Interesting stories about and for our students.
The new procedures for formatting and submitting a thesis or dissertation have received final approval from the administration.
The procedures will be rolled out in a phased fashion to give students, faculty, and staff adequate time to prepare for the implementation.
The Board of Control Friday approved an operating budget of nearly $159 million for fiscal year 2011, which begins July 1, 2010, a 2.8 percent increase over this year’s operating budget.
The budget includes the following increases in tuition and mandatory fees:
The budget is based on an expected 3.1 percent decline in State of Michigan appropriations from $49.3 million this year to $47.9 million next year. Should the legislature not impose the appropriations cut, Michigan Tech President Glenn D. Mroz is authorized by the Board of Control to reduce tuition and fees.
“State higher education appropriations have decreased nearly 14 percent in the past decade, despite the fact that the University’s full-time enrollment has increased nearly 13 percent,” said Mroz. “We are committed to providing an absolutely first-rate technological education, but that necessitates raising tuition and fees, though we have kept the increase under 6 percent.”
Mroz offered further thoughts on the economic situation. “We realize these are tough times and that tuition increases put students in a bind, especially after the loss of state aid such as the Michigan Promise Grants and Merit Awards. We helped students through those losses by cutting costs and raising scholarship gifts from alumni. Now we are increasing institutional financial aid by $2.5 million because even more students are in need of help.
“The Board has given the go-ahead to lower tuition if state appropriations are not cut as expected,” he said. “Regardless of how that turns out, our objective is clear. We want our students to be able to thrive in a competitive world. They depend on Michigan Tech to deliver an education that will provide them with a competitive advantage for many years to come.”
Cost-containment measures are reflected in the new budget. “Campus-wide, the University is focusing on new revenue sources and cost savings that will enable us to invest in things that enhance our students’ education,” said David Reed, vice president for research. “That includes savings found through streamlining business processes while also seeking new revenue sources. We will continue to pursue our strategic goals of hiring the best people, offering distinctive programs and pursuing innovative research. For example, we are growing the faculty and replacing retiring or departing faculty members with hires in key strategic areas such as energy and health care. In these times, this requires realigning our expenditures to invest in such strategic priorities. And, while this budget does not include an across-the board salary increase, we are recognizing the outstanding performance of faculty and staff by providing for salary adjustments for promotion and retention.”
In other business, the Board:
Published in Tech Today
Fifty-one theses in the midwest were nominated for the award, and although her work was not recognized as the award recipient, it was well received by the reviewers. One reviewer commented, “I enjoyed reading this thesis – it’s a pleasure to see such a complete approach to a problem.”
Seth DePasqual was also nominated by his advisor, Dr. T. Scarlett, on behalf of the Social Sciences Department. His advisor described his thesis as, “…a study of the evolution of an early 20th century mining system in Spitsbergen as applied by Boston-based Arctic Coal Company.”
The committee to evaluate the nominees consisted of graduate faculty representing a broad range of graduate programs: M. Neuman (Biomedical Engineering), S. Martin (Social Sciences), R. Froese (School of Forestry Resources & Environmental Science), B. Davis (School of Technology) and G. Campbell (School of Business and Economics). Next year’s competition will consider applicants who have completed their degrees between October 1, 2009 and September 30, 2010. An application consists of a recommendation letter from the advisor and an electronic copy of the thesis. Please consider nominating your MS students next year.
Michigan Tech will honor the achievements of nearly 1,000 graduates at Spring Commencement, set for Saturday, May 1. The University expects to award 139 master’s and PhD degrees and 856 bachelor’s and associate degrees.
Ray Smith, who led Michigan Tech as its president from 1965 to 1979, will address the graduates and receive the University’s highest honor, the Melvin Calvin Medal of Distinction.
The full release is available at Michigan Tech’s news website.
Published in Tech Today
Computer Science doctoral student Bryan Franklin and Professor Steven Seidel received the Best Paper Award for, “A Parallel Longest Common Subsequence Algorithm in UPC,” at the High Performance Computing Symposium, April 12-14, in Orlando, Fla. Franklin presented the paper at the conference. The paper describes the design, implementation, and performance of a parallel algorithm for the longest common subsequence problem, an important problem in bioinformatics. This is the second consecutive year that Michigan Tech authors have won the Best Paper Award at the HPC Symposium.
Published in Tech Today
The Graduate School is pleased to announce the awarding of six fellowships made possible by the generous support of The DeVlieg Foundation. This years recipients will tackle a wide range of research problems from osteoarthritis in the knee to comparing the cost and effectiveness of two water treatment technologies. Recipients are:
See our web page for details about the nomination process, and for photos of our recipients.
The Michigan Tech School of Business and Economics chapter of Beta Gamma Sigma international honor society recently inducted 13 students into its membership. Beta Gamma Sigma recognizes students of high scholastic achievement and is among the highest honors that a business student can receive at Michigan Tech.
The following students in the School of Business and Economics were inducted:
The Michigan Tech chapter advisor for Beta Gamma Sigma is Mari Buche.
Visit the business newsblog for more information and photos from the induction ceremony.
Published in Tech Today.
On Friday, April 16, nine alumnae were inducted into the Presidential Council of Alumnae (PCA). In addition to the nine new inductees, 30 PCA members were also on campus for their annual business meeting April 14-16.
The PCA advises the President on campus climate issues, provides suggestions for enhancing the University’s environment for students, and assists the President by identifying programs and activities that will benefit Michigan Tech. PCA works with the Office of Institutional Diversity, the Advancement area and the academic departments to help implement their ideas and support the University’s strategic plan.
The inductees are as follows:
Another component of the PCA program includes the annual Women of Promise awards. This award recognizes current female students from each academic department who go above and beyond what is expected of them in terms of being a well-rounded student. The award goes to students who have demonstrated academic achievement, campus and community leadership, good citizenship, creativity and other characteristics of high-achieving individuals.
The honorees are as follows:
Published in Tech Today
A special flag was flown over the ROTC building for the last 24 hours. The flag was sent to President Mroz from Lt. Col. Otha Thornton, a former faculty member and graduate of the Rhetoric and Technical Communication program at Michigan Tech. Lt. Col. Thornton is currently serving in the U.S. Army in Iraq.
The flag has previously flown over Al Faw Palace on September 14, 2009. The flag, which will be lowered and given back to President Mroz today, will be carried by the color guard at spring commencement.
“It’s a reminder how small our world is and how interconnected we all are,” Mroz said.
Published in Tech Today
The Michigan Space Grant Consortium (MSGC), sponsored by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), has awarded approximately $375,000 to nine Michigan universities with aerospace, engineering and space- science-related programs. Michigan Tech submitted 40 proposals, and 27 received funding totaling $105,000.
Of that, $20,000 supports undergraduate fellowships, $30,000 is for graduate research fellowships, $30,000 provides seed grants for faculty, and $25,000 is designated for outreach, including K-12 and teacher training programs.
Undergraduate students receiving $2,500 research fellowships include Andrew Ramsey (ME-EM), Phil Hohnstadt (ME-EM), Peter Solfest (Physics), Stephen Schweitzer (Biomedical Engineering), John Visser (ME-EM), Samantha Wojda (Biomedical Engineering), Patrick Bowen (MSE), William Grant (Chemical Engineering) and Ben Gerhardt (ME-EM).
Graduate students receiving $5,000 fellowships include Christopher Schwartz (Biological Sciences), Elisabet Head (Geology), Jarod Maggio (Environmental Engineering), Adam Abraham (ME-EM), Matthew Barron (Biomedical Engineering), Megan Killian (Biomedical Engineering) and Amalia Anderson (Physics).
Faculty members receiving $5,000 seed grants included Shiyan Hu, Jason Carter, Audrey Mayer, Qingli Dai, Ashok Goel and Claudio Mazzoleni. Faculty and staff members receiving $5,000 for outreach, precollege and teacher training programs include Douglas Oppliger, Shawn Oppliger, Joan Chadde and Kristi Isaacson.
One student receiving an undergraduate fellowship is Samantha Wojda. She plans to use her grant to study how hibernation affects the bones of marmots. Disuse osteoporosis is a common problem faced by astronauts in microgravity. Hibernating mammals are also at high risk for the condition, and many have developed adaptive ways of dealing with it. Wojda plans to study hibernating marmots to see how they are affected by or protected from disuse osteoporosis. What she learns may help researchers find ways to prevent human astronauts and others who are immobilized for long periods of time from developing the debilitating condition.
NASA implemented the National Space Grant College and Fellowship Program in 1989 to provide funding for research, education and public outreach in space-related science and technology. The program has 52 university-based consortia in the United States and Puerto Rico. As part of the Michigan Consortium, Michigan Tech has been an active participant in MSGC for over fifteen years.
“The MSGC offers faculty, staff and especially students opportunities to develop ideas and submit competitive proposals,” said Chris Anderson, special assistant to the President for institutional diversity and the University’s MSGC liaison. “For undergraduates, the process of developing a proposal and then doing the research allows them to apply what they’re learning in the classroom, get hands-on experience and work closely with faculty.” She added, “The Consortium allows us to do more of this, as well provide graduate fellowships, seed grants and program support.”