Marsha Torr to Head Research Office

By Tom Simons, Public Relations

Marsha Torr, a physicist with broad experience as a scientist and administrator in higher education and in government, will become vice chancellor for research April 15. Her appointment was approved by the NU Board of Regents on March 20.

Torr, who is vice provost for research and professor of physics at the University of South Carolina at Columbia and executive director of the South Carolina Research Institute, will begin her new duties at Nebraska April 15 with an annual salary of $153,000. She replaces Priscilla Grew.

"I look forward to working once again with Marsha Torr," said Chancellor James Moeser, who came to NU from South Carolina in 1996. "At the University of South Carolina, she has provided strong leadership to significantly increasae that university's research productivity over a four-year period. The task at Nebraska will be similar to the one she faced there - to mobilize an excellent faculty to respond to major opportunities by creating new teams of faculty researchers, sometimes crossing traditional disciplinary lines, to go after major funding opportunities.

"We have an excellent and highly productive faculty, but we have not organized the university's resources in an effective way to take full advantage of our own intellectual capital. That will be Dr. Torr's charge - to mobilize our resources, both human and financial, to become a major player among the nation's research universities."

Torr said she looks forward to meeting those challenges.

"I am delighted that the University of Nebraska-Lincoln has chosen me for the position of vice chancellor for research. This is both an honor and a wonderful opportunity for me," said Torr, who will have a tenured faculty appointment as professor in the department of physics and astronomy. "I have been impressed with the faculty, staff and administrators that I have met and am greatly looking forward to working with them.

"So many of the complex problems that the world must face as we go into the next millennium - problems such as drug-resistant disease, the world's food supply, climate change, the education of our children, building strong social structures - are areas in which the University of Nebraska will and must play a leading role."

Born and educated in South Africa, Torr came to the United States in 1973 as a visiting research associate for Cornell University (1974-77) based at the University of Michigan. From 1977 to 1979, she was an associate research scientist at Mighigan and was professor of physics at Utah State University from 1979 to 1985. She then spent 10 years at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., heading the Atomic Physics Branch from 1985 to 1991, serving as chief of the Solar-Terrestrial Physics Division from 1987 to 1993 and as chief scientist for the Payload Projects Office for two years before going to South Carolina.

Grew, vice chancellor for research since 1993, will take administrative development leave and will return to the faculty in the fall of 2000 as a professor in the department of geosciences and professor in the Conservation and Survey Division of the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

Cornell Animal Scientist Named NU Animal Science Head

By Molly Klocksin, IANR news writer

Donald H. Beermann, a professor of animal science and food science at Cornell University, will become head of the University of Nebraska's Department of Animal Science June 1.

Beermann, 49, was chosen after a national search. He began his professional career at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and then went to New York's Cornell University in 1978 and became a full professor with joint appointments in animal science and food science in 1984. He is president-elect of the American Society of Animal Science and is expected to assume the presidency following the society's annual meeting in July.

NU meat scientist Roger Mandigo has served as the department's interim head since last June when Elton Aberle, who had been department head since 1983, became dean of the University of Wisconsin-Madison's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

Beermann was born in Denison, Iowa, and earned a bachelor's in animal science from Iowa State University. He holds a master's in meat and animal science and a doctorate with joint majors in muscle biology and human physiology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

His research interests include animal growth and development, muscle biology and meat science. His appointments include research, teaching and extension.

At Cornell, Beermann wrote the laboratory manual for an introductory meat science course and co-wrote the manual for an upper-level commercial meat processing course. He also teaches an undergraduate/graduate course in animal growth and development.

Beermann's honors include a distinguished research award from the American Meat Science Association. He has served on the Journal of Animal Science's editorial board, the American Meat Science Association's executive board and on the executive board for the muscle foods division of the Institute of Food Technologists.

"We are extremely pleased to attract an individual with Dr. Beermann's background and qualifications to head the Department of Animal Science at Nebraska," said Irv Omtvedt, vice chancellor of NU's Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

NU's animal science department celebrated its 100th anniversary last fall. The department has 37 faculty members, 225 undergraduate students and 90 graduate students.

Elwell to Chair Theatre Arts Department

Jeffery Elwell, professor and chair of the department of theatre and director of the Joan C. Edwards Performing Arts Center at Marshall University in Huntington, W.Va., since 1996, has been named chair of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln department of theatre arts and executive director of the Nebraska Repertory Theatre effective July 1.

"We are very pleased to get someone with Jeffery Elwell's background and expertise to head the department and lead it through the planning and integration of the Nebraska Rep and the theatre program," said Richard W. Durst, dean of the College of Fine and Performing Arts. "Jeff has a proven track record of theatre administration, brings a national reputation to Lincoln, and will be a welcome addition to the administrative team for the fine and performing arts."

Elwell, who was nominated for West Virginia Professor of the Year for 1998-99, said he is interested in the integration of academics with professional theatre that Nebraska offers.

"I've been building my experience to point toward a program (like Nebraska's) that has multiple graduate and undergraduate programs and is a major state comprehensive doctoral institution," he said. "And I like that the Nebraska Rep is affiliated with the university. It is important for students going through a professional training program to be involved with or witness professional theatre and get first-hand experience as actors, designers and technicians."

From 1990-1996 Elwell served as director of theatre at Mississippi State University. He was chair of the theatre department at Aurora University and has taught at Gardner-Webb University and Virginia Intermont College.

Elwell has been an active playwright and director. His play The Turn Down was performed at the Off-Off-Broadway Short Play Festival in May 1998. Other Off-Off-Broadway productions of his works include Strained Relationships in December 1997 and Truth and Consequences in May 1997. He has directed more than 50 plays, including 22 original plays and two original musicals.

Elwell earned his Ph.D. in speech communication/theatre at Southern Illinois University, his master's degree in communication/theatre at the University of Southwestern Louisiana and his bachelor's in English at California State University at Bakersfield.

Massengale Receives 1999 Agri Award

Martin A. Massengale, director of the University of Nebraska Center for Grassland Studies, received the 1999 Agri Award at the Triumph of Agriculture exposition.

Massengale was recognized for his lifelong contributions to agriculture March 9 during the 33rd annual ag expo in Omaha. Massengale is a foundation distinguished professor of agronomy in NU's Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources. He became the vice chancellor of IANR in 1976, and later served as NU chancellor and president before returning to IANR. During Massengale's administrative tenures, new plant science, animal science and food processing facilities were built, and plans for NU's biotechnology center were initiated.

Nebraska Public Radio Manager Elected to National Board

The Association of Independents in Radio announced recently that Nebraska Public Radio Network Manager Steve Robinson has been elected to the AIR board of directors.

AIR was founded in 1983, and represents the independent radio community in the United States.

AIR members come from all over the country, and included among its ranks are the most widely respected radio producers in the world. The work of AIR members is heard regularly on all nationally syndicated public radio programs including Morning Edition, All Things Considered, Sound Print, Marketplace, National Native News and many others.

Since its founding in 1983, AIR has become the leading voice for the independent radio community. Its central goal is to improve the financial remuneration and working conditions of its members.

Robinson became manager of Nebraska Public Radio in 1990. He also serves on the boards of the Nebraska Literary Heritage Association, the University Place Arts Center, and is vice-president of the board of the South Street Temple.

Thomas B. Thorson Was Scholar and Gentleman

Thomas B. Thorson, professor emeritus of zoology and an internationally known expert on sharks, died Feb. 6 in Portland, Ore., at the age of 82.

"Tom was a true gentleman and scholar," said Royce Ballinger, associate vice chancellor for research and director of Nebraska Epscor, who joined Thorson on the biology faculty in 1976. "He was well thought of by everyone, not just locally but nationally and internationally, and he stayed intellectually active throughout his entire career and beyond. For five years after his retirement, he remained active in his research."

Thorson's research generated much public interest, leading to the production of three televised films concerning his work. He served as a consultant to the Cousteau team on a filming project on fresh-water sharks in Lake Nicaragua in 1974.

"Sharks generally live only in the ocean, in salt water," Ballinger said. "No one knew how these sharks had adapted to living in fresh water. Tom Thorson was the person who figured that out."

The American Elasmobranch Society conducted a symposium in Thorson's honor. (Elasmobranch is the name of the class of fishes that includes sharks and rays).

A native of Rowe, Ill., Thorson attended Waldorf (Iowa) College from 1934 to 1936 and earned his bachelor's degree in biology at St. Olaf (Minn.) College (1938). He taught high school one year in Peerless, Mont., then went on to earn his master's degree at the University of Washington (1941). He returned to high school teaching in Shelton, Wash., for a year before serving three years with the U.S. Army Air Force during World War II, attaining the rank of captain while serving as a communications officer in the European Theater.

Thorson was an instructor at the University of Nebraska from 1948 to 1950, then completed his doctorate at Washington and joined the faculty at San Francisco State University in 1952. He taught at South Dakota State University from 1954 until 1956, when he returned to NU as an assistant professor. He was promoted to associate professor in 1958 and professor in 1961. Thorson chaired the department of zoology from 1967 to 1971 and served as vice director of the School of Life Sciences from 1975 to 1977. He retired in 1982.

He assisted nine doctorate and 15 master's students in obtaining their degrees and directed approximately 20 undergraduate student projects in the United States and several projects with Nicaraguan biology students. He personal research projects led the publication of 65 scientific papers and took him throughout Central America and to much of South America, plus Nigeria and various research stations in the United States and Canada.

Leslie Hewes Remembered as Mr. Geography

Leslie Hewes, professor emeritus of geography, died March 7 in Lincoln at the age of 93.

Known as "Mr. Great Plains," Hewes was born in 1906 near Guthrie, Oklahoma Territory, and earned his bachelor's degree at the University of Oklahoma. He earned his doctorate at the University of California at Berkeley under well-known geographer Carl Sauer and served as Sauer's assistant on an expedition into northern Mexico.

Hewes taught at Oklahoma from 1932 to 1945, then spent 29 years on the faculty at the University of Nebraska, where he served as chair of the geography department for 22 years. At NU, he directed 34 doctoral dissertations and 27 master's theses. He has about 40 research publications in professional journals and books in the United States and Europe on such subjects as the Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma, the central interior wetlands of the United States and the phenomenon of "suitcase farmers" who live in one country but farm in another.

"This is the man who was responsible for making Nebraska an important center in geography," said geography professor David Wishart. "He was synonymous with Great Plains studies.

"He was the first geographer anywhere to take up the study of Native Americans with any seriousness."

Hewes is survived by a son, Robert of Fort Worth, Texas; daughter, Carolyn Hewes Toft of St. Louis; grandchildren and great-grandchildren.