University plans year-long celebration of public events across the schools and departments

Charles Darwin and evolution—the man and his ideas such as natural selection—will be highlighted at Case Western Reserve University this coming academic year. The university will celebrate Darwin’s legacy and influence during the 2008-09 Year of Darwin and Evolution.

The celebration overlaps with the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth on February 12, 1809, the same day President Abraham Lincoln was born. The 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin’s influential book, On the Origins of Species, occurs later in 2009.

Instead of a one or two-day event, throughout the academic year schools and departments across campus have planned activities from lectures to a theatrical event, according to Neil Greenspan, professor of pathology at the Case Western Reserve School of Medicine and chair of the faculty-driven planning committee for the Darwin celebration.

Greenspan said he and his colleagues on the planning committee want to emphasize the depth and breadth of the evidence for biological evolution and to highlight the broad relevance of evolutionary principles, concepts and methods to science and other disciplines.

THOUGHTS ON DARWIN

“Evolution will continue to be relevant to numerous domains of human endeavor and well worth celebrating as one of the most influential ideas in the history of human efforts to understand the world and our place in it,” said Greenspan. Scientists from a variety of fields are seeing support for Darwin’s original thoughts.

“Darwin’s greatest contribution,” offers Case Western Reserve paleontologist and Darwin Year committee member Darin Croft, “is that he provided an explanation for the fossil record, one that is elegant in its simplicity.”

Like Darwin, Croft studies ancient South American mammals. “I’ve always felt an academic closeness with Darwin. Darwin’s exploration of South America on the Beagle was critical for his idea of evolution through natural selection. He, too, collected fossil mammals there,” says Croft.

“Some of the strange animals found in South America, in fact, helped him realize that entire groups of animals once lived in South America but had gone extinct—an observation that pushed him toward evolution through natural selection and away from the world of immutable species,” he added.

Darwin’s thoughts, while acceptable to the scientific community, have met with resistance in other areas.

Greenspan said “the extensive press coverage of the controversies relating to the teaching of evolution tended to obscure the fact that there is effectively no controversy within biology or biomedical science as to whether evolution occurs.”

He added that the debates surrounding the public education curriculum fostered such misconceptions as that evolution is an essentially random process.

“In fact, evolution via natural selection, at a minimum, relies on a two-step process: generation of genetic differences (that cause variation in traits that can be inherited) and differential reproductive success as a function of that diversity in traits. While the production of variation in genes and in the traits influenced by those genes involves a random element, selection is distinctly non-random. In fact, non-randomness is the very essence of natural selection.”

DARWIN YEAR UNDERWAY

The Darwin celebration got an early launch as incoming first-year students received David Quammen’s The Reluctant Mr. Darwin as this year’s Common Reading selection—the university’s summer reading selection for incoming first-year students. Quammen’s appearance and talk during Fall Convocation (http://www.case.edu/convocation/registration/ ) at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, August 28, in Severance Hall is the first free, public Darwin Year event.

It continues in September with respected author and leading biologist Sean Carroll from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the University of Wisconsin and Gary Litman, a faculty member in the department of pediatrics from the University of South Florida. Carroll will discuss his work on animal development and evolution on Thursday, Sept. 11, at 6:30 p.m. at Case Western Reserve University’s Strosacker Auditorium (2125 Adelbert Road on the Case Western Reserve University Quad). Litman’s talk is scheduled for the Ecker Lecture at the medical school on Tuesday, September 9, during which he will discuss the evolution of the immune system.

For more information and a list of events for the Celebration of Darwin and Evolution, visit http://www.case.edu/darwin/.

In a new pilot program that launched this summer, KeyBank has offered paid summer employment to Case Western Reserve University School of Law students. Daniel Green and Patrick Blanchard were the students selected to participate in the inaugural program.

Green and Blanchard recently wrapped up ten weeks at KeyBank's Cleveland headquarters, where they worked in anti-money laundering and terrorism financing, including money laundering detection, financial intelligence gathering and analysis, and legal/regulatory compliance.

Jonathan Adler, professor and director of the Center for Business Law and Regulation at Case Western Reserve, said the unique program is a great way for law school students to learn the ins and outs in this field. "KeyBank executives and attorneys are quite excited about the program. They are committed to giving our students a meaningful and substantive summer employment experience, and hope to see this program in the future," he said.

"While the demand for anti-money laundering professionals by regulated financial institutions is significant and increasing, as far as we are aware this program is the only such collaboration between a bank and a law school in the United States," Adler added. He credits Richard Gordon, associate professor of law, and Willie Maddox at KeyBank with creating the unique program.

If the inaugural project is successful, KeyBank will expand the internships for the summer of 2009. So far, it looks like the program is on track to continue growing, as Maddox, who supervised Green and Blanchard, told law school professors that KeyBank is "very pleased with the program."

In related news to the growing field of anti-money laundering, Case Western Reserve and the Association of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists recently offered a five-day course, Fundamentals of Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism: International Standards and U.S. Law and Practice, designed for compliance officers, auditors, lawyers and anti-money laundering professionals.

For more information contact Kimyette Finley, 216.368.0521.

In a new pilot program that launched this summer, KeyBank offered paid summer employment to Case Western Reserve University School of Law students. Daniel Green and Patrick Blanchard were the students selected to participate in the inaugural program.

Green and Blanchard recently wrapped up ten weeks at KeyBank's Cleveland headquarters, where they worked in anti-money laundering and terrorism financing, including money laundering detection, financial intelligence gathering and analysis, and legal/regulatory compliance.

Jonathan Adler, professor and director of the Center for Business Law and Regulation at Case Western Reserve, said the unique program is a great way for law school students to learn the ins and outs in this field. "KeyBank executives and attorneys are quite excited about the program. They are committed to giving our students a meaningful and substantive summer employment experience, and hope to see this program in the future," he said.

"While the demand for anti-money laundering professionals by regulated financial institutions is significant and increasing, as far as we are aware this program is the only such collaboration between a bank and a law school in the United States," Adler added. He credits Richard Gordon, associate professor of law, and Willie Maddox at KeyBank with creating the unique program.

If the inaugural project is successful, KeyBank will expand the internships for the summer of 2009. So far, it looks like the program is on track to continue growing, as Maddox, who supervised Green and Blanchard, told law school professors that KeyBank is "very pleased with the program."

In related news to the growing field of anti-money laundering, Case Western Reserve and the Association of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists recently offered a five-day course, Fundamentals of Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism: International Standards and U.S. Law and Practice, designed for compliance officers, auditors, lawyers and anti-money laundering professionals.

For more information contact Kimyette Finley, 216.368.0521.

Astronomers join new phase of Sloan Digital Sky Survey

Astronomers at Case Western Reserve University are participating in the newest phase of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), the most ambitious survey of the sky ever undertaken.

Located in Apache Point, N.M., the SDSS began mapping the night sky in 2000. The third phase of SDSS began in July 2008 and Case Western Reserve is an active collaborator throughout its six-year agenda, said Heather Morrison, professor and chair of the department of astronomy at the university.

This phase of SDSS is made up of four different projects. Morrison is involved with the Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Exploration (SEGUE) venture.

"Our focus during the first year is on the Milky Way and the stars that make it up, looking at everything in terms of four dimensions," said Morrison. "The fourth dimension in this case is velocity. In addition to seeing how big our galaxy is, we also are looking to calculate how fast its stars are moving."

In addition to Morrison's involvement, Paul Harding, observatory manager at Case Western Reserve and astronomy alumnus Dan Oravetz will be contributing to handling the actual survey operation as well as the science that results from the survey data. The university first joined the SDSS during its second phase, which ended in June 2008.

In the past, star maps were made using 14-inch photographic plates with less than optimal accuracy. The telescope now features a grid of 30 charge-coupled devices (CCDs) that greatly increase the accuracy of the images.

Mapping the stars in the Milky Way, measuring both distance and velocity, also is made much easier than in years past through the use of a highly efficient spectrograph and fiber optic cables attached to aluminum plates, roughly a meter in diameter. Each plate can record data for as many as 650 stars and other celestial bodies.

Precise coordinates for each star to be analyzed are marked on each aluminum plate. Fiber optic cables are attached to each coordinate on the plate and fed to the spectrograph for data analysis. Analyzing the spectra from each star provides its distance from earth and its velocity.

The ability of the 2.5-meter telescope, coupled with a large image camera and seven square degree spectroscopic field, to record so much data about so many objects at one time has redefined what the SDSS is currently surveying.

"When SDSS began in 2000, it primarily looked at different galaxies, rather than individual stars," said Morrison. "But a few fibers were connected to the plates to view what [was] referred to as boring old stars and the exciting results that were obtained changed some minds."

Morrison says that one third of the second phase of the project (SDSS-II), was devoted to looking at individual stars. The first year of SDSS-III will almost completely focus on stars. To date, the survey has mapped approximately one quarter of the sky.

In mapping the Milky Way, Morrison said that researchers are looking at just how far the edges of the galaxy extend. One star so far has been discovered at 200,000 light years away. Morrison hopes to gather data in the next year on stars up to 300,000 light years away.

Morrison, Harding and Oravetz are part of a collaborative research team. The lead investigator on the SEGUE project is Constance Rockosi at University of California, Santa Cruz. Among the other participating institutions are Cambridge University, Johns Hopkins University, Princeton University and University of Chicago.

Once the data gathering phase of SEGUE is completed, three new projects will commence, including one known as BOSS, which will detect and analyze acoustic echoes from the early universe. Idit Zehavi, assistant professor of astronomy at Case Western Reserve, is an active participant on this project.

Funding for the SDSS is provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Japanese Monbukagakusho, the Max Planck Society and the Higher Education Funding Council for England.

For more information contact Susan Griffith, 216.368.1004.

Archaeological team find themselves in the middle of fight between Georgia and Russia

Three students and one faculty member from Case Western Reserve University are safe after finding themselves in the middle of the armed conflict between Russia and Georgia.

Andrea De Giorgi, visiting assistant professor in the Department of Classics; Nathan Bensing, sophomore from Columbus, Ohio; Gabriel Suprise, sophomore from Portage, Mich.; and Danielle Maynard, art history graduate student from Detroit, are now safe in Turkey. They plan to return to the university by August 24 in time for fall classes.

De Giorgi's group was based in Tbilisi in southeast Georgia, where they conducted a landscape archaeology survey tracing the interactions between human agency and the environment through the ages. The survey combined fieldwalking, data collection, global positioning system (GPS) recording and geographic information system (GIS) processing in an area inhabited by civilizations spanning the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, the Greek, Persian and Roman empires and various kingdoms of the Byzantine empire.

On the third day of fieldwork, the team saw columns of military convoys heading north on a nearby military road. Shortly after, the team's Georgian colleague, Mikheil Abramishvili, professor at the Tbilisi Archaeology Museum, received a call that the Russian army was active in the northern region of Georgia.

Back at their hotel, reports from the BBC and CNN provided confusing details of the Russian invasion. Events escalated overnight and in the morning, bags and equipment packed, the team traveled to the bus station and boarded a van headed to the city of Akhaltsikhe, the nearest point to cross into Turkey.

The van first headed northwest to the city of Gori, not knowing that the city was to be the target of a Russian airstrike. Arriving just after the bombing, the team found themselves surrounded by smoke and debris. Amid the confusion, terrified residents tried to stop the van in order to flee the city.

The van was already loaded to capacity and the driver began driving at what De Giorgi described as "insane speed" to get out of the city.

"We are still coming to terms with the sight of Gori's civilians," said De Giorgi. "One often hears about civilians paying the highest price in armed conflict, but experiencing it first-hand is a completely different thing. It was heartbreaking to see people begging our driver to stop for them."

The escape route took the van across the path of a line of armed Georgian tanks heading north.

The trip over the remaining 30 kilometers to Akhaltsikhe was uneventful. Hiring a cab, the team reached the Georgian side of the border with Turkey. Once they passed through security, they carried their bags and equipment by foot across the border where they hired a driver to take them 100 kilometers southeast to the town of Kars.

Once the College of Arts and Sciences was made aware of the situation, Dean Cyrus Taylor immediately offered to help the group make travel arrangements for their safe return to the United States.

Now based in the city of Ankara, De Giorgi's team is planning to utilize the remaining time abroad to visit archaeology sites and monuments in and around Ankara and Istanbul. The three days spent in Georgia resulted in the collection of a substantial amount of data, said De Giorgi.

"The success of those three days of surveying is grounded in Nathan, Gabriel and Danielle really grasping the purpose of our research," De Giorgi said. "They are really remarkable students. What we all experienced is going to stay with us for a very long time."

For more information contact Susan Griffith, 216.368.1004.

Nineteen researchers recently presented their findings on everything from Alzheimer's disease to adult strokes, malaria and cancer treatment to an audience of over 100 people.

Although these are major health issues impacting people around the globe, surprisingly, these young researchers aren't even in college yet. They're all high school students from the Cleveland Metropolitan School District (CMSD).

After spending eight weeks under the tutelage of Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine faculty, the 19 high school students who participated in this summer's Scientific Enrichment and Opportunity Program (SEO) unveiled their capstone projects last Thursday.

Now in its sixth year, the SEO program is designed to nurture students who express an interest in the fields of biomedical science and health professions. Administered through Case Western Reserve University's Center for Science, Health & Society, the SEO program was initiated in 2003 with the encouragement of Patricia K. Hunt, director of research at Hathaway Brown School in Shaker Heights, and Benson P. Lee, president of Technology Management Inc. The St. Luke's Foundation and the Sam and Maria Miller Foundation also have provided support for the program. School of Medicine faculty members serve as both project advisers and career mentors.

Speaking before a crowd in the Biomedical Research Building atrium that included their families, the campus community, Case Western Reserve President Barbara R. Snyder, and City of Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, each student spent about 10 minutes giving an overview of their research.

City of Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson said he was impressed by the SEO program participants. "Education is the key to our success." He said the young researchers' pursuits, and education in general, "helps enhance the quality of life for Cleveland, the state and around the country." Jackson said talking with a few of the students about their projects "showed me how bright, intelligent and committed these young people are if you give them the opportunity to excel."

Acknowledging the program's success, Jackson presented Berger and the SEO program with a proclamation from the City of Cleveland, and each SEO student received an individual proclamation signed by the Cuyahoga County Board of Commissioners.

Fay Catacutan, a student at James F. Rhodes High School, spent the summer researching Alzheimer's disease. "I'm really interested in the brain. It works so many different ways," she explained before she presented her project, which involved studying xanthine oxidase activity levels, or the presence of metals in the brains of patients with Alzheimer's disease.

Catcutan, who is in the 11th grade, said the two-month project "opened my eyes to a world of things. I want to pursue neurology," she added.

She's already on the right path to a future career said Mark Smith, a pathologist at the School of Medicine who served as Catacutan's adviser. He said her research findings might end up being published. 'We've still got some work to do, but she did great."

Nathan Berger, Hanna-Payne Professor of Experimental Medicine and director of the Center for Science, Health & Society, said the SEO program nurtures inner city high school students who want to delve into research beyond what they study during their regular academic year. "They're selected for their potential interest in science and health care professions. The purpose of the program is to stimulate and enhance their interest and abilities," he explained.

He said the program is especially important because of the city's demographics. The CMSD is considered one of the largest and most economically challenged in the state, and that "Cleveland is plagued with health care disparities. It helps students from the inner city to develop this interest. If they pursue health care professions, it could lead to their own socioeconomic upgrade," Berger said. He added that because the students are exposed to innovative research here, those who do end up pursuing science or health careers hopefully will practice in their hometown.

Berger said since the program's inception, all of the program's participants who have sent in follow up information about their whereabouts have gone on to attend college. In addition, several of the SEO program alumni have attended Case Western Reserve.

The 2008 SEO program participants and their primary School of Medicine preceptors were:

• Dominic Anderson, John F. Kennedy High School (Maria Hatzoglou, adviser)
• Chrisharon Beale, John F. Kennedy High School (Lili Liu, adviser)
• Fay Catacutan, James F. Rhodes High School (Mark Smith, adviser)
• Candi Closson, James F. Rhodes High School (William Merrick, adviser)
• Latisha Duncan, James F. Rhodes High School (Eric Pearlman, adviser)
• Simone Edwards, John F. Kennedy High School (Andrew Sloan, adviser)
• Jarod Graves, Glenville High School (Ronald Blanton, adviser)
• Bruce Hall, Glenville High School (John Mieyal, adviser)
• Lauren Harville, John F. Kennedy High School (Jonatha Gott, adviser)
• Sabrina Jackson, Glenville High School (Paul Ernsberger, adviser)
• ShaRayne Jackson, Glenville High School (Noa Noy, adviser)
• Alicia Keely, James F. Rhodes High School (Monica Montano, adviser)
• Riley Rainey, Glenville High School (Alison Hall, adviser)
• Aaron Sepulveda, James F. Rhodes High School (Charles Hoppel, adviser)
• Cesar Sepulveda, James F. Rhodes High School (Hung-Ying Kao, adviser)
• Erica Smith, Glenville High School (Christopher King, adviser)
• Charnae Steward, Glenville High School (Jeffrey Kern, adviser)
• Josea Switzer, Glenville High School (James Kazura, adviser)
• Chanelle Williams, Glenville High School (Sanjay Gupta, adviser)

For more information contact Kimyette Finley, 216.368.0521.

Case Western Reserve University's new Clinical and Translational Science Collaborative (CTSC) will host dozens of experts as part of the Social Network Analysis Summer Institute, a conference being held August 7 and 8 at the Intercontinental Hotel in Cleveland.

According to Valdis Krebs, author of Social Network Analysis: A Brief Introduction, "Social network analysis (SNA) is the mapping and measuring of relationships and flows between people, groups, organizations and social entities. SNA provides both a visual and mathematical analysis of human relationships." The idea of mapping and measuring these relationships is considered appealing to leaders in the Clinical & Translational Science Awards (CTSA) collaborative, along with clinical and translational and science investigators.

CTSC, launched with a $64 million grant from the National Institutes of Health's CTSA, seeks to integrate clinical translational research capability between the university and its hospital partners to improve the health of patients in Northeast Ohio. It is one of 38 similar programs funded by the NIH nationwide to ensure that new and promising treatments reach patients.

"We're currently in our second year, and we're getting national participants for this workshop," said Ginny Petrie, who was recently named executive director of the CTSC. She said the two-day program is a hands-on course for researchers, and will be led by Stephen Lurie, assistant professor of family medicine at the University of Rochester. Lurie will help researchers and evaluators learn the concepts and methods of SNA, specifically as it applies to program evaluation.

The conference is designed to help participants meet several objectives, including:

• Help participants define SNA and several key terms associated with the research;
• Explain the mechanics of performing social network analysis using SNA software;
• Describe complementary methods of data display, including multivariate clustering and multidimensional scaling, and discuss how these methods can be used to supplement results of SNA; and
• Find key references and resources for further reading

In addition to Petrie, Carolyn Apperson-Hansen recently came aboard as the CTSC's research concierge. The CTSC is led by principal investigator Pamela B. Davis, dean and vice president for medical affairs at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, and Richard A. Rudick, vice chair of the Neurological Institute at Cleveland Clinic and co-principal investigator.

The Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing is a co-sponsor of the event. Learn more about the conference and SNA.

For more information contact Christina Thompson, 216.368.3635.

Seven research projects representing several academic disciplines received 2008 Presidential Research Initiative (PRI) grants this year, totaling $519,000 in funding.

The PRI grant program is designed to promote an interdisciplinary research environment at the university by seeding new research projects involving investigators from two or more schools or colleges. The grants are supported with funds from the Ohio Board of Regents and proceeds from the commercialization efforts of the Technology Transfer Office. Each project is eligible for up to $75,000 for up to two years of support.

The 2008 PRI awardees are:

• Brian Cobb (principal investigator, Department of Pathology) and Michael Zagorski (co-principal investigator, Department of Chemistry), "Carbohydrate Structural Epitopes and Novel Antigenic Activity," $75,000;
• John Feng (principal investigator, Department of Pharmacology) and Hong Yang (co-principal investigator, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science), " Mapping Genetic Networks Underlying Behavioral Regulation at a Genomic Scale Using a Combined Approach of C.elegans Genetics and Data Mining," $75,000;
• Jerry Floersch (principal investigator, Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences); Eileen Anderson-Fye (co-principal investigator, Department of Anthropology; and Jes Sellers (co-principal investigator, University Counseling Center), "College Student Experience of Mental Health Service Use and Psychiatric Medication," $74,000;
• Stefan Herlitze (principal investigator, Department of Neurosciences); Thomas Dick (co-principal investigator, Department of Medicine); and C.C. Liu (co-principal investigator, Department of Chemical Engineering), " Characterization and Modulation of the Caudal 5HT System for Control of Respiratory Function Using External Control of Light Activated Channels," $70,000;
• Frank Jacono (principal investigator, Department of Medicine) and Kenneth Loparo (co-principal investigator, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science), "Complex Systems Analysis of Breathing Patterns in Lung Injury: Applications to Predict Outcomes and Limit Severity," $75,000;
• Susan Ludington (principal investigator, Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing); Elizabeth Damato (co-principal investigator, Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing); and Kenneth Loparo (co-principal investigator, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science), "Efficacy of a Health-Promoting Chest Device for Preterm Infants," $75,000; and
• Bill Yu (principal investigator, Department of Civil Engineering) and Pingfu Feng (co-principal investigator, Department of Medicine), "Physiology and Performance Based Drowsiness Detection System and Algorithm for Transportation Safety," $75,000

Although seven proposals received funding this year, a total of 57 proposals were submitted. Each proposal was reviewed by a panel of faculty members selected by the Office of the Provost. Funding for the seven projects that received PRI awards began July 1.

The Cleveland Immunopathogenesis Consortium (CLIC), a group of researchers from 10 academic and research institutions across the United States and Canada led by physicians at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, have received a five-year, $10.8 million dollar grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to study how HIV infection results in the progressive immune deficiency that causes AIDS.

The grant will fund four coordinated projects ranging from basic laboratory research to experimental animal models to translational research, which develops clinical applications from basic research findings. This is the CLIC's first grant from the NIH.

"We have formed a team of experienced, outstanding researchers who have been working on this problem and meeting in Cleveland regularly to share their results for the past four years," said Michael Lederman, principal investigator of the CLIC and the Scott Inkley Professor of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University. "It is very gratifying to receive the NIH's support for this very important work. Abnormally high levels of immune activation were described in the first reports of AIDS in 1981," Lederman said. "What has not been appreciated until relatively recently is the resultant damage to the immune system that seems to be caused by this activation. Our projects hope to shed light on how HIV causes immune activation and eventually leads to immune deficiency."

The four interdisciplinary projects will explore different aspects of how HIV infection causes immune activation which is believed to cause CD4+ T cell depletion and immune deficiency in HIV infection. Activation of the immune system is a normal healthy response to infection. However in HIV infection, immune activation also appears to drive the progressive decline of an individual's immune system, eventually resulting in AIDS.

In addition to Case Western Reserve University, researchers involved in CLIC are from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Atlanta; University of Montreal; University of Alberta; University of Minnesota; the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda; Rush University, Chicago; and the University of California, San Francisco.

For more information contact Jessica E. Studeny, 216.368.4692.

Samantha Culver is at the forefront of the sports world—though not as a professional athlete. She has scored a position in the front office of the Cleveland Indians Baseball Company LP after studying at Fisk University and now Case Western Reserve.

While working as a staff accountant in the finance division with the Cleveland Indians Major League Baseball organization, Culver has become one of the newest members of a team that has shared education and diversity for nearly eight decades.

The Case-Fisk Partnership, officially created in 2002, offers expanded opportunities in education and research for students, faculty and staff at the two universities. The legacy of dual alumni, however, stretches back to the early 1920s.

Culver has become number 40+ in that long line.

"I feel very honored to be part of this partnership," she said.

After earning a bachelor's degree in accounting from Fisk in Nashville, Tenn.—her hometown—Culver ventured north to work in Cleveland. She is scheduled to graduate with an M.B.A. from the Case Western Reserve Weatherhead School of Management in 2010.

Culver said she chose Fisk, a small historically black liberal arts college with strong academic programs in the humanities and fine arts, natural sciences, mathematics and the social sciences, because of its "rich history."

"My fondest memories of Fisk are meeting so many people from diverse backgrounds and cultures," Culver said. "I also realized the value of continuing my education and that I would accomplish this through studying and hard work."

She selected Case Western Reserve, a large research university with nationally recognized programs in the arts and sciences, dentistry, engineering, law, management, medicine, nursing and social sciences, due to its "prestige throughout the Cleveland community."

"Case Western Reserve, from the beginning, was my top choice for graduate school," Culver said. "I felt as if the M.B.A. program was well established and would be beneficial to my career."

She already knows what will be the best memory from her M.B.A. experience: "The teamwork throughout the graduate studies."

In teaming together, Case and Fisk offer students from both institutions unique options to enroll in dual-degree programs and participate in student exchanges and research projects. As part of the partnership, faculty also join in cooperative research and teaching exchanges and conduct distance-learning courses.

Learn more on the Case-Fisk Partnership Web site.