What's Your Nom de Plume?

By Dean Woodbeck '78, Editor
Michigan Tech Magazine

People reflect their names and names reflect their people.

Can you imagine being called anything other than your name? (Except by those old high school friends who insist on hanging on to something that just doesn't apply any longer.)

But sometimes changing can be appropriate. Someone tags you with a new nickname and you say, “yeah, this fits.” Women must wrestle with this, too, when they decide to marry. To change or not to change, that is a huge question.

So it is with periodicals. Names tend to fit the publication and the publication lives up to its name.

The name, Michigan Tech Alumnus, has served this magazine for years. My editorial tenure goes back 19 years, and my predecessor’s goes back 30 before that. That's at least 49 years for the Alumnus.

During that half-century, Michigan Tech has changed its name twice—from the Michigan College of Mining and Technology to, briefly, the Michigan College of Science and Technology, and finally to Michigan Technological University. The university has changed substantially, with a greater number of programs and degree offerings, and a different demographic mix of students.

During my time as editor, the subject of the magazine’s name has come up a number of times, because the term “alumnus” is a holdover from a bygone era. The word is the male singular form of a Latin noun (with “alumni” male plural, alumna feminine singular and alumnae feminine plural. Latin is even more complicated than English).

After considering a number of alternatives, we decided that Michigan Tech Magazine fits. It better reflects our mix of readers and the scope of the magazine.

Michigan Tech Magazine will serve as the university’s alumni magazine, just as the Alumnus has done for years. In terms of content, you will see little difference.

We will, for example, continue to carry class notes, something that reader surveys say is the most popular item in the magazine. Michigan Tech Magazine will also continue to provide you with campus news and stories about our students and faculty, from research that is out of this world (as in outer space) to hikes on the Appalachian Trail.

Enjoy the magazine and remember that the editor is just an e-mail away (woodbeck@mtu.edu)

This issue brings you a story that keeps getting better. In 2001, we reported on a senior design project, spearheaded by Linda Phillips ’77, an instructor in civil engineering. Over a number of years, her students designed and built a new school in Bolivia.

Interest in her program has skyrocketed among students and alumni. Linda now has alumni volunteering their time, and paying their way, to work side-by-side with students, making things better, one brick at a time, in a number of South American and Caribbean communities.

We also bring you a story about a faculty member and her students doing good on a much smaller scale—looking at how your leg bone’s connected to your thigh bone.

Faculty member Tammy Haut Donohue has undergraduate and graduate students working with researchers and doctors at the Mayo Clinic. They’re trying to figure out better ways to fix a tiny part of the knee that plays a big role in the onset of arthritis.

Peace Corps volunteers in Africa, alumni volunteers in South America, and students working on design projects in the Dominican Republic and Rochester, Minnesota. That’s quite a reach for a school in the U.P., but that’s the climate and the character of Michigan Tech.