COLLEGE NOTES

Carolina Alumni Associate executive named Forman Fellow

Mary Ruffin Weaver Childs, assistant executive director of marketing, membership and communications for the University of South Carolina’s Alumni Association, has been named a 2008 Robert G. Forman Fellow by the Council of Alumni Association Executives (CAAE).

As a fellow, Childs will conduct research on alumni-relations management, which she will present at the CAAE’s annual institute in Chicago this summer. She will study membership recruitment and retention at the University of Central Florida, noted for its relatively young alumni market, and Iowa State University, noted for its older, established membership.

The Forman Fellowship is awarded annually to two promising leaders in the field of alumni affairs. The fellowship honors Robert G. Forman, founder of CAAE and longtime leader of the University of Michigan Alumni Association.

Childs is a 1980 graduate of the University of South Carolina.

USC geographer named to national advisory committee

University of South Carolina geography professor Dr. David Cowen has been named to serve on the new National Geospatial Advisory Committee, which will advise the federal government on matters of geospatial policy and management.

Geospatial technologies include GIS (Geographic Information Systems), GPS (Global Positioning Systems) and remote sensing.

Cowen has been instrumental in building the University of South Carolina’s reputation as a national leader in the field of GIS and remote sensing. In 2004, Cowen was named a national associate by the Council of National Academy of Sciences for his “extraordinary service” to the National Academies. He was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award in GIS by Environmental Systems Research Institute in 2005.

His appointment comes at a time when several members of the university’s geography department have been appointed to high-level positions in Washington: Dr. Susan Cutter at the National Science Foundation, Dr. John Jensen at NASA and Dr. Will Graf at the National Research Council.