Monthly Archives: March 2008

President May Be Appointed Spring Term

Posted on March 31, 2008 by | 5 Comments

The Echo has an article on the presidential search, “Regents continue search for university president,” which is rather worrisome.  Apparently, the Regents believe that appointing a president after most faculty and students have left after the end of the Winter term will allow for sufficient input from the campus community. 

Stapleton said he hopes it will be possible for the forums to take place before the end of winter semester, but said if this is not possible, a large enough percentage of the EMU community lives in the area to allow for input. “This is an important decision, so we’re going to send out on campus enough notice about it, ” Stapleton said. “I’m shooting to have the campus forums before everybody leaves campus, but if we don’t, a good portion of our school base lives in metro Detroit.”

As the lack of input on the budget cuts last summer should demonstrate, there are not enough faculty and students on campus during the summer months to enable such input, especially for such an important decision.  I hope the Regents reconsider this potential and unnecessary delay in the search process.  It is essential that as many people as possible are included in the decision and able to provide meaningful input to the Regents before the decision is made.

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Posted in Board of Regents, EMU President

Computational Thinking: A Talk by Dr Jeannette Wing

Posted on March 31, 2008 by | 3 Comments

Computational Thinking is the title of a talk given by Dr Jeannette Wing this Wednesday, April 2, 3pm, Ballroom B Student Center.

Abstract:

Computational thinking is a fundamental skill used by everyone in the world. The two A’s of computational thinking, abstraction and automation, help us to solve problems, create designs, and understand human behavior. Based on the ability to think at multiple levels of abstraction at once, computational thinking has influenced many disciplines and should play a key role in education that will inspire future generations.

Speaker:

Dr Jeannette Wing is Assistant Director of the National Science Foundation’s Computer Information Science and Engineering Directorate and President’s Professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon.

Food:

Reception immediately following the lecture.

LBC:

Lecture qualifies for Gen Ed Learning Beyond the Classroom credit.

Continue reading →

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Posted in Academics

Orange Taylor retrial begins today

Posted on March 31, 2008 by | 2 Comments

I just heard on WEMU that the Orange Taylor retrial begins today, which I find kind of odd only because I had not read about this in the paper or heard it on any of the local TV stations or what have you.  Of course, Taylor is being retried for the murder of Laura Dickinson in December 2007.

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Posted in Dickinson Murder, In the media...

2008 Distinguished Faculty Awards winners!

Posted on March 28, 2008 by | Leave a comment

On Wednesday, the 2008 winners of the Ronald W. Collins Distinguished Faculty Awards were announced at a very nice ceremony in the Student Center. The winners are outstanding representatives of the EMU faculty.  The awards were presented by previous award winners for each category, and the comments were touching and indicative of the breadth and depth and strength of the EMU professors….

The award winners this year are (with award category and the winners’ depts) :  Deanna Mihaly (Teaching I, FLABS);  Megan Endres (Teaching II, Management);  Kyung Hee Kim (Research I, Teacher Ed);  John Texter (Research II, Engineering Technology);  Beili Liu (Creative Activity, Fine Arts); Richard Stahler-Sholk (Service to the University, Political Science); Kathleen Stacey (Service to the University, Communications and Theater Arts).

 Many congratulations to each of these outstanding colleagues. I happen to know most of them, and feel honored to do so, just as I feel honored to be on the same faculty with this great and representative group of professors.

 Education First, indeed. The faculty understands that value, and have been living it.  The whole ceremony was very nicely run, and Associate Provost Neely and Don Loppnow each made lovely comments, which were much appreciated.

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Posted in Academics, College Fun, EMU Branding, EMU Events

What would you ask the presidential candidates?

Posted on March 27, 2008 by | 1 Comment

I haven’t heard much lately about the ongoing search for a new EMU president, rumor or otherwise. I have heard kind of mixed reviews on the finalists for the job– some good ones and some, um, not so good ones– and I have heard that the hope is to have these folks on campus yet this April. Why so very late in the school year? Well, someone in the know told me that the process just ended up taking a lot longer than the folks involved originally thought it would, but I have to wonder if part of the delay isn’t at least in part an effort to minimize campus involvement. If candidates come to campus in May, the number of students and faculty who attend these interviews is going to a heck of a lot smaller than if they had held these things in March or even April.

But it is what it is.

Anyway, EMU Faculty Council President Russ Larson sent around an email to faculty the other day where he and Jim Carroll (the other faculty representative on the search committee) asked for input for six or so common questions to be asked of each candidate when these folks finally do show up on campus. So, what would you ask these candidates?

I’ve got a couple ideas to get the ball rolling– I hope others chime in.
Continue reading →

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Posted in EMU President Search

EMU Student Arrested for Stealing from UMich

Posted on March 24, 2008 by | 4 Comments

Last week, there were a couple of burglaries reported at UMich of semi-precious gems from display cases. Today they arrested an EMU student who attempted to have them appraised not too far from UMich campus. They also seized several knives and have submitted some suspected drug residue for testing from his on-campus apartment..

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Posted in In the media..., Security and Safety, Student Life, University of Michigan

Diatribe — Down with the feel-good in curricula!

Posted on March 24, 2008 by | 27 Comments

I don’t know how many EMU faculty have participated in the HERI (Higher Education Research Institute) survey. There are a few questions at the end of the survey dealing with specific EMU issues — e.g., should faculty evaluate academic leadership (DH, dean, provost, president) regularly — that are worthwhile. I suppose it’s a good idea to take the survey, even if just for the final few EMU-related questions.

A big HOWEVER, however!

The questions on curriculum drove me nuts — the survey’s curricular questions had way too much emphasis on service-learning, community service, students as “agents of change”, women studies, gender studies, ethnic studies, blah blah blah. If this is indicative of some nation-wide fad, or if Eastern is headed down that path, then I say, “stop right there!”

I’m telling you folks in the greater world who think that university curricula should be informed by assorted sociology-related disciplines, history-related disciplines or community service to just forget it until you earn a B or better in calculus. I am unimpressed with feel-good. You need to impress me with your intellectual chops. Let’s see your bona fides in multiple disciplines (and disciplines in the same paradigm don’t count!) before you push to infuse your particular passion throughout the curriculum.

Personally, I think the core informing principle of university education should be mathematics and the scientific method, not global whatevers (sociology), not US whatevers (sociology), not community service, and not as being a change agent. But you don’t see *me* agitating for a computational core (“computation in quatrocento art?”) to everything, do you? That’s because that would be crazy — just like sociology as the core of everything is crazy.

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Posted in Academics

Please donate blood in my place because I am barred from donating blood!

Posted on March 24, 2008 by | 8 Comments

I make this request because of the email that was sent out by Dr Loppnow.

It reads -

Please take some time out of your busy lives to help save someone else’s. EMU is pleased to be partnering with the American Red Cross by hosting blood drives on April 1, 2 and 3 from 12 noon to 6 p.m. in the Student Center. You can set up an appointment online at www.givelife.org and enter the sponsor code EMU.

Blood supplies are at critically low levels. The need is particularly acute after a popular vacation period like Spring Break/Easter, so your help is especially important at this time. Please make an appointment today.

Sincerely,

Donald M. Loppnow
Provost and Executive Vice President

I am personally barred from donating blood because I am gay man. The FDA currently has a policy that bans men who have sex with men from giving blood because they feel that gay men have a “higher risk” of having HIV/AIDS than any other population. At the time that this policy was created that statement was true.

Back in the 1980s when this policy was created there was a lot of people becoming infected with HIV from blood transfusions (Ryan White). So the FDA told the Red Cross and other organizations that collected blood donations that they had to test every pint of blood for HIV. At the time the Red Cross told the FDA it would not be cost effective to test every pint of the blood. (at the time that was true and would have caused the Red Cross to go bankrupt) In response the FDA created a policy that barred men who have sex with men aka gay men from donating blood.

Now today the Red Cross test every pint of blood for HIV. Also, HIV is not a “gay disease” it can infect anyone. Studies show that heterosexual African-American Females are actually the population in the USA which has the highest rate of infections. Those numbers are starting to change to show that all sub-populations are becoming equal in the infections rates.

SO in my view banning gay men from giving blood is flat wrong!

I am so proud that EMU is partnering to host this amazing cause. However, it still saddens me I cannot participate fully in a program I find 1000000% worthy. I will not ask that this program be banned from coming to campus because of the discriminatory actions it takes, I just want to take time to educate people on the facts so one day we can change the policy.

I would like to donate blood to help save lives, but the FDA says my HIV- Blood is unsafe because I am a gay man. Please donate blood in my place so that the FDA’s policy will not stand in the way of my passion in saving lives. Please consider doing so, you donation will save countless lives.

Thank you for helping to save lives in my place!

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Posted in Uncategorized

Insiders say that Janice Stroh hired a part time asst. for herself at $144,000 annual pay rate

Posted on March 22, 2008 by | 9 Comments

The headline for this post just about says it all. I cannot absolutely confirm that this is true, but I’ve heard it enough, from people I consider reliable and well informed, so I believe it overwhelmingly likely to be true; I’ve not seen documents that prove this (but I’m told they exist). Further, it is reported that VP Stroh hired this assistant without the required approval for hiring someone, thus violating University rules. And the rate of pay would make this assistant one of the highest paid university employees — not bad work if you can get it, eh? All this, plus VP Stroh’s widely acknowledged dismal job performance over the last year, apparently explain the motivation and timing of the decision to put her on paid admin. leave. Normally I don’t repeat rumors that I can’t myself verify to be true, but the widespread concern around campus for why VP Stroh was removed from her duties requires an explanation.
Continue reading →

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Posted in Board of Regents, Budgets, EMU Fund Raising, EMU President

Two technology topics in the news: outsourced email and wifi access

Posted on March 22, 2008 by | 3 Comments

My RSS Feed reader turned up two different articles the other day I thought I’d share here since they’ve been a topic of discussion– sometimes heated discussion– over the last six months. “Text, trust, and third parties” comes from Inside Higher Ed, and “Hopes for wireless cities fade as internet providers pull out” from the New York Times (you’ll probably need an account to read that one, but it’s free).

The first one about campuses outsourcing their email is especially interesting here since (as I was tipped off/told the other day by a EMUTalk.org commentator who has yet to verify their email address and thus has not had their comment posted) EMU has announced (in a forum many people don’t read at all) that the two choices that mysterious committee are considering are gmail and MeritMail supported by something called Zimbra.
Continue reading →

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Posted in EMU Technology, In the media..., Ypsilanti