Rick White
—John McPhee
Contact
- riwhite@mtu.edu
- 906-487-3510
- Administration Building G23
- Director of Strategic Communications, University Marketing and Communications
Biography
Rick joined Michigan Tech in 2022 after earning his MFA in Creative Nonfiction from the University of Montana. His essays have been nominated for Best American Essays and published in LitHub, High Desert Journal, The A.V. Club and elsewhere. He also holds an MS in Environmental Studies from the University of Montana and a BA in Geography from the University of Central Arkansas.
About Rick
- Rick leads the UMC communications team in projects ranging from media relations to editing MTU News and Tech Magazine.
- He has degrees in geography, environmental studies, and creative nonfiction.
- He enjoys cooking, gardening, traveling, and exploring the Keweenaw Peninsula.
Recent Stories
Good as Gold: Tech Earns STARS Gold Rating for Sustainability
After earning a STARS Silver Rating in 2020, Michigan Tech is one of only five public universities in Michigan to earn gold in 2023. STARS, the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment and Rating System, measures and encourages sustainability in all aspects of higher education. The framework offers points in five categories — academics, engagement, operations, planning and administration, and innovation and leadership — that add up to a final score. Read More
The Pack Is On Track: Michigan Tech Enrollment at Levels Not Seen Since Early 1980s
Michigan Technological University welcomed 7,320 students to campus this fall, including 1,463 incoming first-year students. The last time Tech enrolled this many students? 1983.
Overall enrollment is up 3.5% from last year, marking the third consecutive year of overall enrollment growth for the University. Read More
PSTDL Advances to Final Round of NASA Watts on the Moon Challenge
Next year, a team of students in Michigan Technological University’s Planetary Surface Technology Development Lab (PSTDL) will get the chance to prove their promising design for a lunar power management system to NASA engineers. On June 27, the PSTDL team was one of four teams selected to advance to Phase 2, Level 3 of the Watts on the Moon Challenge. All four teams received a $400,000 award and a chance to compete for a share of the competition’s grand prizes: $1 million for the winner and $500,000 for the runner-up. Read More
Michael Mullins Recognized for University Senate Service and Leadership
On July 2, 2018, Rick Koubek met Michael Mullins for lunch, an event made noteworthy both by its timing and the rapport it initiated. It was Koubek’s second day on campus as the new president of Michigan Tech. It was Mullins’ second week as president of the University Senate.
"We had no office, no furniture, no staff people, and all of our stuff was packed up in boxes and stacked in a storage room," Mullins recalled. "Rick said, ‘Michael, just let me know what you need and we’ll make it happen, because I’m going to enthusiastically support shared governance.’" Read More
Q&A with Teaching Award Winner Kyle Griffin
Kyle Griffin is an assistant teaching professor of chemical engineering. He received his bachelor’s in chemical engineering and his Ph.D. in agricultural and biological engineering from the University of Florida. He specializes in bioprocess engineering (solving problems with systems involving living cells) and anaerobic digestion (breaking down organic materials with bacteria in zero-oxygen environments) and teaches courses in material and energy balances, thermodynamics and process control. Read More
Q&A with Teaching Award Winner Amy Marcarelli
Amy Marcarelli is a professor of biological sciences and an ecosystem ecologist with interests in energy and biogeochemical cycles in freshwater bodies. She received her bachelor’s in biology from Colgate University and her Ph.D. in ecology from Utah State. She is the director of both the Ecosystem Science Center and the Aquatic Analysis (AQUA) shared facility at Michigan Tech. Her research applies across aquatic habitats, including streams, rivers, wetlands, lake littoral zones — the sloping area where sunlight reaches from the lake’s surface all the way to the sediment, located between the shore and deeper water — and the nearshore regions of the Great Lakes. Read More
MTU Board of Trustees Approves Plans for New Residence Hall, Nursing Program
Michigan Tech’s new residence hall will house more than 500 second-year and upper-division students, tentatively beginning in fall 2025. It will be located at the east side of campus on Highway 41, just east of the Rozsa Center for the Performing Arts, and is slated to offer suites with both single- and double-occupancy bedrooms and semiprivate baths. Planning activities will begin this summer, and construction will start later this year. Read More