(Vanderbilt / Neil Brake)

Five Vanderbilt University standout graduating seniors are available to speak with reporters covering May 11 Commencement ceremonies at Vanderbilt University.

Commencement begins 9 a.m. May 11 on Alumni Lawn. Senior Day, featuring an address by newsman Tom Brokaw, precedes it at 11 a.m. to noon on May 10.

Contact Vanderbilt News and Communications for an interview with one or more of the following students:

Trevor Burbank created a social enterprise business called Teach Twice (http://www.teachtwice.org). The company publishes children’s books from around the world, and funnels the money the books generate back into the countries where the books began, providing scholarships and building schools. The first book – from a storyteller in Uganda – has been published. It’s called My Precious Name. Burbank plans to continue this as his career after graduation. Teach Twice started as a class project. Burbank is a double major, in human and organizational development and child studies.

Nate Marshall, from the projects in Chicago, fell in love with poetry and rap at a young age and a teacher encouraged him to join the Louder Than a Bomb poetry slam.  He is now one of the main characters of the critically acclaimed documentary Louder Than a Bomb. He is a double major in English and African American Studies. You can see a video produced about Nate here: http://news.vanderbilt.edu/2012/03/louder-bomb_natemarshall/

Ethel Mickey has studied how women’s romantic relationships affect their persistence in pursuing a college education. She was part of a student-run committee at Vanderbilt that brought Arianna Huffington, William Kristol, Tim Pawlenty and Christina Romer to the Vanderbilt campus to speak. The double major in English and sociology will graduate summa cum laude and is headed to Northeastern University in Boston to study sociology.

Scott Nill is a senior mechanical engineering major from Fort Wayne, Ind., and an undergraduate research assistant in the Medical and Electromechanical Design Lab, which works to advance the science of robotics, mechatronics and medical engineering and apply their results to real-world medical (usually surgical) problems. Scott is also an undergraduate research assistant in the Vanderbilt Initiative in Surgery and Engineering (VISE) and has been involved with Vanderbilt Motorsports’ Formula SAE team since freshman year. After graduation, he may do an internship with the Walt Disney Company as an Imagineer, and has been accepted for graduate study at M.I.T.

Jeremy Williams is a double major – in religious studies and economics. He has been accepted to Yale Divinity School, but plans to defer admission for a year in order to preach in his hometown of Huntsville, Ala., and work on a book of devotionals. He’s been involved in student government and the Black Student Alliance.

To schedule an interview with Mickey, Nill, Williams, Burbank or Marshall, contact Vanderbilt News and Communications at (615) 322-NEWS.

(iStock)

Of all the issues being debated by politicians, lawmakers and voters, health care may be the issue on which no one can agree.

A study by a team of professors at the Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management finds that health care is one of the most divisive issues splitting Democrats and Republicans, especially when it comes to cost and access. Even if the person works in the health care industry, political affiliation still reflects his or her opinions on health care.

Marketing professors Dawn Iacobucci and Steve Hoeffler and professor of health care and economics Lawrence Van Horn conducted two surveys, one at a major health care conference and a second national poll almost a year later to verify the robustness of their original findings. They found the most striking differences in opinion were not impacted by gender or whether or not they worked in the health care industry, but strictly along party lines.

“This research suggests that common ground and metrics will be difficult to find between those holding such diverse ideological positions,” the team writes.

“As politicians maneuver in D.C. and candidates seize on health care reform as a wedge issue, the voters may see ‘politics as usual’; rather it’s a case of ‘politicus extremus,’” said Van Horn.

Is health care a priority?

The first part of the survey sought people’s general opinions on the importance of health care in comparison with other big national issues.

QUESTION: If you had to pay more each year in taxes, how would you allocate $100 to support education, infrastructure (bridges, roads, etc.), military and security and health care?

Democrats and Republicans were pretty similar on education and infrastructure dollars, but the greatest difference in opinion was on health care spending.

“Reaching consensus on the efficacy of reform, now and going forward, will be very difficult with parties at such odds,” the team writes.

What elements of health care reform find support?

The second section of the survey asked respondents to focus on health care dollars.

QUESTION: If you had $100 to allocate across specific health care programs, would you want to provide coverage for the uninsured, support preventative health programs, cover chronic health conditions or no additional taxes go to health care programs?

Democrats wanted the most dollars to provide coverage to the uninsured, extend support of preventative health programs and cover chronic health conditions. In sharp contrast, the majority of Republicans polled preferred no increase in tax dollars.

Health care trade-offs

The next section of the survey looked at what trade-offs people would be willing to make in connection with health care. The researchers used a conjoint study—which measures the perceived values of a product or service’s features to see how demand for that product or service is related to price.

QUESTION: Would you support a health care program with:

• No tax increase or a 10 percent tax increase?
• Services sustained at the current level of service or reduced services, such as no coverage for medications, elective procedures or health conditions caused by lifestyle decisions, such as smoking or obesity?
• Wealthy retirees would or would not be eligible for coverage?
• Medicare coverage starting at age 65 or coverage pushed to age 70?

Republicans and Democrats were complete opposites on what they preferred the most and least. The Republicans chose not increasing taxes and cutting services as their most desirable option. It was the Democrats’ least preferred option.

In contrast, the Democrats chose cutting services, coupled with a 10 percent tax increase for the other programs as their top choice. That was the Republicans’ least desirable option.

The Democrats also chose for wealthy retirees to fund their own health care instead of using government services, which is the opposite of what the Republican respondents chose.

“These groups share almost no consensus,” said Van Horn.

The researchers found some differentiation among men and women and those within and outside of the health care field.

Men vs. women

• Men did not support raising taxes to cover health care expenses, but women did.
• Men did not think the wealthy retirees should fund their own health care, but women did.

Health care employees vs. others

• Health care workers (providers, insurers, etc.) were somewhat against a tax increase for health coverage, but other respondents were extremely against a tax increase. “It’s as if health care workers did not want a tax increase, but almost ‘knew’ one was likely for coverage,” the team writes. “It could also be seen as enhancing job and wage security.”

• People in health care jobs were willing to have wealthy retirees pay for their own health care.

The polls were conducted in the fall of 2009 and spring of 2010.

Media Note: Vanderbilt has a 24/7 TV and radio studio with a dedicated fiber optic line and ISDN line. Use of the TV studio with Vanderbilt experts is free, except for reserving fiber time. More information »

(iStock)

This annual day of awareness comes in the wake of the CDC announcement that one in 88 children have an Autism Spectrum Disorder, up from one in 110 released in 2009.

All of the researchers listed below are members or investigators within the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center for Research on Human Development.

As part of Autism Awareness Month, nationally recognized each April, The Kennedy Center will host a community forum titled, “What’s on the Forefront of Autism Research?” Panelists will discuss recent research findings in the areas of intervention, neuroimaging and genetics and will take questions from the audience. The event is April 21 from 9 – 11 a.m. in room 241 of the One Magnolia Circle building and is free and open to the public. Registration is required.

To schedule an interview with one of these experts, contact Jennifer Wetzel at (615) 322-4747. Vanderbilt has a campus broadcast facility with a dedicated fiber optic line for live TV interviews and a radio ISDN line.

Researchers designated with an asterisk (*) will be panelists at the April 21 community forum on autism.

Stephen Camarata, professor of hearing and speech sciences, associate professor of special education; and Mark Wallace, professor of hearing and speech sciences, psychiatry and psychology
Camarata and Wallace study early language development and interventions for children with autism. The researchers are currently evaluating sensory integration therapy, a widely used but controversial method for improving communication skills in children with autism.

Carissa Cascio, assistant professor of psychiatry*
Cascio focuses on the neural basis of sensory processing differences in children and adults with autism and investigates what role sensory disruption plays in the core features of autism such as decreased socialization, restricted interests and repetitive behaviors.

Blythe Corbett, assistant professor of psychiatry
Corbett examines factors that enhance or diminish the response to social and nonsocial stress. Corbett founded SENSE Theatre, a theatrical intervention program designed to improve the social and emotional abilities of children with autism.

Carolyn Hughes, professor of special education
Often parents of children with disabilities are unaware of state services to assist with employment, postsecondary education and independent living. Hughes can discuss how parents and teachers can prepare students with autism and other disabilities for adulthood.

Ann Kaiser, professor of special education, Susan Gray Chair in Education and Human Development
Kaiser can discuss communication strategies and interventions that parents of children with autism can use with their children.

Craig Kennedy, professor of special education and pediatrics
Kennedy studies severe disabilities, including autism, and can discuss issues of social interaction, aggression and the relationship between genes, the brain and environment on behavior. He is the senior associate dean of Vanderbilt’s Peabody College, which is ranked No. 1 in the country by U.S. News and World Report.

Beth Malow, Burry Chair in Cognitive Childhood Development
Sleep is a common struggle for many children with autism. Malow is an expert on the interface of sleep and neurological disorders and directs the Vanderbilt Sleep Division. She recently created a resource with Autism Speaks to help improve sleep for children affected by autism spectrum disorders.

Julie Lounds Taylor, assistant professor of pediatrics; assistant professor of special education*
Taylor studies how individual, family and societal characteristics interact to promote healthy development and can discuss how families experience the transition to adulthood for young adults with autism.

Jeremy Veenstra-VanderWeele, assistant professor of psychiatry, pediatrics and pharmacology*
Veenstra-VanderWeele directs the Translational Medicine Program in the Treatment and Research Institute for Autism Spectrum Disorders. Current research involves genetic mouse models of autism spectrum disorders and clinical treatment studies based upon mouse models. He, along with colleagues Randy Blakely and James Sutcliffe recently published a study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that found early disruptions in serotonin signaling in the brain may contribute to autism.

Zachary Warren, assistant professor of pediatrics and psychiatry*
Warren directs the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center’s Treatment and Research Institute for Autism Spectrum Disorders, which examines the causes and treatment of autism spectrum disorders with current research programs including the diagnosis of autism, identification of genetic and core behavioral features of autism and early intervention with children at risk for autism. Warren leads the autism evaluation and diagnostic clinics within Vanderbilt’s Department of pediatrics and Division of Developmental Medicine.

Paul Yoder, professor of special education*
Yoder studies communication and language development in children with autism and other disorders. He can discuss parental and community influences on communication and language development with toddlers and preschoolers with developmental disorders.

The U.S. Supreme Court will make decisions on a number of hotly debated cases this term, and a diverse group of Vanderbilt University experts is available to give their opinions about those cases.

OVERALL SUPREME COURT EXPERTS:

James Blumstein – University Professor of Constitutional Law and Health Law and Policy; director, Health Policy Center, Vanderbilt Institute for Public Policy Studies – Blumstein is an expert on constitutional law and the Supreme Court. He has extensive experience with national media outlets. Blumstein is ready to talk about the Supreme Court decision on President Obama’s proposed expansion of Medicaid. He believes the expansion should be denied on constitutional grounds.

Suzanna Sherry – Herman O. Loewenstein Professor of Law – Sherry is one of the top scholars of constitutional law and the Supreme Court. She often is asked to provide federal district and court of appeals judges with a review of recently completed Supreme Court terms. With more than 20 years of experience teaching law, she has written numerous books and dozens of articles on constitutional law and the Supreme Court. Sherry has done extensive television, radio and print interviews.

EXPERTS FOR HOT-BUTTON CASES:

Fourth Amendment Issues:

• U.S. v. Jones- Fourth Amendment debate on whether a GPS tracking device on a vehicle constitutes a search or seizure and violates an individual’s reasonable expectation of privacy.
• Florence v. Board of Chosen Freeholders of the County of Burlington, N.J. – Fourth Amendment case that addresses jail strip searches for those arrested for minor offenses.

Christopher Slobogin- Milton R. Underwood Chair in Law, Professor of Psychiatry and Director, Criminal Justice Program – Slobogin is an expert in criminal procedure, mental health law and evidence law. He recently wrote a research article on new technologies and the Fourth Amendment that specifically references surveillance like GPS in Is the Fourth Amendment Relevant in a Technological Age? Slobogin has served as reporter for the American Bar Association’s Task Force on Law Enforcement and Technology. He has authored more than 100 articles, books and chapters on topics relating to criminal procedure, mental health law and evidence. Slobogin is one of the 10 most cited criminal law and procedure law professors in the nation, according to the Leiter Report.

First Amendment Issues:

• Federal Communications Commission v. Fox Television Stations – First Amendment case dealing with profanity and nudity in broadcasts.
• Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. Equal Opportunity Commission – First Amendment case dealing with religious freedom. Lower courts recognize a “ministerial exception” to the First Amendment, which protects religious associations from being sued when hiring religious leaders based on their beliefs.

David Hudson Jr. – First Amendment scholar, First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt, adjunct professor of law - Hudson is the author, co-author or co-editor of more than 30 books, including The Encyclopedia of the First Amendment, The Rehnquist Court: Understanding Its Impact and Legacy and the Handy Supreme Court Answer Book (Visible Ink Press, 2008).

Copyright Issues:

• Golan v. Holder – deals with whether Congress can copyright works that were once in the public domain.

Daniel Gervais – Co-director, Vanderbilt Intellectual Property Program, FedEx Research Professor in Law – Gervais focuses on international intellectual property law, having spent 10 years researching and addressing policy issues on behalf of the World Trade Organization, the World Intellectual Property Organization, the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers and Copyright Clearance Center.

Patent Issues:

• Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories – questions whether someone can patent a naturally occurring process or phenomenon. It is a separation of powers case.

Sean Seymore – associate professor of law, associate professor of chemistry - Seymore’s research focuses on how patent law should evolve in response to scientific advances and how the intersection of law and science should influence the formulation of public policy.

Jurisdiction Issues:

• Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency – deals with a district court’s jurisdiction over EPA compliance orders concerning a couple who could not add onto their house because their backyard was a wetland.

J.B. Ruhl – David Daniels Allen Distinguished Chair in Law - Ruhl is an expert in environmental law, land use and property law. He has written influential articles on environmental law relating to climate change, the Endangered Species Act, ecosystems, federal public lands, and other land use and environmental issues. His works have been selected among the best law review articles in the field of environmental law six times from 1989 to 2011. He has recently completed work on an empirical assessment of climate change in U.S. courts.

Amy Wolf, (615) 322-NEWS
amy.wolf@vanderbilt.edu

Jim Patterson, (615) 322-NEWS
jim.patterson@vanderbilt.edu

Power and benefit of negative ads

John Geer (Steve Green/Vanderbilt University)

Campaign ads are flooding airwaves across the primary states right now as Republican candidates vie for the presidential nomination. And even though negative political ads are sometimes hard to watch, they serve an important purpose, says John Geer, Distinguished Professor of Political Science. Geer is author of In Defense of Negativity: Attack Advertising in Presidential Campaigns, which is the leading text on the issue. Geer conducted an in-depth analysis of negative advertising in presidential campaigns from 1960 to 2004. “Politics is often rough and tumble and you need to know the good and the bad of all candidates,” he said. “Attack advertising provides the ‘bad,’ augmenting the quality of information voters have before they head to the polls.”

Geer can talk about what impact campaign ads have on voters and how candidates shift their image to appeal to voters through ads.

His other books include Nominating Presidents: An Evaluation of Voters and Primaries and From Tea Leaves to Opinion Polls: Politicians, Information and Leadership. Geer is also co-director of the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions at Vanderbilt.

Watch video of Geer talking about the media’s role in attack ads on ElectionVU.

Religious bias among political candidates

Brett Benson (Steve Green/Vanderbilt)

With two Mormons among the Republican contenders, a study conducted during the 2008 election offers insight on how willing voters might be in accepting a Mormon candidate.

In the study, “Two Steps Forward, One Step Back? Bias in 2008 Presidential Election,” John Geer, Brett Benson and other researchers examined the strong religious dimension of bias by some U.S. voters and its implications for current and future presidential politics. The data came from two Internet-based experiments run by Polimetrix in November 2007 and October 2008. The first survey was done shortly before Mitt Romney’s speech about his Mormon faith in Texas on Dec. 6, 2007. The second was conducted just before the presidential election. The researchers found that voters who had increased contact with members of a religious minority generally were less biased against a presidential candidate from that particular group. However, among so-called born again Southerners, social contact did not diminish bias toward a Mormon candidate in the primary election. The study did find less bias by Southern Evangelicals toward the Mormon candidate in the general election.

“Our findings do not rule out the possibility of a Mormon candidate being selected to run against President Obama,” Geer said. We just think that a higher jump might be needed for Romney or Huntsman.” Read more about the research on ElectionVU.

Politicians, patriotism and the Bible

James Byrd

The historic relationship between patriotism and scripture – and its impact on the rhetoric of American politicians – can be discussed by James P. Byrd, whose areas of expertise include biblical interpretation in American history and religion and war. “Colonial-era preachers like George Whitefield who were part of the religious revivals of that time inspired the patriots of the American Revolution,” Byrd said. “As preachers put politics in their sermons, politicians began using religion to convince voters of the correctness of their beliefs.”  Byrd noted that in the patriotic scripture, wartime violence was spiritually meaningful if fought under God’s inspiration. “The ramifications of this message continue today as the United States has come to define itself and its destiny largely through the justice and sacredness of its wars,” he said. Byrd, an assistant professor of American religious history, has a forthcoming book, The Bible and Wartime Patriotism in Revolutionary America (Oxford University Press).

Republicans are fumbling the immigration issue

Efren Perez (Vanderbilt)

Republican candidates who present tough stances on the immigration issue in speeches and in debates are alienating many voters who might be inclined to support the GOP, Vanderbilt political scientist Efren Perez says. Perez collected survey data, set to be released in March, showing that the Latino community is far broader and differentiated than the Democratic bloc of voters perceived by many. The survey found that when politicians make very aggressive references to illegal immigrants, they are in essence turning off many Latinos who might vote for them.

“This type of xenophobic rhetoric further limits the effectiveness of efforts by some Republicans to reach out to Latino voters,” said Perez. “There are many third- and fourth-generation Latinos who have very little connection to Latin America anymore and these folks are very integrated into American society. They are business owners and might be more responsive to Republican ideas and principles.”  But Perez found that xenophobic rhetoric is making Latinos more strongly attached to their ethnic group and less trusting of politics and politicians in Washington D.C. See video clips of Perez talking about how to attract Latino voters and the problem with our current immigration policy on ElectionVU.

How to make political polls fair

Josh Clinton

Before the actual election, polls are the main measure of success and failure. How do unbiased pollsters make a political poll fair? Co-director of the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, Josh Clinton is an expert on the science and structure of political polls. He says that question wordage, order and the sample of voters are crucial to a fair poll. See video of Clinton explaining what makes a fair poll and how polls influence lawmakers’ decision making on ElectionVU.

[Media Note: Vanderbilt has a 24/7 TV and radio studio. Use of the TV studio with Vanderbilt experts is free, except for reserving fiber time. More political experts can be found at the ElectionVU website.]

Media Contacts: Amy Wolf and Jim Patterson, (615) 322-2706

Education experts from Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College of education and human development are available to talk to media regarding the much-anticipated bill that would overhaul the Elementary and Secondary Education Act – also known as No Child Left Behind.

The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions recently approved a bi-partisan ESEA reauthorization bill that may be debated by the full Senate in 2012. The House Committee on Education and the Workforce has produced several pieces of an ESEA reauthorization bill but has yet to unveil pieces related to accountability and teacher preparation. While congressional leaders continue to push ahead on an ESEA reauthorization, the Department of Education is moving forward on granting waivers to ESEA provisions to states.

Dale Ballou, associate professor of public policy and education and associate director of the National Center on School Choice at Peabody, is an authority on the use of value-added models to evaluate teachers and schools. His research on school accountability examines two criticisms frequently made of No Child Left Behind: 1. that schools have practiced a form of educational triage, focusing on students near proficiency to the detriment of higher and lower achieving students, and 2. that NCLB has distorted the curriculum by leading schools to neglect science and social studies. Ballou finds the evidence in support of these claims is not nearly as strong as commonly believed, and that the lowest achievers have particularly benefited under NCLB.

Ron Zimmer, associate professor of public policy and education, researches school choice, accountability and the use of private organizations in education. Zimmer’s work includes evaluations of charter schools, turning over low-performing schools to private management organizations, the use of school choice and supplemental educational service options under NCLB, and the closure of low-performing schools.

Ellen Goldring is an expert on school improvement with particular emphasis on the role of principal leadership. She studies the development and implementation of performance evaluation for school principals and is a co-author of the Vanderbilt Assessment of Leadership in Education, a 360-degree, multi-source instrument that measures effectiveness of school principals. Goldring is the Patricia and Rodes Hart Chair of Education Policy and Leadership and chair of the Department of Leadership, Policy and Organizations at Peabody College and an investigator with the National Center on School Choice and the National Center on Scaling Up Effective Schools, both housed at Peabody.

Matt Springer, assistant professor of public policy and education, directs the federally funded National Center on Performance Incentives at Vanderbilt’s Peabody College and is a frequently quoted expert on the topic of paying teachers based on their performance. He is leading a $10 million federally funded study to determine the impact, if any, financial incentives for teachers have on student achievement. A Bush Institute Fellow, Springer has served on several advisory committees charged with designing performance-based compensation systems for educators at the state and district level and has conducted analyses of school finance systems in Alaska, Kentucky and South Carolina.

Peabody was named the No. 1 graduate school of education in the nation by U.S. News & World Report for the third consecutive year in 2011. To schedule an interview with these experts or any Peabody researcher, contact Jennifer Wetzel at (615) 322-NEWS.

Media Note: Vanderbilt has a 24/7 TV and radio studio with a dedicated fiber optic line and ISDN line. Use of the TV studio with Vanderbilt experts is free, except for reserving fiber time. More information »

(Photo courtesy of U.S. Supreme Court)

The U.S. Supreme Court will make decisions on a number of hotly debated cases this term, and a diverse group of Vanderbilt University experts is available to give their opinions about those cases.

OVERALL SUPREME COURT EXPERTS:

James Blumstein – University Professor of Constitutional Law and Health Law and Policy; director, Health Policy Center, Vanderbilt Institute for Public Policy Studies – Blumstein is an expert on constitutional law and the Supreme Court. He has extensive experience with national media outlets. Blumstein is ready to talk about the Supreme Court decision on President Obama’s proposed expansion of Medicaid. He believes the expansion should be denied on constitutional grounds.

Suzanna Sherry – Herman O. Loewenstein Professor of Law – Sherry is one of the top scholars of constitutional law and the Supreme Court. She often is asked to provide federal district and court of appeals judges with a review of recently completed Supreme Court terms. With more than 20 years of experience teaching law, she has written numerous books and dozens of articles on constitutional law and the Supreme Court. Sherry has done extensive television, radio and print interviews.

EXPERTS FOR HOT-BUTTON CASES:

Fourth Amendment Issues:

• U.S. v. Jones- Fourth Amendment debate on whether a GPS tracking device on a vehicle constitutes a search or seizure and violates an individual’s reasonable expectation of privacy.
• Florence v. Board of Chosen Freeholders of the County of Burlington, N.J. – Fourth Amendment case that addresses jail strip searches for those arrested for minor offenses.

Christopher Slobogin- Milton R. Underwood Chair in Law, Professor of Psychiatry and Director, Criminal Justice Program – Slobogin is an expert in criminal procedure, mental health law and evidence law. He recently wrote a research article on new technologies and the Fourth Amendment that specifically references surveillance like GPS in Is the Fourth Amendment Relevant in a Technological Age? Slobogin has served as reporter for the American Bar Association’s Task Force on Law Enforcement and Technology. He has authored more than 100 articles, books and chapters on topics relating to criminal procedure, mental health law and evidence. Slobogin is one of the 10 most cited criminal law and procedure law professors in the nation, according to the Leiter Report.

First Amendment Issues:

• Federal Communications Commission v. Fox Television Stations – First Amendment case dealing with profanity and nudity in broadcasts.
• Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. Equal Opportunity Commission – First Amendment case dealing with religious freedom. Lower courts recognize a “ministerial exception” to the First Amendment, which protects religious associations from being sued when hiring religious leaders based on their beliefs.

David Hudson Jr. – First Amendment scholar, First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt, adjunct professor of law - Hudson is the author, co-author or co-editor of more than 30 books, including The Encyclopedia of the First Amendment, The Rehnquist Court: Understanding Its Impact and Legacy and the Handy Supreme Court Answer Book (Visible Ink Press, 2008).

Copyright Issues:

• Golan v. Holder – deals with whether Congress can copyright works that were once in the public domain.

Daniel Gervais – Co-director, Vanderbilt Intellectual Property Program, FedEx Research Professor in Law – Gervais focuses on international intellectual property law, having spent 10 years researching and addressing policy issues on behalf of the World Trade Organization, the World Intellectual Property Organization, the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers and Copyright Clearance Center.

Patent Issues:

• Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus Laboratories – questions whether someone can patent a naturally occurring process or phenomenon. It is a separation of powers case.

Sean Seymore – associate professor of law, associate professor of chemistry - Seymore’s research focuses on how patent law should evolve in response to scientific advances and how the intersection of law and science should influence the formulation of public policy.

Jurisdiction Issues:

• Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency – deals with a district court’s jurisdiction over EPA compliance orders concerning a couple who could not add onto their house because their backyard was a wetland.

J.B. Ruhl – David Daniels Allen Distinguished Chair in Law - Ruhl is an expert in environmental law, land use and property law. He has written influential articles on environmental law relating to climate change, the Endangered Species Act, ecosystems, federal public lands, and other land use and environmental issues. His works have been selected among the best law review articles in the field of environmental law six times from 1989 to 2011. He has recently completed work on an empirical assessment of climate change in U.S. courts.

Amy Wolf, (615) 322-NEWS
amy.wolf@vanderbilt.edu

Jim Patterson, (615) 322-NEWS
jim.patterson@vanderbilt.edu

James Fraser (Vanderbilt University)

The effects of Hurricane Irene can be felt far from its path as the Federal Emergency Management Agency freezes millions of dollars in funding for other natural disaster victims across the nation. Longer-term recovery projects, such as the hazard mitigation program in which FEMA buys flood-prone properties, will be delayed until Congress restores FEMA’s funding. One example is in Nashville, Tenn., where dozens of families were anticipating buyouts on homes devastated by flooding in May 2010. FEMA notified Nashville Mayor Karl Dean of the $30.4 million indefinite hold on Thursday, September 1.

Vanderbilt University researcher James Fraser has done extensive research on FEMA, buyouts and flood mitigation policies and is available to talk to media. His research finds that the pre-disaster mitigation is a key issue. Fraser says evidence shows that effective community outreach to assist residents in defined floodplains to relocate or elevate/flood-proof their homes is a cost effective strategy to address potential flooding disasters. The economic savings ratio suggests that a one dollar investment in pre-flood mitigation is equal to a three- to four-dollar investment in post-disaster relief.

Larry Van Horn, director of the Healthcare MBA program (Vanderbilt University)

Health care economist says U.S. can’t sustain health care services; insurance world in jeopardy

Larry Van Horn, associate professor of health care management and executive director of health affairs at Owen, co-teaches a course with U.S. Rep Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.) on health care policy. His current research interests include nonprofit conduct, governance and objectives in health care markets, and the measurement of health care outcomes and productivity.

As Vanderbilt’s resident health care economist, Van Horn says the U.S. can’t sustain its outsized desire for health care services and yet be unwilling to pay for them. He also believes that a ruling against the insurance mandate would throw the insurance world out of whack. He regularly writes about health care policy and economics on his blog, “Second Opinion.”

James Blumstein, University Professor of Constitutional Law and Health Law and Policy (Vanderbilt University)

Legal expert says expanded Medicaid requirements raise biggest Constitutional concerns

James Blumstein, University Professor of Constitutional Law and Health Law and Policy at Vanderbilt Law School; director, Health Policy Center, ranks among the nation’s most prominent scholars of health law, law and medicine, and voting rights.

Blumstein believes the biggest constitutional concerns with the health care law lie in the expanded Medicaid requirements, which is the provision that Florida Federal District Judge Roger Vinson upheld.  Blumstein says the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) overreaches federal authority by imposing new conditions on state Medicaid programs.

“Where a substantial modification of an ongoing federal spending program such as Medicaid occurs and affects a substantial portion of a state’s budget, the federal government may not use its leverage to impose new conditions as a program modification,” Blumstein said.

As founder of the Vanderbilt Institute for Public Policy Studies (VIPPS) and director of its Health Policy Center, Blumstein has served as the principal investigator on numerous grants concerning managed care, hospital management and medical malpractice. He co-authored a major study on TennCare, one of the first statewide experiments in universally enrolling Medicaid patients in managed care. He has been elected to the prestigious Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and is co-editor of a leading casebook on health law and policy. He has extensive experience with national media.

Read Van Horn’s blogs “If Health Care Ruling Holds, Insurer Requirements Must Change Too” and “Why Smart People Will Never Agree on Health Care Reform”.

Watch video interviews of Van Horn talking about issues with health care here and here.

Read an article and presentation Blumstein gave on the constitutional challenges to health reform.

[Media Note: Vanderbilt has a 24/7 TV and radio studio with a dedicated fiber optic line and ISDN line. Use of the TV studio with Vanderbilt experts is free, except for reserving fiber time.]

Bruce I. Oppenheimer

CONGRESS AND OBAMA

After major losses for the Democrats in the midterm elections, the State of the Union is President Barack Obama’s first opportunity to regain some control from the GOP over the nation’s agenda, says political scientist Bruce Oppenheimer.

“Look for the president to bring up issues that have been on the back burner, such as immigration reform, and to press for resolution of the partisan conflict over raising the debt ceiling,” Oppenheimer said. “The president can sound a warning to conservatives on the likelihood of a government shutdown by March if Congress does not go along with raising the debt ceiling.” He expects the president to use the Democratic-controlled Senate as the initiating point for most of his legislative proposals.

• Bio

Josh Clinton

2012 PREVIEW

President Obama’s State of the Union and the Republican response by Rep. Paul Ryan could reveal much about what the next two years might hold for Congress and the country, according to political scientist Josh Clinton.

Clinton noted that the recent tragic event in Arizona involving Rep. Gabrielle Giffords will likely produce public appeals for respecting differences of opinion and working together on common problems, but the real test will be after the speeches. “We will have to wait to see whether actions match rhetoric,” he said.

• Bio

Thomas Schwartz

FOREIGN POLICY AGENDA

Foreign issues and America’s place in the world will still remain a central concern in the Obama administration even if the president does not spend much time on foreign policy in his State of the Union address, according to presidential historian Thomas Alan Schwartz. “Obama’s primary emphasis will be on his policies to create jobs, and he will emphasize the importance of foreign trade in creating jobs, a direct rebuke to any protectionist sentiment in the Congress,” Schwartz said. “Obama might also employ the ‘Sputnik analogy,’ using the rise of China, and perhaps India, as an argument for America’s need to make significant investments in education and strengthen its economic competitiveness. In this way he will use a type of ‘foreign’ challenge or threat as a new reason for the domestic social welfare spending that Republicans have criticized and announced they wish to cut significantly in order to reduce the deficit.”

Schwartz anticipates that Obama could make a fleeting reference to the withdrawal of forces from Iraq as a fulfillment of his campaign promise, but it will be revealing as to whether the president mentions his earlier pledge to begin withdrawing from Afghanistan this summer. ”This earlier pledge has been weakened in various meetings with the allies and the Afghans, and has come under a great deal of criticism,” Schwartz said.  “Obama may also talk about his continuing efforts to arrange a settlement between the Israelis and the Palestinians, although there is relatively little hope for an imminent breakthrough on this issue.”

• Bio

Matthew Springer

PERFORMACE PAY FOR TEACHERS

Paying teachers based on performance has been a component of the Obama administration’s education reform efforts. Yet the results of the nation’s first-ever scientific study of performance pay, released in September 2010 by Vanderbilt University, found that performance incentives alone for teachers had no impact on student achievement. Matthew Springer, lead author of that study, assistant professor of public policy and education, and director of the National Center on Performance Incentives at Vanderbilt’s Peabody College, can discuss those findings as well as those from studies of performance pay and of school finance systems in Alaska, Kentucky, South Carolina, Texas and New York City to identify factors that must be in place for performance incentives to improve student achievement.

• Bio

[Vanderbilt has a broadcast studio with a dedicated fiber optic line for TV interviews and an ISDN line for radio.]

John Geer

[Vanderbilt has a 24/7 video and audio studio with a dedicated fiber optic line and ISDN line. Use of the TV studio with Vanderbilt experts is free, except for reserving fiber time.]

Blaming the Tea Party or heated political rhetoric in general for the Tucson mass shooting would be the wrong response to a terrible tragedy, according to Vanderbilt University political scientist John Geer.

“To inject politics into this situation without any evidence that the shooting was politically motivated serves only to increase the partisan divide,” said Geer, Distinguished Professor of Political Science and co-author of Beyond Negativity: The Effects of Incivility on the Electorate. He noted that public debate and the ability to criticize elected officials are key components of a democracy.

“There are numerous examples throughout history of presidents and other political leaders whose lives were placed in danger by extreme elements of society,” he said. What is important at this point is for the nation to come together, as President Obama and Speaker Boehner have urged, while authorities investigate the case.”

Geer said that many observers complain about polarized politics that define the nation and those concerns are reasonable. But to jump to hasty conclusions in the face of this tragedy only promises to widen the gap among Americans. He believes that it would be far more prudent to let cooler heads prevail and dampen the harsh rhetoric.

“The wounds of those who are injured will not heal faster with accusations. And for those who have died, the best way to honor their memory is extinguish the flames of extreme partisanship,” Geer said.

Media interested in interviewing Geer can reach him at john.g.geer@vanderbilt.edu.

Dan Cornfield

As state legislators deal with growing budget deficits and nervous taxpayers, many are pushing new legislation to limit the power of labor unions – particularly those representing government workers. If lawmakers are successful, Vanderbilt University labor sociologist Dan Cornfield believes this will be a historic shift in the power of labor unions.

“Public sector employee unions are among the largest in the labor movement. As workers in the vital ‘post-industrial’ employment sectors of healthcare, sanitation, social services, education, and protective services – such as first responders, firefighters and police – they are part of the future of the labor movement,” he said.

“Efforts to weaken unions and cut wages and benefits among state and local government workers in the U.S. will reduce worker bargaining power and widen the gap between the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ in the nation.”

According to Cornfield, editor of the international sociological journal Work and Occupations, de-unionization will reduce worker bargaining power because state and local government workers constitute a sizable sector of U.S. union membership – comprising 45 percent of all union members, but only 14 percent of the national labor force. He says labor statistics also show that one third of state government workers and 40 percent of local government workers are unionized compared to 7 percent of private-sector workers.

He also believes the legislation, if passed, will have a significant impact on the gender gap in compensation.

“Reducing the bargaining power, wages, salaries and benefits of the predominantly female labor force of state and local government workers will contribute to the already widening gap in the incomes of high- and low-wage workers, as well as slow any gains made in reducing the gender gap in pay. Women comprise 60 percent of state and local government workers, but only about 45 percent of federal government and private-sector workers,” he said.

Media interested in interviewing Cornfield can reach him at 615-322-2706 or at daniel.b.cornfield@vanderbilt.edu.

Torin Monahan

The use of full body scanners by the Transportation Security Administration at airports is drawing protests from some travelers and has led to a grassroots effort called National Opt-Out Day, which encourages Thanksgiving travelers to request pat-down searches instead of scans on Nov. 24 in protest of what they see as an unacceptable invasion of privacy.

Torin Monahan, associate professor of human and organizational development and medicine at Vanderbilt University, is available to discuss how and why resistance to surveillance, signified by National Opt-Out Day, is on the rise in the United States and ways in which surveillance has developed in recent years.

Monahan is the author of Surveillance in the Time of Insecurity (Rutgers 2010). He may be reached at torin.monahan@vanderbilt.edu or (615) 322-8732.       

Broadcast media note: Monahan is available for phone interviews only.

Voters didn’t always look at incumbents’ political records: The continued weak economy, widespread public distrust and massive spending by special interest groups all worked against the Democrats this year, says congressional expert Bruce Oppenheimer. Of particular note was the disappearance of white Southern Democratic House members. After the election, a total of only three remain in the states of Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia and South Carolina. One of those representatives, Steven Cohen of Memphis, represents a district that has a majority of African American voters.

Post-election Obama could be foreign policy president: For a president who has often talked of his determination to focus on reform at home, Barack Obama might – out of political necessity – need to become a foreign policy president to win re-election in 2012, says presidential historian Thomas Alan Schwartz. He anticipates that the election results will bring Obama several challenges in both foreign and domestic policy. Schwartz said that Obama must seek to defend the legislative achievements of his first term against possible repeal or substantial change, but he may be under pressure from his own political base to propose new initiatives, initiatives that would meet strong resistance from the Republicans. “Ironically enough, he could find in foreign policy, as both Presidents Truman and Clinton did, more willingness of the Republicans to back controversial policies like the war in Afghanistan and tougher policies toward Iran and North Korea,” said Schwartz, author of  “Henry…Winning an Election Is Terribly Important: Partisan Politics in the History of U.S. Foreign Relations” (Diplomatic Relations, 2009).

CAMPAIGN RHETORIC AND NEGATIVE ADS

Photo courtesy Getty Images

Expect the campaign rhetoric to sizzle the last two weeks before the 2010 midterms, says John Geer, chair and Distinguished Professor of Political Science, and author of In Defense of Negativity: Attack Ads in Presidential Campaigns. Geer researches negative ads and the role of the media in political advertising.

“The stakes are high—control of Congress, numerous governorships and state legislatures. The Republicans and Democrats have many differences that play out in attacks on each other. We can expect those attacks to increase before Nov. 2. Many observers will complain about all the negativity, but such complaints miss the point. These attacks are informative and define the decision before voters,” said Geer.

Have the Democrats spent too much money, expanded the scope of government too far and created not enough jobs?  Or have the Republicans gone too far to the right, pushing an extreme agenda that is not consistent with the values of most Americans? Geer says the answers to these questions require each side to question and attack the other.

“This exchange is not bad for the country. It is in fact what makes us democratic.”

CONGRESSIONAL RACES

Many Democratic congressional incumbents are struggling for re-election, but it’s not always based on their political record, says Bruce Oppenheimer, who teaches and writes about Congress and elections.

The continued weak economy, widespread public distrust and large spending by special interest groups are all working against the Democrats this year.

“The GOP tidal wave might be so big that the Democratic incumbents can’t find a big enough hill,” Oppenheimer said.

He believes that the GOP has a better than 50/50 chance of taking control of the House, but Democrats are likely to maintain a narrow majority in the Senate. If the Republicans assume legislative control, the question then becomes what will be their priorities for the next two years?

Oppenheimer co-wrote Sizing Up the Senate and is the co-editor of Congress Reconsidered.

FREE SPEECH IN THE WORKPLACE DURING AN ELECTION

Politics and business have long gone hand-in-hand. But professor of sociology and management Bruce Barry finds that private companies’ enthusiasm for politics is affecting some employees’ First Amendment rights—and there’s not much an employee can do about it. Barry is author of Speechless: The Erosion of Free Expression in the American Workplace.

“There have been many situations where a worker is punished or fired for his or her own political expression or for refusing to participate in conveying an employer’s preferred message,” said Barry.

According to Barry, infringements on employee free speech have taken the form of punishing an employee for a certain political bumper sticker; firing a worker for the contents of a personal blog; or not hiring a person who doesn’t want to take part in a political rally.

CORPORATE ATTEMPTS TO INFLUENCE ELECTIONS

Conventional wisdom has been that corporate money in past elections has gone to both Democrats and Republicans as corporations and industry groups focus on pro-business candidates regardless of party.

“But now the partisan climate has become so pitched, with the ‘Obama-as-anti-business’ mantra gaining traction among conservatives, that we are seeing this year not just heightened spending, but a striking amount of pro-Republican business activity in electoral politics,” said Bruce Barry, professor of sociology and management.

Barry is in the process of writing a book on how changes in the law resulting from the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission and rising polarization regarding political attitudes toward business are leading to an expanded and more partisan role for business in this year’s elections.

LEGALIZING MARIJUANA—WHY TAXING MARIJUANA WON’T WORK

The current financial crisis hitting the United States has made the idea of legalizing and taxing marijuana much more attractive for debt-ridden states. Californians will vote on Proposition 19 during this election. Proponents claim they could generate more than a billion dollars by legalizing and taxing marijuana distribution and save millions more by reducing law enforcement costs on prohibition enforcement.

But Vanderbilt University law professor Robert Mikos explains in a new paper why legalizing and taxing marijuana distribution has too many legal hurdles to actually work.

“People in favor of taxing marijuana distributors are grossly underestimating the difficulty of collecting a tax on a drug that remains illegal under federal law,” said Mikos.

Mikos writes that the federal ban on marijuana would cripple a state’s ability to collect taxes for two reasons. First, the federal ban would encourage marijuana distributors to remain small and continue to operate underground. This prevents states from being able to monitor or tax the distributors. Second, even if states could successfully monitor marijuana distributors, any information collected by the state could be used by federal law enforcement to prosecute marijuana dealers.

Media Contacts:
Ann Marie Deer Owens, annmarie.owens@vanderbilt.edu
Amy Wolf, amy.l.wolf@vanderbilt.edu
(615) 322-NEWS

David Lewis

President Barack Obama’s declining approval ratings increase the challenges of keeping his once-lauded “team of rivals” in place through 2012, according to David E. Lewis, professor of political science at Vanderbilt University.

“Higher-ups in the Obama administration are starting to make calculations about their own careers,” Lewis said. “It will be more difficult for Obama to keep an effective and committed team if he is perceived as struggling.”

Lewis said that staff fatigue and departures are normal around midterm for U.S. presidents, but the increasingly partisan divide in Washington along with the 24/7 news cycle combine to make it much more difficult today for presidents to attract and retain good people. “The confirmation process is more tedious with mostly Republicans to blame, but also some Democrats,” Lewis said. “For example, Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana has placed a hold on the appointment of Jacob Lew to head the Office of Management and Budget until the Obama administration lifts its drilling moratorium.” Lewis also said that the margin of error for those who finally win approval continues to shrink with little time to grow on the job or room for error.

The political scientist noted that we could be seeing the dark side of having a “team of rivals” surrounding the president with the recent departures of Christina Romer, Larry Summers and Peter Orszag from Obama’s economic team and other rumored changes ahead. “You build in friction and disagreement around the president with divergent views from strong personalities about what to do about the economy and that can create management problems of its own,” he said.

Lewis, co-director of Vanderbilt’s Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, is the author of The Politics of Presidential Appointments: Political Control and Bureaucratic Performance (Princeton University Press), which analyzes the causes and consequences of presidential politicization of the executive branch. He can be reached for interviews at david.e.lewis@vanderbilt.edu.

Media interested in interviewing Pitt, an assistant professor of sociology, can reach him at 615-322-7530, 615-322-2706 or r.pitt@vanderbilt.edu.

Regarding the questions surrounding Bishop Eddie Long . . .

“The burning question is, ‘What will the barbershop talk about this be?’ Will black America move to important questions about the black church’s silence about sex and sexuality, prosperity theology, the power of (black) spiritual leaders over their congregations or will this quickly become another opportunity for the black community to engage in paranoid fantasies about a down-low epidemic (“now it’s in the church”) or to conflate loving, adult, gay relationships with pedophilic and coercive ones.  Would his chances of surviving this, ministry and reputation soiled but intact, be increased if women were accusing him of this impropriety? Regardless of how this comes out, I worry that the fallout won’t hit the right targets.”

On anti-gay religious messages  . . .

“Gay men (and to a lesser degree, women) attend churches for all the same reasons anyone else might. They come for the messages and community that doesn’t denigrate them and ignore the occasional messages that pointedly might be antagonistic toward them. It is a flawed assumption that every Sunday, there are anti-gay messages. They’re no more likely to leave Eddie Long’s church than the heterosexuals who are ‘shacking up’ would. In fact, the black church’s own version of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ allowing gay men and women to attend, serve, and (most importantly) GIVE makes it unnecessary for most to even consider an exodus.”

Helping kids handle stress

Judy Garber can discuss options for parents in helping their teens safely handle stress and treat depression, which may arise as the school year gets underway. Garber is the author of a national study showing the positive benefits of cognitive behavioral programs for teens at risk of depression. Garber is a professor of psychology, an assistant professor of psychiatry and an investigator in the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center for Research on Human Development.

• Bio: http://www.vanderbilt.edu/psychological_sciences/Garber

Classroom “troublemakers”

Kathleen Lane studies the connection between academic underachievement and emotional and behavioral disorders. Her work in classrooms has helped teachers to reduce the impact “troublemaking” kids have on other students, while helping those troubled children focus and learn by addressing their emotional and/or behavioral disorders. Lane is the co-author of three books on this topic. She is an associate professor of special education and a Vanderbilt Kennedy Center for Research on Human Development investigator.

• Bio: http://peabody.vanderbilt.edu/x1314.xml

Adolescent depression

With a current research focus on preventing depression in families of depressed parents, Bruce Compas also studies parent-child communication, coping with pediatric cancer, stress in response to breast cancer risk, and stress, coping and pain in children with sickle cell disease. Compas is a professor of clinical science.

• Bio: http://www.vanderbilt.edu/psychological_sciences/compas

Bullies

Maury Nation’s clinical research focuses on understanding and preventing violence and bullying among school-aged children. His specific interests are bully and victim typologies, and the short- and long-term consequences of peer harassment. His community research is focused on understanding community and neighborhood qualities/characteristics that promote positive health and mental health outcomes. Nation is an associate professor of human and organizational development.

• Bio: http://peabody.vanderbilt.edu/x1620.xml

Boosting math and science skills

Camilla Benbow, a member of the National Science Board, is available to talk about the importance of math and science education to America’s ability to compete globally. Benbow is Patricia and Rodes Hart Dean of Education and Human Development at Vanderbilt’s Peabody College and is co-leading a 50-year study on mathematically precocious youth.

• Bio: http://peabody.vanderbilt.edu/x6737.xml

School funding, No Child Left Behind

Ellen Goldring and Tom Smith can discuss challenges that schools across the nation face as budgets are reduced and the need to meet No Child Left Behind standards continues. Goldring and Smith can discuss the balancing act required of school administrators to manage costs, ensure teacher quality, raise student performance and meet the needs of high achievers. Smith can also discuss strategies for scaling up effective schools. Goldring is Patricia and Rodes Hart Professor of Educational Policy and Leadership and chair of the Department of Leadership, Policy, and Organizations. Smith is an associate professor of public policy and education.

• Bios: Goldring http://peabody.vanderbilt.edu/x1463.xml
• Smith http://www.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/x5062.xml

Public school reform, magnet schools

Ellen Goldring and Claire Smrekar can discuss various efforts to reform the nation’s public schools and the important role of families, communities and schools in shaping those reforms. Goldring and Smrekar are co-authors of the article, “Magnet Schools in Urban Districts: What’s Our Choice,” which focuses on questions of equity and community in urban districts with extensive magnet programs. Smrekar is an associate professor of public policy and education.

• Bios: Goldring http://peabody.vanderbilt.edu/x1463.xml
• Smrekrar http://peabody.vanderbilt.edu/x1546.xml

No Child Left Behind and testing

Stephen Elliott is an international expert on large-scale testing and the interplay between social behavior and academic performance. Elliott is a professor of special education and Dunn Family Professor of Education and Psychological Assessment.

• Bio: http://peabody.vanderbilt.edu/x4706.xml

Graduation rates, autism

Carolyn Hughes can discuss critical interventions needed to reduce the dropout rate in U.S. schools. As part of her work on this issue, Hughes manages a program that pairs Vanderbilt undergraduates with youth in high-poverty high schools to encourage those students to complete high school and go on to college. She also leads a pilot project to help high school students with autism to become more included and involved with their peers. Hughes is a professor of special education and a Vanderbilt Kennedy Center for Research on Human Development investigator.

• Bio: http://peabody.vanderbilt.edu/x1288.xml

Closing the achievement gap, gifted children

Donna Ford can discuss the complex factors surrounding the achievement gap between white and minority students, as well as the special challenges faced by gifted black students. Ford is a professor of special education and the recipient of multiple awards, including the 2008 Distinguished Scholar Award from the National Association for Gifted Children and the Career Award from the American Educational Research Association.

• Bio: http://www.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/x4732.xml

Performance incentives for educators

Matthew Springer, assistant professor of public policy and education, is the director of the National Center on Performance Incentives at Vanderbilt’s Peabody College, funded with a $10 million federal grant to determine the impact, if any, financial incentives for teachers have on student achievement. He has also served on several advisory committees charged with designing performance-based compensation systems for teachers and/or principals at the state and district level, and conducted analyses of performance pay and of school finance systems in Alaska, Kentucky, South Carolina, Texas and New York City.

• Bio: http://peabody.vanderbilt.edu/x2031.xml

Technology in the classroom

Ted Hasselbring has conducted research over the past 30 years on the use of technology to enhance learning in students with mild disabilities and those who are at-risk of school failure. This research resulted in several widely used computer-intervention programs for struggling learners, including READ 180, a reading software program now managed by Scholastic, Inc. Read 180 is in more than 10,000 schools and has been used by more than 1 million students. Hasselbring is a research professor of special education.

• Bio: http://peabody.vanderbilt.edu/x3446.xml

Re-segregation

Ellen Goldring and Claire Smrekar are available to talk about the re-segregation occurring in many of the nation’s schools following the Supreme Court’s 2007 decision on desegregation and new school assignment plans that take greater account of family income. They submitted briefs to the Supreme Court on the cases regarding the use of race in school assignment, which the court found to be unconstitutional.

• Bios: Goldring http://peabody.vanderbilt.edu/x1463.xml
• Smrekar http://peabody.vanderbilt.edu/x1546.xml

Designing effective pre-kindergarten curriculum

Dale Farran can discuss the components of an effective pre-kindergarten curriculum and the importance of preschool for at-risk students. Farran was a co-primary investigator of the Preschool Curriculum Evaluation Research project (PCER), a national evaluation of early childhood curriculum models completed in 2006. In 2005, Farran and Vanderbilt Peabody colleague Mark Lipsey, along with the University of California at Berkeley, won a “scale up” project from the Institute of Education Sciences involving a pre-kindergarten mathematics curriculum. This curriculum is being implemented in Metro Nashville Public Schools and Metro Action Committee Head Start. Farran is a professor of education and psychology and a Vanderbilt Kennedy Center for Research on Human Development investigator.

• Bio: http://www.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/x1199.xml

International education policy

Stephen Heyneman can comment on international education policy as it relates to numerous education issues. He has studied the contribution of education to social cohesion, education and corruption. He can also discuss issues of standardized testing, education financing, education quality, and education issues as they relate to economic development. Heyneman is professor of international education and policy.

• Bio: http://www.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/x4819.xml

School leadership, principal and superintendent effectiveness, school turnaround

Joseph Murphy’s work centers on school improvement, with special emphasis on leadership and policy. He has administered the development of school standards and has authored or co-authored numerous books on school leadership. He is a former administrator at the local, district and state levels, including an appointment as executive assistant to the chief deputy superintendent of public instruction in California. Murphy is Frank W. Mayborn Chair of Education and associate dean for special projects.

• Bio: http://www.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/x4942.xml

Literacy in a virtual world

Conceptions of what it means to be literate are changing and have begun to refer to a set of social practices, requiring the use of multiple texts. The effects of this shift are of interest to Kevin Leander. In his research, he studies not just traditional materials but the virtual world of the Internet and its impact on literacy learning. Leander is an associate professor of language and literacy.

• Bio: http://www.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/x4892.xml

Early language acquisition, literacy and language

David Dickinson is interested in the home and classroom factors that support children’s acquisition of language and literacy. His work addresses both basic questions about the role of language in literacy and practical questions about strategies for improving literacy learning for children. He is a professor of education and chair of the department of teaching and learning.

• Bio: http://www.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/x4687.xml

Neuroscience, how learning affects brain structure

Bruce McCandliss studies developmental cognitive neuroscience, with an emphasis on how the brain changes with learning and education. Using high-tech imaging techniques, his laboratory includes training studies in adults and children, longitudinal research in school-age children and school-based studies. Areas of interest include reading and language development, numerical and mathematical cognitive development, and attention abilities. McCandliss is Patricia and Rodes Hart Professor of Psychology and Human Development.

• Bio: http://www.vanderbilt.edu/psychological_sciences/mccandliss

John Geer, Distinguished Professor of Political Science

Since Tennessee voters still don’t know much about the three GOP gubernatorial candidates, the contest remains exceptionally fluid, according to political scientist John Geer. “None of the candidates is a household name across the state,” Geer said. “Voter preferences are fluid. One mistake or new claim by a candidate that resonates with voters could shake up the race.” Primaries tend to be more fluid than general elections and it’s especially true with three serious contenders who had no statewide name recognition prior to this campaign. With such a fluid situation, Geer noted that going negative in a three-way race remains quite risky, especially for the underdog. Voter support might shift away from the frontrunner to the candidate not involved in the negative attack. “Perhaps that is why we still have not seen Zach Wamp or Ron Ramsey run negative ads against perceived frontrunner Bill Haslam,” he said.  “But as the race draws to a close, the candidate who trails will probably have little choice but to attack. It is critical they try something to shake up the race. In other words, we can expect attacks to start arising with more frequency as July comes to a close.” Geer’s areas of expertise include elections, campaigns, negative ads, party politics and public opinion. The Distinguished Professor of Political Science can be reached at john.g.geer@vanderbilt.edu.

Bruce Oppenheimer, professor and interim chair of political science

Polling numbers in the GOP gubernatorial primary could be less reliable than usual for a couple of reasons, says political scientist Bruce Oppenheimer. “Without a party anchor, as in a general election, voters are more moveable from one candidate to another,” he said. “Also, support for primary candidates tends to be more volatile since there are several candidates running with the same party identification. Having said that, I think people assume that Haslam is leading.” Oppenheimer pointed out that the challenge for Ramsey and Wamp is gaining the voters’ perception as the true conservative alternative to Haslam, who has achieved significant backing among moderate Republican voters. Analysts will look to see if either Ramsey or Wamp can tap into the anti-Obama fervor among Tea Party supporters. “In addition, we will find out if Wamp and Ramsey have the money to compete with Haslam for media buys during the last month of the primary campaign,” he said. Oppenheimer’s areas of expertise include elections, Congress and legislative policy. The professor of political science can be reached at bruce.i.oppenheimer@vanderbilt.edu.

Abkowitz, who has written a book analyzing man-made and natural disasters, including the Exxon Valdez oil spill and the Union Carbide gas leak in Bhopal, India, says BP’s corporate culture clearly put profits ahead of safety concerns. Combine that with the complicated business structure of this oil well, involving three different companies, and the lack of communication among them, and you have a recipe for disaster, he says.

“The BP disaster is just another event in a long line of man-made disasters that shows the failure of industries to learn from past mistakes,” Abkowitz says.”When will industries learn that they must recognize the importance of identifying worst-case scenarios and develop workable plans to prevent environmental catastrophes like this BP disaster?” This year’s hurricane season, predicted to be severe, could make the disaster even more catastrophic for the Gulf Coast, he adds.

Abkowitz’s recent book analyzes what went wrong during major natural disasters, man-made accidents and terrorist attacks, including Sept. 11, Hurricane Katrina, the London transit bombings and the Sumatra tsunami, to name a few. He can discuss the BP oil spill disaster and how this disaster is just another reminder of what we already know: Preparing for disasters is not a priority with companies, cities, and states, and it clearly should be. The book is called Operational Risk Management–A Case Study Approach to Effective Planning and Response.

Abkowitz has been involved in assessing and managing the risks associated with both natural and man-made disasters for decades. He has provided support to government agencies, chemical companies and transporters in preventing and mitigating catastrophic events. He has a specific interest in hazardous materials transportation safety and security. He currently serves on the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board, appointed to that group by President George W. Bush in 2002. He has written more than 80 journal articles and study reports.