole author of a peer reviewed scholarly paper.

“Dr. Heilig’s publication is a ground breaking study that calls for caution and federal re-authorization of No Child Left Behind. It was published in the premier journal of the American Educational Research Associa-tion where it was the ninth most frequently read article for 2008,” said Victoria Rodriguez, vice pro-vost and dean of graduate stud-ies, who presented the award to Heilig.

“This study found that high-stakes testing policies that re-warded and punished schools based on average student scores created incentives for schools to ‘game the system’ by excluding large numbers of African Ameri-

can and Latino students from testing, school and, ultimately, graduation,” Heilig said. “The study inferentially demonstrates that sharp increases in ninth-grade student retention and the students’ subsequent disappear-ance were associated with in-creases in exit test scores and re-lated accountability ratings.”

Heilig also found that students typically found to be low achieving were disproportionately excluded from taking the high-stakes,state-mandated achievement tests. This exclusion resulted in gains not found when district scores were compared to nationally normed tests.

Ashcroft said that this subject is one that impacts not only the future of Texas but of all other

states due to eight years of No Child Left Behind.

“Because a well-educated popu-lation is imperative for success in a global knowledge economy, the implications of this study will be far-reaching in education, gov-ernment and business,” Ashcroft said. “We must learn how to edu-cate all students so they are pre-pared to succeed if they choose higher education or skill-specific training.”

By Emily Pennington

A puzzle is rarely consid-ered a piece of art, but in the case of the Blanton

Museum of Arts’ painting from the Suida-Manning collection, “The Head of Saint Michael” was discovered as the missing piece of a puzzle.

The fragment of a painting cre-ated by master Venetian painter Paolo Veronese has been part of

the Blanton’s collection for 10 years and has recently been iden-tified as a missing piece of Vero-nese’s larger work, the Petrobelli Altarpiece.

According to the Blanton’s Web site, the original altarpiece was created around 1565 and placed in the Petrobelli fam-ily burial chapel in the now de-stroyed Franciscan church in Lendinara, Italy. The commis-sion to create the 15-foot work of art was made by cousins Antonio and Girolamo Petrobelli, who were neither wealthy landowners nor noble descendents.

“An altar, such as this, is all about wealth, status and devo-tional aspirations,” said Univer-sity of Texas art history professor

Jeffrey Smith. The grand altarpiece depicts

Saints Anthony and Jerome standing next to the cousins with a dark boar and a lion standing at their heels. In the middle is a child-like St. Michael, the an-gel who is believed to guard the heavenly gates, with a spear in one hand and a scale in the other. At the top of the painting is an ethereal crucified Christ sup-ported by angels in the clouds. The regality of the subject mat-ter and portrayals suggest their greatest desires for eternal salva-tion, according to the Cybermuse Web site.

“The two men, pictured with their patron saints, are obviously pleased to have obtained the ser-

vices of Venice’s leading artist,” Smith said. “And, doubtlessly, they paid dearly for the privi-lege.”

The piece was originally set in a thick limestone frame and placed above the altar where masses for the repose of the patrons’ souls were celebrated. Generations of Petrobelli family members were buried near the altarpiece.

It remained in the chapel until 1788 when it was dismembered and sold in four different pieces following the suppression of the Franciscan Order. The Blanton’s Web site states that Gavin Ham-ilton, one of the first buyers of a fragment of the Petrobelli Altar-piece wrote in a letter in 1788: “In a short time they will begin

the cutting of the great picture of Paolo, it will be sold just like meat in a butcher’s shop, poor Paolo, poor painting.”

The Dulwich picture gal-lery acquired its piece in 1811, while the pieces that landed in Edinburgh and Ottawa passed through many different hands before arriving in Dulwich in the early 20th century.

Xavier Salomon, a curator at the Dulwich Picture Gallery outside of London, who studied Veronese for five years and was credited with solving the Petro-belli mystery, said he was not planning to find the missing frag-ment when he began working on the altarpiece.

“I think it was one of those

Missing Piece of Petrobelli Altarpiece found at Blanton

Photo Debbie Finley

Continued page 10

7

University Co-op Career Research Excellence AwardJ. Tinsley Oden, Cockrell Family Regents Chair in Engineering No. 2, vice president for research

The same research committee of four selected the winner of this award based on who has maintained a superior research excellence pro-gram over many years at the Univer-sity.

“Oden is one of the country’s most respected scientists and academic administrators in the fields of engi-

neering, computation and applied mathematics,” Rodriguez said. “He is also one of the most cited research-ers in the world and a member of the national academy of engineering, as well as the national academies of Mexico and Brazil.”

This prolific author and the winner of many national and international honors, she continued, is admired by colleagues and students alike and is widely praised for his teaching, re-search and public service.

“I would say that I hope the great-est contribution of my research has

been the development of new areas of computational science that have demonstrated how computer model-ing and simulation can significantly expand and enrich scientific discov-ery and engineering analysis,” Oden said. “I hope the fact that this work has used methods and principles drawn from many traditional dis-ciplines of science and engineering and that I have attempted to pro-vide it with a sound mathematical foundation has given it some perma-nence and value for the community at large.”

Phot

o De

bbie

Fin

ley


complete renovation.”The entire city of Antigua is

designated as a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cul-

tural Organization (UNESCO) world heritage site. The city also has the largest concentration of Spanish and traditional Mayan language schools in all of Meso-america, Porter said.

Because Antigua is a world heritage site, the entire restora-

tion project for Casa Herrera had to be negotiated and approved by UNESCO. Additionally, there is a historical commission in Antigua that works in conjunc-tion with the restoration, which means that the entire process can often take decades.

“This was done efficiently and quickly, and it’s a testament to the Fundación Pantaleón that we were able to negotiate all of the contracts and finish the construc-tion and move into the house so quickly,” Porter said.

The first records of the house date back to 1680. The original function of Casa Herrera was as a personal residence. In the 1800s, it functioned as both a house and a receiving spot for sugar cane that was traveling from the Pa-cific coast of Guatemala to the capital, Porter said.

Artifacts that remain in the house include several old sugar cane barrels, presses and a num-ber of different apparatuses that were used in the production of sugar. Among the largest rem-nants of the original house is a sugar cane drying oven in the floor that spans the length of an entire room. It has been pre-served in its original form.

Original parts of the house have been left as a result of strict construction codes in Antigua, which require restoration, not

renovation. Architectural histo-rians, engineers, architects and painting conservators worked together to restore the history of the house.

“It was really treated much more like a work of art to be con-served versus just a tear down or domestic renovation,” Porter said.

All of the artifacts remain un-der the ownership of Fundación Pantaleón, which has two rooms inside the house to display the items. Casa Herrera does not currently function as a museum, but Porter said there are plans to establish an exhibition space.

Milady Casco, who is a gradu-ate student of the art education program at UT, has been study-ing at Casa Herrera since Sept. 1. In the summer of 2008, she con-ducted a case study at the Muse-um of Modern Art in El Salvador analyzing how the museum’s art education programming is con-tributing to notions of cultural identity and arts preservation in San Salvador. Her work at Casa Herrera is a continuation of her

Casa HerreraContinued from page 1

Located at 4 Avenida Norte, No. 9, Casa Herrera is a 300-year-old house in Antigua, Guatemala. It serves as a location for Mayan and Mesoamerican Scholars in Residence programs.


8


thesis investigation and writing.“I find it inspiring to be im-

mersed in Guatemalan culture and have the opportunity to ac-tively experience cultural prac-tice and, most importantly, the community,” Casco said. “Since being here, I have been inspired to pursue other academic investi-gations as a result of my interac-tions with Guatemalan archae-ologists and anthropologists.”

Casa Herrera will also be the first off-site campus library for the University. It will have a col-lection of Mesoamerican art and Mayan studies books, and will be linked to the UT system librar-ies.

Casa Herrera will host the

34th annual Maya Meetings, a chance for scholars of Ma-yan studies to attend a series of workshops and lectures, in 2010. It will mark the first time the meetings will be held in Antigua. Porter said there are also plans to have a Maymester available for UT students and faculty.

“Because it is located in the center of Mayan studies and Me-soamerican studies, geographi-cally, the location just couldn’t be any better,” Bueche said. “Be-ing the first center outside the United States, it allows other people working in the field to come to this space and collabo-rate with our academics and our students.”



9


situations where I was the right person at the right time,” Salo-

mon said. He recalled returning from a

trip from Lendinara when he be-gan thinking about what could possibly have happened to the fragment.

“Everyone, including me, had always been looking for a full fragment with the entire figure of Saint Michael, and that is when I had the key thought that helped me find the fragment: ‘What if they only kept the head?’”

The last fragment came to Tex-as when the work was acquired by the Blanton in 1998 as part of the Suida-Manning Collection, which was one of the finest collections of old master paintings and draw-ings in private hands, according to the Blanton’s Web site.

While the last fragment sat in Austin, Salomon racked his brain in England trying to figure out what happened to it. He remem-bered seeing a head that might fit the description, but could not re-member where.

“It took me a few days and then I literally woke up in the middle of the night and remembered that I had seen it in Austin,” Salomon said. “It was amazing, I immedi-ately went through my notes and photographs from a trip to Texas a few years earlier and there it was. I was so excited I could not sleep all night.”

In February of 2009, the four works were X-rayed, treated and reunited for the first time in more than two centuries in Dulwich. The reconstructed Petrobelli Al-tarpiece is on display at the Blan-ton Museum of Art until Feb. 7, 2010.

Jonathon Bober, curator of prints, drawings and European paintings for the Blanton believes the work is a scientific phenom-enon.

“All culture, like all matter, is governed by entropy in any realm

we can imagine,” he said. “But here is a major work of art: De-stroyed. Forgotten. Brought back together, if not made better. It’s fighting entropy.”

Salomon calls the exhibit an “unmissible” opportunity because after its museum tour the pieces will return to their respective homes.

“You can see [the pieces] in museums in Austin, Edinburgh, Ottawa and London, but this is the one and only time you can see them together and understand how they worked as a whole,” he said. “Once the fragments leave Austin in February I don’t think we will see them [together] again, at least in our lifetimes.”

Petrobelli AltarpieceContinued from page 7

The Petrobelli Altarpiece, ca. 1563 (digital reconstruction). Left: Saint Anthony Abbot and Antonio Petrobelli. Top: Dead Christ Supported by Angels. Right: Saint Jerome and Girolamo Pertobelli. Center: Head of Saint Michael.

Cour

tesy

Bla

nton

Mus

eum

10

SPEC’S Wines, Spirits & Finer Foods Defining Value

No More Hectic Holidays!Party Trays • Hostess Gifts • Amazing Entrees & Desserts

Wrapped & Ready and Custom Gift Baskets • Holiday Foods SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE AT SPEC’S!

• Arbor Walk • Brodie Lane • Bastrop• Bee Cave• Airport Blvd.• Round Rock • Southpark Meadows

It’s TrulyOne StopShopping!

(512) 366-8260 www.specsonline.com


develop working in their field. “They have a lot of practice solv-

ing those dilemmas and a lot more in-depth knowledge of all the nu-ances and the ramifications,” said Coleman, who pointed out that journalists scored better on jour-nalism-related scenarios in her previous study. “I would expect a medical doctor to understand issues of privacy of medical in-formation more than a journalist, and I would expect a journalist to understand issues of truth telling more than harm. Those are the values our profession deals with and upholds.”

Among all the professions that have been tested with the DIT over the past three decades by various researchers, seminarians and philosophers are the runaway top scorers, followed by medical students and practicing physi-cians. Journalists, determined from Coleman and Wilkins’ pre-vious research, ranked fourth. The prison inmates group scored second lowest, just above junior high students.

The test looks at six categories of influences on ethical reason-ing: business concerns, internal motives, truth and respect issues, religious influences and external influences, such as company stan-dards or codes of ethics. Business concerns include factors related to profits and what is good for the company. Although these con-cerns did not appear to be a sig-nificant factor in the study, the re-sults are based on self-reporting, which Coleman does not think is realistic for testing how money matters might more subtly affect people’s reasoning in ethical deci-sions.

“I think economic pressures cause you to do things that are less ethical than if you didn’t have those pressures,” she said. “But I don’t believe the methodology we have is best for uncovering that. I don’t know what methodology to use to uncover that.”

This is one of several areas where Coleman hopes to do more research, possibly by looking next at entrepreneurs in journalism.

She said she is aware of another as-yet unpublished study that used the DIT with advertisers. Although they scored well in the five general scenarios, she said they scored very poorly on the advertising-related dilemmas.

“That’s part of why I believe there’s an economic pressure that’s important,” she said. The advertisers ranked issues related to pleasing the client as most im-portant in the advertising dilem-mas. “They would do the wrong thing in order to benefit the client. I think we should tease out the economic pressures angle in all these professions because if eco-nomic pressures cause us to make poor ethical decisions, we need to know that so we can minimize the effects of economic pressures.”

Coleman and Wilkins’ study also looked at factors that includ-ed political party and ideology, religious beliefs, job autonomy, organization size, taking an eth-ics course, attending professional seminars, the importance of eth-ics codes, belonging to profession-al organizations, length of time working in the field, degree of market competition, age, educa-tion and gender. Although most of these did not show up as signif-icant, a few patterns emerged that remained consistent with findings in other DIT research studies. For one, people who self-identify as more politically conservative or more fundamentalist in their reli-gion score lower.

Coleman said the low scores associated with fundamentalist religious beliefs, regardless of the actual creed, has to do with the extent to which fundamentalist beliefs discourage questioning au-thority.

“If you don’t question rules and what other people say are ethical norms, you can’t score very high on this test,” she said. “Thinking for yourself and analyzing things is just too critical to making good moral choices. If you’re just going to say, ‘My boss says so,’ or ‘My moral code of ethics says so,’ and you’re not going to look at the in-dividual situation in its own con-text, then you’re not going to score well.”

These findings showed up in her previous study on journalists as

well, leading to negative feedback from politically conservative and fundamentalist religious groups. In this study, however, the prima-ry criticism she has received re-lates to the study’s funding source. Their research used a $10,000 grant from Penn State Univer-sity’s Arthur W. Page Center for Integrity in Public Communica-tion, a research center dedicated to the study and advancement of ethics and responsibility in cor-porate communication and other forms of public communication.

“The skeptics think we’re find-ing what they wanted us to find, but they funded it and paid for it before the results were done,” she said. The project took a year to collect the data as the research-ers flew around the country to administer the test in person at various public relations firms and then another year to analyze the data, write the report and go through the peer-review process for publication. “We certainly would not color our results to make the sponsor happy. For one thing, we teach ethics!”

Coleman said she has always been intrigued by ethical issues, even throughout her 15 fifteen years in newsrooms.

“I’m wired for fair, and I tended to see ethical issues in every-thing,” she said. “I could see my-self studying it in such a way that I could help the profession be bet-ter at what we do.” As an instruc-tor of a visual journalism course, she has also researched the effect images have on ethical reasoning and discovered that they improve

ethical reasoning by helping the person feel empathy.

“When you feel empathetic in the dilemma, when you’re in their shoes, that improves your ethical reasoning,” she said. She hopes

her future research will elucidate more ways people can remove the obstacles to better ethical deci-sion-making. “We need to know what the real problems are so we can overcome them,” she said.

Coleman’s Ethical ThinkersContinued from page 3

Renita Coleman is an associate professor in the Department of Journalism.

Phot

o Ta

ra H

aelle

11

Celebrating30Years in AustinYears in Austin

Home of the world famous Trudy’s Mexican Martini!

TEXAS STAR409 West 30th St.

512-477-2935

NORTH STAR8820 Burnet Rd.512-454-1474

LITTLE TEXAS901-C Little Texas Lane

512-326-9899

$5MEXICAN

MARTINI

MONDAY’S

Close to Campus!

Serving Breakfast, Lunch, & DinnerGluten Free Menu

We Cater $10/PersonEntree, Side, Salad & Drink

Order for 20 or More People

and Get Free Dessert

15% OFF

for UT Students,

Faculty, & Staffw/UTID

For Dine in, Take Out,

& Delivery Only.Not Valid on

Specials or Catering

31st & Guadalupe • (512) 47- GREEK elgrecoaustin.com

Happy Hour 2-7pm M-F$2.50 bottled beers &

$5 glasses of wine

12

UFCU members can take advantage of comprehensive trust services offered through our affiliate MEMBERS Trust Company. Services include estate planning, estate settlement and professional management and administration of living trusts and various other types of trusts designed to maximize your resources and to ensure your loved ones receive what you intend.

Contact UFCU trust officer, Rick Ybarra today at (512) 467-8080 x21109 or visit ufcu.org for more information.

Trust Services offered through MEMBERS Trust Company, a federally chartered thrift, with locations at UFCU are NOT NCUA/NCUSIF insured, are NOT deposits, obligations of, or guaranteed by MEMBERS Trust Company, UFCU, or any other affiliated entity, and involve investment risks, including the possible loss of principal. Trust Officers are appointed with MEMBERS Trust Company.

Trust Services

200911

Documents

th e casa

th e university fi

e g r e

th e scholars

th e program

p p e n

e w h o

f o r p e o p