1. SENATE APPROVES THREE SPIN-OFF DEGREE PROGRAMS

The University Senate acted April 13 to approve three spin-off degree programs.

The programs currently lead to BS in Engineering Technology degrees with concentrations in various fields. With Board of Control approval, the new degrees will be called a BS in Construction Management, BS in Mechanical Engineering Technology, and BS in Electrical Engineering Technology. The senate also approved a change in the name of the BS in Surveying, to BS in Surveying Engineering.

The senate discussed a proposed PhD in Biomedical Engineering. Start-up costs for the degree are estimated at $400,000, primarily for graduate student and library support. The biomedical engineering department is working on cooperative agreements with Portage Health System and the Marshfield Clinic, and is also in preliminary discussions with the Mayo Clinic to support graduate work, department chair Michael Neuman said. Vice President of Research David Reed said that the program has potential to bring in significant funding within the next few years.

The senate is expected to act on the program at its next regular meeting.

In other business, the senate approved changes in the late course add and drop policy.

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2. BUDGET PRESENTATION APRIL 27

Provost David Reed will give a budget update at a special meeting of the University Senate on April 27. A video-stream of this meeting will be available on demand on Thursday, April 28, at http://webmedia.mtu.edu and will be shown on Charter TV channel 20 the following Thursdays and Mondays at 7 p.m.

Senate constituents with questions on the budget should relay them to their senators prior to this meeting, senate president Terry Monson said.

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3. TECH’S TOP CODERS RETURN FROM SHANGHAI

Three Michigan Tech computer science students joined in not-quite-mortal combat with the finest collegiate code-writers in the world at the 2005 World Finals of the Association for Computing Machinery International Collegiate Programming Contest, held April 3-7 in Shanghai.

They were among the 78 teams left standing after the regional competitions, which drew 3,150 teams from 71 countries. The MTU team, including recent graduate Joe Nievelt, graduate student Kyle Rokos and undergraduate Jonathan Kaus, placed 26th in the Parallel Challenge Tournament. Sponsored by IBM, this match on a massively parallel computer served as a tune-up for the main event.

The MTU team then earned an honorable mention in the finals, which compressed a semester's worth of work—10 problems—into five hours. The home team, Shanghai Jiaotong University, took the gold. The University of Illinois was the top finisher among the American teams.

"They did a great job," said Linda Ott, chair of the Department of Computer Science. "It's the premiere code-writing competition for universities. The problems are really challenging, and the environment is intense. It shows the caliber of students here at Tech.

"It's also exciting to see them have the chance to meet so many new people in the field and to travel to China," she added. "It's a unique opportunity for them."

The contest itself had the team's advisor, Associate Professor David Poplawski, sitting on the edge of his chair. "We got off to a very good start," he recalls. "They were given 10 problems, and our guys solved three problems in the first two hours. At one time, we were in 11th place.

"But then we hit the wall and didn't solve any more. They tried real hard, but it just didn't happen."

Having solved three problems in a flash did put the students at the top of the honorable mention list, though it wasn't enough to rank them with the leaders. Nevertheless, they were still in good company. Of the 20 or so U.S. universities entered in the competition, MTU was very competitive, ahead of powerhouses such as the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, the University of Wisconsin at Madison and Carnegie Mellon.

"Our team did really well," Poplawski said. "There were only four teams in the U.S. that beat us, and they were all from big schools."

Plus, the team had three days to get out and see one of the world's great places. "Shanghai is a very interesting city; big, crowded and progressive," Poplawski said. "There was an enormous amount of construction going on. And full of people moving all the time. It's a booming area."

"There's a very tall viewing tower, and as far as you could see into the smog were continuous buildings."

They were also treated well. "They put on a very fancy eight-course banquet and a show with Chinese acrobats," Poplawski said. Their hosts also arranged for a fireworks display along the nearby waterfront and put them up in a five-star hotel. "They really took care of us," he said.

This is the second year in a row that a Michigan Tech team has made it to the world finals, and Poplawski hopes it won't be the last. "I'd like to encourage more students to get involved," he said. For code-writers, the experience is unparalleled. And next year, the food will probably involve barbecue. "The 2006 finals will be in San Antonio," said Poplawski.

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4. EMPLOYEES’ BENEFITS AND COMMUNITY SERVICES FAIR MAY 12

The Benefits Office is pleased to announce its 2005 Employees' Benefits and Community Services Fair to be held on Thursday, May 12, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Memorial Union Ballroom.

If your department would like to be a part of this fair, complete the application and return it to the Benefits Office by Friday, April 22. The application can be found at http://www.admin.mtu.edu/hro/forms/benefitsfair2005form.pdf. There is no cost for Michigan Tech departments.

Please pass this message along to your family, Michigan Tech retirees, or any person or business that has a product or service that would benefit the health and well being of our employees, retirees and their families.

For more information, contact Maryann at 487-3309 or mawilcox@mtu.edu.

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5. EDS MAKE-OVER

The Electronic Display System (EDS) has a new look with local weather and news crawl. The EDS is operated by Educational Technology and displays information to the university community through video monitors on campus over MTU Cable TV Channel 27 and streamed on the Internet. For more information or comments email EDS@mtu.edu.

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6. FOURTH THURSDAY IN HISTORY: THIRD ANNUAL HIGH SCHOOL LOCAL HISTORY SMACKDOWN
Submitted by the MTU Archives

What Lake Linden-based beverage manufacturer claimed that their product was "refreshing as the sportsman's paradise?” Think you know the answer? Chances are good that the teams preparing for the third annual Smackdown know that it was the Bosch Brewing Company.

The third annual high school local history Smackdown will take place on Thursday, April 28, at 7 p.m. in the Calumet Theatre. It is the much-anticipated event for this month's Fourth Thursday in History program. Fearless teams of four students will be challenged to answer questions on the history, geography and geology that define the Keweenaw Peninsula. This battle of the wits pits last year's victors from Calumet High School against 15 other high school teams from the four-county area to see who will take home the champion's trophy.

How does the Smackdown work? Teams of four players will be asked short-answer questions from a broad range of local history topics. The contest features a double-elimination format—two wrong answers and a team is out of play. The last team standing walks away with bragging rights and the Smackdown trophy. Presiding as quizmaster in his Smackdown debut is John Elchert, publisher of the Daily Mining Gazette. A panel of judges representing Baraga, Houghton, Keweenaw and Ontonagon counties provides final resolution to any disputes that may arise. The Smackdown allows students to demonstrate their knowledge and tests the knowledge of the audience as well.

The Smackdown trophy, designed and built in 2003 by the Houghton High School business trades class, is engraved with the winning team members’ names. 2005's victors will hold the trophy until next year, when they will be invited to defend their title or pass the trophy along to the next successful team. Information provided online (http://www.nps.gov/kewe/smackdown.htm) was made specifically to help teams prepare for the event. The site lists topics, sample questions and a bibliography of sources that were used to develop the questions.

Team registration begins in the Calumet Theatre ballroom at 6 p.m. A variety of local historical organizations will have vendor tables set up, and refreshments will be available before the event. The public is encouraged to attend and cheer on their favorite team. It guarantees to be a fun and educational evening.

This presentation is part of the Fourth Thursday in History program jointly sponsored by Keweenaw National Historical Park and the MTU Archives and Copper Country Historical Collections. Additional support is provided by the Calumet Theatre, as well as donations of prizes from a variety of area businesses.

Presentations are free and open to the public. For more information, including specific directions to this event, contact Keweenaw National Historical Park at 337-3168 or the MTU Archives at 487-2505.

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7. RETIREMENT PARTY FOR KAROL PELC APRIL 26

The School of Business and Economics would like to invite friends and colleagues of Karol Pelc to a retirement reception in his honor on Tuesday, April 26, in the Memorial Union Red Metal Room, from 2 to 4 p.m.

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8. TEACHING AT TECH: BLENDED COURSES, DIGITAL FRIENDSHIPS
by William Kennedy, director of the Center for Teaching, Learning and Faculty Development

Many colleges and universities are finding an unexpected market for what used to be called distance learning tools right under their very noses. Across the academy, more and more residential undergraduate students are choosing to enroll in the online or blended versions of college courses rather than routinely trudging across campus three times a week to sit in a lecture hall with a bunch of other sleepy-headed folks at 8 o'clock in the morning.

Many schools are developing blended courses that are designed to combine the strengths of online and classroom-based instruction. Some schools, for example, are offloading a portion of the information transfer function associated with classroom instruction to a variety of web-based tools. Instructors might produce and distribute 5-15 minute PowerPoint presentations complete with attached audio tracks containing their lecture discussion. Students can watch these preparatory instructional segments from the comfort of their dorm room or computer lab prior to coming to class. Theoretically, this allows the instructor to use class time for applying, clarifying and extending what they gleaned before class. Proponents argue that we've done this sort of thing all along, like assigned readings and worksheets.

Only slightly more technically advanced software applications enable groups of students to work on team projects and collaborative writing projects online whenever and wherever they desire; skills that they will undoubtedly need in the workplace. Most instructors have already discovered the power of e-mail to connect with students outside of class, respond to student work, and to assess the level of understanding of a concept among many students and make course adjustments. Physics, biology and world cultures faculty members on our own campus have the capacity to do electronic in-class quizzing and testing for summative and formative purposes, even in large lecture settings. Using personal response devices and computer projection devices, these faculty members can easily and regularly assess student understanding, generate quiz grades and refine session goals all without ever picking up a red pen.

Prefer two-way interactions with your students? How about sitting in your office and chatting with any number of individual students in dozens of different locations around the world? Using networked computers and inexpensive webcams, headphones and microphones, instructors and their students can now regularly collaborate with each other using a communal whiteboard, a shared application and real-time audio and video.

While many faculty members continue to hold on to the idea that nothing could be better than sitting in a seminar room listening to an expert deliver a well-crafted lecture, more and more students are demonstrating their preference for a faster, shorter and admittedly more sporadic and disjointed style of information retrieval.

In 2003, 61 percent of students surveyed at Michigan State said they spent three or more hours a day online for recreational purposes. At the same time, the average students reported spending only about six hours a week doing homework. When they don't have a cell phone plastered to the sides of their heads, contemporary students are logging into their email, chatting with friends across the country or around the globe using instant messaging software, and cruising the net to find out what's going on in their areas of interest.

Feeling unwanted? Electronically isolated? Never fear. Facebook.com and other such social sites allow students to electronically meet other students on their own campuses and around the world and develop online relationships before or instead of ever meeting them face to face. Just for fun, I checked and found 270 Michigan Tech students who've posted their pictures and personal information on the site, along with a good deal of rather revealing information about their personal preferences.

Instead of stealing "beer time" from our students, perhaps we should be figuring out how to get our share of our students' online attention.

Need a break? Have a great summer. See you online—not!

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9. MICHIGAN TECH DANCE COMPANY TO PERFORM AT ROZSA APRIL 23

The Michigan Tech Dance Company will present its annual spring show in the Rozsa on Saturday, April 23, at 7:30 p.m. The 15 talented dancers will pull out all the stops with a show featuring many different styles of dance, directed and choreographed by Laura Bonneville, fine arts instructor and director of the Superior School of Dance. The show also features costumes and lighting designs by Department of Fine Arts student and faculty designers.

The spring show highlights the versatility, creativity and energy of Michigan Tech's dancers, who join the company each fall by audition. Audience members frequently comment, "This was one of the most entertaining student performances I've seen." This year's show includes a new piece and the premiere of "Capoeira," based on Brazilian music and dance traditions, plus a few audience favorites from past years, including "Canned Heat" and "Sister Sadie." 

Tickets are $8 general, $4 students from the Rozsa Center Box Office (487-3200, http://www.tickets.mtu.edu and at the door). More information about the Michigan Tech Dance Company is available from the Department of Fine Arts (487-2067).

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10. CHAMBER MUSIC SERIES FINAL CONCERT

The fine arts department's Chamber Music Series continues on Sunday, April 24, at 3 p.m. in McArdle Theatre with performances of works by Johannes Brahms, Ludwig van Beethoven and Robert Schumann. Works will include Brahms' Sonata No. 1 in F minor featuring Elizabeth Meyer, viola, and Neil Paynter, piano; Beethoven's Violin Sonata No. 1 in D major, performed by Jubal Fulks, concertmaster of the Keweenaw Symphony Orchestra, and Paynter; and Schumann's Trio in G minor featuring Paynter with Andrew McInnes, violin, and Patrick Quimby, cello.

This is the third and final chamber concert of this academic year. The Chamber Music Series will resume in September. Tickets are available from the Rozsa Center Box Office (487-3200, http://tickets.mtu.edu and at the door) for $6 general, $3 students. For more information, call the Fine Arts office (487-2067).

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11. CLUB INDIGO PRESENTS “ENCHANTED APRIL”

In 1921, Elizabeth von Arnim wrote a light romantic novel, "Enchanted April," but it wasn't until 1992 that it was made into a romantic-comedy movie. It became an immediate classic.

Friday, April 22, the 14th season of Club Indigo events continues with the movie that caused critics to hail it unremittingly. To quote Leanord Maltin, "Utterly charming film about two repressed, married women who seize an impulse and rent an Italian villa for a month, taking on two very different women as housemates for this daring adventure. Ideally cast, nicely realized and very romantic." Others have referred to it with similar feelings, as "a charming and romantic success" and "the best escape film of the year."

“Enchanted April” will be shown at 7:15 p.m., preceded by an all-Italian cuisine buffet at 6 p.m., prepared by chef Erik Karvonen of the Eagle River Fitzgerald restaurant. Cost for both is $15, movie alone is $5. Children are admitted to both at half price. Reservations should be made for limited seating at the buffet by calling the Calumet Theatre (337-2610). The event is sponsored by the Mu Beta Psi music fraternity.

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12. MARY CHAPIN CARPENTER TO PERFORM MAY 15

Five-time Grammy Award-winner singer-songwriter Mary Chapin Carpenter and her band come to the Rozsa Center for one performance only on Sunday, May 15, at 7 p.m. Tickets for this extraordinary artist are on sale at the Rozsa Box Office (487-3200).

Carpenter rarely performs at university performing arts centers. This is an opportunity not to be missed.

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13. SYMPOSIUM APRIL 28: MICHIGAN’S ROLE IN ARCTIC COAL

Michigan's role in the development of mineral properties north of the Arctic Circle will be the focus of a symposium in Houghton on Thursday, April 28, from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Events are scheduled in the banquet rooms of the Northern Lights Restaurant on the seventh floor of the Best Western Franklin Square Inn. The program will be repeated in Marquette on Tuesday, April 26. The event is open to the public and there is no charge to attend the lectures.

Located north of Scandinavia only 750 miles below the North Pole, the Svalbard island chain contains significant coal deposits that are still mined today. Early mining proved difficult at such latitude, with long winters, treacherous marine navigation and engineering challenges due to the harsh climate.

Marquette-area capitalist John M. Longyear was drawn to the region in 1903 and eventually established the largest and most significant historic coal mine in Svalbard. His Arctic Coal Company, with the assistance of mining engineers from the Michigan College of Mines, was the first to successfully implement modern mining methods on these arctic islands.

The symposium will explore the legacy of John Longyear and the Michigan College of Mines, now known as Michigan Technological University, in developing Svalbard's arctic coalfields. Scholars from Sweden, Norway, Michigan Tech and Northern Michigan University will review the historic events that lead to the success of the Arctic Coal Company and will review current archeological fieldwork underway to document and preserve this important industrial landscape.

Representatives from Store Norske Spitsbergen Kulkompani, the Norwegian mining company that continues to mine coal near the community of Longyearbyen, will premier a documentary film celebrating the mine's Michigan roots.

Michigan Tech, the MTU Archives and Copper Country Historical Collections, NMU and the Marquette County History Museum sponsor the events.

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14. FACULTY/STAFF HEALTH FAIR MONDAY

Counseling Services and the Portage Health System are sponsoring a Faculty/Staff Health Fair on Monday, April 25, from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. in the Memorial Union Ballroom. Services include a metabolic syndrome screening (please fast for two hours prior to screening), hearing and vision screening, memory screening, flexibility testing and pulmonary function testing, along with information on nutrition and portion control, smoking cessation, and alcohol and health.

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15. MEEM GRADUATE SEMINAR THURSDAY

Professor Philippe H. Geubell of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will present a graduate seminar entitled “Failure of a Self-Healing Composite Under Monotonic and Fatigue Loading: Experiments and Cohesive Modeling” on Thursday, April 21, from 3 to 4 p.m. in MEEM 112.

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16. PHYSICS COLLOQUIUM THURSDAY

Andrew C. Pineda from the Department of Chemistry at the University of New Mexico will present a physics colloquium, "Electronic Structure of Point Defects in SiO2,” on Thursday, April 21, at 4 p.m. in Fisher 139.

Amorphous SiO2 has served as the gate dielectric material of choice in conventional microelectronics since the inception of the industry. Point defects present from manufacture or generated from exposure to the space radiation environment have effects that limit the lifetime of space-based electronics. In this talk, Pineda will review the electronic structure calculations of point defects in a-SiO2, which explains the oxygen-related E'delta center in this system and the new experimental results. Pineda is a senior research scientist at the University of New Mexico (Department of Chemistry and Center for High Performance Computing). A native of Arizona, he received a BS degree in Chemistry from Harvey Mudd College. At Harvard University, he studied enhanced fluorescence and energy transfer properties of micron-scale objects, receiving the MA in 1984 and PhD in Physical Chemistry in 1994. For more information, contact Yoke Khin Yap (ykyap@mtu.edu, 487-2900) or Ranjit Pati (patir@mtu.edu, 487-3193).

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17. LUNCH AND LEARN APRIL 28

"Using Common Sense About Thyroid" is the topic of the next lunch and learn sponsored by the Benefits Office in cooperation with Keweenaw Memorial Medical Center. Back by popular demand, the speaker will be Steven Woodworth, MD, board certified endocrinologist at KMMC.

The lunch and learn will be held on Thursday, April 28, from noon to 1 p.m., in Memorial Union Ballroom A. Bring your lunch—water and pop will be provided. Show your BCBSM group 55248 ID card and be eligible for the prize drawings. The lunch and learn is free and open to the Michigan Tech community, including students.