A founder of the very honor he helped create will instead be one of the people recognized at the fifth annual Emergency Medicine Wall of Honor induction ceremony Tuesday, Sept. 22, at noon.

“Given the fact that I was the principal instigator for the creation of the EM Wall of Honor, I feel reluctant to be recognized in this fashion,” said Dr. Paul Rega, director of emergency medicine simulation education and medical advisor for disaster preparedness at The University of Toledo Medical Center.

“I am extremely humbled and grateful that I was even considered; however, it affords me the opportunity to thank everyone, over the course of 35 years, who has worked with me in emergency departments and in disaster situations to improve the health and welfare to those who sought our care,” Rega said.

Rega

The reception will start at 11:30 a.m. in the Lloyd A. Jacobs Interprofessional Immersive Simulation Center on the Health Science Campus. UT President Sharon Gaber will speak. The simulation center will also host a demonstration.

A plaque for each honoree will be added to the wall, located in the Emergency Department of UTMC, near the ambulance entrance.

The Emergency Medicine Wall of Honor, made possible through funding from The Blade, was established in 2011 to recognize individual achievement and self-sacrifice in the emergency medical services and emergency medicine community.

Nominations are submitted by community stakeholders and reviewed by a multidisciplinary selection committee.

In addition to Rega, this year’s honorees are:

• Thomas Couture Sr., paramedic. Dedicating more 30 years to prehospital medicine, Couture was a founding leader of EMS in Lucas County. Beginning in the 1970s, he was instrumental in implementing policies, protocols and educational standards for the ever-growing role of the paramedic in the community.

• Karen Peckinpaugh, registered nurse. Peckinpaugh is the founding “mother” of the Forensics SANE (sexual assault nurse examiners) programs in the region. She has worked to establish community relationships that have assisted with the growth of local and regional SANE programs.

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A talk this week will focus on a Toledo hot-button issue: water quality.

The University of Toledo’s Esteemed Speaker Series will feature Ohio State University Professor Brent Sohngen Wednesday, Sept. 23, at 4 p.m. in Bowman-Oddy Laboratories Room 1045.

The free, public talk, “Do Agricultural Conservation Programs Reduce Nutrients in Watersheds?” will focus on the efficiency, or lack thereof, of current management practices on reducing phosphorus run-off from agriculture into Lake Erie, said Dr. Scott Heckathorn, UT professor of environmental science.

“High levels of phosphorous in Lake Erie are the main cause of algal blooms, which can affect drinking water quality for cities like Toledo that obtain their water from the lake, and the biggest source of excess phosphorous in Lake Erie derives from agricultural run-off,” he said.

Sohngen is a professor of environmental economics at Ohio State. His research focuses on land use and climate change, carbon trading, and water quality trading. He wrote sections of the 2001 and 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports on the impacts of climate change on forests and agriculture, and on the potential for carbon sequestration in forests.

For more information, contact Heckathorn at scott.heckathorn@utoledo.edu.

The University of Toledo Engineering Career Development Center will host the Fall 2015 Engineering Career Expo Wednesday, Sept. 23.

Representatives from more than 140 companies will be available to talk to students and alumni of the UT College of Engineering during the carer expo 12:30 to 4:30 p.m. on the first floor of Nitschke Hall and North Engineering.

“Many companies from across the United States participate in this event,” said Dr. Vickie Kuntz, director of the Engineering Career Development Center.  “A few of the nationally recognized companies scheduled to participate include Dana Holding, Campbell Soup Supply Company, Cooper Tire, FirstEnergy, General Electric, Honda, Johnson & Johnson, KIEWIT, Marathon, SSOE and Whirlpool.”

The career expo is a great opportunity for job-seeking students to network with employers, she said, noting that student attendance in past events has topped 600. Kuntz expects between 600 and 700 students and alumni to participate at this event.

The career expo is open to University of Toledo students who are enrolled in the College of Engineering. Additionally, UT engineering alumni who have been in the work force for a few years and are interested in exploring other positions are welcome.

The University of Toledo will mark the historic inauguration of the University’s 17th President Sharon L. Gaber on Friday, Sept. 25.

The inauguration ceremony at 3 p.m. in Savage Arena will celebrate the University in the theme of “Tradition, Collaboration and Transformation.”

A processional will begin at 2:30 p.m. from the Student Union — or the Fetterman Training Center if it rains — to Savage Arena for the ceremony, which will be followed by a reception. The event is free and open to the public.

Gaber began her tenure as UT’s 17^th president on July 1. A city and regional planning expert, she came to the UT presidency following six years as provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of Arkansas.

Earlier Friday morning, Gaber will serve as a panelist during an academic symposium at 10 a.m. in Doermann Theater.

Titled “Creating a Social Compact Between the City of Toledo and The University of Toledo: From Knowledge to Action,” other panel participants are:

•  Dr. Michael Dear, professor emeritus of city and regional planning at the University of California at Berkeley;

•  Dr. Kenneth Reardon, professor and director of the graduate program in urban planning and community development at the University of Massachusetts in Boston;

•  Dr. Neil Reid, director of the UT Jack Ford Urban Affairs Center and professor of geography and planning; and

•  John Jones, associate vice president with ProMedical who leads its Office of Diversity and Inclusion.

Dr. Patrick Lawrence, UT professor and chair in the Department of Geography and Planning, will be the moderator.

Throughout the week students, faculty, staff and community members will have the opportunity to sign in the Student Union a welcome banner for the President that will be presented to her by Student Government at the inauguration ceremony.

For more information, visit utoledo.edu/inauguration.

Media Coverage
The Blade (Sept. 21, 2015)
The Blade (Sept. 25, 2015)
The Blade (Sept. 25, 2015)
NBC 24 (Sept. 25, 2015)
WHIO (Sept. 25, 2015)
WTOL 11 (Sept. 25, 2015)
The Independent Collegian (Sept. 26, 2015)
The Blade (Sept. 26, 2015)
The Blade (Sept. 26, 2015)
WTOL 11, NBC 24, 13 ABC and FOX Toledo (Sept. 28, 2015)

The newest on-campus living community at The University of Toledo will be celebrated Monday with a ribbon-cutting ceremony and open house.

UT campus leaders and representatives from American Campus Communities, the project’s developer and manager, will cut the ribbon at 9 a.m. Monday, Sept. 21 for the Honors Academic Village, located at Campus Road and West Rocket Drive on the northwest corner of the UT Main Campus.

UT President Sharon L. Gaber and James E. Wilhelm, III, executive vice president of American Campus Communities, will be joined at the event by UT Jesup Scott Honors College Interim Dean Kelly Moore, UT Student Government President Ian Michalak and UT Faculty Senate President-Elect Mary Humphrys. Tours of the building will be offered following the ceremony.

The ribbon cutting is one of a number of campus events taking place during the week of the inauguration of UT President Sharon L. Gaber.

The Honors Academic Village provides a modern on-campus living community for 492 students in fully furnished rooms and also offers an academic success center, state-of-the-art fitness center and lounges for recreation and socialization.

The four-story, 142,000-square-foot building opened for the 2015-16 academic year and provides opportunities for living-learning communities for Jesup Scott Honors College students.

Media Coverage
WTOL 11, 13 ABC and FOX Toledo (Sept. 21, 2015)
NBC 24 (Sept. 21, 2015)

UT constitutional law Professor Lee Strang will deliver the John W. Stoepler Professor of Law and Values Installation Lecture on Monday, Sept. 21, at noon, in the McQuade Law Auditorium at The University of Toledo College of Law.

The free, public lecture is titled “Public Universities as Places of Constrained Debate: A Home for People of Good Will, Including Religious People.”

Strang

The lecture is one of a number of campus events taking place during the week of the inauguration of University of Toledo President Sharon Gaber.

Strang was named the John W. Stoepler Professor of Law and Values effective July 1. This fall, he is a visiting scholar at the Center for the Constitution at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.

“Professor Strang is a wonderful scholar whose work has had a significant impact in the academy,” said D. Benjamin Barros, dean of the College of Law. “I have cited his work in my own scholarship. I am looking forward to his remarks about the role of the public university in our religiously pluralistic society.”

Americans deeply disagree about many important issues. From gun control, to marriage, from the size and role of government, to justice, Americans of good will see these issues differently. Public universities have traditionally been viewed as places where Americans of all stripes come together to debate and learn. The debate is vigorous, but respectful.

Strang will argue that this conception of the public university as a place of robust debate is threatened. He will show that public universities are under pressure to exclude religious citizens from their forums for debate. More precisely, he will discuss how recent shifts in politics, law, and culture have caused some universities to marginalize and exclude religious Americans. He will explain why excluding religious Americans from public universities would be a mistake, both for the universities and for our society.

Strang is the author of more than 20 law review publications, a multi-volume constitutional law casebook now in its second edition, as well as several book chapters and book reviews. He has published in the fields of constitutional law and interpretation, property law, and religion and the First Amendment.

Among other scholarly projects, he is currently editing the second edition of his casebook, writing a book titled “Originalism’s Promise and Its Limits,” and authoring a book on the history of Catholic legal education in the United States. He frequently presents at scholarly conferences and participates in debates at law schools across the country, and is regularly quoted in the media. He served as the College’s inaugural director of faculty research during the 2014-15 school year. At the College of Law, he teaches Constitutional Law, Property, Administrative Law, and other courses.

A graduate of the University of Iowa, where he was articles editor of the Iowa Law Review and a member of Order of the Coif, Strang also holds an LL.M. degree from Harvard Law School.

Before joining the Toledo Law faculty, Strang was a visiting professor at Michigan State University College of Law and an associate professor at Ave Maria School of Law. Prior to teaching, Strang served as a judicial clerk for Judge Alice M. Batchelder of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and an associate with Jenner & Block LLP in Chicago, where he practiced general and appellate litigation.

The professorship is named after John W. Stoepler, the seventh dean of the College of Law. Stoepler was an alumnus and longtime faculty member before being named dean of the College in 1983. He served as interim president of the University in 1988.

The Stoepler Professorship of Law and Values is funded out of a bequest by Eugene N. Balk, a former general counsel of The Andersons, Inc.

Media Coverage
The Blade (Sept. 19, 2015)

Transportation entrepreneur Robin Chase will kick off The University of Toledo Jesup Scott Honors College Distinguished Lecture Series on Tuesday, Sept. 22.

Chase, the co-founder and former CEO of Zipcar, the largest car-sharing company in the world, will speak at 7 p.m. in Doermann Theater, located in University Hall on Main Campus. The talk is free and open to the public, but attendees are encouraged to register for tickets in advance at utoledo.edu/honorslecture.

Robin Chase

Chase also is the founder and CEO of Buzzcar, a peer-to-peer car-sharing service in France now merged with Drivy, and GoLoco, an online ride-sharing community. Additionally, she is the co-founder and executive chair of Veniam, a vehicle communications company.

She lectures widely on the topics of innovation, entrepreneurship, technology, transportation, cities and climate change.

In addition to Chase, the lineup for the 2015-16 lecture series includes a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, the co-founder of Apple and a polar explorer.

“This year’s slate of speakers is outstanding,” said Kelly Moore, interim dean of the Jesup Scott Honors College. “Collectively, they will engage, inspire and motivate the University and the larger community.”

The 2015-16 Distinguished Lecture series also will feature:

•   Thursday, Oct. 22 — Richard Russo, an American novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and teacher. Russo won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for fiction for his novel, Empire Falls.
•   Monday, Feb. 1 — Steve Wozniak, a Silicon Valley icon and entrepreneur. Wozniak is known for co-founding Apple Computer Inc. with Steve Jobs.
•   Tuesday, April 5 — Ann Bancroft, one of the world’s preeminent polar explorers. Bancroft is an internationally recognized leader who is dedicated to inspiring women, girls and audiences around the world to unleash the power of their dreams.

This is the third year of the lecture series that has brought to campus high-profile speakers, including Sal Khan, the founder of Khan Academy; Karl Rove, who served as senior adviser to President George W. Bush; and James Carville, political consultant who helped Bill Clinton win the U.S. presidency in 1992.

For additional information, visit utoledo.edu/honorslecture or call 419.530.2738.

Click links to download photos: Robin Chase. Richard Russo. Steve Wozniak. Ann Bancroft.

The UT Sexual Assault Education and Prevention Program will host the University’s third annual Rape Abuse Incest National Network (RAINN) Day Thursday, Sept. 17, in the Student Union Trimble Lounge from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

RAINN is the country’s largest anti-sexual violence organization, operating a national hotline for sexual assault victims and educating the public about sexual assault. The day is an annual event serving as a grassroots campaign to bring about awareness of sexual assault nationwide.

“We want to make sure we are educating our students, our faculty, our staff, our visitors and the whole campus community about sexual violence on college campuses,” said Dr. Stanley Edwards, director of the UT Counseling Center. “It is important to get people talking about it, thinking about it and exploring ways to prevent it.”

An umbrella decorating competition will be held among student groups, residence halls and other organizations on campus. Groups are encouraged to decorate an umbrella with positive messages in support of sexual assault survivors. There will be prizes awarded to the best umbrellas.

Also featured at the event will be the Clothesline Project, a national initiative to promote awareness about sexual violence against women. More than 100 shirts from sexual assault survivors at the University will be hung up to spread awareness about violence against women. The national project was started in 1990 in Massachusetts and has spread to college campuses across the country.

The University of Toledo will celebrate Constitution Day with a naturalization ceremony Thursday, Sept. 17, in the Law Center McQuade Law Auditorium from 11 a.m. to noon.

During the ceremony, 50 people will be sworn in as U.S. citizens by Federal District Judge Jack Zouhary of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio.

“This is an important milestone. It’s like a graduation, since the process takes a long time,” said Diane Miller, associate vice president of federal relations in the UT Office of Government Relations. “It’s this big celebration of reaching the end and accomplishing the goal of becoming a U.S. citizen.”

Immigrants, who are 18 and older, are eligible to become a U.S. citizen and qualify for naturalization after being a permanent resident for a minimum of five years. Those married to a U.S. citizen and who meet all the other eligibility requirements can apply after being a permanent resident for a minimum of three years.

“Most everyone in this country is an immigrant or a child, grandchild or great-grandchild of immigrants, so it is a natural way to celebrate the history of our country, which is this melting pot,” Miller said.

The event’s featured speaker will be Kolet Buenavides, a third-year student in UT’s College of Law, who was naturalized as a U.S. citizen last year. She was born and raised in the Philippines and immigrated to the United States after completing the fifth grade.

The UT Concert Chorale will perform “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the event, which is sponsored by the Office of Government Relations and the Center for International Studies and Programs.

Media Coverage
The Blade (Sept. 18, 2015)
The Blade (Sept. 18, 2015)

UT Health is offering a new service to help women better cope with their menopause symptoms.

The Menopause Clinic — the first in the area — will be every Wednesday from 1-5 p.m. in the Ruppert Health Center on the Health Science Campus beginning Oct. 14.

Dr. Lance Talmage and Dr. Terry Gibbs

Dr. Lance Talmage, professor and interim chair of the UT Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, is partnering with Dr. Terry Gibbs, a ProMedica OB-GYN with a faculty appointment at UT. Gibbs is certified through the North American Menopausal Society.

“We will be consulting with women to determine the best approach to curbing their menopause symptoms,” Talmage said. “We will look at hormonal therapies as well as non-hormonal therapies, prescription drugs and herbal options.”

While many patients will be referred to the clinic, women also can make an appointment on their own. For instance, menopause is a side effect of some cancer treatments so Talmage expects to get referrals from oncologists.

Gibbs said menopause becomes a quality of life issue for many women as they could experience low energy, sleep troubles or sexual difficulties. Some women don’t know that drinking hot coffee, smoking or drinking alcohol can exacerbate the symptoms. In some cases, menopause can trigger anxiety or feelings of sadness and loss.

“We will talk a lot about the management of all the menopause symptoms and discuss hereditary cancers that become more prevalent in middle age,” Gibbs said. “There are so many things that women don’t consider. They think, ‘I am done with kids; I don’t need to see a gynecologist.’ However, there is more of a reason to see a gynecologist at age 50 than at age 20.”

Talmage and Gibbs said they are seeing a cultural change with baby boomers; they do not want to just accept these symptoms as a part of life.

“There is less of a willingness to say, ‘This is the way it is. I am older and I have to deal with it.’ Women these days want to ‘fix’ their menopausal symptoms,” Talmage said.

Appointments at the Menopause Clinic will be 45 minutes each and involve a consultation, a physical exam and possible bone test scans, depending on the age of the patient. All patients will receive written literature to take home.

“One of my objectives is to make sure that UT residents are trained in menopausal health care,” Gibbs said. “Most residents get very little training on this topic, but it is something that virtually all doctors will come across during their practice.”

Gibbs said menopause consultation is a gap in care that needs to be filled.

“I think there are so many things in this field that are coming to the market every day. It is fast changing. There is so much research going on right now.”

Patients can make appointments by calling 419-383-3787. Insurance is expected to cover most visits.

Media Coverage
13 ABC (Sept. 17, 2015)
The Independent Collegian (Sept. 30, 2015)