Drew-Shaw

The opening tip is slated for noon in Savage Arena, and the cross-division finale will be televised on SportsTime Ohio.

Drew-Shaw, who wore No. 11, will be the second women’s basketball player to have her jersey hung from the rafters of Savage Arena; she will join Kim Knuth (No. 52, 1996-1999).

The two-time Mid-American Conference Player of the Year, who is married to former UT men’s basketball player Casey Shaw (1994-1998), helped lead Toledo to four postseason appearances (three NCAA, one WNIT) and three MAC regular-season and tournament championships in 1991, 1992 and 1995.

Drew-Shaw sits first in UT annals in career assists (659), second in minutes played (3,832), third in scoring average (16.3 points per game), fourth in points (1,919) and free throws made (486), fifth in field goals made (635) and free-throw percentage (.811), sixth in steals (179), and tied for seventh in three-point field goals made (163).

Amstutz

He will give a master class Saturday, Feb. 11, at 10 a.m. and perform a recital Sunday, Feb. 12, at 3 p.m. in the Center for Performing Arts Recital Hall.

The pianist who has received awards at numerous international piano competitions and was a Fulbright Scholar at the Vienna Academy of Music has presented concerts and master classes in the United States and around the world, most recently in Japan and China.

For the recital, Amstutz will perform Lizst’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 3; Beethoven’s Sechs Bagatellen, Op. 126 and Sonata No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111; William Byrd’s Pavane and Galliard (Earle of Salisbury); and William Bolcom’s “The Serpent’s Kiss” from “The Garden of Eden” (“Four Rags for Piano”). In addition, Amstutz will play an improvisational work of his own titled “Long Ago.”

Amstutz is professor of piano and coordinator of keyboard studies at West Virginia University. Prior to joining the WVU faculty in 1988, Amstutz taught at the University of Colorado and at Oklahoma State University, where he received that institution’s highest prize for individual faculty members, the Burlington-Northern Faculty Achievement Award.

The Toledo Piano Teachers Association assists with The University of Toledo Dorothy MacKenzie Price Piano Series. The association provides students for the master class, publicity for the class and concert, and refreshments for the reception in the lobby following the concert.

For more information on the free, public events, go to www.utoledo.edu/cvpa/music.

Schneider

She received the award last month at the ASTE International Conference in Clearwater, Fla.

ASTE is a worldwide organization, more than 800 members strong, that promotes excellence in science teacher education.

“ASTE members are known across the country as leaders in science teacher education,” Schneider said. “Others in my field recognize this as an important award, and it’s very exciting. The organization is proud of this award and the people who receive it.”

Candidates must be nominated by an ASTE member and have letters of support from three additional colleagues before being scored on six criteria: competency in teaching, development of science teacher education programs, research activities, science curricula, leadership in science teacher education and external leadership experience.

“This award is for a single person with less than 10 years of experience,” Schneider said. “It’s a cumulative career-level award for research, teaching, curriculum and other items over the past 10 years.”

Schneider’s development and research include three ongoing projects at UT:

• The one-year Licensure and Alternative Master’s Program focuses on science teacher learning progressions and is supported by the Woodrow Wilson Ohio Teaching Fund;

• A graduate-level course sequence for new mentor science teachers concentrated on classroom-based teacher education and leadership; and

• A learning community of teachers, which is an online workspace for educator collaboration focused specifically on the needs of science teachers new to mentoring and e-learning used in the Licensure and Alternative Master’s Program.

Two UT employees are diving back into community theater.

Annette Blair, left, and Charlene Hansen rehearse a scene for “The Dixie Swim Club,” which will be performed by the Waterville Playshop Friday through Sunday, Feb. 10-12, at the Maumee Indoor Theatre.

Written by Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope and Jamie Wooten, the play is about five Southern women who met on their college swim team and remain friends, getting together one weekend each summer to catch up.

“It’s the story of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” said Hansen, administrative secretary in the Department of Chemistry. “The teammates meddle in each other’s lives. There’s lots of love, divorces, losses.”

And lots of laughs served with Southern hospitality.

“It’s a good story for what everyone goes through in life. One of the writers [Wooten] was a writer and producer for ‘The Golden Girls.’ The play has a ‘Steel Magnolias’ feel,” Hansen said.

“The play is a heart-warming comedy,” said Blair, supervisor of the Transplant Immunology Laboratory in the Department of Pathology at UT Medical Center. “It’s an absolutely delightful script. It’s a story about women, a story about friendship that we all share.”

Blair plays Sheree Hollinger, the spunky captain of the swim team.

“She’s kind of bossy, the leader of the group,” Blair said of her character. “Ask anyone who works for me and they’ll say, ‘Yeah, that’s Annette.’ I’m kind of loud myself. It’s a good fit.”

Hansen read for the role of Sheree, but co-directors Dee Resnick and Marty Beaber cast her as Lexie Richards, the pretty, pampered one.

“My character is a man magnet. She’s always going after men. She’s fun,” Hansen said. “She has her share of losses, several marriages, and always wants the best of everything.”

The play focuses on four of the friends’ reunions at the same cottage on North Carolina’s Outer Banks over 33 years.

“Growing old is never fun, but I try to make Lexie fun,” Hansen said. “During the play, the ladies will be 44, 49, 55 and 77.”

Makeup, wigs and accessories will help with the transformations.

“Our directors are working with us on changes in speech patterns and physical movements in the older characters,” Blair said.

Both women are returning to the stage after taking time off for family and work.

Blair’s last performance was with the Waterville Playshop in 1995.

“I really enjoy bringing a character to life,” she said. “I also really enjoyed my theater experience because I made so many wonderful friends.”

For Hansen, it was a 15-year break from the spotlight that ended last year when she played Ethel in the Waterville Playshop’s “Music Man.”

“I love the camaraderie of working on a production,” she said. “And it’s a great creative outlet: I can be somebody different.”

Starring in “The Dixie Swim Club” with Blair and Hansen are Dotty Dewulf as Dinah Grayson, Sara Ledzianowski as Vernadette Simms and Mary Wood as Jeri Neal McFeeley.

Curtain time is 8 p.m. for Friday and Saturday, and 2:30 p.m. Sunday.

Tickets — $10 for adults, $8 for students and seniors, and $5 for children 12 and younger — can be purchased at the Maumee Indoor Theatre or online at watervilleplayshop.org.
Advance tickets can be purchased for $8 for adults from those outlets or any cast member. Theatergoers will be entered to win a Valentine’s special — $80 gift certificate to Fifi’s Restaurant, box of chocolates and champagne.

For more information on “The Dixie Swim Club” or the Waterville Playshop, which is celebrating its 60th anniversary, go to watervilleplayshop.org.

Advance tickets are on sale for the women’s basketball showdown against Bowling Green State University at Savage Arena Saturday, Feb. 11. Tip-off is set for noon.

Two seasons ago, the Rockets defeated the Falcons, 66-63, before a regular-season Mid-American Conference record crowd of 5,825 in Savage Arena.

Another large throng is expected for the game with both teams sitting atop their respective divisions in the MAC: Toledo (15-7, 8-2 MAC) and Bowling Green (20-3, 10-0 MAC).

The Rockets are asking their fans to wear gold for the game as part of their “gold-out” promotion.

Tickets can be purchased at the UT Athletic Ticket Office, online or by calling 419.530.GOLD (4653). The ticket office is located in the Sullivan Athletic Complex in Savage Arena. Hours are Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

On Saturday, the box office will open at 10 a.m. with the gates opening at 10:30.

UT students are admitted free with valid ID. Both end zone sections will be reserved for UT students for this game.

University Photographer Daniel Miller took this shot of the Ottawa River on Main Campus.

Thanks to a $235,000 grant from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency and a $111,000 grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, that vision of the President’s Commission on the River is moving toward reality.

A public meeting to unveil and discuss preliminary river restoration plans will take place Tuesday, Feb. 14, from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. in Student Union Room 2591.

A team from the Buffalo District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will unveil concepts and field questions at 9:30 a.m.

“The idea is to use a variety of techniques that use natural materials — rock, tree trunks, wood material — to create changes in the river flow to enhance the aquatic habitat and provide increased shelter for fish and aquatic organisms,” said Dr. Patrick Lawrence, professor and chair of the Department of Geography and Planning, and chair of the President’s Commission on the River.

“Right now the river almost functions like a concrete drainage ditch; the water is flat, and there are no changes in the way it moves, no change in materials. Natural streams have much more diversity in terms of how water moves and have different materials in the river channels,” he explained.

Plans call for recreating nature in various ways in five sections of the river.

“Each section will have different types of structures appropriate for that location,” Lawrence said. “There’ll be a range of in-stream restoration features along the river, and signage will explain the work and why it’s there.”

In addition, this demonstration and education project will mean more fish and wildlife.

“We want to attract more fish and the critters fish eat, and improve the diversity of plants and other animals that call the river home,” Lawrence said. “Forty species of fish already have been identified in the Ottawa River, but we want to do much better and have an improved aquatic habitat for plants and animals.”

At 10:45 a.m. at the meeting, Lawrence and Matt Horvat of the Toledo Metropolitan Area Council of Governments, which is a subcontractor to help manage the restoration project, will discuss a plan for vegetation plantings along the river’s edge and banks.

Last May, some 120 test plantings started taking root along the river. The growth of these trees, shrubs, plants and vegetation is being monitored and will determine what would be best-suited to grow along Ottawa River to help improve habitat and decrease bank erosion. Additional plantings will go in next fall and in spring 2013 as part of the project.

The restoration plans will be finalized by April, Lawrence said, with improvements slated to begin this summer on the entire 3,700 feet of the waterway on campus.

“Our hope is to improve conditions on campus and to educate and inform the University and local communities about what can be done with urban streams,” he said.

Weather permitting, the meeting also will include a walking tour of the river to highlight the improvements planned.

For more information about the free, public meeting, contact Lawrence at patrick.lawrence@utoledo.edu or 419.530.4128.

The UT Early Learning Center will hold an open house Thursday, Feb. 9, from 5 to 7 p.m.

“We want everyone to be able to see the awesome facility that we have to offer,” said Caryn Salts, director of the center. “And the center currently has spaces available for new families to enroll.”

The UT Early Learning Center is located at 1932 Birchwood Ave. near Health Science Campus and offers quality care, education and activities for children between the ages of 18 months and 5 years; an adventure program for school-aged children also is offered during the summer months.

The center has been in operation for more than 50 years and is accredited by the National Academy of Early Childhood Programs; this is a rigorous voluntary process by which early childhood programs demonstrate that they meet national standards of excellence. The center is one of only seven child-care facilities in Toledo to achieve the accreditation, according to Salts.

“Our professional teaching staff hold associate and bachelor’s degrees and are trained in early childhood education,” she said. “And we have great staff longevity. We have teachers who have been here anywhere from 11 to 23 years.”

Visitors to the open house will be able to see what the center has to offer and its double-sized classrooms, full-sized gym and two outdoor playgrounds.

The center is convenient and a great resource for UT employees, Salts said, but it also is open to community members.

The center’s staff will be on hand during the open house to give tours.

For more information about the open house, call Salts at 419.530.6710.

In a 5-4 decision in January 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that corporations, unions and other organizations have the same political speech rights as individuals under the First Amendment. The Citizens United ruling has left room for debate among many scholars and researchers that is already especially heated for a presidential election year.

The University of Toledo will host “Citizens United, Corporate Personhood and Democracy: Point/Counterpoint” Wednesday, Feb. 8, from 6 to 8 p.m. in the Law Center Auditorium.

The debate will feature Bradley Smith, the Josiah H. Blackmore II/Shirley M. Nault Designated Professor of Law at Capital University Law School, and Greg Coleridge, director of the Northeast Ohio American Friends Service Committee and a Move to Amend Ohio committee member.

“Both sides of this debate are very passionate about their understanding of the ruling’s significance,” said Dr. Cynthia Ingham, UT assistant professor of history and Phi Alpha Theta adviser. “Some regard Citizens United as a victory for free speech, reversing a legislative and judicial trend to proscribe corporate involvement in elections. Others see the decision as a step backward for democracy because it is based on the principle that corporations are entitled to the same rights as persons.“

The debate is sponsored by the UT Chapter of the Federalist Society, UT College of Law, Phi Alpha Theta History Honor Society, and Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (Toledo).

Because the Federalist Society and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom represent the two sides of the debate, Ingham said she hopes the event will go far in raising public awareness of the issue.

For more information on the free, public debate, contact Ingham at 419.530.2393 or email cynthia.ingham@utoledo.edu.

Dr. Jared Anderson observed the progression of a photochemical polymerization reaction being carried out in a UV reactor. The patented approach developed by Anderson and his research group allows for rapid and reproducible synthesis of polymeric ionic liquids on microextraction fibers.

At this year’s Pittcon, the world’s premier conference and exposition on laboratory science, he will be recognized as the 2012 recipient of the American Chemical Society’s Division of Analytical Chemistry Award for Young Investigators in Separation Science.

“He is a really bright young faculty member that is making quite a name for himself internationally in the field,” said Dr. Alan Pinkerton, professor and chair of the UT Department of Chemistry. “Dr. Anderson’s international recognition creates amazing visibility for the department. He is a real flag carrier.”

Anderson’s award comes just two years after being recognized by LCGC magazine, the largest chromatography publication in North America, as the 2010 Emerging Leader in Chromatography.

The most recent American Chemical Society award recognizes and encourages outstanding contributions to the field of separation science by a chemist or chemical engineer who has earned his or her highest degree within 10 years of the year of the award.

“It is nice to receive this type of award,” said Anderson, who joined the UT Department of Chemistry in 2005 as an assistant professor and was promoted to professor in 2011. “You really realize that the scientific community values your research contributions.”

Anderson also will have an entire session dedicated to his work Saturday, March 24, at Pittcon in Orlando, Fla.

His research revolves around the formation and use of ionic liquids, which have many uses, including one of his main focuses: separation science.

“Our ultimate goal is to develop extraction techniques using ionic liquids to identify and analyze compounds at low concentration levels,” Anderson said. “This would be impossible using conventional methods.”

His work is moving quickly into the pharmaceutical industry. Anderson is developing methods to remove small concentrations of chemical impurities that are used during the creation of pharmaceutical drugs.

“As instrumentation evolves to become more and more sensitive to detecting small levels of impurities, government regulations have significantly lowered the amount of these impurities that can be present in pharmaceutical drugs,” he explained. “Therefore, we are stepping up to the plate with our ionic liquid-based extraction methods in an attempt to quickly and selectively remove these impurities to permissible levels.”

Other applications of Anderson’s work include ways to remove impurities from polluted streams and the ability to assist in oil spill cleanup.

Anderson has been issued two patents for his work and hopes that his patented extraction fibers will be commercially available within the next couple of years.

University students learn many things during their collegiate years.

Just a few: the principles of thermodynamics, interpretations of John Milton’s Paradise Lost, gross anatomy, visual versus kinesthetic learning, the theory of Kantian ethics, and, although “procrastination” may score big points in Words With Friends, it’s not a good strategy for college life.

All focus on a concept of “life of learning,” which is at the heart of Criterion 4 of UT’s continuing accreditation process with the Higher Learning Commission (HLC) of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools.

Jolene Miller, director of the Mulford Health Science Library, was co-leader of the Criterion 4 team that explored UT’s adherence to “Acquisition, Discovery and Application of Knowledge,” the goal of which reads: “The organization promotes a life of learning for its faculty, administration, staff and students by fostering and supporting inquiry, creativity, practice and social responsibility in ways consistent with its mission.”

“Our team understood a life of learning to be a process that encourages intellectual growth and development across the life span,” Miller explained. “That’s going to be different across different disciplines and career paths. We have so many avenues that stretch our learning capabilities, from research to creative arts, to professional development and diversity programs.”

Miller said the team found that UT encourages a life of learning in many ways; below are a few detailed in UT’s HLC self-study report:

• Since 2004, funding for University Research Awards and Fellowship grant programs reached more than $2.8 million.

• A series of translational research stimulation awards are in process through UT’s partnership with ProMedica.

• The University of Toledo Press was revitalized to highlight literary work of significance to northwest Ohio.

• Major physical renovations were made in several creative arts departments to optimize performance capabilities.

• Advanced academic and research programs were introduced in the fields of sustainable, photovoltaic and alternative energies.

The HLC places emphasis not only on fostering the life of continual discovery and learning, but also on guiding ethical discovery, acquisition and use of knowledge. From the University Research Council to the Compliance Office, to the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs, to the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, the Criterion 4 team found numerous examples of systems in place to encourage appropriate discovery and application of knowledge.

“One of the things we do well is that we have many different methods for helping the UT community understand what academic integrity is,” Miller said. “What does it look like and how do we uphold it in our everyday activities? We talk about compliance in general, but there are many specific ways that we educate and guide our students, faculty and staff in the discovery and use of knowledge.

“The committee also felt that academic freedom is a key aspect to the acquisition, discovery and application of knowledge,” Miller continued. “Although some may differ to the degree of such freedom, we interpreted having academic freedom as the ability to freely research questions of interest, learn about and express ideas, and talk them out.”

Examples cited in the self-study include multiple policies and provisions in bargaining agreements designed to protect the academic freedom of faculty, librarians, staff, students and visitors. In addition, numerous speakers of varied viewpoints, including then presidential candidate Barack Obama, civil rights activist Jesse Jackson and Holocaust survivor and author Elie Wiesel, have appeared at UT, and protests regarding labor practices, state and national legislation, and societal issues have taken place on campus.

Miller said opportunities for Criterion 4 improvement were identified in areas of equity in professional development funding; definition and assessment of core curriculum course work; and sustainability of targeted student and faculty programs in the event of continued economic challenges.

A longtime employee, Miller said she was impressed by UT’s innovations in student services. “It’s been a long time since I was an undergrad myself,” she noted. “What I found most fascinating are all the things we’re doing in terms of support programs for undergrad education, from orientation programs to the first-year experience, to global opportunities and cultural programs.

“We’ve embraced the idea that learning and development don’t happen just in the classroom, but also through participation in student organizations, professional development programs and service projects.”

Additional Criterion 4 team members were co-leader Dr. Charlene Czerniak, Sherry Andrews, Dr. Sonny Ariss, Dr. Jiquan Chen, Dr. Vijay Devabhaktuni, Dr. Renee Heberle, Dr. Mohamed Samir Hefzy, Dr. Ruth Hottell, Ken Kilbert, Dr. Barbara Kopp-Miller, Dr. Dan Kory, Dr. Tom Kvale, Holly Monsos, Dr. Steve Peseckis and Mary Jo Waldock.

UT’s self-study report can be viewed at utoledo.edu/accreditation/pdf/selfstudy.pdf. An executive summary is available at utoledo.edu/accreditation/pdf/execsummary.pdf.