February 5, 2025

The MiCUP Scholars Program and McNair Scholars Program are currently seeking faculty to serve as mentors during summer 2025. Faculty mentors in these programs will assist students with research projects in their field of study, including engineering, technology, business, computer science, health science and more.

All faculty interested in facilitating undergraduate research with MiCUP or McNair program participants should complete the Summer 2025 Research Mentor Information Request form.

For questions about MiCUP or McNair, contact micup@mtu.edu or mcnair@mtu.edu.

Throughout the semester, our students can experience various difficulties ranging from academic issues (not attending class, earning low grades) to more personal matters (mental and physical health, family concerns, etc). Regardless of the concern, Student Affairs staff are here to support our students. We can only do so if we are made aware of the concern.

This is a reminder to utilize the Student of Concern Reporting Form. Using the form, you can easily identify the student, describe your specific concern, attach any relevant files and let us know if you'd like us to follow up with you directly. Once submitted, the Dean of Students Office reviews the form and forwards it to the appropriate team — either the Academic Intervention Team or the Early Intervention Team — ensuring a timely and effective response.

The Academic Intervention Team is responsible for mainly academic-related concerns. Please report if a student is not attending classes, is earning low grades, is failing to turn in assignments, or is the subject of other course-related concerns. The Early Intervention Team is responsible for more social, personal and behavioral concerns. These can include a sudden change in behavior, disclosed mental or physical health issues, or other things that may just seem off.

If you indicate on the form that you would like the responding office to follow up with you, we will reach out to let you know we received your form and will be reaching out to the student. At times there may be little information we can provide you about the student, but we will do our best to communicate what we can. You can always reach out to deanofstudents@mtu.edu if you have any follow-up questions or additional information to provide.

We appreciate you taking the time to report concerns so that we can all continue to support our students.

The Michigan Tech Transportation Institute (MTTI) will be holding a general meeting on Feb. 19 from 11:45 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Rooms B and C of the MUB Alumni Lounge. The luncheon meeting is open to all interested. The main topic of conversation will be the upcoming realignment of centers and institutes and MTTI’s plans for the future.

Please RSVP via the MTTI Feb. 19 General Meeting form if you haven’t already responded to a calendar invitation.

This Saturday, Feb. 8, the Rozsa Center presents Water Street Dance Milwaukee, a renowned contemporary dance company known for their dynamic and innovative performances. As part of the Rozsa Presenting Series, Water Street Dance Milwaukee will present two special shows at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. featuring a world premiere piece, giving audiences the unique opportunity to witness groundbreaking new work firsthand.

Arriving two days before their main stage performances, Water Street Dance Milwaukee will actively engage with the local community through various activities. These include school performances, a visit to The Bluffs senior living facility, masterclasses for young people at the Superior School of Dance, and a community dance workout class.

Event Details:

• What: Water Street Dance Milwaukee, part of the Rozsa Presenting Series
• When: Saturday, Feb. 8, at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m.
• Where: Rozsa Center for the Performing Arts
• Tickets: Get Tickets

Enjoy some delicious homemade baked goods and help Michigan Tech’s Tau Kappa Epsilon (TKE) chapter support St. Jude’s children’s cancer research.

Visit us today, Feb. 5, during Michigan Tech’s All-Nighter from 4-10 p.m., or until supplies run out. The sale will be set up behind the TKE statue site, just west of the University’s Administration Building. Won’t be on campus for the All-Nighter? Stop by on your way home!

Suggested donation is $3 per bag or $5 for two bags. Cash and Venmo accepted. Some allergen-free options will be available.

The A. E. Seaman Mineral Museum is celebrating Winter Carnival with a 15% Off Sale* this week, from Monday, Feb. 3, through Saturday, Feb. 8, in the gift shop. With home decor, mineral kits, games, international to local specimens and more, the gift shop has exciting items for everyone!

The museum is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Saturday. Museum admission is waived for Michigan Tech students, staff and faculty with a valid Tech ID.

*Exclusions apply. Cannot be combined with other discounts.

Dive in with Michigan Tech Aquatics! Registration for our PADI Open Water SCUBA Course is open now. The course is conducted over two weekends and includes:

• Ten hours of academic instruction (some coursework to be completed independently)
• Ten hours of confined water training (SDC Pool)
• Four certification dives in Lake Superior (Marquette)

Upon registration, students will be given all required reading material and paperwork to complete prior to the start of the course. Class size is limited.

Course Dates and Times:

• Friday, March 14:
  • 5-8 p.m. in SDC 238
  • 8-10 p.m. in the SDC Pool
• Saturday, March 15:
  • 7-9 a.m. in the SDC Pool
  • 12-4 p.m. in SDC 238
  • 5-10 p.m. in the SDC Pool
• Sunday, March 16:
  • 8-10 a.m. in the SDC Pool
  • 10 a.m. to noon in SDC 238
• Saturday and Sunday, April 5-6 or April 12-13:
  • Open Dives in Marquette

Register for the PADI Open Water SCUBA Course.

Questions? Contact Aquatics Manager Annie Bengry at 906-487-2995 or ambengry@mtu.edu.

Michigan Tech Recreation is excited to announce that registration is now open for the American Red Cross Lifeguard Certification Blended Learning Course being held at Michigan Tech's SDC Pool from March 18-23. This intensive six-day course offers a comprehensive certification in Lifeguarding, First Aid, CPR and AED.

Learn more about the course on Michigan Tech Recreation's Lifeguard Certification page.

Registration closes on March 10 at 11:59 p.m. Participants must be at least 15 years old. The cost is $200 per participant. Course sessions will be held at the SDC Pool.

Course Dates and Times:

• Tuesday, March 18, from 6-7:30 p.m.
• Wednesday, March 19, from 6-9:30 p.m.
• Thursday, March 20, from 6-9:30 p.m.
• Friday, March 21, from 5:30-9:30 p.m.
• Saturday, March 22, from 12:30-9:30 p.m.
• Sunday, March 23, from 3-9 p.m.

Register for the American Red Cross Lifeguard Certification Course.

Want to Receive Academic Credit?
For additional details on registering for this course to receive academic credit, please reach out to Aquatics Manager Annie Bengry at ambengry@mtu.edu or 906-487-2995.

Associate Professor Jason L. Harman (PsyHF) is a co-author of a paper published in the Journal of Transportation Engineering.

The paper is titled “Understanding and Modeling Drivers’ Diversion Behavior during Congestion.”

Along with collaborators at Louisiana State University, Harman is working to understand how drivers make decisions when dealing with traffic congestion. Traffic congestion causes significant economic losses in the U.S. due to delays and fuel consumption and can be life threatening in large-scale evacuations from disasters, such as hurricanes or wildfires.

When traffic is congested, alternate routes may be more efficient. However, if too many people take an alternate route, the problem may become even worse. Traditional modeling of traffic patterns and flow has been insufficient to predict and mitigate traffic congestion in part because the models tend to ignore the humans that drive the cars.

The paper’s authors addressed this problem by developing a cognitive model of drivers’ decision-making when faced with traffic congestion. The team tested their model using anonymized GPS data from about 20 million car trips in Sydney, Australia. Among the most unique and significant contributions of this work was the development of a methodology to identify and graphically depict commute trips and assess the impact of prevailing traffic conditions and related driving factors on a person’s likelihood of making a diversion decision (getting off of a congested road to take back roads to their destination). The team is currently developing a proposal for the National Science Foundation to advance the current work with applications to reduce costly congestion in the short term, and to provide a scientific foundation that keeps human preference and decision-making a key consideration as we move to a future of driverless cars.

Cassy Tefft de Muñoz (CEO) was quoted by NBC 26 Northeast Wisconsin in a story about Michigan Tech's Mind Trekkers roadshow hosting 2,500 middle school students at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College on Jan. 29. Tefft de Muñoz emphasized the value of providing students hands-on opportunities to explore and experiment with STEM activities.

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Joint Forces mentioned Michigan Tech’s Keweenaw Research Center (KRC) in a story about General Dynamics Land Systems’ successful demonstration of the ARV C4/UAS to the U.S. Marine Corps. The KRC was a principal test location as part of a series of trials for the Advanced Reconnaissance Vehicle from March to December 2024.

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97.9 WGRD-FM in Grand Rapids mentioned Michigan Tech in a story about Michigan’s top colleges and universities based on rankings from WalletHub. Michigan Tech ranked No. 7 in the state, with high marks in campus safety and career outcomes.

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The Daily Mining Gazette covered Michigan Tech Huskies cross country teams earning multiple postseason awards. The men’s team earned an automatic qualifier to the NCAA Cross Country Championships and nine student-athletes received USTFCCCA All-Academic honors. Senior Sam Lange was also awarded the GLIAC Commissioner’s Award for athletic and academic achievement.

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The Daily Mining Gazette covered Michigan Tech’s Nordic ski team winning the overall team title at the St. Scholastica CCSA Invitational in Duluth on Feb. 1 and 2.

A Cup of Joe with the Safety Crew

Michigan Tech’s Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) team will be hosting our next monthly Safety Round Table: a place for all Huskies to share a cup of coffee and learn about the importance of campus health and safety.

We invite you to join us today, Feb. 5, from 9-10 a.m. in the MUB Superior Room.

Topic: Brian Lane will present "Safety - A Just Culture: Understanding its Roots and Role in Our Organization." Future talks will expand on the creation of this environment.

If you have a topic you want discussed, please email ehs-help@mtu.edu. We would be happy to present on a safety topic you are interested in.

Safety training compliance is vital for providing a safe Husky learning and working environment. This month, we want to hear from you and understand your safety compliance challenges and how to overcome those roadblocks with features within the Safety Skills system. A brief overview of Safety Skill compliance capabilities will be presented before opening the floor for Q&A.

In addition, there will be an informal opportunity to talk with our campus safety professionals for other safety-related questions and issues.

So mark your calendars and come ask the questions you have always wanted to ask and get the answers you need about Michigan Tech Safety programs, legal compliance issues and additional resources… and have a cup of Joe with the Safety Crew!

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Guardians of the North Annual All You Can Eat Pancakes

The Guardians of the North Air Force ROTC Detachment 400 is hosting our annual All You Can Eat Pancake Booth during Michigan Technological University's Winter Carnival All-Nighter!

Get hot, fresh pancakes for $7 per person or $10 per two people, starting at 6 p.m. tonight, Feb. 5, and continuing until 2 a.m. tomorrow, Feb. 6.

Come meet the Guardians of the North members and claim the title of Pancake Champion for eating the most pancakes! We will be located in the main hallway of Fisher Hall.

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Introducing the Artificial Intelligence Colloquium Series

Michigan Tech's Institute of Computing and Cybersystems (ICC) and its Center for Artificial Intelligence are excited to announce a new event series: the Artificial Intelligence Colloquium Series.

This series will showcase cutting-edge research, applications and developments in artificial intelligence from Michigan Tech students and faculty. Each session is designed to foster collaboration, inspire innovation and build a vibrant AI research community at Michigan Tech.

If you would like to present in the series, or have any questions about the event, you can email Vinh Nguyen at vinhn@mtu.edu. Food and refreshments will be provided.

The first session in the series is today, Feb. 5, at noon in EERC 216. Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE) Ph.D. student Nazanin Mahjourian will present “LabelAlchemy: Refining Dataset Labels Using Vision-Language Models.”

From the abstract:
The success of AI in industrial applications is heavily dependent on the quality of the datasets used to train models. However, large-scale datasets often suffer from label noise, inconsistencies, and errors, which can negatively impact model performance. This problem is particularly pronounced in industrial domains, where obtaining high-quality labels is costly and time-consuming. In this presentation, we discuss a method named LabelAlchemy to sanitize the labels of a large industrial dataset, FactoryNet, which contains both human-generated and web-scraped labels using CLIP vision-language model. The CLIP model is a state-of-the-art vision-language model that has a dual-encoder architecture with separate encoders for images and text based on transformers, which employ multi-head self-attention mechanisms to model complex relationships within sequences. The text encoder processes tokenized input sequences and captures contextual nuances of words within a sentence. Similarly, the image encoder processes visual features extracted from input images. The resulting embeddings are mapped to a common latent space, allowing CLIP to measure the similarity between image-text pairs effectively. LabelAlchemy is shown to sanitize the FactoryNet dataset and improve the performance of classification algorithms.

Save the Dates: Following Wednesday's session, the remaining dates of the Artificial Intelligence Colloquium Series for the spring semester are:

• Wednesday, Feb. 19, at noon in EERC 216
• Wednesday, March 12, at noon in EERC 216
• Wednesday, March 26, at noon in EERC 216

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

Isle Royale Art Exhibition - Michigan Tech Art

Wednesday, February 5, 8 a.m.–8 p.m. | Rozsa Center for the Performing Arts, Rozsa Galleries A-Space

MICHIGAN TECH ART SERIES EVENT Enter into a world of artistic expression inspired by the wilderness of Isle Royale. The artworks showcased in this exhibition have all been...

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Artificial Intelligence Colloquium

Wednesday, February 5, 12–1 p.m. | Electrical Energy Resources Center (EERC), 216

The Institute of Computing and Cybersystems (ICC) and its Center for Artificial Intelligence (AI) are excited to announce a new event series: The AI Colloquium Series. This...

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Michigan Tech Research Forum

Wednesday, February 5, 3:30–5:00 p.m. | Memorial Union Building (MUB), Ballroom B

Please join us for the Michigan Tech Research Forum New Faculty Showcase. Fourteen new faculty members from across the university will showcase their research with the goal of...

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C4 Fat Tire Bike Track

Wednesday, February 5, 4–8 p.m. | Douglass Houghton Hall (DHH), Out front

The Copper Country Cycling Club (C4) offers students and community members a chance to try out fat bikes during the Winter Carnival All-Nighter from 5-8 PM. Bikes and helmets,...

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SoundGirls General Meeting!

Wednesday, February 5, 5–6 p.m. | Walker 210

Join us in Walker 210 at 5pm every Wednesday for our general meeting!

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Weekly Meeting

Wednesday, February 5, 5–6 p.m. | Fourth Floor of the MEEM

We meet on the fourth floor of the MEEM to discuss plans for the week and work on on going projects. All are welcome to attend.

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Board Game Night

Wednesday, February 5, 6–8 p.m. | MUB Commons

Join Jim Grider and our student staff in the Wads Annex to connect with others at Board Game Nights! Spend time practicing intentional self-care while destressing from...

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Guardians of the North, Air Force ROTC All-Nighter Pancakes

Wednesday, February 5, 6 p.m.–2 a.m. | Fisher Hall

The Air Force ROTC cadets are hosting their annual pancake fundraiser during Winter Carnival All-Nighter. Everyone is invited. Proceeds support the cadets in leadership...

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How can I be Saved?

Wednesday, February 5, 6–7 p.m. | 1st Floor, Opie Van Pelt Library

A bible study geared towards the salvific work of Christ on the Cross

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Mocktails

Wednesday, February 5, 7–10 p.m. | Memorial Union Building (MUB)

Join the Advisory Council on Student Well-Being at Michigan Tech for Mocktails at Winter Carnival, an event designed to bring fun and flavor to your Winter Carnival...

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USG Mini Golf and Prizes

Wednesday, February 5, 7–10 p.m. | Memorial Union Building (MUB), Alumni Lounge

Get ready to tee off at the USG Mini Golf and Prizes event during Michigan Tech’s Winter Carnival! Whether you're a seasoned putter or a total beginner, this is your chance to...

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Winter Carnival Grilled Cheese Sale!

Wednesday, February 5, 7 p.m.–3 a.m. | Fisher Hall, Outside

Grilled Cheese on the All-Nighter! Arnold Air Society has been selling grilled cheese at Winter Carnival for years, and this year is no different! While you're walking around...

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Karaoke

Wednesday, February 5, 8 p.m.–12 a.m. | Memorial Union Building (MUB), MUB Commons

Hit the stage and let your inner superstar shine at the MUB Board Karaoke event during Michigan Tech’s Winter Carnival! Select your favorite songs, grab the mic, and unleash...

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Broomball All-Star Games

Wednesday, February 5, 9–11 p.m. | Campus Mall, Broomball Rinks

Join us for the All-Star Broomball Games during Winter Carnival, a celebration of one of Michigan Tech’s most beloved traditions for over 50 years! Featuring an exciting Skill...

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Winter Carnival Logo Backdrop

Wednesday, February 5, 10 p.m.–8 a.m. | Memorial Union Building (MUB), Commons

Want to add to even more memories of WInter Carnival? Come take photos at the Winter Carnival Logo backdrop! Located in the MUB Commons. Available for pictures all night, it's...

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Laser Light Show

Wednesday, February 5, 11:15 p.m. | Michigan Tech Campus, Walker Lawn, on the side of the Walker Arts and Humanities Center

Come watch our new dazzling light show themed around dragons, knights, and legendary sights projected directly onto the Walker Arts and Humanities Center! If the All-Star...

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Winter Carnival

February 5, all day | Michigan Tech Campus

Organized by Blue Key National Honor Society since 1934, Winter Carnival started in 1922 and has grown to become one of the largest annual winter festivals in the nation....