Henry Musoma (center) being congratulated by his students for winning the Robert M. Gates Inspiration Award.

Scholarships & Financial Aid at Texas A&M University recognized Henry Musoma as the 2013 recipient of the Robert M. Gates Inspiration Award at the 2013 Regents’ Scholars Spring Banquet. Musoma is a lecturer for Mays Business School at Texas A&M. and was nominated by his students in the Freshman Business Initiative class. One nominator wrote of Musoma, “he helps students discern their career paths, connects them to various resources, and above all he has instilled in students the inspiration to exceed all barriers that weigh us down. Students gain a perspective to their potential thanks to him, and every student who has met him can say the same. Your network is your net-worth. Dr. Musoma deserves this award and so much more.”

Before his name was announced as the recipient, Musoma’s students were already on their feet cheering at the mention of his commonly-used phrase, “your network is your net-worth.” Musoma was there to personally receive the award at the Regents’ Scholars Spring Banquet.

The Robert M. Gates Inspiration Award was established to honor Gates’ legacy and tenure at Texas A&M. He provided the inspiration for the Regents’ Scholars Program and continues to support the program. He also challenged the faculty and staff to provide support for the recipients of the scholarship through mentoring and advising. Each year at the spring banquet an outstanding faculty/staff member at Texas A&M is recognized by the Regents’ Scholars Program for continuing their support of the program and the students.

For more information about the award, contact Casey Gros at casey_gros@tamu.edu.

The May 20, 2013 tornado as it passes through Moore, OK. Photo courtesy of Grant Brooks

A: The answer appears to be Oklahoma City, says Brent McRoberts of Texas A&M University. “Oklahoma City is almost in a class by itself when it comes to tornado activity,” he explains. “According to the local National Weather Service office, the capital of Oklahoma has been hit more than 140 times since records began in the early 1890s. OKC added to that total this month when at least five other tornadoes hit just recently, and the deadly Moore storm on May 20 struck just south of Oklahoma City. There seems to be no explanation other than Oklahoma City is smack in the middle of Tornado Alley, and conditions in and around the town are perfect for tornado formation during the spring months.”

Q: What are some other oddities about tornadoes and cities?

A:  One of the strangest has to involve the small town of Codell, Kans., McRoberts notes. “Codell was hit by a tornado on the exact same day – May 20 – for three consecutive years, 1916, 1917 and 1918,” he says, adding that records are sketchy about how much damage was done. “Also, the small town of Murphysboro, Ill., holds the record of most deaths from a single tornado – 234 people died in the March 1925 famous ‘Tri-State’ tornado that killed 695 people over three states. The tornado was measured at more than one mile in width.”

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Weather Whys is a service of the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at Texas A&M University.

Members of Texas A&M University at Qatar celebrate the university's award-winning research programs.

Kenneth Hall, associate dean of Research and Graduate Studies at Texas A&M-Qatar, said, “Once again, Texas A&M University at Qatar has received significant funding from the QNRF NPRP program. These funds allow our faculty members and researchers to engage in curiosity-driven research for the benefit of Qatar. Such research always precedes technological development, and our research personnel have become proficient at translating research into commercial products. In addition, we have the good fortune this year to have won the two QNRF awards for the second year in a row. Our Research Office has won the award for the outstanding Research Office, and Dr. Khalid Qaraqe has received the Best Researcher award. We are delighted and pleased with these recognitions, and we are deeply grateful to QNRF.”

The “Best Researcher of the Year” award recognized Khalid Qaraqe, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Texas A&M-Qatar. Qaraqe said, “I would like to extend my warmest thanks to QNRF for honoring me with the prestigious 2013 Best Researcher Award.  This award is not just for me; it’s for all my colleagues and my research team. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of them for their effort and hard work. Working with such a fine team of individuals at Texas A&M at Qatar has been such great inspiration to me.”

“My biggest aim is to reflect the excellent resources and support we have from QF, QNRF and the university,” he added. “I am convinced that the profound research in Qatar will lead to enhancing KPI, human capital and international visibility, and I believe that some of our research outcomes will be applied and deployed in the near future.”

“On behalf of QNRF, I congratulate Texas A&M at Qatar for their commitment to excellence in research and development,” said Abdul Sattar Al–Taie, executive director at QNRF. “The Texas A&M at Qatar research office and Dr. Khalid Qaraqe deserve recognition for their high productivity and performance. We are proud to be working alongside you to advance knowledge through research for the benefit of Qatar and the world.”

This brings the total NPRP funding awarded to Texas A&M at Qatar this year to approximately $22 million, and includes the Exceptional NPRP Project recognition that was recently awarded to Haitham Abu-Rub, professor of electrical engineering, and his team.

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About Texas A&M University at Qatar

Texas A&M University, recognized as having one of the premier engineering programs in the world, has offered undergraduate degrees in chemical, electrical, mechanical and petroleum engineering at Qatar Foundation’s Education City campus since 2003, and graduate courses in chemical engineering since fall 2011. Almost 300 engineers have graduated from Texas A&M at Qatar since 2007. In addition to engineering courses, Texas A&M at Qatar provides classes in science, mathematics, liberal arts and the humanities. All four of the engineering programs offered at Texas A&M at Qatar are accredited by ABET. The curricula offered at Texas A&M at Qatar are materially identical to those offered at the main campus in College Station, Texas, and courses are taught in English in a co-educational setting. The reputation for excellence is the same, as is the commitment to equip engineers to lead the next generation of engineering advancement. Faculty from around the world are attracted to Texas A&M at Qatar to provide this educational experience and to participate in research activities now valued at over $135 million, and that address issues important to the State of Qatar. Visit www.qatar.tamu.edu.

While the completion rate for master’s degree candidates is rising, it is still far from optimal compared to the records for their Master of Business Administration (MBA) counterparts, reveals the study that included completion and attrition rates at Texas A&M and four other major universities.

Karen Butler-Purry

Karen Butler-Purry, associate provost for graduate studies at Texas A&M, was one of the principal investigators for the CGS study. She was joined by graduate deans at Purdue University, Loyola University, Southern Illinois University and Wright State University.

With major STEM commitments at all levels in its colleges of agriculture and life sciences, engineering, science and geosciences – Texas A&M has a leading and growing presence in the field nationally, and that presence was reflected in the CGS study – accounting for more STEM students than any of the other institutions.

Butler-Purry said participation in the study by numerous Texas A&M faculty, staff and graduates has been both beneficial and enlightening.

“Our goal in participating in the study was to provide information on completion and attrition rates in Texas A&M STEM master’s programs,” she explained. “This included looking at how the rates vary by fields, gender, citizenship and race/ethnicity. We plan to use these results to formulate specific institution or program-level interventions.”

Over the 2000-2010 period Texas A&M experienced a 33percent growth in master’s enrollment and added 12 new master’s programs, nine of which were STEM master’s programs.

The national findings are documented in a new CGS publication, Completion and Attrition in STEM Master’s Programs: Pilot Study Findings.

According to CGS President Debra W. Stewart, the steady climb in completion rates should be applauded by graduate education stakeholders, but she cautioned that work remains to be done.

“Students are investing several years of their lives in graduate programs in order to develop their potential and become leaders in the workforce,” Stewart said. “In turn, graduate schools are making commitments to support their students with academic and career advising programs; employers are providing incentives and financial resources to develop their human capital; and family members offer emotional support to keep their students on track throughout the rigors of graduate coursework. And yet completion rates in STEM fields, as they appear in this pilot study, are far from optimal, as compared, for example, to MBA completion rates.”

STEM fields were chosen as the focus of the study due to their close association with innovation, job creation, and positive employment outcomes for degree holders. Masters of Business Administration (MBA) programs were also included in the study as a basis of comparison.

According to the study, 67 percent of MBA students completed their program after two years, compared with 41 percent of STEM students. By years three and four, STEM students continued to trail behind the MBA students, completing at the rates of 60 percent by year three (as compared to 81 percent for the MBA), and 66 percent by year four (compared to 86 percent). The median time‐to‐degree is almost identical for both types of programs: 23 months for STEM master’s programs and 21 months for MBA programs.

CGS began an exploratory study on the topic of master’s completion and attrition in 2009 and launched the current pilot study in November 2010 with funding provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Elizabeth Boylan, Program Director at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation commented, “This pilot study is a milestone in understanding master’s education in STEM fields, representative of the Foundation’s commitment to assisting institutions better understand the progress of students to their degrees, and then into the STEM workforce that is essential to America’s economic and scientific competitiveness.”

For more about the Master’s Completion Project click here.

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Media contact: Lane Stephenson, News & Information Services, at (979) 845-4662

At Texas A&M's Summer Art Camp, kids will learn about different forms of art including stained glass.

From glassmaking and storytelling to mask making and fun with photography, kids can create and experience a wide variety of art forms by attending Summer Art Camp at the Forsyth and Stark Galleries at Texas A&M University. The galleries’ Summer Art Camp is open to children aged 7-12 and runs from July 24-26 from 1:00-4:00 p.m. Camp will meet in the Stark Galleries on the first floor of the Memorial Student Center. The cost is $50 per child and registration is limited to 20 students.

In the Stained Glass/Glassmaking workshop, campers will learn about stained glass and create their own stained glass bottle. At the Frederic Remington and Western Storytelling Art workshop, campers will learn about how artist Frederic Remington told stories about western life and will use their creative skills to develop an illustrated story. At the Turkish Delight and the Art of Paper Marbling workshop, the art and history of paper marbling will be explored and campers will make their own colorful designs using traditions from Turkey. In the Tai Chi Fan workshop, campers will learn the ancient Chinese martial art as a healthy activity and as a visual performance art form using a traditional Chinese fan. The Fun Photography workshop will allow campers to use photo techniques which don’t require cameras and will play games based on photography themes. And in the Mask Making workshop, campers can become anyone or anything they want to be. They’ll make masks to reflect their inner selves and explore the history and uses of masks from around the world.

All art materials and refreshments will be supplied at the camp. For more information and to register, visit http://forsyth.tamu.edu/summer_art_camp.html, or contact Trudy Six, University Art Galleries, at tsix@uart.tamu.edu or 979.458.5460.

The program begins at 10:30 a.m. with remarks and ribbon cutting led by officials of both university systems followed by an open house and tour. Texas A&M University System Chancellor John Sharp, Texas A&M University President R. Bowen Loftin, and Texas A&M Libraries Dean David Carlson will offer remarks and participate in the ribbon-cutting. Representing The University of Texas System on the program will be Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Pedro Reyes and Vice Provost and Director of UT Libraries Fred Heath.

The facility will enable the UT and Texas A&M libraries to store print books and journals using high density shelving.

“This is a prime example of two flagship university systems working together, not only for the benefit of the students and faculties at their institutions but also for the benefit of their counterparts at colleges, universities and other scholarly entities throughout Texas and elsewhere,” said Sharp. “This joint endeavor demonstrates good stewardship of funding and other resources entrusted to us by the state, which, of course, ultimately means the citizens of Texas.”

Texas A&M University President R. Bowen Loftin agreed, adding that he is pleased to have the facility located in Aggieland and operated by Texas A&M library faculty and staff.

“We consider it a privilege to host this specialized facility that will help preserve a million or more books and other documents for scholars today and in the future,” Loftin said. “It’s a grand opportunity to partner with our University of Texas counterparts in this worthy endeavor.”

University of Texas at Austin President William C. Powers joined in praising the collaborative effort.

“We are delighted to participate in this innovative venture with Texas A&M,” Powers said in a released statement. “As the state’s flagship research institutions, our library holdings help address today’s needs while providing a foundation for Texans of tomorrow. The joint library storage facility will provide for the preservation of this vital cultural record, while ensuring that the books and documents remain available for study and research for students and scholars.”

Heath cited the benefits of the cooperative endeavor.

“At a time when academic libraries face twin challenges of limited space and diminishing financial resources, this collaborative solution is a model for how unified efforts can result in positive outcomes for all involved,” Heath pointed out. “While we maintain a competitive rivalry that constantly challenges our respective institutions to reach ever higher, we also recognize that we share common goals that benefit from working together. The success of this project is another example of that collaborative spirit.”

Carlson, who will serve as master of ceremonies at the facility’s formal opening, cited the technological advantages offered by the facility in service to the scholarly community.

“As we rely increasingly on digital technologies for access to information, this facility allows us to protect the vital legacy of print materials and provide timely access to the originals,” Carlson explained.

The $6.3 million construction project at the Riverside Campus, the former Bryan Air Force Base located about 10 miles northwest of the main Texas A&M campus, began in the summer of 2012

The facility will enable the UT System and Texas A&M System libraries to store print books and journals using high density shelving, minimizing the physical requirements and costs of print storage.

Officials explained the new facility will help alleviate pressures as libraries continue to add volumes and related resources. The facility will keep the burden of storage costs off individual campuses in both systems.

The facility will enable the UT and Texas A&M libraries to store print books and journals using high density shelving, minimizing the physical requirements and costs of print storage.

Officials explained the new facility will help alleviate pressures as libraries continue to add volumes and related resources. The facility will keep the burden of storage costs off the individual campuses in both systems.

To streamline collections, the collaborating institutions will implement a novel process of “sharing” a single copy of duplicated holdings in the new facility.  The process will eliminate redundancy while making a “shared” copy available for research and study among users at multiple institutions.

Texas A&M University in College Station and The University of Texas at Austin have collaborated on projects in the past, including the Texas Digital Library and preservation storage in the High Density Repository on the J.J. Pickle Campus in Austin. The Joint Library Facility represents a new degree of cooperation by incorporating the resource-in-common model for all materials in the facility and including general academic and medical campuses from both systems.

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Media contact: Lane Stephenson, News & Information Services, at (979) 845-4662

George R.R. Martin's Q&A session was moderated by Todd Samuelson.

Catherine Coker, coordinator of Research Services and Science Fiction Curator, Cushing Memorial Library and Archives and Todd Samuelson, curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts, Cushing Memorial Library and Archives, say there were two questions they heard over and over as they worked on Deeper Than Swords: Celebrating the Work of George R. R. Martin: “Why Martin?” and “Why A&M?”

“Let’s start at the end there,” they decided.

Texas A&M is the home to one of the largest collections of genre material in the country, if not the world. It encompasses more than 47,000 individual items and over a hundred archival collections that span from 1680 (the first English translation of Sir Thomas More’s Utopia) to yesterday (the most recent issues of science fiction magazines like Analog). The Science Fiction Research Collection, as it is known, was established in 1974 and has grown ever since. Scholars from across the world visit regularly to access the collections, while students and faculty at A&M often come for research and for reading.  In 2010, we designed another full-scale exhibit introducing the collection, One Hundred Years Hence: Science Fiction and Fantasy at Texas A&M, which met with resounding success.

Mr. Martin visited A&M regularly throughout the 1970s for the annual AggieCon events and to meet with his friends and fellow writers like Howard Waldrop and Lisa Tuttle (whose collections are also housed in Cushing). Librarians and curators often attend AggieCon as well, and one year Don Dyal, then the Director of Special Collections, met with Mr. Martin to discuss the possibility of his donating his collections to Cushing. By that time Martin was already an award-winning author of note, though not yet the celebrity he is today. He came to the library for a tour and was impressed with the physical facilities which protect the collections, as well as the librarians’ care and enthusiasm for their work and for the genres of fantasy and science fiction. After years of contact with Texas A&M librarians, Mr. Martin decided to make his first deposit of materials in the Collection – around 40 boxes of books and papers – in 1993. In the years since, his own archive has grown to include 200 boxes and nearly 1,000 volumes, all housed in one of Cushing Library’s protective vaults.  The collection fills the entire length of this sizable room, and we like to call the area where it’s shelved “The Wall of Martin.”

Now returning to that first question: “Why Martin?” The presence of Martin’s archive at Texas A&M is a testament to the collaboration that can arise when gifted creators and dedicated librarians work together to produce a trust for the future. Mr. Martin is dedicated to seeing his work preserved, but also to the idea that it will be available to students, to scholars, to historians of media and popular culture, and to the community. His dedication to the enterprise has led him to send boxes of itemized objects – from manuscripts and first editions to international versions, artifacts described in his novels, and personal ephemera such as one of Martin’s now-iconic Greek sailor’s caps – with astonishing regularity. And anyone who has watched the explosion of interest in Martin’s work can see how his writing has struck a chord in an ever-expanding audience. This type of phenomenon can reveal a great deal about a culture, and a thorough archive such as the one that Martin is developing at Cushing Library will reflect much about this moment of time, our preoccupations and anxieties, to researchers of the future.

As for why we chose to initiate and create the exhibition – well, we’re both fans, of course, but beyond that, we’re curators and scholars. It is clear to us that Mr. Martin’s work has altered the history of his chosen genre, as well as the ways we view popular literature. In 2005, Time magazine reviewer Lev Grossman christened Mr. Martin “The American Tolkien”— and we took that idea and ran with it. J.R.R. Tolkien not only originated modern fantasy as we think of it today, but has had an ongoing impact on literature (not least through the host of imitators he spawned). George R.R. Martin’s case is not dissimilar. Indeed, as we conceptualized the exhibit we decided that the narrative should tell the story of both the inspiration taken by Martin—Tolkien, of course, but also Stan Lee and Robert E. Howard and all the rest—and Martin’s own influence on genre and popular culture in his turn. HBO’s Game of Thrones made his characters and the world of Westeros household names, but even before that, his work had made a deeper impression on genre through its gritty realism and unflinching portrayal of the darker sides of the human condition.

Full-scale exhibits at Cushing take a lot of work. It took two years of planning for us to pull off Deeper Than Swords — collaborating with Martin to get a place on his (very busy) calendar; negotiating reproduction rights with award-winning artist John Picacio to utilize his iconic work in the exhibit catalog and the exhibit itself; working with local artists such as Anise Press and independent artists from farther afield like Evangeline Owen, in order to bring all-new interpretations of Martin’s work to the fore; and of course, our writing and the installation of the exhibit itself. When we unveiled the plans for the exhibition as part of our initial promotional work at AggieCon back in 2012, the convention’s planners and participants became very interested in the project, and actually moved their dates and location so they could coordinate with us and have Martin as a Guest of Honor this year, too!  And finally, with the new season of Game of Thrones aligning with our opening and Martin fresh from a media junket, HBO chose to sponsor a special preview screening of the first episode of season three. Martin had seen the episode twice, in LA and San Francisco (including once at the famed Grauman’s Chinese Theater), but he reported that the Aggie audience was by far the largest and most enthusiastic!

The Deeper than Swords exhibit is on display at Cushing Library through December.

It is difficult to say which might be our favorite moment of the entire process. Perhaps the donors’ dinner, in which fans of the novels were privileged to eat from a sumptuous menu inspired by the food described in the books, recreated by Chef Tai, with Martin himself at the head table. Perhaps it was the book signing, in which hundreds of students and local fans waited in lines extending out of Cushing and most of the way along Evans Library, in order to have a moment of interaction with the author.  It may have been the lecture and Q&A, in which Martin spoke about the significance of his reading history for his life as a writer to over two thousand Aggies in Rudder Auditorium. But I suspect that we’d agree that the highlight was seeing Martin encounter his own archive in its place on the shelves within Cushing Library’s stacks. It’s one thing to count boxes and titles, but to see the breadth of the material in a single glimpse, extending the length of a massive bookshelf, is really something.  As we conducted him into the Library’s secure area to see the material which he created – now preserved in archival folders and boxes, arranged and catalogued – he reached out to brush his hand against the objects. The products of an author’s life – imagination, images and words – tend to be abstract and ephemeral. To see such an expanse of papers and books as a testament to the impact of his writing seemed quite powerful to him. This visit, combined with a private tour of the exhibit, provided Martin with an opportunity to reflect on his career and achievements. It’s one thing for an author to become a celebrated figure, even a celebrity – recognized in the airport and approached for photographs on the street – but to see that his work is beloved both in popular and academic circles may be even rarer. It clearly meant a lot to him. And that brought us a great deal of satisfaction.

James M. Griffin, director of the Mosbacher Institute for Trade, Economics & Public Policy, which is part of Texas A&M’s Bush School of Government and Public Service, and Mauricio Cifuentes Soto, a graduate student assisting him, say in their report that the goal of EISA was to cut greenhouse gas emissions and to ease dependency on imported oil. Policymakers also thought the new blend of ethanol and conventional gasoline would cost motorists less, they note.

James Griffin

“EISA mandated ethanol production to grow from 4.9 billion gallons in 2006, to 36 billion by 2022,” says Griffin, author of A Smart Energy Policy: An Economist’s Rx for Balancing Cheap, Clean, and Secure Energy. “Today, at 14 billion gallons, we’re not even halfway there and the unintended consequences of the policy, especially those influencing world food prices, are negative and far outweigh the positives.”

With the best of intentions, he observes, lawmakers believed the policy would have a positive effect by lowering prices at the pump. Moreover, since corn plants absorb CO2 from the atmosphere, greenhouse gas emissions would fall significantly, and the U.S. would build energy security as domestic ethanol replaced oil imports from the Middle East.

Additionally, using CO2 life-cycle estimates by the Argonne National Laboratory, the authors assert that, ethanol reduced U.S. and world greenhouse gas emission — 0.42 percent of U.S. and 0.08 percent of world emissions.

Nevertheless, these benefits are minuscule when put in perspective. “Corn-based ethanol has done little to reduce the nation’s carbon footprint,” Griffin adds. “In contrast, the policy’s unintended consequences for food prices raise grave economic and ethical issues.”

Rising corn and grain prices have been attributed to ethanol production.

The Texas A&M researchers also traced an increase in corn and grain prices to ethanol production. They refer to the United Nations’ FAO Food Price Index which shows that between Jan. 2007 and Sept. 2011, after adjusting for inflation, corn prices increased by 68 percent, cereals by 69 percent and dairy products by 46 percent.

One study (Hayes et al, 2009) the researchers cite quantifies how a $1 per bushel increase in corn prices impacts a wide variety of food products. The study shows, for example, that between 2005 and 2011 corn prices rose by $5 per bushel, beef rose 18.5 percent, pork 16 percent, poultry 17.5 percent, eggs 27.5 percent, milk 10.5 percent, cheese 9 percent, sugar and sweets 3.5 percent.

The researchers claim that not all these price increases are due to U.S. ethanol policies. However, even “if only one-fourth of this additional expenditure is attributable to ethanol, this would imply a loss to American consumers of $40 billion over the last 4 years.”

Even though these increased food prices might not look so significant, the world’s poor disproportionately share the burden of these policies because a large portion of their income is devoted to food alone, they add. According to the U.N., rising food prices plunged nearly 70 million people into extreme poverty in 2010-2011.

Griffin and Cifuentes conclude that, instead of marching blindly ahead to EISA’s 2022 mandated production target of 36 billion gallons, the ethanol policy should be reassessed.

“To be sure, we should continue to support R&D for advanced biofuels such as cellulosic ethanol,” Griffin says. “In the interim, we should dismantle the ethanol mandates and trust markets to sort out the proper mix of ethanol in gasoline.”

For more on the study, go here.

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About Research at Texas A&M University: As one of the world’s leading research institutions, Texas A&M is in the vanguard in making significant contributions to the storehouse of knowledge, including that of science and technology. Research conducted at Texas A&M represents an annual investment of more than $630 million, which ranks third nationally for universities without a medical school, and underwrites approximately 3,500 sponsored projects. That research creates new knowledge that provides basic, fundamental and applied contributions resulting in many cases in economic benefits to the state, nation and world.

The Mosbacher Institute was founded in 2009 to honor Robert A. Mosbacher, Secretary of Commerce from 1989-1992 and key architect of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Through three core programs for research and education – Integration of Global Markets, Energy in a Global Economy and Good Governance – the institute’s objective is to advance the design of policies for tomorrow’s challenges.

Media contact: Tura King, Division of Marketing & Communications, at (979) 845-4670

Dr. Brett Giroir

Dr. Brett Giroir, Vice Chancellor for Strategic Initiatives, gave the commencement address at Texas A&M University-Galveston this past Saturday. Speaking to a group of 180 graduating Sea Aggies, Giroir spoke about the time-honored traditions that make being an Aggie so special, why that will be a source of pride and motivation for years to come, and how they can use the lessons they learned from being a part of such a unique institution to build a greater tomorrow for future generations.

Giroir also leads the Center for Innovation and Advanced Development & Manufacturing at The Texas A&M University System in College Station. As the principal investigator of the center, he was instrumental in establishing a $285 million contract with the federal government to provide 50 million doses of vaccines required to stop pandemics of influenza and to develop and manufacture all the vaccine therapies and antidotes needed to protect against chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats.

For the complete commencement address, click here.