Tuesday, May 13, 2008 * Volume 25, Number 15
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During the past few months, Jay Austin, assistant professor, Physics and Large Lakes Observatory, has given academic seminars at Michigan Tech, the Twin Cities Geology department, and at NOAA’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He gave a keynote talk for the Minnesota Science Teachers Association’s annual meeting, and was a featured speaker at a workshop of the Institute for Journalism and Natural Resources. He has also given interviews to Wisconsin Public Radio and USA Today. The subject of all of these seminars, speeches and interviews is the role that ice plays in the annual and inter-annual thermal structure of Lake Superior. UM President Robert H. Bruininks announced that Kenneth L. Gilbertson, associate professor, Department of Health, Physical Education and Recreation and Rajiv Vaidyanathan, professor, Department of Marketing, Labovitz School of Business and Economics have received a 2008 President’s Award for Outstanding Service. The award honors active or retired faculty or staff members who have gone well beyond their regular duties and have demonstrated an unusual commitment to the University community. Laura Carlson of ITSS maintains the Web Design Reference (http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/support/Training/Online/webdesign/) web site. This site has an international following. Linda Deneen is completing a term as chair of the Nominations and Elections Committee of EDUCAUSE. EDUCAUSE is a nonprofit association whose mission is to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology. Pam Enrici, UMD Library, has been elected by the Council of Academic Professionals and Administrators (CAPA) to serve a three-year term in the University Academic Senate. Dalibor Froncek, professor, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, and Sylwia Cichacz, Fulbright Visiting Junior Scholar from University of Science and Technology, Krakow, Poland, attended Mathematical Abundance: Designs--Graphs--Number Theory, a conference honoring the 72nd birthday of Charles Vanden Eynden in Normal, IL. Froncek gave a talk “Cyclic decompositions of complete graphs into /Km,n + e/: The missing case.” Cichacz spoke about “Super edge-graceful labelings of paths,” a joint paper with Froncek and graduate student Wenjie Xu. John Goodge, professor, and Bryan Bandli, SEM Laboratory Manager, both of the Department of Geological Sciences, have begun installation of a new instrument for the microscopic examination and analysis of a wide variety of materials. The scanning electron microscope (SEM) will be capable of obtaining high resolution images, chemical data, crystallographic data and cathodoluminescence images. These capabilities are unique to the University and the region. Purchase of the instrument was made possible by a grant from the National Science Foundation, and lab modifications were provided by the Swenson College of Science and Engineering. Look forward to an open house this fall to showcase the capabilities of the new instrumentation. Alec Habig, assistant professor, and Richard Gran, assistant professor, both of the Department of Physics, have published the complete, detailed results of the MINOS first run. “Study of muon neutrino disappearance using the Fermilab Main Injector neutrino beam” appeared in Physical Review D volume 77, number 7, article 072002 (April 2008) Mahjoub Labyad, Public Health Specialist with the UMD Office of Environmental Health and Safety, has received a Safety Grant from the MN-OSHA, Department of Labor and Industry for $10,000 to implement ergonomic improvement to workstations for staff at the UMD Student Health Services. Mary Jean Menzel, UMD College In The Schools Program Coordinator, co-presented with Sandra Gonzalez, Schenectady County Community College Concurrent Enrollment Program (CEP) Director, at the October 2007 National Alliance of Concurrent Enrollment Partnerships (NACEP) Annual Conference in Salt Lake City, UT. The presentation, based on research conducted summer 2007, provided state and national insights on the value CEP high school teachers attach to tangible and intangible benefits of CEP participation. Nationally, CEP teachers as well as high school and university/college administrators agreed that the number one benefit of concurrent enrollment program participation is providing transferable college credit to students who complete college courses during high school. Jim Miller, assistant professor, Department of Geological Sciences, gave a presentation at the 81st Annual Society for Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration (SME) meeting in Duluth in April entitled: “Report on the Inaugural Year of the Precambrian Research Center at UMD”. The Precambrian Research Center hosted a workshop April in Duluth entitled: “Minnesota’s Iron and Cu-Ni-PGE Resources - A Workshop for Investors.” Faculty/Staff News --- This issue Subscribe for an E-mail notice of each Currents issue: instructions To submit material to CURRENTS, email currents@d.umn.edu The University of Minnesota is an equal opportunity educator and employer.
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