April 12, 2021

 The Vice President for Student Affairs/Dean of Students search committee will host on-campus candidate interviews starting Thursday (April 15). The finalists were selected as the result of a nationwide search that began in January. 

The campus community is invited to attend a campus forum for each candidate via Zoom. The presentations will be approximately 30 minutes with a 15 minute Q&A to follow. 

Specific dates and candidate information will be released tomorrow (April 13). 

Effective Oct. 24, 2021, all local calls from campus phones will require full 10-digit dialing (8 + 1 + 906-XXX-XXXX).

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has adopted 988 as a new three-digit number for the National Suicide and Mental Health Crisis Lifeline, starting July 16, 2022. In order for 988 to work nationwide, 10-digit local dialing must be implemented. This change affects 82 area codes across the country, including the 906 area code.

You can start dialing like this now in preparation for this change. If you forget, 7-digit dialing will continue to work for now. No cost is incurred for local dialing using either 7- or 10-digit dialing.

If you have any questions, we can help. Contact IT at it-help@mtu.edu or call 7-1111.

Sangyoon Han, an assistant professor in Michigan Tech’s Biomedical Engineering department, and an affiliated assistant professor in Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics, recently joined the multi-disciplinary Institute of Computing and Cybersystems (ICC) and its Data Sciences research group.

Han's primary research interests are in mechanobiology, cell migration, and image data modeling, and he’s looking for collaborators. His research goals include applying computer vision to microscopic images to capture meaningful information, and Han invites researchers and students to contact him to discuss potential research opportunities. Learn more about Sangyoon Han in the blog post.

On Saturday (Apr. 17) between 12 - 4 a.m., Michigan Tech IT will perform maintenance on our print server. During this time, you may experience a brief interruption in service while printing. If this occurs, resubmitting your print job should resolve the issue.

Please note that any queued and unprinted jobs at the start of this maintenance will be removed and not printed.

If you have any questions, we can help. Contact IT at it-help@mtu.edu or call 7-1111.

Starting Monday, May 10, 2021, the University shifts to its summer schedule. The general hours of operation will be 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

All offices must be staffed during these hours. Employees are expected to fulfill their usual full-time or part-time obligations. Your actual work schedule must be approved by your supervisor.

Regular office hours resume on Monday, Aug. 16, 2021.

A few weeks ago the Offices of the Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, Vice President for Research, and ADVANCE organized a session (view recording here if you missed it) with campus scholars, creators, and researchers to learn more about pandemic impacts on their work and discuss potential solutions. We learned that impacts have been highly variable: some have had a devastatingly difficult year, during which it was incredibly hard to be research-productive; some experienced more modest, but serious setbacks; others have been able to, in some ways, increase their productivity. This variability sets the stage for a potential lack of understanding of the serious to devastating impacts on some of us.

Thank you to those who participated in the session and/or completed our questionnaire - adding one more event to already busy schedules was particularly difficult when we are all struggling. We are particularly grateful to those who entrusted us with their stories of how they have been impacted. We share here some of what we learned, as well as steps we and others have since taken.

Findings:

[During the pandemic I have experienced...] “increased time with children, increased time adapting teaching, increased time mitigating lab safety protocols, increased time and straight up cancellation of research travel, starting tenure-track with no ability to network in person, zoom after zoom…has made for a continuous crushing feeling of inadequacy and guilt...”

This quote from one of our session participants poignantly summarizes how many of you feel while describing several of the following impacts and concerns most frequently expressed by participants:

• Reduced research time due to increased course adaptation time demands and child and/or eldercare responsibilities
• Research delays due to restrictions on human and animal subject, laboratory, fieldwork, and research-related travel activities
• Reduced abilities to develop the internal and external professional networks vital to scholarly success
• Concerns and questions regarding tenure extension policies
• Concerns and questions regarding potential bias against those impacted during merit, tenure, and promotion processes
• Extreme pandemic fatigue, with the associated feeling that people cannot sustain an increased level of effort much longer and uncertainty about what mental health benefits are available to employees and dependents and how to access these benefits
• The feeling that Michigan Tech leaders could do more to acknowledge and normalize our struggles with these impacts and to recognize how difficult they have been

Most importantly, we learned that there is high variation in the degree to which the pandemic has negatively affected individuals. In general, the greater the number and intensity of the above impacts experienced, the more the pandemic has reduced individuals’ ability to devote time to scholarship. Some have been minimally impacted, while others have experienced crushing, overwhelming impacts that may affect their research and scholarship for many years. This has the potential to exacerbate #5 above, introducing bias into raise, tenure and promotion decisions, given that some participating in these evaluation processes may not understand or empathize with how devastating the pandemic has been for many of our scholars.

Solutions

We recently shared these findings and our solution recommendations with Provost Jackie Huntoon and Vice President for Research Dave Reed. Here are some of the measures either planned or already undertaken to help to mitigate COVID impacts.

• The language in letters to external tenure and promotion reviewers has been revised to explain that reviewers should consider the candidate’s complete body of work and not the time over which it was completed. This language will be reviewed and updated as needed.
• Faculty are being encouraged to document and reflect upon pandemic impacts on their research, scholarship, and creative work in their vitae and Digital Measures updates for use in future tenure, promotion and merit reviews
• The provost plans to issue detailed guidance on the policies and procedures associated with tenure extensions; a proposal to allow for a second-year extension to the tenure clock is being considered by the University Senate
• We are working to identify an outlet to allow scholars, creators, and researchers particularly negatively impacted by the pandemic to share their stories. Please let Shari Stockero know if you are interested in contributing.
• Deans Minerick and Storer are leading an effort to identify and formally propose additional university policies and practices that could mitigate negative research and scholarship impacts due to the pandemic and recovery period.
• The Office of the Vice President for Research is allowing faculty start-up extensions to mitigate pandemic-related research delays. Detailed guidance on this temporary change will be issued shortly.
• Next year’s Research Excellence Fund (REF) grants will be at least partially refocused to help scholars and researchers reduce negative pandemic effects on their work. Detailed guidance on these temporary changes will be issued this summer.
• We plan to offer a series of internal networking events to bring together scholars and researchers around a series of research topics during the 2021-22 academic year.
• The benefits office shared information about our mental health benefits in today’s Tech Today to increase the campus community’s awareness of what is available.

The Institute of Computing and Cybersystems (ICC) will present a Distinguished Lecture by Alina Zare  at 3 p.m. Friday (April 16) via Zoom. Her talk is titled, “Multiple Instance Learning for Plant Root Phenotyping.”

Zare is a professor in the electrical and computer engineering department at the University of Florida. She teaches and conducts research in the areas of pattern recognition and machine learning. View the blog post here.

Brought to you by the MTU Sustainability Demonstration House and McNair dining hall, join us for the first-ever Earth Day Special Dinner on Thursday, April 22.

The dinner will take place from 4 to 7 p.m. in McNair Dining Hall on Earth Day. Both on- and off-campus students and MTU faculty and staff are welcome to join.

What makes this dinner unique?

• 90% of the food options will be fully plant-based
• All waste will be diverted from the landfill
• Compostable utensils and containers will be provided

Please refer to the flyer for our menu options. If you do not live on campus or do not have a meal plan, single meal passes can be purchased for this dinner at the McNair front desk for $12.95.

Your well-being and behavioral and mental health is important. The pandemic has brought this to light more and more often in the past year. Michigan Tech has a variety of resources available for employees looking for information and personalized support for you, and/or a family member’s behavioral health care.

Michigan Tech provides benefit-eligible employees access to the Employee Assistance Program (EAP) with Northstar EAP, which offers eight free, confidential counseling sessions annually. To set up an appointment or for more information, call 906-225-3145 for free, confidential professional counseling.

In addition to the EAP, Michigan Tech has access to Blue Cross Blue Shield (BCBS) Wellbeing Resources:

• Behavioral Health Visits for employees enrolled in a Michigan Tech health plan are available with online support through their mobile app, website and phone. The behavioral health care can include visits with psychiatrists, psychologists, and therapists.
• Mobile: Download the BCBSM Online Visits App
• Web: Visit bcbsmonlinevisits.co
• Phone: Call 1-844-606-1608
• BCBS also offers virtual well-being webinars every Thursday at noon. The topics vary each week and are free for all employees. For more information and to register for the Virtual Well-Being webinars go to bluecrossvirtualwellbeing.com

Beginning at 3 p.m. Wednesday (April 14) via Zoom, the University Senate will host an open forum to discuss the faculty generated Proposal to Create a University Teaching-Facilitators Group for Support of Teaching Effectiveness to Resolve Student Concerns.

This forum is to allow voices from the greater campus community to bring their ideas to the proposal, a draft of which may be found here or contact Ashley Buchanan.

A GenCyber Cybersecurity Teacher Camp for K-12 teachers will be held at Michigan Tech during the week of July 19 - 23. Participants will learn cyber hygiene and fundamental security knowledge including email phishing, password management, and cyber ethics. Participants will also learn how to develop lesson plans to teach cybersecurity in K-12.

This is a residential camp (commuting optional), and is offered at NO COST to all participants. Room and board is included. Each teacher participant will receive a stipend of $500 for attending and completing camp activities. Camp activities will count for 25 State Continuing Education Clock Hours (SCECH).

Click here for more information and to apply. The application deadline is May.

Funding for the camp is provided jointly by the National Security Agency (NSA) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) through an award led by Yu Cai and Tim Van Wagner from the College of Computing.

The Commencement Team is seeking volunteers for Michigan Tech’s spring graduation celebration.

Since we are unable to have our traditional commencement ceremony this year, graduates and their families have been invited to enjoy a celebratory walk through campus. There will be information tables and photo opportunities throughout the main campus mall and in the Rozsa lobby. We need volunteers to serve at information tables, monitor photo stations, help with setup and tear down, be stationed along the campus mall to help answer any questions, clean and sanitize tables and other touchpoints on the campus mall, and help in the Rozsa lobby.

The celebration is Friday, April 30. Volunteers are asked to arrive at noon and stay until 5 p.m. There is an opportunity to help with setting up before the celebration walk as well. More information regarding the ceremony may be found on the Commencement website.

Please sign up by April 23 if you would like to volunteer. Contact Chad Arney if you have any questions.

This special celebration cannot happen without the help of our amazing Michigan Tech community!

MTU’s Graduate Student Government (GSG) along with the UP and Moving Program in the Department of Kinesiology and Integrative Physiology (KIP) will host a live virtual 5k event at 10 a.m. Saturday (April, 17).

The event is free and open to students, staff, faculty, and community members from near and afar. Join us on Zoom for a warm-up, welcome activity, and photo.

The virtual 5k will consist of two different ways to participate. Follow along with us on Zoom for a fun and exciting movement-based workout that will accumulate the total number of steps needed to cover the 5k distance. Alternatively, walk, run, hike your own 5k outdoors or indoors.

For those individuals that cannot make the live virtual event, the 5k distance can be completed anytime between April 10 - 24. Registered participants can receive a free t-shirt.

 For more information visit the UP and Moving website.

Featured this week in the Michigan Tech Lode:

News

• This week in history
• Bookworm Books and Coffee closes this week

Pulse

• A rundown of coffee in Houghton, by a local
• Escape reality with magician Trent James

Opinion

• Nervous about returning to in-person classes?
• Why do I live with these people?

Tech

• April in chemistry

Check out our website to see past articles and more.

PS - do you enjoy writing, editing, photography or graphic design? We are currently in need of new individuals to join our staff! We meet weekly on Wednesdays and publish the same night on our website. Eventually, we will be returning to print publishing as well. We are a dedicated and fun group of individuals who enjoy representing campus life through news. Email us and find out how you can join the Lode!

Electrical Engineering doctoral candidate Adam Webb will present his PhD defence at 3:30 p.m. Thursday (April 15) via Zoom.

The title of his presentation is “Novel Methods in Computational Imaging with Applications in Remote Sensing.”

Webb's co-advisors are Timothy Schulz (ECE) and Timothy Havens (CC).

The College of Forest Resources and Environmental Science will have a seminar at 12:30 p.m. Thursday (April) via Zoom.

Our seminar speaker is David Luther from George Mason University.

Luther will present a talk entitled " Global assessment of critical forest and landscape restoration needs for threatened terrestrial vertebrate species”.

Computational Sciences & Electrical Engineering doctoral candidate Eassa Hedayati (Advisor, Jeremy Bos) will present his doctoral defence at 3 p.m. Friday (April 16) via Zoom.

The title of his presentation is “Light Field Compression and Manipulation via Residual Convolutional Neural Network.”

Twelve Department of Physics undergraduate seniors will present their research via Zoom from 3 to 5 p.m. on Thursday, (April 15)

Please join the virtual presentations and award ceremony. This year's seniors include:

• Aleister Kerr
• Zoe Gaertner
• Conner Hawry
• Reed Downs
• Renato Pinto Reveggino
• Cas Tuson
• Carter Mashburn
• Adam Sanchez
• Jack Harris
• Noah Wilson
• Jonah Haw
• Wolfgang Vallazza-Margl

Alumnus, Mike Larsen, Dept of Physics and Astronomy, College of Charleston, will be virtually presenting the Ian Shepherd award to the most outstanding graduating senior in Physics.

The zoom registration can be found here.

The Institute for Policy, Ethics, and Culture, partnered with the Rozsa Center for the Performing Arts and the Portage Lake District Library, will finish up “Justice in Transition,” a virtual speaker series on systemic injustice and advocacy, this week.

The series runs each Tuesday and Thursday at 7 p.m. through April 15 via Zoom. Tomorrow (April 13) at 7 p.m. Ruha Benjamin will present "Race to the Future: Reimagining the Default Settings of Technology and Society."

Benjamin is a professor of African American studies at Princeton University, founding director of the IDA B. WELLS Just Data Lab and author of two books, "People’s Science" and "Race After Technology," and editor of "Captivating Technology."

She will speak about the relationship between innovation and inequity, knowledge and power, race and citizenship, health and justice.

On Thursday (April 15) at 7 p.m. the series will conclude with a conversation with civil rights activist DeRay McKesson, a leading voice in the Black Lives Matter Movement and a co-founder of Campaign Zero.

McKesson has worked to connect individuals with knowledge and tools, and provide citizens and policymakers with commonsense policies that ensure equity. He has been praised by President Barack Obama for his work as a community organizer, has advised officials at all levels of government and internationally, and continues to provide capacity to activists, organizers, and influencers to make an impact.

Click here for more information on future speakers and to register for the Zoom webinars.

Biomedical Engineering PhD student, Pegah Kord Forooshani (advisor, Bruce Lee), will present her doctoral defense at 1 p.m. Friday (April 16) via Zoom.

The title of her defense is, "Model Polymer Systems Containing Catechol Moieties to Tune Hydrogen Peroxide Generation for Antipathogenic and Wound Healing Applications."

The Department of Engineering Fundamentals is conducting a faculty search.

The first candidate is James Bittner who will present an active and collaborative first-year engineering lesson at 11a.m. tomorrow (April 13) via Zoom.

No. 21 Michigan Tech fell 3-0 to No. 20 Northern Michigan in the GLIAC Volleyball Championship Sunday on the campus of Saginaw Valley State. The Huskies season wrapped up with an 11-4 overall record.

"Credit and congratulations to Northern for playing a great match today and for putting together a great season," Tech Coach Matt Jennings said. "Simply put, they played better than us in every part of the game.

"We didn't execute well enough in some pretty basic areas, which is probably the most disappointing part of that match. We certainly picked a bad time to play tense and make uncharacteristic mistakes. Northern just ran their system better than we ran ours and executed way more consistently, which was compounded by the number of points we gave them unearned."

NMU won 25-23, 25-16, and 26-24. In the first, the teams fought through nine ties. Tech held a 23-22 lead after a kill by Anna Jonynas, but three straight points put NMU in the lead. Jonynas had six kills in the first.

The Wildcats (15-2) never trailed in the second and hit .387. Lindy Oujiri had four kills for the Huskies while Jane Grindland and Jonynas combined for six.

There were six lead changes in the third. Tech had setpoint at 24-23 after a kill by Oujiri, but NMU scored three straight points to take the win.

Anna Jonynas and Lindy Oujiri each had 11 kills and Janie Grindland added six. Jonynas also tallied 10 digs.

Laura De Marchi set the offense with 37 assists and had 13 digs. Megan Utlak led the team with 14 digs.

"I don't think today reflected what this team did all season and what we're capable of," added Jennings. "I'm proud of the way we battled through adversity this year, especially late in the season. But it's my job to figure out a way to get over this hurdle that we seem to encounter in the finals. I'm responsible for getting them ready to play in big matches like this one and we did not come out sharp or ready to play. We'll pick up the pieces and put them back together going forward. There's a lot to build on."

Anna Jonynas and Laura De Marchi were named to the GLIAC All-Tournament Team. The Huskies are returning all 17 players for the fall.

The passing of Michigan Tech Professor Emeritus Milton Olsson was covered by the Keweenaw Report.

*****

Two Michigan Tech students were interviewed for the story "Two students explain what its like being Asian in America" on WLUC TV6.

*****

Michigan Tech was ranked #2 among the "Best online colleges in Michigan" by EDsmart.org. The ranking was reported in Digital Journal.

*****

Research at Michigan Tech was referenced in the article "Bio-Methane Market Analysis, Insights And Geography Forecast Till 2026 | Fortune Business Insights," in Indus Tribune.

*****

Joshua Pearce (MSE/ECE) was quoted in the article "This source of greenhouse gas emissions might surprise you," on GreenBiz.com

Amanda Gonczi (GLRC) is the principal investigator on a project that has received a $76,658 research and development grant from the University of Nebraska - Lincoln.

The project is entitled, "Collaborative Research: Teacher Leadership: Investigating the Persistence and Trajectories of Master Teachers."

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.

*****

The Keweenaw's Second Annual Waste Reduction Drive

We are less than a week away from the Keweenaw's 2nd Annual Waste Reduction Drive. Have you been diverting your waste from the landfill? Last year the Keweenaw community diverted more than 46,000 items from the landfill.

Let's make this year's drive bigger and better. The drive will be held from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, April 17 in MTU Parking Lot 22 (behind the SDC). The event will be set up drive-thru style to increase efficiency and minimize contact. Guidelines will be in place to protect the health of volunteers and participants.

For a list of accepted items and more information, read the original Tech Today story.

*****

ME-EM PhD Defense Today

Graduate students Marcello Guadagno (ME) and Jacob Loss (ECE) coauthored an article with Joshua Pearce (MSE/ECE) titled: "Open Source 3D-Printable Planetary Roller Screw for Food Processing Applications". in Technologies.

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

DENALI: Artists Respond to Music Inspired by Wilderness

Monday, April 12, 8 a.m.–8 p.m. | Rozsa Center for the Performing Arts, Rozsa Gallery A-Space

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...

Teal Ribbons

Monday, April 12, 12 p.m.–1 p.m. | Michigan Tech Campus

All month there will be Teal Ribbons on Trees. These ribbons symbolize solidarity with victims of sexual violence and are meant to create conversation on campus about how we...

PhD Defense: Jinxiang Liu

Monday, April 12, 1 p.m.–2 p.m.

Computer Science Advisor: Laura Brown Prediction of Coincident Peak Days in Electricity System: A Case Study for Classification on Imbalanced Data

PhD Defense: Jinxiang Liu

Monday, April 12, 1 p.m.–3 p.m.

PhD candidate Jinxiang Liu, Computer Science, will present his PhD Defense on Monday, April 12, 2021, from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. The title of Liu's dissertation is, "Prediction...

PhD Defense: Rehab Khalid H Alhajjar

Monday, April 12, 2 p.m.–3 p.m.

Biological Sciences Advisor: Stephen Techtmann Comparative Study of Biocides and Nanoparticles on Bacterial Microorganisms Attend Virtually:...

Occurrence and Community Impacts of Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances in North Carolina

Monday, April 12, 3 p.m.

Environmental Engineering Graduate Seminar Professor Detlef Knappe, North Carolina State University, Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental...

PhD Defense: Zhuo Xu

Monday, April 12, 4 p.m.–5 p.m.

Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics Co-advisors: Ezra Bar Ziv and Jordan Klinger Torrefaction of Mixed Solid Waste Attend Virtually:...

UP and Moving - Strength Workout

Monday, April 12, 5:30 p.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...

SHPE General Body Meeting

Monday, April 12, 6 p.m.–7 p.m. | Online

Bi-weekly General Body Meeting

Students Boldly DOING Where No One Has Done Before

Monday, April 12, 6 p.m.

Husky Bites presents Special Guest Wireless Communications Enterprise Team The Enterprise Program Michigan Technological University Topic: We are members of the Wireless...

Adult Huskies Group Tennis Lessons Spring Session 3

Monday, April 12, 7 p.m.–8 p.m. | Gates Tennis Center

Adult Huskies Tennis Lessons are now being offered for ages 17 and up who are looking to learn more about the game of tennis! Each class will include technique and games to...

DENALI: Music and Art Inspired by Wilderness

April 12, 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...

Get Your Erg On! Spring Session 2

April 12, all day | John MacInnes Student Ice Arena, Blue Line Room

Get your Erg on! Join members of the MTU Rowing Club as they guide you through the basics of rowing technique and coach you through fun and challenging workout sessions — all...

Teal Ribbons for Sexual Assault Awareness Month

April 12, all day | Outdoors

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. During the Month of April there will be Teal Ribbons displayed throughout campus. Teal has become the signature color for sexual...