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Dance Marathon surpasses $1 million goal

The University of Iowa's 14th annual Dance Marathon raised a record-breaking $1,003,646.14 at its overnight event Friday to Saturday, Feb. 1-2, at the Iowa Memorial Union. The total is the largest ever raised in the history of Dance Marathon, almost $4,000 more than this year’s goal of $1 million and $120,000 above last year's receipts of $880,000. More than 1,500 UI students participated in the event. The UI Dance Marathon supports programs that benefit children with cancer, and their families, at UI Children's Hospital. The program has raised $6.5 million and helped more than 600 families since 1994. More>>

UI President Sally Mason approves campus-wide, smoke-free policy

University of Iowa President Sally Mason recently approved a policy making the UI campus entirely smoke-free by July 1, 2009. The policy does not take effect for a year to allow the UI to accommodate the needs of students, staff and faculty who currently smoke. "A smoke-free campus will provide a healthier environment for employees, students, and other constituents," Mason said. More>>

UI Wellness: http://www.uiowa.edu/hr/wellness

Exhibit marks 50th anniversary of U.S., Van Allen entering the Space Age

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Jan. 31, 1958, launch of Explorer 1 -- the first successful U.S. satellite -- and the entry of the nation into the Space Age, the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum in West Branch and the University of Iowa have collaborated on an exhibit running through March 23 at the museum. "Iowa's Space Explorer: James Van Allen” contains a variety of items on loan from the department including a duplicate of Explorer I and Explorer III payloads, made in 1957 and 1958; numerous photographs showing Van Allen at work; and a duplicate of a Hawkeye satellite made entirely at the UI in 1973 and launched in 1974. More>>

Related: Van Allen documentary to air on Big Ten Network Feb. 21
“James Van Allen: Flights of Discovery,” a documentary about Van Allen’s prominent place in this country’s space exploration history narrated by UI alumnus and former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw, will air on the Big Ten Network from 3 to 3:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 21 (Central Standard Time).

Professor examines ‘24’ character Jack Bauer's influence on national security law

Sure, it's just a TV show, but a University of Iowa law professor says "24" can have real-world legal implications. "Ruminations on '24' would be just an entertaining diversion if it were not for the fact that the show has slowly seeped into the national debate on antiterrorism tactics," said Tung Yin, an expert on national security law who laments the fact that the writers' strike has likely killed off the current season before it even starts. More>>

Tung Yin, Professor of Law: http://www.law.uiowa.edu/faculty/tung-yin.php

College of Law: http://www.law.uiowa.edu/index.php

Tippie MBA's business consulting center opens with first clients

The University of Iowa's Tippie Business Solutions Center, the state's only business school-based faculty- and student-staffed consulting center, has opened for business with a debut group of clients that range from a small Iowa manufacturer to global financial services firms. The center will give MBA students in the Tippie School of Management the opportunity to solve real business problems posed by real-life clients. More>>

Tippie School of Management: http://www.biz.uiowa.edu/mba/

Accreditation agency seeks public comment on the University of Iowa

As part of its re-accreditation review of the University of Iowa, the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools is seeking public comment about substantive matters related to the quality of the university and its academic programs, including comments from alumni. Written, signed comments must be received by March 28. More>>

Functional immune cells derived from embryonic stem cells

For the first time, researchers have used embryonic stem cells to develop functioning immune system blood cells, an important step in eventually using embryonic stem cells as an alternative source of cells for traditional bone marrow transplantations. The study team was led by a researcher with the University of Iowa and the Veterans Affairs Iowa City Health Care System. The study, which was done on animal models, used a previously discovered protein to overcome the fact that new blood cells derived from embryonic stem cells are normally not self-renewing. The finding was published online in December in Blood, the official journal of the American Society of Hematology. More>>

Department of Internal Medicine: http://www.int-med.uiowa.edu/

Carver College of Medicine: http://www.medicine.uiowa.edu/CCOM

Gift enables UI to take clubfoot-eradication program to 10 countries

A $500,000 gift to the University of Iowa Foundation is helping the UI's Ponseti International Association for the Advancement of Clubfoot Treatment, in partnership with Christian Blind Mission, cure children of clubfoot in 10 developing nations. In addition to direct treatment of thousands of affected children, physicians from the UI and elsewhere are training local health care workers in the designated nations to use the UI-developed Ponseti method of clubfoot treatment on an ongoing basis. More>>

UI Foundation: http://www.uifoundation.org/

Ponseti International: http://www.ponseti.info/v1/

UI, ISU team aims for new therapies for post-traumatic osteoarthritis

University of Iowa orthopedics experts are joining forces with biomaterials specialists from Iowa State University to develop an entirely new approach to preventing post-traumatic osteoarthritis. More>>

Department of Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation: http://www.uihealthcare.com/depts/med/orthopaedicsurgery

UI Research: http://research.uiowa.edu/

Old Capitol Museum launches exhibit on children's books authors

"From Prairies to Cornfields: Iowa's Children's Book Authors," a new exhibit in the University of Iowa Old Capitol Museum's Discovery Center and at the UI Museum of Natural History, explores Iowa themes in past and contemporary children's literature. "From Prairies to Cornfields" opened with a panel discussion and public reception Feb. 10. The exhibit is planned in conjunction with the yearlong exhibition, "A Community of Writers: Creative Writing at the University of Iowa," at the Old Capitol Museum. More>>

Old Capitol Museum: http://www.uiowa.edu/~oldcap/

Play with UI premiere chronicles attempts to reverse homosexuality

In the mid-'70s University of Iowa Department of Theatre Arts faculty member John Cameron was one of 14 gay men, most of them Mormon students, who were the subjects of a controversial "reparative therapy" experiment at Brigham Young University that used electro-shock aversion therapy in an attempt to alter their homosexual behavior. Cameron wrote of the experience in his play "14," which had its world premiere in Iowa City earlier this month with performances by the University Theatres Mainstage. More>>

Theatre Arts: http://www.uiowa.edu/~theatre/

Former Golden Girl made mark on Miss America pageant (CNN, Jan. 30)

While the 23-year-old Diana Reed missed out on the Miss America crown, she made a mark in the competition. Reed, who served as the University of Iowa's Hawkeye Golden Girl throughout college, won the pageant's preliminary talent award for her twirling routine and made it to the show's top 10. Last year, she won first place in a statewide business plan competition and was awarded $5,000 to put toward her studio, Diana's Golden Twirlers. In May, Reed graduated from the UNIVERSITY OF IOWA as the valedictorian of her undergraduate business program. More>>

Tippie College of Business: http://www.biz.uiowa.edu/

Poe discusses accuracy of Wikipedia (National Public Radio, Jan. 16)

Wikipedia, the collaboratively edited online encyclopedia, was launched seven years ago this month. It can be a valuable resource at times or a way to manipulate information about others. MARSHALL POE, associate professor of history in new media at the University of Iowa, is writing a book about online collaborative technology and wrote a history of Wikipedia in the Atlantic Monthly. Poe said he is generally a proponent of Wikipedia. "You do have to question everything you read on Wikipedia, but I think it's important to realize that you should scale your questions and the amount of skepticism you have," Poe said. More>>

Department of History: http://www.uiowa.edu/~history/

Sindt encounters lasik failures (Red Orbit, Feb. 3)

Failed lasik eye surgery has led to depression and even suicide. CHRISTINE SINDT, an optometrist and associate professor of clinical ophthalmology at the University of Iowa, has encountered the psychological effects that patients experience when they have trouble seeing. "Depression is a problem for any patient with a chronic vision problem," she said. But in the case of post-lasik patients, she said, the depression is compounded by remorse. "It's not just that they lose vision," she said. "They paid somebody [who] took their vision away." Red Orbit originates in Texas. More>>

Department of Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences: http://webeye.ophth.uiowa.edu/

Johnson: Earmarks 'fly in teeth' of federalism (Chicago Tribune, Jan. 20)

Thanks to a cut in its federal appropriation, the Fermilab nuclear research facility near Chicago may have to close. A story notes that researchers are frustrated that Congress and President Bush cut their appropriation while agreeing to billions of dollars in parochial, local projects with earmarks. "Earmarks fly in the teeth of any rational approach to federalism," said NICHOLAS JOHNSON, a former member of the Federal Communications Commission who now teaches at the University of Iowa law school. For years Johnson has fought, with some success, a proposed $50 million in federal funds earmarked to build an indoor rain forest in Iowa. "A lot of stuff that ought to be paid for with local or state funds gets federal earmarks," Johnson said. "It makes the U.S. Senate and House act as if they were a local city council." More>>

College of Law: http://www.law.uiowa.edu/index.php

Remarkable people: Deb Vierling

The name of Deb Vierling's school sums up her life's mission perfectly. Crusade High School, the alternative school Vierling founded in 1996 and where she has served as principal since 2003, epitomizes her commitment to create a home for the quarter of her students who don't have one. Vierling, a UI education alumna, recently bought a house in the southeast Iowa town of Morning Sun, hoping to offer homeless kids the stability and structure that will help them succeed in academics and life. "My philosophy is based on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs," Vierling explains. "Once students have food in their stomachs, they can see, and their teeth aren't aching, they can concentrate on algebra and biology and community service." More>>

Olympic ambassadors (International Accents)

The three young men opened the door of the conference room, immediately surrounded by a flock of reporters, dazzled by flashes of cameras and showered with questions from journalists from the most prestigious media in China: Where are you from? How were you chosen? What do you think of Beijing? Not until that shocking moment did the three men – students from the University of Iowa – realize that they were the first international volunteers of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. More>>

Photo gallery: Tattoo U (Iowa Alumni Magazine)

Snakes, roses, skulls, and crosses. Countless colorful designs adorn the bodies of millions of Americans. Once widely perceived as a mark of poor judgment, bad taste, or lack of class, tattoos now appear in diverse social circles. In fact, everyone from movie stars to military personnel to MBAs to moms flaunt their body art with pride. Among the permanently inked are many members of the University of Iowa community. Read their stories and view photos of their body art. More>>

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