Campus Digest

The International Plan at Georgia Tech – a broad set of global course requirements that can be tailored to any discipline – has earned a 2010 Andrew Heiskell Award for Innovation in International Education from the Institute of International Education (IIE).

This curriculum-integration initiative is in its fifth year and encompasses 25 out of the 35 undergraduate majors at Georgia Tech, including eight of the 11 engineering majors. Successful completion of the International Plan leads to a designation on students’ diplomas and transcripts signifying their global competence in the discipline. Since the International Plan’s inception, 661 students have participated in the program, 50 percent of whom come from the College of Engineering or the College of Computing.

“The International Plan neither replaces nor supplants other Georgia Tech programs,” says Gary Schuster, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs. “Rather it is Georgia Tech’s signature international program to enhance international study for undergraduates.”

The Heiskell Awards recognize programs noteworthy for their success in removing institutional barriers to international study and broadening the base of participation in international teaching and learning on campus. The IIE considers winning programs to be best practices in internationalization.

Two assistant professors of chemistry in the University of Georgia Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, are the recipients of National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Awards, one of the most prestigious awards available to young researchers.

Todd Harrop will receive $626,775 over the next five years to examine how certain types of metalloenzymes respond to reactive molecules derived from molecular oxygen. The research has the potential to help treat or prevent the buildup of toxic molecules that are formed during heart attacks and strokes.

Jason Locklin, who holds a joint appointment with the Faculty of Engineering and the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, received the honor only a few weeks earlier. Locklin will receive $490,000 over the next five years to develop microscopic switches controlled by light.

The NSF award is highly competitive – in 2009 only one in four CAREER proposals submitted to NSF were funded. Harrop’s and Locklin’s awards bring to 22 the number of researchers at the University of Georgia who have received a CAREER Award. Part of Harrop’s award will be used to host a summer research student from Fort Valley State University who will help plan and execute a very specific portion of his project and present this work at a national meeting of chemists.