JHU President's Medal presented to APL's Alexander Kossiakoff

Alexander Kossiakoff, chief scientist and a former director of APL, has received the distinguished JHU President's Medal. He is the first person from APL to receive the award.

President William Brody recently presented Kossiakoff with the medal, recognizing Kossiakoff for "extraordinary contributions to APL, beginning with his guided missile development work in the 1940s, through his tenure as laboratory director (1969-80) and continuing today in his role as APL's chief scientist and as a university leader in engineering education."

First bestowed in 1978, the medal is an honor extended by JHU to individuals who have achieved unusual distinction. It has been awarded to heads of state, members of the U.S. Congress, a Supreme Court associate justice, diplomats, literary figures, academics and corporate chief executives. The only other recipient in 2004 was Secretary of State Colin Powell, who received the award at SAIS' 60th anniversary celebration.

Kossiakoff joined APL in 1946. After his tenure as director, he became chief scientist in 1980. He also chairs the Whiting School of Engineering's graduate programs in systems engineering and technical management. He received his bachelor's degree in chemistry from the California Institute of Technology and his doctorate in chemistry from Johns Hopkins.

 

Medicare/Medicaid administrator to give Special Dean's Lecture

Mark McClellan, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, will deliver the School of Medicine's Special Dean's Lecture at 5 p.m. today, Dec. 13, in Hurd Hall, East Baltimore campus. As administrator of CMS, McClellan is responsible for the Medicare program and works in partnership with the states to administer Medicaid and the state Children's Health Program.

CMS also oversees health insurance portability standards, HIPAA and quality standards in health care facilities. McClellan formerly served as FDA commissioner and as a member of the President's Council of Economic Advisors, where he advised on domestic economic issues and was the senior White House policy director on health issues. He is on leave from Stanford University.

 

JHU study shows United States lags in philanthropic giving

As Americans open their pocketbooks to charities this holiday season, a Johns Hopkins study shows that the United States lags behind other countries in terms of private philanthropy, at least when the value of volunteer work is included.

The United States ranks only seventh in the world in its level of private philanthropy as a percent of gross domestic product, according to a study from the Center for Civil Society Studies at the university's Institute for Policy Studies.

Excluding giving to religion, for which data are unavailable for other countries, American giving accounted for only 2.5 percent of GDP, compared to the Netherlands at 4.5 percent and Sweden at 4.4 percent. Other countries with giving rates higher than the United States' included Norway, France and the United Kingdom. These figures include both financial donations and volunteer work, which was valued at the average wage of a community worker.

The data were generated by a team of researchers around the world led by Johns Hopkins professor Lester Salamon as part of the Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project. Study results appear in the new book Global Civil Society: Dimensions of the Nonprofit Sector, Volume Two.

 

SAIS research professor and alumna share prestigious award

Scholars Francis Deng of SAIS and Roberta Cohen, an alumna of the school, are co-winners of the prestigious 2005 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order.

Deng is a research professor at SAIS and former special representative of the U.N. secretary-general. Cohen, who received her master's from SAIS in 1963, is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who specializes in humanitarian and human rights issues.

Cohen and Deng developed guidelines for a protection and aid system for people who are displaced within their home nations. Their ideas, judges said, have helped shape an ongoing effort to assist victims of the Darfur crisis in western Sudan.

An estimated 25 million people in 40 countries have been forced to leave their homes in recent years by civil war, ethnic strife and human rights violations. Although the United Nations provides food, medicine and shelter to refugees who cross national borders, internally displaced people rarely receive such assistance.

Deng and Cohen described their ideas in a series of articles, lectures and statements between 1999 and 2003 that followed publication of their two 1998 books, Masses in Flight: The Global Crisis of Internal Displacement and The Forsaken People: Case Studies of the Internally Displaced. The pair, winner of the 15th Grawemeyer world order prize, was selected from among 37 nominations from 10 countries.

 

Deadlines are today for last 'Gazette' issue of the year

Because of the upcoming midyear vacation, The Gazette will not be published the weeks of Dec. 27 or Jan. 3. The paper's Dec. 20 calendar will include events scheduled from Monday, Dec. 20, through Monday, Jan. 10. The deadline for that issue's calendar submissions and classified ads is at noon today, Dec. 13.

GO TO DECEMBER 13, 2004 TABLE OF CONTENTS.
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