1. MICHIGAN TECH FINISHES FISCAL YEAR IN THE BLACK

Michigan Tech's current fund, which encompasses all university revenues and expenses, ended the 2003-04 fiscal year (FY04) $1.4 million in the black, CFO Dan Greenlee told the Board of Control Aug. 5.

The university achieved this relatively healthy bottom line despite cuts in MTU's state appropriation totalling $8 million over the last two years. However, the financial picture will soon be less rosy unless the university eliminates a systemic general fund deficit, Greenlee cautioned.

As predicted, the general fund finished the year an estimated $2.5 million in the red. That hole was offset by revenues in other funds, including a surplus of about $3 million in auxiliary activities. Unfortunately, that extra money from auxiliaries won't be available next year or for several years to come.

"Starting in 2006, we won't have $2.5 million in excess revenue from the residence halls because we'll be paying off bonds," Greenlee said. Payments on the $32.9-million bond issue funding improvements to Wadsworth, McNair and Douglass Houghton Halls begin October 2005.

"We have to be cautious," he said. "We are borrowing from other funds to run the university, and we can't lose sight of the fact that we have to balance the general fund."

The administration presented a balanced general fund budget for the current fiscal year, FY05, which the board passed June 25. Greenlee said that tuition payments for the fall semester indicate that tuition revenues are in line with budget projections.

In other business, the board

* heard a proposal from Board Chair Rodger Kershner that Michigan Tech create a new top-level position, that of university counsel. Most other Michigan universities have an attorney on staff, with only MTU, Northern Michigan University and Saginaw Valley State lacking such a position. Calling Michigan Tech a "mature institution," Kershner said, "It would be prudent and economical to have an inside counsel." The board will be asked to consider this at a future meeting.

Kershner also suggested that the board consider forming an audit and compliance committee to oversee internal and external audit functions and look into the operations of the university. "The bar has been raised," he said, adding that he didn't think boards can be forgiven for misbehavior in the organizations they govern.

* agreed to hear reports in October from its two ad hoc committees charged with instituting a presidential search. The team chaired by Board Member David Brule will make recommendations on selecting a search firm, while the team chaired by Board Member Norman Rautiola will develop proposals on the membership of a search committee.

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2. BOARD OF CONTROL PASSES WISH LIST OF CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS

The Board of Control approved Aug. 5 the university's annual Capital Outlay Budget Request to the state, MTU's long-term wish list of construction projects to upgrade the campus.

Every year the state asks Michigan's 15 public universities to list their highest-priority capital projects. When Michigan's bonding capacity is sufficient, usually every three to five years, the state decides which projects to fund. Generally, universities are expected to raise 25 percent of the cost of new construction funded by the state.

First on Michigan Tech's list is phase two of the Integrated Learning and Information Technology Center. The project includes renovation of Fisher Hall and a 95,000-square-foot addition to the building, as well as bridges between the center, Wadsworth Hall and the Memorial Union. The renovated and new space would provide 24 classrooms, 14 classroom labs, 25 research labs, 120 offices for faculty and staff and 44 graduate student offices.

The departments occupying the new space would be mathematical sciences, physics, computer science and the library, along with offices of the College of Sciences and Arts and the Center for Computation.

As proposed, the $57-million facility would be funded with $42 million from the state and $15 million raised by Michigan Tech. If approved, construction would begin in 2007 and be completed in 2009.

The first phase of the center, including the Rekhi Computer Science Hall and the John and Ruann Opie Library, will be finished during the upcoming academic year.

Second on the Capital Outlay Budget Request list is a new building for the School of Business and Economics. The 115,000-square-foot facility would cost an estimated $35 million, with the state providing $25 million and the university soliciting private support for the remaining $10 million. If approved, construction could begin in 2009.

The renovation and expansion of Dillman Hall, home to the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, is third on the list. The $35-million project would start in 2010.

Other MTU projects in line for state funding, listed in order of rank, are the Manufacturing Center, total cost of $21 million; relocation of the Seaman Mineral Museum, $12 million; a childcare center, $2.3 million; and the Memorial Union expansion, $21 million.

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3. REED NAMED DEAN OF GRADUATE SCHOOL

Vice President for Research David Reed has received an additional appointment as dean of the graduate school, effective Aug. 6, President Glenn Mroz has announced.

The move does not permanently combine the two positions, which will continue to function independently, Reed said. Operations in the Graduate School will continue to report to the provost, while the research offices report to the president through Reed. His appointment as graduate dean expires June 30, 2005.

Reed is assuming the responsibilities of the former dean, Bruce Rafert, who left Michigan Tech to take a similar position at Clemson University.

"We'll continue to look at this arrangement through the year as we move to stabilize finances," Mroz said. "Bruce made a lot of progress in helping the units build enrollment and become nationally ranked, and we don't want to backslide."

"We fully intend to keep pursuing the goals outlined in the Strategic Plan regarding graduate enrollment," Reed said. "We will be reviewing functions and the way we do things in order to maximize the efficiency of both offices, but I don't anticipate any major changes."

In his 21 years at Michigan Tech, Reed has been a principal investigator or co-investigator on over $7 million in externally funded research. His work has involved researchers from a variety of disciplines at the university as well as from outside institutions, including the University of Michigan and Harvard University, and his many sponsors range from the National Science Foundation to Mead Paper.

In 2000, Reed received the Scientific Achievement Award from the International Union of Forest Research Organizations. This honor is given to no more than 10 scientists every five years worldwide and signifies international recognition of scientific achievement in forest research.

In addition, Reed has had several international research projects, particularly in cooperation with the Polish Academy of Sciences and similar organizations in Estonia, Finland, Latvia and Lithuania; and was a Fulbright Scholar at the Technical University of Lisbon in Portugal.

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4. PREREGISTER NOW FOR FALL MTU PRESCHOOL

MTU Preschool has a limited number of openings available for the fall term for children ages 3-5. The term begins on Sept 8.

Sessions are 2-1/2 hours long for three year olds, three hours long for older children. All interested families are welcome. MTU Preschool is a nonprofit preschool located in the Daniell Heights Community Building.

Generally, all available openings fill up on enrollment day (Sept. 7, noon-6 p.m. at the preschool). However, preregistration is available in advance by calling the registrar.

For enrollment forms and further information, call the registrar, Corene Wylie, at 487-7121 or call 487-2720.

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5. UNDERGROUND LAB TO REVEAL THE SECRET LIFE OF TREES

If you're a plant, chances are at least half of you is buried in dirt. That's made it very difficult for scientists to study a sizeable chunk of the forest ecosystem, the realm of roots that lies hidden in the soil.

But by this time next year, the USDA Forest Service Forestry Science Lab at Michigan Tech will have dug two long tunnels into the nearby woods, providing a mole's-eye view of this underground world.

"The vision will be analagous to an ocean-going vessel," said Alex Friend, project leader at the North Central Research Station. "We can study below-ground processes in situ, where they happen, in as natural an environment as possible."

The eight-foot tunnels, each 75 feet long, will be dotted with a mosaic of windows pressed against the surrounding soil. "You will be able to take a window off, do something, and watch what happens," Friend said. "The facility gives you the ability to study the roots of big trees, which is hard to do from the surface without significant disturbance."

Scientists can also peer through the windows with devices ranging from microscopes to webcams, using time-lapse photography to track seasonal ebbs and flows from a different perspective.

"We've all seen spring flowers come up in the spring and fall flowers come up in the fall, but what's going on underground is not well understood," Friend said. "This gives us an opportunity to study those processes."

The facility may also be used to better understand carbon sequestration, the process through which forests soak up the atmospheric greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, Friend said.

The tunnels will be among a tiny number of such facilities worldwide, said Professor Kurt Pregitzer (SFRES), whose research focuses on underground processes. "And the fact that it's right on campus and connected to the forest service building will enable easy access at all times of the year," he said. "You'll be able to walk out of the building and into the soil in the middle of winter."

The tunnels should also offer unusual opportunities for outreach by piping rare images out to the world via the web. "For instance, some of these soil insects look like Steven Spielberg designed them," Pregitzer said. "They are really wild-looking creatures. We seldom see them, but they are there."

One tunnel will be into a mature forest. A second tunnel will provide access to the mesocosm facility, a series of 36 large blocks of soil, three feet square and four feet deep, that can accommodate a variety of environments with different soils, trees and soil animals.

"These will be underground, so the environment will be the same as if they were growing in the wild," Friend said. "Unlike a greenhouse

pot on a bench, the conditions will be very close to the natural environment."

Pregitzer called the new facility "a great development for our campus."

"In terms of the terrestrial part of this planet, the soil is one of the big unknowns," he said. "People will come here from all over to do research and test new instruments.

"This is a very cool opportunity, and it will really distinguish us."

The USDA Forest Service is funding the facility, which is expected to be completed by September 2005.

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6. SUMMER HOURS ENDING SOON

The days are getting shorter, alas, and the hours are getting longer. Michigan Tech offices return to regular operations officially on Sunday, Aug. 24, and staff return to their regular schedules. Most offices are expected to be open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

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7. SUITS: USING ANTENNA THEORY TO DO BATTLE WITH DEATH AND DESTRUCTION

The secret to ferreting out land mines in pastures and bombs in suitcases could very well lie in "a really bad" antenna.

Physics professor Bryan Suits has built just such a device as part of an ongoing study funded by the Naval Research Lab. Encased in clear plastic, it's made of two back-to-back copper spirals. Like a regular antenna, it receives radio waves. Unlike a regular antenna, it detects radio waves only from sources that are very, very close, such as luggage in an airport inspection station.

Bombs don't broadcast radio waves on their own. However, scientists can induce certain atoms--including the nitrogen in explosives--to emit a specific radio frequency using a technique known as nuclear quadropole resonance. Like the MRI used in medicine, NQR causes atoms to realign briefly and emit characteristic radio waves as they return to normal.

Generating that signal is the simplest part of finding a mine or a bomb using NQR. The hard part is filtering that tell-tale signal out of all the background noise, of which there is a lot: NQR radiation is smack dab in the middle of the AM band.

The problem isn't limited to talk radio. "We also get interference from lightning strikes, the ignition noise from cars . . . all sorts of noise, much of it manmade," Suits says. "The question is, how can you make a radio receiver that can see something next to it really well but is blind to things that are far away?

"That's the challenge. You have to understand enough about antenna theory to make a really bad one for something far away."

Thus the two coils. One is nearer the target and designed to pull in signals only from very close range. The second coil is a little farther away, picking up the interference. Subtract the interference from the first coil's reception, and you should have narrowed the signal down to the explosive you're looking for.

The technology should provide a major advantage over existing methods of finding land mines, which rely on old-fashioned metal detection.

"In battlefield conditions, there's metal all over the place," Suits notes. "So there are a huge number of false alarms, and you have to treat every one like it's a land mine, or you miss the land mine." For example, de-mining operations in Cambodia dug up 200 million items, of which 500,000, less than 0.3 percent, were land mines.

In a minefield, a technique that's even 90 percent effective would be a major step forward. However, in the realm of airport security, the issues are vastly different.

"Suppose you had one false alarm out of a thousand bags," Suits says. "That's 99.9 percent effective. In the typical large airport, you're talking one alarm every minute, and you'd have to treat each of those alarms as if someone's trying to blow up the plane." For luggage, eliminating all the false alarms is made more daunting due to the presence of non-NQR radio signals which can mimic the NQR signals--signals that can arise from the "panoply of junk" found in people's luggage.

However, NQR does have an advantage over most current inspection techniques, which rely on human judgment. "These devices are basically red-light green-light," Suits says. "Put the suitcase through. If the red light comes on, you know you've got to do something. It's not as if you've got to interpret anything."

Since perfection in the detection of explosives would be difficult to achieve using just one system, Suits believes NQR could be one of a number of methods used to weed out potential threats. "Terrorists will try to exploit the weaknesses in every technique, and we need to make that as hard as possible," he says.

Suits works closely with the Naval Research Lab on both the land mine and luggage problems, and the knowledge and technology developed are shared with Quantum Magnetics, Inc., a California company, for possible incorporation into a final product. However, Suits' heart is particularly drawn toward solving the land-mine problem.

"Land mines bother me the most," he says. Every year, they kill or maim an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 victims, many of them children. "Very few are soldiers, and it happens principally in Third World countries.

"Globally, it makes the World Trade Center disaster, as bad as it was, look pretty minor, and the SARS epidemic like nothing."

The U.S. invests about $100 million a year in humanitarian mine clearance, more than any other country. Yet, at the current rate, it could take 450 to 500 years to eliminate all existing mines, never mind the ones being laid down daily in trouble spots such as Afghanistan.

"It's frustrating," Suits adds. "Because it's not happening in the United States, and it's not contagious, we don't worry about it."

He, however, does worry about it. And he hopes his "really bad" antenna can one day play a role in turning the mine fields of the world back into farm fields.

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8. "CHICKS" WIN CHILI CHALLENGE

SFRES Dean Peg Gale has nabbed a second deanship during red-hot Alumni Reunion competition, earning the right to the title MTU Chili Dean for at least a year.

Her chuck-wagon impressarios and their "Chick" Pea Vegetarian Chili bested five other dean-led teams to win the first Deans' Chili Challenge last week. The judges--namely, everyone who showed up to eat chili--sampled six recipes prepared by MTU's Dean Teams and voted with their pocketbooks, one dollar, one vote. All in all, $400 was raised for school and department scholarships.

It was a tough contest featuring the finest in bean (and bean-free) cuisine. In addition to Gale's entry from the School of Forest Resources and Environmental Science, the recipes and dean team leaders were

* Ozark Road Kill Chili, from Scott Amos, dean of the School of Technology

* Chili con Deans, Les Cook, vice provost and dean of student affairs

* True No Bean Chili, Dave Maplethorpe, "dean" of the MUB

* Beyond the BS Chili, Marilyn Vogler, assistant dean of the Graduate School

* Wall Street Chili, Keith Lantz, dean of business and economics

Having emerged victorious, the SFRES gets to display the winner's trophy, a plaque noting that "the bearer is entitled to bragging rights and all the glory that goes with this title."

Even better, Gale has earned the honor of hosting next year's challenge.

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9. ORIENTATION 2004 HELPS STUDENTS CREATE PLANS FOR THEIR FUTURE

By Laura Walikainen, student writer

About 1,300 new freshman faces will soon converge on campus to "Design Their Future" as part of Orientation 2004.

New on the agenda this year is the "Reading as Inquiry: Summer 2004" program, in which all entering freshmen will be required to read Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" before they arrive at MTU.

"During orientation, the first-year students will have group discussions lead by a faculty or staff member about the book," said Beth Wagner, assistant dean of first-year programs. "Then Dr. Langdon Winner, an internationally renowned speaker on 'Frankenstein,' will give a public address on the book."

Also, for the first time faculty and staff were asked to help with freshman move-in. In the past only student organizations and orientation team leaders have been a part of the move-in.

"Moving in this year will be a challenge because of renovations, so we wanted to do something extra," said Wagner.

The orientation team will also be hosting a Husky football picnic at the end of the week, when MTU will face Northern Michigan University at home. The picnic will be on the track at the football field, and all the freshmen from the residence halls will have lunch there that Saturday.

As part of orientation's academic success program, Tim Scarlett, assistant professor of archaeology, will give the freshmen their first college lecture. There will also be a speaker from Monster.com who will talk about study skills, time management, the importance of getting involved and what skills students need to develop in the first year.

As a part of the wellness portion of the program, "Super-Wellness Man" will talk to the students about eating, sleeping, alcohol, STDs, computer downloads, etc. in a skit format.

"Our community section of orientation will be a series of Michigan Tech students speaking about their experiences living in a diverse community," said Wagner.

The perennial favorites will also make an appearance at orientation 2004. These include the 500-foot banana split, orientation team meetings, illusionist Craig Karges, talent show, volleyball tournament, the F'All Nighter and more.

As always, this year's orientation theme was chosen with care and consideration.

"Designing and creating really defines Tech students regardless of whether they are in social sciences or engineering," Wagner said. "Design means one thing in the physical education department, it means something different in civil engineering, it means something else in biology; but all of these departments have their own idea of what design means."

"The theme worked out well with the 'Frankenstein' book," said Jen Bzura, executive orientation team leader. "And with all the construction and renovations happening on campus, it also makes sense with how Tech is looking this year."

And through the years the significance of orientation has not diminished.

"Orientation is the often the first glance they get of Michigan Tech," said Bzura. "It is so important that we do a good job with the program because this can make or break their decision to stay for more than one semester or not."

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10. THIRD ANNUAL KOREAN TEACHERS PROGRAM UNDER WAY

Submitted by the Department of Education

Michigan Tech is hosting its third annual Korean Teachers Program.

The four-week summer program is designed for 40 high school and middle school teachers who have come here to learn about American culture and education. The focus of the program is on intensive training in science education. The program utilizes the expertise of Michigan Tech faculty in science, education and engineering, as well as local secondary school teachers. Participants visit area schools, engage in laboratory activities and attend discussions on the American education system and American culture. This year's participants are teachers of biology, earth science and environmental science.

In addition, Educational Opportunity coordinates extracurricular programming. Participants attend concerts and festivals, tour area sites, have dinner in the homes of community members, and take field trips to important natural and cultural features. The program also includes extended field trips in the Great Lakes region, including Niagara Falls, Mackinac Island, Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore and Chicago.

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11. HITCHCOCK THRILLER FRIDAY AT CLUB INDIGO

by Joe Kirkish

Mu Beta Psi's Club Indigo continues at the Calumet Theatre with classic Alfred Hitchcock and a Western buffet on Friday, Aug. 20.

"North by Northwest" is unarguably among the finest suspense films by the master of suspense. It features a self-assured Madison Avenue ad exec, played with cool suavity by Cary Grant, who inadvertently gets involved with international spies when they mistake him for someone else (who doesn't even exist). His problems are compounded when he's framed for murder. In the tangle is the mysterious blonde (Eva Marie Saint), who mixes love and treachery into his life on the run.

There are famous moments running throughout the film, from the crop-dusting scene to flight across the faces on Mt. Rushmore, with plenty of plot twists and tongue-in-cheek humor. Most critics agree that this is one of Hitchcock's finest, a great summer entertainment for the entire family.

The movie will be shown at 7:15 p.m. and preceded by a Western buffet at 6 p.m. Chefs from the Keweenaw Co-op of Hancock will provide the cuisine. Cost for the buffet and movie is $15. The movie alone is $3.50. Reservations for limited seating should be made in advance for the buffet by calling the theater at 337-2610.

"North by Northwest" has been made possible by the support of The Country Village Stores in Copper Harbor. It will be shown with crisp DVD projection on a new large screen with monies from the Keweenaw Co-op and the Fitzgerald Restaurant, Eagle River.

The next program, on Sept. 25, will feature the annual silent film comedy with pianist/composer Melvin Kangas: "Why Worry?" with Harold Lloyd.