Graduate School Newsblog

Category: News

Interesting stories about and for our students.

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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Michigan Tech Approved as Test Site for the Graduate Record Exams

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Michigan Tech has been approved as an official test site for the Graduate Record Exam (GRE), an entrance exam required by most graduate programs around the country. This will enable students from this area to take the GRE at Michigan Tech’s Testing Center, part of the Jackson Center for Teaching and Learning.

Previously, Michigan Tech students and locals had to travel four hours or more to take the standardized exam. The closest test sites were Sault Ste. Marie and Duluth, Minn.

“We have been working for years to get approved as a GRE test site,” said Margaret Landsparger, coordinator of the Michigan Tech Testing Center. “Now we have this beautifully equipped center and the capability to administer secure exams, and this time we were approved.”

The Michigan Tech Testing Center opened in October 2013. It is also certified to give Pearson Vue exams, including the popular Fundamentals of Engineering exam and the GMAT, a graduate entrance exam for business schools.

Tech joins 10 other GRE test sites in Michigan. The Testing Center can administer up to 10 tests at a time. The center has four test dates scheduled between now and the end of the year: the first is on Sept. 26, and there will be two in October and one in December.

“I am delighted that the GRE test will be offered at Michigan Tech in the future,” said Jacqueline Huntoon, dean of the Graduate School. “We have all been working on this for a very long time. The hard work done by the Jackson Center staff made it all possible. Staff members in the Graduate School have also been working to educate individuals in leadership positions at GRE, to help them understand the realities of our geographical location.”

For more information, see GRE.

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Michigan Tech, Central Michigan University Launch Collaborative Physical Therapy Doctoral Program

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With a purposeful pun—“an exercise in partnership”—Bruce Seely, dean of the College of Sciences and Arts, marked the launch Monday of a unique partnership between Central Michigan University (CMU) and Michigan Tech. The program will offer a Doctor of Physical Therapy degree from CMU to students at both campuses.

“This partnership is a signal of Michigan Tech’s commitment to strengthening its education and research initiatives in the life sciences,” said President Glenn Mroz. “We are thrilled to mark the beginning of this cooperative endeavor by dedicating this wonderful space designed for physical therapy education.”

The space, including a technologically cutting-edge remote classroom that will be shared in real time by students at CMU and Tech, is in the Advanced Technology Development Complex. A student lounge there was furnished by a gift from the family of Roy and Ruth Jurva.

A cohort of 12 students is starting the program at Michigan Tech. Another 48 are enrolled on the CMU campus. The Michigan Tech students attended the dedication of their program space, cheering and clapping. Several of their fellow students at CMU attended remotely through a direct video link between the two classrooms.

For the full story, see Michigan Tech News.

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Graduate School Dean Elected GRE Board Chair

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Jacqueline Huntoon, dean of the Graduate School, has been voted chair-elect of the Graduate Record Exam (GRE) Board. She will take office in October.

“This is a great honor that will help bring more national and international recognition to Michigan Tech and its graduate programs,” said Huntoon.

She has served on the GRE Board since 2012. The board oversees the management and administration of the GRE test, which is part of the application package for most graduate schools in the United States. Other board members include graduate school deans from universities such as Virginia Tech, Northwestern and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

“It’s been an honor to serve on the board, and I’ve learned a lot about best practices at other graduate schools,” Huntoon said.

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Michigan Tech Receives $5 Million from Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow Foundation to Reform Middle-School Science Education

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Young children are naturally curious about everything around them. They want to know how and why things work. Then, around middle school age, many of them lose that natural attraction to science and engineering.

A team of university and public school educators in Michigan say they know what’s wrong with middle school science education. And, with a $5 million, three-year grant from the Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow Foundation, they intend to develop and test some solutions.

“In Michigan and most of the nation’s schools, STEM instruction consists of a series of seemingly unrelated courses that require students to memorize large numbers of facts but fail to engage them in the practice of using science as a tool to address real-world problems,” says Jacqueline Huntoon, a geology professor, associate provost and dean of the Graduate School at Michigan Tech.

The Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow Foundation, based in Midland, Mich., has funded the Michigan Science Teaching and Assessment Reform (Mi-STAR) program to develop a model for reforming middle-school STEM education that will include a new curriculum supported by updated teacher education and teacher professional development strategies.

The program focuses on integrating the sciences, using a problem-based approach, cutting across the traditional disciplines of biology, physics, chemistry and earth science to emphasize core ideas and show how science can be used to address society’s needs. For the full story, see Michigan Tech News.

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ASEE Ranks Michigan Tech 10th in Nation for Engineering Doctorates Earned by Women

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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 the percentage of engineering doctoral degrees awarded to women. Engineering doctorates earned by women at Michigan Tech totaled 31.9 percent of all engineering doctoral degrees awarded in 2013.

To be ranked, a school had to award a minimum of 25 doctoral degrees in engineering. A total of 117 engineering schools qualified for ranking.

See at ASEE Papers and Publications, page 13.

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Graduate Student’s VISTA Broadens as She Earns a Degree Through Volunteer Service

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A graduate student at Michigan Tech, Rhianna Williams, is earning a master’s degree far from the ivory tower of the classroom. She’s working as a volunteer with the US Office of Surface Mining VISTA program, helping residents of the Uncompahgre Watershed learn about protecting their water resources.

“I joined for the opportunity to practice what I’d learned in the class out in the field,” she says.

Williams conducts watershed education programs in the schools and monthly water sampling for Riverwatch, a group that monitors the river’s conditions along a 10-mile stretch of the Upper Uncompahgre River.

“I’ve enjoyed working with kids,” she says. “We work with local third-grade teachers to take the class out water sampling every month. They were really excited to know that the data they collected would be used to make decisions about their river.”

VISTA, originally Volunteers in Service to America, was founded in 1965 as a national service program designed to fight poverty in the US. In 1993, VISTA was incorporated into the AmeriCorps network of programs.

The OSM/VISTA and Peace Corps Coverdell programs offer graduate students the opportunity to combine academic study with supervised, practical field experience and research. Michigan Tech has partnered with OSM/VISTA programs since 2012

For the full story, see Michigan Tech News.

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Graduate Student Government Travel Grant Award Winners for Summer 2014

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Travel Grants for Summer 2014 have been awarded. The full list of Graduate recipients can be seen at Travel Grant Results.

Travel grants are awards that help subsidize cost of attending and presenting at conferences. These awards are sponsored by the Graduate Student Government (GSG) and the Graduate School. For more information on Travel Grants, please see Graduate School Travel Grants.

Should you have any questions, contact the GSG Treasure–Jennifer Winnikus at jawiniku@mtu.edu.

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