The University of Iowa’s Carver College of Medicine ranks No. 10 nationally for its social mission, according to a study.

Researchers from the Department of Health Policy at George Washington University and The Robert Graham Center measured how medical schools educate physicians to care for the national population.

They did this by looking at three key areas: the number of primary care physicians the school educates, distribution of physicians to underserved areas, and advancing minority physicians to the work force.

“We are proud that we are doing good things for the state and nation, and also doing things to produce new knowledge,” said Paul Rothman, dean of the UI medical college.

The survey findings differ fairly substantially from other ranking systems, such as U.S. News and World Report.

Lesser known schools such as Morehouse College, Meharry Medical College and Howard University scored at the top, while renowned schools such as Duke University, Stanford University and Johns Hopkins University come in at the bottom.

“This is another way to look at the value of a medical school,” Rothman said.

The methodology for the George Washington survey differs from U.S. News because it focused on persistent challenges to the U.S. health care system and medical education rather than research dollars and prestige, which are factors in the U.S. News ranking.

In the George Washington survey, urban schools fell short in providing primary care physicians to underserved areas, which was another factor why the schools ranked the way they did, according to the report that was published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

“The higher social mission score of community-based medical schools suggest that a school’s explicit commitment to educate physicians who will pursue careers compatible with community needs has long-term effects on the career choices of its graduates,” according to the report.

UI finds a double kudos in the George Washington study because in addition to getting accolades for serving society through educating doctors its research program is larger than the nine schools ranked above it, Rothman said.

In Iowa, there is a projected shortfall of 229 family physicians in the next 10 years and 39,000 nationally, according to the American Academy of Family Physicians. The Carver College ranks No. 10 in the nation sending 15 percent of its students into family medicine, according to the family physicians academy.

UI’s commitment to primary care and providing doctors to rural areas, which is an area that is underserved, is one of the reasons UI faired so well, Rothman said.

“We pride ourselves on making contributions to rural Iowa,” Rothman said. “And this shows we are doing quite well.”

B.A. Morelli • Iowa City Press-Citizen • September 4, 2010

Hawks get pieces together on O-line

“I Think We’ll Be Ok In September”

Kirk Ferentz would like to promise good fortune and good health. Reese Morgan would like to guarantee stability and continuity.

But all the Iowa offensive line gurus can offer right now is conjecture based on what they’ve seen in the past and what they think they expect to see in the future — with a caveat.

“I think we’ll be OK in September,” Ferentz said Friday when asked about Iowa’s offensive line, the top mystery surrounding a team that debuted at No. 10 in the USA Today Coaches’ Poll. “I think we’ll be OK if everybody stays healthy.”

Press-Citizen / Matthew Holst
Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz answers reporters questions during a news conference at the Iowa Football Media Day, Friday, August 6, 2010, in Iowa City, Iowa.

Offensive Line Is Hot Spot

Iowa has the core returning from last year’s 11-2 team that won the Orange Bowl and took Ohio State to overtime with the Big Ten title on the line. Eight starters are back on a defense that ranked in the top 10 nationally in five categories last season. Most of the playmakers return on offense.

But the offensive line has gone through a two-year exodus of NFL talent, leaving senior guard Julian Vandervelde and sophomore left tackle Riley Reiff as the only linemen on the roster with substantial game experience. It’s a hot spot for a team with 26 seniors, 16 returning starters and enormous expectations.

“We like to think as an offensive line that we’re always going to control the tempo of the game, to a certain extent,” Vandervelde said. “Games are won or lost in the trenches and we believe that to the utmost extent at Iowa. For us to have that sort of pressure put on us is something we welcome.”

The Hawkeyes have a lot of the other pieces lined up. The defense must replace linebackers Pat Angerer and A.J. Edds and cornerback Amari Spievey, but the group is still anchored by star defensive end Adrian Clayborn in the front and All-Big Ten strong safety Tyler Sash in the back.

Press-Citizen / Matthew Holst
Iowa offensive lineman (left to right) Julian Vandervelde, Adam Gettis, Josh Koeppel, James Ferentz, Markus Zusevics and Riley Reiff stand for a photo opportunity during the Iowa Football Media Day, Friday, August 6, 2010, in Iowa City, Iowa.

Offense Line Ready To Go

The offense has the potential to be one of the most explosive in Ferentz’s 12 seasons. Quarterback Ricky Stanzi is 18-4 in two seasons as a starter. Senior Derrell Johnson-Koulianos is on pace to become the school’s all-time leading receiver after leading the Hawkeyes in receiving the past three seasons. Junior Marvin McNutt caught eight touchdown passes and averaged 19.8 yards per catch last season. Sophomore running backs Adam Robinson, Brandon Wegher and Jewel Hampton all have notched at least one 100-yard rushing performance.

“There’s some wild expectations out there,” Johnson-Koulianos said. “I think, for us, the expectations are a result of winning and having recent success. With that comes a target on your back. I’ll wear that target every day.

“I think we’re embracing that, we want that. That means we’re doing something right. Last year we snuck up on people. We ain’t sneaking up on anybody this year.”

The Hawkeyes survived a wobbly start on offense last season while they dealt with injuries, absences and moving parts up front until they settled on a six-man rotation in October. Ferentz hopes it doesn’t take that long to get the offensive line situated this season.

Reiff, Vandervelde, junior guard Adam Gettis, junior tackle Markus Zusevics and centers James Ferentz and Josh Koeppel emerged as Iowa’s top six linemen at the conclusion of spring practices.
Ferentz and Morgan are basing their good vibes off what they saw during those 15 practices this spring when they watched the group butt heads with Iowa’s defensive line, which was ranked the nation’s best group at the position by at least one publication.

“You wonder how they’re going to compete,” Morgan said. “Are they going to compete against our d-line? Are they going to line up and give their best effort and not be intimidated by going against an excellent group?”

The thing that impressed Morgan was watching the linemen “scrap and fight and compete.”

Press-Citizen / Matthew Holst
Iowa players file out of Kinnick Stadium after the team photo following the Iowa Football Media Day, Friday, August 6, 2010, in Iowa City, Iowa.

Stepping Up To Challenges

“They improved in every area and they competed hard, that’s the biggest thing, and they were going against a pretty salty group,” Kirk Ferentz said. “You find out real quick what guys are made of, and you find out how they’re going to step up to a challenge. That’s one nice thing about this whole process — at least you’re not watching a guy in practice and saying, ‘Well, let’s see what happens in September.’ We’re finding out. In fact, it’ll probably look better (on the game field) than it looks in practice sometimes.”

Ferentz would like to promise good fortune and good health. Morgan would like to guarantee stability and continuity. All they can offer right now is conjecture with a caveat.

“Based on what we saw in the spring, we’re optimistic about where we are at this given point,” Ferentz said. “That being said, we have a lot of improvement to make this month, and the good news is we can, and then if we’re doing things right, we should make a lot of improvement during the season. But it all starts with being healthy. We have to stay healthy and nobody controls that.”

Per Press-Citizen.  Reach Andy Hamilton at 339-7368 or ahamilton@press-citizen.com.

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Seating: General admission

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OPENING FOR MATT ALBER:
Alexis Stevens

Description

Matt grew up singing in choirs. Big ones. Little ones. Classical ones. Ones that traveled the globe and ones that did jazz hands. Choir is where he learned to feel ok. At practice he got to make something beautiful as part of team. Like an athlete, he watched himself get better at something his body and mind were making together. He got to dance and laugh and thrive. Even when his voice cracked, his value was never questioned.

Outside of choir, Matt usually felt intimidated or deficient in some way. He spent a lot of his teen years skulking around after school and at a fundamentalist Christian church. He finds much of his music is about healing from that experience.

He went on to study music and writing with some wise and fearless masters. With a pocket full of sunshine he moved to California to find his kindred. These days he spends his time with truth-tellers from every walk of life, and he is finding more and more of them.

Matt also directs a choir of his own in Los Angeles. The audition is fairly simple– if you’re 60 or up, sing with Heart, and can bring something to the potluck, you’re in. Most of them are also gay and lead incredible lives.

Matt also enjoys taking photos of strange things, working on Macintosh Computers, wearing headphones, Levi’s jeans, and all of his instruments were gifts from friends. (For those seeking a more impressive biography replete with accolades, awards and magazine quotes: please forgive him, for he got too sleepy trying to write one.)

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Matt Alber

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National Trend Reaches U Of I

Workers installed a 2.4-kilowatt wind turbine on the University of Iowa campus Tuesday, part of a national trend of using the devices as educational tools.

The UI’s 37-foot structure, similar to those built at other universities, will provide training for students in an experimental engineering class.

The installation of the white wind turbine on south end of Madison Street took under two hours to complete, and the turbine is officially up and running.

James Johansen, a former teaching assistant for the experimental engineering class, said students should enjoy working with the turbine.

Hands-On Experience for U of I Students

“It is rare that you get hands-on experience — they will actually get to play with it,” he said.

This unique training has been serving as an educational benefit for other universities as well.
Montana State University installed a 2.4-kilowatt wind turbine in November 2008.

“It is a baby, but with all of the same characteristics as a commercial size turbine and is more manageable,” said Rob Larson, an assistant professor of mechanical and industrial engineering at the school.

Similar to the UI’s, the turbine is used primarily as an educational tool, especially in Manufacturing Engineering Technology courses for seniors in the wind-application center, he said.

Educational Tool

The course is developed to monitor the software and other research on weather and the turbine.
“It happens right next door, so it seems more pertinent than studying it somewhere else — it gets students’ feet in the door as far as talking about something that is real,” Larson said.

In addition to adapting the turbine, a consecutive project is also in the making.

“The Wind Montana project is a program that is developing alternative-energy-technician courses,” Larson said, and five other campuses in Montana have such programs.

And the trend has grown nationwide

More than 60 American colleges and universities have wind turbines of varying sizes, according to the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education website — from Aurora College’s 0.85-kilowatt system to the University of Oklahoma’s 10.1-kilowatt turbine.

“We have seen an increase in institutions installing [wind turbines] — they have been ramping up over the last three years,” said Paul Rowland, the director executive of the association.

He believes universities are seeing the dramatic difference wind turbines are making on their campuses.

Those from the UI hope this is the case.

“Hopefully, seeing the turbine on campus will get other people involved — the more people hear about it the better,” said Sarah Horgen, the education coordinator of the UI Museum of Natural History, who attended the installation.

And the wind turbine offers more than educational benefits.

“I think everybody is happy to see some movement toward expanding renewable use and education,” Larson said. “And students are the ones who will deal with this in the upcoming years and don’t want to see oily beaches.”

By Kristin Callahan
Daily Iowan

DI reporter Lisa Brahm contributed to this report.

Global Digital World At Our Fingertips

Digital media have made creating and disseminating text, sound, and images cheap, easy and global. The bulk of publicly available media is now created by people who understand little of the professional standards and practices for media.

Instead, these amateurs produce endless streams of mediocrity, eroding cultural norms about quality and acceptability, and leading to increasingly alarmed predictions of incipient chaos and intellectual collapse.
1.8 billion

Estimated number of Internet users world-wide:  1.8 Billion

But of course, that’s what always happens. Every increase in freedom to create or consume media, from paperback books to YouTube, alarms people accustomed to the restrictions of the old system, convincing them that the new media will make young people stupid. This fear dates back to at least the invention of movable type.

A Little History…

As Gutenberg’s press spread through Europe, the Bible was translated into local languages, enabling direct encounters with the text; this was accompanied by a flood of contemporary literature, most of it mediocre. Vulgar versions of the Bible and distracting secular writings fueled religious unrest and civic confusion, leading to claims that the printing press, if not controlled, would lead to chaos and the dismemberment of European intellectual life.
Journal Community

These claims were, of course, correct. Print fueled the Protestant Reformation, which did indeed destroy the Church’s pan-European hold on intellectual life. What the 16th-century foes of print didn’t imagine—couldn’t imagine—was what followed: We built new norms around newly abundant and contemporary literature. Novels, newspapers, scientific journals, the separation of fiction and non-fiction, all of these innovations were created during the collapse of the scribal system, and all had the effect of increasing, rather than decreasing, the intellectual range and output of society.

To take a famous example, the essential insight of the scientific revolution was peer review, the idea that science was a collaborative effort that included the feedback and participation of others. Peer review was a cultural institution that took the printing press for granted as a means of distributing research quickly and widely, but added the kind of cultural constraints that made it valuable.

We are living through a similar explosion of publishing capability today, where digital media link over a billion people into the same network. This linking together in turn lets us tap our cognitive surplus, the trillion hours a year of free time the educated population of the planet has to spend doing things they care about. In the 20th century, the bulk of that time was spent watching television, but our cognitive surplus is so enormous that diverting even a tiny fraction of time from consumption to participation can create enormous positive effects.

Wikipedia took the idea of peer review and applied it to volunteers on a global scale, becoming the most important English reference work in less than 10 years. Yet the cumulative time devoted to creating Wikipedia, something like 100 million hours of human thought, is expended by Americans every weekend, just watching ads. It only takes a fractional shift in the direction of participation to create remarkable new educational resources.

Time  Average American Spends Watching Television Per Week:  34.5 Hours

Similarly, open source software, created without managerial control of the workers or ownership of the product, has been critical to the spread of the Web. Searches for everything from supernovae to prime numbers now happen as giant, distributed efforts. Ushahidi, the Kenyan crisis mapping tool invented in 2008, now aggregates citizen reports about crises the world over. PatientsLikeMe, a website designed to accelerate medical research by getting patients to publicly share their health information, has assembled a larger group of sufferers of Lou Gehrig’s disease than any pharmaceutical agency in history, by appealing to the shared sense of seeking medical progress.

Of course, not everything people care about is a high-minded project. Whenever media become more abundant, average quality falls quickly, while new institutional models for quality arise slowly. Today we have The World’s Funniest Home Videos running 24/7 on YouTube, while the potentially world-changing uses of cognitive surplus are still early and special cases.

That always happens too. In the history of print, we got erotic novels 100 years before we got scientific journals, and complaints about distraction have been rampant; no less a beneficiary of the printing press than Martin Luther complained, “The multitude of books is a great evil. There is no measure of limit to this fever for writing.” Edgar Allan Poe, writing during another surge in publishing, concluded, “The enormous multiplication of books in every branch of knowledge is one of the greatest evils of this age; since it presents one of the most serious obstacles to the acquisition of correct information.”

The response to distraction, then as now, was social structure. Reading is an unnatural act; we are no more evolved to read books than we are to use computers. Literate societies become literate by investing extraordinary resources, every year, training children to read. Now it’s our turn to figure out what response we need to shape our use of digital tools.

Does the Internet Make You Dumber?

The cognitive effects are measurable: We’re turning into shallow thinkers, says Nicholas Carr.

The case for digitally-driven stupidity assumes we’ll fail to integrate digital freedoms into society as well as we integrated literacy. This assumption in turn rests on three beliefs: that the recent past was a glorious and irreplaceable high-water mark of intellectual attainment; that the present is only characterized by the silly stuff and not by the noble experiments; and that this generation of young people will fail to invent cultural norms that do for the Internet’s abundance what the intellectuals of the 17th century did for print culture. There are likewise three reasons to think that the Internet will fuel the intellectual achievements of 21st-century society.

First, the rosy past of the pessimists was not, on closer examination, so rosy. The decade the pessimists want to return us to is the 1980s, the last period before society had any significant digital freedoms. Despite frequent genuflection to European novels, we actually spent a lot more time watching “Diff’rent Strokes” than reading Proust, prior to the Internet’s spread. The Net, in fact, restores reading and writing as central activities in our culture.

The present is, as noted, characterized by lots of throwaway cultural artifacts, but the nice thing about throwaway material is that it gets thrown away. This issue isn’t whether there’s lots of dumb stuff online—there is, just as there is lots of dumb stuff in bookstores. The issue is whether there are any ideas so good today that they will survive into the future. Several early uses of our cognitive surplus, like open source software, look like they will pass that test.

The past was not as golden, nor is the present as tawdry, as the pessimists suggest, but the only thing really worth arguing about is the future. It is our misfortune, as a historical generation, to live through the largest expansion in expressive capability in human history, a misfortune because abundance breaks more things than scarcity. We are now witnessing the rapid stress of older institutions accompanied by the slow and fitful development of cultural alternatives. Just as required education was a response to print, using the Internet well will require new cultural institutions as well, not just new technologies.

It is tempting to want PatientsLikeMe without the dumb videos, just as we might want scientific journals without the erotic novels, but that’s not how media works. Increased freedom to create means increased freedom to create throwaway material, as well as freedom to indulge in the experimentation that eventually makes the good new stuff possible. There is no easy way to get through a media revolution of this magnitude; the task before us now is to experiment with new ways of using a medium that is social, ubiquitous and cheap, a medium that changes the landscape by distributing freedom of the press and freedom of assembly as widely as freedom of speech.
—Clay Shirky’s latest book is “Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age.”

Matthew McGregor-Mento put 400 plants in his vertical garden in Manhattan

GIVEN the chance to accompany a team of botanists on a plant-collecting expedition to South America, most gardeners would probably be satisfied with the experience. They wouldn’t come home and try to recreate the rain forest in Manhattan.

But Michael Riley isn’t like most gardeners. Mr. Riley, a former commodities trader turned plant expert who went on to become assistant director of the Horticultural Society of New York, was eager to move beyond potted plants in a way that hadn’t yet occurred to many others. It took a number of expeditions, a lot of research and more than a decade and a half, but by 2003 he had figured out how to grow a wall of plants inside his Upper West Side apartment.

“In the rain forest, I realized that plants didn’t need to grow in pots with labels,” said Mr. Riley, 64. “I wanted to grow plants in ways that were natural to them.”

With his partner, Francisco Correa, a Spanish teacher who is now 52, Mr. Riley attacked a corner of his living area, stripping the walls of plaster and affixing exterior-grade plywood to new and existing building studs. On top of the plywood went bitumen roofing to protect the walls. Cork bark was then stapled over that, and plants were inserted into pockets in the cork. Sprinklers and lighting were installed overhead, trenches were put in at the base of the walls to catch water that trickled down, and pools were added in the middle of the room to increase humidity.

Vertical Gardens

These days, Mr. Riley’s project isn’t that unusual. Vertical gardens — which began as an experiment in 1988 by Patrick Blanc, a French botanist intent on creating a garden without dirt — are becoming increasingly popular at home. Avid and aspiring gardeners, frustrated with little outdoor space, are taking another look at their walls and noticing something new: more space. And a number of companies are selling ready-made systems and all-in-one kits for gardeners like Mr. Riley who want to do it themselves. (For those who prefer to leave it to the professionals, landscape designers can build vertical gardens for a hefty fee.)

In the last few years, companies that sell green wall supplies have seen a jump in sales. ELT, an Ontario company that specializes in green roofs, began selling living wall systems a little over three years ago and is now one of the biggest suppliers to the United States. Greg Garner, the company’s president, said that its green-wall sales have increased 300 percent since 2008. Four months ago, the company introduced a cheaper, lighter kit to make living walls accessible to the average gardener; prices start at about $40 for a one-square-foot panel.

“We’ve turned living walls into something anyone can do,” Mr. Garner said. “The walls have gone from zero percent of our business leads to 80 percent of our business, and it’s happening all over the place, from the Middle East to North America to Europe.”

Companies Focus In On Living Walls

Another big living-wall company, Gsky Plant Systems in Vancouver, British Columbia, was founded four years ago as a green roof supplier but now focuses almost exclusively on vertical gardens, which it designs, installs and maintains for around $125 a square foot. Hal Thorne, Gsky’s chairman, said the company’s growth in the last year “was phenomenal — we nearly doubled sales.”

Many of the modular systems — essentially plastic trays filled with dirt and attached to a wall, with a sprinkler or drip irrigation system installed above — differ dramatically from Patrick Blanc’s living walls, which can be seen in commercial and institutional buildings around the world, including the Athenaeum hotel in London and the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris.

Mr. Blanc, who was inspired by tropical rain-forest plants he had studied, knew plants could survive on water and fertilizer alone, and developed a system for growing them on walls lined with felt. The living wall was part of his effort to bring greenery into cities. “When you live in towns, you don’t always go into gardens,” he said. “It’s really important to use empty spaces to invite nature into town.”

He is not a fan of the new kits. On a recent visit to San Francisco to begin work on a green wall for a private high school, his largest outdoor vertical garden in North America, Mr. Blanc dismissed them as artificial. Plants may grow vertically on a surface like the face of a cliff, he said, but “in nature, you don’t have vertical dirt.”

Peter Kastan’s 12-by-12-foot green wall in Miami

“It’s like having a large poodle,” said Peter Kastan. “You have to take care of it, feed it, walk it. It’s intensive care for plants.” More Photos »

At a local nursery, he pointed at one modular system: “This is very heavy and a lot of plastic,” he said. “After three to five years, you have no more substrate — the dirt gets compacted.”

Last year, inspired by Mr. Blanc’s work, Matthew McGregor-Mento, 38, an executive creative director at Gyro: HSR, a New York advertising agency, and his wife, Emma, 35, a massage therapist, set out to build a vertical garden in their two-bedroom apartment in the East Village. They attached an 8-by-10-foot aluminum frame to a wall in the entry hall, screwed waterproof sheets of PVC to the frame and tacked on two layers of matting. Then they inserted some 400 plants — philodendrons, ivies and ferns — into holes they cut in the felt.

A trough they installed along the floor collects runoff water from the irrigation system, and a pump with a filtration sponge sends it back up the wall. Timers control the watering, which happens four times a day.

Design Challenges

The design, which they devised with the help of a horticulturalist friend, was based on Mr. Blanc’s system and on research they had done online. The total cost was $3,000, but the result was worth it, Mr. McGregor-Mento said. Most people who visit want a green wall of their own, and the effort involved wasn’t that onerous: “Building a vertical wall is about as difficult as painting a room.”

Others have found it more challenging. Peter Kastan, an unemployed movie location scout in Miami, had never grown anything when he decided to install a vertical garden in a friend’s loft. The apartment, which his friend offered to him as a laboratory since it was vacant and he couldn’t rent it, had abundant light and high ceilings, and Mr. Kastan, after reading about Mr. Blanc’s living gardens online, thought it would be an ideal environment.

He began by contacting living-wall creators around the world for advice, and then drove all over Florida visiting nurseries to find plants. He bought 650, including bromeliads, hoyas, begonias and ferns, favoring those that were local and “the most interesting to look at,” he said. And one weekend last November, he and his wife, Mai Tran, and a friend put up the 12-by-12-foot plant wall.

Like Mr. McGregor-Mento, Mr. Kastan used matting affixed to a metal frame bolted to the wall. He bought most of the materials from local hardware stores or online suppliers. About $10,000 later, he has a large, vibrant green wall. He recently completed a smaller one in the kitchen, with herbs and mini-tomatoes.

But it took a lot of work to get the irrigation, the lighting and the plants right. The first month, he lost several plants near the bottom of the wall, where water was collecting. He realized then that some plants were getting too much water and needed to be moved a different spot on the wall; others he had to get rid of.

“It’s like having a large poodle,” Mr. Kastan said. “You have to take care of it, feed it, walk it. It’s intensive care for plants.”

Even professional gardeners sometimes have trouble with their first living wall. Martha Desbiens, a co-owner of VertNY, a landscape design firm specializing in roof gardens, used sedums in a green wall on a client’s terrace, and they dried out over the winter while the irrigation system was off. In a roof garden, they would have gotten plenty of moisture from snow, she noted, but planted vertically, they didn’t get nearly enough.

“A lot of living walls fail,” Ms. Desbiens said. “There’s a big learning curve.”

Marguerite Wells, a co-owner of Motherplants, a nursery in Ithaca, said she tries to steer people away from them.

“People want green bling,” Ms. Wells said. “People think, ‘It looks beautiful and perfect, and I want something beautiful and perfect in my life.’ ”

But vertical gardens can’t be watered with a hose or ignored for long stretches of time, she noted, and won’t tolerate certain plants. Inevitably, the irrigation stops working, she said, whether the pumps break down, the emitters get clogged (if a dirt system is used) or water gets stuck in one cell of a modular system. And within a few days of any malfunction, plants begin to die.

Overcoming Challenges

Amelia Lima, a landscape designer in San Diego, encountered the most basic problem when she decided to turn the 40-foot wall in her backyard into a vertical garden. At first, she tried hanging plants and art on the wall, which faced the picture windows in her living room and kitchen, but it looked drab. Then she found a landscape architect who had worked with Patrick Blanc on a project in Brazil and hired him to help. But halfway through the project, she realized she had forgotten something essential: a water source.

“People think it’s a green wall,” Ms. Lima said, as in, “you hang a picture on the wall and it’s done.”

But there’s a lot more to it than that, she added: “There’s construction, watering — you’re making a garden.”

Just Another Plant in The Wall

Making your own living wall can be done in one of two ways — as a fully bespoke model or something more off-the-rack. Whichever you choose, there are a few things to keep in mind.

• Vertical gardens are heavy, and not every wall is strong enough to support one. Check with a carpenter or your landlord to make sure the designated wall can handle the load.

• When selecting a spot for your living wall, make sure the area gets plenty of light. The best light is natural, but you will also need to install artificial lighting.

• Custom installations like the ones Patrick Blanc builds require a frame that can be attached to the wall, a waterproof barrier to protect the wall, a surface material like felt or cork to hold the plants in place and an irrigation system with PVC or polyethylene tubing and a submersible pump (the kind found in aquarium shops).

• Ready-made vertical garden kits have small containers angled to hold dirt and can be watered manually. After you plant your cuttings in the dirt, you’ll need to let them grow horizontally for several months so they develop strong roots. Once the roots have taken hold, you can attach the kit to the wall. (Kits are available from a number of sources, including eltlivingwalls.com, sgplants.com and floragrubb.com.)

• Each wall has different requirements, depending on its light and plants (talk to a local nursery or green-roof specialist about the best plants for your wall), but many people water their vertical gardens three times a day for 8 to 10 minutes. You will need to add fertilizer to the water to make sure the plants get necessary nutrients.

via New York Times

Trevor Tondro for The New York Times

You are in for a treat as our Iowa City area is a vibrant place offering many entertainment venues sure to appeal to all!

Friday Night Concert Series Starts Friday May 28th!

The Friday Night Concert Series celebrates twenty years of free local music this Friday night at 6:30 at the Weatherdance Fountain Stage in the Ped Mall, right outside the Iowa City Sheraton Hotel.
This weeks reunion show is jam packed with musical talent, featuring David Zollo & The Body Electric, Shame Train and Iowa City’s very own Dave Moore.

Dave Zollo began playing the piano at four years old and found his sound after he discovered his father’s eclectic record collection. In his formative early teens, he would entertain his parents house parties with Ray Charles and Huey “Piano” Smith Covers. Since then Zollo and his band, The Body Electric tour the Midwest fusing the likes of The Rolling Stones and Country Rock and released three records.

Created in 2000 by lead singer and songwriter, Sam Knutson, Shame Train has dealt with personnel changes that helped shape the band into the rockin’ ensemble they are today. Sometimes referred to as “real country” or “roots rock” this group of close, musical veterans thrives on sharing their creativity with the Iowa City community.

Upon moving to Iowa City, musician Dave Moore settled into the local music scene both quickly and easily. Moore is known for keeping his musical collaborations specifically Iowan but still manages to gather national recognition, having appeared on NPR’s A Prairie Home Companion, All Things Considered, World Cafe, and Live from the Mountain Stage.

Also be sure to stop by to get a dinner from Mamma’s Deli, served on a commemorative frisbee plate for only $8!

Sunday, May 30th at 7 PM, Englert Theatre

Ticket Availability: No advance sales – $5 at the door

Seating: General admission

Four star-crossed lovers — Hermia (Anna Friel), Lysander (Dominic West), Demetrius (Christian Bale) and Helena (Calista Flockhart) — run into the forest in pursuit of one another in director Michael Hoffman’s adaptation of William Shakespeare’s comedic love story. Amid the feuding fairies Oberon (Rupert Everett) and Titania (Michelle Pfeiffer), mischievous Puck (Stanley Tucci) sets loose a potion that wreaks romantic havoc on everyone.

Phone
(319)688-2653

Postal Address
The Englert Theatre
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Dalai Lama Awarded Honorary Degree

Cedar Falls, Ia. — After he was awarded yet another honorary degree here Tuesday, the Dalai Lama confided he would be a hopeless professor because “I’m kind of lazy.”

He quipped that his English was so poor he sometimes accidentally encourages pessimism instead of optimism.

And he warned that anyone who came to see him with “great expectations” would be sorely disappointed. “So don’t expect too much,” he said in broken English as laughter rolled across the McLeod Center.

Yet it was the more serious guidance from the world-revered leader that spoke to many among the roughly 10,000 people who came to see him at the University of Northern Iowa.

First Visit To Iowa

Visiting Iowa for the first time, Tibet’s 74-year-old leader-in-exile spoke to two sold-out crowds of the need to cultivate moral ethics to achieve personal happiness. He preached living a life of compassion based on trust and honesty, not selfish needs. And he encouraged others to use one of their most valuable gifts – education – for the good of humanity.

Zuiko Redding was among those from several Iowa Buddhist groups who traveled to see His Holiness.

“He just has a great unarmoredness about him and great good cheer,” said Redding, resident teacher at the Cedar Rapids Zen Center.

As he greeted his first enthusiastic crowd of the day – about 5,400 people – the Dalai Lama sat cross-legged on a white couch inside the McLeod Center, a sun visor shielding his eyes, his hands clasped as he bowed.

“I-o-wa, I-o-wa?” he said, practicing the name of his latest stop on a brief tour of Midwestern states. His shiny shoes sat empty on a stage adorned with an ornamental rug.

During a panel discussion titled “Educating for a Non-Violent World,” he offered a mix of simple messages: educating both “the head and the heart,” acting ethically on behalf of “one human family,” and teaching future generations not to fall into “the traps of violence.”

Joined by a handful of experts including former Iowa Department of Education chief Judy Jeffrey, he encouraged listeners to rise above divisive differences like race, religion, gender and nationality.

“I tell a lot of people, many problems we have today are man-made problems,” he said.

The Dalai Lama’s well-known light-heartedness was often on display, despite the serious subject matter. When asked by a panelist how he would “reweave” the fabric of large cities so children would better be able to learn, he shrugged: “I think the answer should come from you. I don’t know.”

When told about a young man who fathered 23 children in high school, he had to stifle a chuckle after hearing the story from a translator.

Compassion, Respect, and Patience

He also spoke about teaching youth respect and patience, and he said many times that everyone – regardless of faith or place in society – deserves compassion.

“Modern ethics is very necessary … but not necessarily based on religious faith,” he said.

For Dolma Tsering, one of seven Tibetan students at UNI, hearing the iconic figure speak was a “lifetime achievement.”

Tsering and the six other exchange students got to meet the Dalai Lama at his hotel Monday. As is Tibetan custom, she said, the students offered him prayer shawls as a sign of good will, and he returned them as a blessing.

She said his visit was especially meaningful to the group because the students are so isolated – in the world, but even among Chinese students they encounter on the UNI campus.

“He said, ‘You have the truth, and do not be afraid,’ ” the 28-year-old graduate business student recounted. “Be patient and do your work.”

UNI has had a long relationship with the Tibet Fund, a New York nonprofit group that aims to educate Tibetan students in exile. That led to the invitation by UNI President Benjamin Allen to the Dalai Lama to speak here as part of the Joy Cole Corning Lecture Series.

Since 1994, the university has provided tuition waivers to 30 Tibet Fund scholars.

The fund has helped some 364 Tibetan students nationwide, said its president, Richen Dharlo, who attended the event.

One of the world’s longest-running leaders, the Dalai Lama has traveled six continents, spreading a message of peace, inter-religious understanding, universal responsibility and compassion. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 for his nonviolent struggle for the liberation of Tibet from China.

The Dalai Lama is considered by many as the face of Buddhism worldwide, though he is hardly all Buddhists’ spiritual leader. Supporters believe the current Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatsohe, is the reincarnation of the previous 13 dalai lamas. He assumed political power after China’s invasion of Tibet in 1949. He was forced into exile a decade later, and currently lives in northern India.

via DesMoinesRegister.com

Photos:  Rodney White/RegisterPhoto

Former UI provost begins September 1

The ACT board of directors named Jon Whitmore, former University of Iowa provost who is currently the president of San Jose State University, as ACT’s new chief executive officer. The appointment is effective Sept. 1, the beginning of ACT’s new fiscal year.

“ACT’s directors are very enthusiastic to have Jon Whitmore become our next CEO. We wanted an accomplished leader with notable executive experience and an exemplary track record of success,” ACT Board Lead Director Mark Musick stated in a press release. “We found just the right person in Jon. We’re confident that he will provide outstanding leadership to expand ACT’s role in helping shape state and national education and workforce policy and in helping more people achieve education and workplace success.”

San Jose State University is a major comprehensive research university located in the heart of Silicon Valley. Previously, Mr. Whitmore served as president of Texas Tech University and as provost at the University of Iowa.

“I look forward to carrying on ACT’s upward trajectory, which has been skillfully advanced by Dick Ferguson and ACT’s excellent staff,” Mr. Whitmore stated. “ACT’s reputation for excellence, and its mission of helping people achieve education and workplace success, are needed today more than ever. With President (Barack) Obama’s goal of dramatically increasing the number of citizens who graduate from high school, community colleges and four-year colleges, and with the need to retrain many Americans who have lost jobs or are looking to change professions, ACT has a vital role to play at this critical time in history.”

Mr. Whitmore was selected after a nationwide search by ACT’s board, assisted by the Spencer Stuart executive search firm. Richard Ferguson, ACT’s current CEO and chairman, joined ACT in 1972 and has led the organization for 22 years. Under his leadership, ACT grew into a highly respected international organization offering a broad array of assessment, information and program management solutions in the areas of education and workforce development, with more than 1,500 employees located in offices worldwide.