N'Namdi Paskins, an educational trainer in the Office of Continuing and Distance Education, was commended during National Volunteer Week by the Big Brothers Big Sisters of Kentucky for “bringing little moments of big magic to the life of a child.”
The Office of Academic Advising is excited to announce the addition of a full-time advisor, Mrs. Laurel Simo, to the Advising staff. The Advising staff, in partnership with the Office of the Registrar, recently pre-registered hundreds of prospective students for the upcoming fall semester. Also, the Advising staff is actively involved in the Academics with Attitude project which is progressing nicely.
Mr. Anthony Rose of Regional Stewardship and KSU student Katherine Hatchell created a public service announcement video that aired on Time Warner Cable to highlight the Bluegrass Community Action Partnership's JARC/New Freedom programs. Mr. Rose also shot and edited footage for the "Dr. Carl Smith: A Man of Note" video to celebrate Dr. Smith's 50 years at Kentucky State University.
The Community Research Service staff members continue to actively support the global community. Dr. George Antonious, Principal Investigator, co-wrote "Variability for Free Sugars and Organic Acids in Capsicum chinense. Drs. Robert Jarret (USDA, Georgia), Terry Berke (Seminis Seed Company, California), and Elizabeth Baldwin (Citrus Research Lab, Florida) are co-authors of the article. The article documents the range in the concentrations of individual organic acids present in C. chinense fruits and suggests that this variability will lead to studies involving the synthesis and metabolism of phytochemicals associated with fruit quality. Also Dr. Antonious was invited to speak at the 2009 International Conference on Environment, at the University of Athens, Greece. He presented "Remediation of Herbicides and Heavy Metals Mobility from Agricultural Soils into Surface and Subsurface Water." Additionally, Dr. Antonious served as chair of the Global Environmental Contamination session during the conference. More than 200 professors and researchers from around the world attended the international conference in Greece.
Dr. Michael Bomford, Principal Investigator in Organic Agriculture, has a paper entitled "Do Tomatoes Love Basil but Hate Brussels Sprouts?" in the June edition of the Journal of Sustainable Agriculture, an international journal promoting the study and application of sustainable agriculture solutions to resource depletion issues. He reports results of experimental tests of a popular claim that certain plant mixtures make more efficient use of land than others. Dr. Bomford presents a new method of calculating plant spacing for small-scale mixed cropping systems and introduces an online spacing calculator available at the KSU Organic Agriculture Working Group Web site.
Dr. Kirk Pomper, Principal Investigator of Horticulture, made a presentation concerning the KSU pawpaw research program at the Kentucky Nut Growers Association Spring Meeting. The Kentucky Nut Growers Association has about 200 members who are interested in growing nut trees and pawpaws.
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