May 16, 2023

In April 2023, Michigan's Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act was expanded to specifically prohibit harassment and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity and expression. Many protected characteristics, including sexual orientation and gender identity, are already addressed in Michigan Tech’s nondiscrimination policy and other federal laws we follow. We found it important to inform our campus that the state of Michigan law has been updated so that employees are now protected by both federal and state law.

Our website lists University policies and federal and state laws the University must follow in regard to nondiscrimination. Please contact Equal Opportunity Compliance at eocompliance@mtu.edu with any questions.

Last week, Huskies took their business pitches on the road and won big!

Undergraduate student Jordan Craven (management information systems and computer science) pitched Sizelogic at the TCNewTech University Pitch Showdown and won both First Prize at $1,500 and Audience Favorite at $500. Sizelogic is an innovative online clothing solution to ensure that clothes purchased online fit. Craven competed against students from colleges across Michigan. The TCNewTech pitch event is part of Northern Michigan Startup Week, a weeklong celebration of entrepreneurship held in Traverse City each year.

Graduate student Rourke Sylvain (biomedical engineering) and Ali Dabas ‘23 (B.S. Biomedical Engineering) pitched imi (integrated molecular innovations) at the renowned Rice Business Plan Competition. They won $25,000 in prize money for the best pediatric device, sponsored by Southwest National Pediatric Device Innovation Consortium (SWPDC). Sylvain, founder and CEO, and Ali Dabas, co-founder and CTO, pitched a wearable device that revolutionizes health care by eliminating the need for centralized clinical testing. They pitched in two categories. The shorter elevator pitch can be viewed on YouTube.

Congratulations to our student teams! We are proud of your hard work!

Research participants are needed to help us explore how well people can perform physically and mentally demanding tasks at the same time, and what task qualities contribute to performance enhancements or impairments. The experiment is conducted in the Harold Meese Building and will take approximately one hour to complete, with a total of 15 minutes of effortful spinning on an upper body ergometer, along with several verbal memory tasks. Participants will be compensated for their time.

Please consider participating if you meet the following eligibility requirements:

• Fluent in English with no hearing impairments
• Age 18-40
• Do not smoke, vape or use other forms of nicotine or recreational drugs
• Good aerobic fitness, doing aerobic exercise a minimum of 60 minutes of vigorous activity a week (on average)
• Have never suffered a heart attack or stroke
• Do not have any cardiopulmonary disorders (e.g., high blood pressure)
• Free from injuries and health conditions that would impair your ability to safely participate in strenuous aerobic exercise
• Willing to abstain from alcohol for 12 hours prior to participating
• Willing to abstain from caffeine for three hours prior to participating
• If you sign up for this study, a lengthier list of inclusion criteria will be emailed to you. You will be asked to confirm your eligibility prior to participation. 

For more information about the study or participation, contact Samantha Smith at slsmith1@mtu.edu. Please note that we are primarily conducting the experiment on Mondays during business hours, but can accommodate other schedules on a case-by-case basis.

Michigan Tech track and field's Drew Kolodge and Jesse Jacobusse posted school record performances at last-chance meets in the final week of the regular season.

Kolodge lowered his own school record in the 10,000 meters last Tuesday (May 9) at the GVSU 10-Event Last Chance Meet, while Jacobusse broke the school record in the 800 meters at the St. Francis Fighting Chance Invite on Saturday (May 13).

"This week we split our top-dog athletes into two directions, sending Drew and Landon (Cosby) to a last-chance meet at GVSU and Clayton (Sayen), Sam (Lange), Tucker (Ringhand) and Jesse to the Fighting Chance meet at St. Francis," head coach Kristina Owen said. "This strategy worked well for us with Clayton, Drew, Sam all moving up the national ranking lists and Jesse locking in a national qualification spot.

"The official qualification list will be published on Tuesday (May 16). I think our men have put themselves in good positions to make the list, but we'll have to wait and see who makes the final cut."

Jacobusse lowered her personal best by over two seconds, running the most complete race of her season at a blistering 2:08.00. Her time bested the previous school record of 2:09.57 set by Liz Bloch in 2019.

Kolodge's 10,000m time of 29:36.09 shaved just over seven seconds off his previous school record, set in March at the Raleigh Relays in North Carolina.

Read more at the Michigan Tech Athletics website.

Chenfu Huang and Hayden Henderson (GLRC) presented at the IAGLR (International Association for Great Lakes Research) conference in Toronto, Canada, held from May 8-12. 

Huang’s presentation was titled “Lake-Atmosphere Feedbacks Intensify the Summer Warming of the Great Lakes” and Henderson’s was titled “The glider flies while data drives: Hydrodynamic model assimilation of high-resolution AUV data.”

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Steve Senczyszyn (GLRC) presented at the Acoustical Society of America's 184th meeting in Chicago, held from May 8-11.

His presentation was titled “Ship noise quantification of fisheries vessels on the Great Lakes.”

Brad King (ME-EM) was quoted by the University of Michigan’s Michigan Impact Newsletter in a story about the rapid growth of his satellite propulsion company, Orbion Space Technology in Houghton. Also quoted was Rob Washeleski ’06 ’12 (B.S. Electrical Engineering, Ph.D. Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics). Jason Sommerville ’09 (Ph.D. Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics) was mentioned.

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Michigan Tech President Rick Koubek was a guest on the May 14 episode of the Copper Country Today podcast. Koubek spoke about the University’s adoption of Finlandia University’s nursing program and the trend of continued growth at Tech.

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Paul Doskey (CFRES) was quoted by the Daily Mining Gazette in a story about the Houghton City Council’s approval of a new animal ordinance last Wednesday (May 10). Doskey made a public comment about the ordinance’s potential impact on native honeybees during the meeting.

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Undergraduate student Jordan Craven (management and information systems) was quoted by Yahoo! News and the Traverse City Record-Eagle after winning first prize and the audience choice award at the TCNewTech University Pitch Showdown in Traverse City, Michigan, on May 9. Craven pitched The Fitting Room by Sizeologic, a 3D fitting room app allowing shoppers to try on clothes virtually when shopping online.

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The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) mentioned Michigan Tech in a story announcing university participants in a 2024 mission concept program. The program will be sponsored by AFRL's Space Vehicles Directorate under the University Nanosatellite Program (UNP). Jesse Olson ’17 (B.S. Mechanical Engineering/Electrical Engineering), UNP manager of the directorate’s small satellite branch, was quoted in the story.

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Wausau Pilot & Review mentioned Michigan Tech in a story picked up from Wisconsin Public Radio about Dairyland Power Cooperative’s plans to develop a pumped storage hydropower facility at a mining site in the Upper Midwest. Dairyland is partnering with MTU and Mine Storage International AB of Sweden on the project.

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Trains Magazine mentioned Michigan Tech and the University Archives in a story previewing the Mid-Continent Museum’s 60th Anniversary celebration. The event will include a University Archives traveling exhibit on the early days of the Copper Range Railroad.

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Yahoo! News and the Traverse City Record-Eagle mentioned Michigan Tech’s Grand Traverse Research Center in a story about Traverse City’s goal of becoming a global leader in blue economy innovation.

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The Keweenaw Report mentioned Michigan Tech Recreation's summer aquatics program in an interview about the Kermit Keweenaw Kids summer youth program.

PhD Defense: April Lindala, RTC

Ph.D. in Rhetoric, Theory and Culture candidate April Lindala will present a Ph.D. dissertation defense at 1 p.m. today (May 16) in Walker 120C. Virtual attendance is also invited by Zoom.

Lindala's dissertation is titled "Ceremony and Storywork: Decolonizing Strategies in Contemporary Indigenous Documentary Film."

Lindala is co-advised by Erin Smith and Diane Shoos.

From the abstract:
This dissertation centers on multiple Indigenous-directed documentary and experimental films directed by an emerging class of Indigenous storyworkers who are making space on the cinematic screen to increase society’s consciousness of Indigenous peoples and their stories. I focus on films produced between 2015-2022 from six Indigenous directors representing diverse Indigenous communities from within Canada and the United States: Alethea Arnaquq-Baril (Inuit), Christopher Auchter (Haida), Sarain Fox (Ojibwe), Sky Hopinka (Ho-chunk), Tasha Hubbard (Plains Cree), and Ciara Lacy (Native Hawai’ian). These Indigenous documentarians have been generating a dynamic wave of cultural productions that contribute to Indigenous knowledge production, enact and represent narrative sovereignty, strengthen Fourth Cinema’s presence within the broader filmmaking world, and counter or question perceived universal truths stemming from Eurocentric hegemonic thought. The collection of films contains overlapping themes of culture, family, community (an expanded notion of community) as well as demonstrate a reverence for Indigenous language, Indigenous voices, and ancestral memory.

To complete this study, I lean on the guiding principles of Indigenous storywork (Archibald, 2008, 2019) and pair these principles with the practice of neurodecolonization (Yellowbird, 2012, 2017, 2019) in order to synergistically prepare for and engage with the nine selected Indigenous-directed films. I call this combined approach a decolonizing cinematic engagement practice. I also reflect and remark on what it means to adopt a decolonizing cinematic engagement and offer it as a humble gift of practice for Indigenous students. I assert that the pairing of Indigenous methodology with Indigenous method expands the breadth and depth of intellectual pathways and generates novel possibilities for students of documentary film as well as students of Indigenous studies. In alignment with these approaches, I composed this dissertation drawing on the contemporary cultural activity of a powwow to serve as an overarching metaphor to provide readers with culturally distinct directional signposts.

To have your event automatically appear, please submit them to the University Events Calendar.

Virtual Interest Session on the Online MS in Civil Engineering

Tuesday, May 16, 11:30 a.m.–12:15 p.m.

Dr. Tess Ahlborn, Professor in the Dept. of Civil, Environmental, and Geospatial Engineering; and David Lawrence, Vice President for Global Campus and Continuing Education...

PhD Defense: April Lindala

Tuesday, May 16, 1 p.m.–2 p.m. | Walker Arts and Humanities Center, 120 C

Rhetoric, Theory and Culture Co-advisors: Erin Smith and Diane Shoos Ceremony and Storywork: Decolonizing Strategies in Contemporary Indigenous Documentary Film Attend...