Graduate School Newsblog

Category: News

Interesting stories about and for our students.

Required Online Course Addresses Harassment and Discrimination

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At the recommendation of the US Department of Education, Michigan Tech is establishing an online course on harassment, discrimination and retaliation.  All University employees and graduate students will be required to complete the course by Dec. 31.

The course will replace a previous course on sexual harassment that has been required of all incoming employees since 2009. It also satisfies the federal requirement for training mandated by the Violence Against Women Act and Title IX and aligns with the Campus Clarity courses that incoming first-year students must complete.

“The new course is extremely informative regarding harassment and discrimination and suggests best practices in the workplace,” said Jill Hodges, director of the Office of Institutional Equity. Regarding the sexual harassment portions of the course, President Glenn Mroz said: “Despite the significant progress made in reducing violence against women, there is a long way to go. It is our responsibility as a university community to work towards eliminating sexual misconduct and sexual violence, and to do so, we must be well informed.”

Employees and graduate students will receive email notification when the course is assigned and reminders if they have not completed the course. The course requires audio. Employees or graduate students whose computers do not have audio capability can use campus computers designated for training purposes.

If you have questions, contact Title IX Coordinator Beth Lunde in the Office of Institutional Equity at titleix@mtu.edu.

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Physics Department Recognized Nationally for Percentage of Women PhDs

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The American Physical Society–an organization that works to advance and spread knowledge of physics through research journals, scientific meetings, education, outreach and advocacy–just issued a report listing the universities that awarded the highest percentages of PhDs in physics to women between 2010 and 2012.  Michigan Tech placed 12th in the nation with 42 percent of physics PhDs earned by women.

“This is a well-deserved recognition of the physics faculty members who are committed to diversity at Michigan Tech,” said Ravindra Pandey, chair of the Department of Physics.

Michigan Tech has made increasing the numbers of women students and graduates a key part of its strategic plan.  Due to a number of recruitment and retention initiatives, the percentage of women has been rising at the University, now nearing 25 percent, and Tech’s goal for 2035 is a student body that is 40 percent female.

“The Physics Department has already met and surpassed that goal, which is a great accomplishment,” said President Glenn Mroz.  “This is awesome recognition of the work of Ravi and his faculty.”

The College of Engineering also has been recognized recently for its percentage of overall doctoral degrees awarded to women. In its latest Profiles of Engineering and Engineering Technology Colleges, the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) ranked Michigan Tech 10th in the nation in percentage of engineering doctorates earned by women. According to the ASEE, engineering doctorates received by women at Michigan Tech totaled 31.9 percent of all engineering doctoral degrees awarded by the University in 2013.

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Graduate School Announces Summer 2014 Doctoral Finishing Fellowship Awardees

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The Graduate School is pleased to announce that the following students have earned the Doctoral Finishing Fellowship:

  • Douglas Banyai, PhD candidate in Physics
  • Rasika Kishor Gawde, PhD candidate in Environmental Engineering
  • Ryan Lemmens, PhD candidate in Mechanical Engineering–Engineering Mechanics
  • Seyedmehdi Morazavi Zanjani, PhD candidate in Mechanical Engineering–Engineering Mechanics
  • Ranjeeth Naik, PhD candidate in Mechanical Engineering–Engineering Mechanics
  • Ruiqiang Song, PhD candidate in Civil Engineering
  • Ehsan Taheri, PhD candidate in Mechanical Engineering–Engineering Mechanics
  • Khrupa Vijayaragavan, PhD candidate in Chemical Engineering
  • Anqi Zhang, PhD candidate in Mechanical Engineering–Engineering Mechanics
  • Yunzhu Zhao, PhD candidate in Environmental Engineering

Photographs and details of awards and fellowships coordinated by the Graduate School can be found online.

Nominations are currently being accepted for spring 2015 finishing fellowships. Nominations are due Oct. 21 by 4 p.m. to Debra Charlesworth. Please see the website for full details.

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Registration Open for Safe Place Training

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There is still room to register for the fall 2014 Safe Place training. The Michigan Tech Safe Place program is a comprehensive resource to better prepare faculty and staff to address the needs of students who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning (GLBTQ).

The training program addresses a wide range of terms that GLBTQ students use to define their identities, issues that they often deal with during the coming out process, concerns that they face both in and out of the classroom, ways that faculty and staff can create inclusive classroom and office environments, and refer students who need to report harassment, and the on-and off-campus resources available to students.

View the fall 2014 training times and register online.

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Fall Enrollment at All-Time High for Female Engineering, Minority, International and Graduate Students

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Michigan Tech submitted its preliminary fall enrollment figures to the state this week.  Enrollment totaled 7,100 this fall, up from last year and the second highest since 1983.

Female enrollment in the College of Engineering is 1,005, an all-time high at 22 percent.

American minority students totaled 474, nearly 7 percent of the student body and another all-time high.

Graduate School enrollment also hit an all-time high this fall, at 1,442 or 20 percent of the student body.  The Graduate School received 1,800 more applications this year than last.

Michigan Tech’s 1,093 international students represent another all-time high. Retention—the percentage of first-year students who return for their second year—was 85 percent, the highest it has been since 1993.

Read the the full story.

Published in Tech Today by Jennifer Donovan, director of news and media relations

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PhD students co-authored paper in Journal of Applied Physics

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PhD students Ankit Vora (ECE) and Jephias Gwamuri (MSE) co-authored a paper with Joshua Pearce (MSE/ECE), Paul Bergstrom (ECE) and Durdu Guney (ECE) titled “Multi-resonant Silver Nano-disk Patterned Thin Film Amorphous Silicon Solar Cells For Staebler-Wronski Effect Compensation,” in the “Journal of Applied Physics.”

Published in Tech Today.

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International Conversation Partner Opportunity

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Conversation Partners is a program that pairs students in the Intensive English as a Second Language (IESL) program with more proficient English speaking members of the Michigan Tech community. The program is open to students, faculty and staff. Participants commit to one hour a week of one-on-one informal conversation by signing a contract with the IESL program for one semester. Volunteers are required to meet their partners in public places on campus for a minimum of one hour a week.

IESL is offering this opportunity again for the fall semester—by volunteering, you can make an enormous difference.

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Michigan Tech Multiliteracies Center offers graduate students writing groups

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The Michigan Tech Multiliteracies Center (MTMC) offers graduate students at any level of their degree writing groups to work on projects (planning and writing), proposals, conference papers, posters, presentations and defenses.  These groups are discussion based, allowing students to explain their project to other students and get feedback from peers.

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Middle, High School Students: Sign Up for Free Computer Programming Lessons

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The Department of Computer Science is offering local students free, hands-on instruction in the basics of computer programming and computer science.

Starting Sept. 13, Copper Country Programmers meets from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturdays during the academic year at the Van Pelt and Opie Library.  Computer science faculty and students will teach the fundamentals of programming, starting with simple languages like HTML and BASIC and progressing to the well known and widely used Java language.

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