February 2006

CLA UPDATE FOR FACULTY & STAFF

Tom Adler

Dear Colleagues,

The search for the new Liberal Arts Dean is progressing, and there will be opportunities later this month and in early March for everyone to participate in the selection process.

According to Dean Jeff Vitter of the College of Science, who is chairing the search committee:

"After a set of telephone interviews in early January, the search committee has just completed a series of on-campus meetings with a short list of excellent candidates. From the short list, the committee will select the finalists who will each spend two days in late February or in early March interviewing on campus with a host of administrators, faculty, staff, and students. Each candidate will present a scholarly talk as well as take part in an open forum, during which the candidate will lay out a vision for the Dean's role and then answer questions from the audience."

Attendance at both events will be open to all, and there will be opportunities to give feedback on the candidates.

Information about the finalists and their visits will be posted at the Dean Search Web site.

The Provost hopes to have a new Dean named this spring in time for the coming academic year.

Some of you heard my remarks at the January Faculty Senate meeting about the challenges of educating students today and how crucial it is that we continue to emphasize teaching, especially as we recruit prospective faculty members.

As you have been reading recently in the news, America continues to prepare fewer math and science majors, and that trend is affecting the quality of teaching of those subjects to non-science majors as well. Equally distressing are the results of college students' surveys revealing how little many of them know about recent history, how few follow current affairs in the daily news, and how little sustained serious reading – or even reading for entertainment – they do.

And, this is where you and I come in.

We must continue to focus on the quality of undergraduate education we provide Liberal Arts students, as well as the thousands of other non-majors who learn in our classrooms.

This is an opportunity to be involved in a common educational enterprise of bringing the knowledge of our individual disciplines to this entire campus. We cannot help but be an integral part in the process of producing an educated citizenry, one that reads widely and well, thinks and analyzes critically, acknowledges and respects diversity, and acts ethically and with moral purpose.

It's up to us to help our students so that they can become functioning intellectuals in the society they'll some day inherit.

Please keep this in mind as you contribute input to the selection of the new Dean and future faculty members.

Cordially,

Tom Adler

NEWS AND RESEARCH

Industrial designers sweep national competition

Purdue students have blitzed a national contest with unconventional designs for a self-filtering water bottle, lasers that mow lawns, and massage therapy stones.

Shim (sitting)
and students

The three top awards come on the heels of two other Purdue designs that won acclaim, including one that created a new approach to a child's bicycle.

"Our industrial design students are amazing," says Scott Shim, assistant professor of Visual and Performing Arts. "In this most recent contest, they were asked to investigate why everyday things are designed a certain way, then challenge that design to make them more efficient or functional."

Nick Poteracki from Lake Zurich, Ill., won first place and $5,000 for his new water bottle filter system. R. Alec Cobb from Indianapolis won second place and $2,000 for his lawn mower design that uses laser-based technologies.

Poteracki's filter

Andrew Monteleone from Indianapolis won third place and $1,000 for his design of new physical and massage therapy devices, similar to traditional massage stones, which combine heat, cold and infrasound therapy.

Shim also received $2,000 for serving as adviser to the grand prize winner.

Shim, Poteracki and Monteleone attended the Jan. 31 awards ceremony at New York City's Museum of Modern Art. More

New computer design wins Microsoft competition

Two Purdue University industrial designers won a grand prize at an international competition co-sponsored by Microsoft Corp. for a new personal computer design that may change the way people watch movies, listen to music, play games, and read magazines.

Sungho "Oho" Son, left,
and Scott Shim

The concept computer, called Bookshelf, eliminates the most common problems – digital copyrights and inconvenient accessibility – in the multimedia entertainment business today, says graduate student Sungho "Oho" Son.

He teamed with Scott Shim, a professor of Visual and Performing Arts, to design a new personal computer that won the $50,000 Judge's Award at Microsoft's Next Generation Windows PC Design Competition. The competition was sponsored by Microsoft and the Industrial Designers Society of America, and the winners were announced at the 2006 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Jan. 5-8.

Bookshelf

"How this computer is used closely resembles the traditional use of a bookshelf," says Son, a second-year graduate student from Seoul, South Korea. "Digital contents are downloaded through subscriptions, then arranged in each hardware attachment, which are provided by the subscription's service. The physical configuration of the unit permits users to visually navigate the categories of content as they do with books on a bookshelf." More

Exercise smart for protection during cold, flu season

Exercise during the cold and flu season can strengthen the immune system, provided you don't overdo it, says a Purdue University professor who studies exercise and the immune system.

Flynn leads his marathon
training class

"Exercising during the cold and flu season will help people stay in shape, and most likely fight off colds or reduce the number of days a person is ill," says Michael Flynn, professor of Health and Kinesiology. "The cold season should not be an excuse for the average person to refrain from exercising – working out at the gym, a brisk walk in the park or a jog through the neighborhood."

While moderate exercise is known to be very beneficial, exceptionally strenuous exercise presents special challenges.

"There is still a lot to learn about how exercise affects the immune system, because it's difficult for researchers to assess the many layers of protection within the system," Flynn says. "Strenuous or prolonged exercise seems to suppress the immune system, leaving athletes more susceptible to illness for one to six hours following a hard workout – the so-called open window." More

State of the Union maps strategy to 2006, 2008 elections

The president's 2006 State of the Union address offered some clues about what Republicans are planning for November's midterm elections and the next presidential election.

Bert Rockman, professor of Political Science, says the political pressure is building with the 2006 midterm elections, along with the expectation that the Republicans will lose a number of seats in Congress.

"This address is a signal of strategies, and it will outline what the president can do in the next two years," Rockman says.

Rockman is co-editor of a book series that assesses the terms of former presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, as well as the first term of George W. Bush, and is currently preparing a book on the George W. Bush presidency. More

Book: Nations must build trust to end feuds

A new book by a Political Science professor argues that it is possible to establish trust among the world's oldest and most bitter enemies.

Hoffman

Building Trust: Overcoming Suspicion in International Conflict, by assistant professor Aaron M. Hoffman, examines how American, European and Middle Eastern governments overcame their suspicion of one another and fostered trust at pivotal moments in their relationships.

The examples he highlights in the book are the Constitutional convention that launched the United States, creation of the Single European Act that set the course for the European Union, and negotiations between Israel and Jordan over water resources in the Middle East. State University of New York Press published the book ($55) in December. More

New weekly Writing Lab site helps students with the 'write' stuff

The Purdue Writing Lab is offering additional tutorial services in a multimedia-based library center for any type of writing including resumes, PowerPoint presentations, Web pages, and electronic-portfolios to faculty, staff, and students.

Writing Lab tutors will be available from 7-10 p.m. every Monday during the spring semester in the Hicks Undergraduate Library's Digital Learning Collaboratory.

"The tutors at the Purdue Writing Lab are known for helping students with traditional writing assignments by working with students to improve their writing techniques and learn new concepts," says Tammy Conard-Salvo, assistant director of the Writing Lab. "Tutors at this new location will continue to work with students on all kinds of papers, but also help students who want more assistance with the growing number of nontraditional writing assignments such as constructing video projects, Web sites, or electronic portfolios. The Digital Learning Collaboratory, a multimedia resource center, is the perfect place where tutors and students can access different technological tools as part of their writing assignments."

This weekly service supplements the Writing Lab, which is housed in the Department of English. Users can consult with tutors in Heavilon Hall, Room 226, as well as e-mail questions to a tutor or call the grammar hotline at 494-3723. Purdue students, staff and faculty visited the campus lab 5,800 times last year. More

EVENTS

Purdue unveils the new Nancy T. Hansen Theatre with a production of The College Widow by George Ade on Feb. 17-26.

The College Widow

George Ade, a Purdue alumnus, former trustee and half the inspiration for the naming of Ross-Ade Stadium, wrote The College Widow in 1904. The College Widow, inspired by Ade's Purdue experiences, also was an early production for another Purdue landmark in 1941 – Elliott Hall of Music.

"The play is loosely based on the football rivalry between DePauw University and Wabash College," said professor emeritus and director Dale Miller. "For our production, we've reset the time era to 1924, giving the costumes a splashier, Roaring '20s feel. We've also added a few references to Purdue in the script and images from the campus will show up in several layers of the scenery." More

Award-winning editor speaks at Sears Lecture Series

Roy Gutman, the Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign editor for Newsday, is the next speaker for the Sears Lecture Series.

Gutman will present "Mayhem in Taliban Afghanistan: How We Missed the Story" at 7:30 p.m. on Feb. 15 in Stewart Center's Fowler Hall. Gutman has reported on the fall of the Berlin Wall and the disintegration of Yugoslavia.

The lecture series is sponsored by the Department of History. The biennial series is named for the late Purdue historian Louis Martin Sears, who was a faculty member in the then joint Department of History and Political Science from 1920 until his retirement in 1956. More

55th Books & Coffee series reminder

Purdue's 55th Books & Coffee, which is free and open to the public, is Thursday afternoons during February. The event begins at 4 p.m. when tea and coffee are available. The half-hour book talks begin at 4:30 p.m.

The discussions include: