January 22, 2021

COVID has taken so many things from so many people, most notably loved ones and precious time with people we wish we could see again. It’s taken graduation ceremonies and celebrations. It’s taken lunch dates and anniversary dates. It’s taken in-person classes and at-home comfort. It’s taken sanctuary and peace of mind from students, teachers, parents and community members.

Incoming freshmen in college choose between taking classes in person and risking infection or taking classes online and risking isolation. This balance between online and in person is something that one group at Michigan Technological University has been working hard to combat. 

Read the full story on Unscripted.

The Office of Academic and Community Conduct (OACC) is committed to helping faculty address academic integrity violations involving the abuse of online help sites like Chegg or Course Hero. As such, faculty are encouraged to report incidents of academic misconduct (cheating, plagiarism, contract cheating, fabrication, facilitation), or community misconduct (copyright infringement).

The most common inappropriate use cases are:

• Instructors have not authorized a site for use on an assignment
• Students knowingly copy information from the site and claim it as their own
• Students post an instructor’s copyrighted material on the site

In addition to OACC reporting, faculty can work directly with the website to obtain information for investigation of the alleged misconduct and/or to request removal of copyrighted material. A list of helpful resources for common sites is below:

Chegg Honor Code Policy

• Open an investigation
• Submit a takedown request

CourseHero Academic Integrity Policies

• Submit a takedown notice

GitHub

• Submit content removal request

OneClass Academic Integrity

Quizlet Honor Code

• Copyright infringement

Quora

• Copyright Policy

Slader Honor Code

• Inappropriate content

Stackoverflow

In December, we reached out to our campus community to ask for assistance as we enhance the institution’s ability to plan for future capital projects and predict the financial implications of investments in our physical plant.

Thank you to those of you that have already submitted a request for needs anticipated during FY22 (July 1, 2021 through June 30, 2022). These submissions are due by 5 p.m. today (Jan 22).

This submission process will be part of our annual budget planning process going forward and will eliminate the need for intermittent evaluations of projects throughout the year. This will also bring us in line with best practices at Colleges and Universities across the country.

All proposed projects for the upcoming fiscal year that exceed $50,000 and any single piece of equipment over $50,000 will require a capital project request form and must be submitted to facilities@mtu.edu by the January deadline.

For additional information and instructions, or to complete the Capital Project Planning form, visit the Facilities website.

The year 2020 was a challenge; a pandemic and continued systemic oppression of underrepresented minorities laid bare many of the inequities we’ve known existed. As a society, great strides have been made, yet there are stark realities that demand our continued efforts. This week’s edition of the ADVANCE Weekly Roundup features an article from USA Today that highlights the successes and challenges facing women in 2020 and how we can ensure that 2021 continues and builds upon this progress. Now, it’s essential that we engage with women and underrepresented minorities by listening, assessing and recognizing mental and physical loads, and creating equitable policies and practices for our workplaces. Uniting together, we can continue to address the systemic issues made more apparent by COVID-19 and the challenges of the past year to ensure that our 2020 hindsight is honest about what has worked and what remains to be done.

If you have an article you think we should feature, please email it to advance-mtu@mtu.edu and we will consider adding it to the ADVANCE Weekly Roundup.

The ADVANCE Weekly Roundup is brought to you by ADVANCE at Michigan Tech, which is an NSF-funded initiative dedicated to improving faculty career success, retention, diversity, equity, and inclusion. These articles are available on the ADVANCE Newsblog.

To learn more about this week’s topic, our mission, programming efforts, and to check out our growing collection of resources, contact us or visit our website.

Is your child literally climbing the walls this winter? Sign up today for the OAP Youth Indoor Rock Climbing Class and let them climb our wall.

There are three sessions to choose from this spring with two class options for each session:

• Jan. 25 - Feb. 4
• Feb. 15-25
• March 15-25

Classes run Monday through Thursday from 4 to 4:50 p.m. or from 5 to 5:50 p.m.

Ages 5 & up. $75/participant per session (includes equipment). Class size is limited and based on social distancing. Registration for Session 1 closes today (Jan. 22).

For more information or to register, visit Youth Indoor Rock Climbing.

The next Applied Cognitive Scienes and Human Factors (ACSHF) forum takes place from 2 to 3 p.m. Monday (Jan. 25) via Zoom.

Anne Linja, an ACSHF PhD student, will present "Rail Safety: The Long Story About Short-Storage Crossings.

All are welcome to attend.

The Hockey Huskies are home this weekend, hosting Lake Superior State University in WCHA action from the MacInnes Student Ice Arena. The puck drops at 6:07 p.m. tonight (Jan. 22) and 4:07 p.m. tomorrow (Jan. 23).

The Huskies come into the weekend with a 6-3-1 overall record, 2-0-0 in the WCHA. The Lakers at 6-3-3 and are looking for their first conference win, against two losses.

The games will be broadcast on local radio on 93.5 FM, and live-streamed on Pasty.net and Mix93WKMJ.

Michigan Tech men's basketball hopes to carry its winning momentum into the weekend with a pair of games at Lake Superior State, followed by a single game Tuesday night against rival Northern Michigan. Tipoff is scheduled for 3 p.m. today (Jan. 22) and 1 p.m. tomorrow (Jan. 23). Tuesday's game with Northern tips off at 7:30 p.m.

The Huskies swept their first road series of the season when they downed Northwood Jan. 15-16.

Owen White posted 26 points in his first game of the season to help the Huskies defeat the Timberwolves 62-49 Friday in Midland. On Saturday, efficient shooting and a double-double by White keyed a 68-63 victory at Riepma Arena. Tech shot 52-percent (23-for-44) overall and White finished with 23 points, 11 rebounds, and six assists.

For his efforts last weekend, White claimed GLIAC Men's Basketball North Division Player of the Week honors for the first time in his career.

As part of the WCHA's 70 Years of Excellence celebration, former Michigan Tech forward Mike Zuke has been named to the 1970s All-Decade Team.

Zuke is a native of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario and played for the Huskies from 1972-76, becoming Michigan Tech's all-time leading scorer with 310 points. He was a two-time All-American, three-time All-WCHA selection, the WCHA Freshman of the Year, and the 1975-76 WCHA Most Valuable Player. He currently ranks third on the NCAA career scoring list and second on the WCHA scoring list with 310 points on 133 goals and 177 assists.

Zuke also ranks second on the WCHA career goals list and career game-winning goals list with 21. His 32-game point streak from November 22, 1975 to March 3, 1976 is the longest single-season point streak in WCHA history and the third-longest on the league's all-time list.

Zuke was named to the WCHA's Top 50 Players in 50 Years list in 2002 and to the AHCA's All-Time West Second Team in 1997. He holds virtually every scoring record at Tech and was inducted into the Michigan Tech Sports Hall of Fame in 1988 as an individual and again in 2016 with the 1975 NCAA National Championship Team.

Zuke played eight seasons in the NHL from 1978-86, finishing with 282 points in 455 regular season games with St. Louis and Hartford. He also played in the World Hockey Association with Indianapolis and Edmonton.

The WCHA's 70 Years of Excellence celebration will run throughout the 2020-21 season. The league will announce a series of All-Decade Teams along with a Coach and Player of the Decade for the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s. More than 200 nominees were submitted for consideration by the 21 schools that have called the WCHA home since 1951. The honorees will be selected by a panel of WCHA staff and media members who have covered the league.

Fill Out the COVID-19 Symptom Tracking Form Before Coming to Campus

If you are working on campus while the University is at Health Safety Level Three, remember that no one is permitted to come to campus with symptoms consistent with COVID-19. Employees are required to monitor their symptoms daily before coming to campus. The Daily Symptom Tracking Form is a short form that will help you determine if you have COVID-19 symptoms.

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Chemical Engineering Seminar Today

The Property Office has the following surplus items available to give away to another department on a first-come, first-served basis:

• chairs
• floor protector
• carpet
• sectional desk
• small refrigerator
• lamp
• cart
• small open-face cabinet

Contact Shannon Vairo or call 7-2326 if interested. As always, University property may only be transferred to other University departments. It may not be given away or sold to individuals.

College of Engineering Dean Janet Callahan has selected Trever Hassell, Senior Lecturer in Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) for week two of the Deans’ Teaching Showcase. Callahan selected Hassell for his strong engagement of students in large classes. In one student’s words, he “has done an excellent job providing world-class teaching even in the midst of the pandemic and the shift to online learning. He continues to lecture on the important course material while trying out ideas to encourage student interaction outside of the lecture setting.”

For his large section remote course, Hassell has been adapting iClicker questions used in previous semesters (pre COVID-19) for use with Reef (or iClicker Cloud). Simultaneously, he has been expanding his question bank. Implementation of the iClicker Cloud software during the Michigan Tech FLEX initiative allows Hassell to engage and stimulate student learning during lectures and receive real-time feedback regarding whether students are mastering the learning objectives of the course. Lecture iClicker questions are posted prior to the lecture for students to review in advance. During the lectures the iCloud clicker app is used for polling students, taking a screenshot question on the lecture computer screen and sending it to the students’ Reef app or mobile device webpage. Students respond to the question and their information is provided in real-time to the instructor. Class response results are then viewed, shared, and discussed. Utilizing the iClicker Cloud software has also allowed for uninterrupted course participation even as students have had to switch from remote to face-to-face modes. “Using technology to engage students keeps the Zoom sessions productive, helping students focus on understanding the material”, said Dean Callahan.

Having more than eight years of experience with "online/blended" courses, Hassell continually refines his online delivery. It is no surprise that pivoting to the FLEX mode of instruction presented him with an opportunity, rather than a burden. He found that transitioning from a touchscreen laptop using the ZoomIt app, which had a granular screen annotation resolution limitation, to a Windows Surface Pro and annotating with Microsoft OneNote vastly improved the annotation resolution, increasing student engagement in virtual activity. Interim ECE Chair Glen Archer said, “Trever has always been an experimenter and early adopter in the classroom. He's always on the lookout for new tools and techniques that will make life in the classroom better.” In addition, Hassell has made course structural changes allowing for greater flexibility in the weekly assignments, course participation, and exams addressing student accommodations under COVID. Hassell gives students a choice, allowing participation by either synchronous iClicker questions or asynchronous communications within lecture discussions. As another student noted, “His courses are always very neatly organized, and his posting of lecture notes before our Zoom lectures each week has certainly helped. Mr. Trevor Hassel also encourages much-needed discussion both during and outside of lecture."

Hassell has actively taken advantage of professional training and development opportunities. The Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) has been a vital resource and asset for information and advice. Attending several of the CTL's lunch and learn workshops played a key role in helping him integrate available tools and strategies into the classroom environment. And students appreciate it. As another student commented, “Being in Mr. Hassell's class in Power Electronics has been a very enjoyable experience. He was always available and even though I took the class in the middle of the pandemic, I felt like we were in the same room with him all along.”

Hassell will be recognized at an end-of-term event with other showcase members, and is also a candidate for the CTL Instructional Award Series (to be determined this summer) recognizing introductory or large-class teaching, innovative or outside the classroom teaching methods, or work in curriculum and assessment.

Joshua Pearce's (MSE/ECE) work is discussed in "10 ways to get started with open source in 2021" at OpenSource.com  and in "Portuguese researchers call for wider research into circular 3D printing materials" in 3D Printing Industry.

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Michigan Tech was mentioned in the story "Efforts being made in Lansing to get people living on the moon," on WLNS (Lansing).

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Kyle Kukkonen, who has committed to play hockey at Michigan Tech was featured in a story about the nations top hockey prospects in Sports Illustrated Hockey News.

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Michigan Tech was mentioned in the story "More than 100 earthquakes strike near Oregon volcano in a single day, geologists say," that appeared in several newspapers around the country including the Sun Herald, Gulfport Mississippi, and the Belleville News-Democrat, Belleville, Illinois.

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

DENALI: Artists Respond to Music Inspired by Wilderness

Friday, January 22, 8 a.m.–8 p.m.

Friday, Jan. 22 - Saturday, April 17. Art and music inspired by Alaska's wild places. This gallery exhibit features new musical compositions and works created in response to...

UP and Moving - Yoga

Friday, January 22, 9:00–9:45 a.m.

Michigan Tech students in the Department of Kinesiology and Integrative Physiology are offering an "UP and Moving" initiative for campus and community members. UP and Moving...

Mathematical Sciences Colloquium: A General and Scalable Multigrid Reduction Approach to Parallel-in-Time

Friday, January 22, 1 p.m.–2 p.m.

Speaker: Professor Jacob Schroder Affiliation: Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of New Mexico Abstract: The need for parallel-in-time algorithms is...

Recent Advances in ACMAL STEM Facility

Friday, January 22, 1 p.m.

Chemical Engineering Seminar Dr. Pinaki Mukherjee Engineer/Scientist, Applied Chemical and Morphological Analysis Laboratory Department of Materials Science and...

CS Dept. Lecture: Shane Mueller

Friday, January 22, 3 p.m.

The Department of Computer Science will present a lecture, by Dr. Shane Mueller on Friday, January 22, 2021, at 3:00 p.m. Mueller is an associate professor in the Applied...

Lanthanide Complexes with Dual Activity and Unusual Coordination Chemistry

Friday, January 22, 3 p.m.–4 p.m.

Chemistry Seminar Series Dr. Ana de Bettencourt-Dias, Susan Magee and Gary Clemons Professor of Chemistry University of Nevada, Reno Abstract: The luminescence of...

More Than a Day: Bayard Rustin Award Ceremony

Friday, January 22, 6 p.m.–7 p.m.

In 2019, NSBE began the tradition of awarding the Bayard Rustin Award to a servant leader on campus during the annual MLK reception. Rustin acted as an influential adviser...

DENALI: Music and Art Inspired by Wilderness

January 22, all day

What do you get when you set nine composers loose in Denali National Park? You get nine great pieces of music! Give this music to artists as inspiration and you get eighteen...