Thirty years ago, the University’s Middle English Text Series, or METS, completely changed the study of medieval literature when it made free digital and affordable print editions of Middle English writing available to students and scholars worldwide.

The National Endowment for the Humanities recently awarded the project a three-year grant to support its mission.

Teachers and students of medieval literature have long faced a problem that people studying other literary periods do not: the scant availability of texts.

“Everything was copied by hand in the Middle Ages, and so every medieval copy is different. And we almost never have the copy that was written by the author. We just have copies of copies of copies,” says Anna Siebach-Larsen, director of the University’s Rossell Hope Robbins Library and Koller-Collins Center for English Studies.

And each copy introduces differences.

Scholars of medieval literature have traditionally had to travel to different archives to compare copies—and, if publishing an edition, decide which of the copies is most authoritative and create the notes and context that explain the differences between the various manuscript copies.

The narrow slice of medieval literature that achieved canonical status shut out “many of the widely circulated texts and authors that medieval people actually read and shared,” she says.

Russell Peck, for more than 50 years a Rochester faculty member and now a professor emeritus of English, knew there had to be a better way. Read more here.

Nearly 30 percent of older patients hospitalized with COVID-19 develop delirium – a state of confusion and impaired awareness. For severely ill patients the likelihood of delirium is closer to 70 percent.

“The initial delirium, and then the cognitive, behavioral, and emotional problems – commonly known as dysexecutive syndrome – were arguably the most notable things in older people that had managed to survive COVID-19,” says Harris Gelbard, professor and director of the Center for Neurotherapeutics Discovery, who is also the Medical Center’s principal investigator on a study with Duke University, which is being funded by the National Institute of Aging. “Nobody knows whether that’s permanent or not because of the advanced age of the people this is impacting.”

Gelbard and his colleague Niccolo Terrando at Duke University Medical Center will look for specific events in the neurovascular unit —brain endothelial cells and their blood-brain barrier (BBB) forming tight junctions that support the central nervous system – that can be traced back to cognitive impairment. Part of the hypothesis Gelbard is investigating is that scarring in the lung may cause platelets and inflammatory white cells to migrate to blood vessels in the central nervous system with the white cells traversing the BBB to cause neurologic disease. “The goal is to establish what the prerequisites are for lung injury that will lead to brain injury. And at that point, then we can start asking more complicated questions.” Read more here.

Older residents from underrepresented racial and ethnic backgrounds and their caregivers bear the severest brunt from COVID-19 across the entire spectrum of US nursing homes and assisted living communities, Medical Center researchers report in two groundbreaking studies in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

For example, nursing homes with disproportionately higher numbers of residents from underrepresented racial and ethnic backgrounds reported two to four times as many new COVID-19 cases and deaths per facility than other nursing homes for the week of May 25, according to a study led by Yue Li, professor of public health sciences.

The findings are the first to be reported based on newly mandated, weekly data reported from 15,587 U.S. nursing homes to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). They are also the first findings that document the disproportionate impact on residents from underrepresented racial and ethnic backgrounds in nursing homes across all states.

Disparities of this magnitude, Li says, suggest that longstanding, fundamental inequalities in nursing homes resulting from segregated facilities with limited resources and poorest quality of care are being “exacerbated by the pandemic.”

A first-ever empirical study involving the incidence of COVID-19 in US assisted living communities showed a four-fold higher case fatality in these communities, compared to the counties in which they are located. The study was led by Helena Temkin-Greener, professor of public health sciences.

“As in the nursing home study, we also see that assisted living communities with more underrepresented residents have more cases, and we confirm that communities with a higher proportion of residents with dementia, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and obesity experienced more COVID-19 cases,” Temkin-Greener says. Read more here.

Internationally renowned ophthalmologist and scientist Alex V. Levin has joined the Medical Center as chief of Pediatric Ophthalmology and Ocular Genetics at the Flaum Eye Institute and chief of Pediatric Genetics at Golisano Children’s Hospital. He was also named the Adeline Lutz – Steven S.T. Ching, M.D., Distinguished Professor in Ophthalmology.

The appointment is pending approval of the Provost.

Levin is the only physician in the world to simultaneously hold U.S. board certifications in Pediatrics, Ophthalmology and Child Abuse Pediatrics.  He joins URMC from Wills Eye Hospital in Philadelphia.

He specializes in cataracts, uveitis, glaucoma, and corneal disease as well as ocular injuries from child abuse, along with ophthalmologic complications of hereditary diseases, such as retinal dystrophies and genetic syndromes in adults and children.

Levin’s basic and translational research interests have included ocular genetics and gene therapy, children’s vision screening, pediatric glaucoma, cataract and uveitis, ocular manifestations of child abuse, and bioethics. He has published hundreds of papers and chapters, and 13 books, and he lectures extensively around the world.

David Hursh, professor of teaching and curriculum at the Warner School, whose new book Opting Out: The Story of the Parents’ Grassroots Movement to Achieve Whole-Child Public Schools, is a 2020 American Educational Studies Association (AESA) Critics’ Choice Award winner. The five-chapter volume was among 12 publications to receive this honor in September. Hursh collaborated with doctoral student Zhe Chen ‘18W (MS), and alumna Sarah McGinnis ‘18W (MS) and two parent leaders—Jeanette Deutermann and Lisa Rudley—to write Opting Out (Myers Education Press, 2020). The authors set out to inspire parents to become educational activists beyond standardized testing. Read more here.

The Worldwide University Network (WUN), a global higher education and research network made up of 21 universities—including the University of Rochester—from 11 countries on five continents, has developed a series of virtual workshops to help support the development of early researchers.

WUN’s inaugural event, which will also serve as an information session on the workshop program, will be held on October 28, 2020 and feature guest speaker Jeffrey Sachs, the director of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network, chair of the Lancet COVID-19 Commission, economics professor, and global leader in sustainable development.

Workshop details and registration information are available at https://wun.ac.uk/files/newsletter/sep-2020/ecr-inagural-info-and-registration.pdf.  Please note that because this is an event for WUN affiliates, a University of Rochester email address is required for registration.

Here are important links for researchers:

• University’s COVID-19 website for important updates and guidance on working, teaching, and learning remotely
• University of Rochester Medical Center website for restrictions, resources, and news
• Office of Research and Project Administration (ORPA) site on Coronavirus 2019 resources related to sponsored programs
• University’s COVID-19 “Restart and Recovery” web page.

One student tests positive for COVID-19: One student has self-reported to UHS that they have tested positive for COVID-19. When a new case is known, the contact-tracing process begins immediately with the Monroe County Health Department, with confirmed exposures being contacted and required to quarantine. The University updates the Coronavirus Update website when any new cases are confirmed through testing or self-reporting, and the total number of positive cases since August 1 is now six (excluding the Medical Center). As a reminder to students, the contact-tracing process works best when a current phone number is available in UR Student, so students are strongly encouraged to review their contact information and make sure an active phone number is listed.

Remember, if you have symptoms or concerns that you may have been exposed to the virus, here’s what to do. Dr. Chat Bot participation is required for everyone who is physically on any University campus or property at any time of day or night. It only takes a few seconds and can help the University to identify emerging COVID-19 cases and clusters on campus earlier than testing. To help keep our campus healthy, please wear a mask, maintain physical distancing, and wash your hands frequently.

Non–Medical Center faculty, staff, and all students | Medical Center employees

Updates on COVID-19 protocols, new student space options: Since the University’s response to COVID-19 began, many new protocols have been put in place designed to keep University community members healthy and reduce the likelihood of an individual’s exposure to the virus. Some of these guidelines have changed over the past several months, and some new space options have been approved by CURT recently to make it easier for students to navigate the campus and academic experience this semester. Here are some clarifying dos and don’ts, as well as new space options for students. As a reminder, University students, faculty, and staff who observe that an individual or group is not acting responsibly with regard to COVID-19 should report these incidents through the COVID-19 Concern Report.

Quick COVID-detecting nasal swab card approved for use: A $5 test that detects COVID-19 from a nasal swab within 15 minutes—and has been evaluated in a clinical trial at the Medical Center—has received FDA Emergency Use Authorization for use by doctors, nurses, school nurses, pharmacists, and other health care providers.

Faculty guide for helping international students overcome academic barriers: In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, many international undergraduate and graduate students returned to their home countries last spring and many incoming international students have been unable to get to campus this fall. These conditions may make it hard for them to stay connected to their courses this term, particularly when it comes to accessing and engaging in online course content. The Office for Global Engagement offers suggestions for supporting them in overcoming these challenges.

Unit developed by educators, doctors helps area students understand the pandemic: A new partnership between the Warner School of Education and the School of Medicine and Dentistry, together with Rochester-area grade 7–12 teachers, gives local students the opportunity to learn about and cope with the virus in real-time as part of their in-class and remote science instruction this fall.

Adapted classrooms: Teaching and learning at the University of Rochester look a little different this fall. As Rochester has slowly opened campus in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, students and professors are engaging in the work of scholarship and research, but they are interacting in innovative and coronavirus-adapted ways.

Some classes in the College and at the Eastman School of Music have been reduced in size, some are being taught virtually. Masks are the norm for in-person instruction.

And faculty members have put into practice teaching methods that model the University’s safety protocols: building online options into courses, using clear boards to separate teachers from students, holding classes outdoors, employing the Oxford-Cambridge tutorial system (which combines group classes with individual meetings), and working in labs set up at half capacity. Read more here.