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1. Wanted: Graduating Students with Good Stories to Tell |
by Marcia Goodrich, senior writer
Commencement is a perfect time to link new graduates with area media. They often have great stories to relate about their experiences at Michigan Tech.
If you know of a graduating student with an interesting story to tell, please let me know. These stories can be wide-ranging. We've lined up interviews with all kinds of new grads, from summa cum laude academic stars to fourth-generation Tech grads to students who overcame serious disabilities to earn their degree. Last spring, a graduating Blizzard T. Husky spoke with reporters from TV6 and the Daily Mining Gazette.
The only restriction is that the graduating students must be attending Midyear Commencement.
Please send your recommendations to me at mlgoodri@mtu.edu . Include the student's name, contact information if you have it, and a few words about what makes them noteworthy, and I'll do the rest. |
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2. Call for Fall 2009 Perspectives Instructors |
Instructors are being sought for fall 2009 sections of UN1001, Perspectives on Inquiry.
If you already have an approved Perspectives topic, you should contact your department chair or school dean to determine how your interest in Perspectives relates to the academic unit's needs. Then, let Helene Hiner ( hthiner@mtu.edu ) know you want to teach it again, how many sections you would like to teach and your time and day preference(s).
If you have never taught Perspectives before or if you would like to change topics, then you need to submit a proposal. Make sure you let your chair or dean know that you want to teach a section; it is the instructor's responsibility to arrange a home department. Remuneration to the department SS&E budget will remain the same as last year.
We would also like to encourage groups of faculty members to identify themes that can unite several sections of Perspectives through common assignments, guest speakers and events. An example is the Perspectives on Sustainability sections offered this year; this model will be discussed at the Perspectives luncheon on Tuesday, Nov. 18.
Proposal Process
We need to know if you want to teach as soon as possible. Please submit new proposals to Helene Hiner, hthiner@mtu.edu , by Jan. 9, so the Perspectives Committee can review them.
In your proposal, please provide
* a title
* a description emphasizing the unresolved questions associated with your topic and clearly indicating how you are going to bring different academic disciplines to bear on the topic via readings and student research. Typically, we include humanities, social sciences, natural sciences and/or engineering perspectives relative to our topics. About 65 percent of the sections also include some form of ethics considerations relative to the topic of the seminar. The courses should be college level, so make them challenging.
* example readings, no textbooks. Make these fairly serious reading assignments. It is strongly recommended that readings be around 75-100 pages a week.
* other means of acquiring or learning the material, such as films or art
* a brief discussion of how you would meet the writing/speaking requirements of the course
A short guide is available at www.bio.mtu.edu/courses/bl447/persp/rfi/guideln.htm ; a longer handbook is available at www.bio.mtu.edu/courses/bl447/poi_home.htm ; and guidelines to writing a proposal can be found at www.bio.mtu.edu/courses/bl447/persp/pp/rfp/rfp2008a.htm .
The sections will be filled in the following preference order: T/TT faculty, research professors, PhD holders, Tech ABDs (with exceptional skill in English; student needs a faculty recommendation), other university ABDs and terminal degree holders (e.g., JD, MD, MBA).
If you have any questions, contact Hiner or Brad Baltensperger, brad@mtu.edu or 487-2425. |
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3. Dining Services Selling Pumpkin Pies |
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Dining Services is holding its annual pumpkin pie sale. The nine-inch homemade pumpkin pies sell for only $3.25 each and can be ordered by emailing bake@mtu.edu . All orders must be placed by 4:30 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 24. You may pick up and pay for your pies in the Memorial Union Food Mall on Wednesday, Nov. 26, from 7:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. |
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4. Tech-Talks Research: "Education Research and Outreach" Nov. 18 |
by Assistant Provost Donna Michalek
The next Tech-Talks Research session will focus on education research and outreach and will take place on Tuesday, Nov. 18, 4-5 p.m. in the Campus Café Annex (Wadsworth). There will be a cash bar, with the first pop, wine or beer on the house, and munchies will also be provided.
The studies conducted in education research focus on understanding and improving the learning and educational process. Education research and associated programs supported by NSF are attempting to answer several key questions: How do we learn? What do teachers need to know? How do we measure and evaluate learning? How does technology affect learning? How do we attract and retain teachers and education leaders?
These studies can include research on topics such as teaching, psychology, classroom environment, testing, child development and cognitive science. Outreach activities range from dissemination of technical research results at conferences to demonstrations of science and engineering principles to a K-12 audience, either in a small classroom or at the YES! Expo. Possible topics, but certainly not an exhaustive list, that pertain to this focus include
• course and curriculum development
• classroom techniques
• biological basis of learning
• educating diverse students
• K-12 science and engineering education
• research experiences for teachers
• spatial competence enhancement
• assessing student learning
• educational system change
All faculty and staff members who feel they can contribute to activities conducted within this focus or who want to learn about the efforts of others are strongly encouraged to attend. In addition, if you are interested in giving a short presentation at this session, please send your two slides to Donna J. Michalek, donna@mtu.edu , by noon on Tuesday, Nov. 18.
The Tech-Talks Research series is sponsored by the Provost's Office and the Office of the Vice President for Research. |
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5. Clarification: e-Cater Ordering System Not Available Until Monday |
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Catering's new e-Cater ordering system will not go live until Monday, Nov. 17. |
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6. "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" Showing Sunday to Honor Paul Newman, Benefit United Way |
submitted by the Michigan Tech Film Board
The Michigan Tech Film Board will show the 1969 classic "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" in honor of the late Paul Newman Sunday, Nov. 16, at 1:30 and 4 p.m. in Fisher 135. The movie is free to the public; however, to help pay tribute to Newman, who was a committed philanthropist, donations will be accepted at each show, with funds going to the Copper Country United Way to help those in our community. In addition, the Film Board will donate all profit made from concessions during each show.
Come on out and join us in paying tribute to Newman by watching one of his greatest films.
If you have any questions, contact Mark Cruth, macruth@mtu.edu . |
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7. Reminder: International Food Festival Saturday |
The International Food Festival is set for Saturday, Nov. 15, from 6:30 to 8 p.m. in the Memorial Union Ballroom.
Foods from India, China, Africa, Europe, Indonesia, Bolivia and other nations will be served.
The evening will feature live performances and a talk by Associate Professor Casey Huckins (Biological Sciences), "Our World Environment."
Tickets, $9, are available at the door and in advance at the Memorial Union and Fisher Lobby from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. today, Friday, Nov. 14. Ten percent of ticket sales will be donated to charity.
For more information, contact Amit Samal, vice president of International Club, at asamal@mtu.edu . |
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8. Teaching at Tech: Is the Singularity Here Already? |
by William Kennedy, director, Center for Teaching, Learning and Faculty Development
Computer designers say that the minuscule transistors planned for the next generation of computers will be so small that they will begin to exhibit the sort of irregular behavior observed in the synaptic connections of the neural cells in our brains. Tiny ion gates in our neural cells are able to open and close and allow charged ions to flow in and out of the neural cell bodies, enabling intracellular electrical communication. The problem is that when these tiny gates close, they don't close perfectly, and a few ions can still slip through; and when these gates open, the openings are so small that ions occasionally get bottled up in the channels, rendering the flow rate sporadic and irregular. Instead of getting a clean on and off, you get periods of mostly on and mostly off.
Our brains have evolved to process information using these leaky ion gates. Brains appear to make up for the chaos resulting from imperfect and noisy signal processing by using enormously redundant wiring schemes that enable a sort of robust error correction without resorting to a step-by-step error-checking computer program or even a central processing unit. Computer designers are hot on the trail of trying to reverse engineer bits of biological neural circuitry to gain some clues as to how they might emulate these sorts of robust biological designs to create the next generation of computers using these leaky but super-efficient transistors. Why? Your brain uses about 10 watts of power, while a present-day supercomputer with similar processing volume requires the electrical energy consumed by 1,200 homes.
What's the significance of this fortuitous confluence of interest between computer scientists and neuroscientists? It is likely to greatly accelerate the advance of neuroscience as investigators reverse engineer the human brain, seeking to understand learning, memory formation, consciousness and a host of other mental processes and medical conditions. At the same time, computer designers will be racing to understand the wiring and processing protocols of hominid brains, as they seek to piggyback on design schemes that have evolved over hundreds of thousands of years.
The result? A generation of computers that can perceive and think more like people and manufactured devices that can be used to repair damaged human neural circuitry, such as spinal cord injuries, not to mention a generation of nanobots able to combat, delay or reverse the effects of aging and disease. Too far out? Too late! People with ALS and spinal damage are already operating computers using only their thoughts, and implanted devices are allowing the sightless to see and the hearing impaired to hear. Very soon the chaotic, noisy and seemingly hopelessly complex electrical storm that represents human neural activity will be sorted, filtered and unraveled by the very computers that will be enabled by its emulation.
Already the confluence of machine and biological intelligence is pervasive and ubiquitous in our world. We are already up to our necks in interactions with Internet portals. We get our news, our entertainment and our mail and solve many of our problems using computer-mediated devices. Students Google and Wikipedia their way through school, while we try to encourage them to step up to Google Scholar and to make use of the refereed articles in the computerized databases available to them through the library portal.
Students keep old friends and make new friends through social networking sites. Cell phones record life's moments as pictures and videos, and those images get flashed around the globe via Flickr and YouTube. My generation craves privacy; our students seek a revealing public presence on the least private place of all: the Web.
As I was writing this, my wife asked me what "patois" means. My first guess? Smashed up liver you put on crackers. Wikipedia quickly corrected my guess with the real definition. Sweet! All of us dip in and out of the ever-changing and unimaginably enormous cloud of human knowledge and experience that we call the Internet more and more frequently. We are becoming increasingly codependent on the body of knowledge and experience available at our fingertips.
Squishy biological systems are already blending more and more with their emerging silicon-based descendants. The educational consequences of this migration are countless and mind-boggling. As disciplinary lines blur and evermore complex and ambiguous computational and design problems are solved by new generations of thinking and reasoning computers that are able to do the work much faster and more reliably than people, what will we need people to do? That's the sort of thing I think we need to be assessing. Maybe I'll Google it! |
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9. In the News |
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An interview with Professor Barry Solomon (Social Sciences) is the basis of an article in the GU Journalen, a publication of the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. The article, available online here, is written in Swedish, but those of us who aren't fluent can still view a photo of Solomon. |
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10. New Funding |
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Robert Shuchman (MTRI) has received $5,000 from the Regents of the University of Michigan for "New MODIS Algorithm for Retrieval of Chlorophyll, Dissolved Organic Carbon and Suspended Minerals in the Great Lakes." |
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11. New Staff |
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Trisha Kappler has joined the Research Accounting staff as an assistant research accountant. Kappler was previously employed as executive administrator at Hitch division of OHM. She was also a contract administrator for KBIC. Kappler holds two BS degrees from Michigan Tech: one in Social Sciences, and one in Business Administration with a concentration in accounting. She is married to John, has two children, Vaughn (8) and Nadia (6), and enjoys quilting, rubber stamping, basket making and scrapbooking. |
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12. Michigan Tech Notables |
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Research Professor Emeritus John H. Johnson (MEEM) was recently appointed to The National Academies Committee on Fuel Economy of Medium- and Heavy-Duty Vehicles. Johnson's appointment will remain effective until May 2010. The committee will conduct an assessment of fuel economy technologies for medium- and heavy-duty vehicles, providing guidance to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration as it addresses fuel economy standards. |
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