September 9, 2022

Following last year’s record-breaking enrollment, Michigan Technological University welcomed 7,073 students to campus this fall, which marks a 1% growth in overall enrollment. Incoming first-year students account for 1,388 of this year’s Huskies, and their average GPA of 3.83 is a new University record. For the third straight year, students from domestic underrepresented minority groups will make up more than 11.5% of the student body, and more than 2,100 of Michigan Tech’s current students are women. Women will make up nearly 30% of the student body — the University’s highest percentage ever.

While national enrollment trends are mixed, Michigan Tech is seeing more demand than ever, receiving a record number of more than 9,000 applications this year. The graduate school and programs in the College of Computing are seeing some of the most significant growth, and enrollment is also growing in historically prominent programs like robotics engineering in the College of Engineering. Programs in health-related STEM fields like health informatics and biomedical engineering are also on the rise.

Read the full story on Michigan Tech News and reach out with any questions.

Dennis Livesay, Dave House Dean of Computing, has been elected to the Computing Research Association's (CRA's) three-person CRA-Deans Group leadership team. More than 40 major institutions from several countries participate in the group, which meets annually to discuss a range of topics and share their experiences creating independent schools and IT units.

The CRA-Deans Group provides leadership and community to emerging and established colleges of computing and interdisciplinary IT schools. It is organized around schools of computing, schools of information and/or schools of information technology with heads that report directly to the Provost or Chief Academic Officer at a university.

Read more on the College of Computing news blog.

The Jackson Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) congratulates the 2022 Deans' Teaching Showcase members who have been selected to receive 2022 CTL Instructional Awards. Mark your calendars for the following fall semester events, where instructors will discuss the work that led to their nominations. After each presentation they will receive formal recognition and $600 in additional compensation.

CTL Instructional Award Series Schedule:

• Sept. 29 — Innovative or Out-of-Class Teaching: Kristin Brzeski (CFRES) and Melanie Kueber Watkins (CEGE)
• Oct. 13 — Large Class Teaching: Loredana Valenzano-Slough (Chemistry)
• Nov. 8 — Curriculum Development or Assessment: Chris Middlebrook (ECE) and Josue Reynoso (CoB)

All events will take place from 3:45-4:45 p.m. Detailed presentation titles, topics and registration links for the events will be announced later.

The CTL would also like to thank previous instructional award recipients who were instrumental in the selection process.

We're looking for nominations for the upcoming (2023) Deans' Teaching Showcase during spring semester. Please consider suggesting (to your dean or chair) instructors whom you've seen make exceptional contributions in curriculum development, assessment, innovative or out-of-class teaching, or large class teaching.

The Career Closet is a giveaway of gently worn business clothing to assist students in preparing for Career Fair. We are now accepting donations of gently worn, clean business clothing. Your items will be available to all Michigan Tech students at no cost. Donations will be accepted through Friday, Sept. 16.

The Career Closet will be held on Saturday, Sept. 17 from 1-5 p.m. (with 1-3 p.m. designated for graduate students and seniors), and Sunday, Sept. 18 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

If you would like to volunteer at the event, please sign up through GivePulse or email aemarsh1@mtu.edu.

The following volunteer shifts are available:

• Movers (moving clothing and racks to the event site)
• Donation sorters (counting and sorting donations)
• Event set up and tear down
• Clothing assistants (helping students as they shop at the event)
• Tailors (helping students to hem items/repair items, steam or iron clothing)

Clothing may be dropped off at any of the following locations:

• College of Business, Academic Office Building
• Grad Commons
• Dean of Students Office
• Career Services
• University Images
• Campus Bookstore

Or, boxed clothing can be mailed to:

Residence Education & Housing Services
1701 Townsend Drive
153W Wadsworth Hall
Houghton, MI 49931

Thank you to all who have supported this effort!

When you spend all summer planning a trip to the beach, of course it decides to rain! The forecast for today calls for moderate rain, a chance of thunderstorms and wind upwards of 15 miles per hour, but we don’t cancel K-Day — we HuskyUP and move inside!

Nearly 200 student organizations will showcase what they are all about in the Student Development Complex Multipurpose Room. Food, inflatables and fun will all continue in a modified form, but our Husky spirit will remain the same! K-Day will still run from noon to 4 p.m. Students are encouraged to scatter their arrival times in order to decrease congestion in our indoor space.

Encourage your students to join in the fun!

Remember to complete your Husky Health Checklist with the activities you completed between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2022, to earn up to $450 in health incentives for benefits-eligible employees.

Jan. 9, 2023, is the last day to submit Husky Health Checklists for the 2022 reporting period. The 2022 Husky Health payout incentives will be received in early 2023.

Check out the Husky Health website for more information and links to webinars and fitness programs that count toward the Husky Health incentive. Find out more information about Husky Health and other wellness benefits by visiting our website.

Questions? Contact the Benefits Office or call 906-487-2517.

Due to rain in the forecast, K-Day will be held in the SDC Multipurpose Room today, Friday, Sept. 9. To accommodate the number of students attending K-Day, the Multipurpose Room, including the Track and Racquetball Courts, will be closed from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Due to the planned water outage in the Chemical Science Building today, the Chemical Engineering offices will be closed from 12-5 p.m. Faculty and staff are available via Zoom or email or by appointment.

Please note there will be no toilet facilities available in the building. Also note that labs will be closed and there will be no water for hand washing, eyewashes or safety showers.

Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) and Research Integrity (RI) staff strongly encourage you to consider leaving the building during the water outage.

University Chemical Stores will close at noon today due to the Chem Sci water outage. We will reopen with normal hours on Monday, Sept. 12. Thank you for your understanding.

The University Events Calendar is a great place to advertise department events that are hosted or sponsored by Michigan Tech. This crowdsourced events calendar is meant for attendable events that need public advertising. It is not meant for deadlines, private events or internal events such as staff meetings. Events listed can be virtual, in-person or hybrid.

If there is someone in your department who should be in charge of adding events, you can request event admin access by emailing webcal@mtu.edu with the person's name, email address and department. Further details about adding events will then be provided.

Events from the University Events Calendar can be fed onto your department website and may also automatically appear in Tech Today on the day the event takes place. Additional tips for promoting your event can be found online.

Stay active with our Fall 2022 Adult Aquatics Programs. Registration for the first session of Adult Aquatics Programs closes today, Friday, Sept. 9. Learn more about each of these programs below.

Adult Aquatics Programs

Session 1 dates: Sept. 13, 15, 20, 22, 27, 29; Oct. 4, 6
Registration closes Sept. 9, 11:59 p.m.

Session 2 dates: Oct. 11, 13, 18, 20, 25, 27; Nov. 1, 3
Registration closes Oct. 7, 11:59 p.m.

Session 3 dates: Nov. 8, 10, 15, 17, 29; Dec. 1, 6, 8
Registration closes Nov. 4, 11:59 p.m.

Adult Huskies Swim Training

Adult Huskies Swim Training provides additional attention and competitive guidance to swimmers ages 18 and older who are looking to improve their swimming skills and fitness levels in a group setting. Each session is programmed with a warm-up and variations of a workout for the beginner, intermediate and advanced swimmer. Participants will be provided coaching and guidance to meet their individual swimming goals!

Class day/time: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 5-5:50 p.m.

Adult Huskies Swim Lessons

Adult Huskies Swim Lessons provides aquatic education for the beginner to intermediate swimmer who is looking to become more comfortable in the water and learn the four fundamental strokes.

Class day/time: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 5-5:50 p.m.

Don't miss out on this great opportunity to stay active this fall with Adult Aquatics Programs! Register today!

There are many reasons to be sensitive to and acknowledge diverse experiences, values, beliefs and ways of being. Our team works to highlight some of these reasons in the ADVANCE Weekly Roundup. However, occasionally situations come to our attention that we had not thought about previously.

The 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) requires institutions with federal funding not only to catalog their Indigenous collections, but to take steps to return them to the appropriate tribal nation communities. This NBC News article about a discovery at University of North Dakota serves as a warning that academic pursuits should be informed by federal laws concerning Indigenous peoples.

Further, past and present research activity should demonstrate respect and consideration for the people who are affected by those activities. In situations like these, transparency and sensitivity should extend to the community the university is part of and to communities that academics are engaged with in research activities.

When we investigate or discover this hasn’t happened in the past, we should take immediate steps to rectify the situation to the best of our abilities. For example, Michigan Tech scholars are increasingly educating themselves as to how to be more inclusive and equitable in research, and partnering to be more collaborative with Indigenous communities and the Ojibwa homelands of the Keweenaw and beyond.

Today’s feature was shared with us by the ADVANCE Team. 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 and programming efforts, and to check out our growing collection of resources, contact us at advance-mtu@mtu.edu or visit our website: mtu.edu/advance.

University Update and Picnic Rescheduled for Sept. 16

Due to rain forecast for today (Sept. 9), the Leadership Update and Welcome Back Picnic has been rescheduled for next week on Friday (Sept. 16).

The location and times will remain the same, with the leadership update beginning at noon in the Rozsa lobby, followed by a barbecue picnic on Walker Lawn. Release time will be provided for employees to attend.

The RSVP form has been reopened to Michigan Tech employees. For planning purposes, please update your RSVP status if your intentions to attend have changed based on the new date.

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Banner Production System Maintenance on Sept. 11

A production system maintenance window will take place Sunday (Sept. 11) from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.

The following production services will be unavailable during that time:

Banner 
Banweb 
MyMichiganTech 
ASPIRE 
Course Tools 
OAP Rental System 
Oracle Reports 
UC4/Appworx 
Virtual Cashiering 
WebFOCUS 

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

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Tuition Reduction Incentive Program Form Is Online

The Tuition Reduction Incentive Program (TRIP) form for the spring 2023 academic semester is now online.

The application and guidelines can be found on the Human Resources website in the dropdown menu underneath "Education Benefits."

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Annual Korean Gathering

Families and individuals who live in Houghton and are in any way associated with Korea are invited to the annual Houghton Korean gathering. The event will take place tomorrow (Sept. 10) at Twin Lakes State Park.

Undergraduate students who are from Korea or have a Korean background are encouraged to come to the gathering. If interested, please send an email to Sangyoon Han at sjhan@mtu.edu.

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Chem Sci Water Outage Today

As part of the H-STEM Complex project, a several-hour domestic water outage is scheduled for the Chemical Sciences and Engineering Building (Chem Sci) today (Sept. 9) beginning at noon. Barring any unforeseen circumstances, the water will be turned back on within the building by late evening on the same day.

Thank you for your patience and understanding as the construction work continues for the new H-STEM Engineering and Health Technologies Complex.

Michigan Tech was featured in an MLive story highlighting the university’s approach toward a new enrollment milestone of 30 percent women.

Juniors Abby Mello and Aerith Cruz were among those quoted in the article, which noted the steady growth in the number of women attending Tech over its 137-year history and explored the changes on campus that have occurred as a result.

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Michigan Tech sophomore Sam Lange was mentioned in a WLUC TV6 story after being named GLIAC Men's Runner of the Week.

Lange led the No. 16 Michigan Tech cross country team with a first-place individual finish at the Vic Godfrey Open on Sept. 2.

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Keweenaw Report mentioned Michigan Tech in a story on the upcoming fourth annual GeekU.P. convention, being held at the Memorial Union Building on Saturday (Sept. 10) from noon until 6 p.m.

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Michigan Tech was mentioned in a WLUC TV6 profile of Marquette startup Kall Morris Inc, which was recently awarded $750,000 to pursue work on space debris cleanup.

Founded by graduates of Northern Michigan University, Kall Morris recently hired a Michigan Tech alum to join their team.

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The Mayfield Messenger mentioned Erik Nordberg (Ph.D., Industrial Heritage and Archaeology) in a story about an upcoming historical society meeting in Paris, Tennessee.

Nordberg will present his research into the history of ball clay mining in west Tennessee and the Jackson Purchase region.

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

Bioinspired Smart Bilayered Hybrids with Multi-scale Architecture and Surface Engineering

Friday, September 9, 10 a.m. | Chemical Sciences and Engineering Building, 211

Chemical Engineering Research Seminar Luyi Sun Polymer Program, Institute of Materials Science and Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering University of...

Keweenaw Day 2022

Friday, September 9, 12 p.m.–4 p.m. | Chassell Centennial Park

K-Day, short for Keweenaw Day, is an annual tradition at Michigan Tech held on the Friday of the week of Labor Day. It is a registered student organization fair with around...

Prep yourself for CareerFair

Friday, September 9, 1 p.m.–2 p.m. | Administration and Student Services Building, 220 Career Services

(Women's Soccer) Michigan Tech at Purdue Northwest

Friday, September 9, 2 p.m.–5 p.m.

Women's Soccer: Michigan Tech at Purdue Northwest

The Batman (2022) - Film Board

Friday, September 9, 5:30 p.m.–8:30 p.m. | Fisher 135 Michigan Tech

Join Film Board as we show The Batman (2022) in Fisher 135! Tickets are $3 and concessions are $1 each. See our website for more details. https://filmboard.mtu.edu/

(Women's Volleyball) Davenport vs. Michigan Tech

Friday, September 9, 6 p.m.–9 p.m. | Student Development Complex (SDC), Wood Gym

Women's Volleyball: Davenport vs. Michigan Tech

The Batman (2022) - Film Board

Friday, September 9, 8:30 p.m.–11:30 p.m. | Fisher 135 Michigan Tech

Join Film Board as we show The Batman (2022) in Fisher 135! Tickets are $3 and concessions are $1 each. See our website for more details. https://filmboard.mtu.edu/

Little Huskies Volleyball Club

Friday, September 9, 8:45 p.m.–9:30 p.m. | Student Development Complex (SDC)

Focus on fun while you learn to play volleyball! Our Little Huskies Volleyball Club is the perfect way to explore the basics of an active and energetic sport. Once you get...

The Batman (2022) - Film Board

Friday, September 9, 11:30–2:30 a.m. | Fisher 135 Michigan Tech

Join Film Board as we show The Batman (2022) in Fisher 135! Tickets are $3 and concessions are $1 each. See our website for more details. https://filmboard.mtu.edu/