4



9. NEMATODES COMMITTEE TO MEET HERE

    The Southern Regional Technical Committee S-76, Plant Parasitic
Nematodes, is holding its annual meeting at the College of Agriculture
December 13-15. The Department of Plant Pathology is host. The com-
mittee is composed of representatives from 13 southern states. They
all are plant nematologists working in their respective states on nema-
tode diseases of plants. The S-76 committee currently is concerned
with the depredations of a family of nematodes that is widespread
throughout the region. The two major members of this family, root-knot
and cyst nematodes, account for a large share of the crop damage in-
cited by nematodes. Virtually every important plant growing in the
Southern region is attacked by species of one or both groups.



10. VOLUNTEERS GIVEN CREDIT FOR FIELD SERVICE

    The University has been selected as one of 31 schools to initiate
a federally-funded, volunteer program in which the students will re-
ceive academic credit for work in rural or urban poverty areas. The
program will begin in January. Selected students will do field work
in anti-poverty settings for a year and will be given college credit
for their two semesters of volunteer service. The "field workers"
also will receive a small salary for their services, which will be
appropriated by the federal government. Final plans must be sub-
mitted to Washington by mid-December, at which time choice of work
areas and student volunteers will be reviewed. If the final plan is
satisfactory, the participating students will be trained for specific
volunteer tasks. Acting as director of the program is Dr. John
Stephenson, dean of undergraduate studies. Stephenson commented on
the interest already shown by students, noting that over 300 have in-
quired about the 60 available openings. "It's the greatest thing which
has happened to the University," he said. The goals of the program are
to show some measurable impact on poverty areas. He added that if the
prescribed goals are reached this year the program "will undoubtedly
continue. This will bring expansion and be a real service to poverty-
stricken areas of the U.S."



11. DENTAL STUDENTS, STAFF WORK IN ISRAEL

    During the past five summers, students and faculty members from the
Department of Pedodontics have treated over 1,000 children in Wolfe
county and this summer two professors and two dental students got a
rare educational opportunity, a chance to learn and render dental ser-
vices to children in Israel. Dr. John Mink, chairman of the department,
noted the similarity of the two areas, pointing out that problems of
the Israeli children treated, like those of some of the children in
Wolfe county, were'typical of any child in the U.S. living in a non-
fluoride area." Accompanying Dr. Mink to Israel were Dr. Robert
Spedding, associate professor of pedodontics, Darrel Sheets, Anchorage,
and Munro Steckler, Cincinnati, both third-year students. They worked
with some 60 to 70 dentists, dental students and volunteers from across
the U.S. Dr. Mink explains that the main purpose of the project, as
with the Wolfe county program, was "to take dentistry to children in
those areas where there wasn't adequate dental care."