Christine Maziar, senior vice president for academic affairs
and provost, has announced the formation of the search committee
for the next IT dean. The committee held its first meeting
in early May and will work throughout the summer to develop
a list of candidates and later finalists for the deanship.
IT dean H. Ted Davis announced
in January that he will return to a faculty
position fall semester 2004. Davis was appointed dean in
November 1995 and is the third longest serving dean in IT’s
history and also the third longest serving among current
deans on the Twin Cities campus.
An early-morning fire severely damaged a fourth-floor laboratory
in Smith Hall on Friday, May 14. No one was hurt, but the
building was closed for four days for the fire investigation,
preliminary cleanup, and safety checks. Water damage has
made some of the ceilings unsafe. The cause of the fire
is unknown.
The 2004 state legislative session adjourned Sunday,
May 16, with major issues left unresolved. Both the
Senate and the House were deadlocked over the bonding
bill legislation, which includes the University's capital
request. Funding for the Kolthoff
Hall renovation is part of the University's request.
Governor Tim Pawlenty has not said whether or not he
will call a special session of the legislature to take
up the unfinished work.
On a related issue, University president Robert Bruininks
presented his operating
budget and tuition recommendations for the 2004-05
academic year to the board of regents on Friday, May
14. The president proposed a 14 percent hike in tuition
and fees, which would mark the fourth straight year
of double-digit tuition increases driven in large part
by declining state support. His operating budget of
an estimated $2.5 billion for fiscal year 2005 reflects
$70.4 million in reductions and reallocations needed
to meet the balance of the $185 million in state budget
reductions for the current biennium.
To offset the proposed tuition increases, Bruininks
also announced a historic drive to raise scholarship
support for students. The University
of Minnesota Scholarship Drive seeks to raise $150
million in private gifts, making it the largest scholarship
fundraising effort in University history. The goal is
to increase by 2,250 (50 percent) the number of students
receiving scholarships funded through private gifts
to the University. Currently the University offers merit
scholarships to only 14 percent of entering freshmen,
placing it last among Big Ten institutions.
Chemical engineering graduate program
at top of U.S. News rankings
The University of Minnesota, Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, and the University of California at Berkeley
rank first among the nation's graduate programs in chemical
engineering, according to U.S. News & World
Report's annual survey of graduate schools and
programs. The three programs each received
a score of 4.8 on a 5-point scale. Considered a specialty
ranking, these scores were based on assessments by department
heads in chemical engineering.
Honors
Professor Massoud
Amin (electrical engineering), director of the Center
for the Development of Technological Leadership, received
a certificate of appreciation from the American Society
of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) for services as a leader
of ASME’s Critical Asset Protection Initiative
(CAPI), launched in February 2002. ASME created CAPI
in the aftermath of 9/11 to help the U.S. government
formulate practices and strategies to protect against
future attacks. Amin chaired CAPI’s energy security
team until September 2003 and continues to serve on
CAPI’s six-member steering committee.
Professor Mikhail
Voloshin (physics) has received the prestigious
Alexander von Humboldt Research Award for Senior U.S.
Scientists. The award includes a grant to conduct collaborative
research at the University of Bonn, Germany.
The Department of Chemistry received the 2004 Outstanding
P&A Unit Award, which honors the unit judged to
be the most exemplary in its support of academic professional
and administrative (P&A) staff.
Events
DTC seminar: Second Intelligent Storage
Workshop
May 18–19: The demand for data
storage has increased dramatically, driven by the use
of the Internet as a fundamental tool in business, science,
and engineering. This workshop
is devoted to exploring effective ways to construct
shared storage systems with significant embedded intelligence
that will effectively accommodate emerging storage-intensive
applications in business, science, engineering, and
medicine. Register
online. For information email isw@dtc.umn.edu
or call 612-625-2002.
Third annual chemistry graduate student
symposium
May 18: Students in the chemistry
Ph.D. program will discuss their research before a committee
of faculty members and distinguished University alumni.
Travel awards of $500 will be presented to those individuals
judged to have given the best seminar in each of three
concurrent sessions. The
symposium will be held on the St. Paul campus. The
event is free and registration is not required. For
information contact 612-625-2503 or email hagberg@chem.umn.edu.
