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June 26, 2003 Vol. 13, No. 48
The "8 1/2 x 11 News" is published each week by the Department of Public
Relations. News of campus interest should be sent to
2001 Editions are available online. 2002 Editions are available online. Previous editions are available online.
COURT RULING CONFIRMS THAT DIVERSITY ENHANCES EDUCATION University officials said the U.S. Supreme Court's recent ruling on the use of affirmative action in the admissions process "profoundly confirms" Carnegie Mellon's belief that diversity benefits education. The Supreme Court's split decision on two cases filed against the University of Michigan ruled that "points" should not be awarded to prospective students based on race alone, but that race could be used as a factor in the admissions process in an effort to increase diversity. — "Carnegie Mellon and colleges and universities everywhere will be enriched by this affirmation of the principle that diversity is a compelling state interest which justifies the use of race as one factor in determining admissions," said President Jared L. Cohon. President Cohon said affirmative action principles had been essential to making Carnegie Mellon a diverse university. — Carnegie Mellon was the leader of an amicus curiae, or friend of the court brief, signed by 38 colleges and universities across the country earlier this year in support of the University of Michigan. PSYCHOLOGY FACULTY MEMBER EARNS DOHERTY PROFESSORSHIP Psychology professor Sheldon Cohen has been named the first Robert E. Doherty Professor of Psychology. Cohen is one of the architects of Carnegie Mellon's highly respected health psychology program, and has helped turn Pittsburgh into the world's leading center of health psychology research. He is internationally recognized for his scientific contributions toward understanding the effects of social and environmental stress on human behavior and health. Robert E. Doherty was the third president of the Carnegie Institute of Technology from 1936 to 1950. TICKETS FOR ANNUAL KENNYWOOD PICNIC ON SALE MONDAY This year's employee picnic at Kennywood Park, presented by Staff Council, is Saturday, July 12. Pavilions 8 and 9 will be reserved all day for Carnegie Mellon employees, their families and friends. Tickets to the park will be sold at the following locations: Monday, June 30, 11:30 a.m. - 1 p.m., University Center (UC); Tuesday, July 8, 11:30 a.m. - 1 p.m., UC; Wednesday, July 9, 11:30 a.m. - 1 p.m., Mellon Institute; Wednesday, July 9, 4:30 - 5:30 p.m., UC; and Thursday, July 10, 11:30 a.m. - 1 p.m., UC. —Employees presenting their own Carnegie Mellon ID may purchase one Ride-All-Day ticket for $5 (valid only on July 12). Four additional Ride-All-Day tickets may be purchased for $12 each. Five additional Ride-All-Day tickets are $17 each, and general admission tickets are $5. Tickets can only be purchased with cash. COMPUTER RECYCLING EVENT A SUCCESS More than 56 tons of computers and computer equipment were collected at last weekend's computer recycling event on campus, sponsored by Dell Computers. Old equipment was collected from 324 cars and several school districts and businesses, including South Butler, Woodland Hills, Gateway, North Hills, Mt. Lebanon, Beaver County Area Vo-Tech, Pittsburgh Public Schools, Turner Construction and Ansys. Barbara Kviz, environmental coordinator for Environmental Health and Safety, said that the event "could not have been pulled off without the dedicated volunteers that worked tirelessly throughout the day." —"I wanted to express my deepest appreciation for the outstanding work and support for the Dell Recycling event on June 21," said Michele Glaze, national coordinator for Dell Recycling. "We collected more than 56 tons of unwanted computer equipment (our third-largest event!), which will be diverted from landfills and put back into the raw product stream. Plus, we educated millions of residents about how to responsibly recycle. It is your individual and our collective efforts that made this event a great success." NEWS BRIEFS —The 16th Software Engineering Process Group Conference (SEPG 2004), "Enterprise Process Involvement: Better Products, Dependable Services, Cultures of Excellence," will be held March 8 - 11, 2004, in Orlando, Fla. The deadline for submitting abstracts and volunteering as a reviewer is Monday, June 30. Information about submitting an abstract and volunteering is available at http://www.sei.cmu.edu/sepg/abstract-submit.html/. SEPG 2004 is the premier international conference and exposition for software process professionals who want to take a systematic approach to improving people, process and technology at their organizations. —Visitor daily parking rates in the East Campus Garage will increase effective July 1. The rates for the general public are as follows: less than 1 hour-$1.50; 1-3 hours-$3; 3-5 hours-$4.50; 5-7 hours-$7; 7-9 hours-$9. The Carnegie Mellon discounted rate will not increase. For more information about the discounted rate and how to receive it, visit http://bizservweb.pc.cc.cmu.edu/parking/ —Senior management participated in a desktop emergency response drill on June 20 led by Robert Emery, executive director of Environmental Health and Safety and associate professor of Occupational Health at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. The drill, sponsored by Carnegie Mellon's Department of Environmental Health and Safety, involved all areas of college services to ensure proper reaction in times of emergency. PERSONAL MENTION —Peng Li, doctoral student in Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), and Larry Pileggi, ECE professor and director of the Center for Silicon System Implementation, won the Best Paper Award for their paper "NORM: Compact Model Order Reduction of Weakly Nonlinear Systems" at the IEEE/ACM Design Automation Conference earlier this month in Anaheim, Calif. The Design Automation Conference is the premier Electronic Design Automation and silicon solution event. —Four members of Carnegie Mellon's Department of Psychology are among the world's most highly cited researchers, according to Thomson ISI, an international scientific information corporation that scours the world's scholarly literature to identify the researchers whose work is referenced most often in scientific articles. The faculty members are John Anderson, the R.K. Mellon University Professor of Psychology and Computer Science; Sheldon Cohen, the recently named Robert E. Doherty Professor of Psychology; James McClelland, the Walter Van Dyke Bingham University Professor of Psychology and Computer Science; and Michael F. Scheier, head of the Psychology Department. They join nine other Carnegie Mellon professors who have already been named to the list of most highly cited researchers in their fields: Statistics professors Joseph Kadane and Rob Kass, Mathematical Sciences Professor Morton Gurtin, Materials Science and Engineering Professor Emeritus Hubert Aaronson, Computer Science professors Daniel D. Sleator, Randal Bryant and Edmund Clarke, Economics Professor Finn Kydland and Computer Science Professor Takeo Kanade. —Carnegie Mellon alumni have designed some of the dinosaurs that have been appearing around Pittsburgh as part of an art project sponsored by the Carnegie Museum. The artists, the name of their dinosaur and their locations are as follows. Burton Morris (A'86), "I Want You," USX; Shirley Yee (A'76), "Lost Pittsburgh," Market Square; Patricia Bellan-Gillan (A'79), "Connections," Carnegie Museum; Rich Antolis (A'93) and Mark Klingler (A'90), "Pitt-Sankey," Waterfront; and Lauren Urbschat (A'02), "Florasauers," Phipps Conservatory. CALENDAR HIGHLIGHTS —Saturday, June 28: Director of Media Special Projects Ralph Vituccio and Media Artist Andres Tapia-Urzua will premiere their documentary "When Video Came" at 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. at the Pittsburgh Filmmakers' Melwood Screening Room, 477 Melwood Ave., Oakland. The film looks at the history of video art in America and pioneer video artists, scholars and curators. Tickets are $4. A reception will be held that evening at 8:30 p.m. Due to the Independence Day holiday, the next issue of the 8-1/2 x 11 News will be published July 10. |
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