COMING UP
Indiana University School of Dentistry
Calendar of Events
August 2008
Welcome All New Dental Hygiene and Dental Assisting Students
Recognition Month for Support Services
(Maintenance, Supplies and Ordering, and Dental Illustrations)
Murder, She Writes: Research Associate Diana Catt Shares Book Award
Happy 70th Birthday to the IUSD Alumni Bulletin
This Issue Dedicated to the Memory of Retired Staff Member Jean Richmond
IUSD FACULTY COUNCIL MEETING information was unavailable as of our publication date.
Watch for details coming to you soon from your Faculty Council officers.
1 (Fri.)
Extras! Extras! Read All About It: IUSD staffers, here’s your
chance to break into films – come to DS280 today at 9 a.m. if you’d like
to appear as an extra in a crowd scene for an upcoming STAFF CONFERENCE VIDEO. Who
knows what a bit part in an IUSD movie could lead to? Maybe there’s an Oscar
in your future! Maybe Tom Cruise and Angelina Jolie will someday be
begging for scripts that you turned down. Think big! And the more the merrier
at this video-shoot, which will take only a few minutes of your time.
5 (Tues.)
Free Midday Music Break. The TOM JANKE JAZZ TRIO plays at noon today
on campus in Ball Garden, weather permitting. This summer’s free concerts featuring
musicians from the IU Department of Music and Arts Technology are sponsored by the
IU Foundation. Seating is limited, but lawn chairs and blankets are welcome. The
garden is behind Ball Hall (1226 W. Michigan).
6 (Wed.)
Training session: INTRODUCTION TO SEARCHING THE PubMed DATABASE, 9:30-10 a.m. in
the Library computer lab. Open to all students, staff, and faculty. Register with
Barbara Gushrowski, assistant librarian (bgushrow@iupui.edu;
274-5204) or at the circulation desk.
6-9 (Wed.-Sat.)
AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ESTHETIC DENTISTRY annual meeting, Laguna Niguel, Dana Point,
Calif.
7 (Thurs.)
IU DAY AT THE INDIANA STATE FAIR. See details at www.indiana.edu/~fair.
Nominations are due today for IUPUI’s 2008 GLENN W. IRWIN, JR. M.D. EXPERIENCE
EXCELLENCE RECOGNITION AWARD, which honors full-time faculty and staff for service
“above and beyond the call of duty.” Nominate a deserving employee at
http://www.hra.iupui.edu/IrwinAwardNomination.asp.
Supporting documentation and questions go to hratrng@iupui.edu.
8-24 (Fri.-Sun.)
Bruce in Beijing. Restorative Dentistry faculty member Dr. Bruce Matis,
shown here carrying the Olympic Torch when it passed through Indianapolis in 1996
on its way to the Centennial Olympic Games in Atlanta, Ga., will be among the spectators
for a portion of the OLYMPIC GAMES IN CHINA this month. Matis has had a lifelong
love affair with the Olympics that began in his childhood in Helsinki, Finland.
His dad, the late Henry Matis, was the attaché for the U.S. Olympic Team
in 1952. Only 9 years old at that time, Bruce put his fluency in Finnish and English
to good use by serving along with his 11-year-old brother, James, as an interpreter
for 1952’s U.S. Olympic Team. Henry Matis eventually moved his family to Utah,
so Bruce, who’s been a member of the IU faculty since 1993, was thrilled when
the Winter Olympics came to Salt Lake City in 2002.
Another Restorative Dentistry faculty member, Professor Emeritus Jerry Andres,
has a connection to the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, Spain. Andres, an expert in
maxillofacial prosthetics, was awarded a grant from the U.S. Olympic Committee to
experiment with the design of a customized invisible nose plug to replace the ugly
and often painful nose-pinching clips used by synchronized swimmers. Andres solicited
the help of Dr. Glenn Richard, then a new member of our faculty but an old
friend of Andres’ from their years together in the Air Force.
The plug they designed, made of medical-grade silicone, conformed to the anatomy
of individual swimmer’s nostrils, fitting snugly inside the nose, and was therefore
completely out of sight – an attractive feature in a sport that strives for
beauty and grace.
The men created about 75 prototypes during the two-year research project before
coming up with a model they felt was worthy of Olympic athletes. For Barcelona,
they fashioned customized plugs for Olympic swimmers Kristen Babb-Sprague
and the Josephson twins, but only Babb-Sprague chose to wear hers during
the actual competitions. She won a Gold Medal for her solo routine, flashing a gorgeous
smile throughout her performance that was undistorted by a nose clip. (A second
Gold Medal was eventually awarded to Canadian swimmer Sylvie Fréchette after
a scoring error was discovered.) You can read about Babb-Sprague at this International
Swimming Hall of Fame link and see a photo of her performing without a nose clip,
although it’s unknown if she’s wearing the IU professors’ invention
here: http://www.ishof.org/honorees/99/99babb-sprague.html.
13 (Wed.)
Training session: USING IUCat, THE LIBRARY’S ONLINE CATALOG, 9:30-10 a.m. in
the Library computer lab. Open to all students, staff, and faculty. Register with
Barbara Gushrowski (bgushrow@iupui.edu;
274-5204) or at the circulation desk.
VISUAL STUDIO training session, 1:30-3 p.m. in the Library computer lab. To register,
contact Nadine Florek, Technology Services,
nflorek@iupui.edu.
14, 15 (Thurs., Fri.)
FIRST SEMESTER ORIENTATION for dental assisting campus class and first- and second-year
dental hygiene classes
15 (Fri.)
PROPOSAL SUBMISSION DEADLINE for Student Research Subcommittee's Aug. 29 meeting
18 (Mon.)
FIRST SEMESTER CLASSES begin for dental assisting, dental hygiene, fourth-year dental,
and graduate students.
21 (Thurs.)
Staff Dental Assistant Lunch and Learn Series presents AXIUM TIPS, by Rebecca Dixon,
Financial Affairs; noon-1 p.m. in DS S116.
STUDENT AFFAIRS COUNCIL/DEAN'S STUDENT TOWN HALL, noon in DS114
Training session: USING IUCat, THE LIBRARY’S ONLINE CATALOG, 1:30-2 p.m. in
the Library computer lab (a repeat of the course offered on Aug. 13). Open to all
students, staff, and faculty. Register with Barbara Gushrowski (bgushrow@iupui.edu;
274-5204) or at the circulation desk.
22 (Fri.)
RESEARCH COMMITTEE, 9 a.m. in DS S421
Shut
the Books, Close the Instrument Trays, Store the Beakers: It’s Time to Party.
IUSD STUDENT APPRECIATION PICNIC welcomes all new and returning students, noon at
Riverside Park in our usual spot, Shelter #5. Undergraduate and predoctoral clinics
and classes are cancelled this afternoon; cancellation of graduate clinics and classes
is at the discretion of program directors.
26 (Tues.)
Training session: INTRODUCTION TO SEARCHING THE PubMed DATABASE, 1:30-2 p.m. in
the Library computer lab (a repeat of the course offered on Aug. 6). Open to all
students, staff, and faculty. Register with Barbara Gushrowski (bgushrow@iupui.edu;
274-5204) or at the circulation desk.
27-31 (Wed.-Sun.)
AMERICAN STUDENT DENTAL ASSOCIATION annual session, Scottsdale, Ariz.
29 (Fri.)
STUDENT RESEARCH SUBCOMMITTEE, 8 a.m. in DS B29
People, Places, and Things
ALICE DOESN’T TEACH HERE ANYMORE. The year 2008 marks the 100th
anniversary of the hiring of our school’s first female dental faculty member.
Alice Harvie Duden accepted a position at the Indiana Dental College in 1908
to lecture on the subject of oral prophylaxis.
THANKS FOR THE (REALLY, REALLY DISTANT) MEMORIES. Near the end of his long
and accomplished life, prosthodontist and scientist Dr. I. Lester Furnas,
who taught in the early days of his career at his alma mater, the Indiana Dental
College, opened a thank-you note at his home in La Jolla, Calif. It was from a Pennsylvania
dentist who wanted to commend Furnas for a CE course he had taught in Scranton –
60 years earlier, in 1922. “At that meeting you gave a course in Full Dentures,”
Dr. Bob Goodall wrote a bit belatedly in 1982. “I was fortunate enough
to be one of your students and I wish to extend my thanks to you for all it has
helped me in 60 years in practice. I do hope this letter finds you in good health.”
Remarkably, the letter from the CE student did find the teacher not only in good
health but still sprightly, enough so that Furnas, at age 93, was continuing his
yearly visits back east to the Indiana Dental Association and the IU dental school,
where he maintained many ties to his Hoosier heritage and as a member of the dental
class of 1910. Furnas was the coauthor of The American Textbook of Prosthetic Dentistry
and a scholar on the Arctic, having surveyed an Eskimo population on the Arctic
coast of Alaska for the U.S. government. He last returned to Indiana to attend the
IDA annual session in May 1985, when he was 96. He died three months later in La
Jolla.
MURDER
AND MAYHEM IN THE ‘500’ MUSEUM. In her work as a visiting research
associate in Preventive and Community Dentistry, Dr. Diana Catt delves into
the mysteries of science, often examining Streptococcus mutans and other
bacteria that play a role in dental caries. But on her own time, this Ohio University
PhD graduate dissects mysteries of another sort: the kind that stem from her own
imagination.
Catt is the author of the short mystery, Photo Finish, which appears in a
prize-winning anthology, Racing Can Be Murder, published in 2007 by Blue
River Press (Brenda Stewart and Tony Perona, editors). All of the
mysteries in the anthology have an Indy 500 theme, with each story followed by a
short factual piece about the history of the ‘500.’
The book was chosen as one of the Best Books of Indiana, in the fiction category,
by the Indiana Center for the Book, sponsor of the competition. The Indiana Center
for the Book (http://www.in.gov/library/2315.htm
) is a program of the Indiana State Library and an affiliate of the Center for the
Book in the Library of Congress. Proceeds from the sale of Racing Can Be Murder
will be used by the local chapter of Sisters in Crime (SinC) to promote literacy
and educate would-be authors on the craft of writing.
Catt is a member of the Speedway chapter of SinC, an international organization
for women mystery writers. “Not all SinC members are writers; there are many
readers or fans of mystery as well,” she says. “Not all are women either;
our club has several who jokingly refer to themselves as ‘mister sisters.’
It’s a very cosmopolitan group. I also belong to a writers critique group which
consists of three PhDs, a lawyer, and a nurse.”
After learning the plot of Photo Finish, we resist the urge to beg Diana
to tell us the story’s ending. “A young man is found murdered in the
Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum, near the Borg-Warner Trophy,” she explains.
“The victim is clutching a piece of a famous necklace that a frivolous, wealthy
race attendee lost at the Indy 500 the previous season. A temp, working in the museum
gift shop during the May race season, accidently comes across a clue which makes
her the next target for the killer.”
Writing has been in Catt’s blood since she was a teenager. “Reading was
my favorite pastime as a kid, and still is,” she says. “I started writing
short stories in high school. Believe it or not, I had more time to write after
my third child was born, when I was forced to take a break from coaching my older
two kids. I found myself sitting at sports practices with an infant and time to
develop plot ideas. That’s when I started writing novels. Now that same baby
is 14, and I have three novels finished and in the editing process. I’m slow,
I’ll admit, but I write for fun, not for publication.”
Perseverance is an important personality trait for good mystery writers, Catt says.
“Getting that first draft of the story down on paper can be tough. Editing
is the fun part.” Establishing motive is another tricky step, from Catt’s
perspective. “The antagonist’s motive is easy, but motives of secondary
characters must also be believable and their actions cannot simply be a means to
move the plot forward,” she says.
Catt enjoys the mysteries of many masters in the field, including Tony Hillerman,
Elizabeth Peters, Tess Gerritsen, and Elmore Leonard. “They
are excellent writers and always tell a good story,” she says.
She sees both similarities and differences between her profession and her hobby.
“Perseverance is key for both,” she says. “Both involve solving
puzzles. Manuscript editors are tough in both fields. However, the differences are
more important. As a scientist, the inventive process can only be applied to the
approach or design of the experiment, and then only with extensive justification.
When writing fiction, hey, it’s all made up! It’s a form of escapism.”
You can read reviews of Racing Can Be Murder at this Amazon link:
http://www.amazon.com/Racing-Can-Murder-Brenda-Stewart/dp/0976336197/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1217338793&sr=1-1
Catt has another mystery, Evil Comes, which appears in the anthology Medium
of Murder (Red Coyote Press, 2008). She will join several other contributing
authors of Racing Can Be Murder for a booksigning at the IUPUI Campus Center’s
Barnes and Noble bookstore on Sept. 23, 2008, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
1ST
DENTAL SUMMER INSTITUTE DRAWS STUDENTS FROM 3 STATES. The IU School of Dentistry’s
first Dental Summer Institute (DSI) recruitment program for college students and
high-schoolers, coordinated by Traci Adams-Wilson, Diversity Support Services,
was featured in the July 18, 2008, issue of Inside IUPUI. If you missed seeing
the write-up, go to http://info.iupui.edu/news/page/normal/3620.html.
In the photo shown here, dental student and DSI volunteer Donald Helfert
(D’10) guides one of the high school participants through a hands-on lab session
in SB05.
IUSD VOLUNTEERS IN THE CITY. IU School of Dentistry volunteers were out in
the community in full force in the month of July, judging by a report from Prof.
Melinda Meadows, Pediatric Dentistry. “IUSD was very well represented
at Colgate’s ‘Bright Smiles Bright Futures’ mobile dental unit during
the recent Black Expo Summer Celebration,” she says. “Faculty,
residents, dental students, and dental hygiene students all participated in dental
screenings over the four days of the Health Fair, July 17 to 20. We served several
hundred children, and referrals were provided for children in need of immediate
dental care.”
Participants included pediatric dentistry residents Drs. Julie Quinn, Lauren Weddell,
and Nicole Weddell; GPR resident Dr. Todd Larrabee; second-year dental
hygiene students Natalie Bryan, Mandy Dodd, Summer Mann, and Paulisha Rink;
dental students Franklin Miller, Class of 2012, and Carly Rauch, Class
of 2010; faculty members Dr. James Jones, Prof. Melinda Meadows, and
Dr. Nassim Olabi, all of the Department of Pediatric Dentistry; and faculty
member Prof. Pamela Rettig, Division of Dental Hygiene.
Also, the IUSD Kids Club provided oral health education to 35 children, ranging
in age from 3 to 13, at the Body of Christ Community Church on the eastside of Indianapolis
during a program on July 21. The project was organized by this year’s Kids
Club leader, Rachel Dunlop, DDS Class of 2010. Joining Dunlop were dental
students Kevin Ludwig, Franklin Miller, and John Reno, Class of 2012;
Megan Davenport and Valerie Scola, Class of 2011; Katie Buskirk,
Class of 2009; and faculty member Dr. Joan Kowolik, Pediatric Dentistry.
(It’s nice to see that three members of the incoming dental class – Ludwig,
Miller, and Reno – volunteered for this event just a few days after they began
dental school. Looks as if the DDS Class of 2012 is going to be a strong contributor
to IUSD’s outstanding service-learning and volunteer initiatives.)
FORMER FACULTY MEMBER JOHN CHAVES DIES. We have learned from Dr. Arden Christen,
professor emeritus of oral biology, that former IUSD faculty member Dr. John Chaves
died earlier this year at the age of 66. Chaves joined the IU faculty in 1995 and
served as head of the Behavioral Medicine and Bioethics division of the Department
of Oral Biology for nearly a decade. He left IU to accept a post as vice dean for
Dental Education at the State University of New York in Stony Brook. Survivors include
his wife, B.J. (Isaacson) Chaves, a former development officer at IUSD. You
can read an “In Memoriam” tribute to Chaves published in the April 2008
issue of the American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis at
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa4087/is_200804/ai_n25420191.
JEAN
RICHMOND WAS AN OHRI POWERHOUSE. Those of us who worked with Jean Richmond
during her long and successful career at IU were deeply saddened by news of her
death, at the age of 81, in Indianapolis on July 14. She was a talented woman, and
a solid friend to her many IUSD colleagues.
Richmond’s connection to the IU School of Dentistry began in 1961, when this
former U.S. Department of Treasury staffer accepted a job in Riley Hospital’s
dental clinic. She eventually transferred to the dental school building, where she
worked in Orthodontics and then in the dean’s and business manager’s offices.
In 1972, she found the perfect fit for herself as the budget coordinator for the
Oral Health Research Institute, a job that kept her on the go for the next 23 years
(and frequently in the midst of such OHRI challenges as recruiting upwards of a
thousand panelists for clinical research projects).
Working at IUSD was also a family affair for Richmond. Three of her five children
– Susan, Linda, and Patty – have all held jobs here, including current
employee Susan Boggs, a clinical study technician at the Institute who has
been with IUSD for 19 years. Richmond’s son-in-law, Carl Newton (DDS’75),
husband of daughter Linda, is a former chair of IU’s Department of Endodontics.
“I’ve had a marvelous ‘eye on the world’ from my office across
from the screening and examining rooms,” Richmond told us at the time of her
retirement in March 1995. She said she loved working “on the fringe”
with researchers whose accomplishments have helped advance the field of dentistry.
“The campus has provided a wonderful environment full of interesting people,”
she said.
We offer condolences to our IUSD colleague Susan Boggs and to Jean Richmond’s
entire family.
End August 2008 Calendar
Send items for September calendar by Aug. 25: Indiana University School of Dentistry,
Room DS B32, 1121 West Michigan Street, Indianapolis IN 46202-5186. Editor: Susan
Crum. Fax: (317) 274-7188. E-mail:
smcrum@iupui.edu.
All contents of Coming Up are protected by copyright. None of the contents,
including digital images, may be removed from this publication or reused for other
purposes without permission of the editor: smcrum@iupui.edu.