November 30, 2006
Vol. 17, No. 20

In this issue:

• Presidential Review Committee Formed
• Study Finds Laptops Have Faults as Well as Virtues
• Drama Presents the Musical "Side Show"
• Flu Shot Clinics to be Held Dec. 1, 5 and 7
• News Briefs
• Personal Mention
• Calendar Highlights

Presidential Review Committee Formed

As President Jared L. Cohon nears the final year of his second five-year term as president, the Board of Trustees and Faculty Senate have created a Presidential Review Committee to evaluate his second term in office. The 12-member committee includes six trustees and six senior faculty and is co-chaired by Emeritus Trustee Charles J. Queenan Jr. and Faculty Senate Chair and Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering David Dzombak. Other trustees on the committee are Linda Dickerson, Erroll Davis Jr., Thomas McConomy, Kears Pollock and Lea Simonds. In addition to Dzombak, faculty members include Paul Fischbeck of the departments of Social and Decision Sciences and Engineering and Public Policy, Khee Poh Lam of the School of Architecture, David Owen of the Mathematical Sciences Department, Lynne Reder of the Psychology Department and Stanley Zin of the Tepper School of Business. A Web site will be announced soon, through which campus community members can provide confidential input.

Study Finds Laptops Have Faults as Well as Virtues

In a two-year study of sophomore classes in the School of Design, researchers in the university's Office of Technology for Education and the Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence have found that the use of laptops significantly changed students work habits, but not always for the better. The study was designed to investigate how students use laptops inside and outside the classroom and how these practices enrich or diminish their university experience. The study examined whether laptops affect the nature of the instructor-to-student or student-to-student interactions in and out of the classroom; how students conduct their out-of-class work in terms of location, time-on-task, and physical and social setting; and the process and quality of student work.

"It's not that laptops are good or bad for learning. It depends on how they are used," said Anne Fay, author of the study and director of assessment for the Eberly Center and the Office of Technology for Education.

Further information: http://www.cmu.edu/news/archive/2006/november/Nov.%2020%20-%20Laptop%20Study.shtml/

Drama Presents the Musical "Side Show"

The School of Drama presents "Side Show," a musical that brings to light the freak hiding behind our so-called normal facades, Nov. 30 - Dec. 2 and Dec. 5 - 9 at Carnegie Mellon's Philip Chosky Theater. Based loosely on the life of Vaudeville stars Daisy and Violet Hilton, conjoined twins linked at the hip, "Side Show" takes audiences through a circus world of freaks, fame and unbreakable family ties. Rajendra Ramoon Maharaj, one of New York's rising young directors, will direct the musical. For performance times and ticket prices, see http://www.cmu.edu/PR/releases06/061025_sideshow.html.

Flu Shot Clinics to be Held Dec. 1, 5 and 7

The Student Health Service will hold flu vaccine clinics at the Student Health Service, first floor, Morewood E Tower, Friday, Dec. 1, 8:30 - 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 - 4 p.m.; Tuesday, Dec. 5, 1:30 - 4 p.m.; and Thursday, Dec. 7, 1:30 - 4 p.m. Human Resources will pay the fee if you signed up for the vaccine at the Health and Benefits Fair. If you are a student on the student health insurance plan, HighMark will pay the fee. If these circumstances do not apply to you, the fee is $16. Spouses of faculty and staff are eligible. Children under 16 are not.

News Briefs

• Online Faculty Course Evaluations are open now and will be available until 8 a.m., Monday, Dec. 11. Students should go to http://www.cmu.edu/fce/ to begin their evaluations.
• The cast and crew of the motion picture "Smart People" will return to campus to continue filming in the Maggie Murph Cafe in Hunt Library on Tuesday, Dec. 5. Access to the cafe will be limited for a few hours that day and metered parking on Frew Street will be off-limits after 10 p.m., Monday, Dec. 4 and throughout the day on Dec. 5.
• Participation in the university's United Way campaign has increased by more than 200 donors this year and only 50 more donors are needed to reach the goal of 500 contributors. Donate online today at http://www.unitedwaypittsburgh.org/carnegiemellon/.

Personal Mention

• Chris Hendrickson, the Duquesne Light Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, has been named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Further information: http://www.cmu.edu/news/archive/2006/november/nov27hendricksonaaasfellow.shtml/
• Carnegie Mellon's international engineering and environmental policy expert M. Granger Morgan challenged U.S. federal and state officials to take the lead in eliminating dangerous carbon dioxide emissions that fuel global warming in his op-ed in the Nov. 17 issue of Science magazine. Further information: http://www.cmu.edu/news/archive/2006/november/nov.-17-granger-morgan.shtml/ 
• ECE graduate students Padmini Gopalakrishnan and Nishant Sinha received Best in Session awards at the Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC) Student Symposium last month in Cary, N.C. Gopalakrishnan's paper is titled "A Metric-Embedding Inspired Approach to FPGA Placement." Sinha's paper is titled "Compositional Verification of System-on-Chip Designs."
• ECE Systems Scientist Franz Franchetti was a member of a research team that won a Gordon Bell Award, presented to innovators who advance high-performance computing. Franchetti and Markus Puschel, associate research professor of ECE, together with collaborators from Vienna University of Technology, won a Best Paper Award for their publication "Automatic Performance Optimization of the Discrete Fourier Transform on Distributed Memory Computers." The paper will be presented at the International Symposium on Parallel and Distributed Processing and Application in Sorrento, Italy, Dec. 4 - 7.
• Tamara Hamilton, a junior chemistry major, won second place in the poster competition at the National Society of Black Engineers regional conference on Nov. 18.
  
• Martin Aurand, Carnegie Mellon architecture librarian and archivist, has written "The Spectator and the Topographical City," a book recently published by the University of Pittsburgh Press. Aurand adopts the viewpoint of the spectator to study three of Pittsburgh's "terrestrial rooms": the downtown Golden Triangle, the Turtle Creek Valley and Oakland. The Oakland section of the book focuses extensively on the Carnegie Mellon campus. Clayton Merrell, associate professor of art, prepared original artwork for the book. Further information: http://www.upress.pitt.edu/BookDetails.aspx?bookId=35840

Calendar Highlights

• Monday, Dec. 4: "Four Decades of Innovation," a symposium in honor of University Professor and computing pioneer Dan Siewiorek's 60th birthday, will be held in the Singleton Room of Roberts Hall. The symposium will honor Siewiorek's seminal contributions that have shaped the evolution of computer systems over the last four decades. Further information: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dan60/index.html/
• Monday, Dec. 4: President Cohon will hold an open student office hour at 6 p.m. Students interested in meeting with President Cohon should contact Jennifer Church, dean of Student Affairs, at jcdg@andrew.
• Tuesday, Dec. 5: The university community is invited to attend the fall 2006 Phi Beta Kappa initiation ceremony, when a small group of elite seniors will be inducted into the society. City Councilman Bill Peduto will be the guest speaker. 5 p.m., Erwin R. Steinberg Auditorium (Baker Hall A53). A reception will follow.
• Wednesday, Dec. 6: The Entertainment Technology Center presents its annual Building Virtual Worlds show. Doors open at 5:50 p.m. in McConomy Auditorium, UC. The immersive, interactive worlds that interdisciplinary teams of ETC students created will be presented.
• Wednesday, Dec. 6: Public Art Committee Town Hall Meeting. 5 p.m., Connan Room, UC. The committee will discuss three works of art: the "Self-Made Man" sculpture in the Tepper School; the Tesla sculpture in Newell-Simon Hall; and a Burton Morris print being considered for the University Center.
• Friday, Dec. 8: Mechanical Engineering seminar. "A Decision-Based Design Approach for Integrating Enterprise Product Planning and Engineering Product Development," presented by Wei Chen, associate professor, Mechanical Engineering Department, Northwestern University. 10:30 a.m., Scaife Hall 125.
• Friday, Dec. 8: The College of Fine Arts and the School of Music's annual Holiday Concert. Noon, Rangos Ballroom, UC. The Carnegie Mellon Philharmonic, Concert Choir and Repertory Chorus will perform under the direction of Robert Page. Free and open to the public. The concert will be broadcast live on WQED-FM.