News and Research of the University

Bringing It All Together Learning Communities Bridge Disciplines		Puerto Rico Revealed Professor Helps Create First Atlas
Building Tradition Team Designs Williamsburg Courthouse		Bringing Back Billfish Marine Scientists Search for Answers
Kids Think Like Scientists Formula for Classroom Success		Nerves on the Edge Hope for Spinal Cord-Injured Patients
Antibiotic May Help Patients Get a Grip on Arthritis		Treating Dual Disorders
Minding the Symptoms is Key to Diagnosing Dementia

Learning Communities Bridge Disciplines Bringing It All Together magine an approach to learning in which courses are linked and team-planned and taught, with the aim of helping students make better connections across disciplines and master problem-solving skills. The concept is known as learning communities, and it is enhancing students' learning experience at the University of Miami. "It is much more an attitude than it is a program," says John Masterson, vice provost for undergraduate academic affairs. "You start with outcomes. What is it we want every student to know, think, feel, be able to do? This is really about becoming a learning community more broadly by changing the way we think about education, moving from a model that is primarily faculty- and teaching-oriented to student- and learning-oriented." It is a subject Masterson knows well. A University professor since 1977 and former associate dean of the School of Communication, he delved into learning communities shortly after being named to his current post in 1991. "When I came to this position, I was told my job was to help UM become a better place for undergraduate students to go to school," he says. Visiting pioneer Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, he learned about coordinated studies programs, which were team-taught and connected classes according to a central issue, theme, or problem. The University's first learning community in 1993 consisted of two psychology courses, one focusing on the great psychological studies, the other-a methods class-on how the data had been processed. Subsequent learning communities have linked psychology, public relations writing, and film classes ("Why do people do good things for other people?"); the history of the Vietnam War, social problems, and political communication ("Why are your parents so weird?/The 1960s"); and marine science, literature, biology, statistics, and field research ("Saltwater Semester"). The College of Engineering then devised the IMPaCT (Integrated Math Physics and Communication Track) Program, in which first-year students master more difficult courses such as physics and calculus by practicing applications in engineering courses. "Ultimately what we want to do is help the student and not ask 'Can a student pass an examination?', but 'What skills do we expect the student to have?'," says Executive Vice President and Provost Luis Glaser. Masterson has secured a grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, which extended the experience to 60 faculty members, teaching assistants, and growing numbers of students. The University is also one of 20 institutions participating in a national learning community project run by The Washington Center for Collaborative Teaching and Learning. In two years, participants will share their findings at a national conference. For now, students and faculty report higher levels of satisfaction. "Students are happier, they're learning better, and we have a very enthusiastic faculty wondering why we didn't do it sooner," says Provost Glaser, "and that is evolution; that's wonderful!"

Professor Helps Create First Atlas Puerto Rico Revealed f it weren't for the intervention of geography professor Tom Boswell, Puerto Rico would still be without a professional-quality atlas. Due to a series of bureaucratic mishaps, the small commonwealth seemed destined to remain uncharted. The University of Puerto Rico first set out to produce an atlas for the island in the early 1970s by raising money from the Puerto Rican government. "It was like a Keystone Cops routine," recalls Boswell, coauthor of the landmark atlas. "The guys they hired spent money freely, nobody knows exactly on what, and the project never went anyplace." In the late seventies, the project was revived by University of Puerto Rico geography professor Angel David Cruz Baez, who encountered the previous pitfalls and was unable to achieve cooperation for an entire decade. After securing a James McLamore summer grant from the University of Miami in 1993, Boswell set out to produce an atlas. Then in 1994, he joined forces with Cruz, and the project gained momentum. Boswell obtained funding from the Cuban American National Council (CANC), the then-new policy center in Miami to which he had been appointed director. The Ford Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation provided additional funding. After the atlas was completed in early 1997, Boswell and Cruz spent a year raising money to print 5,000 copies. AT&T chipped in $60,000, and the CANC made up the additional $15,000. "But then Puerto Rico had a hurricane and another set of elections, so we had to go back and redo some of the maps to update the atlas," says Boswell. "Finally, the atlas was printed in early 1998." Boswell and Cruz recently presented the atlas at a meeting of the Caribbean Studies Association in Antigua. But their work is far from over. "We hope to involve other islands in projects like this," Boswell says.

Team Designs Williamsburg Courthouse Building Tradition t's not every day that architects have the chance to make history. But School of Architecture Associate Dean Jorge Hernandez and colleague Francis Lyn (B.Arch. '90) did just that when they won a national competition to design the new courthouse in Williamsburg, Virginia. Hernandez' appreciation for traditional American architecture dates back to his days as a graduate student at the University of Virginia. More recently, he cultivated that regard through a project documenting the urban landscape in Colonial Williamsburg. "A space in front of the Governor's Palace caught my attention, because it had been called the Governor's Green," says Hernandez. "I was trying to prove it was misnamed." After locating correspondence from Thomas Jefferson, he discovered that the space had been referred to as a 'street' or a 'way' but never a 'green.' His research brought him to Williamsburg to study the buildings that surround the public space. He credits the experience for enhancing his courthouse design. "I became intimately familiar with the buildings-how they were built, their scale, dimensions, sizes, and so on," he says. Lyn, his collaborator, is also an associate member in his firm and adjunct faculty member at the School of Architecture. "It's not every day that a young architect gets an opportunity like this," he says. "I'm thrilled to be a part of it." The competition committee included architects, planners, judges, and the art critic from The Washington Post. "They were concerned that the courthouse not be mistaken for historic architecture," says Hernandez, "but they wanted congruity with the surrounding colonial structures." The finished product will be an 80,000-square-foot, three-story brick building with a slate roof. One of the design requirements was to provide natural lighting inside the courtrooms without the use of windows, for security purposes. Hernandez and Lyn adapted colonial cupolas into three glass towers on the roof that act like prisms. "Historically cupolas were never used in series, or as a source of interior lighting since they sprung from attics," Hernandez says. "They would give a building a civic prominence-an oil lamp lit inside would warn the town of impending siege or announce celebrations." The project will be finished in July 1999, the 300-year anniversary of the founding of Williamsburg. "Building a courthouse in the birthplace of the law for this country is a great honor," says Hernandez. "Not much can top that."

Marine Scientists Search for Answers Bringing Back Billfish n the past two decades the number of billfish in Florida's waters has been steadily declining. The species, which include sailfish, blue marlin, white marlin, spearfish, and swordfish, are among the most popular catches of sport and commercial fishermen. Billfish are now listed by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas as "fully exploited," meaning they can no longer be caught in large numbers without substantially damaging their populations. The fishing industry is perplexed about what to do because so little is known about billfish-particularly their early life stages and habitat. Leading the search for answers, scientists from the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science have launched a project to study the early life history of the species, which spawn in the Gulf Stream along the South Florida coast. Funded with $500,000 in grants, the project is investigating the collection, transportation, and rearing of larval and juvenile billfish. What's more, the school has begun a $20 million campaign to establish a Center for Sustainable Fisheries, which will conduct a multidisciplinary approach to enhancing the stocks of a variety of fish species. "Our current data on the life history of these species is, for the most part, fishery-based, having been acquired through the study of large animals contributed by sport and commercial fishermen," says Don de Sylva, a researcher at the Rosenstiel School. "Very little is known about their early life history, from the egg through the larval and juvenile stages. During the past 25 years there have been several attempts at collecting small fish, but they have never been successfully kept in captivity. Our work is designed to fill the gaps in our knowledge and to chart new territory." In a pilot project two years ago, Rosenstiel researchers captured 291 baby billfish during 21 research cruises, proving that the Gulf Stream off Miami transports enough larval and juvenile fish to support a prolonged study. Many of the fish survived the trips back to the school's Experimental Fish Hatchery, but the scientists realized that more knowledge was needed to replicate the larvae's natural environmental conditions in the lab. "Many of these fish survived the trip back to the hatchery, and several survived for up to three days while feeding on laboratory-cultured food," says Tom Capo, hatchery manager. "We consider this a great success because we accomplished this with just 12 months of work and minimal support. It's only a matter of time until we can extend the survival time of billfish in captivity." The Center for Sustainable Fisheries will build upon the hatchery's important work through a comprehensive, multidisciplinary study, according to scientific director Pat Walsh. "Our plan is to greatly expand the capabilities and scope of the hatchery by drawing on the knowledge and skills of resource managers, marine biologists, oceanographers, and marine policy experts," he says.

Formula for Classroom Success Kids Think Like Scientists eaching Hispanic, Haitian, and other elementary school students to think more like scientists can significantly improve overall academic performance, according to ongoing research projects conducted by education professors Sandra Fradd and Okhee Lee. Funded by the National Science Foundation, the research has been focusing on developing new ways of more effectively teaching science and mathematics to students from non-English language backgrounds. The University educators work directly with elementary school teachers to build on their strengths and to explore new learning techniques. Recent National Science Education Standards focus on inquiry as the main instructional process for promoting science learning; however, many teachers and students, particularly those from cultures that do not promote question-asking, are unaccustomed to engaging in the inquiry process. Teachers and students require support in learning to conduct inquiry, according to Fradd and Lee. Hence, their research is promoting students' development of strong inquiry skills-the building blocks of successful science learning. The research is significant in several ways. First, it promotes the languages and cultures that the students bring to the learning process, rather than attempting to replace students' knowledge with new ways of doing and thinking. This approach is important in enabling teachers and students who share the same language and culture to build on their prior knowledge, the languages in which they communicate, and the interactional process in which science, mathematics, and literacy are communicated. Second, by using students' languages the research promotes an important community goal of promoting biliteracy-the ability to read, write, and communicate in more than one language. This approach is important in building teachers' expertise and motivating Hispanic and Haitian students to want to learn science. It is also especially important in a community in which these two ethnic groups predominate and where they have traditionally not achieved well nationally. "Scientific inquiry is one of the key aspects of science education-being able to ask a question, work independently and discuss," says Lee. "Our goal is to learn how to help all students, especially those from diverse languages and cultures, to be able to inquire in science as well as to learn to communicate, to learn scientific knowledge, and to develop the habits of mind that are logical and critical." As part of the project, the researchers have developed a curriculum to enable fourth grade teachers to more effectively instruct science and mathematics with students for whom English is an additional language. "This is the time when students either 'make it or break it' in literacy," Fradd says. Literacy is tied to success in mathematics and science because teaching these subjects enables students to acquire problem-solving strategies in concrete ways that promote abstract thinking. The project involves University of Miami education professors and graduate assistants, as well as Miami-Dade County Public Schools' administrators, teachers, and students. In addition it supports a community initiative known as "One Community-One Goal" by promoting the technological and scientific skills of public school students who will be entering the work force during the next decade. "We're encouraging elementary school teachers to use science in different ways as a vehicle for literacy," says Fradd.

Hope for Spinal Cord-Injured Patients Nerves on the Edge erve regeneration researchers at The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis at the School of Medicine have identified a process that could one day restore function to spinal cord-injured patients. The process works by providing an escort to the message-carrying nerve fibers that act like electrical circuits to the spinal cord. After injury, these fibers, called axons, are unable to cross into the areas where circuitry has been interrupted. Consensus is growing among researchers in leading spinal cord injury labs that natural barriers to regeneration can be overcome using cellular transplantation therapies. Earlier research at The Miami Project showed that grafts of Schwann cells, or growth-promoting cells from peripheral nerves, form a bridge across a spinal cord injury when transplanted between the severed ends of an adult rat's spinal cord. In animals that also received injections of ensheathing glial cells (EG)-specialized support cells found only in the olfactory nerve, which carries sensory information to the area of the brain that senses smell-axons exited the bridge, both above and below the site of injury, and grew long distances back into the spinal cord. "We've known that Schwann cells hold great potential to enhance repair in the spinal cord," says Mary Bartlett Bunge, a Miami Project researcher and professor of cell biology and anatomy at the School of Medicine. "Our new results show that EG cells could help overcome the barrier that forms between bridges of growth promoting Schwann cells and the host spinal cord," Bunge adds. "EG cells appear to escort the growing axons toward spinal cord nerve cells awaiting signals that were blocked during the original injury."

Antibiotic May Help Patients Get a Grip on Arthritis he key to slowing the progression of osteoarthritis may lie in treatment with a common antibiotic, according to research at the School of Medicine. The school is one of six sites funded by the National Institutes of Health to test whether doxycycline, a member of the tetracycline family, can not only prevent development of osteoarthritis in some joints, but also slow down its course in joints already affected. Pilot research has shown that doxycycline may reduce the high level of an enzyme that is likely responsible for degeneration of joint cartilage in osteoarthritis patients. Carlos J. Lozada, assistant professor of medicine and a lead researcher in the study, is looking specifically at women who currently have osteoarthritis in only one knee. "Our eligibility requirements are strict on this point because previous studies have indicated that 50 percent of individuals with osteoarthritis in one knee typically develop it in the other knee within two years," he says. "Perhaps doxycycline can change that." Osteoarthritis affects some 16 million Americans, striking 50 percent of them by age 70. About 30 percent of those affected suffer joint pain serious enough to impair function.

Treating Dual Disorders study underway at the School of Medicine is investigating whether recovery from alcohol dependency and depression is enhanced through a combined drug treatment. Led by Barbara Mason, associate professor of psychiatry, the Alcohol Disorders Research Unit is leading the first combined drug therapy trial in depressed alcoholics. Previous studies have only treated depression in dually diagnosed cases. In this latest trial the unit is treating patients' depression with the drug Sertaline (Zoloft), an antidepressant of established efficacy that acts primarily on the brain's serotonin neurotransmitter system. In addition, patients receive either an inactive placebo or Naltrexone (Re Via), which blocks opiate receptors to reduce alcohol craving and bingeing. "The design of this study permits an evaluation of the effectiveness of combined medication-Sertaline and Naltrexone-versus Sertaline alone in patients with both depression and alcoholism," says Mason. The study's potential impact is significant in that there is an increased risk for suicide and much greater psychosocial impairment when a person experiences depression in combination with alcoholism.

Minding the Symptoms is Key to Diagnosing Dementia ome patients dismiss incidents of memory lapse as the onset of Alzheimer's disease, or clumsiness and lack of balance as the early stages of Parkinson's disease. But these symptoms could be signs of less severe dementias or diseases, which could be treatable, even curable, if diagnosed early. "I often see patients branded for years as having Alzheimer's disease and essentially left to live in hopelessness," says Rodrigo Kuljis, director of the Division of Behavioral Neurology at the School of Medicine. "I have been able to turn many around by dealing with treatable conditions such as depression or drug intoxications, reversing their virtual death sentences." According to experts, the percentage of treatable dementias ranges from 10 to 30 percent. The key is proper diagnosis and treatment. Getting to the core of the ailment requires clear communication between doctor and patient, especially when faced with symptoms that mimic and are common to other illnesses. For example, Kuljis says, "Most patients with AIDS develop intellectual deterioration at some point during their illness, and the symptoms of cerebral syphilis can be erroneously interpreted as those of stroke and Alzheimer's disease." To assure a proper diagnosis, Kuljis employs tests including an assessment of the patient's lifestyle, brain scans to rule out physical causes such as tumors, and blood work to reveal a vitamin deficiency or hormonal imbalance, which many times are the causes for mild dementias. A neuro-psychological exam is sometimes performed to measure the patient's ability to solve problems and think logically. "If you notice that you're having difficulty concentrating or remembering a list of errands you were planning to accomplish, get it checked out," Kuljis says. "Any delay allows for potential irreparable damage to the brain."

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