Missing the playoffs for the eighth time in the Columbus Blue Jackets’ brief nine-year history was a disappointment the team, but R.J. Umberger is using his break to head back to school.

With time off, the former Buckeye All-American is back at Ohio State U. in pursuit of the college degree he began working toward nearly 10 years ago.

“This is something I set out to do at the beginning, and I like to see things completed,” Umberger said. “There is always life after hockey, and it helps me prepare for that.”

The 27-year-old marketing major is no stranger to taking classes in the off-season. He managed to take online classes four of the last five summers. However, Umberger has left the comfort of his own home this spring and is back on campus.

“Things have changed,” Umberger said. “The fact that I know I am older than everybody and I don’t know anybody, that is probably the biggest change.”

Enrolled in Marketing 750 and 758, the Blue Jackets winger needs just three more classes after this quarter to graduate.

He said he hopes to attain his degree by summer 2011.

To take classes, Umberger passed on playing hockey for team USA in this year’s World Championships.

“It was a hard decision,” Umberger said. “Based on the fact that it’s an incredible feeling and honor to represent your country, but my degree is important, and I have mapped out a plan here and put it within reach for next summer if I took classes now.”

Although classes, studying and exams are again part of his routine, Umberger said the “extracurricular activities” associated with college life aren’t on his agenda this time around.

“I’m strictly here to get classes done,” he said. “As soon as I am done with class, I get back home as soon as I can. I don’t hang around the college atmosphere.”

U. Iowa has an addiction.

No, this isn’t another binge-drinking editorial. We’re referring to our use of coal, the dirtiest way — and, in Iowa, the most common — to create electricity. Environmental advocates met with University of Iowa officials late last week to get them to commit to reducing the UI’s reliance on the energy source.

The Editorial Board applauds these students for the necessary pressure they have placed on UI officials. It’s imperative that the UI transition from coal-based energy to cleaner energy sources.

At the UI Power Plant, 53 percent of the UI’s energy is coal-generated. Biomass accounts for 12 percent, natural gas 11 percent, and purchased electricity 24 percent, according to UI spokesman Tom Moore. The numbers are a five-year average from 2005 to 2009. The Power Plant’s two coal-powered boilers use approximately 100,000 tons of coal annually.

These troubling figures only underscore the Midwest’s disproportionate use of coal to generate energy. According to the Environmental Law and Policy Center, an advocacy group based in the Midwest, carbon pollution from Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin makes up 20 percent of the carbon pollution in the United States. That’s more global-climate-change pollution than nearly every country in the world.

The UI can be part of the solution.

Officials should release a specific timetable detailing its efforts to wean the university off coal. We all know the university is happy to publicize its support for sustainability and reducing energy.

And, to their credit, officials have taken some positive steps to cut the university’s carbon emissions. The Power Plant also burns oat hulls, which provide 12 percent of the UI’s energy use.

The Energy Hawk program has saved millions of dollars by improving energy efficiency. The Environmental Protection Agency recently recognized the university for using green energy.

Still, we don’t need vacuous statements that simply restate the need for sustainability, bereft of any substantive action. It’s essential that the officials make a firm, explicit commitment to drastically reduce coal burning.

And that’s what left some of the environmental activists uneasy.

“What we understood from the meeting is that they don’t have a plan,” Graham Jordison, a representative of the Sierra Club, told The Daily Iowan. “If there is one, they don’t really know where it is.”

Coal is much too harmful to the environment to continue burning and spewing it into the atmosphere. As temperatures rise, glaciers melt, and millions in the developing world are faced with crippling droughts, it’s unconscionable for us not to act. Iowa City is often seen as a progressive, globally minded community. The UI’s continued use of a coal-powered plant for the majority of its energy flies directly in the face of that perception.

In times of financial malaise, it’s undoubtedly difficult to sharply move away from a relatively cheap energy source such as coal. Like most addictions, it’s a hard one to break. But it’s necessary all the same.

Ferman Milster, the Power Plant’s head of strategic planning, told the DI that the UI could decrease its coal use by more than half in the next three to five years.

And it should do just that.

Yakker, Uncle Charlie, Yellow Hammer, Hook, Snake, The Deuce, The Local, Lord Charles, Spinner.

A curveball can be called many things, but most experts call it TROUBLE.

In recent years youth baseball leagues have drastically changed pitch count rules to help protect kids’ arms.

Overuse is a major contributing factor to arm injuries, but misuse is just as dangerous.

David Marshall is the director of sports medicine at Children’s Health Care of Atlanta.

He explained that “Little League Elbow” is a separation of the growth plate in the elbow caused by overuse and misuse.

Yes, they call it “Little League Elbow.” How’s that for a legacy?

According to Marshall, “The growth plate is not completely closed until a child is 17 or 18.”

Leagues are doing a great job of policing pitch counts to deal with overuse, so let’s focus on misuse–specifically the curveball.

The overhand throwing motion is unnatural, and the curveball exaggerates the motion by increasing torque on the elbow and shoulder.

“I have a teenage son, and we did not throw anything other than a fastball and changeup until he was 16,” said Atlanta Braves pitching coach Roger McDowell.

“Since becoming a Major League pitching coach, I have learned about growth plates and the importance of being a good steward of a kid’s arm,” explained McDowell.

Former Braves reliever Mike Gonzalez agrees.

“I am not a big fan of curveballs until you are a sophomore in high school. You have nothing to prove until then. The longer you can wait the better,” he said.

“It’s not a good idea for a kid to throw a curve ball, I don’t even throw one now,” said Chuck James of the Washington Nationals.

Former Brave Buddy Carlyle said, “I threw curveballs when I was 12, and I wish I wouldn’t have. I wish someone had taught me a changeup instead. Maybe I would not have so much trouble with it now.”

Not only is a curveball dangerous, it is the easy way out.

Teach a kid to pitch. Give him a fastball and a changeup and explain how changing speeds and hitting your spots is more effective than a big hook (it worked pretty well for Tom Glavine and Greg Maddux).

Pitch smarter not harder, or in the words of the greatest fictional manager of all time, Lou Brown, “Forget about the curveball, Rickey, give ’em the heater.”

Jim Larranaga yells and screams toward his team, calling plays from the sidelines and occasionally challenging a referee. He has a one page philosophy that guides his life, and his team. His approach to the game gave George Mason U. a story to tell, and will hopefully give it another one in the future.

“In 2005 and 2006, the George Mason team functioned so much as a single unit,” Larranaga said. “They played so well and brought out the best in each other . . . They were able to compete with the best programs in the country.”

Before the 2006 run to the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s Final Four, Mason was a mid-major school, gaining the occasional berths in the NCAA Tournament and the National Invitational Tournament.

“Because of the run to the Final Four, we received so much recognition and exposure outside the area,” Larranaga said.

“We have been able to go to Florida and New York and convince outstanding student athletes to come to George Mason because they have become more familiar with our basketball program and our university.”

During the run, the winningest coach in Patriot history was the gracious recipient of the Clair Bee Coach of the Year Award.

Mason’s “Cinderella story” caught on nationwide, a sentiment that showed up in ESPN surveys about which team each state would be cheering for in the national championship.

“Forty-six states were cheering for George Mason,” Larranaga said. “That group of states has become known as Mason Nation.”

Following the 2006 27-win season, the highest win total in school history, Larranaga used Mason’s increased visibility to expand his recruitment efforts across the nation

“We’re no longer a local team or a regional team,” Larranaga said. “We are a nationwide team. People not only around the United States, but actually around the world, know our name; the Final Four was what exposed those people to our university.”

In 2006, only four players hailed from outside the region of Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia. Two of those players were from Mali and Venezuela. For the 2009-2010 season, eight players were from outside the area, spanning from New York, Florida and Texas.

“As the games appear more and more on television, athletes [from] all over, especially this northeast corridor from New York down to North Carolina, [are] becoming more familiar with the name ‘George Mason University,’” Larranaga said.

Larranaga has kept his coaching tactics the same, working instead to find new
ways to keep his staff and players motivated.

“I think one of the things we’ve always looked for was a certain amount of respect,” Larranaga said. “We wanted the administration, the members of the athletic department, most importantly our faculty and student body, to respect the work that we’re doing. It’s important to the coaches; it’s important to our players.”

Television coverage has also come to play in Mason basketball in a way it never did before 2006.

“When we won the eastern regional championship and were [going] to the Final Four, already what had begun was a more serious interest in television broadcasting our games,” Larranaga said. “Our athletic department, under the direction of Tom O’Connor, made a concerted effort to go out and solicit TV networks to come in and televise our games.”

Mason has kept the heightened visibility on its athletics in the four years since the 2006 run.

“Because of the number of times it’s referenced on television and radio, [the Final Four] is never forgotten,” Larranaga said.

“It still has a major place in our history, but it’s not in the history of these students because they were not attending George Mason at the time.”

Larranaga hopes to ride on this visibility as long as he coaches at Mason and looks to top the incredible run. His support has come from all angles, receiving tremendous support from Mason administration, the fans and the community around him.

He is, and has been, dedicated to the school and its athletic program. He turned down an offer to coach at the school where he was a star guard, Providence College of the Big East, and agreed to a three-year extension to stay with the Patriots.

He is now under contract through 2015. “I’ve said before that I hope to retire
here at George Mason, and this contract extension allows me to do just that,” Larranaga said in a statement.

The surroundings, his home court and his supportive fans all contribute to his love for the school and its program.

“The Patriot Center is a great facility,” Larranaga said. “As the Patriot Platoon has grown, we’ve developed much more of a home court atmosphere, where our fans are really excited, the fans are making noise, the band is playing and there’s a lot more school spirit . . . Everyone feels that there is a tremendous home court advantage.”

While the increasing visibility of the school and heightened spirit for the team
have been beneficial to the program, Larranaga’s key is focusing on how each individual member of his team contributes to the overall success.

“Basketball is really the ultimate team sport,” Larranaga said. “Everybody plays offense and defense. Everybody has a chance to score and handle the ball. Everybody has a responsibility of rebounding. It has to be a team effort.”

Debt. It’s the graduation gift that no college student wants. Amid the graduation money from grandparents and obscure second cousins, it waits, the sum that makes a couple thousand dollars look like a pittance in comparison. It’s a security bond that ensures years of financial instability and accumulates interest with a graduate’s maturation.

Despite student loans and paltry entry-level income, many Fairfield U. English majors are contemplating a major addition to their college debt; graduate school. Safely ensconced within the “Fairfield Bubble,” some are hesitant to enter a world of layoffs and high unemployment, preferring to bypass the recession and emerge, skills and credentials in hand.

With the current unemployment rate at 9.7%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, students are expressing anxiety about their futures.

“It’ a scary time to be graduating,” Meagan Flynn, a Fairfield senior English/Journalism student said of the job outlook for graduating students.

A scary time, indeed, for English majors with aspirations to work in the fields of media and publishing. The portended death of print media and shift of content online, combined with the high unemployment rate, spells difficulty in earning coveted positions.

“So many newspapers are shutting down, magazines going online. It’s going to take a lot of work to find the job I actually want,” Carole Mancarella, a Fairfield senior English/Journalism major said.

As newspapers, magazines, and books go digital, current employees are wondering if they’ll eventually be edited out of the company roster. The uncertain transition from print to digital media resulted in 42% of workers citing industry/company instability as a major cause of job dissatisfaction in 2009, up from 32% in 2007, according to a study by Publisher’s Weekly.

Additionally, the study highlighted the all-time low job security of Editorial employees, with 38% saying they are worried about their jobs. For English/Journalism majors, whose skills sets are well-suited to editorial positions, the job openings are few and far between, and the duration of a career with a company, uncertain.

Although Fairfield senior English major Sarah Turner remains optimistic, stating that, “for any job, you need to be able to write well”, the recession and changing media format has forced many students to re-evaluate their ideal plans.

For some, re-evaluating plans means sacrificing passion in exchange for a secure job offer. Instead of targeting a few select companies, impending graduates have admitted to sending out resumes en masse for any job position that seems even remotely relevant.

“It’s opened up my perspective of what jobs I’ll take,” Susan Barnes, a Fairfield senior English student interested in pursuing a career in publishing said, “I wouldn’t just accept any job because it wouldn’t look good on my resume or lead to any job I want, but I’d be willing to give up fiction to get started.”

Fairfield student interns are quickly learning that they cannot afford to be choosy in their entry-level approach. While internships are typically known for yielding job offers upon completion, few publishing companies are asking interns to stay on in full-time positions.

“I haven’t heard of anyone being offered anything,” Mancarella said.

Turner, an intern at Woman’s Day magazine expressed similar sentiment. “Unfortunately, there are no full-time positions available to me after graduation.”

While Barnes is more upbeat about a potential job offer, saying that she will meet with a job recruiter at Penguin Group and regularly keeps in touch with the HR contact at John Wiley & Sons, Inc., she admits, “I have yet to be offered a specific job.”

Feeling that the industry is closing the book on newcomers, some students have opted to consider graduate school as their next logical approach.

“I began thinking about graduate school more recently. As I search for jobs, it becomes more apparent that a masters degree is the new bachelors Degree,” Flynn said of how the economy is affecting her future plans.

Barnes’ plans for graduate schools may be expedited, she said, stating, “Graduate school is a possibility because of the economy. I feel like I’m going to get my masters in the future, but am now questioning jumping into schooling after schooling.”

English professor and advisor Bob Epstein understands the sentiment behind students gravitating toward graduate school. “I would never discourage anyone from pursuing a graduate degree,” he said, “and certainly many people think it makes sense to use a period of recession to improve one’s qualifications for when the job market revives.”

He continued, “The only warning I regularly give students- and I think most faculty agree with me on this- is never to take on any debt for a degree in the Humanities. It may well be worth borrowing, within limits, for a professional degree like a JD or an MPA, but it is not a good idea to do so for a Masters of PhD degree in the Humanities. These would not improve your marketability enough to offset the loan.”

Tara Kuther, PhD, a professor of psychology at Western Connecticut State College, urges students to contemplate whether graduate school makes financial sense, stating that the average private school’s master’s tuition is $30,000 per year and shedding light on the minimal funding given to Humanities students.

“Students in the humanities receive little funding, largely because humanities faculty do not obtain grants as large as science faculty because they have fewer needs for laboratory space and equipment,” Kuther said, adding, “Whether grad school is worth it might depend on what discipline you choose.”

For English majors nearing graduation, it may be in their best interest to take a look at their debt figure, take a look at their potential $30,000 entry-level income post graduate school, and then decide whether a couple-year delay and doubled debt is a version of their life they’d like published.

Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo architecture senior Dion Dekker designed a North Miami Beach hotel built partly of shipping containers to win a Modular Building Institute (MBI) student design competition.

Last quarter, Dekker’s architectural design class submitted modular designs to MBI for the hotel, which will be built in North Miami Beach, Florida. A jury of architecture authorities evaluated the submissions for innovative ideas that would reinvent the modular design industry.

Dekker was awarded $7,225 at a ceremony at World of Modular, MBI’s annual convention and tradeshow. Two other Cal Poly architecture students, Thomas Paul Shorey and Michael Charter, both won honorable mentions.

This year, the contest was administered by the American Institute of Architecture Students (AIAS); Director of Design Matthew Fochs directed the competition and oversaw the jury.

“The modular architecture industry has become very stagnant and focused on utility rather than innovation,” Fochs said. “This competition really encourages students to show how they think modular design can evolve, which is exactly what the industry is looking for.”

The Miami Beach Hotel competition required students to come up with a sustainable design for a modular structure. This means a design for a room or small part of a building that can be repeated throughout the whole building, which allows a construction company to save money and build the components off-site.

Dekker’s class was given the assignment a few weeks into winter quarter by architecture professor Thomas Fowler, who said he looks for national architecture competitions that relate to what his students are learning. Fowler chose the MBI contest last quarter because he said it challenged the class to think outside the box. He also added his own twist to the competition requirements.

“I changed the parameters of the competition for the class this quarter by making old shipping containers one of the required components. They’re so common today and have so much architectural potential, especially for sustainable construction,” he said.

Dekker said the inspiration for his design was the idea of an exoskeleton made out of the shipping containers that would surround the hotel rooms and restaurants.

The MBI jury found the idea ingenious as a modular component and environmentally friendly. They were also very impressed with Dekker’s exoskeleton design.

“I wanted to create a design that was different throughout the hotel, but the basic room structure would only need to be altered slightly,” Dekker said. “I thought the idea of an exoskeleton would allow for that, but it did take a while to really narrow down the idea.”

Students electronically submitted detailed designs along with a narrative description. Fowler said electronic submission required students to be a lot more creative with their work.

“Because the jury decides winners by looking at the submissions online, students really have to be able to tell the story of their design with whatever they submit,” Fowler said. “Dion’s submission was very compelling and convincing, which I think really impressed the jury.”

Fochs said designs like Dekker’s make it clear how much more effort architecture students are putting into their designs.

“Today’s architecture students seem to be doing a lot more research and focusing a lot more on the details of their designs,” Fochs said. “Employers in the architecture industry are pleased to see designs like Mr. Dekker’s.”

Dekker said he’s just happy to be able to put the award on his résumé and is already moving on to another competition. Last week he submitted a reconfigured version of his design for a competition that requires students to explore the possibilities of steel in architecture.

“It’s obviously a really great honor to win a competition like this, but there’s always something new to focus on — another competition, another project,” Dekker said.

The tossing of Frisbees, baseballs, and footballs on Gest Lawn has long been a staple of springtime on Hawk Hill. The large field at the corners of City and Cardinal Avenues has played host to graduations, concerts, barbeques, and countless student functions for over four decades.

But activities like ball playing were once so condemned on this land that its owner added several feet of serrated concrete block to the existing high stone walls that reached 40 feet, just to keep errant balls from the campus from entering her garden.

Margaret Gest, an accomplished painter, bibliophile and gardener, owned the 10-acre estate that spanned much of what is now an important part of the central campus. The Chapel of Saint Joseph, Science Center, Wolfington Hall, and part of the Campion Student Center are all located on the Gest Estate that the college attempted to acquire in the 1920s and finally obtained in 1965.

This year’s graduation will mark the last on Gest Lawn, as construction is set to begin in April of 2011 for a new first-year residence building. The Gest Lawn name will likely be wiped from the campus map, but vestiges of Margaret Gest will remain—especially in Wolfington Hall, which was once the affluent Gest family’s summer home, “Handsworth.”

John Marshall Gest, a prominent Philadelphia attorney and eventual Orphans Court judge, purchased the Gothic Revival house designed in 1897 by architect William Price, who built many large houses throughout Overbrook and Merion. It was here at Handsworth that Gest’s daughter Margaret was born in 1900 and died in 1965.

Since Saint Joseph’s moved from North Philadelphia to the current City Avenue campus, relations were often contentious between Gest and the college, which made no secret of its intentions to acquire her property, as well as the nine-acre Gerhard Estate at the intersection of Overbrook and Wynnefield Avenues.

Margaret Gest refused to sell the property as long as she lived there, but at the age of 48 agreed to give Saint Joseph’s first option on the property if she ever did decide to sell, or in the event of her death. The agreement stipulated that Gest would be paid $140,000 with $21,000 to be paid upon the signing of the agreement.

Around the same time, the Philadelphia Board of Education seized the adjacent Gerhard Estate through eminent domain to build Samuel Gompers Elementary School on Overbrook Avenue. Saint Joseph’s did manage to obtain five acres of the Gerhard property, which it used to open a series of residence halls.

The increasingly congested campus finally acquired the Gest Estate when, at the age of 65, Margaret Gest succumbed to a heart attack while planting daffodils in her garden.

Gest’s trust fund was eventually left to Haverford College and many of her rare books and art work were left to Beaver College (now Arcadia University). Saint Joseph’s soon tore down the large walls and erected the Science Center, where many of Gest’s early portraits were exhibited in the building’s ground floor.

Saint Joseph’s owns a small collection of Gest’s paintings, and in 1996 hosted an exhibition with a variety of loaned portraits and landscapes that showcased her ability to work with rich texture and color.

Margaret Gest’s works are still accessible for students and art admirers, and her home, now Wolfington Hall, operates as the center for campus ministry.

Research being conducted at U. Toledo may one day eliminate the need for lab animals in the testing of products such as lotions, soaps and ointments.

Akira Takashima, professor and chair of the Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, received a $1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health last week to create a three-dimensional skin replica that would eliminate the need to use lab animals for toxicology testing.

Takashima’s research over the next two years will be funded by a total of $2.4 million that he brought in from federal stimulus money.

Although Takashima received the grant last week, the funding is part of the $789 billion stimulus bill that was enacted in February by the federal government.

“In Europe, the industry cannot test new chemicals on experimental animals; it’s banned. The EU made the change a few years ago,” Takashima said. ”Somebody has to develop another way. In the U.S., companies are still using experimental animals for skin toxicology testing. I’m sure the same change is going to follow in the U.S., I’d say in about four to five years. That’s why even cosmetic companies in the U.S. are beginning to move in the same direction.”

Takashima explained the process of making the replica of skin cells that he hopes will soon replace animal testing.

“We engineered each of the three cell types in the skin — keratinocytes, langerhans cells and fibroblast cells — in a collagen matrix. We engineered each of them to express some sort of fluorescent signal. Detecting the fluorescence of different colors we can estimate what kind of stress or what kind of signals the cells have received. We are then putting them in a three-dimension skin in more like a matrix.”

The use of red, green and yellow fluorescent signals, which signify different chemical reactions in the cells, will help scientists determine the effects the products will have on human skin, making the process “a very colorful experience,” Takashima said.

Though Takashima’s research to begin testing products on artificial cells was just funded last week, the cells he will be using in his research were developed at UT five to 10 years ago, he said. According to Takashima, the cells will divide forever.

“They divide every 16 hours. That is what we are doing now,” he said.

Out of 119 grant proposals coming from UT last year, the grant for Takashima’s research was one of only 24 that were accepted. Seventeen of the 24 grants came from UT’s College of Medicine.

“It’s a strong statement to the College of Medicine,” said Health Science Campus Provost Jeff Gold. “Faculty and students work hard to apply for these grants and they were rewarded with a healthy number of positive grant responses. We have not heard back on all of the grant proposals, and there is still a chance of getting more accepted.”

Gold said grant proposals like the one awarded to Takashima show the strong research interest and quality of research programs developed by the faculty and graduate students of the medical college.

“We are very proud of it,” he said.

“Because the program is to be funded by the NIH, any intellectual property resulting from the project will belong to the University of Toledo,” Takashima said. “UT will submit any patent applications listing me as the inventor. The cash will go to the school, and in turn maybe come to my lab.”

Gold said the grant Takashima received was given to help stimulate the economy.

“The university and the inventor will work together to find either a company to sell the idea to or to start our own company or license the technology,” he said. “Dr. Takashima holds many different patents. He is very experienced not only as a research scientist, but also [as an] entrepreneur. I’m sure there will be more patents and more intellectual property that the university and Dr. Takashima own that will result from this research.”

Takashima received his degree at Nagoya City University Medical School in Nagoya, Japan. He is also the Robert A. Stranahan Endowed Chair in the College of Medicine at UT.