WISEblog
The Department of Social Sciences is happy to invite friends and colleagues to a party that celebrates the career of Susan Rapalje Martin, who will retire at the end of May.
Our celebration will be held in the second floor of the Academic Office Building Annex from 4 to 6 p.m. on Friday, May 3. Join us to congratulate Susan and mix with friends over hors d’oeuvres and beverages.
Martha Sloan, professor and former associate chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, is retiring after 43 years at Michigan Tech. A celebration in her honor will be held from 4 to 6 p.m., Monday, Dec. 17, in EERC 515, the fifth-floor social area. The University community is invited.
Sloan came to Michigan Tech in 1969, after completing her doctorate at Stanford University and spending two years with Lockheed Missiles and Space Company in Palo Alto, Calif. At the time, that made her Tech’s first and only female electrical engineering faculty member.
Twenty-four years later, Sloan broke ground again when she became the first woman to be elected president of IEEE. The experience opened unusual doors, including one at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue: she was introduced to President Bill Clinton in the White House and played with Socks, the First Cat. “In many ways, Socks was more fun,” she recalled.
In 2012, she received Michigan Tech’s Distinguished Service Award for her efforts in the University Senate (where she served as president), her department, the College of Engineering and, overall, the University. As well, Sloan was saluted for mentoring female faculty and students and her “unflinching advocacy of women at all levels.”
She is a Fellow in IEEE, the Association for Computing Machinery and the Society of Women Engineers. Sloan is also a founding member of the IEEE Women in Engineering Affinity Group, the first student chapter in the nation; and of WISE (Women in Science and Engineering), which aims to increase the number of female faculty in the STEM disciplines at Michigan Tech.
One of her colleague’s remarked upon the “zest for life” evidenced in Sloan’s work. She will likely exhibit the same quality in her retirement: initial plans include cruising to Antarctica and then earning a master’s degree in military history.
by Marcia Goodrich, magazine editor
Published in Tech Today
In recognition of Ada Lovelace Day (October 16, 2012), we are gathering information on women scientists to display on campus.
The lists below will be updated as materials are received. If you are creating a slide, please use the template. An example for Lynn Margulis is also available. Please e-mail Debra Charlesworth if you have a scientist to add to the list, or have created a slide for a scientist.
The faculty and staff of the School of Forest Resources and Environmental Science invite the campus community to a retirement gathering for Dean Peg Gale at the Keweenaw Brewing Company on Thursday, May 31, from 4 to7 p.m. Congratulations to Dean Gale on her retirement after over 30 years with Michigan Tech as a student, researcher, professor and dean. Refreshments will be provided.
Published in Tech Today
Congratulations to the women on campus who were recently recommended for promotion and tenure by the Board of Control on April 27:
A complete listing of faculty recommended for promotion and tenure can be found in Tech Today.
Michigan Tech Extends Maternity Leave Benefit to Postdocs by Jennifer Donovan, director, public relations Postdocs, who sometimes feel like the orphans of the research community, are going to receive a new benefit at Michigan Tech, come July 1.
Postdoctoral fellows who give birth to or adopt a child will be eligible for six weeks of paid maternity leave after the start of the new fiscal year.
The change is based on recommendations from a Federal Demonstration Partnership (FDP) task force that examined the parental and family benefits provided to research trainees such as postdoctoral fellows. The FDP is a cooperative initiative of 10 federal agencies and 119 institutional recipients of federal research funds. It includes representatives of governmental agencies, universities, industry and the Research Roundtable of the National Academies.
Two faculty member serve as representatives to the FDP: Jason Carter, chair of the Department of Kinesiology and Integrative Physiology, and Larry Sutter, who heads the Michigan Tech Transportation Institute. Carter worked with the family benefits task force. Sutter served on a faculty workload task force.
“Research trainees are vital to the advancement of science, and they represent the future of our research workforce,” he pointed out. “Nearly 70 percent of research trainees are between the ages of 28 and 35, which often coincides with the point in their lives when they are raising a family or thinking about it. Parental-family leave policies for these trainees are often vague or lacking altogether. As the report highlights, this lack of policy and/or clarity often leads to talented scientists, particularly female scientists, leaving the field.”
Among the recommendations in the FDP report:
* Require, establish, document and disseminate clear policies at universities and federal agencies that provide equitable parental and family leave for postdoctoral researchers and employees.
* Evaluate the efficacy of existing programs.
* Provide a baseline such as adequate paid leave for birth and adoption for all research trainees.
* Maintain a zero-tolerance policy for discriminatory or disparaging comments or behaviors from faculty, staff and students.
* Actively advertise family accommodation policies.
* Provide a part- or full-time family advocate for graduate student and research trainee parents.
“Although we are not the first to implement a maternity-leave policy for all research trainees, to our knowledge Michigan Tech is the first to respond to the report issued by the Federal Demonstration Partnership,” Carter went on to say. “The report provided a framework for an informed dialog between our University provost, vice president for research, director of Benefits, and other administrators and faculty. We hope this can be a model for other universities looking to encourage talented research trainees to stick with a career in research through a proper balance between work and family.”
Michigan Tech greatly appreciates the efforts of both faculty representatives to the FDP, said David Reed, vice president for research. “Jason’s participation meant he was thoroughly familiar with the issues the task force identified, and he was a very effective advocate for implementing needed changes here.”
From Tech Today 5 April 2012
Three Feminist Scholars Will Present Three visiting feminist scholars will present a panel on “Feminist Scholarship in Communication Studies: Directions in Leadership, Diversity and Research Methods” from 1 to 2 p.m., Monday, April 9, in Walker 109.
The three are:
Patrice Buzzanell, professor at the Brian Lamb School of Communication at Purdue University. Her research focuses on career, leadership, gender and work-life processes.
Laura Ellingson, associate professor of communication and director of women’s and gender studies at Santa Clara University. Her research focuses on interdisciplinary health-care teams, qualitative research methodologies and extended family networks.
Robyn Remke, associate professor of intercultural communication and management and codirector of the EngAGE (Engaged, Applied, Global, Education) bachelor program at the Copenhagen Business School in Denmark. Her research explores organizational irrationality in public-welfare organizations, organizational diversity and organizational resistance.
The visit is hosted by the scholarly journal Women and Language (published by Michigan Tech) and sponsored by the Organization for the Study of Communication, Language and Gender (OSCLG).
Welcome to the WISE Web Site and Blog. If you are a member of the Michigan Tech WISE group, feel free to post blogs and comment on other postings. If you are not a member, we welcome you to post comments on the blog.
This spring several of our members have received awards or tenure. We offer our congratulations to them:
Sheryl Sorby, Mechanical Engineering – Engineering Mechanics – ASEE 2011 Sharon Keillor Award for Women in Engineering Education. The national award recognizes and honors outstanding women engineering educators.
Pushpalatha Murthy, Chemistry – 2011 Michigan Tech Distinguished Service Award. “In recognition of her exceptional service to the campus community in helping to create a supportive climate for all faculty and staff, especially her leadership in improving the climate for women.”
Gerry Tian, Electrical and Computer Engineering, promoted to Professor.
Please post on the blog if you know of any other WISE member accomplishments. We’d like to hear about them.
