College of Sciences and Arts Projects

College of Sciences and Arts Project Descriptions - June 5, 1997

Biological Sciences

Acquatic Ecosystem Research and Education Facility (ARE) - $300K

Research and Education (Summer) Facility tied to LaSER Center Program, RSI Initiative, Summer Teaching Program.

Computer Based Data Acquisition Systems for Anatomy and Physiology Laboratories -$123K

This project aims to completely update the physiological data acquisition capability in the laboratories for BL201 & BL202 - Principles of Anatomy and Physiology I & II, by the purchase of new microcomputers, plus a complete line of transducers, amplifiers, and analog-digital conversion hardware to produce a set of modern laboratory data acquisition systems. These are the only courses in the department in which students use the microcomputer for on-line data acquisition rather than just for word processing or data calculations.

CLS Teaching Laboratory - $400K

Laboratory/lecture teaching facility for undergraduate CLS clinical core courses which will improve undergraduate education in medical curricula (CLS/preprofessional) attractive to women and minority students.

Equipment Purchase for the new Microbiology Teaching Lab Facility - $212K

Purchase of equipment to expand and update (modernize) the new Microbiology Teaching Lab in the new ESE Building. This should greatly expand the capabilities to provide microbiology-related experiences to undergraduate and graduate students in several science and engineering areas of the university, plus offer new courses in areas such as industrial microbiology and molecular microbial ecology.

Equipment Purchase for the new Molecular Biology/Molecular Ecology Teaching Lab Facility - $100K

Purchase of equipment to expand and update (modernize) the new Molecular Biology Teaching Lab in the new ESE Building. This will greatly expand the capabilities to provide biology-related experiences to undergraduate and graduate students in several science and engineering areas of the university, plus offer new courses in areas such as molecular microbial ecology.

Graduate Fellowship/Scholarship Endowment Fund - $300K

A fund that would be utilized for the recruitment and support of American graduate students pursuing a doctoral degree in the department of Biological Sciences. The significance of the program would be the increased enrollment of Ph.D. students whichsupports MTU’s long-term objectives as well as the enhancement of the undergraduate and graduate programs by having top quality students in the department.

Chemistry

Advanced Analytical Chemistry Laboratory - $320K

Funding for the renovation of facilities and purchase of chemical instrumentation in order to allow MTU to become leaders in the field of analytical chemistry. The lab will have great impact on teaching and research at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. This modern facility will encourage students to extend their knowledge well beyond the boundaries of conventional academic exposure to analytical chemistry. The lab will play a major role in improving the attractiveness of the department for high quality undergraduate and graduate students.

The Center for Molecular and Macromolecular Modeling (CMMM) - $243K

This project entails the establishment of a center to support research on both small and large molecular systems using modern molecular modeling techniques. This facility will provide a powerful computational facility for performing near-supercomputer level of calculations, and perhaps more importantly, it will provide a modern graphical facility where researchers can, with a short learning curve, visually set up, implement, analyze, and present new computations.

Multimedia/Seminar Room - $250K

Renovation of existing classroom space and construction of a modern sloping seminar classroom with 80+ seats, and equipped with computer projection and associated multimedia capabilities. This room will be scheduled and used for regularly scheduled classes allowing for the use and display of computer output. It will also be used in our weekly external departmental seminar program.

Endowed Chair - $400K

The area of research and specialty for this chaired professorship is not specified and will depend on the interest of potential donors and sponsors. The department does have special interest in the areas of current national focus, namely environmental chemistry, polymer chemistry, and material science. An endowed chair will have a tremendous impact on the research environment in the department, and lead to increased institutional reputation with national funding agencies as well as improve the attractiveness of the department for high quality graduate students.

Computer Science

CS Graduate Experimental Computation Facility - $500K

SGI Challenger facility will be used both as a real-time graphics engine and as a multiprocessor. Thus it will be able to support research projects in computational geometry, graphics, and animation as well as distributed processing research and also serve as a compute engine.

Center for Scientific and Engineering Computing (SC&EC) Equipment Gift - $500K

The gift will provide seed money for the purchase of a medium=-scale high performance computer to help establish the new Center. The new computer will form the core of the computational facilities of the CS&E Ph.D. program. It will be of a type that will permit other researchers with funding for computing equipment to use those funds to add on to the central facility, and thus receive more for their money than if they were to individually purchase their own computing equipment. This machine will provide faster solutions to researcher’s problems and will allow researchers to solve larger problems than they can on stand-alone computers of their own.

Computational Science and Engineering Visiting Researcher Endowment - $1M

Endowment will provide for a year-long visit by an outside researcher from an academic institution or from an outside corporate partner. The visitor will work in close collaboration with one or more researchers at MTU, students and faculty, that are involved in interdisciplinary work involving the application of state-of-the-art computational techniques to real problems in the sciences and engineering.

Computational Science and Engineering Ph.D. Program - $500K

This endowment will provide one one-year fellowship each year to a student entering the program. Each fellowship will allow a new student to do the interdisciplinary course work and other preparation necessary to get a good start in this interdisciplinary degree program. The fellowship will support the student for full-time study so that this preparation can be completed in a timely manner.

Fine Arts

Fine Arts Laboratory: Fine Art’s Studies with a Technological Edge - $1.7M

This project will help build a program that will merge computer technology and engineering skills with artistic principles by providing an instructional laboratory in the new PAC. The lab will provide students with state of the art computers, software, synthesizers, and video equipment to work on music/sound production, and computer animations. The lab will help extend MTU’s reputation in science and engineering by offering a technological program that demands artistic quality and will help connect engineering with art.

Intelligent Lighting System - $104K

The goal of this proposal is to create a fully functional intelligent lighting system that will provide a direct hands on link between the fine arts and the science and technology fields of study. This system is the practical use of optics, servo-motors, computer controls, and an infinitely variable dichroic color mixing system to creating lighting effects.

Recording Studio/Laboratory Proposal - $345K

This studio/laboratory will directly service the Instrumental and Choral Rehearsal Rooms that will be wired to the Control Booths of the PAC Auditorium and the Black Box Theatre. The Fine Arts faculty and staff are convinced that courses in recording will have significant appeal to students in electrical engineering, electrical engineering technology, or computer science, and will be attractive to new students as well.

Steinway Piano Proposal - $217K

Replace most of the existing pianos with Steinway or Boston (Steinway’s student line) pianos, and furnish the PAC with appropriate Steinway and Boston pianos. The availability of high quality pianos is an important factor in attracting and retaining quality faculty.

Fine Arts Scholarships - $350K

This project would involve development of an endowment whose annual interest would generate money to award a variety of scholarships to qualified MTU students regularly engaged in the Fine Arts. A unique feature of these scholarships would be that the student would be required to engage in outreach performances/demonstrations that exhibit not only their talents in a Find Arts discipline, but also their chosen major.

Humanities

Walker Arts & Humanities Video Studio - $1M

The Center can be used to teach video production courses and will enable the department of Humanities to offer classes in the area of video production in a state of the art studio for students in various departments. It will allow the department to provide a space in which visual literacy courses can be developed and taught to science and non-science majors.

Center for Research Excellence in Arts and Technology Education (CREATE) - $510K

Recognizing the importance of new media technologies in education and the arts, we wish to develop a resource facility for providing cross-campus (and off-campus) support to faculty and others wishing to learn about, develop, and test innovative multimedia, Web-based, and distance learning materials.

Center for English as a Second Language and English for Specific Purposes (ESL/ESP) -$146K

The Center will provide international students, scholars, and members of the corporate world with intensive English languages skills acquisitions opportunities. This scope will be to provide intensive English language training for students during the summer and throughout the regular academic year. This will also serve as a base for the teaching of ESL and ESP (Technical and Business English) in the corporate world in the center itself and through distance education.

Endowed Chairs in Professional Communications: Partnerships for Improved Communication - $14M

The endowed chairs would be charged with seeking and finding external funding to support their research on communication in the target industrial setting/academic discipline. This funding would also support both undergraduate and graduate students working on funded projects.

Endowed Annual Dissertation Fellowship in Rhetoric and Technical Communication - $250K

Fellowship to be awarded annually to an outstanding doctoral candidate in Rhetoric and Technical Communication. The fellowship would be awarded to the student whose dissertation promises to make the most significant contribution to interdisciplinary research in Rhetoric and Technical Communication who has an approved dissertation prospectus and a complete dissertation committee.

Mathematical Sciences

Instructional Computing Fund - $550K

Acquire hardware for math majors and students in math classes requiring computing.

Mathematical Sciences Industrial Partnership Endowment - $550K

Bring industrial mathematicians to campus to interact with faculty and students, and to provide the opportunity for faculty and students to visit industrial sites.

Equipment Fund for the Math Learning Center - $165K

Upgrade Math Learning Center Facilities

Physics

Remote Sensing Initiative - $1M

Will serve as a strong focus for MTU’s numerous nationally acclaimed activities in environmental monitoring, ecosystem, and ecological science, remote sensing physics, and space and planetary sciences.

Endowed Professorships/Scholarships - $1.7M

Professorship for international leadership, undergraduate scholarships for nation’s best students, graduate fellowships to obtain world’s top students in departmental thrust areas. We feel this will double the number of Physics majors to 100, double the size of the graduate program to 60, and increase research expenditures.

Social Sciences

Instructional Wing to Academic Office Building - $5.5M

Construction of an east wing to the old Academic Office Building which would parallel the existing west wing, but be designed to provide the university with a number of modern, multimedia-equipped classrooms. There is a campus-wide need for such a facility.

Houghton Firehall Restoration/IA Center - $1M

Restoration of MTU’s original home (the old firehall near downtown Houghton) for use as a research, teaching, and public outreach facility for MTU’s Industrial Archaeology (IA) program.

Endowed Graduate Fellowships in 1) Industrial Archaeology, 2) Environmental Policy -$100-200K

Establishment of endowment to fund graduate fellowships and thus encourage expansion of graduate programs in two areas where external support for graduate study is limited: industrial archaeology and environmental policy.