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Tuesday, November 28, 2006

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Total Clips: 9

	Date	Outlet
Audit: Former large animal clinic cashier owes Auburn University $83,623	11/28/2006	Montgomery Advertiser
Teens gear up for robotics duel	11/28/2006	Montgomery Advertiser
State News of National Interest	11/28/2006	Santa Barbara News Press
USA, AU agree on pharmacy program	11/28/2006	Press Register
Alabama News (from Gannett) in USA Today	11/28/2006	USA Today
A grass worth getting high on	11/28/2006	Chicago Tribune
AU, USA resolve pharmacy school feud	11/28/2006	Birmingham News
Auburn University partners with KPMG LLP	11/27/2006	Central Alabama Business Journal
Auburn to offer pharmacy degrees at South Alabama campus	11/27/2006	Columbus Ledger-Enquirer


Audit: Former large animal clinic cashier owes Auburn University $83,623 11/28/2006 Montgomery Advertiser Mike Linn		Return to Top
A former cashier at Auburn University's large animal clinic owes the university $83,623 after she apparently failed to deposit cash revenue from customers, according to a recent state audit. Casey Dillard, who handled payments for the clinic, was terminated on July 7. Her immediate supervisor, who was not named in the audit, was reassigned to a position that requires no financial supervision of the College of Veterinary Medicine. "Some of these animal owners would pay in cash, and sometimes this cash would never hit the bank," said Brian Harris, assistant director for education audits at the Department of Examiners of Public Accounts. According to the audit, which was released Friday, receipts totaling $80,322 were written for customer payments, but were not included on collection reports or deposited in the bank. The audit also said credits in the amount of $3,059 were posted to the accounts of 12 customers, and their case files showed a payment, but no deposit was made. Dillard also had a $242 balance written off her account in February 2002, the review states. "I can't say she did it, but we're holding her responsible because she signed the deposit, she prepared the deposit, she collected the payments," Harris said. Randy Myers, Dillard's attorney, said his client denies all wrongdoing. "She was working in wide-open areas. People would have seen if she was taking any money," he said. Myers said the clinic has had a faulty computer system for years, even before Dillard was hired. He said the computer may have incorrectly tabulated the payments. Dillard's case, which includes lost payments from 2000 to 2005, has been referred to the Alabama Attorney General's Office for repayment, Harris said. Auburn University has since hired a certified public accountant to monitor the finances of the clinic, which provides veterinary care to livestock, said Marcie Smith, associate vice president for business and finance at Auburn. "The policies and procedures and controls were there. They just weren't being followed as they needed to be," Smith said.
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Teens gear up for robotics duel 11/28/2006 Montgomery Advertiser Erin Elaine Mosely		Return to Top
This story mentions the Southern Regional Championship of the Boosting Engineering, Science and Technology (BEST) competition at Auburn University on Dec. 8 and 9. Rosie We-tu is getting an extreme makeover. She will get everything done -- from top to bottom, inside and out. She is loved dearly, but the competition is just too tough. That's why her designers, the Wetumpka High School Robotics Team, stripped the robot and completely redesigned Rosie. "We took a design team vote, and we all decided to start over," said William Jones, a junior at Wetumpka High School and member of the team. "It wasn't doing what it was designed to do. It was just makeshift." Jones and teammates Brittany Faulkner and Ariel Murphy are on the cutting edge of innovation. Several schools in the tri-county area are competing in the Southern Regional Championship of the Boosting Engineering, Science and Technology competition at Auburn University on Dec. 8 and 9. Three Elmore County schools came out on top in state competition against schools such as Hoover High and Vestavia Hills. Stanhope Elmore High in Millbrook, Southside Middle in Tallassee and Wetumpka High schools advanced to the BEST regional competition, where they will compete against winners from across the eastern U.S. in Auburn at Beard-Eaves Memorial Coliseum. "Last year, we only had 10 people on the team," Faulkner said. "This year, we doubled that and we won first place. We're just looking at all our scores and what we did good and what we did bad and helping each other out... constructive criticism." Southside Middle School placed first in the robotics competition, and Eastwood Christian School in Montgomery took second place. Wetumpka High School placed first in the overall BEST competition. When Southside's robotics team competed in the state BEST competition, it was the first Tallassee school to enter the contest. The youngsters competed against a group of mostly high school teams. Stella Burak, 13, helped design and name Southside's robot, Chocobo. "It (Alabama BEST competition) was really fun," Burak said. "Also, it was really nerve-wracking. You don't know who's going to come out on top. You don't know who has the best strategy. You're just screaming all the time until you get it." Davis Knapp, 14, was a driver behind the Southside team. He helped build their robot and came up with the design. "When we started we didn't know what to expect before we went to kickoff," Knapp said. "After doing that, we realized it required you to work as a team. Also, you have to back-track... when things don't go right and re-do them." The Metal Mustangs at Stanhope Elmore High School will make another appearance at the BEST Regionals. A robotics stalwart, the Mustangs are trying to make a comeback. "We're trying for first place," said Blake Riley, 17, a junior at Stanhope Elmore. "We've been driving the robot for the past two weeks, and we'll be driving it for the next two weeks." For six weeks, Tom Crawford and Tim Bianchi, engineers from Neptune Technology Group in Tallassee, worked with the Southside team during and after school to design a robot that would meet the challenge. Candy Lancaster, a teacher at Southside, sponsored the team. The team won first place in the robotics competition. "That was really amazing to us," Burak said. "Seeing all these other teams from Auburn and Hoover. We were pretty stressed out, but we ended up winning." Knapp said the BEST robotics competition has drawn some of his peers to the engineering field and made others more aware of what it takes to become an engineer. "Some have said it made them want to run from it, but they said it jokingly," he said. "Everybody likes it, but it's a lot of work."
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State News of National Interest 11/28/2006 Santa Barbara News Press Associated Press		Return to Top
This news roundup includes mention of the AU/USA pharmacy school agreement. NEWTOWN, Conn. (AP) - An inmate is charged with second-degree assault in an attack on former Waterbury Mayor Philip Giordano, who's serving a 37-year sentence on a child sex conviction. Ivan Acevedo struck Giordano in the head with a sock filled with batteries, authorities said. Giordano did not need medical treatment. He's in the state's Garner Correctional Institution while he appeals his federal sentence. TRENTON, N.J. (AP) - The state moved a step closer to having a NASCAR auto racing track. The Senate economic growth committee approved a bill that would help bring a 700-acre race track complex to the southern New Jersey town of Millville. The legislation has twice passed the Assembly but has not made it through the Senate. SOUTH MOBILE, Ala. (AP) - The University of South Alabama will partner with Auburn University in offering pharmacy degrees on its Mobile campus. Under the agreement signed by officials at both schools, the Auburn pharmacy school will establish a satellite program at South Alabama next year with faculty from Auburn, the only public college in Alabama with a full pharmacy program. FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) - A federal appeals court in Cincinnati upheld the firing of three Kentucky State Parks employees, saying their dismissal for not tucking in their shirts did not violate their constitutional rights. The employees worked at General Burnside Island State Park near Somerset. The state fired them in May 2004 for the dress code violations. MIDWEST CHICAGO (AP) - U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin said he'll introduce legislation next year to help lawyers working in the public interest pay down law school debt. The Cook County state's attorney's office says heavy student loan debt is forcing lawyers to leave the office for higher paying jobs. The Illinois Democrat's legislation would have the Justice Department pay up to $10,000 a year of law school loans of any prosecutor or public defender. KANSAS CITY - Police officers on horseback are patrolling the streets here for the first time since 1922. The mounted unit got started in mid-August, and the first two police horses are getting acquainted with traffic and crowds. When complete, the unit will have eight officers and 12 horses. WEST COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) - The city abandoned the idea of creating a pet cemetery to subsidize the operation of its human cemeteries. For one thing, a study showed the city would have to compete with businesses already offering pet memorials and cremations. And the pet cemetery was to occupy an unused section of Fairview Cemetery. Councilwoman Margaret Radford said the city might be viewed as insensitive if animals were buried too close to people. SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - Smoking in public parks and within fifty feet of a mass gathering is no longer allowed in Utah's largest city. Mayor Rocky Anderson signed the ordinance that prohibits smoking at bus stops, light rail stations and at outdoor concerts, among other places. Smoking is already banned in most buildings in the city. AP-WS-11-28-06 0533EST
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USA, AU agree on pharmacy program 11/28/2006 Press Register George Altman and Penelope McClenny		Return to Top
USA, AU agree on pharmacy program It will be located at the main South Alabama campus but will be an Auburn satellite program After more than a year of disagreement and negotiation, the presidents of Auburn University and the University of South Alabama agreed Monday to launch a joint pharmacy program in Mobile. The program is to be located on USA's main campus but will be an Auburn satellite program offering the doctor of pharmacy degree. USA had previously insisted that any pharmacy program on its campus be under its control. "We all had to back up and say, 'Let's do what's in the best interests of our citizens,'" said USA President Gordon Moulton. "'Let's put aside institutional pride and priority and make sure that we're focused on what we should be doing.'" USA has considered a pharmacy program to address a shortage of pharmacists in the Mobile area since 2004. Its efforts met stiff opposition from Auburn, which said a USA program could be detrimental to its own long-established curriculum. The Alabama Commission on Higher Education, which must approve new academic programs at public universities, voted last year against allowing USA to start its own pharmacy program. This was despite a recommendation in favor of such a program from ACHE's own staff members, who found that there was a need for pharmacists in southwest Alabama. After the ACHE vote, USA and Auburn negotiated behind closed doors, eventually reaching today's agreement, said Keith Ayers, a spokesman for USA. The program will have the same admission requirements and $14,000 yearly tuition as those for the Harrison School of Pharmacy on Auburn's main campus and will primarily be staffed by Auburn faculty, officials with both universities said. Students in the four-year pharmacy program will count toward Auburn's enrollment, not the enrollment of USA. Occasionally, students in the Auburn program will be taught by USA medical faculty, and Auburn faculty will at times teach USA medical students, the schools said. Moulton said that such collaboration could lead to a more productive relationship between the universities. "A lot of things could grow out of this at Auburn and South Alabama," Moulton said. Prior to the agreement, Auburn said that its pharmacy program and that of Samford University -- the only two pharmacy curricula in the state -- were sufficient to meet Alabama's need for pharmacists. But Monday, Auburn University President Ed Richardson said there was an "extreme shortage" of pharmacists and that students who graduate from state pharmacy programs don't always stay in Alabama. "Many of those that we graduate go to other states that pay even more money," Richardson said. James Becknell, a pharmacist and pharmacy manager for several local Wal-Mart stores, said that a new school in southern Alabama will help combat a shortage in the profession that is hitting not only the Gulf Coast, but the entire country. According to the National Association of Chain Drug Stores, there are about 7,500 full- and part-time chain pharmacy vacancies nationwide. "It is not exclusive to this area," Becknell said. "I would think that if you checked with all the major chains, they all have positions open that need to be filled." In a virtual umbrella drawn from Tallahassee to New Orleans, there are no pharmacy schools, Becknell said. "There's a lot of people under that area that need care," he said. Staffing shortages have forced some chains to restrict the hours of their pharmacies while also leaving pharmacists with less time to interact with their clients. Graduating more professionals in the field could help change that, Becknell said, as well as providing people with "a profession that is very rewarding." Nationwide, pharmacists made a median salary of $87,256 in 2005, according to PharmacyNOW, a career service for pharmacists. Richardson said that setting up an Auburn satellite program at USA was a fast and inexpensive solution to the pharmacist shortage along the Gulf Coast. The process of approval, accreditation and construction of a building would have been expensive and time-consuming, Richardson said. "Not only is it very cost-effective, it enables you to start up with enrollment the next fall, rather than four or five years down the road," Richardson said. USA has graduate degree programs in medicine, nursing and allied health. The school also runs the USA Medical Center and USA Children's and Women's Hospital, and is developing its Mitchell Cancer Institute. Moulton said that this infrastructure would provide a steady supply of applicants to the pharmacy program. Ayers said 24 students will be enrolled when the program starts in fall 2007, and added that he expects that number to grow in subsequent years.
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Alabama News (from Gannett) in USA Today 11/28/2006 USA Today		Return to Top
Tuesday, November 28 Mobile - The University of South Alabama will partner with Auburn University in offering pharmacy degrees on its Mobile campus. Under the agreement signed by officials at both schools, the Auburn pharmacy school will establish a satellite program at South Alabama next year with faculty from Auburn. Monday, November 27 Birmingham - Lt. Gov. Baxley was reported in good condition Sunday at a hospital. Doctors said she suffered a minor stroke on Wednesday. Baxley, 68, was admitted to the hospital early Thursday during a Thanksgiving holiday visit with family and friends, her husband said. Friday, November 24 Birmingham - Lt. Gov. Baxley is in a hospital after becoming ill while spending the Thanksgiving holiday with family and friends, her husband Jim Smith said. Baxley complained she was not feeling well Wednesday night and hospitalized for observation and tests, Smith said. He said it may be several days before the results are available. Wednesday, November 22 Montgomery - A federal grand jury indicted a couple on charges they harbored 24 illegal immigrants in the community of Tallassee. The indictment follows the arrests on Oct. 12 of Octavio Trejo Pitin, 33, and his wife, Ronda Baird, 37, of Tallapoosa County. They're accused of employing illegal immigrants in their subcontracting business. Tuesday, November 21 Anniston - A 64-year-old woman escaped from a kidnapper by locking herself and a clerk in a bulletproof enclosure at a convenience store, police said. Johnny Brewer, 35, was being held in the Talladega County Jail, according to authorities. The woman's name was not released.
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A grass worth getting high on 11/28/2006 Chicago Tribune Bob Sector		Return to Top
The work of AU's David Bransby is mentioned in this story. SERIES Part of an occasional series on the ethanol boom If there were such a thing as a Comeback Plant of the Year award--maybe Comeback of the Century--a top contender would have to be switch grass, a dominant part of the tallgrass prairie that once blanketed much of North America. That vast sea of grasses, so thick and high that pioneers said it could swallow a rider on horseback, all but disappeared as sodbusters ripped it away to make room for lush and productive cropland. What was an obstacle to progress 150 years ago suddenly is getting a fresh, hard look as a major source of fuel. Our energy-starved nation is scrambling to come up with alternatives to limited supplies of expensive oil and natural gas, and there's a growing buzz about switch grass even though most Americans would need a botanical guide to identify it. Agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland Co., the world's largest producer of ethanol made from corn, this month unveiled plans to ramp up research into switch grass as another source to make ethanol and other biofuels for cars, homes and industry. In Washington, the Democrats soon to take over as heads of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees have put development of switch grass as a fuel source high on their priority list. This is a natural evolution of an industry that could be massive, said Patricia Woertz, chief executive of Decatur, Ill.-based ADM. Also known as tall panic grass, switch grass doesn't look much like the grasses that cover today's lawns. It is a lanky plant, with stems up to 8 or 9 feet high and a root system just as deep, topped with lacy seed-bearing panicles. It grows in thick, jungle-like tangles. It also is especially good at storing energy from the sun. A living solar battery is what Canadian switch-grass researcher Roger Samson calls it. The U.S. Agriculture Department calls switch grass perhaps our most valuable native grass. Oak Ridge National Laboratory has identified it as the model plant species for fuel, better than corn, which is all the rage now as the prime ingredient of ethanol. President Bush highlighted the energy potential of switch grass in his State of the Union address this year. So, like a once-treasured toy rediscovered after years in the attic, switch grass is now the focus of talk about its revival--this time as a cash crop--on tens of millions of acres in the Midwest, South and Great Plains. This could very well be the future, said Stephen Gardner, one of dozens of southeastern Iowa farmers who for years have supplied switch grass for an electric generating experiment in Chillicothe that has shown encouraging results. The notion of converting vegetation into fuel may seem odd in a nation that runs on oil, gas and coal. But fossil fuels themselves are the detritus of ancient plants, buried in the earth for millions of years. They are also a finite resource, while fuel crops can be grown again and again. Nature figured out long ago how to store chemical energy in plants, explained Robert Brown, director of the office of biorenewable programs at Iowa State University. University of Illinois research Energy can be squeezed from most any plant, and there are a lot of them under study these days as potential fuel sources. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is leading the way in research on giant miscanthus, a grass native to Asia. It can grow to 13 feet with bamboo-like stems ripe for burning. The trick today is to target the plants that can be most efficiently grown and tapped for fuel. For now, the renewable fuel of choice in the U.S. is corn-based ethanol. It is essentially alcohol made from the starches in grain. Humans have been fermenting and drinking it since prehistoric times. Corn is abundant, and it has a clout-heavy lobby of farmers and agribusiness promoting it for ethanol, which is largely blended with gasoline. But corn has limitations as a raw material for fuel. Divert a lot of corn to ethanol production and food prices are bound to rise. Corn also is a resource hog, requiring good soil and lots of water, fertilizer and herbicide, heightening environmental concerns. One prominent researcher contends it takes more fossil energy to grow and transform corn starch into ethanol than the new fuel can yield, suggesting the process is a waste. Other experts disagree, but if there is an energy benefit to making ethanol this way, it is not huge. The hope for switch grass is that it may bypass a lot of those problems while providing more bang for the energy buck in an ecologically friendly and low-maintenance way. The explanation hearkens back to the prairies of old. Near-treeless vistas of undulating grass once stretched from the Gulf of Mexico up into Canada, providing a feasting ground for birds and other wildlife and packing the soils with nutrients. The grasses once covered 60 percent of what is now Illinois, which calls itself the Prairie State. Ironically, the fertile soil of the prairie also was its undoing. The farmers who eventually chopped it away liked to boast that the prairie topsoil was so deep and rich that it could grease the axles of their wagons. There were lots of different grasses in the Midwest prairie, but switch grass was one of the three predominant varieties. It didn't need much water, it adapted to a wide range of latitudes and soils, and it sucked in a lot of carbon dioxide from the air as fuel to grow on. Prairie fires burned so hot that they would create their own cyclones, a testament to the energy that the grasses stored away. Those are some of the traits that are kindling interest in switch grass as the nation scrambles to grow its way into energy self-sufficiency. David Bransby, a grasslands expert at Auburn University in Alabama, suggests a few more. And it grows prodigiously Bransby, who has studied switch grass for 20 years, says the plant grows prodigiously, yielding huge per-acre amounts of what the energy industry calls biomass--a term for living material that can be turned into fuel. Switch grass requires no herbicides and little fertilizer, it can take hold on poor-quality land not suitable for most crops, and it is a perennial, meaning it doesn't have to be replanted like corn after each harvest. Stands of good-quality switch grass can last 10 years or more. Switch grass also has ecological benefits, Bransby said. Its deep roots bind soil and block erosion. They also pump a lot of carbon into the ground, essentially recycling carbon-based greenhouse gases emitted when the plant is burned as fuel. If we really put our minds to it, we can use this to help replace the oil we import from the Middle East very easily in the next 20 years, Bransby said. Unlike with corn, a cost-effective process to convert switch grass and other fibrous plant material into ethanol hasn't been perfected, though researchers say they're close. ADM's Woertz said biofuel producers right now are in a chicken and egg situation as they explore the potential of switch grass. How do you build massive facilities when you haven't grown the stuff yet, and then how do you grow the stuff if you haven't anywhere to process it? she asked. Some experts argue that switch grass would be an even better option as an ingredient for fuels other than ethanol, and the technology to make them exists now. Samson, who runs a non-profit agricultural research institute in Quebec, said switch grass already is being used to make a low-quality natural gas substitute suitable for heating farm structures and small industrial buildings. Such biogas systems are in wide use in Germany and China, he said. Switch grass also can be easily chopped and pressed into fuel pellets for burning in special furnaces to heat homes, Samson said. The slow-burning pellets heat for a price far less than natural gas, quickly paying for the cost of new heating equipment, he said. We think we're heading toward an agrarian industrial revolution, Samson predicted. In Iowa, Gardner and more than 100 other growers have supplied switch grass for years to a federally sanctioned experiment that burns the grass alongside coal in a power plant in tiny Chillicothe, 80 miles southeast of Des Moines. Preliminary results indicate that switch grass burns almost as hot as the coal, and its presence in the fuel mix reduces sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide emissions. The Iowa farmers reaped their switch grass from stands they had planted as part of the federal conservation reserve program, which pays farmers to take erosion-prone, low-quality cropland out of production. Around the country, there are 36 million acres enrolled in the program, an area that if stitched together would cover every square inch of Illinois. Some already is planted in switch grass to help with erosion control. In the prairies of old, nature mixed in switch grass with other plant varieties that kept each other in check. That wouldn't be the case if it is reintroduced as a fuel crop across wide stretches of the nation, and the prospect is troubling to some experts in invasive species. Writing recently in the journal Science, a team of researchers led by S. Raghu of the Illinois Natural History Survey warned that wholesale plantings of switch grass, miscanthus or other grasses grown for fuel could have an ecological downside. The grasses are attracting interest as biofuel crops because they grow rapidly, need little water and appear resistant to most pests and diseases. But those are also traits that help invasive species wreak havoc on ecosystems and agriculture. The U.S. spends more than $100 billion annually trying to beat back the ravages of invasive species such as kudzu, so Raghu and his colleagues urged caution as the pressure to develop new crops for fuel intensifies. We're not saying every one of these is a nightmare waiting to happen, but we've made mistakes in past, he said. There's no such thing as a free lunch. Switch grass facts - Switch grass was one of the dominant plant species of the American tallgrass prairie. - The perennial's Latin name--panicum virgatum-- explains why it's called tall panic grass. - Switch grass can grow 9 feet high, produces seeds the size of a grain of pepper, resists drought and flourishes in poor-quality soil. - Switch grass test plots at Auburn University in Alabama have produced 1,150 gallons of ethanol per acre annually.
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AU, USA resolve pharmacy school feud 11/28/2006 Birmingham News Charles J. Dean		Return to Top
Auburn University and the University of South Alabama have reached an agreement that will allow students at USA in Mobile to seek a doctor of pharmacy degree. Auburn President Ed Richardson and USA President Gordon Moulton signed the agreement Monday. Under the deal, graduates will receive a degree from the Auburn University Harrison School of Pharmacy at the University of South Alabama. School leaders said classes could begin as soon as next fall. The agreement ends what had been at times a nasty fight between AU and USA over an effort by the Mobile school to begin its own pharmacy school. That effort failed when the Alabama Commission on Higher Education, at AU's urging, rejected USA's proposal for its own school of pharmacy. The two schools eventually began talking with each other over how best to meet a need for a documented shortage of pharmacists in the southern end of the state. Those talks resulted in the agreement signed Monday. Richardson said the agreement will meet the need for pharmacists in a part of the state that needs them while using state dollars efficiently.
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Auburn University partners with KPMG LLP 11/27/2006 Central Alabama Business Journal		Return to Top
AUBURN -- Auburn University's Department of Management and the School of Accountancy have partnered with international professional services firm KPMG LLP to develop an academic program in information assurance. The collaboration with KPMG is the first alliance of its kind for AU's College of Business, and the information assurance minor is the second program to emerge from that partnership. "This program exposes students to new and expanding fields in the accounting profession, while helping to increase the number of top candidates for KPMG’s advisory practice," said Lynne Doughtie, national managing partner, advisory for KPMG LLP. The program is open to any AU undergraduate student who meets the prerequisites. The information assurance minor is a good fit for students majoring in accounting, management information systems, finance or computer science. The Department of Management offers a similar program at the graduate level. Auburn's College of Business is the first "alliance university" in KPMG's plan to create a national, multi-institutional system of colleges and universities that support cross-functional business education. "We chose Auburn as our flagship college based on interest in the program from both students and staff, and the faculty's willingness to embrace an interdisciplinary curriculum," Doughtie said. The 15 credit-hour academic minor helps students prepare for a business environment that is more demanding in the areas of technology and information since the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. The curriculum was developed in conjunction with senior leadership at KPMG and includes certain required courses in information security and auditing as well as elective courses based on the student’s chosen major.
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Auburn to offer pharmacy degrees at South Alabama campus 11/27/2006 Columbus Ledger-Enquirer Associated Press		Return to Top
**Similar AP stories appeared in the Gainesville Sun, Southwest Florida Herald-Tribune, Montgomery Advertiser, Gadsden Times and were broadcast on WLOX-TV (Miss.), WALA-TV and WPMI-TV (Mobile). MOBILE, Ala. - The University of South Alabama will partner with Auburn University in offering pharmacy degrees on the Mobile campus next year. Senior academic administrators at South Alabama and Auburn recently signed an agreement to establish the program. Classes are projected to start in the fall of 2007. Auburn is the only public college in the state with a full pharmacy program. Baptist-affiliated Samford University in Birmingham also has one. A formal announcement is planned for 11 a.m. today at the Health Services Building on USA's campus.
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