Photo by Maria Belen Farias

Photo by Laurie Hice Michaelson

Located in the Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine Institute on SW 34th Street, the Running Medicine Clinic assists patients through a variety of specialized equipment to identify correct running form, prepare for an upcoming race or even rehabilitate injured patients back to their previous capabilities. Dr. Kevin R. Vincent and his staff work with patients of all skill levels to ensure that they can continue running for a lifetime.

Housing an estimated population of 300,000 bats, the UF Bat House and Bat Barn are essential to the Gainesville ecosystem. Located across from Lake Alice on Museum Road, the bats draw a crowd for their nightly emergence.

The 25 competitors converged to stretch their dexterous fingers. They typed feverishly, their eyes locked on the monitors in front of them. Some worked alone, others huddled in groups of three.

One team member’s T-shirt read: “WE CAME. WE SAW. WE CODED.” “It’s a battle between you and the screen,” said Joseph Thuemler, a third-year math major and president of the University of Florida chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery .

OK, these aren’t Ironman athletes.

However, several of these guys — there was only one woman present at a January club meeting — are international stars in their own right. In October, Thuemler was part of the UF team that ranked first in North America and 13^th globally out of nearly 1,000 teams during the IEEEXtreme 5.0 24-Hour Programming Competition, sponsored by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

Competitors aim to out-smart their fiercest rivals in India, or Australia, or Estonia. For 24 hours straight last fall, Thuemler and two other students endured  minimal exposure to sunlight, sequestered in the computer laboratory of the UF New Engineering Building as proctors for the IEEEXtreme 5.0 made food runs to nearby grocery stores. The competitors took turns napping while at least one person attempted to solve the next problem that popped up on the screen.

These aren’t Sudoku exercises. Algorithms and computational geometry have applications found everywhere, such as those used in Google search engines or in an endless array of medical equipment.

Tara Parkins, a senior majoring in digital arts and sciences engineering, says she doesn’t mind being one of the few female students in the club. In fact, she prefers it to the time she spent in a sorority her freshman year where her sisters didn’t understand her affinity for Pokémon. Parkins’ fascination with the ‘90s video game is a non-issue for members of the computer programming team .

“From the moment I came to a meeting, I knew it was perfect,” Parkins said.

What’s thought of as ‘genius’ may be attributed to hard work, as well.

Many of the members began programming not as child prodigies but when they were in their mid–to-late teens, devoting many sleepless nights to tinkering with code. During competition season, the club practices a minimum of 15 hours a week. That dedication is leading to results.

At least two of the members received internships at Facebook this summer, including sophomore math and computer engineering student Cheran Wu. After accepting the internship, he then turned down a subsequent, offer to work instead for Justin.TV, the San Francisco-based start-up that allows users to broadcast videos live online.

Despite this success, there’s one thing that irks these coding aficionados: Hackers.

Well, kind of.

Thuemler, who will intern at Google this summer, plans to participate in the totally legit 2012 Facebook Hacker Cup.

“We’re trying to take the word ‘hacker’ back,” he said, smiling.

For more information about the UF Computer Programming Club, contact:

Joe Thuemler, club president, joethuemler@gmail.com

Dave Small, team coach, cise.dave@gmail.com

By Claudia Adrien

Logan Clark, 21, paused to type his answer as he would on an oversized iPad. “Unlike the civil rights movement,” he typed, “I believe that the number of people that support the occupy movement cannot make a similar impression.”

“The Wall,” a series of interactive and interconnected touch-screen panels, poses questions regarding pressing public policy issues. The social media tool was developed at the Bob Graham Center for Public Service at the University of Florida in an effort to create a platform for students to engage in civil debate about critical issues.

Clark, a mechanical engineering senior, was studying in Pugh Hall when he decided to answer the question. His response is now posted along with the responses of more than 100 other participants.

Clark said he’s never seen anything like The Wall. He felt that the chance to use the touch panels to enter responses and the five massive screens would get the attention of other students as well.

Sabin Ciocan, president of the Public Service Council, the student group behind creating and monitoring The Wall, said he felt its innovative look was one of its strong points.

“I think the student response will be, ‘Wow, this is a really cool thing’ as far as technology,” he said. “It’s been compared to the ‘Bourne Identity’ or the CNN Magic Screen.”

Another aspect in its favor is the large photographs attached to the comments. Everyone who answers the question in Pugh Hall will have a photo snapped through a high-powered digital camera.

“I think the biggest thing to get from The Wall is probably the fact that you get to communicate and actually see the person you’re debating with and actually put a face to it,” said Ciocan, a 21-year-old senior majoring in history and political science.

During testing, comments were more inflammatory when people could hide behind an anonymous username, he said. Having faces for the people engaged in the debate made it more personal.

Students in the Public Service Council monitor The Wall. They create the questions and police it for inappropriate use or comments. The questions they generate range from timeless questions such as whether citizens should vote to pertinent questions surrounding events and speakers coming to the Bob Graham Center, Ciocan said.

One such event, at 6 p.m. Jan. 20 in the Pugh Ocora, will be “The Poverty Tour: A Call to Conscience,” hosted by PBS talk show host Tavis Smiley and Princeton professor Cornel West. They posed the current question regarding the Occupy Wall Street Movement and will lead a discussion on poverty in America and examine possible solutions.

The Wall officially launches from 5 to 7 p.m. Jan. 25. The event includes a student party with free food and the chance to win Target and Starbucks gift cards.

Ciocan said he hopes students will visit The Wall, which also can be accessed through a mobile device, as regularly as “picking up the Alligator.”

Writer

Jensen Werley

Photographer

Eric Zamora – UF Photography

Rebecca Nagy believes an art museum is more than a place to see beautiful paintings and sculptures; it’s also a great resource for research, teaching and learning.

“Teaching art history courses in a museum setting with real art is more enlightening and more fun than in a classroom,” said Nagy, director of the University of Florida’s Harn Museum of Art. “I fell in love with the chance to experience art up close and share my knowledge with students in the presence of original works of art. For students and faculty, seeing related works of art in person brings curriculum alive by providing context for classroom studies, especially an understanding of other cultures and historical eras.”

Nagy began her journey to UF as an undergraduate at Georgia Southern University studying studio art, art history and German. She went on to receive a doctorate in art history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. However, she discovered her true calling through her first job as an art educator at the Cleveland Museum of Art, where she combined her interests in art history and art education with her passion for museums.

It is with this conviction that Nagy determined to weave the work of the Harn more integrally into UF’s academic fabric by establishing a new position at the Harn — education curator of academic programs — dedicated to fostering the museum’s engagement with faculty and students across the university.

“I want all faculty, from the humanities to the physical sciences, to understand the museum is a resource that can be used in many disciplines, not just art,” she said. “Our goal is to provide life-changing experiences with works of art for every student.”

Nagy marks 10 years as director in July 2012. During her tenure, the museum has grown significantly, adding more than 3,100 works to the collecting areas of African, Asian, modern and contemporary art and photography. Additionally, she has overseen two expansions of the museum. The first was the 2005 addition of the Mary Ann Harn Cofrin Pavilion, which houses galleries for contemporary art, two classroom spaces, a café, and gardens. The second will be the 26,000-square-foot David A. Cofrin Asian Art Wing opening March 31, 2012.

The new Asian art wing will triple the space the museum has dedicated to Asian art, and will make it the leading university-based center for the study and preservation of Asian art in the Southeast.

Writer: Amelia Bell

Charlie Mitchell is using improvisational theater to heal, one “Zip Zap Zop” at a time.

Mitchell, a theater professor, leads weekly improv sessions at the HONOR Center in Gainesville, a Veterans Affairs facility that serves as a transitional residence for once-homeless veterans.

He and retired classics professor Karelisa Hartigan created the program last year to help veterans to improve their social skills.

Every Thursday, about eight to 12 veterans meet to work on exercises, such as “Zip Zap Zop,” a focusing game. One player says, “zip,” and points to another, who must say “zap.” The next person who is pointed to must say “zap,” and then on to the person who says “zop.” The pattern continues, teaching players to listen and be less isolated.

Then they move on to games that are more complex, such as role play exercises, where Mitchell plays a job interviewer and veterans practice professional interviewing.

“In a lot of these cases, these guys have forgotten how to communicate and connect with people,” he said. “In our sessions we try to help them relate to other people, even if it’s through silly games.”

Mitchell earned a bachelor’s degree in theater from Ithaca College and a master’s degree in playwriting from Boston University. He worked as a director, playwright and actor in Chicago and earned a doctorate in theater from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Today, he teaches theater appreciation and improvisation for political and social change in addition to his work with veterans.

One of the most important exercises the veterans do is called “Difficult Conversations.” Here, a veteran identifies a conversation he needs to have but is worried about – perhaps reconnecting with a family member, or explaining an addiction to a friend.

Mitchell often plays the other person so the veteran can act out what he or she might say. The scene is practiced several times, with other veterans suggesting how to improve the conversation after each take.

At the end of each session, the group wraps up by discussing what they learned. Mitchell said that the reaction to improvisation is always “overwhelmingly positive.” Sometimes the veterans talk about life skills: how to listen, how to be patient, how to act in social situations. Other times, he said, the veterans are thankful they had a good time.

“Most of these guys are not in a joyful time,” he said, “so to bring them a little bit of fun, even if it’s just for that hour, is huge.”

Writer: Meg Wagner