March 22, 2007
Vol. 17, No. 34

In this issue:

• Tucker, Rule, Cicozi Win Top Education Awards
• Carnegie Mellon Police Earn State Accreditation
• Personal Mention
• Calendar Highlights

Tucker, Rule, Cicozi Win Top Education Awards

G. Richard Tucker, Gordon Rule and Melissa Cicozi are this year's winners of Carnegie Mellon's most prestigious education awards. Tucker, the Paul Mellon University Professor of Applied Linguistics and head of the Modern Languages Department, will receive the Doherty Award for Sustained Contributions to Excellence in Education. Rule, a professor of biological sciences, will be presented with the Ryan Award for Meritorious Teaching. Cicozi, assistant head of the School of Design, will receive the Academic Advising and Mentoring Award. Tucker's nomination praised him for creative teaching, leadership of the department, international standing in his discipline, and for exceptional ability to collaborate with others. Rule was lauded for his organization and clarity, development of online supporting materials and ability to relate course work to the "real world." Cicozi was honored for her "open-door policy," straightforward manner and proficiency at mentoring, advising and counseling students.

The awards will be presented at "A Celebration of Education," beginning at 4:30 p.m., Thursday, April 5 in Rangos Hall, University Center (UC). The event will also recognize the college teaching award winners: Irving Oppenheim (CIT); Larry Heimann (H&SS); Anne Mundell (CFA); Michael Dekay, Janusz Szczypula and Edward Barr (Heinz); John Mackey, Jonathan Minden and Stuart Staley (MCS); Manuel Blum (SCS); and Maria Marta Ferreyra, George-Levi Gayle and Baohong Sun (Tepper).

Carnegie Mellon Police Earn State Accreditation

Carnegie Mellon's Police Department has received accreditation from the Pennsylvania Chiefs of Police Association for meeting the many policy, procedure and operation standards established as best practices by the association. Carnegie Mellon is the first college or university police department in Pennsylvania to earn state accreditation, and it joins the Findley Township Police Department as the only state accredited forces in Allegheny County. There are 45 state accredited police departments in the commonwealth.

Carnegie Mellon Police received the accreditation following an extensive review of the department's operations manual and an intensive two-day, on-site assessment and inspection by representatives of the Pennsylvania Law Enforcement Accreditation Commission.

Personal Mention

• Cletus Anderson, professor emeritus in the School of Drama, died at his home March 16. He was 69. Anderson was a member of the faculty for 35 years and retired in 2003. He was respected and admired for his teaching, but he may be best remembered for his work as production designer for the classic films "Night of the Living Dead," Day of the Dead" and "Creepshow," directed by George Romero (A'61). Anderson is survived by his wife, Barbara Anderson, drama professor and associate dean of CFA, two children and grandchildren. A memorial service is planned for April. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that memorial contributions be made to Carnegie Mellon, Anderson Production Fund, School of Drama, Purnell Center for the Arts, Pittsburgh, PA 15213. Friends are being received at the Anderson home, 2030 Beechwood Blvd., 5 to 7 p.m., Saturday, March 24. Further information: official.cmu-news, March 21.
• Terry Collins, the Thomas Lord Professor of Chemistry, has received the 2007 Excellence in Catalysis Award from the Catalysis Society of Metropolitan New York. Sponsored by the ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company, the award recognizes Collins for designing innovative, environmentally benign catalysts that have the potential for enormous, positive impact on the environment. Experts believe these systems can be used to replace chlorine-based oxidants in large global technologies so some of society's most toxic chlorinated residuals are not produced by industry.
• Frank Melvin "Mel" Cratsley (E'40), a former standout student-athlete and basketball coach at Carnegie Mellon, died last week. He was 89. Cratsley played on the 1939 Sugar Bowl team and was a record-setting scorer in basketball. He was head basketball coach from 1949 to 1966.
• Chemistry Professor Eckard Münck will receive the 2007 Alfred Bader Award, the highest award in bio-inorganic and bio-organic chemistry given by the American Chemical Society (ACS), at the ACS national meeting, March 25 - 29, in Chicago. To honor Münck, the ACS is also holding a March 26 symposium that will feature 17 talks by leaders in the bio-inorganic and bio-organic disciplines. Carnegie Mellon faculty participating in the symposium include Catalina Achim, Emile Bominaar, Terry Collins and Michael Hendrich.
  
• Sarah Rubin, who is set to earn her master's in rhetoric in May, has been awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study in Hong Kong. Her research will focus on the role of Hong Kong's public radio network in establishing a deliberative democracy that encourages citizen participation in civic affairs. 
• Nadine Aubry, head of the Mechanical Engineering Department, has been named chair of the U.S. National Committee on Theoretical and Applied Mechanics. The committee "represents the U.S. in international scientific activities related to the field of mechanics and is the focal point for the U.S. engineering, scientific and mathematical communities that have common interests in mechanics." Fifteen national societies are represented on the committee, with a combined membership of 475,000 engineers and scientists. Further information: http://www7.nationalacademies.org/usnctam/ 
• Beverly Clayton, who has served as the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center's executive director since its founding in 1986, has announced her retirement, effective March 31. Her activities over the last 20 years have been instrumental in obtaining $30 million in funding from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
• Warren Ruder, a Ph.D student in biomedical engineering, has been selected to be the Carnegie Mellon  nominee to attend an annual meeting of Nobel Laureates with graduate students in Lindau, Germany. He has also been selected for a National Science Foundation sponsored slot as a member of the U.S. delegation. Warren will spend the first week of July in Lindau meeting with 500 other students from around the world and Nobel prize winners in medicine and physiology.
  
  

Calendar Highlights

• Monday, March 26: Carnegie Mellon will award its annual Dickson Prize in Science to Jared Diamond, professor of geography at UCLA and best-selling author of "Collapse: How Societies Choose To Fail or Succeed." Diamond will give the Dickson Prize lecture at 4:30 p.m., in McConomy Auditorium, UC. Prior to his lecture, Diamond will hold a book signing from 3:30 to 4 p.m. in the UC's McKenna Room. His lecture, titled "Collapse," is based on his latest book, which probes the decline and fall of once-prosperous civilizations, such as the Maya and the prehistoric Polynesian society of Easter Island. 
• Tuesday, March 27: Julia E. Sweig, the Nelson and David Rockefeller Senior Fellow and director of the Latin America Studies program at the Council on Foreign Relations, will speak at 4:30 p.m. in the Adamson Wing of Baker Hall (136A). Her talk is titled "Friendly Fire: Losing Friends and Making Enemies in the Anti-American Century." Sponsored by the International Relations Program.
• Wednesday, March 28: ICES-BME Seminar. "Testing Hemodynamic Hypotheses of Atherosclerosis Using Image-Based CFD Models." David Steinman, associate professor of mechanical and industrial engineering and a core faculty member of the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Toronto. 10:30 a.m. ICES Conference Room, 1202 Hamburg Hall. To attend, RSVP to ccowan@andrew.cmu.edu.
• Thursday, March 29: Fourth Annual International Film Festival. Begins at 7 p.m. with a screening of the Russian film "Peter FM." McConomy Auditorium, UC. Free and open to the public. Further information: http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/org/filmfestival/
• Friday, March 30: Seminar: "So, What Does Nanotechnology Have To Do With Energy." Gang Chen, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 10:30 a.m., Scaife Hall 125.