February 27, 2023

Michigan Tech has invited four semifinalists to interview for Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs.  Each semifinalist will give two public presentations sharing their vision for MTU within the context of the strategic plan and how their experience has prepared them for this task.  

Please mark your calendar to attend John Kiss’s presentation on one of the following dates: today (Feb. 27) at 3 p.m. or tomorrow (Feb. 28) at 3 p.m.  

All presentations will occur in the East Reading Room of the Van Pelt and Opie Library.  

An opportunity to provide candidate feedback will be available on the search webpage at the conclusion of each semifinalist’s visit. Evaluation forms for candidates who have already presented are available now.

There is still time to submit your nominations for the Student Leadership Awards! On behalf of the University, we are seeking nominations for the President's Award for Leadership, the Dean of Students Award for Possibilities and the William and Josephine Balconi Community Service Award, along with a variety of other awards to recognize the efforts and achievements of our Michigan Tech community. The recipient of each award will be honored at the 29th Annual Student Leadership Awards Ceremony at 6 p.m. April 14 in the Memorial Union Ballroom.

The nomination process is simple. All awards and their information can be found on the Student Leadership Awards webpage. For each individual award, click on the award title to read more about the award and its requirements, then complete and submit the nomination form.

Nominations for the President's Award for Leadership, Dean of Students Award for Possibilities, the new William and Josephine Balconi Community Service Award and the Percy Julian Award are due by noon on Friday (March 3). Nominations for all other Student Leadership Awards are due by noon on March 17.

Questions concerning the awards can be directed to Student Leadership and Involvement at activities@mtu.edu or 7-1963. Take a minute to nominate a student or colleague today! Thank you in advance for supporting our recognition efforts and celebrating our University community.

Midterm grades are due at noon today (Feb. 27).

Midterm grades must be submitted for all first-year students and transfer students with fewer than 30 credits. The Waino Wahtera Center for Student Success coordinates outreach to these students based on the midterm grades submitted. This supports timely intervention for students who may be experiencing academic and/or other difficulties.

Electronic Grade Submission
Instructors have two options for electronic grade submission. They may submit grades via Banner Self-Service by going directly into Banweb, entering grades and clicking submit. Those with larger class sizes where grades have already been totaled in Canvas may submit grades via Canvas by going to CourseTools and using the Grade Wizard to first extract the grades from Canvas and then submit them to Banner.

If grades are submitted using Banner Self-Service, only the students who require a midterm grade will appear. For those who submit their grades via Canvas, a first-year student column has been added to identify these students in your course grade book.

Satisfactory grades (A-C) should be entered as “SA” and Unsatisfactory grades (CD-F) as “UN”.

Midterm grades are for full-semester courses only. Grades not turned in by the deadline will have an M (missing) grade assigned.

Sō Percussion with Shodekeh Talifero — Thursday, March 2, 7:30 p.m. 
Rozsa Center for the Performing Arts
Presented by the Rozsa Center for the Performing Arts and Michigan Tech Music
Performed by Sō Percussion with Shodekeh Talifero

The adventurous percussion group Sō Percussion is joined by groundbreaking beatboxer and composer Dominic “Shodekeh” Talifero. The contemporary music program will include a diverse repertoire from contemporary “classics” to new works in an “exhilarating blend of precision and anarchy, rigor and bedlam” (The New Yorker). Journey into new worlds of sound with this intriguing collaboration.
Learn more.

Get your tickets online, at 906-487-1906 or at the Rozsa Box Office from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Students, bring your HuskyCard to use your student tickets or tap in for Student Rush.

Please join us tomorrow (Feb. 28) for an hour of laid-back Francophone setting with French natives and other Francophiles. All levels welcome. Walker 120A, from 5-6 p.m.

Note that we meet every second Tuesday: March 14, March 28 and April 11.

Friends and family are welcome!

Join us tomorrow (Feb. 28) at La Peña! Come unwind and meet new people at the Spanish Conversation Hour, all while you refresh your Spanish! Everybody is welcome. We will meet from 5-6 p.m., at the Humanities Digital Media Zone (HDMZ), Walker 120A.

Other Peña dates of the semester: March 14 and March 28.

A journal article co-authored by Wenbin Zhang, assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science department, is one of a collection of 2022 top 10 downloaded articles on the Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews (WIREs) Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery journal website.

The article was published in March 2022 and appeared in the May/June 2022 issue of WIREs Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery (volume 12, issue 3).

The title of the article is, “A survey on datasets for fairness-aware machine learning.” Zhang’s co-authors are Tai Le Quy, Arjun Roy and Vasileios Iosifidis of Leibniz University Hannover, Germany; and Eirini Ntoutsi of Free University Berlin, Germany.

Zhang is a member of the Institute of Computing and Cybersystems’ (ICC) Centers for Data Sciences (DataS), Biocomputing and Digital Health (BDH) and Human-Centered Computing (HCC).

WIREs publishes review articles that are invited, written and peer-reviewed by experts to connect interdisciplinary and complementary fields.

Several results by Iosif Pinelis (Math) have been used outside of mathematical sciences — most recently in the paper "Chaos in the three-site Bose-Hubbard model — classical vs quantum" by G. Nakerst and M. Haque, published in Physical Review E.  A preprint version of the paper is available online. 

This Physical Review paper uses results published by Pinelis in the paper "Exact bounds on the closeness between the Student and standard normal distributions," which appeared in ESAIM: Probability and Statistics (volume 19) in 2015; and in the paper "Optimal-order bounds on the rate of convergence to normality in the multivariate delta method" (co-authored with R. Molzon), which appeared in the Electronic Journal of Statistics (volume 10, issue 1) in 2016.

The Steel Bridge Task Force has selected Ryan J. Sherman ’07, professional engineer and assistant professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, as the recipient of the 2023 Robert J. Dexter Memorial Award Lecture.

The Steel Bridge Task Force consists of the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI), the National Steel Bridge Alliance (NSBA) and the American Association of State and Highway Transportation Officials (AASHTO) T-14 Technical Committee for Structural Steel Design. The program was instituted in 2005 in memory of Robert J. Dexter, an associate professor of civil engineering at the University of Minnesota, who was an internationally recognized expert on steel fracture and fatigue problems in bridges.

Sherman joined the faculty in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology as an assistant professor in 2019. He earned his B.S. in Civil Engineering from Michigan Technological University and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from Purdue University.

Department of Applied Computing (AC) faculty candidate Ronghua Xu will give a technical presentation on Friday (March 3) at 1 p.m. online via Zoom.

The title of Xu's talk is "Secure-By-Design Federated Microchain Fabric for Internet-Of-Things (Iot) System."

Read Xu's bio and abstract on the Computing News Blog.

The College of Forest Resources and Environmental Science (CFRES) will have a seminar with speaker Kurt Kipfmueller, associate professor of geography, environment and society at the University of Minnesota.

The seminar will be held at 12:30 p.m. Thursday (March 2) in Noblet G002.

Kipfmueller's talk is titled “Forgotten Fires: Restorying Great Lakes Red Pine Fire Regimes.”

From the abstract:
While most of the attention on issues related to wildland fire in the US have been focused on western landscapes, fire has historically been a critical process in the pine forests of the Upper Great Lakes. The reduction of fire over the last 100 years, related to ignition/cultural suppression as well as direct suppression of fires has diminished the memories of past fire, and led to substantial changes in the forest landscape. Over the last 50 years our understanding of the role of fire in Great Lakes landscapes has become more refined with additional tree ring-based studies of fire history that better capture the occurrence of frequent, low intensity surface fires. In this presentation I’ll provide an overview of a growing network of fire history sites in red pine (or former red pine) landscapes across the Great Lakes. This work provides a better context for understanding the relative roles of climate and people in driving fire over the past three centuries. A few case studies will be highlighted to illustrate the importance of understanding the particularities of place and the potential use of fire for managing resources over time. The network is helping to re-initiate, re-engage, and restory the reciprocal relationships between people, pine, and fire, particularly in Indigenous communities.

Join Michael Maxwell (VPA), Robert Schneider (Math) and special guests for an interactive workshop and panel discussion that combines music and math.

Maxwell and Schneider will demonstrate a synthesizer from a non-Pythagorean musical scale based on logarithms, and interactive stations will allow attendees to explore and experience the scales.

Refreshments will be served. Staff, faculty, students and friends are welcome!

• What: New Music from Mathematics: an Interactive Workshop
• When: Monday, March 13, from 2-4 p.m. 
• Where: East Reading Room of the Van Pelt and Opie Library

For additional information, visit the Art in Silico webpage.

Tim Havens (ICC/GLRC) and Ph.D. student Evan Lucas (electrical engineering) will present a workshop highlighting the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and art.

This is an interactive exploration of AI art models. A brief history of AI art will be presented, followed by an opportunity to play with some different AI art models.

The workshop will be held in Dillman 101 from 5-6:30 p.m. Wednesday (March 1).

• What: Interactive AI Art Workshop
• When: Wednesday, March 1, from 5-6:30 p.m. 
• Where: Dillman 101

For more information, visit the Art in Silico webpage.

Dennis Livesay (CC/ICC) is the principal investigator (PI) on a project that has received a $154,762 other sponsored activities grant from the Michigan Economic Development Corporation.

The project is titled "Talent Action Team (TAT) EV and Mobility Grant."

David Lawrence (VPR/ICC) is a co-PI on this project.

Andrew Fiss and James Hammond (HU), and many rhetoric, theory, and culture (RTC) alumni presented Feb. 16-18 at the Conference on College Composition and Communication, held in Chicago, Illinois.

Fiss gave an oral presentation on “Computing between Languages and Mathematics” about historical considerations of computers and writing from Grace Hopper and Winifred Asprey, and Hammond presented on “Infrastructuring for Empathy in Writing Assessment” about locating empathy in current teaching and understandings of writing.

Additionally, Fiss and RTC alum Isidore K. Dorpenyo ’16 were recognized with Technical and Scientific Communication Awards.

The Keweenaw Report mentioned Lindsay Hiltunen (Library) in a story about Keweenaw residents serving on state boards. Hiltunen, a current member of Michigan’s Historical Records Advisory Board, was reappointed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to serve another term ending in 2026.

*****

Yahoo! News mentioned Michigan Tech in a story about Northwestern Michigan College’s efforts to recruit students for its survey technician program. The story, picked up from the Traverse City Record-Eagle, said Michigan Tech is one of only two Michigan colleges to offer a bachelor’s degree in surveying.

*****

Joe Shawhan (ATH) was quoted by FloHockey, the Rink Live, and the Daily Mining Gazette in stories previewing Michigan Tech hockey’s CCHA series against Minnesota State.

*****

The Tillamook Headlight Herald and southern Oregon’s World mentioned Michigan Tech researchers as collaborators in a study that suggests soil moisture is the key determinant of how well soil stores carbon. The story was originally published by Oregon State University.

*****

The Yakima Herald mentioned Michigan Tech and referenced the College of Engineering’s 2023 Engineering Salary Statistics page in a story listing 15 college majors that lead to top-paying jobs.

*****

Lake Superior Magazine mentioned Michigan Tech in previews of the UP-Cycled Fashion Show held Friday and Saturday (Feb. 24-25) at the McArdle Theatre, and the Keweenaw Symphony Orchestra concert held Saturday (Feb. 25) at the Rozsa Center for the Performing Arts.

*****

WLUC TV6 mentioned Michigan Tech in a story previewing the world premiere of viola concerto “Plein Air” at the Keweenaw Symphony Orchestra concert last Saturday (Feb. 25) at the Rozsa Center for the Performing Arts.

*****

The Keweenaw Report mentioned Michigan Tech in a story about the Sparkplug Awards, which will be held at the Memorial Union Building on Thursday (March 2).

*****

Hometown Focus in northern Minnesota quoted Julie (Varichak) Marinucci ’02 (B.S. Mining Engineering) in a story about women who are leaders in minerals, mining and related fields.

*****

Muskegon County Legal News published a feature story about Krysten (Cooper) Hergert ’14 (B.S. Scientific and Technical Communication), currently a third-year law student and teaching assistant at Western Michigan University..

*****

The JAX Chamber of northeast Florida published a news release mentioning the promotion of George Miller ’99 (B.S. Civil Engineering) to executive vice president of construction engineering and inspection for England-Thims & Miller Inc.

Virtual Lunch and Learn: 'Get Started and Save for the Future You'

Join Fidelity in a virtual, interactive lunch and learn, "Get Started and Save for the Future You," on Friday (March 3) at noon.

Learn the benefits of your workplace savings plan, how to enroll and small steps you can take to save more.

Registration for this workshop is required. Register on Webex.

*****

Due Wednesday: GLRC/ICC Rapid Seedling Research Funding Applications

Applications for the Great Lakes Research Center/Institute of Computing and Cybersystems (GLRC/ICC) 2023 Spring Semester Rapid Research Seedling Funding Opportunity are due Wednesday (March 1).

The intent of this funding is to provide faculty and research staff funds for idea development and data collection that will quickly enable large externally sponsored funding requests.

Proposals will be accepted from Michigan Tech tenured, tenure-track and research faculty, and research scientists and engineers. Any individual researcher is eligible to receive up to one award per calendar year as a principal investigator (PI).

Awards will be announced within one month of the funding cycle deadline. Projects should have a duration of one semester with request amounts not to exceed $10,000.

Awardees must be an affiliated member of the GLRC and/or ICC and are expected to assign a Center/Institute of the GLRC or ICC to any subsequent proposals and awards generated using the data developed/enabled with the rapid seedling funding.

The application form, additional information and instructions can be found in the Member Resources section of the GLRC Institute webpage and on the ICC website. Questions will be addressed by emailing glrc-icc-admin-l@mtu.edu.

*****

ACSHF Accelerated Master's Program Info Session

Demand for human factors practitioners is on the rise, with job opportunities in industry, government and academia. Want to give yourself a competitive edge? Earn a master's degree in applied cognitive science and human factors (ACSHF) in just one additional year beyond your bachelor's!

Find out how by attending the ACSHF Accelerated Master's Program Info Session & Pizza! The session will be held from 6-7 p.m. tonight (Feb. 27) in Fisher 101.

Presented by Kevin Trewartha (CLS/KIP), associate professor and ACSHF graduate program director.

*****

Photo Exhibition: ‘Ukraine: War and Resistance’

Ukrainian students on campus kindly invite you all to attend the photo exhibition by American and Ukrainian artists "Ukraine: War and Resistance" on the second floor of the Van Pelt and Opie Library (the corridor that leads to the Rekhi bridge).

The exhibition is on display now and will be there until Friday (March 3).

View the exhibition poster.

*****

Technical Presentation with AC Faculty Candidate Yili Ren

Department of Applied Computing (AC) faculty candidate Yili Ren will give a technical presentation today (Feb. 27) at 1 p.m. online via Zoom.

The title of Ren's talk is "Intelligent Wireless Systems: from Human Sensing to Object Detection."

Read more on the Computing News Blog.

*****

Feedback Requested on Accessible and Affordable Course Materials at MTU

The Committee for Accessible and Affordable Learning Materials (CAALM) is looking for feedback on accessible and affordable course materials for Michigan Tech.

CAALM serves as a contact point for anyone in the University community with questions, concerns or feedback regarding the affordability and accessibility of textbooks and other course materials.

In the coming months, CAALM will discuss ways in which we can best engage Michigan Tech students, instructors, faculty and graduate teaching instructors/assistants in conversations on this topic. We’d like to hear from the campus community for ideas to reduce barriers to textbooks or for proven methods of making course materials more accessible for all students.

Questions and comments for the committee are welcome at any time. Please email the CAALM chair, Annelise Doll, at akdoll@mtu.edu.

*****

RTC Colloquium: 'Research Opportunities and Graduate Study'

The Department of Humanities announces a Rhetoric, Theory, and Culture (RTC) Colloquium being held via Zoom from 12-12:50 p.m. today (Feb. 27).

The colloquium is titled “Research Opportunities and Graduate Study.” The following RTC graduate students will be presenting their research progress:

• Brilynn Janckila will present “Networking for Fellowship: Dollhouses and American Girls." 
  
  From the abstract:
  As graduate students, funding, research, and publishing/conference opportunities outside of the department are vital to us, especially as networking and professional development. In this case, I was able to secure a research fellowship, a conference presentation, and funding through the department through the development of one project. By working closely with members of my committee, I attained a funded research fellowship at The Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, NY. While at The Strong, I completed archival research on physical dollhouses from as early as the 1800s and in October 2022, I presented some of my findings at the MPCA/ACA conference in Chicago, IL., also serving as the Girlhood Studies area chair. This presentation focuses on research and funding and how networking internally and externally can make it possible.
  
  
• Eugene Agyei will present “Engagement and Academia: UN Climate Change Conferences on Campus and Beyond."
  
  From the abstract:
  Climate change discourses have become essential for several academic disciplines, including the humanities. Teachers and students alike, no matter their level, have been asked to partake in this discussion in different ways. For scholars in particular, various opportunities present themselves for us to be engaged. Connected to the financial resources required, these opportunities do not always come in academic contexts. In this colloquium, I share my experience attending UN conferences as a student. I will focus on how I have found such opportunities (in and outside of campus) and how they have helped me in my own research and teaching. 

Join the colloquium via Zoom.

To receive a calendar invite for this event, please email humanities@mtu.edu.

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

RTC Colloquium: Research Opportunities and Graduate Study

Monday, February 27, 12:00 p.m.–12:50 p.m.

RTC graduate students will be presenting their research progress at the Spring RTC Colloquium. Brilynn Janckila, “Networking for Fellowship: Dollhouses and American...

Appled Computing Faculty Candidate Yili Ren

Monday, February 27, 1 p.m.

Department of Applied Computing faculty candidate Yili Ren will give a technical presentation on Monday, February 27, online via Zoom. Join the Zoom meeting here. Talk...

Changing Culture: Department Chairs Make a Big Difference

Monday, February 27, 1:00 p.m.–2:30 p.m.

The ADVANCE Midwest Partnership project is offering a virtual workshop for Department Chairs: “Changing Culture from the Top: Department Chairs Make a Big Difference” on...

Mass spectrometric quantitation of apurinic/apyrimidinic sites in DNA of mammalian cells exposed to tobacco-specific nitrosamines and nicotine products

Monday, February 27, 3 p.m.–4 p.m. | Great Lakes Research Center (GLRC), 202

Environmental Engineering Graduate Seminar Jiehong Guo, Assistant Professor, Civil, Environmental, and Geospatial Engineering Abstract: Cigarette smoking is an established...

Information Session: ACSHF Accelerated Master's Program

Monday, February 27, 6 p.m.–7 p.m. | Fisher Hall, 101

Demand for human factors practitioners is on the rise, with job opportunities in industry, government, and academia. Want to give yourself a competitive edge? Earn a master's...

Money Matters

Monday, February 27, 6 p.m.

Husky Bites presents Special Guest Dean Johnson Dean, College of Business James and Dolores Trethewey APMP Professor, College of Business Director of Applied Portfolio...

College of Sciences and Arts Hangout - Part 2

Monday, February 27, 7:00 p.m.–8:30 p.m.

Michigan Tech's College of Sciences and Arts is excited to meet you! Join us (virtually) to hear students share more about the college, the majors offered, and answer any...

Adult and Youth Huskies Tennis and Pickleball Lessons (Session 1)

February 27, all day | Michigan Tech Gates Tennis Center

Youth Huskies Tennis Lessons: After school and weekend Youth Huskies Group Tennis Lessons are available this spring! Join in by age group and level for some fun on the tennis...