Professor: 'Whites only' scholarship part of growing affirmative-action backlash
   The creation of a "whites only" scholarship by a student group at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island has brought renewed fervor to the affirmative-action debate in America's colleges and universities. But while the scholarship is part of a growing backlash against policies that aim to increase the presence of minorities in higher education, the debate over the students' actions is diverting attention from the real issues concerning affirmative action, says Benjamin Baez, associate professor of educational policy studies at Georgia State University. "Minority students -- particularly African-Americans and Latinos -- who attend very prestigious universities are automatically assumed to have benefited from affirmative action whether or not it's true," says Baez, author of "Affirmative Action, Hate Speech and Tenure: Narratives about Race and Law in the Academy." "The truth is that we don't know from looking at someone whether they got admitted under affirmative action, but we assume we know because of their racial background -- that's what is so stigmatizing about race." While misconceptions concerning affirmative action run rampant, research shows that white women benefit the most from the policy, he says. Contact him at 404/651-1191 or bbaez@gsu.edu.

Presidential candidate's former colleague available for comment
   Georgia State University's Andi Curcio, who worked closely with U.S. Sen. John Edwards in the early 1990s, can provide perspective on the presidential candidate. Curcio, who is mentioned and thanked in Edwards' book "Four Trials," formerly worked as a contract attorney for Edwards' law firm in Raleigh, N.C., helping him try cases. "He was an incredibly honest and ethical trial lawyer," Curcio says. "People knew that if he told them something, it was the truth. When you're working that long and hard with somebody, you get a measure of who they are. I knew him as both a lawyer and a father." Curcio, who supports Edwards' candidacy, says one of his great strengths on the campaign trail is his ability to take complicated issues and explain them to people in a way they can understand without being patronizing. "I really think he is the most electable. He's got a quality about him that, when people meet him, they like him." Contact Curcio, an associate professor of law, at 404/651-4157 or acurcio@gsu.edu.

Women's histories more difficult to preserve
   Women, long underrepresented in the annals of mainstream history, have every right to have their stories told -- but preserving their legacies presents a challenge because few female activists kept good records of their activities, says Morna Gerrard, archivist for the Women's Collections at the Georgia State University Library. "Women tend to see the cause and the group that they were involved in as more important than the individual," says Gerrard. "Also, women's causes were long-running, and activism became a somewhat normal and ingrained part of their lives, along with working, running a household and the many other things they did on a daily basis. It's therefore not surprising that many women didn't consider the long-term value in keeping their own personal papers." Georgia State archivists now are involved in retaining women's experiences in the form of oral histories, says Gerrard. For more on the history of women's activism, contact Gerrard at 404/651-3909 or libmjg@langate.gsu.edu.

Movies help perpetuate dangerous rape myths
   Though most rapes are committed by acquaintances of the victim, representations of sexual violence in popular culture -- especially movies -- continue to portray the crime as an act between strangers. "Movies reify rape myths -- they focus on the brutality of rape. They show rape as part of a biological impulse of men and they portray rapists as disfigured, as if to say you can tell a rapist by looking at him," says Sarah Eschholz, assistant professor of criminal justice at Georgia State University. "Media provides a false image of rape, and a lot of people believe in these rape myths," she says. The myths can be particularly dangerous when they distort the realities of the crime and downplay the prevalence of "date rapes," she says. Contact Eschholz at 404/651-3659 or seschholz@gsu.edu.

Nebulizer efficiency on the rise
   Today's nebulizers -- the hand-held sprayers often used by asthmatics to inhale their medicine -- are more effective than their older counterparts at getting drugs inside patients, according to a recent study by Joe Rau and Ruben Restrepo of Georgia State University's Department of Cardiopulmonary Care Sciences. Of the three designs currently on the market, researchers found that two -- introduced as far back as the 1940s -- delivered only 9 to 17 percent of the drug to the patient while losing almost 30 percent to the environment. The newest design -- about four years old -- was the most efficient. In that model, manufactured by Monaghan Medical Corporation, almost 40 percent of the drug was inhaled by the patient with only a 6 percent loss to the environment. "We are getting better and better with these new designs," said Rau. "Not only is the drug delivery more efficient, there is less loss to the environment, polluting it less." For more information about the study, published in the February issue of Respiratory Care, contact Rau at 404/651-3037 or e-mail resjlr@langate.gsu.edu.

Study: Neighboring communities' rivalry drives recruitment incentives
   Local governments are more apt to give tax breaks and provide other incentives to attract businesses to town if their counterparts in nearby cities and counties are doing the same, Georgia State University researchers say. Refuting a common assumption, most governments aren't driven by their own fiscal problems to recruit aggressively. In their study, "Local Government Competition for Economic Development," economics professors Geoffrey Turnbull and Kelly Edmiston found that communities are much more likely to offer incentives when they face competition from their peers. "Even though most U.S. states empower local governments to employ tax abatements or similar recruitment incentives, not all localities use these incentives," Turnbull says. "It appeared that competition plays a role." Contact Turnbull at 404/651-0419 or gturnbull@gsu.edu and Edmiston at 404/651-3519 or edmiston@gsu.edu.

Happening at Georgia State University:

Rialto Center honors Joanne McGhee
   Georgia State University's Rialto Center for the Performing Arts will present the first Rialto Pioneer Award, honoring achievement in the arts, to Joanne McGhee, founding artistic director of Dancers Collective, at the Rialto Series' Garth Fagan Dance program at 8 p.m. March 5. McGhee co-founded Atlanta's first contemporary dance company, ACDC (Atlanta Contemporary Dance Company) in 1948. In 1980, she formed Dancers Collective and restored the Little Five Points movie theater (now 7 Stages Theatre). Tickets for the program, which include a post-performance reception, start at $30. To buy tickets, call 404/651-4727 or go online at www.rialtocenter.org. For more information, contact Amy Moudy Comeau at 404/651-2981 or acomeau@gsu.edu.

Georgia State Leads is a biweekly e-mail publication from the Department of University Relations. For more information about the publication or to sign up to receive Georgia State Leads, contact Beth Flannigan at 404/651-3576 or bflannigan@gsu.edu.

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