June 25, 2001
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Ohio State University Libraries ranked 18th strongest in North America – The Chronicle of Higher Education recently placed The Ohio State University Libraries among the top 20 in North America based on ratings by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). ARL ranked OSU’s library system 18th among the 112 largest university research libraries in the United States and Canada using five criteria: number of volumes held, number of volumes added annually, number of current serials received, total operating expenditures and number of staff. Contact: Chiquita Mullins Lee, program coordinator Library Communications, (614) 292-8999.
New OSU institute will focus on food safety – Ohio State University researchers are joining forces to create a one-of-a-kind research institute addressing nutrition and food safety from the farm to the plate. More than 35 researchers from the colleges of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences; Human Ecology; Veterinary Medicine; and Medicine and Public Health are integrating agriculture, food systems, nutrition and medicine into the Ohio Bionutrition and Food Safety Research Institute. The institute will help distinguish Ohio State as a leading food safety center while building close ties with nutrition experts. Contact: Candace Pollock, associate editor in the College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, (330) 202-3550.
Regional campuses to offer undergraduate business major – The Fisher College of Business and Ohio State’s regional campuses are ready to launch the new undergraduate general business major beginning with a pilot program in September 2001. The degree will be offered at Ohio State’s Lima, Mansfield, Marion and Newark campuses. The new program blends the best of today’s distance learning technologies with traditional classroom instruction taught by Fisher College’s highly rated faculty. Fisher College has been developing the distance learning support for the new program with a $1.5 million grant it received last summer from the Dorney Fund through the Cleveland Foundation. Details of the program are available online at http://fisher.osu.edu/undergrad/regional/. Contact: Anna Rzewnicki, associate news director for the Fisher College, (614) 292-8937.
What put you in such a funk? – An Ohio State researcher has found that negative “mystery moods” can occur when people fail at a goal that they didn’t even know they had. Tanya Chartrand, assistant professor of psychology, said such non-conscious goals can have significant effects on how we feel and act, and even on how well we achieve other goals. Non-conscious goals are goals people have frequently and consistently chosen in particular situations in the past -- so much so that they eventually become triggered automatically in those same environments without their conscious thought or even intent, Chartrand explained. Contact: Tanya Chartrand, (614) 292-7175.
Questioning corporate earnings reports may be a smart move – A recent article in the “Money” section of www.usatoday.com discussed a practice among some firms of restating or correcting their financial statements after discovering internal accounting errors. Richard Dietrich, professor and chair of the accounting and MIS department at the Fisher College of Business, knows the issue well. Before joining Fisher College last fall, he was the academic fellow at the Security and Exchange Commission’s Office of the Chief Accountant. While there, he coordinated an initiative to study the practice of accounting restatements. The results of his analysis indicate approximately 12,500 annual reports were filed with the SEC in 1999 and that more than 140 companies filed restatements in that year. An analysis of 32 companies with accounting irregularities reported between 1993 and 2000 revealed a decline in market capitalization of $88.2 billion. Contact: Richard Dietrich, (614) 292-2082.
OSU Jazz Ensemble heats up Goodale Park (6/30). Twenty undergraduate students from Ohio State’s School of Music are jetting to Europe next month to play at some of the world’s hottest jazz festivals. The group, who make up the acclaimed OSU Jazz Ensemble, and their director, Professor Ted McDaniel, have been invited to play seven concerts in Austria, France, Germany and Switzerland, including the famous Montreux Jazz Festival. The School of Music has contacted more than 150 OSU alumni who live in France and invited them to the Vienne concert. The group also will perform at Goodale Park at 7 p.m. on Saturday (6/30). Contact: Pattie Charles, College of the Arts, (614) 292-6299.
Board of Trustees meets – June 29. The Ohio State University Board of Trustees and its committees will meet on Friday (6/29) at the Parker Food Science & Technology Building, 2015 Fyffe Road. Committee meetings, where most of the discussions take place, begin at 9:30 a.m. The full board meets at 10:45 a.m. in room 118. Among the agenda items: proposed distance education degree programs in the colleges of Nursing and Pharmacy, and approval of the Fiscal Year 2002 Current Funds Budget. Contact: Elizabeth Conlisk, University Relations, (614) 292-3040.
The person listed as Contact will have the best information about the story. Call on our media relations staff for help with any Ohio State story – Elizabeth Conlisk, (614) 292-3040; Amy Murray, (614) 292-8385; Lesley Deaderick, (614) 292-0569; Karissa Shivley, (614) 292-8295, Shannon Wingard, (614) 247-6821, and Melinda Sadar, (614) 292-8298.
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