March 30, 2006

Vol. 16, No. 36

The "8 1/2 x 11 News" is published each week by the University Advancement Division. News of campus interest should be sent to one of the following editors:   Ed Delaney, 412-268-1609 (ed47@andrew.cmu.edu)
  Bruce Gerson, 412-268-1613 (bg02@andrew.cmu.edu)
  Susan Cribbs, 412-268-7521 (cribbs@andrew.cmu.edu)

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Design Professor Mark Mentzer, associate head of the School of Design, has been named this year's winner of the William H. and Frances S. Ryan Award for Meritorious Teaching, the university's most prestigious teaching honor. The award recognizes faculty who have demonstrated unusual devotion and effectiveness in teaching. Mentzer, a faculty member at Carnegie Mellon since the mid-1970s, teaches "Drawing" for all freshmen and "Color and Communication" to sophomores in the Communication Design program. "Bar none, Mark Mentzer is the best drawing teacher I have encountered in my 35 years of teaching and he deserves to be recognized for the impact he has made in so many students' careers," said School of Design Head Dan Boyarski. Mentzer will receive the Ryan Award at "A Celebration of Teaching at Carnegie Mellon," at 4:30 p.m., Thursday, April 27 in Rangos Hall, University Center, where college teaching award winners will also be recognized. Beginning this year, the Ryan Award will continue to be awarded annually, but the Doherty and Academic Advising awards will be given biannually beginning in spring 2007. Further information: http://www.cmu.edu/cmnews/extra/060324_mentzer.html/

ARCHITECTS CONDUCTING STUDY FOR NEW ATHLETIC FACILITY

Hastings & Chivetta Architects Inc. of St. Louis, Mo., has been selected by a committee of university administrators to conduct a feasibility study for a new recreational and athletic facility on campus. The company has designed more than 155 sports facilities on campuses across the U.S., including Duke, Georgia Tech, Missouri, Nebraska and Virginia Tech. Members of the firm have visited campus, conducted focus groups and attended the March 23 town hall meeting on recreational facilities. They will also analyze results of a campus survey on athletics, health and wellness before submitting a final report by September. Students, faculty and staff are encouraged to complete the survey by midnight April 7. Access the survey at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=677851908318/. The firm is also reviewing potential sites for a new facility.

TRUSTEES APPROVE RECOMMENDED SITES FOR SCULPTURES

The Board of Trustees' Property and Facilities Committee has approved the recommended campus sites for the "Walking to the Sky" sculpture and the "Mao Yisheng" statue. "Walking to the Sky," by alumnus Jonathan Borofsky (A'64), will be installed on the Cut near Forbes Avenue and Warner Hall, and "Mao Yisheng," created in memory of the first person to earn a Ph.D. at Carnegie Mellon, will be sited in an alcove alongside Baker and Porter halls on the Hamerschlag Mall. Both works of art were gifts to the university. The Public Art Committee recommended these sites to President Jared L. Cohon following an open campus forum held March 8. To see the sculptures superimposed in their respective sites, visit http://www.cmu.edu/fms/publicartsites.htm

CENTER FOR AUTOMATED LEARNING AND DISCOVERY RENAMED

The Center for Automated Learning and Discovery, one of six units within the School of Computer Science, has been renamed the "Machine Learning Department," effective this week. The center, first established in 1997, becomes the nation's first Department of Machine Learning. Tom Mitchell, the center's founding director, is head of the department. Machine learning, which combines expertise from both computer science and statistics, has become a hot discipline in the past decade and a half, and Carnegie Mellon has played a leading role in its development. Machine learning is a method of designing software that can learn from experience and thus improve in performance over time. It is the preferred method used in such commercial applications as speech recognition systems and enables the increasingly popular practice of data mining.

RED TEAM AND ITS ROBOTS MOVE TO HAZELWOOD SITE

The robots once housed in the Planetary Robotics Building--including the Red Team and its famed robotic race vehicles--have moved to new quarters on the former LTV site in Hazelwood. The university is renovating part of an old locomotive roundhouse on the site to serve as the home for the Red Team and elements of the Field Robotics Center. For now, the robots are being housed temporarily in old buildings on the LTV site. The move was necessitated by the pending demolition of the Planetary Robotics Building to make room for construction of the Gates Center. Further information: http://www.cmu.edu/cmnews/extra/060323_robot.html

NEWS BRIEFS

—Carnegie Mellon Staff Council's "Beads for Tulane: Adopt a Campus Campaign" has raised $2,000. The money was used to purchase Target, Wal-Mart and Home Depot gift cards that were distributed to staff members at Tulane University who were impacted the most by Hurricane Katrina. Tulane's Staff Council helped identify these individuals and distribute the cards.

—Due to the upcoming demolition of the old Student Center, "Taste of India's" last day serving lunch in the building will be Friday, March 31. The lunch operation will move to Resnik House, where "Taste of India" serves dinner each day. Beginning April 3, lunch will be served from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., Monday through Friday, and dinner from 5 to 9 p.m., seven days a week.

PERSONAL MENTION

—Philip LeDuc, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, recently published an article with Chao-Min Cheng and James Kubicek entitled "Polymeric Microlenses for Real-Time Aqueous and Non-Aqueous Organic Imaging" in the journal Applied Physics Letters (APL). This along with a second publication four months before in APL demonstrate methodologies using simple new techniques to produce new microstructured polymers for applications including optics-, MEMS- and microfluidic-based devices.

—Jennifer Layman has been named assistant director of Carnegie Mellon's Office of Government Relations. Her duties include assisting the director in interacting with community, state and federal elected officials and policy makers, as well as developing communications materials and assisting with events.

—Doctoral student Arielle Drummond is managing the graduate school fair at the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) conference March 29 to April 2 at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center. "The main focus of this year's graduate school conference is to promote excitement and confidence among students for completing advanced degrees and engaging successfully in full-time careers," said Drummond, a Ph.D. student in Biomedical Engineering. Further information: http://www.cmu.edu/PR/releases06/060327_nsbe.html

—Associate Professor of Creative Writing and award-winning poet Terrance Hayes has written his most daring and reflective poems to date for his third collection, "Wind in a Box." Drawing on influences that range from Dr. Seuss and Amiri Baraka to David Bowie, he explores identity, race, culture and the dark side of American history. Further information: http://www.cmu.edu/cmnews/extra/060321_hayes.html/

—The College of Humanities and Social Sciences has named the recipients of its 2006 Outstanding Service Awards. This year's winners are Sharon Blazevich, administrative coordinator for the Information Systems Program; Jackie DeFazio, business manager for the Philosophy Department; and Janice Trygar, administrative coordinator for the Academic Advisory Center.

CALENDAR HIGHLIGHTS

—Monday, April 3: Aesthetics Out of Bounds Lecture Series. "Four Eyed Seeing." Lorraine Daston, director of the Max-Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin and honorary professor at the Humboldt University in Berlin. 5 p.m., University Center (UC), McConomy Auditorium.

—Monday, April 3: School of Architecture Lecture Series. Mack Scogin of Mack Scogin Merrill Elam Architects will discuss his firm's work as well as the framework for the new Gates Center for Computer Science. 6:30 p.m., Carnegie Museum Lecture Hall.

—Tuesday, April 4: Information session on the Gates Center for Computer Science project. 4:30 p.m., McConomy Auditorium, UC.

—Wednesday, April 5: Graduate Student Teaching and Service awards. 5:30 p.m., Kresge Theatre, CFA.

—Thursday, April 6: School of Computer Science Distinguished Lecture Series. "Toward a Grainless Semantics for Shared-Variable Concurrency." Professor John C. Reynolds, Computer Science Department. 4 p.m. Information: http://esm.cs.cmu.edu/

—Thursday, April 6: "EPA@50: A Vision for 2020," by Alan Hecht, director of sustainable development, EPA. 4:30 p.m., Margaret Morrison 103, Breed Hall. Sponsored by the Center for Building Performance and Diagnostics, and the Steinbrenner Insititute for Environmental Education and Research (SEER).

—April 7 - 8: The Great Global Sustainability Challenge Symposium, sponsored by Tepper alumnus Sarosh Kumana. April 7: 5 - 8 p.m., Danforth Lounge, UC. April 8: 10 a.m. - 3:30 p.m., Porter Hall 126A. Hosted by SEER.

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