University of Toledo engineering students and alumni will have the opportunity to network with 300 representatives from 115 companies registered to participate in today’s 2012 Engineering Career Expo.

The Engineering Career Development Center will host the expo 12:30 to 4:30 p.m. today (Wednesday, Sept. 26) on the first floor of Nitschke Hall to give students the opportunity to meet with employers for networking and future employment.

“There will be a lot of local companies,” said Vickie Kuntz, director of the Engineering Career Development Center. “But some of the big names will include BP America, First Energy, DTE, Plastic Technologies Inc., Marathon, Anheuser-Busch, General Motors and Honda.”

More than 600 students have attended past career expos, according to Kuntz. She expects between 600 and 700 students today.

For more information contact Meghan Cunningham at 419.530.2410 or meghan.cunningham@utoledo.edu.

The key to limiting long-term brain damage caused by methamphetamine abuse could rest in the liver, according to research underway at The University of Toledo.

Dr. Bryan Yamamoto received a $1.55 million NIH grant to research brain damage from meth abuse

“We can’t look at the brain in isolation,” said Dr. Bryan Yamamoto, professor and chair of the UT Department of Neurosciences. “We know the impact alcohol abuse has on the liver and there is evidence of comorbidity of people abusing both alcohol and methamphetamine. But this will be the first time research is focused first on how meth abuse itself affects the liver, and then in turn the brain.”

The long-term brain damage from methamphetamine abuse is a result of too much of the amino acid glutamate and free radicals in the brain. It is Yamamoto’s theory that the excess glutamate is caused from the excess ammonia that cannot be metabolized by the liver.

If proven with his research, which was recently funded with a $1.55 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, then early medical intervention could mitigate the long-term effects on the brain, which include destroying dopamine nerve cells that damage cognitive abilities and limit our ability to move. Chronic abuse also leads to psychotic behavior and even death.

“If a person enters the emergency room high on methamphetamine, the physicians could initiate a pharmacological treatment to help eliminate the excess ammonia in the body before it has the opportunity to wreck havoc on the brain and the rest of the body,” said Yamamoto, who has been studying the impact of drugs such as methamphetamine and “ecstasy” on the brain for more than 20 years.

According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration Drug Abuse Warning Network, emergency department visits of people on central nervous system stimulations, such as meth, increased 196 percent from 2004 to 2010 with more than 31,500 visits in the year 2010.

Meth abuse and manufacturing is increasing not only in the United States, but across the world. It has even made its way into popular culture with the AMC television show Breaking Bad about a high school chemistry teacher who begins “cooking” the drug after being diagnosed with terminal cancer to earn money to support his family.

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, 1.2 million Americans age 12 and older in 2009 had abused methamphetamine at least once the past year.

Methamphetamine’s popularity is increasing because of how easily and inexpensively it can be “cooked,” despite efforts to control the drugs and chemicals used to manufacture the drug, Yamamoto said. The drug is most commonly smoked or injected and causes a euphoric feeling when the brain releases the chemical dopamine, which is a neurotransmitter that controls pleasure.

While North America accounts for most of the methamphetamine operations, with 82 percent of the number of meth labs sized in 2007 according to the United Nationals Office on Drugs and Crime World Drug Report 2009, manufacturing is growing concern across the world with the most notable increases in east and southeast Asia, Europe and southern Africa.

For more information contact Meghan Cunningham at 419.530.2410 or meghan.cunningham@utoledo.edu.

The University of Toledo is helping spur international development in northwest Ohio by partnering with 5 Lakes Global and the Regional Growth Partnership to bring a group of international business development leaders to Toledo. From Sept. 24 to 26, more than two hundred people will attend the 5 Lakes Global Economic Forum at the Park Inn hotel in downtown Toledo.

As part of the forum, The University of Toledo will be holding an education panel from 4 to 6 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 25 where schools and universities will have the opportunity to share information on what makes their educational institution a unique outlet for the employees and families of overseas executives and workers who elect to become members of our community.

“Northwest Ohio has so much to offer from an educational and research standpoint,’ said Lawrence J. Burns, UT vice president for external affairs. “This forum represents a tremendous opportunity to showcase this strength to a group of potential overseas partners.”

The panel will feature speakers addressing the following topics:

• Pamela Boyers, executive director of the UT Center of Clinical Simulation, “Use of Technology in Education”
• Dr. Mary Ellen Mazey, president of Bowling Green State University, “Education and Economic Development”
• Dr. Mike Bower, president of Owens Community College, “Role in workforce training and influence on economic development”
• Mr. Yang Yulin, vice president of Yanshan University, “Working together to build the future”
• Ms. Ma Yaewi, president of Shinyway Education, “Opportunity and Challenges – The education abroad market in China”

Many look forward to the coziness of fall with the colorful fall foliage, apple picking, hayrides, pumpkin lattes and the cooler temperatures with a crisp in the air.

During this time of year when there is much to enjoy about the outdoors, The University of Toledo is inviting the UT community to assist in working toward a cleaner, greener campus.

A Fall Clean Up Day will be held 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 26 when students, student organizations, faculty and staff are asked to volunteer for an hour to pick up trash and cigarette butts around campus. All participants will be supplied with trash bags and gloves and will receive a free t-shirt for volunteering from tables set up near the steps in front of the Student Union.

Last year’s Fall Clean Up Day brought out 291 students from more than 47 student organizations that removed 50 pounds of cigarette butts and trash from campus.

The 2012 event coincides with the Ohio College Health Association’s “Just Ask” campaign that encourages faculty, staff and students to remind smokers to use designated smoking areas on campus.

Fall Clean Up Day is organized by the Division of Student Affairs, Alcohol Tobacco and Other Drug Prevention Program, Eta Sigma Gamma, and SADD.

For more information contact Alexis Blavos, UT alcohol, tobacco and other drug prevention specialist, at alexis.blavos@utoledo.edu.

The University of Toledo Center for Religious Understanding will present a panel discussion to help the Toledo community understand the protests and conflicts surrounding an anti-Islam film made in America and cartoons mocking the Prophet Mohammad in a French magazine.

Anjum

The brown-bag teach-in called “A Closer Look at Anti-American Sentiment in the Muslim World” will take place at 12:30-1:45 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 25 in Memorial Field House Room 1910 on the University’s Main Campus.

“Through this teach-in we will be able to provide information to our community about why this conflict is occurring and GIVE some context TO the media reports,” said Dr. Ovamir Anjum, UT Imam Khattab Chair of Islamic Studies. “It is important to promote education and religious understanding at all times, but especially when there is violent conflict going on around us. In addition to understanding, we want to discuss ways to build on the positive. There are demonstrations throughout the Muslim world that arecondemning violence and are sympathetic to the deceased ambassador.”

Anjum, the author of Politics, Law and Community in Islamic Thought who also was a guest on the Leading Edge with Jerry Anderson on Sunday talking about the same topic, is one of the panelists.

The other panelists are Dr. Edmund Lingan, director of the University’s Institute for Performance and Spirituality and eyewitness to the destruction of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, and via Skype, Dr. Todd Green, assistant professor of religion at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa with expertise in secularization and Islamophobia.

The free event will include time for questions and discussion. Visitors can park in Lot 13 and the West Ramp for the event.

For more information contact the UT Center for Religious Understanding at 419-530-6187 or cfru@utoledo.edu.

Hundreds of thousands of women, boys and girls each year are forced to sell their bodies as victims of sex trafficking. It happens around the world and it certainly happens in the United States, in every community, in Toledo, Ohio.

President Barack Obama discussed the issue at the Clinton Global Initiative on Sept. 25, saying human trafficking “must be called by its true name – ‘modern slavery.'”

“Our fight against human trafficking is one of the great human rights causes of our time, and the United States will continue to lead it,” Obama said.

While reports show that of those cities with federal Innocence Lost Task Forces Toledo is the third largest city for human trafficking and sex slavery, it also is home to one of the largest international conferences to combat the issue.

The Ninth Annual International Human Trafficking, Prostitution and Sex Work Conference Sept. 27-28 at The University of Toledo will share the latest in research, advocacy and programs to effectively respond.

“Sex trafficking does not only happen in other countries or other communities. It permeates our society in a way that would shock most people,” said Celia Williamson, PhD, UT professor of social work and founder of Second Chance, a social service program located in Toledo that provides comprehensive services to victims of domestic sex trafficking and prostitution.

Williamson

“The victims of this heinous crime need our support and the perpetrators of underage prostitution need harsher penalties. It is imperative that researchers, social workers, health care professionals and criminal justiceprofessionals work together collaboratively to combat this problem.”

The oldest and largest of its kind in the U.S., the conference will feature more than 40 presentations from experts such as survivor and author Theresa Flores talking about survivors finding their voices and representatives from the Laboratory to Combat Human Trafficking in Denver presenting research on the influences of law enforcement attitudes on investigations.

State Rep. Teresa Fedor also will provide information about the new Safe Harbor human trafficking legislation signed by Gov. John Kasich this year that strengthens penalties for perpetrators of underage prostitution and protects juvenile victims of prostitution.

A number of trafficking survivors will share their stories and researchers from around the world will convene to share knowledge about the personalities of “Johns” and the damaging effects of sexualizing children. In total, seven countries and 12 U.S. states will be represented.

The conference will take place 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday and Friday (Sept. 27-28) in the Student Union on the UT Main Campus.

Click here for a full schedule of events.

Click here for biographies of the presenters and abstracts of their talks.

For more information visit www.prostitutionconference.com or contact Meghan Cunningham at 419.530.2410 or meghan.cunningham@utoledo.edu.

Williamson has been quoted as an expert researcher by media outlets such as ABC News Primetime, New York Times, USA Today, CNN, and in the Toledo Blade series about the FBI Innocence Lost investigations, among others.

Media Coverage
The Blade (Sept. 23, 2012)
13 ABC and WNWO (Sept. 28, 2012)
Conklin & Company (Oct. 1, 2012)

The military beginnings of the Jeep are well known. What is less known is how this amazing Toledo vehicle has earned its stripes in agriculture as well.

Colorado-based artist collective M12 is collaborating with UT students and faculty on a unique exhibit reflecting this remarkable history of Toledo’s Jeep. The exhibit will feature a 1954 Willys-Overland Civilian Jeep, which was used on Wednesday to assist 10 UT students and the artists plant trees in Bowling Green, to portray the vehicle as reassurance about the future of post-industrial and post-agricultural realities, and a battle cry for positive social action.

** MEDIA OPPORTUNITY **
The “Universal Future (Where There’s a Willys There’s a Way)” exhibit, which includes the vehicle itself as well as photographs of yesterday’s agricultural use and other media, is being installed 1:30-4 p.m. today in the Center for the Visual Arts Main Gallery when students also will participate in a drawing workshop to design 21st century versions of the universal Jeep.

“Universal Future” is one of two exhibits in which the UT Department of Art is exploring the theme of “Reclaim & Collaborate.” “Harvest: Michigan’s Urban Agriculture,” is a photographic display from artist Daniel Farnum that will be shown in the Center for Visual Arts Clement Gallery.

Farnum will present photographic works that document Michigan’s urban farms. His portraits of participants in this new industry include hipsters, neighborhood teenagers, unemployed factory workers and restaurant owners. Farnum’s works address the eclectic nature of community and optimistic passion for sustainable living.

Both exhibits open with a reception 6-8 p.m. Friday, Sept. 21 in the UT Center for the Visual Arts located at 620 Grove Place, next to the Toledo Museum of Art. They are free and open to the public.

“Universal Future” will be on display through Oct. 14 and “Harvest” will be shown through Oct. 21.

The Main Gallery is open 9 a.m.-10 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 10 a.m.-10 p.m. on Sundays.
The Clement Gallery is open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday through Thursday and noon-5 p.m. on Sundays.

Media Coverage
The Blade (Sept. 20, 2012)
The Blade (Sept. 27, 2012)
The Blade (Oct. 4, 2012)

Faculty members at The University of Toledo tomorrow will transform an ordinary parking spot into a temporary public place as part of PARK(ing) Day ­ — an annual worldwide event where metered parking spots are turned into public parks.

The UT Department of Art’s Barbara Miner, Arturo Rodriguez and Art Karen Roderick-Lingeman will share a metered parking spot during the event, which will take place from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday, Sept. 21 on Adams Street in Uptown Toledo.

Associate professors Miner and Rodriguez will print “plantable posters.” Each of the newsprint posters will contain seeds from local native prairie plants. Visitors to the event will receive information on how to plant their own prairie using the posters.

Roderick-Lingeman, an associate lecturer, will set up a table and invite people to create clay “bones” for another art movement: the One Million Bones Project. Through this movement, thousands of people across the country craft bones while becoming informed about global genocides.

To participate in the Million Bones Project, no artistic experience is necessary, and all materials will be provided. In June 2013, bones from all over the country will be taken and laid together in an installation in Washington, D.C., to represent the mass graves resulting from the genocides.

Jeanne Marie Kusina, coordinator of participatory learning and research, and a visiting faculty member in the UT departments of Philosophy and Women’s and Gender Studies, is coordinating the University’s Million Bones Project.

During PARK(ing) Day in the Glass City, there will be several parks put together by other groups, including the Toledo School for the Arts.

The project has grown since its conception in 2005 when a San Francisco art and design studio converted a single parking space into a park and photos of the art piece went viral on the Internet.

In the past, parking spaces nationwide have been converted into several different publicspaces, including free clinics, bike repair shops, political seminars and even wedding ceremonies. Last year, which was Toledo’s first involvement with the event, there were 27 different parks.

The mission of the event is to call attention to the need for more urban space in communities and to generate debate on how public space is allocated. Once the event is over, groups will tear down their parks, and the areas will again be nothing more than metered parking spaces.

For more information on PARK(ing) Day, visit uptowntoledo.org/parking-day.php.

For more information on the One Million Bones Project, visit onemillionbones.org.

Media Coverage
The Blade (Sept. 22, 2012)

In a lecture at The University of Toledo College of Law on Thursday, Sept. 20, Judge Nancy Gertner, professor of practice at Harvard Law School and former U.S. district judge, will discuss how to craft a principled and passionate life in the law representing the underserved, as well as hertransition from advocate to judge.

Gertner will speak at noon in the newly renovated Richard & Jane McQuade Law Center Auditorium.

Gertner

Her free, public lecture, “An Improbable Life: From Feminism and Advocacy to the Bench,” is a part of the College of Law’s Cannon Lecture Series. Gertner’s autobiography, In Defense of Women: Memoirs of an Unrepentant Advocate, released in 2011, will be available for purchase and the author’s signature.

In the 1970s, as Gertner attended law school and began her career, women in the legal profession were a rarity, and female trial attorneys rarer yet. But Gertner, in bright red suits, jumped into a career as a criminal defense and civil rights attorney. She tackled a succession of high-profilecases — cases that often involved women’s and civil rights issues at a time when the ideals of those movements were just beginning to gain traction in the courtroom.

“Judge Gertner’s visit will give our students and members of the community insight into the changes in the legal profession in the past 40 years, particularly the remarkable expansion of the role of women in the profession,” said Daniel J. Steinbock, dean of the College of Law.

In 1994, after a career in private practice litigating criminal and civil rights cases, Gertner was appointed to the U.S. DistrictCourt for the District of Massachusetts by President Clinton. She has been an instructor at Yale Law School, teaching sentencing and comparative sentencing institutions, since 1998. Gertner retired from the bench in 2011 and now serves as a professor of practice at Harvard Law School.

In 2008, Gertner received the Thurgood Marshall Award from the American Bar Association’s Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities; she is only the second woman to receive it. (U.S. SupremeCourt Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was the first.) She has been profiled on a number of occasions in the Boston Globe, the American Bar Association Journal, Boston magazine and The Wall Street Journal.

She is a graduate of Barnard College and Yale Law School, where she was an editor of The Yale Law Journal. She received her master ofarts degree in political science from Yale University.

The Cannon Lecture Series was established in 1980 in memory of former Toledo attorney Joseph A. Cannon through a generous gift from hisfamily and friends. The lecture series is intended to provide an opportunity for the College of Law, the University and the greater Toledo community to host individuals of national prominence who, in discussing questions of law and society, will emphasize the humanistic dimension as well as the limitations of our legal system.

Click here to download a photo of Gertner.

For more information or contact Rachel Phipps, assistant to the dean for communications in the UT College of Law at 419.530.2628 or rachel.phipps@utoledo.edu.

Nearly 700 community members, alumni and friends will return to their alma mater as The University of Toledo dedicates its new William and Carol Koester Alumni Pavilion at 6 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 13, just west of the Glass Bowl. (Picture: Workers finalize construction)

“Carol and I saw this pavilion as an opportunity to honor University of Toledo alumni: People who represent the legacy of this institution and demonstrate the success of its educational mission,” said William Koester, who is entering his final year on UT’s Board of Trustees and is serving as board chair. “We both earned degrees from UT and just love the place. We wanted to give something back.”

Designed by SSOE Group, the outside of the pavilion area will hold plaques recognizing Gold T, Blue T and Edward H. Schmidt Outstanding Young Alumni award recipients, past Alumni Association presidents, and outstanding chapters, affiliates and volunteers. The pavilion will be outfitted with food and beverage stations, as well as a sound system.

SSOE Group, a global engineering, procurement and construction management firm headquartered in Toledo, has made an in-kind contribution to donate the architectural design along with all engineering for the pavilion and entry complex. In total, the 13,000-square-foot $1.1 million pavilion and plaza has been built with no taxpayer money.

“Our initial plan was to raise money this year and construct the pavilion next year,” said Dan Saevig, UT associate vice president for alumni relations. “But because of the generosity of the Koesters, of SSOE and of so many alumni, we plan to be up and running for the Sept. 15 game versus Bowling Green.”

Tony Damon, president and CEO of the SSOE Group, congratulated UT on this successful project.

“SSOE has been a proud supporter of The University of Toledo since our founding in 1948,” Damon said. “Our remarkable partnership with the University was built on the legacy of our founder Al Samborn, a 1939 UT alumnus, whose professionalism and commitment to engineering education was exemplified by his many years teaching at UT.

“That cooperation continues today as SSOE is one of the largest employers of the University’s engineering students and graduates. Our $94,000 contribution to this project was yet another way for SSOE to show our continued support and gratitude, and when combined with other giving caps afive-year program of donations in excess of $700,000.”

The pavilion sits on a large plaza, named in honor of Chuck and Jackie Sullivan and comprised of hundreds of bricks donated by UT alumni and friends. Additionally, the Pavilion’s Rocket Station is named in honor of the UT Women & Philanthropy organization. Eighteen named pillars will support the structure, and 13 named benches will ring the plaza’s exterior.

In all, more than 100 alumni, organizations and friends of the University have donated $1,000 or more to the effort, Saevig said, and thousands more have contributed.

All are welcome to attend the dedication but are required to RSVP due to an expected large turnout.

To RSVP, contact the Office of Special Events at 419.530.2200 or specialevents@utoledo.edu.

Parking for the event will be available north and south of the Glass Bowl in lots 9 and 10, which will close Thursday at 6:45.

Media Coverage
The Blade (Sept. 12, 2012)