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1. BOC Will Address Budget at Special Meeting |
A budget for the coming fiscal year is the main item on the agenda of a special meeting of the Board of Control next week.
Tuition for the 2012-13 academic year is slated to be set at the meeting, scheduled for 10 a.m., Thursday, June 21, at the Advanced Technology Development Complex, 1402 Sharon Ave.
The Board did not act on a budget during its regularly scheduled April meeting because the Legislature had not yet passed higher education appropriations for the coming year.
The only other agenda item for the June 21 meeting is the appointment with tenure of Gene Klippel as new dean of the School of Business and Economics.
For the full agenda, see Board of Control. |
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2. A Mystery Solved: Three Wolves Drowned in Old Mine Shaft at Isle Royale National Park |
by Jennifer Donovan, director, public relations
During their 2012 Winter Study, Michigan Tech population biologist John Vucetich and wildlife ecologist Rolf Peterson started wondering where the wolves of Isle Royale National Park had gone. They only found nine wolves, and as far as they could tell, only one was a female. They expressed serious concern that the wolves of Isle Royale might be well on their way to extinction.
Now they know what happened to at least three of those wolves, one of them a young female, who likely would have contributed to the population's viability in the future.
In late May, a National Park Service biologist, Ted Gostomski, reported one or more animal carcasses floating in water in a deep, 19th-century mine shaft at Isle Royale. With the aid of the Park Service, Peterson and his wife, Carolyn, went in to investigate. They recovered and examined what was left of the animals and then collected the bones.
"We found there had been a real catastrophe in early winter, before we arrived on the island in January," said Vucetich. "There were three dead wolves from the Chippewa Harbor Pack in the shaft: a collared male that we had been unable to locate this winter, an older male--maybe the alpha male--and a female born in 2011.
"We believe the incident occurred between mid-October and mid-January," Vucetich went on to say. "There is no way to know how the three wolves ended up falling into the pit, but very likely, accumulating snow and ice played a role in the accident."
The collared wolf was Romeo, whom the researchers could not locate during their 2012 Winter Study, although they picked up his collar signal briefly once or twice.
"We now understand a major reason for the decline in pack size of the Chippewa Harbor Pack in 2012, and perhaps why we saw such a desultory pattern of travel and low kill rate in this pack," Vucetich said. The pack seemed to have no "game plan" following the large loss of so many individuals, he explained.
The drowned female pup and the old male showed noticeable fat in their internal body organs, suggesting they were not suffering from a food shortage before they died. "This was true even for the old male, who had very heavily worn/broken teeth and a healed fracture in one femur that left one of his back legs 1.5 inches shorter than the other," the scientist noted.
Vucetich and Peterson point out that the young female was lost at a critical time in the wolves' history, when a shortage of females represents the largest extinction risk for the population. The researchers noted breeding activity in a pack of two animals during the 2012 winter study, and in the spring of 2012 found an additional female in the Chippewa pack. There were no signs of breeding with this female.
The National Park Service will be investigating potential safety issues associated with the historic mine shaft in which the wolves died. The shaft dates to the time of the Pittsburgh and Isle Royale Company, which operated in the Todd Harbor area between 1846 and 1853.
"This is not the first time we have been fortunate enough to learn about discrete events that have greatly influenced this population of wolves," stated Phyllis Green, park superintendent, referencing this event and the discovery of canine parvovirus, which caused the population decline of the early 1980s. "Random events often play a large role in isolated, island populations and, although tragic, information from this event will serve to help us evaluate future management of this population."
Meanwhile, Peterson and Vucetich are cleaning the bones of the dead wolves and examining their spines--affected by inbreeding history--to collect some data about the animals. They will also do DNA analysis to determine or confirm the animals' age and prior history.
Supported by the National Park Service, the National Science Foundation, Michigan Tech and numerous private donors and field volunteers, the wolf-moose study at Isle Royale National Park has been going on for more than 50 years, the longest continuous predator-prey study in the world. |
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3. Human Resources Closed for Two Hours June 19 |
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The offices of Human Resources, which includes Benefits and Payroll Services, will be closed between 8:45 and 10:45 a.m., Tuesday, June 19, so the staff may attend a "Creating Connections" meeting. We are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause. |
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4. Reminder: Diversity and Inclusion Candidates Present |
The two candidates interviewing for the position of assistant director of the Center for Diversity and Inclusion will address the question: "What is your vision for ensuring that the work you will be doing is responsive to the unique needs of underrepresented groups and inviting to students across the campus?"
Each presentation will be 30 minutes, followed by a 25-minute question-and-answer session.
The first candidate, Josh Burford, will present at 10 a.m., Monday, June 18, in Rekhi 214.
The second candidate, Kellie Raffaelli, will present at 10 a.m., Wednesday, June 20, in Rekhi 214.
For more information, contact Lisa Pignotti at 487-3558 or lcpignot@mtu.edu . |
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5. Reminder: Retirement Gathering for Cathy Greer |
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Please join the staff of the Van Pelt and Opie Library for an ice cream social to wish a happy and relaxing retirement for Cathy Greer of the Interlibrary Loan Department. Cathy has worked at Tech for 15 years. Prior to the library, she worked in University Marketing and Communications. The social will be from 2 to 4 p.m., Tuesday, June 19, in the Alumni Lounge. |
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6. Upcoming Canvas Workshops |
Canvas has replaced Blackboard/Web CT as the University's learning management system. eLearning is offering introductory and advanced workshops throughout 2012 and beyond to help instructors and staff use Canvas effectively to support instruction.
Workshops for the next two weeks are listed below. Tom Freeman, Jeff Toorongian and Jeannie DeClerck will lead these eLearning sessions in the Library's instruction rooms, located on the second floor behind the elevator, near the skyway to Rekhi Hall.
Week 7 of Summer Semester
* Assignments and Grade Book in Canvas--Monday, June 18, 2 p.m.
* Canvas 101: Introduction to Canvas--Tuesday, June 19, 10 a.m.
* Pages, Modules and Files in Canvas--Wednesday, June 20, 10 a.m.
* Canvas 101: Introduction to Canvas--Thursday, June 21, 2 p.m.
Week 8 of Summer Semester (Week 1 of Track B)
* Canvas 101: Introduction to Canvas--Monday, June 25, 2 p.m.
* Basic Quizzes in Canvas--Tuesday, June 26, 2 p.m.
* Assignments and Grade Book in Canvas--Wednesday, June 27, 10 a.m.
Please refer to the eLearning website at mtu.edu/elearning for session descriptions. To register, send an email to elearning@mtu.edu with the topic, date and time of each session that you would like to attend. |
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7. In the News |
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Science 360, the National Science Foundation's science news website, spotlighted Professor David Flaspohler's New York Times "Scientist at Work" blog in its Thursday, June 14, issue. See the third item, lower center column, at Flaspohler. |
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8. Proposals in Progress |
Assistant Professor Michael Falkowski (SFRES/ESC) and Assistant Professor Joseph Bump (SFRES/ESC), "Remote sensing of conifer and mesquite encroachment into lesser prairie-chicken habitats," Oregon State University.
Associate Professor Charles Wallace (CS) and Professor Linda Ott (CS), "Pan-American Software Quality Institute," NSF.
Codirector Robert Shuchman (MTRI), Research Scientist Colin Brooks (MTRI), and Research Engineer Mike Sayers (MTRI), "Development of New Regional Carbon Monitoring Products for the Great Lakes Using Satellite Remote Sensing Data," NASA.
Associate Professor Nilufer Onder (CS), Assistant Professor Laura Brown (CS), Associate Professor Mari Buche (SBE), Senior Lecturer Gretchen Hein (Engineering Fundamentals), and Associate Professor Kedmon Hungwe (CLS), "CER: Role Models at Play: Computing Skits and Skills for Teachers and Students," NSF.
Professor Martin Auer (CEE/CWS), Professor Noel Urban (CEE/CWS), Professor David Watkins (CEE/CWS), Codirector Robert Shuchman (MTRI) and Research Scientist Colin Brooks (MTRI), "The wall of green and end game management in the Great Lakes region," NSF. |
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