Holding Pattern - Georgia State University Magazine

MAKING IT
KELLY JENRETTE’S HOLLYWOOD STORY
UNCORKED
NORTH GEORGIA WINE REBOUNDS
D I G I TA L D I G
A TAVERN’S LORE IS ARCHIVED ONLINE
Q 1 . 1 6 MA GA Z I NE.GS U.E DU
M A G A Z I N E
Holding Pattern
The phenomenon of helicopter parenting in higher ed
P. 16
DE VE LOPME NT &
A L U M N I A F FA I R S
CONTENTS
08 Her Big Break
Kelly Jenrette (B.A. ’02) recounts
her decade-long journey to a
starring Hollywood role.
leave a legacy...
support georgia state
09 A Sound Story
Professor Glenn Eskew uses the
Georgia State Library to explore
the legacy of Johnny Mercer.
Sarah Agnew didn’t take up beach volleyball
just because it was fun. She wanted a
challenge. “It was the hardest thing I had
ever done, so I knew it was the sport
that I wanted to do,” she says. Thanks
to scholarships, she’s also been able
to challenge herself with the unique
opportunities made available through
donor support of Georgia State’s Honors
College. And she is thriving — both in the
classroom and on the court.
14 Maria’s Way
Humble beginnings led Maria
Manahan (B.S. ‘94, M.S.’96) from
office assistant to CEO.
the gi ft t hat i g ni te d
my leadership
“Balancing classes with athletics can be hard, but I see
it as more of an opportunity than a challenge, because
they’re both things that I love. The true opportunity lies
in learning how to be a leader both off the court and on.”
Please contact Laura M. Sillins, J.D., at
(404) 413-3425 or [email protected] to
discuss a planned gift today.
OFFICE OF GIFT PLANNING | giftplanning.gsu.edu
22
THE NEW NAPA
Georgia State alums help
to sow Georgia’s burgeoning
wine industry.
16
THE CONSTANT
SHADOW
28
Surveillance by “helicopter
parents” doesn’t stop after
kids get to college.
A CLICK DOWN
MEMORY LANE
Christina Ernst, (B,A, ’98)
of VIP Southern Wine Tours
A professor leads a digital
documentation of the walls of
iconic Manuel’s Tavern.
COVER ILLUSTRATION BY R. KIKUO JOHNSON; THIS PAGE PHOTOGRAPH BY BEN ROLLINS
M A G A Z I N E. G S U. E D U
03
FROM THE PRESIDENT
•
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LETTERS
ADD SENIORS TO THE MIX
Twelve teams posted a GPA
of 3.0 or higher, and 206 studentathletes earned academic honors
for the fall, including a record 44
on the President’s List.
TREMENDOUS UPSIDE
W
HEN GEORGIA STATE began
its football program in 2010,
ESPN the Magazine featured a
cherubic baby wearing Georgia
State eye black and declared “A
Program is Born” on its cover.
It’s been a little more than five years
since we headlined the magazine’s college
football kickoff issue. Georgia State is relatively new to the world of “big-time” intercollegiate athletics and we have much to
do to continue developing the rich traditions and allegiances that can enhance our
student experience and continue to draw
fans and supporters.
But we’ve entered a new phase altogether, and I am proud of the incredible
momentum we have achieved. Under the
leadership of Athletics Director Charlie
Cobb, we have accelerated the upward
trajectory of all of our programs.
Our football team played in its first bowl
game this fall. Although we lost to San
Jose State in the first AutoNation Cure
Bowl, it’s clear our young program has
turned a corner. I’m looking forward to
04
A BOWL GAME AND NCAA TOURNAMENT WIN USHERS
GEORGIA STATE ATHLETICS INTO THE SPOTLIGHT
watching as the team builds upon the
success of our first winning season in the
NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision.
Our men’s basketball team is also eyeing
a return to the postseason. Last year, R.J.
Hunter made a long-distance three-pointer to beat Baylor in the NCAA Tournament
— a basket remembered around here simply as “The Shot.” R.J. is playing for the
Boston Celtics now, but his dad, Ron Hunter, has the Panthers again playing at a high
level in the Sun Belt Conference.
Our beach volleyball team, just three
seasons in, has also had a meteoric rise.
The team was one of just eight programs
out of 50 that competed in the American
Volleyball Coaches Association National
Championship in May. Beach volleyball
has now become an NCAA-sanctioned
sport and teams will compete for a true
national championship for the first time
this spring.
Our student-athletes succeed in the
classroom as well. This fall, they earned a
3.17 cumulative grade-point average (GPA),
the highest on record. Twelve teams post-
G E O R G I A S TAT E U N I V E R S I T Y M A G A Z I N E S P R I N G 2 0 1 6
ed a GPA of 3.0 or higher, and 206 studentathletes earned academic honors for the
fall, including a record 44 on the President’s List.
We are continuing to move forward on
our plans for Turner Field, a project that
will be transformational for the surrounding neighborhoods, the city and our university. It promises to have a momentous
and enduring impact on our university
and our community.
I know our alumni and friends share
my pride in seeing our vision for athletics
mature and grow. We’ve come a long way
in a short time, and Georgia State sports
is now a nationally recognized brand
and getting bigger and better each day.
Go Panthers!
Sincerely,
I had to write and congratulate you on your wonderful coverage of
the consolidation of Georgia State and Georgia Perimeter College. I
graduated from Henry Grady High School in 1959. The next opportunity I had to go back to school was in 1983, to DeKalb College —
which became Georgia Perimeter College. Since I was working at the
time, it took me four years to do the two years’ work. I graduated with
honors in 1987.
After that I went to Georgia State, still working and doing night
classes, and got my degree in anthropology. After that, I received my
master’s in heritage preservation on my 55th birthday in 1994. I loved
every minute of it.
I retired last April from
my job as our church’s
counseling center office
manager and thought,
“Now what do I love to do
the most?” The answer
was go back to school.
I have just finished two
classes back where I started at Georgia Perimeter
College, this time in Dunwoody. I am now 76 and I’m expecting two A’s
in the two classes I finished. My new associate degree will be in English.
Only four more classes to go.
Things have changed a bit. It’s a lot more multicultural. This is one
reason why I think seniors should be included in the plans to consolidate. Although we seniors get to attend tuition-free, I feel our presence is very important to the younger students. Senior citizens can
be encouragers and mentors: We are in school because we are very
motivated, which is contagious.
It takes some bravery to start the whole process, but older students
can help grow the school. Diversity in the student body to include
more seniors will make a difference. Lynne Barfield Byrd (A.S. ’87,
B.S. ’92, M.H.P. ’94)
DIVERSITY LACKING
First, I wish to share how much your magazine means to me. However,
I was stunned that the diversity in photos was lacking. Except for the
back page (with a basketball player) and the back of the front cover
thanking alumni for their legacy, there were no pictures representing
people of color.
I am not a person of color. However I was taken aback by the lack
of inclusion of all races. Vickie Scheer (M.A. ’73)
VIA
TWITTER
Love how @
gsumagazine
organizes and
displays its
social media
interactions via
print.
Matt Henderson
@MattHenderson44 Great overview
of the Perimeter
College addition
to @GeorgiaStateU - looking
forward to the
final vote.
B Parthasarathy
@bpartha VISIT US ONLINE AT
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georgiastateuniversity
For sure there have
been numerous
accounts of Secret
Service agents on
protective details,
but the story on
Michael Pritchard
(B.S. ‘76) was an
insightful and rare
glimpse into the
real-life world of
an agent.
Susan Berry (J.D. ’04)
Spring 2016, Vol 7, Number 1
Publisher Don Hale Executive Editor Andrea Jones Editor William Inman Contributors Ben Austin (B.A. ‘03, M.A. ‘13) Dave Cohen (B.A. ‘94) , Sonya Collins, Charles McNair Copy Editor Ben
Hodges (B.A. ‘08) Creative Director José Reyes for Metaleap Creative MetaleapCreative.com Associate Creative Director Eric Capossela Designer Harold Velarde Contributing Illustrators
Adam Cruft, Andy Friedman, R. Kikuo Johnson, Pablo Lobato, Vincent Mahé, Thomas Porostocky, Alexandra Wang Contributing Photographers Brinson+Banks, Hastings Huggins,
Andrew Thomas Lee, Ben Rollins Send address changes to: Georgia State University Gifts and Records P.O. Box 3963 Atlanta Ga. 30302-3963 Fax: 404-413-3441 e-mail: [email protected] Send
letters to the editor and story ideas to: William Inman, editor, Georgia State University Magazine P.O. Box 3983 Atlanta Ga. 30302-3983 Fax: 404-413-1381 e-mail: [email protected] Georgia
State University Magazine is published four times annually by Georgia State University. The magazine is dedicated to communicating and promoting the high level of academic achievement,
research, faculty scholarship and teaching, and service at Georgia State University, as well as the outstanding accomplishments of its alumni and the intellectual, cultural, social and athletic endeavors
of Georgia State University’s vibrant and diverse student body. © 2016 Georgia State University
Mark P. Becker
President
ILLUSTRATION BY ANDY FRIEDMAN
M A G A Z I N E. G S U. E D U
05
IN THE CITY
MAKING IT
After nine years in Hollywood, Kelly Jenrette
(B.A. ’02) is ready for her close-up.
BY DAVE COHEN (B.A. ’94)
PHOTOS BY BRINSON+BANKS
CAMPUS
WINNING BID
Georgia State will redevelop Turner Field.
The City of Atlanta and Atlanta Fulton
County Recreation Authority announced
Georgia State and its two partners, Carter
and Associates, and Oakwood Development as the winning bidders for the redevelopment of Turner Field and about 70
acres of adjacent property.
“Georgia State is extremely pleased that
this important next step has been taken
in the redevelopment of the Turner Field
site,” said President Mark Becker. “The
Turner Field project will be transformational for the surrounding neighborhoods,
the city and our university, and we embrace our responsibility to work closely
with community and civic leaders in getting it done.”
The $300 million plan calls for a redesign of Turner Field to serve as the home
field for Panthers football, a new 1,500-seat
baseball stadium on the footprint of the
former Atlanta-Fulton County stadium,
academic facilities, student housing, apartments, single-family residences and retail.
A final sales agreement has yet to be
reached but Becker says no state funding
nor a student fee increase will be necessary. Keisha Lance Bottoms, executive director of the City Atlanta and Fulton County Recreation Authority, said the Georgia State team was selected because of its
capability to renovate or replace Turner
Field with a major facility and to provide
housing, retail and employment opportunities for existing and future residents
within five years.
“Our most important objective is that
the future redevelopment of this area is
one that we can all be proud of. We believe
that we have the right match for Turner
Field and the surrounding communities,”
Bottoms said.
06
DOWNTOWN LIVING
GEORGIA STATE WILL SOON UNVEIL LATEST
STUDENT HOUSING COMPLEX.
NEW HOME: This fall, the university will admit students to a new
housing and dining hall complex at the intersection of Piedmont
and John Wesley Dobbs avenues, called Piedmont Central.
The new building will house about 1,100 students, making it the
second-largest student housing facility on campus.
BUILDING PARTNERS: The facility is the first in the University System of Georgia to
be built and operated under a new public-private partnership between the system
and Corvias Campus Living.
SENSE OF PLACE: President Mark Becker said the project is the latest in a longterm institutional goal to have on-campus housing for more than 20 percent of the
undergraduate population. The partnership with Corvias allows for a more efficient
way to move forward with student housing projects, Becker added.
G E O R G I A S TAT E U N I V E R S I T Y M A G A Z I N E S P R I N G 2 0 1 6
ILLUSTRATION BY VINCENT MAHÉ
M A G A Z I N E. G S U. E D U
07
• Panther Family Visit
magazine.gsu.edu for a
short video of the sign
unveiling ceremony at
MAKING IT
Georgia State’s Perimeter College location in
Clarkston, Ga.
• Brag with your Tag
Show your Georgia
State spirit and help
support scholarships by
choosing the Georgia
State license plate when
you purchase or renew
your tag.
51,000
Students at Georgia State University after
the January consolidation with Georgia
Perimeter College.
ENSURING OPPORTUNITY
Grants bolster Georgia State’s Summer
Success Academy.
N
o one can accuse Kelly Jenrette of not chasing her dream.
Before Jenrette landed her current gig starring alongside John Stamos
in the Fox TV series “Grandfathered,” she lived through nearly a decade
of auditions, rejections and bit parts patiently waiting for that big break.
“Somebody once told me Harrison Ford was asked what the difference
was between him and some of his friends as far being in the industry and
he said, ‘I stayed and they didn’t,’” Jenrette said. “I have had friends who have come and
gone, and nine years is a long time to be out here pursuing things.”
While it may have taken some time for her to land a big-time role, Jenrette says she has
no regrets.
“For me, it’s really been about being able to pay my bills doing what I love to do,” she said.
“There are stories of overnight success that people tend to latch onto and have that expectation [but] the expectation should be doing the work and having fun at it.”
At Georgia State, she was part of a theatre group called The Thearadicals where she
“had to do just about everything — direct, some behind the scenes stage managing, lighting and building sets. It was really a great program to be a part of.”
She remembers well that moment when she knew she wanted to pursue a full-time acting career.
“I thought I wanted to be a forensic psychologist,” she said. But after her second year of
college, she realized that “I would much rather play a forensic psychologist on TV than be
one in real life.”
In “Grandfathered,” Jenrette plays Annalise Wilkinson, the no-nonsense assistant
08
G E O R G I A S TAT E U N I V E R S I T Y M A G A Z I N E S P R I N G 2 0 1 6
and right-hand woman to Jimmy Martino
(played by Stamos), a successful restaurant owner and playboy who discovers he
has an adult son with a young daughter
from a previous relationship.
During her audition, Jenrette found out
Stamos would be reading with her.
“It was crazy!” she said. “We did the
scene three times, and about about three
days later I found out I had booked the role.”
In October, Fox announced the sitcom
would be picked up for a full season.
For Jenrette, that 2006 decision to head
to Hollywood is finally paying off.
“There were moments where you feel
like, ‘Is this ever going to happen?’” she
said. “After hearing hundreds and hundreds of ‘no’s’ and then you hear that one
‘yes,’ it truly is a dream come true.”
Georgia State has been awarded two
grants totaling $1.2 million to improve and
expand its Summer Success Academy, a
program supporting incoming freshmen
who may need help in the transition to the
college classroom.
The Kresge Foundation made a
$981,000 grant and ECMC contributed
$250,000 to support the Academy.
The program has increased the retention rate for students enrolled in the
academy from 50 percent in 2011 to 87
percent today.
“We are thrilled to receive this generous support from the Kresge and ECMC
Foundations,” said Timothy M. Renick,
vice provost and vice president for
enrollment management and student
success. “The Success Academy has already changed the lives of hundreds
of students, affording them the opportunity to succeed in college. These grants
will help us expand the program and
create a blueprint for other universities to
follow nationally.”
Hundreds of students have benefitted
from the academy, and many participants
were representative of groups that struggle, including first-generation and low-income students, as well as members of underrepresented minority groups.
IT’S OFFICIAL
Georgia State consolidates with Georgia
Perimeter College.
Georgia State became the largest university in Georgia and one of the largest in the
nation with the approval of its consolidation with Georgia Perimeter College by the
Board of Regents on Jan. 6.
The board’s approval was the final step
in a year-long process to consolidate the
two institutions, which have a long history
of collaboration. The consolidation will become fully operational when classes begin
in fall 2016.
CONT’D ON P.10
ILLUSTRATION BY PABLO LOBATO
A SINGER’S STORY
HISTORY PROFESSOR GLENN ESKEW DIVES INTO THE LIBRARY’S
MERCER COLLECTION FOR HIS NEW BOOK, “JOHNNY MERCER:
SOUTHERN SONGWRITER FOR THE WORLD.”
Not many people
realize the Georgia
State library holds
the Johnny Mercer
Collection. How did
we get it?
George Manners, the first
dean of the business school,
and his brother Nick were
friends of Johnny’s wife
Ginger and persuaded her
to donate to Georgia State
his private and professional
papers as well as his memorabilia and unfinished biography. Manners also convinced
the school to create a new
Popular Music Archives in its
Special Collection to attract
the Mercer papers.
What are some
of the highlights ?
There are letters between
Johnny and just about
everyone who was anyone
in American entertainment
in the 20th century. I loved
reading the personal correspondence he received from
his friends and colleagues
such as Bing Crosby, Bob
Hope, Louis Armstrong and
Fred Astaire. Among the
most famous is the back of a
daily calendar page on which
Sadie Vimmerstedt wrote “I
Wanna Be Around To Pick Up
the Pieces When Somebody
Breaks Your Heart.” The photos are also amazing. It would
be hard to select a single one
to highlight.
What inspired you to
write the book?
My interest in Mercer derived from a love of jazz
music and a desire to undertake a research project on a
Georgia topic that focused
on Southern culture. Mercer played an integral role
in America’s popular music
as a songwriter, as one of
the country’s most popular
entertainers on radio and
records, and as co-founder
of Capitol Records.
•
Read more at magazine.gsu.edu
M A G A Z I N E. G S U. E D U
09
IN THE CITY
“This is not only a historic day for
Georgia State University and Georgia Perimeter College, it is also an important day
for the students of Georgia,” said President Mark Becker. “We look forward to
helping thousands more students graduate with the support of our nationally
recognized programs aimed at ensuring
student success.” Georgia State has become a national
model for student success by dramatically increasing graduation rates over the
last decade. The university has closed the
achievement gap, proving that students
from all backgrounds can succeed at similar rates.
The board’s approval of the consolidation came a month after the Southern
Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, a regional higher
education accrediting body, approved
a prospectus and plan for the proposed
consolidation.
Peter Lyons, Georgia State’s associate
provost for institutional effectiveness
and a professor of social work in the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, was
named Perimeter College’s first vice provost and dean in November.
DISCOVERY
TEST IMPROVEMENTS
School of Public Health makes breakthrough in prediabetes research.
With a staggering 130 million Americans
projected to have prediabetes by 2050, research at the School of Public Health has
uncovered a milestone toward early detection. Prediabetes warning signs can now
be better detected by combining two common blood sugar tests.
Ike S. Okosun, associate professor
in the school, says improving detection
of prediabetes would “motivate subjects with prediabetes to seek preven­
tative care.”
“Given the increasing prevalence of
type 2 diabetes, coming up with methods
10
to catch the disease and stop the disease is
a public health imperative,” Okosun said.
Current methods can miss cases of prediabetes, giving some people a false sense
that they are free of the condition.
Most people being tested for prediabetes undergo either a fasting plasma glucose test, which measures their blood
sugar after a period of not eating or an
oral glucose test, which measures their
blood sugar soon after consuming a certain amount of
carbohydrate.
The American Diabetes Association
supports the use
Percent rise in Early
of a different test
Action applications
— the hemoglobin
over last year. Early
A1C (HbA1C) test
Action applicants
to diagnose paare those for whom
tients with type 2
Georgia State is a
diabetes.
top choice school.
Okosun’s study
noted that the oral
glucose test is the benchmark diagnostic
but is also “laborious and uncomfortable
to patients.”
The research, based on an analysis of
data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys, shows that
measuring both a person’s fasting plasma
glucose and hemoglobin A1C results in
more accurate detection across age, body
mass and race or ethnicity than using just
one of the tests.
55
REMEMBER YOUR LUNCH
Researchers find that eating sweets
causes the brain to remember meals.
According to researchers at Georgia State,
Georgia Regents University and the Charlie Norwood VA Medical Center, the part of
the brain that is critical for episodic memory is activated by consuming sweets.
Episodic memory is the memory of autobiographical events experienced at a particular time and place.
“We think that episodic memory can be
used to control eating behavior,” said Marise
Parent, professor in the Neuroscience Institute at Georgia State. “We make decisions
like ‘I probably won’t eat now. I had a big
breakfast.’ We make decisions based on our
memory of what and when we ate.”
That possibility is supported by the researchers’ previous work, which showed
that temporarily inactivatCONT’D ON P.12
G E O R G I A S TAT E U N I V E R S I T Y M A G A Z I N E S P R I N G 2 0 1 6
CREATING OPPORTUNITY
Former basketball star Odie Donald (B.A. ’03, MBA
’12) helps others gain skills for a strong workforce.
BY DAVE COHEN (B.A. ’94)
PHOTO BY ANDREW THOMAS LEE
I
n the summer of 2000, Odie
Donald transferred home
to Atlanta from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga to be closer to his
mother, Patricia (B.S. ‘90),
who was ill. The former top-50 high
school recruit in basketball also
hoped to become a contributor to
then head coach Charles “Lefty”
Driesell’s squad.
But Donald got a bad break, literally. The 6-foot 9 power forward
broke his wrist and never played in
a game for the Panthers.
“I still have those metal screws,”
he said.
Despite that injury, Donald received offers to play professionally
in Mexico, Jordan and China. During the summers, with his mother
fully recovered, Donald would come
home to chip away at his degree.
After an internship with Joint Action and Community Service, a nonprofit that helps at-risk youth find
productive jobs, Donald decided to
shelve his hoop dreams and begin
what is now a 13- year career in workforce and economic development.
Along the way, Donald came back to
earn his MBA.
As the workforce innovation and
opportunity act services director
for the Georgia Department of Economic Development, Donald has
been recognized as one of Georgia
Trend’s 40 under 40.
In January, Donald headed to
Washington D.C. to become executive director for the Workforce Investment Council there.
“There’s a lot of responsibility,”
he said of his work, “but you’re also
able to see how lives are changed
and having some influence on that
is something I am really proud of.”
M A G A Z I N E. G S U. E D U
11
IN THE CITY
A BETTER METHOD
ing dorsal hippocampal neurons following a meal involving sweets accelerates
the onset of the next meal and causes rats
to eat more.
Forming memories of meals is important to a healthy diet. Studies show that
disrupting the memory of a meal, such
as by watching television, increases the
amount of food consumed during the next
meal. Researchers have found that people
with amnesia will eat again if presented
with food, even if they’ve already eaten,
because they have no memory of the meal.
To understand energy regulation and
the causes of obesity, scientists must consider how the brain controls meal onset
and frequency, Parent said.
Studies have found that increased
snacking is correlated positively with
obesity, and obese individuals snack
more frequently than people who aren’t
obese. Research also shows that over the
past three decades, children and adults
are eating more snacks per day and deriving more of their daily calories from
snacks, mostly in the form of desserts and
sweetened beverages.
PROTECTING THE GENOME
Professor gets major grant to study cancer and DNA replication.
Ivaylo Ivanov, associate professor of
chemistry, has received a five-year, $1.675
million federal grant to study how problems with DNA replication and repair may
lead to cancer susceptibility and inheritable genetic diseases. DNA replication and repair are essential
life processes that are critical for maintaining the genome, or an organism’s complete
set of DNA, including all of its genes.
Ivanov will analyze certain core replication complexes that are crucial for repairing damaged DNA and intimately connected to cancer initiation and progression.
“This has implications for human
health because the maintenance of the
genome is tightly linked to disease, specifically cancer or inherited genetic disorders,” Ivanov said.
Ivanov will use advanced computational methods to analyze structural data that
are supplied by collaborators from across
the country. His goal is to model and structurally characterize the assembly of key
proteins that are critical in DNA replication and repair activities.
12
3,600
Undergraduate students admitted in December. Of those students, 673 were admitted to
the Honors College.
CREATIVITY
THE BOOK ON GALILEO
Associate Professor of History Nick
Wilding is lauded for his research on the
influential scientist.
Nick Wilding may be the preeminent researcher on famed Italian scientist Galileo
Galilei. In 2008, he discovered an important Galileo biography that had been missing for 200 years, and in 2014 he discovered a forgery in “The Siderius Nuncius,”
Galileo’s most important work, that led to
the arrest of a rare-book criminal.
Late last year, the Modern Language
Association of America presented Wilding with the Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione
Prize for Italian Studies for his new book,
“Galileo’s Idol: Gianfrancesco Sagredo and
the Politics of Knowledge.”
The award is bestowed biennially for
an outstanding book by a member of the
association in the field of Italian literature
or comparative literature.
The selection committee’s citation
for Wilding’s book reads, “‘Galileo’s Idol’
presents a vivid portrayal of a peculiar but
very fruitful interaction between two early
modern men — Sagredo was Galileo’s student and patron and friend.”
ATHLETICS
CONFERENCE TRIUMVIRATE
Panthers’ quarterback, wide receiver and
head coach headline All-Sun Belt team.
Georgia State boasts the Sun Belt Conference Student-Athlete of the Year, quarterback Nick Arbuckle, Freshman of the
Year, wide receiver Penny Hart, and the
G E O R G I A S TAT E U N I V E R S I T Y M A G A Z I N E S P R I N G 2 0 1 6
league’s Coach of the Year, Trent Miles.
Wide receiver Robert Davis and safety Tarris Batiste were also named first-team AllSun Belt performers.
Miles, who led the team to the program’s first bowl game, gave credit to his
fellow coaches.
“I’m very honored and humbled, but the
award really goes to our coaching staff,”
Miles said.
Arbuckle finished season by setting Sun
Belt records with 4,368 yards passing and
4,273 yards of total offense. He also owns
Georgia State season records for completions (307), touchdown passes (28) and
total offense (4,273).
Arbuckle’s top target during the season
was Hart, who led the Sun Belt in receptions (5.5 per game) and receiving yards
(84.5 per game) while ranking third with
eight touchdown receptions. He tied the
Georgia State season records with 71 receptions and eight touchdown catches
and set a Sun Belt freshman record with
1,099 receiving yards, the second-highest
season total in school history.
WITH CLASS
Student-athletes post highest-ever GPA.
Georgia State student-athletes capped
a year of unprecedented success on the
playing field with another record-setting
year in the classroom, ending the fall semester with a 3.17 cumulative grade-point
average (GPA) the highest figure on record, and a 3.16 semester GPA, equaling
the program high.
The Athletic Department has posted a
GPA of 3.0 or higher (semester or cumulative) for 15 consecutive semesters, dating
back to the fall of 2008. The Panthers have
been at 3.12 or higher for both semester
and cumulative GPA for the last three full
semesters.
Twelve Georgia State programs
achieved a team GPA of 3.0 or better for
the semester, led by women’s golf (3.79),
cross country (3.78), beach volleyball
(3.72) and men’s golf (3.52).
A total 206 student-athletes earned aca-
ProCA1.GRPR, which
can image GRPR without the use of radiation,
is expected to have
implications for early
cancer detection.
BIOMARKER
Gastrin-releasing peptide receptors (GRPR)
are expressed on the
surfaces of various
diseased cells, including prostate and lung
cancer.
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your network by visiting
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demic honors for the fall semester, including a record 44 Panthers on the President’s
List. Georgia State’s highest academic distinction signifies a semester GPA of 4.0 or
higher with at least nine credit hours. The
Athletic Department boasts 20 or more
President’s List honorees for the sixth
straight semester.
The softball program led the way with
seven President’s List honorees, followed
by baseball and
beach volleyball
with six each and
football, women’s
soccer and womPercent of newly aden’s golf with four
mitted students are
apiece.
from Georgia, while
Another 70 in14 percent are outdividuals achieved
of-state applicants.
Dean’s List status
with a semester
GPA of 3.5 or higher and at least nine credit hours, while 92 student-athletes were
named to the Athletic Director’s Honor
Roll with a semester GPA of 3.2 or higher.
86
RADIATION EFFECTS
Monitoring GRPR using
magnetic resonance
imaging is hampered by
other imaging agents
used to spot cancerous
tissue.
ENHANCING EARLY
DETECTION
ALUMNI
GEORGIA STATE RESEARCHERS HAVE DEVELOPED A NEW WAY
TO MORE EFFECTIVELY DIAGNOSE AND TREAT CANCERS.
A new technique developed at Georgia State has
shown to be an accurate
and non-invasive method
to trace changes in cancers and treatment without
using radiation.
Led by Jenny Yang,
Distinguished University
Professor and associate
director of the Center for
Diagnostics and Therapeutics, researchers developed a new imaging agent
they named ProCA1.GRPR
and demonstrated that
it leads to strong tumor
penetration and is capable
of targeting the gastrin-
ILLUSTRATION BY THOMAS POROSTOCKY
releasing peptide receptor
expressed on the surface
of diseased cells, including
prostate, cervical and lung
cancer.
“ProCA1.GRPR has a
strong clinical translation
for human application and
represents a major step
forward in the quantitative imaging of disease biomarkers without the use of
radiation,” Yang said. “This
information is valuable for
staging disease progression and monitoring treatment effects.”
The researchers’ results
are an important advance-
ment for molecular imaging with a unique ability
to quantitatively detect
expression level and spatial distribution of disease
predictors without using
radiation.
Improved imaging
agents such as ProCA1.
GRPR have implications in
understanding disease development and treatment.
The study was funded
by the National Institutes
of Health, the University
of Georgia Bio-imaging
Research Center and
Georgia Research Alliance
Ventures.
CITY BEAUTIFUL
Dan Reuter (M.S. ’92) manages the
Atlanta Regional Commission’s Livable
Centers Initiative.
For Dan Reuter, a bad economy turned
out to be a good thing. Reuter hoped to
start a career as a land developer, but because of a poor market in the late 1980s, he
found himself pursuing a graduate degree
at Georgia State instead.
“I wanted to study problems in big cities and urban places, specifically the metro Atlanta area, including the creation of
more mixed-use livable urban centers,”
Reuter said.
He now manages the Livable Centers Initiative of the Atlanta Regional
Commission’s (ARC) Center for Livable
Communities. This initiative was created in 1999 — the same year Reuter joined
the ARC — to help fund
CONT’D ON P.15
M A G A Z I N E. G S U. E D U
13
MARIA’S WAY
The CEO of Hemophilia of Georgia has led an
altruistic career spanning three decades.
BY BEN AUSTIN (B.A. ’03, M.A. ’13)
14
PHOTO BY ANDREW THOMAS LEE
G E O R G I A S TAT E U N I V E R S I T Y M A G A Z I N E S P R I N G 2 0 1 6
M
aria Perez Manahan
(B.S. ’94, M.S. ’96) contemplated her next
step. Her boss was retiring. It was expected
that she would add her
resume with the other hopefuls to lead Hemophilia of Georgia. She wasn’t so sure.
“Am I wired like a CEO?” she wondered.
On paper, yes. Working her way from office assistant to vice president, Manahan’s
life encompassed the experiences and
training that lead one to the final stop in
the chain of command. Chief executive was
the natural fit.
Forty-five years earlier the question
would have registered purely as fantasy.
When she was nine, her father relocated
the family from Cuba to another island —
Manhattan — for six months before settling finally in Atlanta.
“You can imagine leaving Cuba in the
middle of winter and arriving in New York
City in January with no coats, nothing,” Manahan said.
In the summer of 1971 the family moved
to Atlanta and learning became a constant
in her life. She learned conversational English in a couple of months; she elevated to
the top of her class by seventh grade and
graduated a year early. She got a job and
began helping her parents financially.
“That’s all I wanted. A job.” she said “And
[to] get married.”
He was a Georgia boy named Russell.
They met at church, and they married when
Manahan was 19. Neither attended college,
both worked very hard, and a few years later her daughter Natalie was born.
Manahan got a secretarial job at a church
with a daycare to keep Natalie close. She
was good at the job, but the family always
would make only just enough. She and her
husband talked it over, and decided Maria
would enroll in college.
A few years after graduation she returned to get her master’s, this time concentrating on the business side. That path,
nonprofit first, business later, fit her.
“I could have gone into business,” she
said. “But I don’t think I would have been
as fulfilled as I am in the nonprofit sector.”
This past March came the news. Maria
Perez Manahan, who came to the United States as a stranger in a strange land,
would be adding a new title to her resume.
• Shared Experiences
Visit magazine.gsu.edu
for a Web exclusive story
on how life growing up
development projects in municipalities
across the metro area.
Reuter’s division handles state-required
local and regional planning special programs like housing, creating walkable
mixed-use spaces, planning around MARTA rail stations and leadership programs.
Reuter lists many reasons why Atlanta
is unique in its urban development, such
as its high in-migration rate from more expensive areas, “legacy assets” such as Coca-Cola and Home
Depot, its standing
as the cradle of the
Civil Rights movement, and instituGeorgia State’s place
tions such as The
in a U.S. News rankCarter Center and
ing of the top collegHartsfield-Jackes making the most
son International
innovative improveAirport.
ments in terms of
However, Atlancurriculum, faculty,
ta also faces develstudents, campus
opment hurdles.
life, technology or
“Growth patfacilities.
terns are creating
more urban densities, leading to gentrification of neighborhoods,” Reuter said. “Atlanta will see a
lot of displacement and new challenges
as a result.”
Although many planning challenges
can be both positive and negative, there
is a solution that Atlanta has a rich history
in producing.
“Most of the issues in big cities aren’t
drawing something on a piece of paper,
but about making partnerships and getting resources to take action,” Reuter said.
“A lot of different skills are needed.”
as “military brats” has
made a positive impact on
five women’s basketball
players.
• Panther Cub Club Panthers under 10 are eligible
to join the Panther Cub
Club. Cubs will receive
an official Panther birth
certificate and a special
gift. Visit pantheralumni.
com to join .
5
CHANGE AGENT
Cheryl Johnson (B.A. ‘08, M.A. ’11) leads
the emerging work on HIV self-testing
Cheryl Johnson’s groundbreaking work
is creating ripple effects internationally.
After earning her master’s degree in
anthropology and a certificate of Public
Health, Johnson accepted a position as a
Global Health Fellow, where she had the
opportunity to intern at the U.S. Agency
for International Development (USAID).
“I was tasked to learn everything I could
about HIV self-testing and what the implications might be for global health,” she
said. “In the process, I found my passion
for HIV testing and innovative approach-
ILLUSTRATION BY ADAM CRUFT
CHERYL JOHNSON (B.A. ’08, M.A. ’11)
“I was tasked to learn everything
I could about HIV self-testing
and what the implications might
be for global health.”
es, like self-testing, to improve global access to health services.”
Her time with USAID showed her a
unique route for channeling that passion.
In 2013, Johnson accepted a job with the
World Health Organization (WHO) to
provide technical support on HIV testing services.
Her time with the WHO has been nothing short of dynamic.
“One of the most rewarding parts of
my career has been the development of
the WHO Consolidated Guidelines on HIV
testing services, which includes new approaches like self-testing and allowing lay
provider HIV testing services,” she said.
Her work has worldwide impact — and
the world is taking notice. Johnson was
featured on the Forbes Magazine 2016 list
of 30 under 30 for Healthcare.
“The most rewarding part has been the
opportunity to connect and collaborate
with so many communities, policymakers
and health experts all over the world,” she
said. “And to work together to improve
health outcomes and the provision of quality health services every single day.”
Got a promotion? A new addition to the family? Go ahead,
brag a little. Visit magazine.gsu.edu for news from your classmates and fellow Georgia State alumni.
M A G A Z I N E. G S U. E D U
15
The phenomenon of
helicopter parenting
in higher ed
BY SONYA COLLINS
I L LU ST R AT I O N S BY R . K I K U O J O H N S O N
17
When I was kid,
my mom would
send me out
to play after
breakfast and I
wouldn’t come
home until dinner.
18
Scores of older Americans describe
their childhoods this way. Kids today
know little of this freedom to wander
during unstructured Saturdays. Between organized play dates and soccer
games coached by mom or dad, today’s
kids grow up with a lot more parental
supervision than their parents did.
One particular brand of supervision
— where mom or dad is always hovering just a few feet away even after their
children have grown — has become
something of a cultural phenomenon.
Last year alone, helicopter parents and
their adult children were the subject
of stories in Forbes, Time, U.S. News
& World Report, Los Angeles Times,
Washington Post, New York Times,
New York Post and Psychology Today.
G E O R G I A S TAT E U N I V E R S I T Y M A G A Z I N E S P R I N G 2 0 1 6
In these stories, parents called graduate school admissions
offices on their children’s behalf and sat in on meetings with
their grown son’s and daughter’s professional career coaches,
among other jaw-dropping faux pas.
Studies show that the parenting style probably hasn’t
reached the epidemic proportions the media suggest, but it
is nevertheless a reality professors, administrators and students face at many universities.
What is helicopter parenting?
Helicopter parents, as they are portrayed in the media, are
over-involved and oppressive, never letting their children
make their own decisions and never letting them fail. But
that’s not the whole story.
“Helicopter parenting has three elements: overinvolvement; not granting your child age-appropriate autonomy;
and benevolent intentions. They don’t want to harm their
kids. They want to protect them from harm,” says Kyong-Ah
Kwon, an associate professor in the College of Education and
Human Development.
Kwon and her colleague Gary Bingham, also an associate
professor in the college, recently published research on college students’ perceptions of helicopter parents in the Journal
of Child and Family Studies.
Does it happen at Georgia State?
For Angela Hall-Godsey, associate director of the lower division in the Department of English, helicopter parents are all
in a day’s work.
“We hear from parents when their student is failing a class
or has been charged with plagiarism or academic dishonesty,” says Hall-Godsey. “We have parents who demand that
their student be removed from a class because it requires
them to use Twitter or Facebook and they don’t want their
child — even though the student is 18 years old — on social
media. Parents call because an instructor used profanity in
class. They call to provide false alibis for their children when
they’ve missed class.”
The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act prohibits
college faculty from discussing student information with parents. But when parents go to bat for their college students,
the students sign those privacy rights away.
Hall-Godsey has faced parents who march into her office
flanked with lawyers or a big entourage.
“A mother whose son had plagiarized came in and she
was irate,” Hall-Godsey says. “She showed up with six other
people and said that we were going to be in trouble. She really
didn’t need all those people. It was intimidating.”
Another parent, a local judge, threatened to sue the university on a technicality. His daughter had been charged with
plagiarism, and the father didn’t refute that. He wanted the
charge dropped, however, because the university notified her
via email rather than a pink carbon copy form.
“The old policy says that the student needs to be notified
We want children to have
an internal locus of control,
where they own their
behavior, and they realize
that what they did was their
responsibility.
via triplicate — a pink piece of paper.
We’ve since gotten rid of that because
we have email. So he claimed he was going to sue because his daughter didn’t
receive a pink piece of paper,” Hall-Godsey recalls.
After the English Department retained legal counsel and spent a month
preparing for the appeal, the young
woman and her father didn’t show up.
“The threat to sue was just a bullying tactic,” Hall-Godsey says. “That’s
the lesson he was attempting to teach
his daughter: Don’t worry, if you plagiarize you can bully your way out of that.”
A changed worldview
When these students get out into the
world, Hall-Godsey suspects they are
ill-equipped for adult responsibilities.
“I have to believe that students who
understand that their education is their
responsibility, and that they will suffer the consequences of their own bad
choices, will learn how to make better
choices,” she says. “That has to affect
them as adults when they get out into
the working world.”
Research shows that helicopter parents, by swooping in to solve their children’s problems, create in their kids a
sense that the things that happen to
them are not their fault.
“It creates what we call an external
locus of control,” says Bingham. “We
want children to have an internal locus
of control, where they own their behavior, and they realize that what they did
was their responsibility. And we want
parents to realize that if they over-control their child, they’re often helping
their child develop a very wrong way of
looking at the world and how it works.”
Why now?
“Helicopter parent” is not a new term.
By some accounts it first appeared in
Haim Ginott’s 1969 book “Between Parent and Teenager.” But mounting academic research suggests that the rise
of this parenting style is a more recent
phenomenon.
M A G A Z I N E. G S U. E D U
Who are these parents?
A number of circumstances over the
last few decades might help perpetuate the hovering. Some researchers
mark the kidnappings of the late ’70s
and early ’80s — such as six-year-olds
Adam Walsh of Hollywood, Fla., and
Etan Patz of New York City — as the end
of the days when kids could roam free.
Children who once walked to school
alone now don’t even wait at the bus
stop alone.
These days, so-called “free-range parents,” who let their kids walk to school
or play in the park unsupervised, may
be considered more anomalous than
their helicopter counterparts. In the
last couple of years, parents in South
Carolina, Florida and Maryland were arrested or investigated for child neglect
because their children were playing in
parks without an adult.
While fear of foul play — or of arrest
for neglect — may motivate parents of
little ones to hover, what keeps them in
a holding pattern when their kids are 18,
19 and 20 years old?
“Technology,” says Kwon, “is partly to blame.” Today’s parents have unprecedented means — Facebook, Twitter, Instagram among countless other
platforms — of surveilling their children. And adult children willingly tether themselves to parents through cell
phones, dubbed by many “the world’s
longest umbilical cord.” College kids
who might’ve checked in with parents
weekly just 20 years ago now interact
with their folks by phone or text multiple times a day. The result is parents
who are far more involved in the dayto-day lives of their grown children than
those of generations past.
Technology also allows students and
their parents to receive instant alerts
about crime and other dangers happening on or near school campuses. The
constant barrage of unsettling information can feed a parent’s suspicion that
their child is alone in an unsafe world
that they don’t know how to navigate.
And technology gives those anxious
parents instant access to professors.
Phone numbers, email addresses, office locations and hours are all online.
Any parent can find a professor’s email address, but not all of
them would consider making contact. When Kwon asked her
colleagues in the College of Education and Human Development whether they had ever encountered a helicopter parent,
those who had met them cited experiences at other schools
that typically have a more affluent student body.
“In the 10 years I have taught here, I have had no helicopterparent experiences compared to three incidents while teaching one course at Emory,” says Rhina Fernandes Williams, a
clinical assistant professor.
What’s the difference? For one thing, parents of Emory
students are more likely to have gone to college themselves.
Forty percent of Georgia State students are the first in their
family to go to college. A college degree may equip parents to
offer their children specific advice on how to succeed in college and to intervene on their child’s behalf. They know how
to navigate academia and it doesn’t intimidate them.
“Most of the parents I hear from went to college, or at least
they claim they did,” says Hall-Godsey. “They’ll call and say
that they received degrees from prestigious universities and
that their child’s paper was well-written and should have
received an A.”
Parents of younger students may also be more likely to try
to argue grades and policies with their children’s professors
G E O R G I A S TAT E U N I V E R S I T Y M A G A Z I N E S P R I N G 2 0 1 6
The helicopter parents
are constantly telling
their children, ‘This is
how you play school.
This is how you win at this
college thing, and this is
how you win at life.’ At
Georgia State, I feel like we
need to be those mentors.
lack of these parental intercessions at
Georgia State points to a different issue. While children of helicopter parents may need to learn to be independent, first-generation college students
may need extra initiation into college
life that other students don’t.
The university addresses some of
these specific needs through the voluntary Gen1: First Generation Success
Programs. Its mission is to foster a
smooth transition into college for firstgeneration students. But Williams sees
a place for professors to help these students individually as well.
“I think the helicopter parents are
constantly telling their children, ‘This
is how you play school. This is how you
win at this college thing, and this is how
you win at life.’ At Georgia State, I feel
like we need to be those mentors,” says Williams. “That we
don’t have as many helicopter parents means we need to be
even more intentional and mindful of how we help our students become successful.”
What’s to be done?
than those of students further along in
their studies. Hall-Godsey frequently
hears from parents of students in 1000and 2000-level classes, but never from
parents of students in the 3000-level
classes she teaches.
Here in Georgia, the HOPE scholarship might also prompt parents to fight
their kids’ grades.
“Students on the HOPE Scholarship
have to maintain a certain grade point
average. So families feel they really have
to argue the grades in order to try to keep
that tuition assistance,” says Hall-Godsey.
Different students,
different needs
The majority of college students are
probably not under helicopter control.
“Based on our research, the prevalence of helicopter parenting is probably a bit overestimated in the mass media,” Kwon says. “That’s partly because
of the informant they interview with.
If they interview school counselors or
administrators, they will hear about all
sorts of problems because they are interviewing the people who deal with
those issues.”
But the opposite extreme is not ideal
either. Williams doesn’t miss the uncomfortable interactions she had with
a handful of parents at Emory, but the
Sonya Collins is
an Atlanta-based
independent journalist who covers health,
health policy and
scientific research.
She is a regular
contributor to
WebMD Magazine,
Pharmacy Today,
Genome and CURE.
The airspace over Ivy League campuses may be more congested with hovering parents than the skies over downtown
Atlanta. Still, faculty at colleges everywhere are meeting more
meddlesome moms and dads than they did in decades past. At
Georgia State, parent orientation seminars aim to clarify what
is and isn’t an appropriate level of involvement.
“I’ve attended a couple of the seminars, and they’re very
clear that parents can’t be involved because their children
are adults now,” says Hall-Godsey. “They say that you can’t
argue for a grade, but you can encourage your student to attend class and those kinds of things.”
But she doesn’t know if all the parents are getting the message. Few students try to resolve the problem directly with
their professor before their parents contact Hall-Godsey.
“When the problem arises,” Hall-Godsey says, “it’s often
that we hear from the parents right away. The students very
rarely contact us. It’s just all of a sudden we start getting
emails from a parent.”
Parents ought to encourage their children to solve these
problems, says Bingham, rather than taking the situation into
their own hands.
“Research shows parents need to provide a secure base.,”
Bingham says. “You can be warm and supportive, but your
child still needs to find the way to solve the problem his- or
herself. Rather than ‘How can I help?’ there needs to be a switch
to ‘What do you think?’ ‘What are you going to do?’” 21
M A G A Z I N E. G S U. E D U
T
23
E
★
SPR
ING 20
★
I
M AGA Z I N
16
A
E UNIVERS
TY
R
GEO GIA S
AT
RESERVE
RETURNS
North Georgia wine is on the rebound and a handful of Georgia State alums are helping to uncork the industry.
BY WILLIAM INMAN
PHOTOS BY BEN ROLLINS
SP
RI
NG
G I A S TAT E
Opposite: Charles (B.A. ‘98) and Christina
Ernst (B.A. ’98) of VIP Southern Wine Tours.
Left: Eric Miller (B.Mu. ’01), general manager of
Yonah Mountain Vineyards.
★
24
AZINE
OR
IVERSITY M
AG
UN
2016 ★ G
E
SAUTEE NACOOCHEE,
GEORGIA—
Beneath a craggy outcropping of Yonah
Mountain here in the foothills of the Appalachians, rows and rows of vitis vinifera belonging to the Miller family grow on
about 20 acres of hillsides. The vinifera, or
old world wine grapes, include well known
varietals such as sauvignon blanc, chardonnay, merlot and malbec.
That chardonnay, people swear, stacks up
against some of the finest from Napa Valley.
“Six out of 10 chose ours,” says Eric Miller (B.Mu. ‘01), general manager for Yonah
Mountain Vineyards, remembering a recent head to head against a celebrated Sonoma County chardonnay during one of
the vineyard’s wine cave tours and tastings.
“People are starting to take notice of us
up here,” Miller says.
He’s right, there’s something in these hills.
(Legend has it the gold nugget that set off
Georgia’s gold rush of the 1890s was found
in nearby Duke’s Creek). Yonah Mountain
Vineyards is one of a dozen or so wineries
that have sprung up in the area in the last
10 years, and a 2009 study by the University
of Georgia’s Carl Vinson Institute estimates
that wineries in North Georgia have an economic impact of nearly $17 million.
The Georgia mountain “terroir,” or all of
a region’s influences that give the grapes
their unique character and flavor, is taking off again.
Two years ago, the Chamber of Commerce for White County, where Yonah
Mountain Vineyards is located, brought
in Christina Ernst (B.A. ’98) to meet with
the owners of the county’s seven winer-
ies to see how to better grow the industry.
Ernst and her husband Charles (B.A. ’98)
run a full-service travel agency, and she’s
made dozens of trips to the world’s finest
wine-producing regions.
“It was pretty clear what we needed to
connect the vineyards was a winery tour,”
Ernst says.
And thus, VIP Southern Wine Tours
was born, the first of its kind in North
Georgia. It began humbly with just one
12-seat van and 60 tours. Today, Ernst has
three vans in her fleet and in 2015 led more
than 130 tours that took about 1,600 wine
enthusiasts to the vineyards surrounding
Sautee Nacoochee.
That it’s taken this long for the region’s
wines to get back in the game is a story
in itself, because the chances are good
that those same hillsides the Miller family farms were used for growing fine wine
grapes more than a century ago.
V I T I C U LT U R E I N
THE PEACH STATE
Around the turn of the 20th century, Georgia
was one of the nation’s leading producers of
vinifera. In fact, Georgia’s founder, James
Oglethorpe, introduced European viticulture
to the state as a part of his economic plan.
But as the third wave of the temperance movement swept through the South,
Georgia enacted a statewide prohibition
from 1908 until 1935, a period that began
before and lasted longer than national prohibition, which ran from 1920-1933. As a re-
sult, the more than 20,000 acres of vinifera
vines were yanked up.
“The revenuers didn’t stop there, they
cursed the place, they salted the earth,”
laments Michael Fisher, the region’s resident raconteur and a driver for VIP Southern Wine Tours. Fisher, better known as
Captain Malbec in these parts, is holding
court over a glass of Stonewall Creek Cabernet Franc from Tiger, Ga., at Stonewall
Creek’s tasting room in Sautee Nacoochee,
the first stop on Ernst’s wine tour.
Georgia’s once robust wine industry remained torn asunder until the mid 1990s
when a new generation of vintners planted
vines in the area. Today, there’s only about
250 acres dedicated to growing vinifera.
According to the Winegrowers Association of Georgia, there’s good reason why
Oglethorpe and early winegrowers were
attracted to the Georgia mountains. First,
the elevation is just right; too low and the
warmer climate fosters disease, too high
and the cold weather can limit production.
But the greatest feature in the North
Georgia terroir, Miller says, is the work of
the sandy, red clay soils in the hillsides.
“The sandy soil up here is fantastic for
grapes,” says Miller. “You want the vines
to go deep and struggle, and the more they
“THE SANDY SOIL UP HERE IS
FANTASTIC FOR GRAPES. YOU WANT THE VINES
TO GO DEEP AND STRUGGLE,
AND THE MORE THEY STRUGGLE, THE MORE IT
PUTS THAT ENERGY INTO THE GRAPES. IT’S AN
IDEAL SOIL.”
M A G A Z I N E. G S U. E D U
25
Murphy
74
NORTH GEORGIA WINERIES
Ducktown
76
Clayton
4. Cartecay Vineyards, Ellijay
cartecayvineyards.com
18
Chattahoochee
National Forest
15
19
Ellijay
76
Tallulah Falls
Helen
Suches
1
5. Serenberry Vineyards,
Morganton
serenberryvineyards.com
76
14
11
4
12
13
515
6
9
Cleveland
Toccoa
White Stone
2
123
129
Dahlonega
Talking Rock
3
Jasper
19
Baldwin
Clermont
23
Dawsonville
14. Serenity Cellars, Cleveland
serenitycellars.com
15. Habersham Winery, Helen
habershamwinery.com
6. Montaluce Winery & Estates,
Dahlonega
montaluce.com
16. Hightower Creek
Vineyards, LLC, Hiawassee
hightowercreekvineyards.com
7. Odom Springs Vineyard,
Blairsville
odomspringsvineyards.com
17. Stonewall Creek
Vineyards, Tiger
stonewallcreek.com
8. Paradise Hills Winery
Resort & Spa, Blairsville
paradisehillsresort.com
18. Tiger Mountain
Vineyards, Tiger
tigerwine.com
9. Cavender Creek Vineyards
and Winery, Dahlonega
cavendercreekvineyards.com
19. 12 Spies Vineyards,
Rabun Gap
12spiesvineyards.com
E UNIVERS
27
Cottage Syrah
This is one of my favorite wines. It is not
too heavy, and is a great wine to sip with a
big steak! It is peppery but not too spicy.
The Cottage Vineyard and Winery,
Cleveland, Ga. (11)
I
CeNita Vineyard’s CeNita Red
It’s young but a very smooth wine.
CeNita Vineyard, Cleveland Ga. (12)
E
★
575
AT
Stonewall Creek Boriana
This is a wonderful dry, white wine made
from my favorite white grapes. It is a Petite
Manseng. This is a great wine with seafood,
or any food, really. Stonewall Creek Vineyard,
Tiger, Ga. (17)
M AGA Z I N
10. Crane Creek Vineyards,
Young Harris
cranecreekvineyards.com
Babydoll Legs
Great citrusy local wine. It is perfect to sip on
the porch on a lazy summer afternoon. It is
not as sweet as most blush wines, and that is
why I like it. The Cottage Vineyard and Winery,
Cleveland, Ga. (11)
Yonah Mountain Meritage
This wine has some cherry and spicy flavors,
and has a great finish. Yonah Mountain has
many great wines, but this one is my go-to for
dinner parties or gifts. Yonah Mountain
Vineyard, Cleveland, Ga. (13)
TY
441
85
13. Yonah Mountain Vineyards,
Cleveland
yonahmountainvineyards.com
T
17
R
GEO GIA S
Blue Ridge
3. Sharp Mountain Vineyards,
Jasper
sharpmountainvineyards.com
76
Blairsville
ING 20
1
23
8
12. CeNita Vineyards, Winery
and Tasting Room, Cleveland
cenitawinery.com
SPR
7
2. Chateau Meichtry
Vineyards, Talking Rock
chateaumeichtry.com
Christina Ernst picks five North Georgia
vintages to try.
11. The Cottage Vineyard
& Winery, Cleveland
cottagevineyardwinery.com
★
Dillard
16
Hiawassee
5
1 . Engelheim Vineyards, Ellijay
engelheim.com
19
10
76
WINES TO WATCH
64
6
Gainesville
struggle, the more it puts that energy into
the grapes. It’s an ideal soil. The red clay
is a good thing, too. It imparts flavors and
repels water. And the hills provide natural irrigation.”
PUTTING DOWN ROOTS
Miller’s father, Bob, purchased the 200
acres where Yonah Mountain Vineyards
operates in 2005 without the intention of
building a winery.
“He was told he should plant something on the property to get an agricultural write-off,” Eric Miller says, laughing.
“So he planted some grapes.”
26
Miller, who leads the Atlanta Falcons
Drum Line and was percussion director
for the Georgia Tech Marching Band, says
that, with a little help from his father’s
friends — mainly Yonah’s current winemaker Joe Smith — the land began to yield
some outstanding wine.
“One day I got a call from my dad, and he
said, ‘This is getting big,’” he remembers.
So the younger Miller headed north
and joined the family business. As general manager, Miller oversees the day-today operations of the winery.
“From bookkeeping to barrels and bottles,” he says.
Since coming on board, Miller has over-
G E O R G I A S TAT E U N I V E R S I T Y M A G A Z I N E S P R I N G 2 0 1 6
seen a major expansion of the facility. The
grounds now include a new tasting room
and event space, but the crown jewel may
be the Yonah Mountain wine cave. The cave,
its walls stuccoed and lit by torch sconces,
is a climate-controlled space where barrels
upon barrels of the vino ages. It’s the only
one of its kind in the state.
Miller’s next big plan is to offset some of
the energy costs of running the business
with solar power.
“We’re looking to install about 100 solar
panels on the hills between the vines,” he
said. “It’ll be like a solar farm.”
Last year, the winery produced about
3,000 cases, which makes it small by in-
MAP BY ALEXANDRA WANG
dustry standards. Miller says the business
is just getting its legs, and he’s working to
increase its distribution. Yonah Mountain
wine can be found in several Atlanta area
restaurants and fine wine shops.
“We’re still on the ground floor of this
whole operation,” he says. “Our marketing
has been basically just word of mouth.”
For her part, Ernst is happy to help
spread the word. The daughter of an
Austrian clockmaker, Ernst was born and
raised in White County and she’d like
nothing more than to see the area prosper.
She met her husband Charles when
they were both at Georgia Perimeter College. They graduated from Georgia Perim-
eter together, then transferred and graduated from Georgia State together. They
were married in 2001.
“I had to convince him to move up
here,” Ernst says. “He’s a city boy.”
Charles Ernst, who runs a photography
and video business in the area, is just fine
with the decision.
“Look around,” he says, motioning toward Yonah Mountain and the surrounding, undulating hills. “This place is beautiful, and people are figuring out that the
wine being produced here is really good.”
Miller agrees, noting that the area is finally beating back a reputation that Georgia wine is just sweet stuff made from
muscadines and scuppernongs.
“Now, the region is like Napa was in the
’60s. It’s getting new respect,” Miller says.
Moreover, as Christina Ernst points out,
the experience of a wine tasting or tour
here is distinctly different from those in
California and elsewhere.
“We’re all Southern, and it’s in our DNA
to make sure everyone has a good time,”
she says.
Miller, who cross-registered at Georgia Tech so he could play in the marching
band, takes that to heart. He still sits on
a drum kit on the weekends, his father at
the piano, performing for the mingling tipplers in his family’s wine-tasting room. T H E
ON E
R OA D
A Georgia State professor goes back to the future to preserve the look and lore of Atlanta’s iconic Manuel’s Tavern.
F O R
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G E O R G I A S TAT E U N I V E R S I T Y M A G A Z I N E S P R I N G 2 0 1 6
By CHARLES McNAIR
“Once, the neural node of politics in just
about every Southern capital save Atlanta
was a Greek restaurant. Only in Atlanta
was that function served by a bar owned
by a gravel-voiced Lebanese,” says Tom
Baxter, retired chief political correspondent for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
and columnist for the Saporta Report.
“Over time, Manuel’s became the connection point for a great many types of groups
and organizations, and has grown into an institution, some even say a church. The foundation was Manuel himself. If ever a man
literally became the joint he owned, he did.”
Sportswriter Jack Wilkinson dubbed
Manuel’s Tavern “The Vatican.” (Any white smoke rising over the
rooftop today will likely be feathers shed from chickens in the rooftop coop Manuel’s son, Brian, added after his dad died in 2004.)
The cholesterol of history, 60 years of Atlanta memorabilia,
clogs the walls of Manuel’s Tavern, an archive as important in
its way as that of any museum of Atlanta history.
“For decades, Manuel’s Tavern has been a place of constancy
and a harbor of memories in an ever-changing city,” says Ruth
Dusseault, an artist and documentarian who teaches film production in the Communication Department at Georgia State. “The
evidence is on the walls. Manuel’s is a 60-year installation curated
by its owners. It’s a record of a generation of cops, soldiers and
politicians gathered to eat pork chops in a neighborhood occupied by hippies, emigrants and punks.”
Dusseault had an artist’s appraising eye for Manuel’s historical arcana — the plaques and political items, the paintings and
photographs of Atlanta’s known and anonymous, the books and
bottles, even the urns bearing the ashes of Manuel himself and
another gone-but-not-forgotten patron.
That sense of place propelled Dusseault
and Georgia State, in collaboration with a
number of other venerable Atlanta institutions, into a worthy, if unlikely, digital
humanities project.
It’s called Unpacking Manuel’s Tavern.
And thereby hangs a tale.
Over time, Manuel’s became the
connection point for a great many
types of groups and organizations,
and has grown into an institution,
some even say a church.
Fears of losing the comfortable, unpretentious authenticity of Manuel’s Tavern
to fern bar gentrification ran wild. Maloof
explained tirelessly that the tavern would
remain “where it is and as it is.” He assured the faithful that Green Street Properties recognized the value of the bluecollar establishment and the tight knot it
held in the fabric of Atlanta’s culture and
history. Not since The Coca-Cola Company attempted to introduce New Coke had
such skepticism frothed Atlanta.
Enter Dusseault, bringing the kind of
reassurance that settled the petite revolt
once and for all.
“We came to Brian with the idea of creating a searchable, digital archive of all of
ATLANTA’S OWN STRANGE
DISNEY WORLD
GIGAPAN IMAGE COURTESY OF RUTH DUSSEAULT
case can be made that the best-known Atlantan of all time isn’t
a King or Hartsfield, Scarlett or Rhett, Hammerin’ Hank or Ted
‘n Jane.
It might be Manuel. As in Manuel Maloof, founder of Manuel’s
Tavern.
Manuel’s means pleasant memories to a couple of million Atlanta patrons who have entered the legendary watering hole at
the corner of North and Highland avenues since Maloof drew his
first pint in 1956. Many exited less steady but brimful of heady
conversation, comfort food and...effervescence.
Maloof’s father arrived in Atlanta from Lebanon to open a
store in Grant Park and then, downtown, Tip Top Billiard Parlor.
Manuel grew up to become a politician, commission chairman
and CEO of DeKalb County. From a familiar booth in his own
bar, he later held forth as éminence grise, an influential adviser
to citizens and a man of vision who advocated for the creation of
Lake Lanier and the preservation of Grady Hospital, where he’d
been born. Manuel’s Tavern became the de facto back room of
the all-powerful (at the time) Democratic Party.
PREVIOUS SPREAD AND THIS PAGE, PHOTOS BY HASTINGS HUGGINS WORKS
Jill Frank (far left),
a lecturer in the
Welch School of
Art and Design,
and Ruth Dusseault
(seated), lecturer in
the Department of
Communication, are
part of a team of artists and academics
documenting the
contents of Manuel’s
Tavern.
In 2015, Brian Maloof startled Manuel’s
devout congregation.
Maloof announced the sale of 1.6 acres
of land under the tavern and its parking
lot to a developer, Green Street Properties,
for transformation into a mixed-use retail/
residential complex. He said the bar would
remain, though it would close on December 27, 2015, for several months while the
108-year-old building’s structure and infrastructure got an upgrade. (Maloof will
still own and operate the family place under a long-term lease.)
M A G A Z I N E. G S U. E D U
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32
G E O R G I A S TAT E U N I V E R S I T Y M A G A Z I N E S P R I N G 2 0 1 6
work. That’s a collaboration among Georgia State and librarians in Emory’s Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library,
the Emory Center for Digital Scholarship,
faculty and graduate students, and colleagues at Kennesaw State, the University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the
Atlanta History Center.
“It has been exciting to see how the Unpacking Manuel’s project has shown how
effective this type of network can be,” says
Collins. “This is a massive project that many in the community
care deeply about. No one person, department or school could
do this on their own.
“I think what the Manuel’s project shows,” Collins adds, “is
that a local project can be a way for faculty and students from
multiple universities to use their expertise — history, political
science, photography, etc. — to help create something meaningful for their community.”
From atop a stepstool, Michael Page
(B.S. ’01, M.S. ‘05)
a lecturer in Geo­
spatial Sciences
and Technology at
Emory, uses a GigaPan robotic camera
head to scan the
walls of the tavern.
A user is literally unpacking the memories
associated with every little object,
just like when a person moves into a new
house and opens up the boxes.
mation on an oil painting of former Georgia Governor and U.S.
Senator Zell Miller or an audio of the esteemed late author (and
Manuel’s patron) Paul Hemphill reading from one of his signed
first editions on the tavern’s shelves or a video of a peanut farmer
named Jimmy Carter announcing at Manuel’s his candidacy for
governor of Georgia, with a presidency and a Nobel Peace Prize
ahead of him.
Dusseault says it will be the task of students at Georgia State
and other institutions to fill in the blanks.
“This is basically designed for educators to use as a tool to give
students something to research,” she says. “Whether the major
is urban design or archaeology, you want your students to think
like journalists or detectives.
“I’ve always been interested in bringing students out of the
classroom and exposing them to other perspectives in other disciplines and engaging them in the production of public knowledge and public scholarship. Students need to learn what the
world is like.”
The project also models a spirited collaboration among universities that sometimes compete for talent, students, funds
and prestige.
Brennan Collins, associate director at Georgia State’s Center for Instructional Effectiveness, helped connect the project
to the manpower and brainpower of the Atlanta Studies Net-
CLICKS TO THE CORTEX
PHOTO BY HASTINGS HUGGINS WORKS
the items on the tavern walls,” she says.
“He was very enthusiastic.”
“I’ve always seen this place as an amazing strange Disney World,” Maloof explains. “What’s exciting to me is that other
people are going to see it now through the
lens that I do.”
Think of Dusseault’s online brainchild
as Google Earth meets Ancestors.com.
Using special cameras and technology,
she and a multidisciplinary team from
Georgia State, Emory and Savannah College of Art and Design, plus a collection
of volunteer students and lovers of the
tavern, painstakingly photographed every inch of the walls inside the tavern.
They worked after-hours setting up the
equivalent of a Hollywood movie shoot
(tracks, lighting, special cameras, etc.)
without a budget.
The GigaPan technology (high-resolution, digital, interactive, panoramic, the
same imagery technology used aboard the
United States spacecraft now prowling the
surface of Mars) and a 3-D laser scanner
bought for the project by Georgia State instructor and mapping specialist Joe Hurley allowed two things to happen.
First, after the tavern’s face-lift, Maloof
will be able to recreate, down to the last
60-year-old French fry in the corner, the interior of the original Manuel’s. Every political bumper sticker and pin can be placed
exactly where it was before the renovation.
(Maloof also plans to keep the same chairs,
the same tables and, yes, the same chicken
house on the roof that makes customers
happy with fresh organic eggs.)
Second, the technology provides an archive, with exquisite detail, of Atlanta’s
political, literary, sports, arts and overall
cultural history.
“Imagine an image of a wall that is a matrix of hundreds of close-up photographs
all stitched together, like a wall of little
drawers,” says Dusseault. “A user will be
able to isolate a single photograph and
zoom in to see details and read inscriptions … and out comes its story in the form
of a pop-up menu. The media can be text,
image, audio file, video file or other links.
“A user,” she says, “is literally unpacking the memories associated with every
little object, just like when a person moves
into a new house and opens up the boxes.”
The project’s 3-D scans let online users
“walk” from room to room, as in a video
game. They can potentially reach a wall
they want, click on it, and get text infor-
The day will come, late spring of 2016, when Manuel’s Tavern
will reopen with lights that work and plumbing that flushes. The
smiling faces of familiar waiters and bar tenders will greet old
friends over suds and McCloskey burgers.
How did the burger get its name? Click the Unpacking Manuel’s
online archive, and it may be possible to find out.
If the student sleuths do their research extensively enough,
you’ll also learn how writer Jamie Iredell, who earned his Ph.D.
at Georgia State, finds inspiration at Manuel’s Tavern.
“Hardly ever do I walk into Manuel’s,” Iredell says, “and not
run into a fellow writer, with whom I might talk over a beer about
the work we’ve been clanking away at.”
Click another spot on the website wall. Learn how former Georgia Governor Roy Barnes late at night sat untroubled at the bar.
“He was just a guy hanging out at Manuel’s,” says Brian Maloof.
“It was pretty neat to see the governor doing that.”
Click. Learn about the Pulitzer Pack: Ralph McGill, editor and
publisher of the Atlanta Constitution. Hank Klibanoff, co-author
with Gene Roberts of “The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights
Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation.” Doug Blackmon, author
of “Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II.” Cynthia Tucker, editorial
page editor at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC). See work
by the brilliant AJC political cartoonist Mike Luckovich or “Driving
Miss Daisy” playwright Alfred Uhry. All these Atlantans graced tavern tables through the years. All are remembered in the unpacking.
Click. Here’s a testimonial from Atlanta attorney Mark Baker,
at Manuel’s with this author when Pulitzer winner and later Poet
Laureate of the United States Natasha Trethewey entered.
“When she joined us at the table, she asked me what I did
to keep the bills paid. I’m an attorney, I murmured, hoping to
avoid the inevitable follow-up question: What kind of law do
you practice?
“Well, I hemmed, I represent banks. She stared for a moment,
and with a sly smile hit me where it hurts. Oh my. How do
you sleep?”
Charles McNair
publishes
nationally and
internationally. He
is the author of
two novels, “Pickett’s Charge” and
“Land O’ Goshen.”
He was books
editor at Paste
Magazine from
2005-’15. McNair
lives in Bogota,
Colombia.
(Within a year, Baker left his partnership to develop his own intellectual property and entertainment law practice.)
Click. See local citizens banding together at Manuel’s to stop the powerful
Georgia Department of Transportation’s
ambitions to build freeways through four
historic neighborhoods.
“Manuel’s was the place where people
would meet, go chain themselves to a tree
and then come back and have a beer,”
recalls Angelo Fuster, political consultant and a spokesperson for the bar.
Manuel himself mentored a younger
Fuster in politics.
Click. Click. Click. Download the shenanigans of Nerd Night. The Magic Club.
The fly fishermen meetings. The improv
group, Laughing Matters. The electric car
club. The old-time fiddlers group. The
Pathfinders. The book debuts (including this author’s second novel, “Pickett’s
Charge,” in 2013).
Learn how customers watched Neil Armstrong walk on the moon and the assassination of JFK and the burial of MLK. Click
for the tavern visits of President Carter, Bill
and Hillary, Al and Tipper, the migratory
flocks of other notable politicians.
Maybe the most important result of
Dusseault’s project will be the rekindling
at Manuel’s of a sense of place, an institutional memory.
“Some of our students from Georgia
State have experienced nothing in the suburbs more than 10 years old,” Dusseault
says. “They have a sense of floating. They
have nothing to attach them to the past.
“Most of the research will be done by
people in their 20s and 30s,” she says, “so
it’s a way for the new residents to connect to the memory of the place and have
some sense of ownership with the neighborhood and Atlanta.”
Click one more time. Hear Brian Maloof
on Manuel’s Tavern.
For him, it’s as personal as anything
ever gets.
“The bar here was at the Tip Top, my
grandfather’s place. There’s been somebody named Maloof behind that bar for
more than 80 years. There’s not a day that
goes by that I put the key in the door and
I don’t think of my grandfather and my
uncle and my dad.”
Atlanta will remember them too in years
to come, thanks to Dusseault, her team of
local academic archivists and her GigaPan,
3-D vision. M A G A Z I N E. G S U. E D U
33
INSIDE INSIGHT
LOCKED IN • Head Coach Trent Miles (center) leads his Panthers onto the field of the inaugural
AutoNation Cure Bowl. It was the first bowl game for the program and unfortunately ended as a
27-16 loss to San Jose State. It took a dramatic mid-season turnaround to become bowl eligible,
however. Georgia State’s record stood at 2-6 Nov. 7, but the team stormed back to win its next
four games — including a 34-7 demolition of Georgia Southern in Statesboro, Ga. — to get to
Orlando, Fla. “That showed a team that would never quit, never gave up on each other, believed
in what was going on,” Miles said after the game.
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