Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Today’s Response
Middle Tennessee State University

The Q-tip questionnaire

Why should anyone be presumed to have an athletic advantage over another person on the basis of a genetic test? If you pay $149 to Boulder-based Atlas Sports Genetics, you can have your child’s cheek swabbed to determine if you passed along your sports brilliance to the youngster. Dr. Mark Anshel, health and human performance, takes a dim view of this development. He says, “In sport, testing ignores the need to allow athletes to practice, receive coaching, and to develop skills at their own pace. Worse, we will generate many youngsters who will not be allowed or not be given the opportunity to play sports—therefore, have one more reason to live a sedentary lifestyle, already a major problem in our culture.”

Contact Anshel at 615-898-2812.
manshel@mtsu.edu

The burden of choice

With cable TV and the Internet, we have more media platforms for more diverse views than ever before. However, that might not be so beneficial if we fail to take advantage of that diversity. Dr. Jason Reineke, assistant professor of journalism and associate director of the MTSU Poll, says, “The trouble with that is you don’t have the sort of serendipitous encounters with things that you would have in a media environment like television 50 years ago where there were fewer choices but those fewer choices presented a much broader range of ideas and perspectives.” Cass Sunstein, a lawyer and professor at the University of Chicago, call this the “construction of the daily me”—a way of ensuring that you only hear what you want to hear. And a book called The Big Sort, written by Bill Bishop with Robert G. Cushing, opines that the modern tendency of Americans to live in communities that reflect only their own values, never encountering people with different views, is literally tearing the country apart.

Contact Reineke at 615-494-7746.
jreineke@mtsu.edu

“We make money the old-fashioned way. We EARN it.”—the late John Houseman for Smith Barney

Are non-owner business executives capturing a growing share of the earnings of major public-owned companies they manage? MTSU professors recently tried measuring the trend in executive compensation as a percent of corporate profits. Dr. Bill Ford, holder of the Weatherford Chair of Finance, says the researchers found that “this preliminary study of long-term trends in S & P (Standard & Poor’s) 500 CEOs total compensation are not consistent with the public’s media-driven perception that top executives of U.S. companies are increasingly overpaid—at least not when their compensation is measured as a share of their companies’ after-tax profits, CEOs’ share of earnings. And … it is now virtually certain that CEOs’ share of earnings fell sharply in 2008 from its peak level in 1996 and from its 2007 level of about 1.6 percent…”

Contact Ford at 615-898-2889.
wfford@mtsu.edu

TR EXTRA

MAZEL TOV!—Congratulations to WMOT-FM News Producer Shawn Jacobs, who won three Honorable Mention honors in the latest round of the statewide Tennessee Associated Press Broadcasters Association Awards. Jacobs was acknowledged in the “Best Radio Newscast,” “Best Radio Enterprise,” and “Best Radio Public Affairs” categories. WMOT-FM is the 100,000-watt public broadcasting service of MTSU. Turn to 89.5 on your FM dial or listen in real time at www.wmot.org. For more information, call the station at 615-898-2800.

THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS--“People are shouting too many philosophies of health and happiness at us,” notes a commentator on the recent explosion of interest in a topic of vital interest to us all—our own perceived well-being. But long before the shouting began, philosophers like Aristotle, Epicurus, Montaigne, Spinoza, Mill, Hume and James were carefully considering the question of how to get happy and stay that way. Dr. James Oliver will lead students through an examination of this subject in “The Philosophy of Happiness,” a class slated for Tuesdays and Thursdays this fall at MTSU. “In this course, we’ll survey older philosophical ideas about happiness, the new approach in psychology, and some of the best fictional literature,” says Oliver. ”Our approach will be calm, reasonable and interdisciplinary, with no gratuitous shouting.” Contact Oliver at 615-898-2050 or poliver@mtsu.edu.

GET A CLUE!--MTSU is expanding its popular CSI: MTSU four-day program for students entering the 10th, 11th and 12th grades in Rutherford and surrounding counties. This year’s event is slated for June 16-19. The goals of CSI: MTSU are: to allow students to explore many unique career possibilities in forensic science; to provide a “real life” reasons to tackle higher level math and science courses; and to develop skills in teamwork, seeing and understanding details, critical thinking and presentation skills. The student investigators will be presented with a re-creation of an actual crime scene. Each student is trained in the fundamental processes of collecting evidence, including DNA, fingerprints, hair and fibers, simulated blood spatter, and shoe prints. For more information or to register, call 615-898-2462 or send an e-mail to eshockle@mtsu.edu.