December 15, 2025

On Friday, Dec. 12, Michigan Technological University’s Board of Trustees voted to approve construction of the Chang K. Park Center for Student Wellness. This facility will provide students with approximately 90,000 square feet of modern campus wellness programming and holistic care.

The construction of the new facility to support student health and well-being is fully funded thanks to a transformational $55 million gift from alumnus and philanthropist Chang K. Park ’73. It is the largest individual gift in the University’s history.

Aligned with Michigan Tech’s Be Well Initiative, the Chang K. Park Center for Student Wellness will allow the University to bring together services that until now have been spread across more than 30 locations on campus. 

“It's a historic day for Michigan Tech as we recognize the incredible generosity of Chang Park for this extraordinary gift in support of student wellness,” said Rick Koubek, Michigan Tech president. “The new Chang K. Park Center for Student Wellness provides centrality for student well-being, allowing students to benefit from the full integration of physical, mental and emotional health in one facility.”

Learn more about Park’s gift and what it means for Huskies at Michigan Tech News.

Next semester, the William G. Jackson Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) will host the Spring 2026 Accessible Tech Challenge — a supportive and friendly competition designed to help instructors improve the accessibility and usability of their course materials.

Save the Date: Join the CTL’s accessibility team for a Lunch and Learn to kick off the challenge on Jan. 15 from noon to 1 p.m. in MUB Ballroom A.

This kickoff luncheon will:

• Introduce the challenge structure
• Outline the accessibility target for participants
• Share strategies to help you make steady progress throughout the semester
• Demonstrate how to use Canvas tools to locate outdated or unused content
• Review the Ally accessibility report to help you identify, prioritize and address accessibility issues efficiently

To support continued momentum, we’ll be hosting biweekly working sessions throughout the semester, each focused on a specific accessibility topic, such as headings, image descriptions, tables, color contrast, and links and lists. These sessions will offer hands-on help so you can work directly on your own course materials with guidance from the CTL team.

All instructors who reach the challenge’s accessibility target will receive a nice prize as a thank-you for helping ensure students can access course materials in ways that work for them.

Whether you’re just getting started or refining existing content, the Accessible Tech Challenge provides community, accountability and practical tools to help you make meaningful progress.

Register for the CTL Accessible Tech Challenge Kick-Off Lunch and Learn.

Accommodation requests can be made on the registration screen, by emailing ctl@mtu.edu or by calling 906-487-3000.

Event Details:

• What: CTL Accessible Tech Challenge Kick-Off Lunch and Learn
• When: Thursday, Jan. 15, from noon to 1 p.m.
• Where: MUB Ballroom A

Some Michigan Tech instructors use LaTeX, a high-quality typesetting system, to create instructional materials — especially in STEM-focused disciplines. However, generating accessible, properly tagged PDF files from LaTeX has historically been difficult and time-consuming.

To support this work, the William G. Jackson Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) has developed a new LaTeX template in Overleaf that can help streamline the accessibility process and reduce the need for extensive customization. The template includes the required packages, commands and metadata to produce tagged PDFs that include the core accessibility elements supported in other document formats (headings, lists, links, images, tables, color use, etc.).

Key features include:

• Built-in heading hierarchy (H1 for title, H2/H3 for sections and subsections)
• Automatically tagged ordered and unordered lists with support for nested lists
• Clearly differentiated and accessible hyperlink styling
• Support for image alt text
• Accessible table structure with tagged header columns and/or rows
• Options for providing accessible math expressions via images or a custom \mathalt command
• Pre-set metadata fields for author, title, language definition and initial file view
• A curated color palette that meets required contrast ratios

If you have questions or are interested in using the LaTeX template as you prepare your instructional materials, please contact CTL instructional developer William Crowell at wmcrowel@mtu.edu.

Tech Today's annual holiday break will begin next Monday, Dec. 22. Our last newsletter of 2025 will publish on Friday, Dec. 19, and we will resume publication for 2026 on Jan. 5.

Please take note of the submission deadlines for Tech Today's Dec. 19 and and Jan. 5 newsletters. Send in your announcements through our Submit a Tech Today Post form.

Tech Today Deadlines:

• Friday, Dec. 19 — Submissions due Thursday, Dec. 18, by noon
• Monday, Jan. 5 — Submissions due Friday, Dec. 19, by noon

The College of Sciences and Arts Dean's Office will be closed for the holidays starting next Monday, Dec. 22.

The office will reopen on Jan. 5.

Tomorrow, Dec. 16, the Facilities Management office will be closed from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. for our annual departmental winter retreat.

For any facilities emergencies during this time, please call 906-487-0001. Otherwise, we will respond to all messages upon returning to the office in the afternoon.

Financial Services and Operations, including the Cashier's Office/Student Billing Office and the Payroll Office, will be closed from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. tomorrow, Dec. 16, for a departmental meeting. 

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and appreciate your understanding and cooperation.

Job Postings for Monday, Dec. 15, 2025

Staff and faculty job descriptions are available on the Human Resources website. For more information regarding staff positions, call 906-487-2280 or email humanresources@mtu.edu. For more information regarding faculty positions, contact the academic department in which the position is posted.

Assistant Teaching Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Assistant Director, Center for Educational Outreach.

Michigan Technological University is an Equal Opportunity Educational Institution/Equal Opportunity Employer that provides equal opportunity for all, including protected veterans and individuals with disabilities.

Accommodations are available. If you require any auxiliary aids, services, or other accommodations to apply for employment or for an interview at Michigan Technological University, please notify the Human Resources office at 906-487-2280 or humanresources@mtu.edu.

Specimens from the A. E. Seaman Mineral Museum are featured in a third "Michigan Copper!" special issue of The Mineralogical Record magazine, published in November-December 2025.

The issue contains two extensive articles by Chris Stefano (former associate curator of the museum) and Philip Persson focusing on the mines and minerals from Ontonagon County, Michigan.

A total of 128 specimens from the A. E. Seaman Mineral Museum's collection and three from the University of Michigan's collection, the latter of which are curated by the museum through the Michigan Mineral Alliance, are featured in the articles. Specimen photographs taken by Stefano as well as several by John A. Jaszczak (museum curator and director) accompany the articles.

Copies of this new special issue, as well as The Mineralogical Record’s first and second “Michigan Copper!” special issues, are available for sale in the museum’s gift shop.

Visit Keweenaw listed Michigan Tech's A. E. Seaman Mineral Museum as one of the Keweenaw Peninsula's “Top Historical Destinations for Winter.”

The Keweenaw Report ran a story previewing the University’s 2025 Midyear Commencement, held Saturday, Dec. 13 in the Varsity Gym.

The Keweenaw Report mentioned Michigan Tech’s Student Development Complex as the location of VetFest 2026 in June. The event is the Upper Peninsula’s largest veterans resource fair.

Florida’s Jacksonville Daily Record mentioned Michigan Tech in a story about alum Nate Laukka ’12 (B.S. Civil Engineering) being appointed as a vice president at architecture, engineering and consulting firm RS&H.

Sign Up for Lean White Belt Virtual Workshop

The Office of Continuous Improvement (OCI) is offering a virtual workshop where you can earn a Lean White Belt.

The workshop, "Processes, Flow, and Waste: Lean Fundamentals," will be offered twice:

• Wednesday, Dec. 17, from 9 a.m. to noon
• Wednesday, April 1, from 9 a.m. to noon

In this fun and interactive workshop, you’ll practice visualizing the fundamental Lean concepts of a smooth workflow and the types of waste that may interrupt that flow, and see how you can apply these concepts to your job right away. These tools can assist you in your efforts to create the best possible experience for students, faculty, staff and other customers. Lean White Belt certification is awarded to those who satisfactorily complete all requirements for this workshop.

To see the workshop description and register, complete our brief Upcoming Michigan Tech Lean Workshops form or visit our website. Once registered, we'll add you to a calendar event for the course.

In this workshop, we’ll use some online tools, Zoom and Miro, that will enable us to work as a team to solve a problem together. Miro is a virtual collaboration tool, similar to a virtual whiteboard. Learn more about how to use Miro at the Miro Academy Essentials course. The course is considered complete after attending the workshop and submitting a couple of brief activities to demonstrate application of concepts. There’s no cost to Michigan Tech employees.

This stand-alone workshop is part of the Lean Basics workshop series. It can be taken independently, or, if you complete the requirements for all five workshops in the series, we’ll award you a Lean Yellow Belt certificate!

For more information, email improvement@mtu.edu.

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Memorial Union Building: Winter Break Hours

The Memorial Union Building hours for winter break are listed below.

Please note that general student tap access to the MUB will be unavailable starting Wednesday, Dec. 24, through Thursday, Jan. 1.

Building employee tap access will remain unchanged.

MUB Winter Break Hours:

• Saturday, Dec. 13, through Tuesday, Dec. 23 — 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.
• Wednesday, Dec. 24, through Thursday, Jan. 1 — Closed

Business Support Center Winter Break Hours:

• Monday, Dec. 15, through Friday, Dec. 19 — 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
• Monday, Dec. 22, through Thursday, Jan. 1 — Closed

To have your event automatically appear, please submit them to the University Events Calendar.

New Huskies Orientation Presentation Session

Monday, December 15, 8:30–11:30 a.m.

PhD Defense: Pruthwiraj Santhosh

Monday, December 15, 3 p.m.–4 p.m. | R. L. Smith Building (MEEM), 1021

Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics Co-advisors: Darrell Robinette and Jeffrey Naber Multi-Level Energy Optimization for Connected and Automated Vehicles: From Cooperative Multi-Vehicle Control to Individual Powertrain Management Attend Virtually: https://michigantech.zoom.us/j/88237028506

Keweenaw Socialists - General Meeting

Monday, December 15, 7 p.m.–8 p.m. | Fisher 101

KS at MTU weekly general meeting.