1. Pop Parlour

Serving up sweets is practically in graduate Brandon Chandler ’10’s DNA. In 2013, Chandleropened Pop Parlour, a shop offering fruity, creamy and boozy frozen treats as a tribute to his grandfather PopPop, who sold similar items after World War II. Pop Parlour has grown to two locations and serves coffee, tea, craft beer and wine, depending on which spot you visit.

���dz����پ��DzԲ�:��4214 E. Plaza Drive on the UCF campus; 431 E. Central Blvd., Suite C; ThePopParlour.com
(Pop Parlour’s UCF location will be closed on Small Business Saturday due to campus closures, but you can still visit the downtown location or stop by another day.)

2. Six28 Boutique

Six months after graduating with a degree in elementary education, Rachel Ledbetter ’16 took a risk to pursue entrepreneurship by opening clothing boutique Six28. Located near UCF, Six28 sells trendy, affordable women’s clothing and accessories, which can also be purchased on the store’s online site.

Location:12082 Collegiate Way; 407-630-3890; Six28Boutique.com

3. Bikes, Beans & Bordeaux

Cycling enthusiasts Darrell Cunningham ’93 and Jen Cunningham ’95 ’96MSW opened Bikes, Beans and Bordeaux to provide a space for people to bond over good food, drinks and company. With a commitment to health in mind, the shop sells breakfast items, sandwiches, soups, salads, desserts, beer, wine and more daily and at special events each month. While at UCF, Darrell studied civil engineering and Jen majored in social work.

Location:3022 Corrine Drive; 407-427-1440; BikesBeansandBordeaux.com

4. Deli Fresh Threads

Marketing major Anthony “Biggie” Bencomo ’98 merged his love of sandwiches with another creative passion by opening Deli Fresh Threads, a clothing store? with designs inspired by what he considers the #KingOfMeals. You can buy foodie fashion in the form of T-shirts, hats, pins and stickers on the online shop. Bencomo also hosts a monthly #SandwichEatUp at local shops around Central Florida to help support other small businesses.

Location: 321-303-5129; DeliFreshThreads.com

5. Tactical Brewing Company

Owned and operated by veteran and psychology graduate Doug Meyer ’14 ’16MBA, Tactical Brewing Company serves craft brews created on-site to veterans, first responders and all beer lovers alike.

���dz����پ��Dz�:��4882 New Broad St.; 407-203-2033; TacticalBeer.com

6. Retrolando

Retro Orlando captures the City Beautiful’s history while giving back to others. The online T-shirt company offers men and women’s clothing inspired by former iconic Orlando businesses, organizations and landmarks. Each purchase is something you can feel good about because owner and English major Shannon Flesch Couillard ’04, donates a new shirt to a local homeless shelter for each shirt sold.

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7. Yaupon Brothers Tea Co.

Brothers — UCF senior hospitality major Kyle White and legal studies graduate Bryon ’09— have revived an ancient Native American superfood with their yaupon holly tea company. The brothers sustainably harvest their organic crop and distribute their product at restaurants and shops. Online purchases can also be made on their official site and Amazon. Yaupon Brothers also offers sustainable agricultural consulting services for Florida farmers looking for alternative crops.

���dz����پ��DzԲ�:��Various local shops such as Lucky’s Market, Credo Coffee, Infusion Tea and Dandelion Communitea Café; YauponBrothers.com

8. A Piece of Work

Started by marketing graduate Curtis Young ’04 in 2007, A Piece of Work apparel company creates custom embroidery and screen printing. Through partnerships with companies such as the Orlando Magic, Funky Buddha and more, the online site offers quality work clothing. A Piece of Work also sells eco-friendly items such as recycled journals and organic cotton totes.

���dz����پ��Dz�:��321-662-3836; APieceofWorkGear.com

9. Just Save the Date

Whether you need to put together a small intimate gathering or a major extravagant event, Just Save the Date can help make any occasion special. Communication graduate and owner Kelly Erickson Fowler ’02 started the event planning company after planning her own destination wedding. Just Save the Date operates from two locations in the Orlando and Key West areas.

���dz����پ��DzԲ�:��Orlando – 407-258-1944; Key West – 305-767-3774; JustSaveTheDate.com

Others regard the apostrophe, exclamation point and other handy devices as guardrails that keep our words from becoming a jumble of nonsense.

But to Jeff Rubin, founder of on Sept. 24, the symbols are necessities that do more than just separate sentences.

“Punctuation marks tell a reader when to pause, when to stop, when something is possessive, and when emotions are expressed,” he said. “Punctuation marks are guidelines that create sound in the written word. Without them, every sentence would run on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on…”

Rubin, a former journalist who now runs a publishing business in Pinole, California, says he started the holiday in 2004 because he was concerned about the decline of language skills around the nation. The way we write — including the proper usage of punctuation — affects our appearance to others, acceptance at college, grades on papers, promotions and business deals, he says.

That’s why some writing instructors at the Ů��AV stress punctuation in their classes, especially around National Punctuation Day.

“We’re going to honor National Punctuation Day by taking an adventure safari through the AP Stylebook’s Punctuation Guide,” said Rick Brunson, an associate instructor in the Nicholson School of Communication and Media. “I call the lecture, ‘Don’t Get Punc’ed By What You Don’t Know.’”

He said punctuation is not merely cosmetic; it’s essential to making meaning of our thoughts.

“Sentences are a train wreck without proper punctuation.”

“Sentences are a train wreck without proper punctuation,” he said. “Using punctuation properly is critical to successful communication of our ideas. If we want to be understood, we have to know what we’re doing with punctuation.”

Beth Young, an associate professor in the Department of English, said she will include a link to National Punctuation Day on her class calendar to help students understand the importance of proper usage.

She said her punctuation lessons focus “on rules that I could see students had not yet mastered, and on rules they had questions about. Usually, this meant lots of time spent on commas.”

National Punctuation Day celebrants at schools and other organizations, as can be seen on the website, celebrate with contests, baked goods, performances and other activities.

Rubin said he plans to observe the day with “a bagel with shmear and coffee for breakfast, a CrossFit workout, and a search for incorrectly punctuated signs.”

The Baker’s Dozen of Punctuation

According to the National Punctuation Day website, there are 13 punctuation marks commonly used in print.

Not necessarily in order of importance, alphabetically they are: apostrophe, brackets, colon, comma, dash, ellipses, exclamation point, hyphen, parentheses, period, question mark, quotation mark and semicolon.

Other commonly seen marks in writing, such as the asterisk, hashtag, slash “and their ilk are symbols that provide no insight into the thoughts of the writer or the meaning of his or her words,” Rubin said.

Likewise, he said the interrobang — the combination of a question mark and exclamation point that is sometimes seen at the end of an exclamatory question—doesn’t qualify as a punctuation mark.

“It’s an illustration,” Rubin chides.

Brunson calls the apostrophe “the hardest-working punctuation symbol in our language. We ask an awful lot of it, and it does an incredible amount of heavy-lifting for us in our language. The apostrophe can form a contraction, indicate missing letters or numbers, show possession or indicate the plural of a singular object — depending on how we use it. Honor the apostrophe by using it properly.”

Young, who also used to direct UCF’s University Writing Center, says the most common punctuation mistake she sees is an error of omission, when writers forget one comma from a pair of commas around a clause that adds extra or nonessential information to a sentence.

The next most common error, often seen on signs and menus, is the unnecessary use of quotation marks for emphasis that unwittingly cast doubt on something, such as our “delicious” meatloaf, she said.

The Future of Punctuation in the Age of Social Media

Rubin said it sometimes seems that punctuation has been forgotten by writers on social media.

“The errors I see are appalling,” he said. “Just last week I was reprimanded by the administrator of a Facebook group for admonishing someone who posted a single paragraph and misused “it’s” for “its” (he wanted the possessive but instead used a contraction).

“I was told, and I quote, ‘This is social media…’ by the administrator, who removed my post.”

Brunson agrees that the rise of text messaging has created a “punctuation crisis” because of the lack of understanding as to what the symbols mean and convey.

“People randomly and carelessly sprinkle punctuation into their writing as if they were adding fake bacon bits to a salad.”

“People randomly and carelessly sprinkle punctuation into their writing as if they were adding fake bacon bits to a salad,” he said.

Punctuation is definitely changing, Young said.

“We may be more likely to use punctuation in creative ways, such as adding a period. after. every. word. for emphasis. These changes are a natural part of language change,” she said. “To some extent, they reflect a longer trend of colloquialization — written language becoming more like speech — that linguists have observed.”

Many punctuation “rules” are not as straightforward as people imagine, Young said. “Writers often have legitimate choices about when to use which mark,” she said. “Just because you would punctuate differently doesn’t necessarily mean that someone else did it wrong.”

Rubin concedes that someday other marks may find their way into mainstream usage.

“Language evolves. Merriam-Webster adds new words every year,” he said. “Style guides, such as those published by the Associated Press and the Chicago Manual of Style, occasionally change usage guidelines. I expect that one day there will be more accepted punctuation marks.”

Meanwhile, properly using the symbols we have now goes a long way to improving communication skills.

“Next to boosting your vocabulary, learning how to properly use punctuation is the one thing anyone can do to single-handedly get people to understand what you’re trying to say and write,” Brunson said. “Punctuation is power.”

Poissant’s first book, released in March, is a collection of tales about families and relationships published by Simon & Schuster.

This weekend, Poissant will join more than 30 authors from around the country at the UCF Book Festival, which will be held Saturday from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the CFE Arena. The festival is free and open to the public.

Read on for more about Poissant, a winner of the Playboy College Fiction Contest whose short stories have appeared in The Atlantic and in the New Stories from the South and Best New American Voices anthologies, among many other publications.

When did you first know you wanted to be a writer?

I didn’t figure out that I wanted to be a writer until after college. I was in my early 20s. I taught high school English and wrote during the summers. Once I figured out that the summers weren’t enough for me, I knew that I needed to make a major life change. I applied to MFA programs, got into the University of Arizona, and my wife and I traded Atlanta, Ga., for Tucson, Ariz. I’ve been writing seriously ever since, about nine years now.

How did you end up teaching at UCF?

After Arizona, I went to the University of Cincinnati to earn my PhD. As I was finishing up at UC, I applied to creative-writing jobs around the country. I was very happy to accept the job at UCF, and I’m thrilled to be a part of the MFA faculty where I get to mentor and work with graduate students.

What’s your favorite part about being a professor?

The students! Their passion for reading and writing is contagious. And their exuberance helps me to stay motivated. It’s easy to forget when you’re lucky, and having students who are so excited about writing reminds me not to take what I have for granted.

Your most recent book, The Heaven of Animals: Stories, is a collection of stories centering on family and relationships. What inspired the subject?

I wanted to write a book about love, but I wanted it to be full of stories that most people would never call “love stories.”

These are stories about guilt and atonement, about hurt and redemption. We love the people who make up our families, but we hurt those same people, too (sometimes on purpose, and sometimes without meaning to), and I wanted to explore both sides of that difficult equation.

Did you face any hurdles in writing the stories?

Every story presented a hurdle in one way or another. Some were easy to write but hard to publish. Others found homes in magazines, but only after I’d revised them many times over the course of four or five years.

For the 15 stories in the collection, another 20 published stories were left on the cutting-room floor, and who knows how many more remain unfinished or finished but requiring a few more revisions. I think that the trick was not to think too much about the end product of “a book” along the way, but to try to make each story as strong as it could be.

What do you like to read?

I love to read fiction, poetry and essays.

The last great book I read was a collection of essays by Ryan Van Meter called If You Knew Then What I Know Now. My favorite poets include Sherod Santos and Louise Gluck. My favorite short story writers include Brad Watson, ZZ Packer, Karen Russell, Chris Adrian, Bret Anthony Johnston, Raymond Carver, Amy Hempel, Christine Schutt, Rick Bass, Ethan Canin, Lorrie Moore, Denis Johnson, and Ron Carlson. My favorite novels include The Great Gatsby, Franny and Zooey, Marilynne Robinson’s Home, Frederick Barthelme’s Bob the Gambler, and Magnus Mills’ The Restraint of Beasts.

How do you like to unwind when you’re not teaching or writing?

When I’m not teaching or writing, I love to read, and I love movies. I also like to go on long walks by myself or with my wife and daughters.

What’s your top piece of advice for an aspiring writer?

Read! Sure, you’re going to have to write a lot in order to get good at writing, but I’d argue that you should be reading even more. Read everything. Read widely. Find an author you love, then read everything that he or she has written. Find an author you don’t love and try to figure out why. Sometimes the fault is with the writer. Sometimes the fault is your own.

Students sometimes worry that if they read too much, they’ll start to sound like the writers they read. I’ve found that the opposite is typically true. The more you read, the more likely you are to find that the multiplicity of voices will coalesce into something you’ll one day call your own “voice.”

What’s next for you?

Currently, I’m at work on a novel under contract with Simon & Schuster. The novel borrows a couple of the characters from the collection and picks up 30 years after where their story leaves off.

This spring, Jessica Walker, Elizabeth Maldonado de Segura and Laura Estupiñan are living at the New York Mets baseball academy in Boca Chica, Dominican Republic, preparing about 80 players for life in the United States.

The UCF students, all part of The Burnett Honors College, spend an hour each day teaching players basic English, including baseball and cultural terminology that will help them understand their coaches and fellow players and adapt to a new life.

To supplement the players’ English lessons, their UCF teachers also host activities to familiarize the athletes with American customs, foods and hobbies. Since the students live at the academy, they eat all of their meals with the players and constantly work on the players’ conversational English.

Walker, a junior studying marketing and nonprofit management, said she’s inspired by the willpower the players put forth every day.

“Each day the players continue to give 100 percent, and even after hours of practice come to my class ready to learn, because they know English is necessary to succeed in the United States. They never give up,” Walker said. “I have tried to embody this same mentality so that I can be a positive role model for my students, and I walk home each day in awe of their persistence and dedication in bettering themselves.”

Like many MLB teams, the Mets were previously using a consulting company to teach English to their academy players but said they weren’t seeing much in terms of academic structure or results.

“I’m very excited about our unique partnership,” said Jon Miller, director of minor league operations for the Mets. “Having UCF students teach English to our players in the Dominican Republic and helping them understand the culture and customs of the United States will be of tremendous help to them as they aspire to succeed in our organization.”

Estupiñan, Maldonado de Segura and Walker are preparing players at the New York Mets baseball academy in the Dominican Republic for life in the United States.

Kelly Astro, director of research and civic engagement for the honors college, said the social activities are beneficial because they introduce players to cities where the Mets have minor league clubs.

“Along with basic American cultural training, our students host events to familiarize the players with life in Las Vegas, Tennessee, Savannah and New York, all places where some of these players may end up while part of the Mets organization,” said Astro, who hopes to have UCF students at the Mets academy every semester.

The UCF students say they’re getting a lesson of their own. The players have reciprocated by giving them “Spanish class” and sharing their language with them. They’ve also learned baseball history.

Maldonado de Segura, a graduate student in the Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages program (TESOL), said she and her fellow Knights have been fortunate to meet and speak with Ozzie Virgil Sr., the first Dominican to play in the major leagues.

“He has the best stories of playing with Jackie Robinson and other baseball legends,” she said, adding that they even got to attend the ceremony for his induction into the Latin American Baseball Hall of Fame.

Estupiñan, a senior studying psychology, said her favorite part of the experience is witnessing the students making progress firsthand.

“Seeing where they started and where they are now is amazing,” she said. “They’ll personally come up to us and tell us they love the way we teach and that they learn a lot. It is very rewarding to hear that.”

Originally written more than a decade ago, the film about a curious computer hacker is debuting at the festival on Sept. 2. Directed by Terry Gilliam, it stars Hollywood heavyweights Christoph Waltz, Matt Damon and Tilda Swinton.

Rushin started teaching at Ů��AV in 1983. “The Zero Theorem” is scheduled for wide release in 2014.

When did you first know you wanted to be a writer?

I was always a voracious reader—I learned to read from comic books before I went to kindergarten—and even as a kid I was writing stories. My parents bought me a second-hand Underwood upright typewriter when I was in first or second grade, and I wore that thing right out.

My dad, a civil engineer, had a real literary bent and a fairly extensive library, and he told me I could read anything I wanted. What freedom. What a world opened up for me. I was “a skinny little kid from Cleveland, Ohio,” but with a library card I was a world traveler.

How did you get involved with teaching?

I was not a natural teacher. I was not born to be a teacher. In fact, from childhood to this day, I’ve suffered from a debilitating fear of public speaking. Every time I have to give a reading or a speech, I die a million little deaths right up until the time I open my mouth to speak. And the first thirty seconds are a horror show inside my beating heart. But if I push through that first thirty seconds, I’m OK if not golden.

But I wanted to study English Lit and Creative Writing, and the only way to pay tuition and rent was to get teaching assistantships, first at Ohio State, then at Johns Hopkins. So I got into teaching by… teaching. And then I discovered that, once the nerves wore off, I was pretty good at teaching, since teaching is all about questioning. And I’ve always been good at asking questions.

What inspired you to write “The Zero Theorem”?

The Book of Ecclesiastes. Seriously. That’s the book in the Old Testament that asks the major questions. What is the value of life? What is the meaning of existence? What’s the use?

So yeah, there was the original inspiration, but once I got working on it, I just had to make the script funny. There’s no use in living a life you can’t laugh at.

You sent your script to producer Dean Zanuck 10 years ago. What has the process been since then?

It’s been a real roller-coaster ride of high hopes followed by dashed dreams. First Dean’s father Richard Zanuck got Ewan McGregor onboard to play the lead, but then EwMac dropped out. Then it was Billy Bob Thornton with Terry Gilliam slated to direct, but the plan was to shoot in London, and BBT nixed that, as he has a phobia of antiques, and London is apparently full of old stuff. Really. Then it was the same players ready to shoot in Vancouver, but then Terry Gilliam pulled the plug, as he was still working on his “Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” after Heath Ledger’s untimely death put that show behind schedule.

And during all of this, it seemed like an endless cycle of rewriting. But through all the ups and downs, Dean Zanuck has been a champion of this project from day one till now. He never lost faith, even when I did. He truly deserves all the credit for this movie coming to fruition.

What is it like to see your idea turn into a film featuring Hollywood stars such as Christoph Waltz and Matt Damon?

It’s been a real trip. My wife Mary and I flew to Romania for a week of shooting, and the first thing Terry Gilliam did was send us to wardrobe so we could serve as extras in this one scene—one of my favorite scenes, in fact. We worked two days straight, me actually doing some rewrites on the set as I was being filmed sitting at a park bench in the background. It was the best way for me to feel truly involved.

And everyone there, cast and crew alike, treated us like royalty.

Meeting Christoph Waltz and Matt Damon was a dream come true. Christoph was a real gentleman and a tireless worker. He was in every scene, and he still made time to talk to everyone on the set. And Matt Damon… well, he shook my hand and said, “Great script, man!” So now I can die and go to heaven. My wife and I have a picture standing with Matt Damon and Terry Gilliam that will go on my Facebook page just as soon as the movie is released. I’m such a fanboy!

What was the most challenging part about getting your script made into a movie?

The very first challenge, of course, was writing the damn thing. I wrote the first draft in ten days. It was 145 pages long, and I had no idea what I was doing. I simply checked out some screenwriting books from the UCF library, along with several screenplays. Coincidentally enough, one of those screenplays was Terry Gilliam’s “Brazil.”

And after that came draft after draft, rewrite after rewrite. With each new player who came on board, there was another rewrite.

But I think the main challenge for me was keeping up my interest in the project over the span of a decade. Let’s face it, I was ready to move on. After “Zip-T,” as we came to call it, I wrote three other features, two of which got some notice in festival competitions, and I was continuing to write short stories and some poetry… but it all kept coming back to “The Zero Theorem.” Every time I thought the project was dead in the water, a failed effort behind me, I’d get a call from Dean Zanuck revving me back up on the thing. Dean has been a heroic producer. Slow and steady and with endless faith that, as he told me repeatedly, “We’re going to make this movie, Pat.”

Turns out he was right after all.

What do you love most about your job at UCF?

What I love most about my job at Ů��AV is that, although they call me “Professor,” the truth is I’m just an overgrown student who’s never graduated college. I’ve earned degrees, sure, but I’ve never graduated to the thing that comes after education, whatever that may be. I’ve been able to stay a student at heart through my whole career. My students are my colleagues. We’re all learning together. The day I don’t learn something new in the classroom is the day I need to retire and take up a know-it-all hobby like golf or political blogging.

What do you do for fun?

For one thing, I watch a lot of movies, and I mean a lot. And I read a lot. Books, scripts, student manuscripts, what have you.

But for true fun, I like to cook. Give me a Giada de Laurentiis recipe, and I’m in heaven. Love to cook, love to watch people enjoy what I’ve prepared. Actually, cooking is a lot like writing. You’re not cooking if nobody’s eating, and you’re not writing if nobody’s reading.

As a writer, what are your favorite things to read?

A list way too long to get into that ranges from highbrow lit to lowbrow potboilers. I’m a fairly voracious reader unencumbered by my snooty literary education. In the past year I’ve read books by literary luminaries such as Don DeLillo, Jennifer Egan, David Foster Wallace, Meg Wolitzer, etc., etc., but I’ve also read books by Stephen King, Stieg Larsson, and even the first book of E.L. James’ “Fifty Shades of Grey.” Like I said, I’m a reader.

What is the one thing you want people to know about you or your work? 

About me: I make the best fish taco in the state. Ask anybody who’s ever eaten them. About my work: Writing ain’t rocket science… and it’s probably not brain surgery either… but when you’re at the keyboard and on a roll, it’s like blasting off for unknown worlds inside your own skull. That’s the passion my students and I share.

The program was awarded the Writing Program Certificate of Excellence, which is given to up to 20 programs a year that imaginatively address the needs of those they serve while using best practices and effective assessment. Since 1949, the Conference on College Composition and Communication has been the world’s largest professional organization for researching and teaching composition.

Faculty and staff from UCF’s Department of Writing and Rhetoric, which oversees the first-year composition program, will accept the award at the conference’s annual convention in March.

“Our department is honored to be recognized in this way,” said Elizabeth Wardle, department chair and interim director of first-year composition. “Our first-year composition program has undergone extensive and very positive changes over the past three years, and we are pleased to see that these changes have been noticed nationally.”

UCF’s first-year program is exemplary because of its experienced faculty, small class sizes, nationally known pedagogy and peer-reviewed student publication, Stylus. The program also hosts the annual Knights Write Showcase  to highlight the exceptional works produced by first-year writers.

Launched in 2010, the Department of Writing and Rhetoric also provides writing opportunities for students beyond the first year through its writing and rhetoric undergraduate programs, which include a degree in writing and rhetoric and certificate in public and professional writing, and writing graduate programs, which include a master’s degree in rhetoric and composition and graduate certificate in professional writing.

The department also offers writing-related assistance, training and research opportunities to students and faculty from all disciplines. That assistance has been offered through the writing-across-the-curriculum program and the University Writing Center, which since October have been housed in the new Center for Writing Excellence on the first floor of Colbourn Hall.

The UCF Center for Writing Excellence celebrated its grand opening last week in a newly renovated space on the first floor of Colbourn Hall.

The space is home to the University Writing Center and the Writing Across the Curriculum program, which are part of the Department of Writing and Rhetoric. That department also includes the First-Year Composition program as well as undergraduate and graduate-degree programs in writing.

The University Writing Center provides individual and small-group consultations for undergraduate and graduate students from all majors. Founded in 1997, the center employs 32 student-tutors and last year saw more than 8,000 consultations. Remote writing-center consultation stations also have been established in the UCF Library and at the Rosen College of Hospitality Management campus, in addition to regional campuses in Cocoa and Daytona Beach.

The Writing Across the Curriculum program was initiated in 2010 by UCF President John C. Hitt to help faculty from all disciplines assign and respond to student writing. The work is accomplished through faculty consultations, workshops and assistance with developing writing assignments for classes of all sizes. In the past year, the Writing Across the Curriculum program has worked with 50 faculty members from 12 departments, including Chemistry, Nursing and Mathematics.

At the grand opening of the Center for Writing Excellence, Hitt announced a $30,000 endowment by the Atkins Foundation to improve the written and oral communication skills of STEM students. Atkins, one of the world’s leading engineering and design consultancies, employs more than 100 UCF graduates. The endowment will allow the center to create innovative programs related to specialized writing instruction and tutoring for students in STEM disciplines.

To learn more about the Department of Writing and Rhetoric, visit .

All of these programs (with the exception of University of Arkansas and Ohio State) will need to spend much more time on their online promotional materials in order to make the jump from this list to the bigger one: the Top 50 national rankings, as published by Poets & Writers. Applicants to these (and, really, all) programs need to know precisely what percentage of incoming students receive the equivalent of a full tuition waiver and a livable stipend, as well as see some hard data on how selective their target programs are. Until that happens, most of these programs will continue to be unjustly underrated rather than justly highly-ranked. And, not for nothing, nearly all of these programs (with a few notable exceptions: Florida State, Iowa State, Ohio State, University of Arkansas, University of Miami, and University of Texas at Austin, all fully funded programs) could do with even more full-funding packages for incoming students.

For those keeping count, this is the second year this list has been compiled. Last year’s list can be found . Feel free to discuss these and other programs in the comments section below.

Source: Huffington Post, HUFFPOST COLLEGE, . Posted: 04/18/11 11:23 AM ET, by Seth Abramson.

A graduate of Dartmouth College, Harvard Law School and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Seth Abramson is the author of two collections of poetry, Northerners (Western Michigan University Press, 2011), winner of the 2010 Green Rose Prize, and The Suburban Ecstasies (Ghost Road Press, 2009). Presently a doctoral candidate in English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he is also the co-author of the forthcoming third edition of The Creative Writing MFA Handbook (Continuum, 2012).

Surya – as he’s called by his friends – ranked 21st among U.S. scientists.

“I am happy and humbled,” Suryanarayana said. “It means a lot to me because it is recognition from my peers.”

The 100 researchers named in the listing represent the very best in their fields based on the number of times their research publications have been cited by others, as well as the quality of their own publications.

Suryanarayana, who was fascinated by English literature during his undergraduate studies, almost became an English major. But a couple of science professors convinced him otherwise to the benefit of the science world.

“They convinced me that engineering had better prospects and that materials science was an upcoming area,” he said. “I am happy that I listened to them since I feel that I have a very fulfilling career. There is so much more to learn and discover that I have continued to stay fascinated by my work.”

Suryanarayana has had a distinguished career developing novel materials such as nanostructured monolithic and composite materials, improved intermetallics, and (bulk) metallic glasses. Many of these materials have potential applications in aerospace and other industries.

He has degrees in engineering, metallurgy, math, physics and chemistry. He has published more than 300 academic research papers and more than 20 technical books. Suryanarayana also is a popular educator, taking on several visiting professor invitations at such institutions as Oxford University, Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan, and Helmut-Schmidt University in Hamburg, Germany, among many others.

His proudest moment so far dates back to 1975. Indira Gandhi, the then-Prime Minister of India, gave him the Indian National Science Academy’s Young Scientists Medal, which was reserved for researchers under the age of 30 who have made significant contributions to science, technology, or medicine and hold much potential for the future.  Since then, he has earned several other awards including the National Metallurgists’ Day Award of the Government of India and fellowships including the ASM International and the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining in London.

Prior to joining Ů��AV in 2001, Suryanarayana worked at the Colorado School of Mines, the Institute for Materials and Advanced Processes at the University of Idaho, as the Senior Associate of the National Research Council at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, and at the Banaras Hindu University. Today he continues his research, teaches and sits on several scientific journals’ editorial committees.

His advice for young scientists is simple.

“I am of the opinion that it takes time for someone to make an impact in any scientific discipline,” he said. “It’s important to work hard and in a sustained manner in one’s own specialization.”

The book will be released Friday, Aug. 13.

An official description of the essays says, “The constellation of Hollywood stars burned brightly in the 1950s, even as the industry fell on hard economic times. Major artists of the 1940s—James Stewart, Jerry Lewis, and Gregory Peck—continued to exert a magical appeal but the younger generation of moviegoers was soon enthralled by an emerging cast, led by James Dean and Marlon Brando.

They, among others, ushered in a provocative acting style, “the Method,” bringing hard-edged, realistic performances to the screen. Adult-oriented small-budget dramas were ideal showcases for Method actors, startlingly realized when Brando seized the screen in On the Waterfront. But, with competition from television looming, Hollywood also featured film-making of epic proportion—Ben-Hur and other cinema wonders rode onto the screen with amazing spectacle, making stars of physically impressive performers such as Charlton Heston.”

Barnes & Noble, which is currently offering a pre-ordered paperback version for $17.96, reviewed the book, stating: “‘Larger Than Life’ offers a comprehensive view of the star system in 1950s Hollywood and also in-depth discussions of the decade’s major stars, including Montgomery Clift, Judy Holliday, Jerry Lewis, James Mason, Marilyn Monroe, Kim Novak, Bing Crosby, Gene Kelly, Jayne Mansfield, and Audrey Hepburn.”