Social Sciences Archives | College of Sciences and Arts Newsblog

Husky Preserves Indigenous Language as Voice Actor in Ojibwe Star Wars Dub

Published November 14, 2024

Kalvin Hartwig stands in a sound-proofed recording studio in front of a computer, microphone and recording equipment as he records lines for his voice acting role. — Michigan Tech alumnus Niigaanii-Animikii Inini Kalvin Hartwig ’10 brings his mission of supporting Indigenous language to new heights as one of the main cast voice actors in the Ojibwe dubbing of Star Wars: A New Hope.

Michigan Tech alumnus Niigaanii-Animikii Inini Kalvin Hartwig ’10 continues his career-long dedication to supporting Indigenous language and cultural revitalization as one of the main cast voice actors in an Ojibwe dubbing of Star Wars: A New Hope.

Hartwig is an award-winning filmmaker, a member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, and a Tech graduate in social sciences, humanities and German. He voices the Red Leader character, originally played by the late Gordan “Drewe” Henley in the dub, which began streaming on Disney+ on Oct. 27.

Read more about Hartwig’s passion for the project, how he got involved, and the recording process in the full feature by Jordan Shawhan, Husky Makes History with Voice Role in Ojibwe Dubbing of Star Wars, at Michigan Tech Alumni Stories.

About the College of Sciences and Arts

The College of Sciences and Arts is a global center of academic excellence in the sciences, humanities, and arts for a technological world. Our teacher-scholar model is a foundation for experiential learning, innovative research and scholarship, and civic leadership. The College offers 33 bachelor’s degrees in biological sciences, chemistry, humanities, kinesiology and Integrative physiology, mathematical sciences, physics, psychology and human factors, social sciences, and visual and performing arts. We are home to Michigan Tech’s pre-health professions and ROTC programs. The College offers 24 graduate degrees and certificates. We conduct approximately $12 million in externally funded research in health and wellness, sustainability and resiliency, and the human-technology frontier.

Follow the College on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X and the CSA blog. Questions? Contact us at csa@mtu.edu.

New Institute Brings Keweenaw Time Traveler to the World—And New Researchers to Keweenaw

Published September 20, 2024

By Cyndi Perkins

Two children viewing the time traveler demo with an researcher

Deep-mapping projects like Keweenaw Time Traveler can engage communities in meaningful, multi-generational explorations. (Image courtesy KeTT)

An advanced institute in the spatial and digital humanities is coming to Michigan Tech.

Don Lafreniere, a professor of geography and geographic information science (GIS) in Tech’s Department of Social Sciences is leading a team of researchers, staff, and students from Michigan Tech and Wayne State University on project that will develop the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Community Deep Mapping Institute. The project is supported by a $250,000 NEH grant.

The Institute will run for one year, beginning in January 2025. It will operate virtually throughout the year and also includes an immersive, two-week on-site component that will take place at Michigan Tech in July 2025.

Co-hosted by Tech and Wayne State University, the Institute will bring 40 people from around the world to Houghton and the surrounding region to learn about deep mapping and the other technologies used in the award-winning Keweenaw Time Traveler and the subsequently developed Hamtramck Explorer.

The grant is further evidence of the power and potential of deep maps like the Keweenaw Time Traveler, which enables citizen researchers to both explore history and add the layers of their own historical community knowledge to the interactive platform, providing a model that can be adapted anywhere where people are interested in how their communities developed.

“This institute will teach people around the world how to integrate spatial technologies together with historical information about their local places to help communities learn more about their geography, history, and cultural heritage,” said Lafreniere.

The Deep Mapping Institute was one of four projects in the nation awarded funds totaling $963,499 as part of the NEH’s Institutes for Advanced Topics in the Digital Humanities. The intent of the four projects in this category center on providing scholars, advanced graduate students, and practicing professionals with the opportunity to deepen their knowledge of advanced technology tools and methodologies relevant to the humanities and social sciences and to increase the number of scholars using digital technology in their research. The institutes are part of the recent NEH funding cycle that included $37.5 million in grants overall for 240 humanities projects.

A Collaboration Between Two State Universities

The project springs from a collaboration between MTU and Wayne State University that began in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. During this time, MTU and WSU faculty and students started working together on the Hamtramck Spatial Archaeology Project, another NEH-funded initiative focused on the small industrial city within the boundaries of Detroit.

Project co-directors include Sarah Scarlett, associate professor of history, Mark Rhodes, assistant professor of geography, and Dan Trepal, senior geospatial research scientist, all from Michigan Tech, and Krysta Ryzewski, professor of anthropology at Wayne State University.

Confronted by the challenge of restricted access to archival, museum, and archaeological resources, Ryzewski, Trepal, and Lafreniere were inspired to partner with Hamtramck Historical Museum to construct the explorer prototype. The Hamtramck Explorer includes more than 130 digitized historic maps cross-linked to historical museum collections, along with related archaeological data.

“This deep map has since grown into an invaluable research, preservation, and storytelling resource that makes historical information accessible to the public and encourages community dialogues around the themes of preservation, immigration, and local history,” said Ryzewski. “Today, the team continues to work on expanding the Hamtramck Explorer to cover the entire area of the two-square-mile city, and to equip it with capabilities that allow the public to contribute content.”

The newly funded NEH Community Deep Mapping Institute takes the dual-university collaboration to an expanded level. Starting in January 2025, dozens of Michigan Tech and Wayne State students, faculty, and staff will participate, alongside 40 social science, humanities, and heritage-focused professionals from around the world.

“We’re excited about the opportunity to share the benefits of our state-level collaboration with more colleagues as we create new digital resources and amplify the impacts of deep mapping internationally,” said Ryzewski. “Institute fellows from across the US and around the world will develop projects that increase public access to historical data, advance community engagement, and foster innovation in the digital and spatial humanities.”.

The NEH Community Deep Mapping Institute in-person component will take place July 7-18, 2025 at Michigan Tech, located in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula on the shores of Lake Superior’s Keweenaw Peninsula.

Fellowship Application Deadline is November 22

The Institute seeks to fund fellows or teams of fellows who wish to learn the range of skills necessary to create their own public-facing deep map. “The intent is to create a diverse group of fellows including students, early career to senior scholars, and professionals in history and heritage who work with public audiences including public historians, interpreters, and those who work in museums, parks, and historic sites and houses.

Lafreniere said fellows will “learn a wide range of technical and professional skills that are needed to successfully develop their own deep mapping projects including basic GIS skills, digital spatial storytelling, public engagement strategies, and how to integrate deep maps with augmented and mobile technologies.”

Fellows will also benefit from developing new partnerships with other deep- mapping scholars and public-facing professionals. “They will have access to a team of experts in a wide variety of fields, including the digital and spatial humanities, archaeology, geography, GIS, history, heritage interpretation, library and archives, public history, and experts in community-based researchers,” Lafrieniere said
Applicants selected to be fellows will receive a stipend to support travel to and from the Keweenaw and meals Fellows will be in residence at the Laurium Manor Inn during their time in the region.

You can learn more about the criteria and apply for a fellowship on the Deep Mapping Institute website.

About the College of Sciences and Arts

The College of Sciences and Arts strives to be a global center of academic excellence in the sciences, humanities, and arts for an increasingly technological world. Our teacher-scholar model provides the foundation for experiential learning, innovative research and scholarship, and civic leadership. The College offers 33 bachelor’s degrees and 25 graduate degrees and certificates. The College conducts approximately $12,000,000 in externally funded research in health and wellness, sustainability and resiliency, and the human-technology frontier.

Follow the College on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X and the CSA blog. Questions? Contact us at csa@mtu.edu.

Two CSA Faculty Recognized for Outstanding Contributions to Michigan Tech

Published August 13, 2024

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Brick two story building with concrete walkways in front, surrounded by green grass, shrubs, and trees. — The Social Sciences Department, home department of University Professor Kathy Halvorsen is housed in the AOB Building on the Michigan Tech campus.

Kathy Halvorsen and Quiying Sha have been honored for their substantial contributions to teaching, research, and service and are among seven professors recognized through Michigan Tech’s Distinguished and University Professorships. They represent a small percentage of faculty recognized with these awards by the Office of the Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs.

University Professors represent no more than two percent of the total number of tenured and tenure-track faculty at Michigan Tech. Since its inception in 2020, four of the seven University Professors have hailed from the College of Sciences and Arts, including three from the Department of Physics. Halvorsen is the first recipient from the Department of Social Sciences.

Distinguished Professors represent no more than 10 percent of the number of tenured and tenure-track faculty in a specific college or school. Since its inception in 2018, four of the 11 Distinguished Professors have been chosen from the College of Sciences and Arts. Sha is the first recipient from the Department of Mathematical Sciences.

Image of Kathy Halvorsen has been named a 2024 University Professor for outstanding contributions to the university — Kathy Halvorsen has been named a 2024 University Professor for outstanding contributions to the University.

This is the second time Halvorsen has been honored as a University Professor. She first received the award in 2019. Halvorsen serves as the University’s associate vice president for research development and a professor in the Department of Social Sciences and College of Forest Resources and Environmental Science. The nomination materials commended Halvorsen’s ability to maintain an active research program while holding an administrative position. Halvorsen has published more than 55 papers.

Image of Qiuying Sha has been named a 2024 Distinguished Professor for outstanding contributions to the university — Qiuying Sha has been named a 2024 Distinguished Professor for outstanding contributions to the University.

Sha, named a 2024 Distinguished Professor, is a professor in the Department of Mathematical Sciences. The nomination materials commended Sha’s excellence in teaching, research, and service. Sha is an internationally recognized leader in statistical genetics, developing statistical methods for understanding the genetic basis of human diseases and traits. Her work has been supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and she has published over 70 papers. Sha has also been previously selected as a member of NIH’s review panel and an editorial board member for Scientific Reports. She has served on early career management committees and many other committees at Michigan Tech.

Learn more about Sha’s recognition on the Michigan Tech Mathematical Sciences Blog.

Learn more about Halvorsen’s recognition on the Michigan Tech Social Sciences Blog.

About the College of Sciences and Arts

The College of Sciences and Arts strives to be a global center of academic excellence in the sciences, humanities, and arts for an increasingly technological world. Our teacher-scholar model provides the foundation for experiential learning, innovative research and scholarship, and civic leadership. The College offers 33 bachelor’s degrees and 25 graduate degrees and certificates. The College conducts approximately $12,000,000 in externally funded research in health and wellness, sustainability and resiliency, and the human-technology frontier.

Follow the College on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X and the CSA blog. Questions? Contact us at csa@mtu.edu.

Steve Mintz is the marketing and communications manager for the College of Sciences and Arts at Michigan Tech.

Springtime Greetings from the College of Sciences and Arts at Michigan Tech!

Published May 2, 2023

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The calendar shows May, but schools are closed today as a late-season snowstorm hits the Upper Peninsula. Fortunately, it held off long enough to not affect travel for our graduates and their families this past weekend. Our growing enrollment meant that, for the first time ever, we held a separate commencement ceremony for our graduate students on Friday afternoon, followed by an undergraduate ceremony Saturday morning. More than 170 College of Sciences and Arts students walked across the stage, earning bachelors, masters, and PhD degrees from our more than three dozen degree programs. It was a truly joyous occasion and, with the hockey arena packed, I expect we will continue with the separate undergraduate ceremony each spring going forward.

Michigan Tech graduate shakes Rick Koubek's hand during springtime commencement 2023 — One of the 170 Science and Arts grads receiving a degree

Friday evening was the emotional commissioning ceremony for our Army and Air Force ROTC program, where we celebrated our nation’s newest second lieutenants. Celebrating our students’ accomplishments is one of my favorite jobs as dean.

Graduation also means the final Board of Trustees (BOT) meeting of the year. While we are all saddened by the recent closure of Finlandia University, we are excited that we have managed to, on very short notice, essentially move their nursing program into our Department of Biological Sciences. With the BOT approving this last week, we look forward to welcoming students in the Fall. Also at the BOT meeting, ten CSA faculty received final approval for granting of tenure or promotion to full professor!

Medical Lab Science graduates at Spring Commencement

Of course, summer means travel, and faculty in CSA are the campus leaders in leading students on study abroad and study away experiences. Three of our Visual and Performing Arts faculty, Lisa Gordillo and Mary and Kent Cyr, are leading students to Vienna, Prague and Dresden, including an opportunity to attend the famous “Prague Quadrennial,” one of the largest international festivals of theatre, design, and architecture in the world. Other students will travel to Germany, including Dresden and Leipzig, under the direction of our Humanities Assistant Teaching Professor Stephanie Rowe.

Social Sciences faculty Kat Hannum and Mark Rhodes will lead students on a 20-day Amtrak adventure across the United States, studying sustainable tourism. Finally, Social Sciences faculty Dan Trepal will lead students to study history and archaeology in Cumbria in the United Kingdom.

ROTC graduate raises right hand to take the oath — A new second lieutenant takes the oath

Critical to everything we do are our alumni and friend donors. All your donations to our departments, scholarships, and the general fund are vitally important to our success. In particular, support to defray the additional costs of studying abroad is much needed. Thank you so much for supporting Michigan Tech! For CSA giving opportunities please visit: https://www.mtu.edu/sciences-arts/giving/

If you are ever back in town I hope you will stop by, say hello, and share with me your MTU story. Please do not hesitate to email me any time at djhemmer@mtu.edu to share your MTU experience or offer suggestions.

Best wishes,
David Hemmer
Dean- College of Sciences and Arts

Thanksgiving Message

Published November 23, 2022

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Quincy Mine with colorful fall foliage — Spectacular fall colors!

Hello Again from the Copper Country!

Its been an interesting fall in the Copper Country. November only added to it. Election Day. My birthday: my new age is the smallest number with 10 distinct divisors, which makes it what mathematicians (like myself) call a “highly composite number”! Blood moon and lunar eclipse (the last for a few years). The first prolonged snowfall (thankfully not as significant as Buffalo’s). And now the mass exodus as students, faculty, and staff leave campus to spend Thanksgiving Day with family and friends.

It has been a magnificent Fall season in Houghton, with an epic leaf-peeping season and beautiful weather, sunny and not too cold, and barely any snow to be seen up until last week. Nevertheless, the crews on the lawn outside my Walker office were busy setting up three broomball courts for the upcoming season! You can view them in real-time on one of our many webcams live streaming from campus, like this one from Walker. Drop me a note. I’d love to hear about your favorite broomball memory.

Our CSA students and faculty continue to excel in the classroom and beyond. Dr. Sarah Green, our chemistry department chair, led a dozen Huskies to the 2022 United Nations climate change summit. Held November 6-18, in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, these Huskies joined more than 35,000 participants at the 27th Conference of the Parties United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 27). Based on their work in previous summits, they have secured badges granting them insider access to the “blue zone.” Our Visual and Performing Arts faculty are involved as well. Delegates in the VIP lounge listened to a piece, Melusina Calls to the Loon, written by our own composer and Teaching Professor Libby Meyer, with an additional soundscape from MTU Distinguished Professor Christopher Plummer! You can follow their adventures on the Huskies at the Climate Conference blog. We’ll be adding more stories in the coming weeks.

Kathy Huerta Sanchez stands in front of the COP27 sign in Sharm El-Sheik. — Environmental and Energy Policy graduate student Kathy Huerta Sanchez at the COP 27 UN climate conference.

Earlier my wife and I were honored to be formal “guests of the mess” at the Air Force ROTC Dining Out. The event gives the cadets an opportunity to experience a formal dinner but with a twist. The different groups of cadets combined to create a “grog” in a large punch bowl. Ingredients included spicy V8, pickle juice, sardine juice, crunchy peanut butter powder, etc… Throughout the night violations of the elaborate “rules of the mess” were punished by trips to drink from the grog. By the end of the evening, just about every cadet had imbibed at least once!

Dean Hemmer and Lieutenant Colonel Zuniga stand at attention at Michigan Tech's Air Force ROTC Dining Out celebration. — Lt.Col. Benjamin Zuniga (left) hosts Dean Hemmer at Air Force ROTC’s Dining Out.

At this time of year, I am grateful for many things: family and friends; the hard work our faculty and staff put in throughout the year to educate our students and help them to create a future for themselves; the support from our alumni funding facilities, scholarships, fellowships, professorships, and more; the beauty of the Copper Country.

I wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Summer Reflections

Published August 10, 2022

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Greetings from the College of Sciences and Arts at Michigan Tech!

Students immerse themselves in concepts like mechanics,
electric circuits, electromagnetics, and nuclear reactions in SYP’s Introduction to Computational Physics.

July 1 marked my four-year anniversary at Michigan Tech and with it the end of my first term as dean. I was pleased to accept President Koubek’s offer to continue in the position. I look forward to leading the College going forward. With President Koubek and three other new deans also starting the same day I did, the formation of a new College of Computing, and then a global pandemic, my first term was certainly “interesting”. A little more boring would not be unwelcome for the next few years!

Campus is fairly quiet now, although each week a new group of youngsters arrives for our amazing Summer Youth Programs (SYP) for grades 6-12. An enormous variety of offerings is available for both local commuting students and to students who stay in the Wadsworth dorm. My eighth-grade son stayed in the dorm and took “Stock Market with Blizzard: Turn $1000 into $1 Million,” offered by the College of Business. He had a wonderful time and is already talking about all the classes he wants to take at Tech. He also managed to lose $300,000 of play money on June 23, a day the Dow Jones was up 800 points! Something about leverage and using options to bet against the market?! I need to have a talk with COB Dean Johnson. I can’t recommend SYP enough for your kids or grandkids!

A student practices the art of creative writing in our great outdoor classroom in SYP’s Wild Writing, taught by Jennifer Nance.

A little further off campus… I wrote in the Spring about our amazing Study Away programs. Almost a dozen students recently finished their program in Costa Rica. They learned how Costa Rica has been creating a more sustainable society in terms of the environment, ecology, energy, water treatment, and more. They have been based at the Monteverde Institute in Costa Rica for 6 weeks. You can follow their adventures on their blog. We cannot wait to welcome them back to campus in the fall.

I just returned from a two-week vacation to visit family in Central New York. I took along some “light reading”, a recent book by Social Sciences professor Sarah Fayen Scarlett titled “Company Suburbs- Architecture, Power, and the Transformation of Michigan’s Mining Frontier.” It is a fascinating tale of “company towns” and “elite suburbs” during the mining heyday from 1875-1920. It includes lots of fascinating tales (and photos!) of houses in East Houghton, East Hancock and Laurium, many of which are now Greek houses at Tech. Yes, what is now College Avenue and Agate Hill was a “suburb” of Houghton. Read the book to learn why! Dr. Scarlett is one of our many CSA faculty producing interesting scholarship, both in and out of the lab. Sarah and her colleagues have also been hard at work digitally mapping the history of the Keweenaw. They created the Keweenaw Time Traveler, an online interactive historical atlas that is changing how we learn about, share, and research the history and heritage of Michigan’s Copper Country. Check it out here!

See images of the past and maps galore at the Keweenaw Time Traveler.

Spring (Finally!) Arrives at Michigan Tech

Published May 20, 2022

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Greetings from the College of Sciences and Arts at Michigan Tech!

Spring arrived in the Copper Country with sunshine and 70+ degree temperatures last week melting away most of the remaining snow. Alas, Spring also brings construction season as the second half of the two-year project on route 41 through town is underway just west of campus, requiring southbound traffic to detour all the way up to Sharon Avenue and down Macinnes Drive.

Spring also brings exciting construction to campus! On April 29 we broke ground on our new $50+ million H-STEM building. This magnificent structure will lie just to the east of the ChemSci building and will host our departments of Biomedical Engineering and Kinesiology and Integrative Physiology as well as the offices of our Health Research Institute. Large numbers of CSA faculty do human health research, and we are all looking forward to the building opening in 2024. You can watch the construction on a live webcam here.

Image of Michigan Tech students sitting on an Amtrak train studying, working and chatting. — Michigan Tech students aboard the rolling Amtrak classroom heading into Glacier National Park.

CSA also leads the way on campus in providing summer study abroad and study away opportunities for our students. Social Sciences faculty member Dr. Mark Rhodes is leading a three-week Amtrak tour of the western U.S. titled “Amtrak Tourism: Trains, Cities, & Sustainability”. See our students experiencing this terrific learning opportunity. Another Social Sciences faculty member, Dr. Richelle Winkler, is taking students to Costa Rica to study global sustainability, Costa Rican culture, and the Spanish language.

Image of Joel Nieves, music director of the Keweenaw Symphony Orchestra. — Joel Nieves Keweenaw Symphony Orchestra Music Director

The end of the semester brought our Spring Board of Trustees meeting and final approval for a dozen faculty promotions in CSA. This year’s batch of dossiers was particularly impressive; our faculty are exceptional in the classroom, in the laboratories, and in performance venues! Indeed, we have three new full professors in Visual and Performing Arts! One of them, Dr. Joel Neves, led the Keweenaw Symphony Orchestra as it celebrated 50 years with a performance of Carmina Burana on April 23. Another, Dr. Jared Anderson, led our choirs during the same performance.

Critical to everything we do are our alumni and friend donors. All your donations to our departments, scholarships, and the general fund are vitally important to our success. Thank you so much for supporting Michigan Tech! Learn more about CSA giving opportunities.

If you are ever back in town I hope you will stop by, say hello, and share with me your MTU story. Please do not hesitate to email me any time at djhemmer@mtu.edu to share your MTU experience or offer suggestions.

CSA Researchers Participate in first TechTalks

Published November 16, 2016

By Heather Powers

On Thursday, November 10, 2016, several researchers gave two minute presentations for the inaugural TechTalks session of the Michigan Tech Research Forum. Seven of the 13 researchers presented work from CSA disciplines, including the Distinguished Lecture:

Steven Elmer– Department of Kinesiology and Integrative Physiology, Exercise As a Form of Medicine
Yang Yang – Department of Mathematical Sciences, Numerical Methods for Partial Differential Equations
Selin Philip – Department of Coginitive and Learning Sciences, Creating a Culture of Better Mental/Behavioral Health among the American Indians in the Keweenaw
Loredana Valenzano– Department of Chemistry, Molecules, Surfaces, Crystals: A Quantum Chemical Quest from Fundamentals to Applications.
Nabanita Saikia – Department of Physics, Emergent Frontiers in 2D Nanomaterials for Biomolecular Recongition and Self-Assembly.
Lynn Mazzoleni– Department of Chemistry, Introducing the New 2D-Liquid Chromatograph and High-Resolution Mass Spectrometer in the Chemical Advanced Resoulation Methods (ChARM) Core Facility at Michigan Tech.
Tarum Dam – Department of Chemistry, Enriching Health-Related Research Through Glycobiological Approaches.

Michigan Tech Research Forum events are presented by the Office of the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs in coordination with the Office of the Vice President of Research. Additional TechTalks sessions are coming up in Spring 2017. Interested in nominating yourself or others? Use this online f orm.

Browse the Twitter conversations in “TechTalks 2016: Take One,” by Allison Mills.

Distinguished Lecture –

Richelle Winkler gave the inaugural Michigan Tech Research Forum Distinguished Lecture on Thursday, October 13 at 4:00 p.m. in the Memorial Union Alumni Lounge. She discussed Making Research Matter: Democratizing Science and Other Lofty Goals.

Professor Hugh Gorman nominated Winkler, an associate professor of sociology and demography, for “community engaged scholarship” that extends across the Michigan Tech campus. Examples of Winkler’s projects include examining the feasibility—social and technical—of using mine water for geothermal heating systems in Calumet and examining the social, economic, and technical aspects of improving recycling in Houghton County. Both projects involve students and community members, and both have real impact in the communities. Winkler also conducts research on the changing demographics of anglers and hunters—and the implications for policy. She presented on this subject at the Department of Biological Sciences last spring.

Category: Social Sciences

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Fellowship Application Deadline is November 22

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About the College of Sciences and Arts