April 30, 2021

Earlier this month, a team of students from Michigan Tech were declared the overall champions of the 2021 National Fluid Power Association (NFPA) Vehicle Challenge. The contest, dubbed “Hydraulics Meets the Bicycle,” combines human-powered vehicles along with fluid power and consists of three races — sprint, endurance and efficiency.

The winning team included John Kurburski, Andrew Ward, Alexander Provoast and Jake Lehmann, all students in Michigan Tech’s Department of Manufacturing and Mechanical Engineering Technology. Competing with 22 schools from all over the country, they placed first in efficiency, second in endurance and third in the sprint race. After the race results, two design reviews, conference participation and a final presentation, they were awarded the 2021 championship.

The team powered their bike using a hydraulic circuit — transferring pedal power through a hydraulic pump and motor to drive the rear wheel. MMET senior lecturer David Wanless advised the team. MMET lecturer Kevin Johnson also contributed to the students' understanding of pneumatic and hydraulic circuits in his fluid power class.

The challenge is hosted each year by Norgren, a respected world leader in motion control and fluid technology based in Littleton, Colo. This year, the competition was expanded into two separate virtual competitions, hosted by Norgren and Danfoss Power Solutions, to reach a wide range of students and industry members all over the country.

Read more on the blog post.

Today, Michigan Tech will join 325 other colleges and universities around the world with the initiation of 18 charter members into Gamma Theta Upsilon (GTU): The International Geographical Honor Society.

On May 15, 1928, Illinois State Normal University founded GTU to promote, support and connect geographical knowledge: spatial relationships, uniqueness of place, dynamics of nature and society, and the functions of our physical environment. Whether that takes place in the classroom, a lab, the field, the community, at conferences or within our everyday lives, GTU encourages its members to apply their geographical knowledge and skills in service to all. Nearly 93 years later, GTU has over 70,000 members.

Michigan Tech is GTU’s newest chapter: Nu Xi. The 18 charter members have demonstrated either a lifetime of commitment to geographical knowledge or, as students, demonstrated this commitment through their excellent effort in at least three geography courses. Already, the Nu Xi chapter has met virtually once a month for geography hangouts and has already begun plans for an event this fall.

The 18 initiates include undergraduates, graduate students, and Social Sciences faculty. Nu Xi's charter members are:

Nev Indish, Brooke Batterson, Lynette Sharland Webber, Emma Jones, Evan Roubal, Timothy Stone, Cally Quayle, Kaitlyn Dodge, Ryan Williams, Daniel J. Lizzadro-McPherson, Valentin Pulido, Marie R. Richards, James Aron Juip, Emma Wuepper, Kyle Parker-McGlynn, Kathryn Hannum, Don Lafreniere and Richelle Winkler.

Anyone interested in joining or learning more about GTU can reach out to faculty sponsor Mark Rhodes at marhodes@mtu.edu.

Due to a water line project in the Student Development Complex, University Images will be closed to the public Sunday (May 2) through May 9.

During this closure, the Campus Store in the Memorial Union Building will be open regular summer hours, Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., for those who want to browse and shop in person. You may also shop online anytime at bookstore.mtu.edu — orders placed May 2-9 will receive free ground shipping.

The SDC will be closed May 3-9 for maintenance. Gates Tennis Center and Tech Trails will be open. If you need assistance, please call 906-487-2578 or email recreation@mtu.edu.

Summer hours will begin May 10. Visit michigantechrecreation.com to view summer building hours.

The University Senate will meet (Meeting #660) at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday (May 5) via Zoom. 

Senators are responsible for making their constituents aware of the agenda for this meeting. Senators who are unable to attend should arrange for their alternates to attend in their place. 

View the Agenda to Meeting #660

The Michigan Tech Center for Science and Environmental Outreach, in partnership with the College of Forest Resources and Environmental Science, is offering the Outdoor Science Investigations Field Trip Program for K-8 students from April 14 through June 4. The program is open to all 19 school districts in Houghton, Baraga, Gogebic, and Ontonagon counties. 

One or two activities are offered for each grade level, led by Center staff. The field trips enhance classroom learning and provide real-world, hands-on experiences for students. All activities are correlated to Michigan science standards and connect to the school curriculum. The outdoor classroom allows students to utilize science and math skills, including observing, predicting, data collection, analysis and graphing.

Field trip offerings are described in the spring brochure, along with a list of possible field trip locations. Field trip programs last one to two hours, all spent outdoors. Teachers may sign up for a field trip using the Spring Field Trip Request Form.

To help defray program costs, the Center charges $40 per field trip per class (up to 30 students). All activity supplies are provided. Since 2000, an annual grant of $20,00 from the Wege-Kinship Foundations has provided significant funding to support the program.

Last year, we engaged more than 4,000 students in 200 field trips from 14 schools in outdoor science learning, from physical and earth science to forestry, wildlife and stream monitoring. During the 2020-21 school year, 15 schools have participated.

Teacher comments from winter field trips include:

• “Students LOVED the trip. They were universal in saying that they would like to do another field trip like this one!”
• “The students really enjoyed being outdoors, snowshoeing, and learning about nature. I had several say to me, ‘That was so fun!’ or ‘When are we going to do that again?’”
• “The students enjoyed doing this field trip. A high percentage of my class had never put on snowshoes before. Many students had never taken a look in their own yards or forested areas to look for signs of small animals living nearby. They came back to school telling me that they went adventuring out into their ‘woods’ to find what small living things could be found.” 

Lizzie Barnes ’20, a CFRES PhD graduate, has coordinated the program for the 2020-21 school year, in addition to leading most of the field trips during the fall and winter. Kath Schneider, CFRES PhD candidate, has also instructed some of the field trips.

For more information about the field trip program, contact Joan Chadde, Center director, at 906-487-3341 (office), 906-369-1121 (cell), or jchadde@mtu.edu.

Sriram Kumar Valluri will defend his dissertation on Monday (May 3) at 1 p.m. via Zoom.

His presentation is titled “Carbon Capture and Utilization”

The Michigan Tech women's tennis team had three players earn Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Honors, announced Wednesday by the conference office. Returning senior Ivona Gorgioski was named All-GLIAC first team while sophomores Dominika Bobik and Neva Manas were added to the second team.

Read more on the Michigan Tech Athletics website.

Job Postings for Friday, April 30, 2021  

Staff and faculty job descriptions are available on the Human Resources website. For more information regarding staff positions, call 906-487-2280 or email mtujobs@mtu.edu.

For more information regarding faculty positions, contact the academic department in which the position is posted. 

Research, Education and Outreach Librarian, Van Pelt and Opie Library. Apply online.

Administrative Aide 8, Physics (UAW posting April 30 to May 6, 2021 — external applications will only be reviewed after internal applications). Apply online.

Building Mechanic III (12 months/ 40 hours/ 1st Shift) #21022RP, Facilities (AFSCME posting April 30 to May 6, 2021 — external applications will only be reviewed after internal applications). Apply online.

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 an interview at Michigan Technological University, please notify the Human Resources office at 906-487-2280 or mtujobs@mtu.edu.

A Taboo Topic

This week, we highlight a recent synopsis in Endocrinologist about studies of menopause at work.

Attending to intersectional differences includes listening for what is not being discussed. For example, by their mid-40s and early 50s, many faculty cisgender women are in mid-career or senior positions, but few are willing to talk about the impact of menopause on their careers.

Women are often reluctant to admit menopausal symptoms for fear of career disadvantages related to ageism and gender stigma. And, workplace conditions can impact their experience of symptoms. 

Addressing symptoms can be critical to workplace satisfaction and retention and can set women up for a postmenopausal surge of energy and focus. Providing reasonable workplace adjustments, educating colleagues and supervisors, and including menopause in health policies are supportive measures.

The ADVANCE Weekly Roundup is brought to you by ADVANCE at Michigan Tech, an NSF-funded initiative dedicated to improving faculty career success, retention, diversity, equity and inclusion. Past 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.

If you have an article you think we should feature, please email it to advance-mtu@mtu.edu for consideration.

Fill Out the COVID-19 Symptom Monitoring 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 for symptoms daily before coming to campus using the Daily Symptom Monitoring Form.

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Parking Restrictions In Effect Today

Today (April 30), Michigan Tech is holding a graduation celebration for the class of 2020 and 2021. With this celebration, some parking restrictions are being put into place to help with the increased number of visitors to our campus.

Parking lots unavailable for the duration of the day include:
Lot 11 (Black Permit Lot), Lot 27 (Visitor Lot), Lot 12 (MUB Faculty/Staff), Lot 14 (DHH Parking Lot), and Commuter/Grad Lots 5 and 9.

We ask all faculty and staff to seek an alternative lot to park in today. Lot 1 (Admin), Lot 2 (AOB), Lot 33 (Meese), Lot 13 (Fisher), Lot 7W (DHH), Lot 8 (Walker), Lot 15W (Wads), Lot 15E (Wads), and Lot 16 (McNair) will still be available. Please do not utilize metered locations, as we are including these areas in our total number of spaces needed for family and friends.

If you have any questions regarding this one-day change, please email us at parking@mtu.edu or call us at 906-487-1441.

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Funding Opportunity for Rail Transportation/Railroad Engineering Research

The Federal Railroad Administration recently released a Broad Agency 2021 Announcement (BAA) research program opportunity. Michigan Tech researchers from several departments have had great success in these projects in the past. To date, we've received over $2 million in funding for five projects. In addition, the three proposals from BAA 2020 listed below are expected to be awarded in near future.

• Railroad Crossing Vehicle Warning (RCVW) Application Demonstrations with Connected Vehicles ($380,705)
• An Integrated and Automated Decision Support System for Ground Hazard Risk Mitigation for Railway ($694,922)
• Expanding Summer Youth Programs through Virtual Learning and a National Campus Network ($474,695)

Anyone interested in expanding their research portfolio to railway research topics is encouraged to:

• Review the topics of interest by the FRA (Appendix C).
• Watch a short video on the program by Pasi Lautala, director of Michigan Tech’s Rail Transportation Program (passcode: FRA-BAA2021).
• Contact Lautala at ptlautal@mtu.edu to discuss potential topic ideas.
• Send a one-page idea summary to Lautala no later than today (April 30).

We will send all project ideas to FRA for an early feedback and submit full concept papers (up to five pages) on those recommended by the FRA. After review, FRA will request full proposals on concept papers they are interested in funding.

Feel free to contact Lautala at ptlautal@mtu.edu if you have any questions or need additional clarifications — and feel free to distribute this information to your colleagues who might be interested!

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PhD Defense: Jeffrey Beck, ECE

Electrical Engineering doctoral candidate Jeffrey Beck will defend at 10 a.m. Monday (May 3) via Zoom.

The title of Beck's presentation is “Saturation Behaviors in Deep Turbulence.” He is advised by Jeremy Bos.

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A.E. Seaman Mineral Museum Open Late on Graduation Day

The A.E. Seaman Mineral Museum will be open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. today (April 30) for graduation. As a reminder, admission into the museum is waived for Michigan Tech students and employees.

Congratulations, graduates!

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

CEE Senior Design Colloquium

Friday, April 30, 8–11 a.m.

The Civil and Environmental Engineering Department is pleased to invite the University community to attend the Spring 2021 virtual senior design team presentations on April 30...

Board of Trustees Meeting

Friday, April 30, 9 a.m.

Regular meeting of the Michigan Tech Board of Trustees

Virtual Commencement - Department of Mathematical Sciences

Friday, April 30, 11:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m.

Congratulations to the Class of 2021! Graduating with a Doctor of Philosophy: Mr. Nadun Dissanayake (Advisor: Professor Cécile Piret), defense scheduled for summer 2021Mr....

Teal Ribbons

Friday, April 30, 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...

Tennis Ball Cricket

Friday, April 30, 10:00 p.m.–11:59 p.m. | SDC Student Development Complex

Every Friday SDC Multipurpose room 10 - 11:59 pm.

Art in a Panorama

April 30, all day

Year end virtual art show by students in FA 2300 Art + Design, taught by Terri Frew. Student Artists include, Bethany Hellman, Michelle Kline, Danelle Leinonen, Kylie Mogen,...

Music in Sacred Spaces: conScience

April 30, all day

conScience: Michigan Tech Chamber Singers, under the direction of Dr. Jared Anderson, present a series of three recorded mini-concerts in historic sacred spaces in the Copper...

Superior Wind Symphony: Reparations

April 30, all day

The Superior Wind Symphony, under the direction of Dr. Michael Christianson, use the unique setting of the 2020-21 academic year to explore the music of Black composers in a...

Teal Ribbons for Sexual Assault Awareness Month

April 30, 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...