FACS faculty received four of five grants offered under the 2006-2007 Poverty and the Economy Faculty Research Grants Program by the Office of the Vice President for Public Service and Outreach. Faculty and their projects are: Sue Chapman (Extension Coordinator, Cooperative Extension) and Sharon Gibson (Children, Youth and Families At-Risk Program Coordinator, Cooperative Extension), “The impact of poverty simulations on attitudes about and perceptions of poverty;” Lee Johnson (Assistant Professor, Child and Family Development), “The effectiveness of life skills literacy;” Jerry Gale (Professor, Child and Family Development), “Creating a conjoint financial counseling and couple counseling treatment model for couples on the threshold of poverty;” and Anne Sweaney (Professor and Department Head, Housing and Consumer Economics), Tom Rodgers (Associate Professor Emeritus, Housing and Consumer Economics) and Karen Tinsley (Associate Director, Housing and Demographics Research Center), “Manufactured housing: Expanding housing options for Georgia’s families.” These grants, sponsored by the University of Georgia Research Foundation, provide funding to support and encourage applied research and creative scholarship related to poverty and the economy in Georgia. The grants ranged from $16,000-$24,000.

Connie Crawley (Nutrition and Health Specialist, Foods and Nutrition) was co-chair of the Georgia State Team at the national Team UP Conference in August 2006. Georgia was recognized as the Best State Team by the National Team UP partners. Team UP is a cancer prevention project targeting African-American women who are rarely screened for breast and cervical cancer.

William Flatt (D.W. Brooks Professor Emeritus, Foods and Nutrition) has been appointed as a Fellow of the American Nutrition Society. According to the ANS, Flatt was chosen “for his creative and innovative contributions to the development of the field of nutritional energetics or energy metabolism, for his leadership in formulating the Nemilk feeding system, for the effective job he did in convincing the very conservative dairy nutrition community that it was superior to the TDN system then in use, for the visionary leadership he demonstrated during and after his service as research leader of the energy metabolism unit at USDA and for the more recent, penetrating studies of energy balance and obesity and leptin actions he and his colleagues have reported.”

Joseph Goetz (Assistant Professor, Housing and Consumer Economics) and Lindsay Elwood were married on Dec. 20, 2006, in St. Mary, Jamaica.

Lance Palmer (Assistant Professor, Housing and Consumer Economics), Joseph Goetz (Assistant Professor, Housing and Consumer Economics) and Joan Koonce (Associate Professor, Housing and Consumer Economics) were awarded a Scholarship of Engagement grant from the Office of the Vice President for Outreach to establish a service-learning income tax assistance partnership in Athens during the 2007 tax season. The three faculty members worked with undergraduate students in providing tax assistance in the Athens area.

Mariana Souto-Manning (Assistant Professor, Child and Family Development) has been awarded the 2007 Robert C. Anderson Memorial Award. This award, named in memory of the former UGA vice president for research, is awarded annually to two recent graduates of the UGA Graduate School. Its criteria is “an outstanding record of research accomplishment carried out as part of a candidate’s graduate studies and during the period immediately following receipt of the terminal degree.” Souto-Manning earned her PhD in language education in the UGA College of Education in 2005.