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1. Students Win Prestigious Scholarships |
Michigan Tech students Kara Oikarinen and Nicole VanBelle have been named winners of prestigious Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarships for study abroad. They were among 900 undergraduates selected for the competitive scholarships from more than 3,000 applicants nationwide.
VanBelle, a chemical engineering major from Grand Rapids, is one of the first Gilman STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) Pilot Scholarship recipients. She will receive $3,000 to study with the Japan Center for Michigan Universities in Hikone, Japan, during the summer of 2010.
"Studying abroad is not always advocated for engineers," she observed. "I hope to show all of my fellow engineers at Michigan Tech that studying abroad can be just as positive as an internship or co-op." She plans to give presentations about her experiences in Japan to Tech classes and at the Portage Lake District Library.
Oikarinen, a senior majoring in social sciences and education, received $5,000 for study this semester at the University of Ghana at Legon. She plans to bring Ghana back into the classrooms where she will teach, improving young students' knowledge of little-known parts of the world. "As a teacher, I will be learning about a part of the world that is typically neglected in history and geography classes," she explained. "I will use as many materials from my experience in West Africa as possible to create the most potentially stimulating lessons."
Oikarinen graduated from Calumet High School in 2006. She is the daughter of Rick and Lorri Oikarinen.
VanBelle is a graduate of East Kentwood High School in Grand Rapids. She is the daughter of Dave and Jane VanBelle.
The Gilman International Scholarship Program provides grants for study abroad to undergraduates of limited means who are US citizens. Since the program's inception in 2001, more than 4,200 students have received Gilman Scholarships, which are funded by Congress, sponsored by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs at the US Department of State, and administered by the Institute of International Education. |
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2. Women’s Basketball Earns More Awards |
Seniors Katie Wysocky and Sarah Stream and head coach John Barnes have received all-region accolades.
The sports information directors from the region honored Wysocky as the Daktronics Midwest Player of the Year and chose Stream to the Daktronics All-Midwest Region Second Team.
The Women’s Basketball Coaches Association named Wysocky one of five State Farm All-America Team finalists from the Midwest Region and selected Barnes as the Russell Athletic Midwest Region Coach of the Year.
The three have also been honored by the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. |
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3. Best Kept Secrets Revealed |
Here is a list of the winners from the "Best Kept Secrets Sampler," which was hosted on Wednesday, March 10, by Dining Services.
Sue Sergey--$25 gift card for the Campus Bookstore
Karen Wade--30 free Kodak photo prints from Tech Express
Amy Olson--bowling party for 30 from the Memorial Union
Kim Besonen, Jodie Heikkinen and Mark Provoast--two guest meal passes from Residential Dining
Loralee Sutinen, Beth Frederick and Gina Dunstan--Rozsa tickets
Marcia Blau and Tanya Maki--decorated sheet cakes from the Wads bakery
Helene Hiner--$10 in Campus Cafe bucks
Nancy Corrigan--a free large pizza per week from the Campus Cafe
Joyce Fontaine--free deli sub per week from the Campus Cafe
Sandra Kent--a breakfast pizza from the Food Mall
Approximately 180 people participated in the sampler, which had a bingo theme and was part of Customer Appreciation Week.
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4. Webinar Series Addresses Commercialization |
Nine online courses on research commercialization are scheduled for the next month, beginning next week.
The first lecture, “The Importance of Commercializing Research to the US Economy,” will be held from noon to 1:30 p.m., Tuesday, March 16.
The MTEC SmartZone is coordinating the sessions, which are offered by the National Council of Entrepreneurial Tech Transfer. Leaders at eight federal agencies are involved.
The courses are directed at faculty, grad students, postdocs; medical, science, and engineering researchers; professional staff; entrepreneurs and small business owners.
Areas covered in this series of courses include intellectual property, patents, copyrights, trade secrets, trademarks, licensing agreements, employment agreements, consulting agreements, creating and funding companies, marketing strategy, product development, tech transfer, early stage funding and Small Business Innovation Research programs.
The courses are free, but registration is required. There will be no collective seating but individuals can participate from any web-connected computer. Each webinar features an expert speaker and is 90 minutes long.
Register here .
Here are the rest of the upcoming sessions, all of which run from noon to 1:30 p.m.
Introduction to Patents for Researchers
Thursday, March 18
Introduction to Business Law and Regulations for Researchers
Tuesday, March 23
Introduction to Marketing Strategy For Researchers
Thursday, March 25
Introduction to Structuring and Leading the Research-Intensive Company
Tuesday, March 30
Introduction to Product Development and the Innovation Process
Thursday, April 1
Introduction to Tech Transfer: Working With Universities and Federal Labs To Commercialize the Annual $100 Billion of Federally Funded Research
Tuesday, April 6
Introduction to Early Stage Funding
Thursday, April 8
Introduction to SBIRs for Researchers
Tuesday, April 13
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5. Reminder: Sidewalk Sale |
Don't forget the Campus Bookstore's sidewalk sale from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., today, in the Memorial Union Commons.
As well, the Khana Khanzana (food treasure) will feature fare from India and Bangladesh from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., today, in the Memorial Union Food Court.
Both events are part of Customer Appreciation Week.
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6. ME-EM Seminar |
Dr. Lucas X. Lu of Columbia University will give a seminar from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m., Monday, March 15, in Rehki G06. His presentation is titled "Cellular Biomechanics of Bone and Tissue Biomechanics of Articular Cartilage." He is a candidate for the Strategic Faculty Hiring Initiative in health.
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7. GMES Seminar |
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Dr. Marta Calvache (Institute of Geology and Mines, Colombia) will present a GMES seminar, "Volcanoes, their activity and social implications in Colombia," at 3 p.m., Tuesday, March 16, in DOW 641. All are welcome. |
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8. Teaching at Tech: The Cloud (Part Two) |
by William Kennedy, director, Center for Teaching, Learning and Faculty Development
A great debate is bubbling just under the radar of higher education: a reconsideration of the importance of the acquisition and retention of factual information in education, given the exponential growth of information technology.
Even the most conservative pundits acknowledge that access to humankind's information stores will become faster, cheaper, and easier--and will occur at an almost unimaginable pace.
But will knowing that everything you need to know is at your fingertips reduce the need to acquire and retain information in your brain?
Cognitive psychologist Daniel Willingham says, "No." He argues that a sizable body of factual knowledge forms the necessary foundation for human intellectual growth. He writes, "Research from cognitive science has shown that the sorts of skills that teachers want for students--such as the ability to analyze and think critically--require extensive factual knowledge."*
Willingham argues that, especially in the very early stages, learning to be a critical thinker is vitally dependent upon the ability to instantly access critical pieces of information from our long-term memory stores. The ability to comprehend what we read, for example, is dependent upon our ability to instantaneously provide context and to fill in the numerous information gaps between and around the ideas put forth by the writer.
For example, Willingham says, consider the sentence, "'I’m not trying out my new barbecue when the boss comes to dinner,' Mark yelled." To understand the real meaning of that statement, the reader has to have stored the knowledge that initial attempts to use unfamiliar equipment often involve errors; and the reader also has to be aware of the characteristics of desirable relationships between bosses and employees. Without this internally accessible contextual backdrop, the sentence, as written, will not at all communicate the sense intended by the writer.
So, Willingham rejects, on purely cognitive grounds, the idea that students need not be troubled accumulating factual knowledge because they will be able to easily get what they need, when they need it, from the Internet.
I suppose that's one of the reasons why rich people have chosen to send their kids to those private prep schools where they are encouraged to personally encounter and discuss the ideas of foundational thinkers from a broad range of disciplinary perspectives. The primary instructional modality at these nearly 300 private preps is called the Harkness Table. The Harkness Table is a large surface around which a dozen or so
students routinely and actively discuss what they've encountered through their own personal reading and reflection, all under the watchful eye of a skilled tutor/coach.
Perhaps it is, in part, prolonged exposure to this rich, interwoven tapestry of ideas and modes of thinking that provides those students with the ability to deeply experience and relate to new ideas that come their way in life.
How best to prepare for a future that we can’t begin to predict?
Perhaps by providing students with a deeply internalized appreciation of the insights of the great thinkers--the ones whose thoughts are likely to form the basis of any conceivable future.
Maybe that's why the vast majority of respondents to a recent AAC&U survey of employers found that they are seeking to hire graduates with better "critical thinking and analytical reasoning skills." They want graduates who can communicate their ideas clearly and powerfully, as well.
Why is it that we reserve this kind of educational experience for those privileged few who are able to afford private boarding schools?
And why is it that none, not one, of these private prep schools has ever varied from this model of educational content and delivery over the last century and a half?
Willingham says that most of the time, when we say someone is engaged in "logical thinking," what they are actually doing is comparing incoming experiences with their memory stores. Humans seek patterns and evaluate the present on the basis of past experience. Perhaps the richness and degree of interwoven memory stores forms the basis of all our future thinking.
We'll continue this journey next week.
*Why Students Don’t Like School?,” John Wiley & Sons, 2009 |
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9. New Funding |
Research leader Xiaodi Huang (MSE) has received $36,550 from the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center for a project titled "Manufacture of NDS MMC Samples.
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