2A THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
NEWS
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2005
James Woefel Director of Humanities and Western Civilization
What is a typical day like for you?
We'll that's hard to say we don't have class every day. When I'm not preparing for class or teaching, I do administrative things as director of the program. There are always tasks to be done in the regular course of things, but things are always coming up that have to be dealt with that one doesn't really plan on.
What is the hardest part about your job?
It's hard to say what specifically is the hardest part. It's sort of like asking me what's my favorite color. I don't really have one. The things I really enjoy about the job are working with the people in the program. I think we have a really fine group of staff members.
How long have you been director?
Twenty years
Of all the books you've read over the years, which books have been your favorites?
There are
books I really enjoy teaching. I've spent my career reading great books and many others as well. I particularly like teaching Plato, Chaucer and Machiavell. And as I say, these aren't my favorite books; They're ones I enjoy teaching. I get a special pleasure out of teaching them. Second semester I always enjoy teaching Voltaire and "Candide." I like talking about Darwin and Marx, and I like Virginia Wolfe.
In 20 years how has the program changed?
through a dramatic change in the mid to late '80s. I became director in 1985, and we got
Of course the program went
I know a lot of students are afraid of the course, and as a result, a lot of students
put it off as long as they can, so we have a lot of juniors and seniors taking the class. The reading you do in Western Civ. is a great help in all kinds of courses you're going to take in your college career. Once they get into Western Civ. they realize they needn't have been so afraid of it. There is a lot of reading — a fair amount is challenging reading — but we really do try to help students as much as possible with the reading and understanding of the material as much as possible.
Well, I still really like commencement. I like the walk down the hill.
What is your favorite KU tradition?
Edited by Alison Peterson
RESEARCH
Device to help stroke victims
$3.9 million grant fuels KU professor's stroke research
BY TRAVIS ROBINET
trobinett@kansan.com
KANSAN STAFF WRITER
The National Institutes of Health gave University of Kansas School of Medicine professor Randolph Nudo a four-year grant worth $3.9 million to help him optimize the use of a device that could aid the recovery process of stroke victims.
Nudo, professor of molecular and integrative physiology, said with the grant, he would look at different types of electrical stimulation variables, such as frequency, pulse width, intensity and location of stimulation. He said he was trying to optimize those variables in primates.
With that information, Nudo said the device would send electric pulses to the brain from a stimulator. A small metal disc would be implanted by a neural surgeon on top of the cerebral cortex, near the area in the brain where a stroke had caused damage.
In the disc there is a wire that leads to the stimulator, which can be controlled to adjust parameters such as current and pulse. The disc has a FM receiver, allowing the stimulator to be remotely controlled from the outside.
Northstar Neuroscience, a Seattle-based company, is working closely with Nudo. John Bowers, vice president of business development at Northstar Neuroscience, said Nudo and his team were the pre-eminent researchers in the world for brain reorganization and neuroplasticity, which is the brain's ability
to reorganize and respond to an injury.
During a stroke, oxygen supplies are cut off and brain cells die. Bowers said the most common disability is loss of hand and arm function.
Bowers said there was nothing wrong with the hand or arm, but the part of the brain sending signals that controlled them was no longer functioning. He said the first few weeks after a stroke, some patients regain function.
He said the cells that died were gone forever, but other areas of the brain would reorganize to try and take over the missing function.
"But that process doesn't go far enough." Bowers said.
A functional MRI shows the new area of the brain that controls the function. Bowers said that was where stimulation would take place.
Nudo's hypothesis was that during the patient's rehabilitation, the device would provide the brain cells around the damage enough low level electrical stimulation to make the cells more active and form new connections.
Randolph Nudo, director of the Landon Center of Aging, explains how the cortical stimulator works. Nudo has been using the device, along with physical therapy, to help monkeys that have suffered from strokes regain movement in their hands.
Nudo said all the aspects of stroke rehabilitation were not understood. He said physical rehabilitation after stroke modified the brain in a positive way. Clinical trials have shown that forcing patients to use their impaired limb can regain the limb's function, but there is only so much a patient can regain.
"They may be able to re-learn how to button a button, but probably not the skill for hand-writing," Nudo said.
Nudo said there had been trials on humans based on the results of Nudo's previous studies. The human trials were conducted by Northstar Neuroscience. Bowers said the first trial showed the device was safe and the second showed improvement in a patient's hand and
arm function by up to 30 percent.
Based on those results, Bowers said, Northstar Neuroscience now had FDA approval to conduct a thorough study of the device on humans.
- Edited by Kellis Robinett
NATION
Rivera nudged by New York Times rab
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BY DAVID BAUDER
NEW YORK — The New York Times acknowledged yesterday that Geraldo Rivera didn't nudge aside a Hurricane Katrina rescue worker on TV, and although Rivera called the statement "grudging and ungracious," he considered the case closed.
Rivera had been angry since critic Alessandra Stanley, in a column that ran on Sept. 5, said Rivera had "nudged an Air Force rescue worker out of the
way so his camera crew could tape him as he helped lift an older woman in a wheelchair to safety."
Fox News Channel distributed a tape of the telecast where no such nudge was visible.
In a column headlined "Even Geraldo Deserves a Fair Shake" on Sunday, the Times' public editor, Byron Calame, said the paper should set the record straight.
The Times ran an item under "Editors' Notes" on Tuesday — not a correction — that said editors understood Stanley's
comment to be a "figurative reference to Mr. Rivera's flamboyant intervention."
But the Times said numerous readers, including Calame, read the comment as factual. "The Times acknowledges that no nudge was visible on the broadcast," the note concluded.
"As far as I'm concerned, the case is closed," Rivera said. "I want everybody to remember who made the factual error and refused to correct it."
Rivera said the newspaper's editors "tailor their journalism on the basis of whether it's someone they like or respect or not, and I think it's really scandalous."
The Times had no further comment on the issue, a spokesman said.
Rivera wasn't too happy with Calame's column, either, which began with the lead: "One of the real tests of journalistic integrity is being fair to someone who might best be described by a four-letter word."
"What four-letter word do they have in mind?" Rivera asked. "Hero?"
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