“Graduation day is tough for adults. They go to the ceremony as parents. They come home as contemporaries. After twenty-two years of child-raising, they are unemployed.” (Erma Bombeck)

Hello everyone,

This past Sunday, I attended my first Ohio State graduation ceremony as Dean and Director of the OSU Mansfield campus. Participation in commencement activities is a strong reminder of the main reason for our institution‟s existence: the students. And there were students aplenty, as a total of 2,120 individuals received Bachelor‟s, Master‟s, or Doctoral degrees that day.

There also were many, many family members and friends in attendance. The Shottenstein Center contains around 20,000 seats, and most all of them were filled. President Gee acknowledged their presence in his remarks, asking those who had supported these students throughout their educational pursuits to stand up and receive a round of applause. As you might expect, as a family research scientist I too was very tuned into their presence, and I took the time to soak in the looks of deep satisfaction on the faces of these mothers, fathers, grandparents, and other extended kin.

This also was a time of remembrance for me, as I had sat in this very arena for my two oldest sons' high school graduations. It was amazing to me that so much time had passed so quickly. Almost five years ago I had watched my oldest son get his high school diploma, and what seems like only a blink of an eye later he had received his OSU diploma last year in the 'Shoe. I believe that I saw the dawning recognition of that kind of reality on many family members' faces as well last Sunday. There may not be a better example to be found of what it means to have a “bittersweet” experience.

Spring Break is almost over, and a new quarter is about to begin (perhaps its own bittersweet experience for many of you right now). If you got any time off, count your blessings, and come back renewed and reinvigorated. And for those of us who did not get a longer break, please take the time to enjoy the weekend with family and friends!

Steve Gavazzi

"The dream begins with a teacher who believes in you, who tugs and pushes and leads you to the next plateau, sometimes poking you with a sharp stick called truth." (Dan Rather)

Hello everyone,

Yesterday was a very proud moment for The Ohio State University at Mansfield campus. One of our very own, Professor Joseph R. Holomuzki, a faculty member of the Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology, was informed that he was a recipient of the 2011 Distinguished Teaching Award.

Through some subterfuge, we were able to coax Joe out of his sabbatical in order to have him available for Senior Vice President for Alumni Relations and Alumni Association President (oh yes, and the only two-time Heisman Trophy Award winner) Archie Griffin to make the presentation of this award. And how fitting! One of the all-time great college football legends, someone who gave so many fans so much to cheer about, gave our university’s highest teaching award to someone who gave so many students so much to think about.

By watching closely and intently as Jo Ho (yes, I have come to find out that Dr. Holomuzki has a nickname) received his award from Mr. Griffin, I can say with near certainty that he was both surprised and delighted. We really had done a great job of keeping this a closely guarded secret, which of course lent itself to the surprise element. And the delight seemed to come from deep within the man, giving everyone an inkling of that same energy that causes him to teach so well. While I was not surprised, I must say that I too was thrilled. In fact, one of the greatest parts of being a Dean is helping to create opportunities that celebrate the greatness of those individuals who make outstanding contributions to the university’s mission. And this was one of those very cool moments, plain and simple.

So please take the time to join me in congratulating Joe for this significant recognition. And as well, please take the time to enjoy the weekend with family and friends!

Steve Gavazzi

“Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind, which are delivered down from generation to generation as presents to the posterity of those who are yet unborn." (Joseph Addison)

Hello everyone,

I have to do a little bragging about my scholarship this week. The textbook that I had written while on sabbatical last year – entitled Families with Adolescents: Bridging the Gaps in Theory, Research, and Practice – was released this week by Springer Press. This book was a labor of love, and represents everything that I know about how my field thinks about, conducts research, and intervenes in the lives of parents and teenagers. And judging from the reviews that have been posted on the Springer Press website (www.springer.com/978-1-4419-8245-2), the reactions to date have been very positive!

Because one of my principal responsibilities is boasting about the work of our campus community, please allow my bragging to now be extended to the book publishing efforts of our faculty. And to understand just how impressive these efforts are, you need to know a bit more about the challenges that these authors face. A significant number of our faculty members are connected to “book departments,” which means that their research efforts largely take the form of, well, books. This is different than my own department (Human Development and Family Science), which primarily focuses on journal articles and not books. That’s why I said that my own book was a labor of love, in that books typically do not “count” as much as articles in my department.

For our book department faculty, however, the book is the “be all and end all” of their scholarship. Therefore, these faculty members generally are required to publish a book in order to receive tenure. What is most impressive about these efforts is that they complete the work in the same amount of time as their Columbus campus colleagues, and yet they do this with a larger course load.

Numerous examples of the books that our faculty members have published in recent years can be viewed in the display case in Ovalwood (as well as through our library, of course). Next time you are in the building, take a moment to check out the wide variety of topics and areas of inquiry about which these professors are writing. And who knows, perhaps you might find some time to pick one of these books up! In the meantime, please take the time to enjoy the weekend with family and friends!

Steve Gavazzi

“Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose..” (Zora Neale Hurston)

Hello everyone,

Last Friday, I had the pleasure of having a meeting with Dr. Caroline Whitacre, who currently serves as the OSU Vice President for Research. Essentially, Dr. Whitacre provides leadership to our university’s efforts to stimulate and support innovative empirical activities amongst faculty, staff, and students. And as you might imagine, someone placed in a position like this has had some sort of significant research career. True to form, Dr. Whitacre became our research leader in large part because of her own stellar empirical efforts in the area of autoimmune diseases.

My meeting with Dr. Whitacre was a follow-up to an earlier conversation that I had with her about research activities on our Mansfield campus. In brief, I had lots of ideas I wanted to bounce off of her in terms of elevating our research profile, as well as having questions about how to access resources from her office. We agreed that it would be very important for her to come and visit our campus in order to get to know more about our work and our needs. And in quick order, a date was set! Please mark your calendars for her visit on May 31st, and be prepared to fully engage in a dialogue about where we are as researchers and where we want to go in the years ahead.

I was also pleased to finalize my Ad Hoc Research Committee this week. Many thanks to Del Lindsey, Bill Putikka, Dennis Shaffer, Dawn Kitchen, Ozeas Costa, Dan Amsterdam, Noelle Chao, and Tena Katsaounis for volunteering to become members of this important committee. As I have mentioned previously, I want this group to take a leadership role in a variety of areas that include, but are not limited to, defining policies and procedures regarding research support on our campus and increasing student participation in the research process.

Because I have selected two full professors, two associate professors, two assistant professors, and two auxiliary faculty members, the campus now has a representational system for creating dialogue about critical issues facing researchers on our campus. Please also note, however, that the lifetime of this particular committee will be rather short in duration (at least when you consider how often committees are formed and then seem to take on a life all of their own). Instead, this group will be given a small but significant set of tasks to accomplish. Hence, once these goals are achieved, our campus community will want to think about other ways of sustaining our dialogue about research-related issues.

We have lots of exciting times ahead of us in our labs and out in the field, so strap on your safety goggles, prepare your bags and tags, and get ready for a great ride! In the meantime, please take the time to enjoy the weekend with family and friends!

Steve Gavazzi